The figure was with full perfection crown'd; } This piece however is not without its faults; there is so much 282 likeness in the initial comparison that there is no illustration. As a king would be lamented, Eleonora was lamented. 'As when some great and gracious monarch dies, Who then, perhaps, were offering vows in vain, } This is little better than to say in praise of a shrub that it is as green as a tree, or of a brook, that it waters a garden as a river waters a country. Dryden confesses that he did not know the lady whom he 283 celebrates3; the praise being therefore inevitably general fixes 1. 270._ Works, xi. 136. 21. 1. Ib. xi. 128. 3 He defends himself by the example of Dr. Donne, 'who acknowledges that he had never seen Mrs. Drury, whom he has made immortal in his admirable Anniversaries? Ib. 284 285 286 no impression on the reader nor excites any tendency to love, nor much desire of imitation'. Knowledge of the subject is to the poet what durable materials are to the architect. The Religio Laici2, which borrows its title from the Religio Medici of Browne 3, is almost the only work of Dryden which can be considered as a voluntary effusion; in this, therefore, it might be hoped that the full effulgence of his genius would be found. But unhappily the subject is rather argumentative than poetical: he intended only a specimen of metrical disputation. 'And this unpolish'd rugged verse I chose, This however is a composition of great excellence in its kind, in which the familiar is very properly diversified with the solemn, and the grave with the humorous; in which metre has neither weakened the force nor clouded the perspicuity of argument: nor will it be easy to find another example equally happy of this middle kind of writing, which, though prosaick in some parts, rises to high poetry in others, and neither towers to the skies nor creeps along the ground. Of the same kind, or not far distant from it, is The Hind and Panther', the longest of all Dryden's original poems; an allegory intended to comprise and to decide the controversy between the Romanists and Protestants. The scheme of the work is injudicious and incommodious: for what can be more absurd than that one beast should counsel another to rest her faith upon a pope and council? He seems well enough skilled in the usual topicks of argument, endeavours to shew the necessity of an infallible judge, and reproaches the Reformers with want of Post, POPE, 415. 2 Religio Laici, or A Layman's Faith, 1682, Works, x. 1. 3 For Johnson's account of the Religio Medici see his Works, vi. 477. This is not stated in the Preface. In the Preface of The Hind and the Panther, Dryden says:-'It was neither imposed on me, nor so much as the subject given me by any man.' Works, x. 113. 5 Religio Laici, 1. 453. 'Nothing,' said Landor, 'was ever written in hymn equal to the be ginning of the Religio Laici,-the first eleven lines.' H. C. Robinson's Diary, iii. 194. Ante, DRYDEN, 126. 8 The Hind and Panther. This is the masterpiece of a famous writer now living, intended for a complete abstract of sixteen thousand schoolmen, from Scotus to Bellarmin. Tommy Pots. Another piece, supposed by the same hand, by way of supplement to the former.' SWIFT, A Tale of a Tub, Works, x. 73. Swift wrote this in 1697. Tommy Pots was a popular ballad. Ib.n. unity; but is weak enough to ask, why since we see without knowing how, we may not have an infallible judge without knowing where '. The Hind at one time is afraid to drink at the common brook, 287 because she may be worried; but walking home with the Panther talks by the way of the Nicene Fathers 3, and at last declares herself to be the Catholic Church *. This absurdity was very properly ridiculed in The City Mouse 288 and Country Mouse of Montague and Prior 5; and in the detection and censure of the incongruity of the fiction chiefly consists the value of their performance, which, whatever reputation it might obtain by the help of temporary passions, seems to readers almost a century distant not very forcible or animated. Pope, whose judgement was perhaps a little bribed by the sub- 289 ject', used to mention this poem as the most correct specimen of Dryden's versification. It was indeed written when he had completely formed his manner, and may be supposed to exhibit, negligence excepted, his deliberate and ultimate scheme of metre. We may therefore reasonably infer that he did not approve 290 the perpetual uniformity which confines the sense to couplets, since he has broken his lines in the initial paragraph: A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang'd, For 'that wondrous wight, Infallibility,' as the Panther calls it, see Part ii. l. 65. 2 Part i. 1. 528. 3 Part ii. 1. 156. Is it not as easy to imagine two Mice bilking coachmen and supping at the Devil, as to suppose a Hind entertaining the Panther at a hermit's cell, discussing the greatest mysteries of religion?... What relation has the Hind to our Saviour? or what notion have we of a panther's Bible? If you say he means the Church, how does the Church feed on lawns and range in the forest? Let it be always a Church, or always the cloven-footed beast, for we cannot bear his shifting the scene every line.' Halifax's Works, pp. 33, 35. ? Pope was a Roman Catholic. 8 Dryden, in his Essay of Dramatic Poesy, says:-'Though most commonly the sense is to be confined to the couplet, yet nothing that does perpetuo tenore fluere, run in the same channel, can please always. 'Tis like the murmuring of a stream, which, not varying in the fall, causes at first attention, at last drowsiness.' Works, xv. 363. See ante, DENHAM, 37; DRYDEN, 217. Enfin Malherbe vint, et le premier en Fit sentir dans les vers une juste 291 Without unspotted, innocent within, She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin'. Yet had she oft been chac'd with horns and hounds And doom'd to death, though fated not to die'.' These lines are lofty, elegant, and musical, notwithstanding the interruption of the pause, of which the effect is rather increase of pleasure by variety than offence by ruggedness. 292 To the first part it was his intention, he says, 'to give the majestick turn of heroick poesy 3'; and perhaps he might have executed his design not unsuccessfully had not an opportunity of satire, which he cannot forbear, fallen sometimes in his way. The character of a Presbyterian, whose emblem is the Wolf, is not very heroically majestick: 293 'More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears, } His general character of the other sorts of beasts that never go to church, though spritely and keen, has however not much of heroick poesy. 'These are the chief; to number o'er the rest, Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound, These gross, half-animated lumps I leave; Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive. Than matter, put in motion, may aspire; Thus parodied by Montague and Fed on soft cheese, and o'er the Halifax's Works, 1715, p. 44. 2 Works, x. 119. 3 The first part, consisting most in general characters and narration, I have endeavoured to raise, and give it the majestic turn of heroic poesy.' Ib. x. 117. For majestic see ante, DENHAM, 34 n. Part i. 1. 160. Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay; As would but serve pure bodies for allay: One more instance, and that taken from the narrative part, 294 where style was more in his choice, will shew how steadily he kept his resolution of heroick dignity. 'For when the herd, suffic'd, did late repair Which well she hop'd, might be with ease redress'd, And more a gentlewoman than the rest. After some common talk what rumours ran, The lady of the spotted muff began ".' The second and third parts he professes to have reduced to 295 diction more familiar and more suitable to dispute and conversation 3; the difference is not, however, very easily perceived: the first has familiar, and the two others have sonorous, lines. The original incongruity runs through the whole: the king is now Cæsar, and now the Lyon; and the name Pan is given to the Supreme Being". Part i. 1. 308. 2 Part i. l. 554. 3 'The Second Part, being matter of dispute, and chiefly concerning Church authority, I was obliged to make as plain and perspicuous as possibly I could. .. The Third, which has more of the nature of domestic conversation, is, or ought to be, more free and familiar than the two former.' Works, x. 117. * Part iii. 1. 60. 5 Part i. 1. 531. "This mean retreat did mighty Pan contain.' Part ii. 1.711. See ante, MILTON, 183. |