ous, if the prefent purpose be served, not to entangle himself in his own fophiftries. But when all arts are exhaufted, like other hunted animals, he fometimes ftands at bay; as he cannot difown the groffness of one of his plays, he declares that he knows not any law that prescribes morality to a comick poet.

His remarks on ancient or modern writers are not always to be trufted. His parallel of the verfification of Ovid with that of Claudian has been very juftly cenfured by Sewel. His comparison of the first line of Virgil with the first of Statius is not happier. Virgil, he fays, is foft and gentle, and would have thought Statius mad if he had heard him thunder out

Quæ fuperimpofito moles geminata coloffo. Statius perhaps heats himself, as he proceeds, to exaggerations fomewhat hyperbolical; but undoubtedly Virgil would have been too hafty, if he had condemned him to straw for one founding line. Dryden wanted an instance, and the first that occurred was impreft into the fervice.

What he wishes to fay, he fays at hazard; he cited Gorbuduc, which he had never feen; gives a false account of Chapman's versification; and discovers, in the preface to his Fables, that he tranflated the first book of the Iliad, without knowing what was in the fecond.

It will be difficult to prove that Dryden ever made any great advances in literature. As having distinguished himself at Westminster under the tuition of Bufby, who advanced his scholars to a height of knowledge very rarely attained in grammar-fchools, he refided afterwards at Cambridge, it is not to be supposed

that

that his skill in the ancient languages was deficient, compared with that of common ftudents; but his fcholaftick acquifitions seem not proportionate to his opportunities and abilities. He could not, like Milton or Cowley, have made his name illuftrious merely by his learning. He mentions but few books, and those fuch as lie in the beaten track of regular study; from which if ever he departs, he is in danger of losing himself in unknown regions. In his Dialogue on the Drama, he pronounces with great confidence that the Latin tragedy of Medea is not Ovid's, because it is not fufficiently interesting and pathetick. He might have determined the queftion upon furer evidence; for it is quoted by Quintilian as the work of Seneca; and the only line which remains of Ovid's play, for one line is left us, is not there to be found. There was therefore no need of the gravity of conjecture, or the difcuffion of plot or fentiment, to find what was already known upon higher authority than fuch difcuffions can ever reach.

His literature, though not always free from oftentation, will be commonly found either obvious, and made his own by the art of dreffing it; or fuperficial, which, by what he gives, fhews what he wanted; or erroneous, haftily collected, and negligently scattered.

Yet it cannot be faid that his genius is ever unprovided of matter, or that his fancy languishes in penury of ideas. His works abound with knowledge, and sparkle with illustrations. There is scarcely any fcience or faculty that does not fupply him with occafional images and lucky fimilitudes; every page discovers a

mind very widely acquainted both with art and nature, and in full poffeffion of great ftores of intellectual wealth. Of him that knows much, it is natural to fuppofe that he has read with diligence; yet I rather believe that the knowledge of Dryden was gleaned from accidental intelligence and various converfation, by a quick apprehenfion, a judicious felection, and a happy memory, a keen appetite of knowledge, and a powerful digestion; by vigilance that permitted nothing to pass without notice, and a habit of reflection that fuffered nothing useful to be loft. A mind like Dryden's, always curious, always active, to which every understanding was proud to be affociated, and of which every one folicited the regard, by an ambitious display of himself, had a more pleasant, perhaps a nearer, way to knowledge than by the filent progress of folitary reading. I do not fuppofe that he defpifed books, or intentionally neglected them; but that he was carried out, by the impetuofity of his genius, to more vivid and speedy inftructors; and that his ftudies were rather defultory and fortuitous than constant and systematical.

It must be confeffed that he scarcely ever appears to want book-learning but when he mentions books; and to him may be transferred the praise which he gives his master Charles. His conversation, wit, and parts,

His knowledge in the noblest useful arts,
Were fuch, dead authors could not give,
But habitudes of those that live;

Who, lighting him, did greater lights receive:
He drain'd from all, and all they knew,
His apprehenfion quick, his judgement true:

That

That the most learn'd with shame confefs His knowledge more, his reading only less.

Of all this, however, if the proof be demanded, I will not undertake to give it; the atoms of probability, of which my opinion has been formed, lie fcattered over all his works; and by him who thinks the question worth his notice, his works must be perused with very close attention.

Criticism, either didactick or defenfive, occupies almost all his profe, except those pages which he has devoted to his patrons; but none of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They have not the formality of a settled style, in which the first half of the fentence betrays the other. The claufes are never balanced, nor the periods modelled; every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid; the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous; what is little, is gay; what is great, is fplendid. He may be thought to mention himself too frequently; but while he forces himself upon our esteem, we cannot refuse him to stand high in his own. Every thing is excused by the play of images and the fpriteliness of expreffion. Though all is easy, nothing is feeble; though all feems careless, there is nothing harfh; and though, fince his earlier works, more than a century has paffed, they have nothing yet uncouth or obfolete.

He who writes much, will not easily escape a manner, fuch a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted. Dryden is always another and the fame,, he does not exhibit a fecond time the fame elegancies in the fame form, nor appears to have any art other than

that

that of expreffing with clearness what he thinks with vigour. His ftile could not easily be imitated, either seriously or ludicrously, for being always equable and always varied, it has no prominent or discriminative characters. The beauty who is totally free from difproportion of parts and features cannot be ridiculed by an over-charged resemblance.

From his profe however, Dryden derives only his accidental and fecondary praife; the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every cultivator of English Literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the fentiments, and tuned the numbers of English Poetry.

After about half a century of forced thoughts, and rugged metre, fome advances towards nature and harmony had been already made by Waller and Denham; they had shewn that long difcourfes in rhyme grew more pleasing when they were broken into couplets, and that verse confifted not only in the number but the arrangement of fyllables.

But though they did much, who can deny that they left much to do? Their works were not many, nor were their minds of very ample comprehenfion. More examples of more modes of compofition were neceffary for the establishment of regularity, and the introduction of propriety in word and thought.

Every language of a learned nation necessarily divides itself into diction fcholaftick and popular, grave and familiar, elegant and grofs; and from a nice diftinction of thefe different parts, arises a great part of the beauty of stile. But if we except a few minds, the favourites

of