proveth things by-which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit and reach of wit more than vulgar. It seemeth to argue a rare quickness of parts that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dexterously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humor, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed epidexioi, dexterous men; and eutropoi, men of facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves. It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness or semblance of difficulty; as monsters, not for their beauty, but their rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure, by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gayety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang.

JOHN DRYDEN.

John Dryden was born in 1631, and was educated at Westminster, and afterwards at Cambridge. He wrote some of his noblest verses on the death of Cromwell, but, after the Restoration, was a flatterer of the court of Charles II. Bred a Protestant, he became a Catholic upon the accession of James II, Whether these changes were sincere may well be doubted. It is with his works, however, that we have chiefly to do, and those who have little regard for him as a man must admit his claims to a very high place among authors. His first success was as a dramatist, but his plays no longer interest the public; they were written to suit an age of unbridled license. Absalom and Achitophel, a political satire, gained him unbounded applause. Religio Laici was written in favor of the Established Church against the Dissenters. The Hind and Panther is a defence of his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church-a conversion that followed the renewal of his pension as poetlaureate by James. After the revolution of 1688, Dryden gave to the world. among other translations, his unsatisfactory one of Virgil, showing almost all the traits which the Mantuan poet had not. His highest achievement is the ode, Alexander's Feast, which follows. He was lord paramount of the writers of his day, receiving and exacting homage from all. Lacking wholly the finer qualities of a poet, sensibility, truth, imagination, and refinement, he had at command a copious and splendid diction, a sense of stately melody, great power of thought, a ready tact, and a talent for satirical invective that a modern platform orator might envy. It will be noticed that he is almost the only one of the many royalist authors who gained anything by "crooking the pregnant hinges of the knee" to the monarch whose "happy and glorious restoration" they sang. His complete poems are in

cluded in Professor Child's edition of British Poets. For a very learned and interesting review of his life and works (somewhat too favorable), see Professor Lowell's "Among My Books,"

ALEXANDER'S FEAST.

'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won

By Philip's warlike son —

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne;

His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtle bound;
So should desert in arms be crowned.

The lovely Thais by his side

Sat, like a blooming Eastern bride,
In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair!

Timotheus, placed on high

Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touched the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above;
Such is the power of mighty Love!
A dragon's fiery form belied the god:
Sublime on radiant spheres he rode,

When he to fair Olympia pressed;
And while he sought her snowy breast,

Then round her slender waist he curled,

And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.
The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,

A present deity, they shout around;
A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;
Flushed with a purple grace

He shows his honest face :

Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Soothed with the sound the king grew vain ;

Fought all his battles o'er again ;

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
The master saw the madness rise,

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful muse,

Soft pity to infuse;

He sung Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate,

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted at his utmost need
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,

With not a friend to close his eyes.

With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smiled to see
That love was in the next degree;

'Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honor but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying :

If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.

The many rend the skies with loud applause ; So love was crowned, but music won the cause. The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again ;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again;

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark, hark, the horrid sound

Has raised up his head;

As awaked from the dead,
And amazed, he stares around.

Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,

See the Furies arise;

See the snakes that they rear,

How they hiss in their hair,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain :

Give the vengeance due

To the valiant crew.

Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,

And glittering temples of their hostile gods.
The princes applaud with a furious joy;

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thaïs led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:

He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.

ON MILTON.

THREE poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she joined the other two.