and, I believe, there is no example to be found of any correction or improvement made by him after publication. The haftiness of his productions might be the effect of neceffity; but his fubfequent neglect could hardly have any other caufe than impatience of fstudy.

What can be faid of his verfification, will be little more than a dilatation of the praise given it by Pope.

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join

The varying verfe, the full-refounding line, The long majestick march, and energy divine. J

Some improvements had been already made in English numbers; but the full force of our language was not yet felt; the verse that was smooth was commonly feeble. If Cowley had fometimes a finished line, he had it by chance. Dryden knew how to chuse the flowing and the fonorous words: to vary the pauses, and adjust the accents; to diverfify the cadence, and yet preserve the smoothness of his metre.

Of Triplets and Alexandrines, though he did not introduce the use, he established it. The triplet has long fubfifted among us. Dryden seems not to have traced it higher than to Chapman's Homer; but it is to be found in Phaer's Virgil, written in the reign of Mary, and in Hall's Satires, published five years before the death of Elizabeth.

The Alexandrine was, I believe, first used by Spenfer, for the fake of clofing his stanza with a fuller found. We had a longer meafure of fourteen fyllables, into which the Eneid was tranflated by Phaer, and other works of

the

the ancients by other writers; of which Chapman's Iliad was, I believe, the last.

The two firft lines of Phaer's third Eneid will exemplify this measure:

When Afia's ftate was overthrown, and
Priam's kingdom ftout,

All giltless, by the power of gods above was
rooted out.

As thefe lines had their break, or cæfura, always at the eighth fyllable, it was thought in time commodious to divide them; and quartrains of lines, alternately confifting of eight and fix fyllables, make the most soft and pleafing of our lyrick measures; as,

Relentless Time, deftroying power,
Which stone and brass obey,
Who giv❜ft to every flying hour
To work fome new decay.

In the Alexandrine, when its power was once felt, fome poems, as Drayton's Polyolbion, were wholly written; and fometimes the measures of twelve and fourteen fyllables were interchanged with one another. Cowley was the firft that inferted the Alexandrine at pleasure among the heroick lines of ten fyllables, and from him Dryden profeffes to have adopted it.

The Triplet and Alexandrine are not univerfally approved. Swift always cenfured them, and wrote fome lines to ridicule them. In examining their propriety, it is to be confidered that the effence of verfe is regularity, and its ornament is variety. To write verfe is to difpofe fyllables and founds harmonically by fome known and fettled rule; a rule however lax enough to fubftitute fimilitude for identity, to admit change without breach of order, and to

relieve

relieve the ear without difappointing it. Thus a Latin hexameter is formed from dactyls and fpondees differently combined; the English heroick admits of acute or grave fyllables varioufly difpofed. The Latin never deviates into feven feet, or exceeds the number of feventeen fyllables; but the English Alexandrine breaks the lawful bounds, and furprises the reader with two fyllables more than he expected.

The effect of the Triplet is the fame: the ear has been accustomed to expect a new rhyme in every couplet; but is on a sudden surprised with three rhymes together, to which the reader could not accommodate his voice, did he not obtain notice of the change from the braces on the margins. Surely there is fomething unskilful in the neceffity of fuch mechanical direction.

Confidering the metrical art fimply as a science, and confequently excluding all casualty, we must allow that Triplets and Alexandrines inferted by caprice are interruptions of that conftancy to which fcience afpires. And though the variety which they produce may very justly be defired, yet to make our poetry exact there ought to be fome ftated mode of admitting them.

But till fome fuch regulation can be formed, I wish them ftill to be retained in their prefent ftate. They are fometimes grateful to the reader, and fometimes convenient to the poet. Fenton was of opinion that Dryden was too liberal and Pope too fparing in their use.

The rhymes of Dryden are commonly juft, and he valued himfelf for his readiness in finding them; but he is fometimes open to objection.

It

It is the common practice of our poets to end the second line with a weak or grave fyllable:

Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly,
Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy.

Dryden fometimes puts the weak rhyme in the first:

Laugh all the powers that favour tyranny,
And all the standing army of the sky.

Sometimes he concludes a period or paragraph with the first line of a couplet, which, though the French feem to do it without irregularity, always difpleases in English poetry.

The Alexandrine, though much his favourite, is not always very diligently fabricated by him. It invariably requires a break at the fixth fyllable; a rule which the modern French poets never violate, but which Dryden sometimes neglected:

And with paternal thunder vindicates his throne.

Of Dryden's works it was faid by Pope, that be could felect from them better fpecimens of every mode of poetry than any other English writer could Supply. Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with fuch variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our fentiments. By him we were taught fapere & fari, to think naturally and exprefs forcibly. He taught us that it was poffible to reafon in rhyme. He fhewed us the true bounds of a tranflator's liberty. What was faid of Rome, adorned by Auguftus, may be applied by an easy metaphor

1

phor to English poetry embellished by Dryden, lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit, he found it brick, and he left it marble.

THE invocation before the Georgicks is here inferted from Mr. Milbourne's verfion, that, according to his own proposal, his verses may be compared with those which he cenfures,

What makes the richest tilth, beneath what figns To plough, and when to match your elms and vines? What care with flocks and what with berds agrees, And all the management of frugal bees,

I fing, Macenas! Ye immenfely clear,

Vaft orbs of light which guide the rolling year,
Bacchus, and mother Ceres if by you

We fat'ning corn for hungry maft pursue,
If, taught by you, we first the cluster preft,
And thin cold ftreams with spritely juice refresht.
Ye fawns the prefent numens of the field,
Wood nymphs and fawns, your kind affistance yield,
Your gifts I fing! and thou, at whofe fear'd ftroke
From rending earth the fiery courfer broke,
Great Neptune, O affift my artful fong!

And thou to whom the woods and groves belong,
Whose snowy heifers on her flow'ry plains
In mighty herds the Caan Ile maintains!
Pan, happy fhepherd, if thy cares divine,
E'er to improve thy Menalus incline;
Leave thy Lycaan wood and native grove,
And with thy lucky fmiles our work approve!
Be Pallas too, fweet oils inventor, kind:
And he, who first the crooked plough defign'd!
Sylvanus, god of all the woods appear,

Whofe hands a new-drawn tender cypress bear!
Ye gods and goddesses who e'er with love,

Would guard our pastures, and our fields improve!

You,