And turn'd the iron leaves of his dark book
To make new dooms, or mend what it mistook.
-I beg no pity for this mouldering clay;
For if you give it burial, there it takes
Poffeffion of your earth;

If burnt, and scatter'd in the air, the winds
That ftrew my duft diffuse my royalty,

And spread me o'er your clime; for where one

atom

Of mine fhall light, know there Sebaftian reigns.

Of these quotations the two firft may be allowed to be great, the two latter only tumid.

Of fuch felection there is no end. I will add only a few more paffages; of which the first, though it may perhaps not be quite clear in profe, is not too obfcure for poetry, as the meaning that it has is noble :

No, there is a neceffity in Fate,

Why ftill the brave bold man is fortunate
He keeps his object ever full in fight,
And that affurance holds him firm and right;
True, 'tis a narrow way that leads to bliss,
But right before there is no precipice;

Fear makes men look afide, and fo their foot

ing mifs.

Of

Of the images which the two following citations afford, the first is elegant, the fecond magnificent; whether either be just, let the reader judge:

What precious drops are these,

Which filently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?

-Refign your castle

-Enter, brave Sir; for when you speak the

word,

The gates fhall open of their own accord;
The genius of the place its Lord fhall meet,
And bow its towery forehead at your feet.

These bursts of extravagance, Dryden calls the Dalilabs of the Theatre; and owns that many noify lines of Maxamin and Almanzor call out for vengeance upon him; but I knew, fays he, that they were bad enough to pleafe, even when I wrote them. There is furely reason to suspect that he pleased himfelf as well as his audience; and that these, like the harlots of other men, had his love, though not his approbation,

He had fometimes faults of a lefs generous

and fplendid kind.

He makes, like almost all other poets, very frequent ufe of Mythology, and fometimes connects religion and fable too closely without diftinction.

He defcends to difplay his knowledge with pedantick oftentation ; as when, in tranflating Virgil, he says, tack to the larboard -and veer ftarboard; and talks, in another work, of virtue fpooming before the wind. His vanity now and then betrays his ignorance:

They Nature's king through Nature's opticks view'd;

Revers'd they view'd him leffen'd to their eyes.

He had heard of reverfing a telefeope, and unluckily reverses the object.

He is fometimes unexpectedly mean. When he describes the Supreme Being as moved by prayer to stop the Fire of London, what is his expreffion?

A hollow crystal pyramid he takes,
In firmamental waters dipp'd above,

Of this a broad extinguisher he makes,

And boods the flames that to their quarry

ftrove.

When

When he defcribes the Laft Day, and the decifive tribunal, he intermingles this image:

When rattling bones together fly,
From the four quarters of the sky.

It was indeed never in his power to resist the temptation of a jeft. In his Elegy on Cromwell :

No fooner was the Frenchman's caufe embrac'd, Than the light Monfieur the grave Don outweigh'd;

His fortune turn'd the scale

He had a vanity unworthy of his abilities; to fhew, as may be fufpected, the rank of the company with whom he lived, by the ufe of French words, which had then crept into conversation; fuch as fraicheur for coolnefs, fougue for turbulence, and a few more, none of which the language has incorporated or retained. They continue only where they stood first, perpetual warnings to future in

novators.

These are his faults of affectation; his faults of negligence are beyond recital. Such

is the unevennefs of his compofitions, that ten lines are feldom found together without fomething of which the reader is afhamed. Dryden was no rigid judge of his own pages; he feldom struggled after supreme excellence, but snatched in hafte what was within his reach; and when he could content others, was himself contented. He did not keep present to his mind, an idea of pure perfection; nor compare his works, fuch as they were, with what they might be made. He knew to whom he should be oppofed. He had more mufick than Waller, more vigour than Denham, and more nature than Cowley; and from his contemporaries he was in no danger. Standing therefore in the highest place, he had no care to rife by contending with himself; but while there was no name above his own, was willing to enjoy fame on the eafieft terms.

What he

He was no lover of labour. thought fufficient, he did not stop to make better; and allowed himself to leave many parts unfinished, in confidence that the good lines would overbalance the bad. What he had once written, he difmiffed from his

thoughts: