It was indeed never in his power to refift the temptation of a jeft. In his Elegy on Cromwell: No fooner was the Frenchman's caufe embrac'd, He had a vanity, unworthy of his abilities, to fhew, as may be fufpected, the rank of the company with whom he lived, by the ufe of French words, which had then crept into converfation; fuch as fraicheur for coolness, fougue for turbulence, and a few more, none of which the language has incorporated or retained. They continue only where they ftood first, perpetual warnings to future innovators. Thefe are his faults of affectation; his faults of negligence are beyond recital. Such is the unevennefs of his compofitions, that ten lines are feldom found together without fomething of which the reader is afhamed. Dryden was no rigid judge of his own pages; he feldom ftruggled after fupreme excellence, but fnatched in hafte what was within his reach; and when he could content others, was himself contented. He did not keep prefent to his mind an idea of pure perfection; nor compare his works, fuch as they were, with what they might be made. He knew to whom he fhould be oppofed. He had more mufick than Waller, more vigour than Denham, and more nature than Cowley; and from his contemporaries he was in no danger. Standing therefore in the highest place, he had no care to rife by contending with himfelf; but, while there was no name above his own, was willing to enjoy fame on the easiest terms.` He He was no lover of labour. What he thought fufficient, he did not ftop to make better; and allowed himself to leave many parts unfinished, in confidence that the good lines would overbalance the bad. What he had once written, he difmiffed from his thoughts; and I believe there is no example to be found of any correction or improvement made by him after publication. The haftinefs of his productions might be the effect of neceffity; but his fubfequent neglect could hardly have any other caufe than impatience of study. What can be faid of his verfification will be little more than a dilatation of the praife given it by Pope: Waller was fm100th; but Dryden taught to join } Some improvements had been already made in English numbers; but the full force of our language was not yet felt; the verfe that was fmooth was commonly feeble. If Cowley had fometimes a finished line, he had it by chance. Dryden knew how to chufe the flowing and the fonorous words; to vary the paufes, and adjust the accents; to diverfify the cadence, and yet preferve the fmoothnefs of his Smetre. Of Triplets and Alexandrines, though he did not introduce the ufe, he established it. The Triplet has long fubfifted among us. Dryden feems not to have traced it higher than to Chapman's Homer; but it is to be found in Phaer's Virgil, written in the reign of Mary; and in Hall's Satires, published five years before the death of Elizabeth. The Alexandrine was, I believe, firft ufed by Spenfer, for the fake of clofing his ftanza with a fuller found. We had a longer measure of fourteen fyllables, into which the neid was tranflated by Phaer, and other works of the ancients by other writers; of which Chapman's Iliad was, I believe, the last. The two firft lines of Phaer's third Eneid will exemplify this measure : When Afia's ftate was overthrown, and Priam's kingdom flout, All guiltless, by the power of gods above was rooted out. As thefe lines had their break, or cafura, always at the eighth fyllable, it was thought, in time, commodious to divide them: and quatrains of lines, alternately, confifting of eight and fix fyllables, make the moft foft and pleafing of our lyrick measures; as, Relentless Time, deftroying power, In the Alexandrine, when its power was once felt, fome poems, as Drayton's Polyolbion, were wholly written; and fometimes the measures of twelve and a fourteen fyllables were interchanged with one another. Cowley was the firft that inferted the Alexandrine at pleafure among the heroick lines of ten fyllables, and from him Dryden profeffes to have adopted it. The Triplet and Alexandrine are not univerfally approved. Swift always cenfured them, and wrote fome pro fome lines to ridicule them. In examining their priety, it is to be confidered that the effence of verfe is regularity, and its ornament is variety. To write verfe, is to difpofe fyllables and founds harmonically by fome known and fettled rule; a rule however lax enough to fubftitute fimilitude for identity, to admit change without breach of order, and to relieve the ear without disappointing it. Thus a Latin hexameter is formed from dactyls and fpondees differently combined; the English heroick admits of acute or grave fyllables varioufly difpofed. The Latin never deviates into feven feet, or exceeds the number of feventeen fyllables; but the English Alexandrine breaks the lawful bounds, and furprises the reader with two fyllables more than he expected. The effect of the triplet is the fame; the ear has been accustomed to expect a new rhyme in every coupler; but is on a fudden furprized with three rhymes together, to which the reader could not accommodate his voice, did he not obtain notice of the change from the braces of the margins. Surely there is fometing unfkilful in the neceffity of fuch mechanical direction. Confidering the metrical art fimply as a fcience, and confequently excluding all cafualty, we must allow that Triplets and Alexandrines, inferted by caprice, are interruptions of that conftancy to which fcience afpires. And though the variety which they produce may very juftly be defired, yet, to make poetry exact, there ought to be fome stated mode of admitting them. But till fome fuch regulation can be formed, I wish them still to be retained in their prefent ftate. They They are fometimes convenient to the poet. Fenton was of opinion, that Dryden was too liberal, and Pope too fparing, in their ufe. The rhymes of Dryden are commonly juft, and he valued himself for his readiness in finding them; but he is fometimes open to objection. It is the common practice of our poets to end the fecond line with a weak or grave fyllable : Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly, Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy. Dryden fometimes puts the weak rhyme in the firft: Laugh, all the powers that favour tyranny, Sometimes he concludes a period or paragraph with the first line of a couplet, which, though the French feem to do it without irregularity, always difpleases in English poetry. The Alexandrine, though much his favourite, is not always very diligently fabricated by him. It invariably requires a break at the fixth fyllable; a rule which the modern French poets never violate, but which Dryden fometimes neglected: And with paternal thunder vindicates his throne. Of Dryden's works it was faid by Pope, that "he could felect from them better fpecimens of every "mode of poetry than any other English writer could fupply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with fuch variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the |