Than was the beauteous frame she left behind.

Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind.

O gracious God! how far have we
Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy?
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordain'd above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?
O wretched we! why were we hurried down
This lubrique and adulterate age,

(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own,)

T increase the steaming ordures of the stage?
What can we say t' excuse our second fall?
Let this thy vestal, Heaven, atone for all;
Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd,
Unmix'd with foreign filth, and undefiled;

Her wit was more than man; her innocence a child.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,

To raise the nations under ground;

When in the valley of Jehoshaphat,

The judging God shall close the book of fate;
And there the last assizes keep

For those who wake, and those who sleep;
The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,

And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are cover'd with the lightest ground;
And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing,
Like mountain larks, to the new morning sing
There thou, sweet saint, before the quire shall go,
As harbinger of heaven, the way to show,
The way which thou so well hast learnt below.

ON MILTON.

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

VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS,1

Paraphrased from the Latin Hymn.

Creator Spirit, by whose aid

The world's foundations first were laid,

Come visit every pious mind;

Come pour thy joys on human kind;
From sin and sorrow set us free,
And make thy temples worthy thee.

O source of uncreated light,
The Father's promised Paraclete!2
Thrice holy fount, thrice holy fire,

Our hearts with heavenly love inspire;

1 Come, Creator Spirit.

2 A Greek word signifying advocate, helper, comforter.

Come, and thy sacred unction bring

To sanctify us, while we sing.

Plenteous of grace, descend from high,
Rich in thy sevenfold energy!

Thou strength of his Almighty hand,

Whose power does heaven and earth command.
Proceeding Spirit, our defence,

Who dost the gift of tongues dispense,
And crown'st thy gift with eloquence!
Refine and purge our earthly parts;
But oh, inflame and fire our hearts!
Our frailties help, our vice control,
Submit the senses to the soul;

And when rebellious they are grown,
Then lay thy hand, and hold them down.
Chase from our minds the infernal foe,
And peace, the fruit of love, bestow;
And, lest our feet should step astray,
Protect and guide us in the way.
Make us eternal truths receive,
And practise all that we believe:
Give us thyself, that we may see
The Father, and the Son, by thee.
Immortal honor, endless fame,
Attend the Almighty Father's name:
The Saviour Son be glorified,

Who for lost man's redemption died :

And equal adoration be,

Eternal Paraclete, to thee.

ENJOYMENT OF THE PRESENT HOUR RECOMMENDED.

Imitated from Horace.

Enjoy the present smiling hour,

And put it out of Fortune's power:

The tide of business, like the running stream,

Is sometimes high, and sometimes low,

And always in extreme.

Now with a noiseless gentle course

It keeps within the middle bed;

Anon it lifts aloft the head,

And bears down all before it with impetuous force;
And trunks of trees come rolling down;

Sheep and their folds together drown:

Both house and homestead into seas are borne;
And rocks are from their old foundations torn;

And woods, made thin with winds, their scatter'd honors mourn.

Happy the man, and happy he alone,

He who can call to-day his own:

He who, secure within, can say,

To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day.

Be fair or foul, or rain or shine,

The joys I have possess'd, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power;

But what has been, has been, and I have had my bour.

Fortune, that with malicious joy
Does man, her slave, oppress,
Proud of her office to destroy,

Is seldom pleased to bless:
Still various, and inconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill,

Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a lottery of life.

I can enjoy her while she's kind;

But when she dances in the wind,

And shakes her wings, and will not stay,

I puff the prostitute away:

The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd:
Content with poverty, my soul I arm;

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm
What is't to me,

Who never sail in her unfaithful sea,
If storms arise, and clouds grow black;
If the mast split, and threaten wreck?
Then let the greedy merchant fear
For his ill-gotten gain;

And pray to gods that will not hear,
While the debating winds and billows bear
His wealth into the main.
For me, secure from Fortune's blows,
Secure of what I cannot lose,
In my small pinnace I can sail,
Contemning all the blustering roar:
And running with a merry gale,
With friendly stars my safety seek,
Within some little winding creek,
And see the storm ashore.

The prose of Dryden, however, is superior to his poetry, and richly deserves all the commendation it has received. His style is clear, vigorous, eloquent. "No writer, indeed," says Dr. Drake, "seems to have studied the genius of our language with happier success. If in elegance and grammatical precision he has since been exceeded, to none need he give way, in point of vigor, variety, richness, and spirit." His chief prose compositions are his "Essay on Satire," his Prefaces, and his "Essay on Dramatic Poetry." Of the latter, Dr. Johnson says, that it "was the first regular and valuable treatise on the art of writing. His portraits of the English dramatists are wrought with great spirit and diligence. The account of Shakspeare may stand as a perpetual model of encomiastic criticism; being lofty without exaggeration. In a few lines is exhibited a character so extensive in its comprehension and so curious in its limitations, that nothing can be added, diminished, or reformed; nor can tue editors and admirers of Shakspeare, in all their emulation and reverence, boast of much more than of having diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence, of having changed Dryden's gold for baser metal, of lower value though of greater bulk."1

1 The highest compliment ever paid to his diction has been recorded by Mr. Malone; namely, THк IMITATION OF EDMUND BURKE, "who," says the critic, "had very diligently read all his miscellaneous essays, which he held in high estination, not only for the instruction which they contain, but on account of the rich and numerous prose in which that instruction is conveyed."

SHAKSPEARE.

:

To begin, then, with Shakspeare. He was the man, who, of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily when he describes any thing, you more than see it—you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerat ing into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

Quantùm lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.1

The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eaton say, that there was no subject of which any poet ever writ, but he would produce it much better done in Shakspeare; and however others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled them to him in their esteem: and in the last king's court, when Ben's reputation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakspeare far above him.

BEN JONSON.

As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself, (for his last plays were but his dotages,) I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit, and language, and humor, also in some measure, we had before him; but something of art was wanting to the drama, till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavoring to move the passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such a height. Humor was his proper sphere; and in that he delighted most to represent mechanic people. He was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from

1 "As the cypresses are wont to do among the slender shrubs."

them; there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times, whom he has not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represents old Rome to us, in his rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language, 'twas that he weaved it too closely and laboriously, in his comedies especially perhaps, too, he did a little too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them; wherein, though he learnedly followed their language, he did not enough comply with the idiom of ours. If I would compare him with Shakspeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakspeare the greater wit. Shakspeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets: Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing: I admire him, but I love Shakspeare.

CHAUCER AND COWLEY.

In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects. As he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off; a continence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets1 is sunk in his reputation, because he could never forgive any conceit which came in his way; but swept, like a drag-net, great and small. There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill-sorted; whole pyramids of sweet-meats for boys and women, but little of solid meat for men. All this proceeded not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment. Neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of other poets, but only indulged himself in the luxury of writing; and perhaps knew it was a fault, but hoped the reader would not find it. For this reason, though he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer esteemed a good writer; and for ten impressions, which his works have had in so many successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased once a twelve-month; for as my last Lord Rochester said, though somewhat profanely, Not being of God, he could not stand.

Chaucer followed nature everywhere; but was never so bold to go beyond her: and there is a great difference of being poeta,