by Sheil, and it would have been revolutionary to turn them out. For many years the study of our true classics was not only neglected, but absolutely interdicted to all who aimed at the reputation of politeness and good sense. To have admired them

as anything but barbarian prodigies would have been heretical, and, what is ten times worse, it would have been odd. It would, I doubt not, have made a prudent father or tutor shake his head most ominously had a young man ventured to prefer Milton to Dryden, and a strait waistcoat would have been provided for the advocate of Quarles or Wither. I have been seriously lectured by grave persons for my own admiration of Wordsworth. A self-elected corporation of aristarchs (an hereditary aristocracy could not have been so bad) had decided that the legitimate succession of poets began with Waller. It is true there were always a few bold assertors of ancient liberty, but they were too few and too wrong-headed to bear up against prescription. Men thought it presumptuous to doubt the wisdom of their ancestors, and were too indolent to examine whether their ancestors' ancestors might not have been yet wiser. We should judge better and dispute less if every one of us thought for himself.

Milton has been censured for saying that Dryden was a good rhymer, but no poet. Now, not to go into the question whether he ever said so at all, we may just consider at what time of Dryden's career Milton could have said this. Milton died in 1674, before Dryden published his Absalom and Achitophel, Religio Laici, Medal, Hind and Panther,

or Fables. Apart from his tragedies, the best of which were not then written, what would Dryden be without these works? It seems his heroic stanzas first brought him into notice. Surely, for a man of seven and twenty these verses afford as little promise as need be. Dryden's mind, like Swift's, was of slow growth; but, unlike the poor Dean, he continued to grow in power as long as he lived;-nay, we may almost fancy that his mind was intended for an antediluvian body, and that the septuagenarian poet died prematurely, just when his genius was attaining puberty, so little of age, or even ripeness, appears in his latest productions. He never settled down or cleared. There is a yesty fermentation in everything he put forth. Under his grey hairs he continued intellectually a waxing giant,—a hobble-de-hoy Orion, with all the fervour and restless strength, and somewhat of the rawness and acidity of the teens. The improvement of his later years must be ascribed less to practice in composition than to his enlarged knowledge of mankind. He was a great observer of the town and of the times. He had a learned spirit in human dealing; but he never reaped the harvest of a quiet eye,-never looked inward. He seems to have had no passion but anger: his love, his lust, his admiration were alike factitious, but his scorn and indignation were perfectly sincere. For all else, he viewed things and persons under intellectual, not moral, relations; and perhaps the rant and obscenity of his dramas might, in some measure, arise from his incapability of realising and impersonating his conceptions. To make them any

thing tangible, he was obliged to exhibit them under strong physical impulses.

"The same year he wrote a copy of verses prefixed to the 'Poems of John Huddeson,' London, 12mo, 1650, under this title J. Dryden, of Trinity College, to his friend the Author upon his Divine Epigrams."

I should like to see these epigrams. The unaccountable gambols of intellect in the divine poetry of that day, are among those phenomena at which, according to one's humour, one may laugh heartily, or think profoundly.

"The next year (1674), he published 'The State of Innocence, or the Fall of Man,' an opera, or rather a tragedy, in heroic rhyme, founded on 'Paradise Lost."

It is reported, I know not on what authority, that he asked Milton's permission to commit this sacrilege, and that Milton answered, "Yes, he may tag my lines." Dates make the tale improbable. I hope Milton never heard Dryden's abomination. Who, indeed, could have had the face to read it to him?

A second part of "Absalom and Achitophel" was written by Tate. It had, perhaps, been to the honour of the English nation if poor Nahum, goodnatured, fuddling companion as he was, had only been remembered in the list of laureates. His lolly

pop adulteration of King Lear, and his, I hope, unintentional travesty of the Psalms, are more discreditable to the English stage and Church than to the poor scribbler himself. Yet his Brutus of Alba has a tang of the older tones of tragedy, and some of his translations have a good vein of English. Still, for the sake of Psalmody, I wish Nahum were even with Elkanah. What a rascally Whig trick of Rowe (worthy to be Nathaniel) to take the Laureate's paltry hundred and butt of sack from poor Tate in his old age, thus forcing him to die broken-hearted in the Mint. For misgovernment, political blindness, ignorance of the public rights, and duties of rulers and subjects, and of the true Christian foundation of liberty and authority, Whig and Tory need not reprove each other. Reflections on the rear-ward nigritude of the kettle proceed with an ill grace from its sable companions of the scullery. Perhaps the Pittite Tories have been more lavish, using the public purse as their peculiar, and taking credit for their generous expenditure of what is not their own. But for personal baseness, huckstering, shuffling, penny-wisdom, selfishness, and hard-heartedness, the Whigs are above all competition.

DRYDEN'S SONS.

The "Quarterly Review" carelessly instances the sons of Dryden, as almost the only poetical sons of poets. Has he forgotten Bernardo and Torquato Tasso? It is, however, pretty remarkable that no

VOL. II.

D

English poet has made a family. It is said, indeed, that there are descendants of Spenser in existence. Genius is certainly not hereditary, though a certain degree of talent sometimes descends,-oftener in the female than the male. Scribbling is very infectious, and authors have a habit of warning their sons against the trade, which is most wise.

"One of his opinions, though prevalent in his time, will do him no honor in the present age. He put great confidence in the prognostications of judicial astrology."

Dryden's belief in judicial astrology throws a light upon his character which helps to explain some of the most censured parts of it. It shows him, with much mental scepticism, to have been morally credulous, and anxious for assurance of the future more than reason gives, a temper which might have made a more inward-seeking man a visionary, and perhaps did make him a Catholic.

"The letter to his sons in Italy proof of his religious sincerity."

contains an indubitable

I have always thought that the insincerity of Dryden's conversion has been far too lightly and uncharitably taken for granted. The arguments of the Romanists are not easily answered: me judice, they are, upon high Church-of-England principles, unanswerable. Why may not a man's convictions chance to coincide with those of his sovereign and benefactor? A true, loyal, Church-and-King man ought to be of the King's religion. Seriously: men are