King, his two Empresses, his villain, and his sub-villain, nay his hero, have all a certain natural cast of the father—their folly was born and bred in them, and something of the Elkanah will be visible.'

This is Dryden's general declamation; I will not withhold from the reader a particular remark. Having gone through the first act, he says, 'To conclude this act with the most rumbling piece of nonsense spoken yet,—

"To flattering lightning our feign'd smiles conform, Which back'd with thunder do but gild a storm." Conform a smile to lightning, make a smile imitate lightning, and flattering lightning: lightning sure is a threatening thing. And this lightning must gild a storm. Now if I must conform my smiles to lightning, then my smiles must gild a storm too: to gild with smiles is a new invention of gilding. And gild a storm by being backed with thunder. Thunder is part of the storm, so one part of the storm must help to gild another part, and help by backing; as if a man would gild a thing the better for being backed, or having a load upon his back. So that here is gilding by conforming, smiling, light- 20 ning, backing, and thundering. The whole is as if I should say thus, I will make my counterfeit smiles look like a flattering stone horse, which, being backed with a trooper, does but gild the battle. I am mistaken if nonsense is not here pretty thick sown. Sure the poet writ these two lines aboard some smack in a storm, and, being sea-sick, spewed up a good lump of clotted nonsense at once.'

Here is perhaps a sufficient specimen; but as the pamphlet, though Dryden's, has never been thought worthy of republication, and is not easily to be found, it may gratify curiosity 30 to quote it more largely :—

'Whene'er she bleeds,

He no severer a damnation needs,

That dares pronounce the sentence of her death,
Than the infection that attends that breath.'

'That attends that breath.-The poet is at breath again; breath can never 'scape him; and here he brings in a breath that must be infectious with pronouncing a sentence; and this sentence is not to be pronounced till the condemned party bleeds; that is, she must be executed first, and sentenced after; and the pronouncing of this sentence will be infectious; that is, others will catch the disease of that sentence, and this infecting of others will torment a man's self. The whole is thus; when she bleeds, thou needest no 10 greater hell or torment to thyself, than infecting of others by pronouncing a sentence upon her. What hodge-podge does he make here! Never was Dutch grout such clogging, thick, indigestible stuff. But this is but a taste to stay the stomach; we shall have a more plentiful mess presently.

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'Now to dish up the poet's broth, that I promised:

"For when we're dead, and our freed souls enlarged

Of nature's grosser burden we're discharg'd,

Then gently, as a happy lover's sigh,

Like wandering meteors through the air we'll fly,
And in our airy walk, as subtle guests,

We'll steal into our cruel fathers' breasts,

There read their souls, and track each passion's sphere:

See how Revenge moves there, Ambition here.

And in their orbs view the dark characters

Of sieges, ruins, murders, blood and wars.

We'll blot out all those hideous draughts, and write
Pure and white forms; then with a radiant light
Their breasts encircle, till their passions be

Gentle as nature in its infancy:

Till soften'd by our charms their furies cease,

And their revenge resolves into a peace.

Thus by our death their quarrel ends,

Whom living we made foes, dead we'll make friends."

If this be not a very liberal mess, I will refer myself to the stomach of any moderate guest. And a rare mess it is, far excelling any Westminster white-broth. It is a kind of giblet porridge, made of the giblets of a couple of young

geese, stodged full of meteors, orbs, spheres, track, hideous draughts, dark characters, white forms, and radiant lights, designed not only to please appetite and indulge luxury, but it is also physical, being an approved medicine to purge choler: for it is propounded by Morena, as a receipt to cure their fathers of their choleric humours and were it written in characters as barbarous as the words, might very well pass for a doctor's bill. To conclude, it is porridge, 'tis a receipt, 'tis a pig with a pudding in the belly, 'tis I know not what: for, certainly, never any one that pretended to write sense 10 had the impudence before to put such stuff as this into the mouths of those that were to speak it before an audience, whom he did not take to be all fools; and after that to print it too, and expose it to the examination of the world. But let us see what we can make of this stuff::

"For when we're dead, and our freed souls enlarg'd-"

Here he tells us what it is to be dead; it is to have our freed souls set free. Now if to have a soul set free is to be dead, then to have a freed soul set free is to have a dead man die. "Then gentle, as a happy lover's sigh—"

They two like one sigh, and that one sigh, like two wandering meteors,

"-shall fly through the air-"

That is, they shall mount above like falling stars, or else they shall skip like two Jacks-with-lanthorns, or Will-with-a-wisp, and Madge-with-a-candle.

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And in their airy walk steal into their cruel fathers' breasts, like subtle guests. So that their fathers' breasts must be in an airy walk, an airy walk of a flier. And there they will read their souls, and track the spheres of their passions. That is, 30 these walking fliers, Jack-with-a-lanthorn, &c., will put on his spectacles, and fall a reading souls, and put on his pumps

and fall a tracking of spheres; so that he will read and run, walk and fly at the same time! Oh! Nimble Jack. Then he will see, how revenge here, how ambition there-The birds will hop about. And then view the dark characters of sieges, ruins, murders, blood, and wars, in their orbs: Track the characters to their forms! Oh! rare sport for Jack. Never was place so full of game as these breasts! You cannot stir but flush a sphere, start a character, or unkennel an orb!'

Settle's is said to have been the first play embellished with Io sculptures; those ornaments seem to have given poor Dryden great disturbance. He tries however to ease his pain, by venting his malice in a parody:

'The poet has not only been so impudent to expose all this stuff, but so arrogant to defend it with an epistle; like a saucy booth-keeper, that, when he had put a cheat upon the people, would wrangle and fight with any that would not like it, or would offer to discover it; for which arrogance our poet receives this correction; and to jerk him a little the sharper, I will not transpose his verse, but by the help of his 20 own words trans-nonsense sense, that, by my stuff, people may judge the better what his is :

"Great Boy, thy tragedy and sculptures done

From press, and plates in fleets do homeward come:
And in ridiculous and humble pride,

Their course in ballad-singers' baskets guide,
Whose greasy twigs do all new beauties take,

From the gay shews thy dainty sculptures make.
Thy lines a mess of rhyming nonsense yield,

A senseless tale, with flattering fustian fill'd.

No grain of sense does in one line appear,

Thy words big bulks of boisterous bombast bear.

With noise they move, and from players' mouths rebound,
When their tongues dance to thy words' empty sound.

By thee inspir'd the rumbling verses roll,

As if that rhyme and bombast lent a soul:

And with that soul they seem taught duty too,
To huffing words does humble nonsense bow,

As if it would thy worthless worth enhance,
To th' lowest rank of fops thy praise advance;
To whom, by instinct, all thy stuff is dear;
Their loud claps echo to the theatre..
From breaths of fools thy commendation spreads,
Fame sings thy praise with mouths of loggerheads.
With noise and laughing each thy fustian greets,
'Tis clapt by quires of empty-headed cits,
Who have their tribute sent, and homage given,
As men in whispers send loud noise to heaven.”

'Thus I have daubed him with his own puddle: and now we are come from aboard his dancing, masking, rebounding, breathing fleet; and as if we had landed at Gotham, we meet nothing but fools and nonsense.'

ΙΟ

Such was the criticism to which the genius of Dryden could be reduced, between rage and terror; rage with little provocation, and terror with little danger. To see the highest minds thus levelled with the meanest may produce some solace to the consciousness of weakness, and some mortification to the pride of wisdom. But let it be remembered, that 20 minds are not levelled in their powers but when they are first levelled in their desires. Dryden and Settle had both placed their happiness in the claps of multitudes.

The Mock Astrologer,' a comedy, is dedicated to the illustrious Duke of Newcastle, whom he courts by adding to his praises those of his lady, not only as a lover but a partner of his studies. It is unpleasing to think how many names, once celebrated, are since forgotten. Of Newcastle's works nothing is now known but his treatise on horsemanship.

The preface seems very elaborately written, and contains 30 many just remarks on the fathers of the English drama. Shakspeare's plots, he says, are in the hundred novels of Cinthio; those of Beaumont and Fletcher in Spanish stories; Jonson only made them for himself. His criticisms upon tragedy, comedy, and farce are judicious and profound. He