With not much better fuccefs, Trapp, when his Tragedy and his Prelections had given him reputation, attempted another blank verfion of the Eneid; to which, notwithstanding the flight regard with which it was treated, he had afterwards perfeverance enough to add the Eclogues and Georgicks. His book may continue its existence as long as it is the clandeftine refuge of schoolboys.

Since the English ear has been accustomed to the mellifluence of Pope's numbers, and the diction of poetry has become more fplendid, new attempts have been made to translate Virgil; and all his works have been attempted by men better qualified to contend with Dryden. I will not engage myself in an invidious comparifon, by oppofing one paffage to another; a work of which there would be no end, and which might be often offenfive without use.

It is not by comparing line with line that the merit of great works is to be estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate refult. It is easy to note a weak line, and write one more vigorous in its place; to find a happinefs of expreffion in the original, and tranfplant it by force into the verfion: but what is given to the parts, may be fubducted from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the critick may commend. Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain, which the reader throws away. He only is the mafter, who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perufed with eagernels, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again;

and

and whofe conclufion is perceived with an eye of forrow, fuch as the traveller cafts upon departing day.

By his proportion of this predomination I will confent that Dryden fhould be tried; of this, which, in oppofition to reason, makes Ariofto the darling and the pride of Italy; of this, which, in defiance of criticism, continue Shakespeare the fovereign of the drama.

His laft work was his Fables, in which he gave us the first example of a mode of writing which the Italians call refaccimento, a renovation of antient writers, by modernizing their language. Thus the old poem of Boiardo has been new-dreffed by Domenichi and Berni. The works of Chaucer, upon which this kind of rejuvenescence has been bestowed by Dryden, require little criticifm. The tale of the Cock feems hardly worth revival; and the story of Palamon and Arcite, containing an action unfuitable to the times in which it is placed, can hardly be fuffered to pafs without cenfure of the hyperbolical commendation which Dryden has given it in the general Preface, and in a poetical Dedication, a piece where his original fondness of remote conceits feems to have revived.

Of the three pieces borrowed from Boccace, Sigifmunda may be defended by the celebrity of the ftory. Theodore and Honoria, though it contains not much moral, yet afforded opportunities of ftriking defcription. And Cymon was formerly a tale of fuch reputation, that, at the revival of letters, it was tranflated into Latin by one of the Beroalds.

Whatever

Whatever fubjects employed his pen, he was still improving our measures and embellishing our language.

In this volume are interfperfed fome short original poems, which, with his prologues, epilogues, and fongs, may be comprised in Congreve's remark, that even thofe, if he had written nothing else, would have entitled him to the praise of excellence in his kind.

One compofition must however be distinguifhed. The ode for St. Cecilia's Day, perhaps the last effort of his poetry, has been always confidered as exhibiting the highest flight of fancy, and the exactest nicety of art. This is allowed to stand without a rival. If indeed there is any excellence beyond it, in fome other of Dryden's works that excellence must be found. Compared with the Ode on Killigrew, it may be pronounced perhaps fuperior in the whole; but without any fingle part, equal to the first stanza of the other.

It is faid to have coft Dryden a fortnight's labour; but it does not want its negligences: fome of the lines are without correfpondent rhymes; a defect, which I never detected but after an acquaintance of many years, and which the enthufiafm of the writer might hinder him from perceiving.

His laft ftanza has lefs emotion than the former; but is not lefs elegant in the diction. The conclusion is vitious; the mufick of Timotheus, which raifed a monarch to the skies, had only a metaphorical power; that of Cecilia, which drew an angel down, had a real effect: the crown therefore could not reasonably be divided.

IN a general furvey of Dryden's labours, he appears to have had a mind very comprehenfive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compofitions are the effects of a vigorous genius operating upon large materials.

The power that predominated in his intellectual operations was rather ftrong reafon than quick fenfibility. Upon all occafions that were prefented, he ftudied rather than felt, and produced fentiments not fuch as Nature enforces, but meditation fupplies. With the fimple and elemental paffions, as they fpring feparate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted; and feldom defcribes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of fociety, and confufed in the tumults and agitations of life.

What he fays of Love may contribute to the explanation of his character:

Love various minds does variously inspire; It stirs in gentle bofoms gentle fire, Like that of incenfe on the altar laid; But raging flames tempeftuous fouls invade; A fire which every windy paffion blows, With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows.

Dryden's was not one of the gentle bofoms: Love, as it fubfifts in itself, with no tendency but to the perfon loved, and wishing only for correfpondent kindness; fuch love as fhuts out all other intereft; the love of the Golden Age, was too foft and fubtile to put his faculties in motion. He hardly conceived it but in its turbulent effervefcence with fome other defires when it was inflamed by rivalry, or obftructed

by

by difficulties; when it invigorated ambition, or exafperated revenge.

He is therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetick; and had so little fenfibility of the power of effufions purely natural, that he did not efteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure; and for the firft part of his life he looked on Otway with contempt, though at laft, indeed very late, he confeffed that in his play there was Nature, which is the chief beauty.

We do not always know our own motives. I am not certain whether it was not rather the difficulty which he found in exhibiting the genuine operations of the heart, than a fervile fubmiffion to an injudicious audience, that filled his plays with falfe magnificence. It was neceffary to fix attention; and the mind can be captivated only by recollection, or by curiofity; by reviving former thoughts, or impreffing new: fentences were readier at his call than images; he could more eafily fill the ear with fome fplendid novelty, than awaken those ideas that flumber in the heart.

The favourite exercife of his mind was ratiocination; and, that argument might not be too foon at an end, he delighted to talk of liberty and neceffity, deftiny and contingence; thefe he difcuffes in the language of the school with so much profundity, that the terms which he ufes are feldom understood. It is indeed learning, but learning out of place.

When once he had engaged himself in difputation, thoughts flowed in on either fide: he was now no longer at a lofs; he had always argument at command; verbaque provifam rem -give

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