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In his perfonal character Dryden was perfectly amiable; he was modeft even to diffidence; in friendship and generofity he was exceeded by none: no man had stronger feelings for the diftreffes of human nature, or greater propenfity to alleviate them; and to this noble turn of mind, the difficulties which he had to ftruggle with in life, and of which we often find him complaining, were probably moftly owing. His temper was mild, open, unfufpecting, and forgiving. He was very eafy of accefs, and perfectly pleafing in his carriage. As his knowledge was great, and his memory ftrongly retentive; fo were his defires of communicating inftruction, to fuch young writers as thought fit to confult him, extenfive; yet in his manner there was fomething fo peculiarly agreeable that it doubled the obligation. He was himself always open to a conviction of error, and thankful for the remonftrance.

Among the many enemies who attacked his morals, bishop Burnet calls him a monster of impurities of all forts; in anfwer to which lord Lanfdown affures us, "That he was the very reverfe of all this, and that

all his acquaintance could vouch his being a man "of regular life and unfpotted converfation." No body will be doubtful whether to fide with the peer fpiritual or temporal, who remembers the difpute between the former and our author, which we have difcuffed in our notes.

He has been accused as a time-ferver and an hypocrite in religion, because it was his fortune at a particular feafon to conform to one partronised at court; but this charge must fall to the ground on recollecting that he always continued therein firm and unfhaken, though he might have gained confiderably by recanting after the revolution, and his writings on that head carry with them the ftrongest marks of fincerity. Perhaps before he declared himself a Roman Catholic, he had no fettled form of religion; and his Religio

Religio Laici is not a defence of any particular fect of Chriftianity, fo much as of Chriftianity in general,

What a prodigious field for admiration opens upon us in contemplating our author as a poet! Here, in whatever light we view him, he is fure always to excel; and if univerfality of genius gives a title to preeminence, perhaps we fhall be fcarcely excufed for admitting any to rank above him. In elegy he was plaintive and tender; in panegyric he had the art of throwing a luftre round a character that funk all its imperfections. In fatire he was ftrong, bold, penetrating, and fevere; in didactic or controverfial writing, concife, clear, and perfuafive. His epiftles are familiar, eafy, and entertaining. His prologues and epilogues abound with wit, pleafantry, and often excellent traces of criticism. In his fongs the thoughts appear new; the phrafeology unconstrained; and the conclufions pointed. His odes are ftrong, forceful, foaring, and fublime; the numbers are happily varied, the harmony is inimitable, and the whole feem to breathe the spirit of infpiration.

Laftly, in his dramatic writings, which are many, there is a great variety; his characters are often finely marked, and the paffions well wrought up; yer he deals more in the fublime than the pathos; and his tragedies are rather written from the head than the heart. In comedy, however, he is facetious and full of humour. Father Dominic is one of the best characters on our ftage. In this fpecies of writing, he certainly failed moft: but his failings are easily pardoned when we confider, that he wrote his plays in a hurry, that he was for fome time obliged to furnish the ftage with a certain number yearly y and that he never had leifure fufficient to polish and correct up to the ftandard of his genius. It was not his fortune at any time to be able to use the

Nonum prematur in annum.

Yet his imperfections, like spots in the fun, can never diminish his luftre; and had he never written more VOL. I.

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than All for Love, or the Spanish Friar, these would have been fufficient to fecure him an elevated place among dramatic writers.

In profe he was equally excellent, his words were: always happily chofen, his periods round and flowing, his meaning clear, his arguments fupported with mafterly elocution, and his conclufions well deduced. In his prefaces, indeed, we find him fometimes a deferter, and oppofing his own arguments in a manner to which Dryden only was equal; he has appeared unanfwerable till he anfwered himself. Here he confeffes that he was much obliged to archbishop Tillotson, who was, he fays, the original from whom he copied. Impartiality will allow then that he often outgoes his master, and that none of our writers excel him.

His profe never deviates into blank verfe; and disjoint his verfe as you will, it is impoffible to reduce it to profe." Its effence, (fays Congreve, in the dedication of his dramatic works to his grace the Duke of Newcastle) "like that. "of pure gold cannot be deftroyed." And Garth, in his preface to the Metamorphofes, juftly remarks, "that when he fteals from others" (for he has been accused of plagiarism) "it is no otherwise than like "those who steal beggars children only to cloath "them the better."

In a word, his fancy was always vigorous, his imagination fertile, his fentiments are fpirited, his lan-. guage is elegant, and his verfification fmooth and graceful, he was copious in invention; in tran-> flation he gives the spirit of his author. To the last he maintained all his excellencies, and loft nothing of his ftrength. Mr. Pope beautifully obferves, "That his fire like the fun's fhone cleareft towards. "its fetting" nay, the fame great poet affures us, "He never would have attempted to tranflate Homer "had Dryden completed that work."

In PRAISE of

Mr. DR

R Y

Y DE N.

On Mr. DRYDEN's RELIGIO LAICI.

BE

By the Earl of ROSCOMMON.

E gone, you slaves, you idle vermin go,
Fly from the fcourges, and

your mafter know

Let free, impartial, men from Dryden learn
Mysterious fecrets, of a high concern,
And weighty truths, folid convincing sense,
Explain'd by unaffected eloquence.

What can you (Reverend Levi) here take ill?
Men ftill had faults, and men will have them ftill;
He that hath none, and lives as angels do,
Must be an angel; but what's that to you ?
While mighty Lewis find the pope too great,
And dreads the yoke of his impofing feat,
Our fects a more tyrannic pow'r affume,

And would for fcorpions change the rods of Rome;
That church detain'd the legacy divine;

Fanatics caft the pearls of heav'n to swine:

What then have thinking honeft men to do,
But chufe a mean between th'ufurping two?

Nor can th'Ægyptian patriarch blame thy mufe,
Which for his firmness does his heat excufe;
Whatever councils have approv'd his creed,
The preface fure was his own act and deed.
Our church will have that preface read you'll fay:
'Tis true: but fo fhe will th' Apocrypha;
And fuch as can believe them, freely may.
But did that God (fo little understood)
Whofe darling attribute is being good,
From the dark womb of the rude chaos bring
Such various creatures and make man their king,
Yet leave his favourite man, his chiefest care,
More wretched than the vileft infects are?

O! how much happier and more safe are they?
If helpless millions must be doom'd a prey
To yelling furies, and for ever burn
In that fad place from whence is no return,
For unbelief in one they never knew,
Or for not doing what they could not do!
The very fiends know for what crime they fell,
And fo do all their followers that rebel:
If then a blind, well-meaning, Indian stray,
Shall the great gulph be fhew'd him for the way?
For better ends our kind Redeemer dy'd,

Or the faln angels room will be but ill fupply'd.
That Chrift, who at the great deciding day,
(For he declares what he refolves to fay)

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