those of his great poetical predecessors; yet he enlarged the empire of poetry. He applied it with grace and effect to subjects which had never before been thought susceptible of its beauties; and he did so, without either raising his subjects to an undue importance, or degrading his poetry, by bringing it down to meet his subject. Polemical religion and politics, the least obviously adapted for such embellishments, came from his hands with attractions unknown before or since. The constitutional blemishes of his Hind and Panther, form, it is true, one exception to this merit; but, even in that production, there are nervous passages; and his Religio Laici more than atones for all the defects of its sister poem, The criticism of Pope is but an echo of his critical poetry. Indeed, in his critical canons, he reminds us of the primitive law- | givers, who passed their ordonnances in verse, and whose ordonnances have continued to be obeyed when reduced by others to familiar prose. For, common as the truths which he uttered are now become, we owe them traditionally to him. We find them, no doubt, even in Blair; but Dryden first promulged them.

As a political poet, he is without a rival, and without a second. Before we censure the scriptural obscurity of Absalom and Achitophel, let us recollect the scriptural knowledge of the age in which he wrote, when every Bible name and fact was familiar to every reader, let us recollect, also, the fine advantage which his genius drew from masking his satyre behind this allegorical parallel. As the poetical criticism in general, so the poetical satyre in particular, of Dryden, was the prototype of Pope's. The Dunciad prolonged, without magnifying, the triumph of talent over dulness. We should quote our lecturer's characteristic remarks on Dryden's translation as the best specimen, in our apprehension, of his notice of this poet, were there not already commentaries on those performances more valuable than ever were written on translated poetry. These are found in Dryden's own prefaces and dedications. A more perfect essay on translation, or a finer discrimination of the antient poets, does not exist, than in his preface to a miscellany of translations from Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace. In the variety of his translations, unequal as they are in merit, a complete preference is still difficult, from the number of rival beauties; but those of Horace are perhaps his masterpieces. The enviable sensations of a fortunate individual, have been well described by an eloquent writer, who, descending into the newdiscovered ruins of Pompeii, found the Roman senator in his robes, whose body had been preserved with almost the semblance of life for fifteen hundred years. There is a pleasure analogous to this, in perusing some passages of Dryden's Horace; but something more than dead antiquity is there restored. We have not the

dust,

dust, but the soul of Horace; no affected adaptation of antient expressions to modern usages; nothing of that smart dressing out of an antient statue in the modern costume, which so much disfigures Pope's, and, it must be owned also, many of Dryden's translations. The language of antiquity is changed, but not its simplicity. How much the nature and sprightliness of the Vides ut alta stet nive Candidum,' is preserved in the ode which concludes with these lines!

The appointed hour of promised bliss,

The pleafing whisper in the dark,

The half-unwilling willing kifs,

The laugh that guides thee to the mark,
When the kind nymph would coyness feign,

And hides but to be found again

Thefe, these are joys the gods for youth ordain.'

Nor has lyric poetry, if we except the memorable ode from Hafiz by Sir William Jones, found a happier transfusion from one language into another, than in many lines of the 29th ode of the Second Book.

Fortune, that, with malicious joy,

Does man her flave opprefs,
Proud of his office to deftroy,

Is feldom pleased to bless:
Still various, and inconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill,
Promotes, degrades, delights in ftrife,
And makes a lottery of life:

I can enjoy her while she's kind;

But when the dances in the wind,

And shakes her wings, and will not ftay,

I puff the proftitute away;

The little or the much fhe gave is quietly refigned,' &c. &c. We should have wished to see these, or similar passages of this poet given by Mr Stockdale, not to the exclusion of those which he has inserted, but in preference to some of his own digressions, which astonish us-but not with delight. It would be invidious to quote at full length; but we cannot help wondering, that a passage like that in the 269th page of his first volume, should come from any writer who has taste, spirit, and polite information enough to collect remarks on English literature. In this extraordinary page, Mr Stockdale supposes himself, even in presence of his belles-lettres audience, speaking face to face with the departed spirit of Dryden. In this supposed phantasmagoria, he begins, Few men have contributed so largely as you (Dryden) to the poetical improvement of your country;' and, after a prefatory compliment, he proceeds to inform Dryden, that a celebrated writer rose among

us (who at the end of two pages is discovered to be Dr Johnson); that this writer wrote lives of the poets, which gave to him (Mr Stockdale) offence in many exceptionable passages; but that the public swallowed his dogmas with avidity, and that numerous biographers published his (Dr Johnson's) life. This horrible address to the spirit of Dryden lasts for several pages. We beseech Mr Stockdale to extirpate it from his book, whenever it comes to a second edition; and if his friends do not give him the same advice, we shall think that his zeal and good intentions have fewer friends than they deserve. Without meaning disrespect to Mr Stockdale, by far the best part of the notice of Dryden is what he quotes from Johnson, because he quotes the best of Johnson; and the general survey of Dryden's merit is more impartially executed by that great critic, than his general character of any other poet.

Dryden is one of those poets on whose faults and inequalities it is fair to dwell as a matter of truth; but for the interests and promotion of good taste, and for the sake of warning to young writers, it is not so necessary. The reason is, that, though a poet trained by discipline, and formed upon rules, he is still a most natural writer; his faults are those of carelessness, not of bad taste: hence they are obvious, and not alluringly dangerous, like the systematic affectations of poets, who err from inherent or acquired corruption. If we except his partiality to rhyming tragedies, there seems no distinguishable fault in his poetical creed. When minds of this kind are impelled by want, or betrayed by impatience, to publish their crudities and errors, however numerous, they are not apt to assume the shape of imposing errors. It is the dulcia vitia of system, and laborious polish, which are apt to perplex and betray an inexperienced taste. But the chaff and the corn of Dryden are easily separable. Where he offends, he offends as boldly as he pleases. Equivocal passages may be found; but ambiguity is as seldom his fault in merit as in meaning. But with all its high endowments, the poetical mind of Dryden was far short of even limited and frail human perfection. He wants one of the chief characteristics of genius, a tender and pathetic mind. The power (as Johnson observes) which predominated in his intellectual operations, was rather strong reason than quick sensibility. On all occasions that were presented, he rather studied than felt; and produced sentiments, not such as nature enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental passions as they spring separately in the mind, he seems not much acquainted; and seldom describes them, but as they are complicated by the various relations of soriety, and confused in the tumults and agitations of life. What he says of love, may contribute to the explanation of his character.

• Love

• Love various minds does variously inspire,
It ftirs in gentle bofoms gentle fire,
Like that of incense 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 bosoms: Love, as it subsists in itself, but with no tendency but to the person loved, and wishing only for correspondent kindness; such love as shuts out all other interest-the love of the golden age, was too soft and subtle to put his faculties in motion. He hardly conceived it, but in its turbulent effervescence with some other desires; when it was inflamed by rivalry, or obstructed by difficulties; when it invigorated ambition, or exasperated revenge.

Pope is naturally introduced as the successor of Dryden. His character is thus given by our lecturer.

In comparing and eftimating different poets of the first class, we ought to obferve fomething like mathematical accuracy,—we ought to weigh the whole aggregate of their respective merits. In making comparative eftimates, with this juftice to Pope, we fhould find in him fo many, and fo apparently incompatible excellences, that we fhould deem the poffible and eternal privation of his works as great a fingle lofs as could happen to the republic of letters. Of what a melancholy and irreparable chaẩm, among the poetical ornaments of England, would feeling hearts be fenfible, if the Abelard to Eloifa could be loft! This poem is quite unrivalled in the antient and modern world: it confifts of three hundred and fixty lines, and every line is fuperlatively elegant, harmonious, and pathetic. This obfervation is not applicable to any other poem of fuch a length; but this is not its only glorious fingularity. The hopes, the fears, the wifhes, the raptures and the agonies of love, were never fo naturally and forcibly impressed on the foul by any. other eloquence, if we except Rouffeau. '

Pope is an excellent poet; but this is not a way to lecture on his merits. This is the common-place language, which every miss at a boarding-school could utter, if she had the boldness to acknowledge having read Eloisa to Abelard. Yet we have sought in vain for a more rational and discriminate eulogy on the favourite poet of the last century. The poem of Eloisa does indeed glow with the finer fires of passion and of feeling. It is his great work; but he is much indebted to Ovid for many of its beauties. There is much in Sappho to Phaon of which Eloisa's warmest and most enchanting passages remind us. Had Mr Stockdale told us, that Eloisa to Abelard is the finest of English love-epis. tles, we should not make any exception to the expression; had he called it the finest of all epistles antient or modern, we should have at least understood him; but what he means by saying, it is absolutely

absolutely unrivalled in antient or modern times, is by no means so easily comprehended. Is it superior to the fourth book of Virgil's Eneid? is it superior to every thing of every kind in the poetical treasures of Greece and Rome? Were a parallel started between this epistle and some of the finest passages in antiquity, we have no doubt that Mr Stockdale would decide with as little hesitation, and probably with as much justice, as he devotes Homer to contempt, and all his pedantic admirers. But a modest man is slow in giving, and a reasonable man in believing, these decisions on comparison of old and new writings, especially against the antients. We shall not therefore believe, either that Homer is inferior to Milton, or that Pope's Eloisa is superior to every thing antient, merely on Mr Stockdale's assertion, till we ascertain with better certainty that he is competent to draw the comparison. To estimate Pope's value as a poet, by the melancholy chasm, of which feeling hearts would be sensible, if Eloisa's epistle were lost, we confess, exceeds our computing faculty. Our lecturer may have clearer notions on the subject; but there is something in the supposition which perplexts and confuses us. If the feeling hearts recollected the poem, then, it could not be lost; and if it was totally lost and forgotten, then they could not be aware that there was any thing so good to lament for.

We are told that Pope unites those excellences which are apparently incompatible. Now, superlative terms should always be used with caution, but above all when speaking of such a poet as Pope. He is one to be measured by no mean standard. What is good in his poetical character, is greatly good; so that, to match one acknowledged quality, that which we bring to prove his uniting with it another great quality, should be striking indeed. Our lecturer has, as usual, left those apparently incom patible excellences undefined. Correctness, which distinguishes Pope as one great excellence, is united with his shrewdness, his wit, and his common sense. There is nothing in these qualities apparently incompatible with correctness. The poetical quality, which we should least expect to see united with correctness, is that daring luxuriance of fancy or association which distinguishes Spencer or Shakespeare, and which is found even in Dryden in no scanty degree. But neither this romantic fancy, nor extreme pathos, nor sublimity of the very first order, are discoverable in Pope.

In the midst of this chapter, however unwilling we may be to submit to the universal authority of Dr Johnson, yet it is quite refreshing to meet with passages of his better sense and more dispassionate decisions, which our author quotes. The sentences of Johnson stand indeed with peculiar advantage in this insulated si

tuation;