From The Spectator.
DRYDEN AND MODERN STYLE.

curvature of the spine, which will draw forth the laughter of the next generation. We owe to that weakness the copies of medieval barbarity which the more fanatical office-bearers of the pre-Raphaelite sect place on the walls of the Exhibitions, not only with perfect gravity, but with loud rebukes to those old-fashioned people who doubt whether the colouring of the green angels, with grimy, woeful faces, and bodies so limp that they could be folded up in a carpet-bag, is quite equal to the colouring of Titian. We are indebted to the

which some pretty sentiment is expressed with the stammering feebleness of a devotee who is half a self-indulgent Pagan and half a monk; who worships Venus one hour, and sings matins the next; who fancies that the very trees cannot be poetical unless they be scented with incense, nor the daylight unless it be brightened by the twinkle of red tapers, set in brass candlesticks; who would bring back dead forms of thought and a dead phraseology, as the Ritualists try to galvanize the corpse of a dead creed. Yet, we repeat, the feeble tunefulness of half-monkish, half-Pagan

SUCH cheap reprints of Dryden as the "Globe Edition "mark, we trust, the coming-back of a taste for poets who were the delight of days that did not know the lurid tints of Byron, or the artfully natural music of Tennyson. The recoil from the stiff squareness of line, the balanced antithesis, and the polished wit which threatened to make poetry sink to the level of acrostics, is at last going to the opposite extreme of mystic feebleness. The wave of Roman-high priests of the same sect for verses in ticism which brought Byron, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, has also brought a crowd of imitators, who threaten to make life a burden by their wailing incoherency; by their affected use of antique phrases; by their lackadaisical laments for nothing in particular; and by their general inability to say plain things in plain words, or to write with the simplicity, the vigour, and the homely richness which were once the crowning glories of English verse. The pre-Raphaelites are pictorially taking the side of the Ritualists, who in turn are depraving taste by their glorifications of a barbaric art, because it sets off the tenets sentimentality is praised in words that of the sacerdotal mythology. Mr. Rossetti's considerable capacity for writing verse is wedded to a passion for obscurity of thought and feeling. Mr. Swinburne's genius for melodious utterance is united to a vicious taste that too often disfigures pure English as well as pure thought. The great genius of Mr. Browning is linked with such contempt for the intelligence of the English people, that he shovels rough jottings out of his note-book, calls them poetry instead of conundrums, and thus leaves the mystic product for the wonder of all coming time. But we reach the height of artistic barbarity only when we go to the bodyguard of critics who wait on these potentates, and salute them in words that ordinary minds would scarcely use to qualify Dante. The preference of Swinburne to Shelley has become a commonplace instead of a joke. An artistic sect, in fact, has risen to preach a gospel, to make converts, to hurl anathemas, and to issue sentences of excommunication. We see the evangel revealed in such signs as the haunting of studios, the dilettantism, the petty form of fetishism which is called the worship of Art, the belief in mythical saints, the capacity for attending to the trivialities of Ritualism, and the weak denunciation of all windows that do not happen to be peaked. All this betrays a feebleness of mental backbone, a tendency to moral

would suffice to laud the higher flights of Dante. Such is Romanticism run mad. It is not a whit more sane or less ludicrous than the classical monstrosity that, in Westminster Abbey, represents Chatham declaiming to astonished nymphs and seahorses, which do not understand a word of English, and were never in the House of Lords in their lives. The next age will laugh as heartily at the carefully simulated insanity which breaks out in pre-Raphaelite verse and picture as we laugh at the grotesque struggles of the fat, fox-hunting, church-going, old-port stupidity of the Georgian era to imitate the sculptured Paganism of Greece. We need a new Dunciad to place on the gibbet of epigrammatic scorn those sectaries who write and paint as if they fancied that the first duty of art was, not to be true, but to be queer, and who look down with Pharisaic contempt on the simple, straightforward mind whic like Opie, mixes its colours, not with theories, but with brains. Less than the wit of a Pope would make the whole of England ring with laughter at the feeble copies of half-barbaric art which the sect is placing on stained window and in puffed books. A hearty burst of contempt from the lungs of Common-sense would blow these phantoms of a diseased imagination into nothingness. Meanwhile, the best advice that can be given to the high priests of the sect

is that they should clear their minds of that the tints come and go, vanish and Cant. glisten, as they move. The lines of Dryden, on the other hand, simply give a rather shallow logic the voice of vigorous declamation, which might almost as well have taken the form of prose as of verse. So far, Dryden was no poet.

In the midst of a misty Romanticism, we repeat that we see a pre-eminently healthy sign in the republication of such classics as Dryden. No better medicine than a dose of Dryden could be prescribed for any man who is suffering from the But those mystic sectaries who flaunt measles of artistic ritualistn. He will, no that fact contemptuously forget to ask how doubt, find the fare so coarse and rough far it was the result of Dryden's own lack that he will at first be revolted, and, pitch- of native power, and how far it is due to ing Absolom and Achitophel to the other the age in which he lived. Every one who side of the room, he will fall back for can sing at all in these days sings with solace on some feeble, flimsy, undefined, some degree of melody. The smallest and shrieking spectre, which has not got scrap of verse in a magazine or a newspathe gift of articulate speech. But we as-per, although signed by an unknown hand, sure the patient that the cure will be com- is more free from scientific or prosaic plete if the dose be taken daily for a thoughts and words, and more swiftly month. Dryden's muscular genius, his breaks into song, than the occasional flesh-and-blood figures, and his manly verses even of Dryden and Pope. But is English, will seem strangely real and it possible that self-conceit can be so Olymhealthful, after the hot air and the mysti- pian as to fancy that what is easy to the cism of verses which, like precociously Evangelical children, are too good to live. We take Dryden because he is singled out by the Sect as a frightful example of depravity. The Rubens of poetry, he shocks all who love refinement, grace, soft music, tenderness, the sweetness of life, the halfheard notes which link, as with unseen chains, the louder harmonies of song and colour. He disgusts many who do not lie ill of the pre-Raphaelite measles, and criticism was wont to deny that he was a poet at all. Milton said that Dryden was a rhymer, but no poet," and criticism has been saying much the same thing ever since. Nor would it be difficult to write a scathing review of all that came from his pen, or to show how wooden is much of the verse that he meant to be poetical, how hard are even the loftiest notes of his song, and how short are the flights that he can take even when his power of wing is at its best. If we go to him for that indefinable, impalpable, .but unmistakable something called poetry, he will not bear a comparison, we do not say with Burns, or Shelley, or Coleridge, but with far smaller

men.

It is almost ludicrous to pass from Tennyson's Two Voices to those parts of the Hind and the Panther in which Dryden tries to pierce a little below the superficial crust of dogmatic theology. The new poet is profounder than the old even as a philosopher, and he states the best of the floating arguments for a life to come with a power which might be envied by a mere theologian; but he never forgets that the first office of a poet is to sing, and the hues of poetry and philosophy are shot through and through each other, so

puniest throats of these days would lie beyond the compass of Dryden's vocal powers, if Dryden were living at the present time? The truth is that such a man could have sung any tune of which he had heard the key-note. A poet is, of all men, the most susceptible to the impressions of his day. Keats, in whom the poetic temperament had almost a diseased strength, said that he often found himself like an instrument on which the passing wind made music; and such, in less degree, is the experience of minds more robustly made. It is the secret of that recoil from the artificial melody of Pope which reached its full force after the French Revolution. When thought grew deeper, feelings more natural, and the revolt against the sacerdotal sanctities of the Church more loud than they had been since the Reformation, the poetry of the age took the same hue and note. Men went back to the old ballads for snatches of wild barbaric melody, at the bidding of the impulse which made Rousseau paradoxically prefer a life of savagery to such civilization as kings, monks, priests, soldiers, and statesmen had brought to France. And when poetry became more natural, less obedient to the petty rules of the schools, and bolder in its flights, it did but follow the age, anl give voice to what all men were feeling. There is not the slightest reason to imagine that Byron, Shelley, and Coleridge would have sung as they did if they had been born a hundred years earlier, and it is highly probable that they would have cast in their lot with the school which was richest in epigram and wit. In fact, Byron did wish that his age would permit him to

follow in the footsteps of Pope, for whom | passed away from the view of all men who he had an extravagant and even perverse do not wait on priests. admiration. He first gained fame as a Such was the time of Dryden, and the copyist of the Dunciad, but he soon found higher flowers of poetry could not bloom that the wailings of Childe Harold were in that atmosphere. One great poet did. more to the mind of a discontented time indeed, still live, and still sing with Hethan any number of exotic epigrams, and brew majesty and sublimity; but he was so he put aside, with a half-affected sigh, blind, poor, and lonely, -"with darkness the dream of rivalling the Moral Essays. and with dangers compassed round, and In precisely the same fashion did another solitude." He had drawn the tone of his set of influences draw Dryden away from inspiration from a nobler time, and his ormysticism and music to epigram and hero- gan music seemed so monotonous and so ics. He fell on an age which is perhaps dull to the men who were the examplars the most contemptible in the whole range of taste, that they went after the light of English history, with the doubtful ex- fiddling band which was led by Dryden. ception of the time that prepared men for The author of Absolom and Achitophel was the worship of George IV. The manly admirably fitted to be the laureate of such dignity and earnestness of Elizabeth's an age. Burdened by no small scruples or reign had fled away as if for ever. The deep convictions, apt to catch any tune moral austerity of Puritanism had been that might happen to be liked by the crowd, driven into hiding by that Blessed Restora- gifted with extraordinary force of brain. tion which furnished England with a King with wit, and with such a mastery over the who became the pensioner of France by mechanism of words as comes to few men divine right with a Court which was in a whole race, he said, with incomparable guided by a well filled harem, aud sancti- power, what the triflers of the Court, the fied by a platoon of apostolically ordained intriguers of the Parliament House, the right reverend fathers in God; with a li- loungers of the green-room, the literary cense which had dropped the veil of deco- dictators of the coffeehouses were thinking rum when crossing the Channel from or feeling about the narrow strip of life France, and had sunk into a swinish gross- which lay between Whitehall and Temple ness. Loyalty could do nothing higher Bar. London called for heroic comedies, than desecrate the remains of the prince spiced with sonorous rhetoric and indeof English rulers, soldiers, and statesmen. cency; and what it demanded Dryden Religion blossomed into no higher flower gave. The taste for personal satire inev of sanctity than the composition of a lit- itably gathered the strength of a passion urgy in honour of a Blessed Martyr who in the neighbourhood of a Court and ahad united some family virtue, some grace Senate where life was one long scandal: of manner, some taste for the picturesque and Dryden lashed the sins, the follies, the points of dress, and some turn for rhetori- frailties, the infirmities of courtier, political piety, to a remarkable talent for telling cian, and poet with a whip such as had lies. No great man could have lived in the been wielded by the satirists neither of political or the courtly atmosphere. Great- Greece nor of Rome. A time which had ness betook itself to the loneliness of the lost an ear for the deeper melodies of life study. The grim Hebrew earnestness of could still cheer rhetorical bravuras, soundPuritanism fled into the twilight of con- ing verse, and feats of rhythmical "execuventicles, away from the influences which tion," just as people who turn wearily would have softened the rigour of its fa- away from the austere sublimities of Senaticism, and away also from the classes bastian Bach or Haydn may be moved to which it would have braced into a manli- superficial admiration by the brilliancy of ness that would have smitten dead the lin- Verdi; and so Dryden wrote odes like Algering sacerdotalism of the English people. exander's Feast, which, although enormousIn high places patriotism and religion were ly over-praised, is still a fine piece of artimeaningless names. The realities were to ficial music. Such was the office that Drybe found only among the classes which lay den did for his age. But he could have far from Court and fashion. Philosophy done far higher work if there had been had in the hands of Hobbes become a rea- any call. His taste was pure, as he showed soned plea for absolutism, and the pro- by his reverence for Shakespeare and Milfounder parts of his system had as yet ton, at a time when the one was deemed a done nothing higher than cast doubt on barbarian and the other a pedant. And all the sanctities of life. Theologians the compass of his song grew with every busied themselves with blustering little year of his life. His poems are on a incredibilities that have happily at last heightening scale of excellence, and his

From The Cornhill Magazine. THE SCIENTIFIC GENTLEMAN. PART II.

CHAPTER V.

ought to do. Daylight is a great matter, to be sure, and consoles one in one's perplexity; but yet daylight means the visits of one's friends, and inquiries into all that one has done and means to do. I could not have such an inmate in my house without people knowing it. I was thrusting myself, as it were, into a family quarrel which I knew nothing of- I one of the most peaceable people -!

finest glow of song is to be found in the Fables which he wrote at a time of life when the voice usually begins to fail. Had he been born a hundred and fifty years later he would have written as mystically, as musically, and as poetically as the age WHEN I got up, about two hours after, could have wished. I was in a very uncomfortable state of Now, however, the chief value of Dry-mind, not knowing in the least what I den comes from his ruddy, sturdy English health. Whatever may have been the sins of the Restoration, it was not a time of hypocrisy, and indeed it spoke its mind with astonishing frankness. It called the earth to inspect its rascality, and Dryden took the inventory in the spirit of the day. Nor was it an age of puny sentimentality, or of sickly analysis of motives. Even its blackguardism was eminently healthful in comparison with the diseased curiosity of When I went down stairs the drawingsome less depraved times; and here, again, room was still as I had left it, and the it found in Dryden a faithful secretary. sofa and its cushions were all marked He spoke out with a downright frankness with dust where my poor visitor had lain and simplicity, which bring the refresh-down. I believe, though Mary is a good ment of common-sense to a mind tired of girl on the whole, that there was a little the artificially tortuous subtlety of writers who only half know what they mean, and who waste time in microscopically examining their own small souls. And the English of Dryden is for all time a model of the manly, straightforward, rapid, vigorous style which misty sectaries would kill if they could. His coarseness will hurt no one who is not already vicious, and the study of his healthy simplicity and vigour would help to exterminate a poetical sect which draws much of its inspiration from a diseased self-consciousness and self-conceit. We do not, indeed, go to him for the highest notes of song. His poetry has not the sunny, healthful gaiety of Chaucer, whose verse recalls the green fields and the voice of birds; nor does it reach the same rank as Spenser's, which seems to come from fairyland; nor has it any kinship with that of Shakespeare, whose touch awakes whatever is musical in life or thing; or with that of Milton, whose cathedral music peals forth a fit jubilation to the hierarchies of blazing seraphim that he saw with the inner eye, which was only filled with a more heavenly radiance when it was shut out from the light of day. Dryden stands in a far lower place, but in his own circle he has no superior; and, as the satirist, the reasoner in verse, the magnificent declaimer, the master of descriptive epigram, he will draw forth the hoinage of distant generations, long after some pretentious names of later days shall have slept in forgetfulness.

spite in all this, to show me my own enormity. A decanter of wine was left on the table too, with the glass which had been used last night. It gave the most miserable squalid look to the room, or at least I thought so. Then Mary appeared with broom and dust-pan, severely disapproving, and I was swept away, like the dust, and took refuge in the garden, which was hazy and dewy and rather cold on this October morning. The trees were all changing colour, the mignonette stalks were long and straggling, there was nothing in the beds.but asters and dahlias and other autumn flowers. And the monthly rose on the porch looked pale, as if it felt the coming frost. I went to the gate and looked out upon the Green with a pang of discomfort. What would everybody think? There were not many people about except the tradespeople going for orders and the servants at their work. East Cottage looked more human than usual in the hazy autumn morning sun. The windows were all open, and White was sweeping the fallen leaves carefully away from the door. I even saw Mr. Reinhardt in his dressing-gown come out to speak to him. My heart beat wildly and I drew back at the sight. As if Mr. Reinhardt was anything to me! But I was restless and uncomfortable and could not compose myself. When I went in I could not sit down and breakfast by myself as I usually did. I wanted to see how my lodger was, and yet I did not want to disturb her. At last I went to the door of the west room and listened. When I heard signs of

movement inside I knocked and went in. She was still in bed; she was lying half smothered up in the fine linen and downy pillows. On the bed there was an eiderdown coverlet covered with crimson silk, and she had stretched out her arm over it and was grasping it with her hand. She greeted me with a smile which lighted up her beautiful face like sunshine.

"Oh, yes, I am better-I am quite well," she said. "I an so happy to be here."

jumped up in bed, raising herself as lightly as a child.

"You must have a shawl put round your shoulders," I said.

"Oh, let me have the beautiful one you put over me last night. What a beauty it was! Let me have that," she cried.

:

Mary gave me a warning look. But I was indignant with Mary. I went and fetched it almost with tears in my eyes. Poor soul! poor child! like a baby admiring it because it was pretty. I put it round her, though it was my best and with my cashmere about her shoulders, and her beautiful face all lighted up with pleasure, she was like a picture. I am sure the Sleeping Beauty could not have been more lovely when she started from her hundred years' sleep.

She did not put out her hand, or offer any thanks or salutations, and it seemed to me that this was good taste. I was pleased with her for not being too grateful or affectionate. I believe if she had been very grateful and affectionate I should have thought that was best. For again the charm came over me a charm I went back to the dining-room and doubled by her smile. How beautiful she took my own breakfast quite exhilarated. was! the warm nest she was lying in, and My perplexities floated away. I too felt like the pleasure and comfort she evidently a child with a new toy. If I had but had felt in being there, had brought a little a daughter like that, I said to myself colour to her cheeks-just a very little what a sweet companion, what a delight - but that became her beauty best. She in one's life! But then daughters will was younger than I thought. I had sup-marry; and to think of such a one, bound posed her to be over thirty last night, now she looked five or six-and-twenty, in the very height and fulness of her bloom. "Shall I send you some breakfast?" I said.

"Oh, please! I suppose you don't know how nice it is to lie in a soft bed like this, to feel the nice linen and the silk, and be waited upon? You have always been just so, and never known the difference? Ah! what a difference it is." "I have been very poor in my time," said I.

"Have you? I should not have thought it. But never so poor as me. Let me have my breakfast, please: tea with cream in it. May I have some cream? and anything — whatever you please; for I am hungry; but tea with cream."

to a cruel husband, who quarrelled with her, deserted her – Oh, what cruel stuff men are made of! What pretext could he have for conduct so monstrous? She was as sweet as a flower, and more beautiful than any woman I ever saw; and to leave her sitting in the dust at his closed door! I could scarcely keep still, my indignation was so great. The bloodless wretch! without ruth, or heart, or even common charity. One has heard such tales of men rapt up in some cold intellectual pursuit; how they get to forget everything, and despise love and duty, and all that is worth living for, for their miserable science. They would rather be fellows of a learned society than heads of happy houses; rather make some foolish discovery to be written down in the papers, than live a good life and look after their own. I have even known cases certainly nothing so bad And then I stood looking at her, won- as this but cases in which a man for his dering. I knew nothing of her, not even art, or his learning, or something, has her name, aud yet I stood in the most fa- driven his wife into miserable solitude, or miliar relation to her, like a mother to a still more miserable society. Yes, I have child. Her smile quite warmed and bright-known such cases: and the curious thing ened me as she lay there in such childish is, that it is always the weak men, whose enjoyment. How strange it was. And it researches can be of use to no mortal beseemed to me that everything had gone ing, who neglect everything for science. out of her mind except the delightful nov- The great men are great enough to be elty of her surrounding. She forgot that men and philosophers too. All this I said she was a stranger in a strange house, and in my heart with a contempt for our scienall the suspicious unpleasant circumstan- tific gentleman which I did not disguise When Mary came in with the tray to myself. I finished my breakfast quickshe positively laughed with pleasure, and ly, longing to go back to my guest, when

66

Surely," I said; "it is being prepared for you now."

ces.