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n his exquisite imitation of Horace's sixth satire; and Thomson and Cowper, by their descriptions of rural life, have completely obliterated from the public mind the feeble draught of Pomfret.

[Extract from The Choice.]

If Heaven the grateful liberty would give
That I might choose my method how to live;
And all those hours propitious fate should lend,
In blissful ease and satisfaction spend;
Near some fair town I'd have a private seat,
Built uniform, not little, nor too great;
Better, if on a rising ground it stood;
On this side fields, on that a neighbouring wood.
It should within no other things contain
But what are useful, necessary, plain;
Methinks 'tis nauseous; and I'd ne'er endure
The needless pomp of gaudy furniture.
A little garden grateful to the eye,
And a cool rivulet run murmuring by;
On whose delicious banks a stately row
Of shady limes or sycamores should grow.
At th' end of which a silent study plac'd,
Should be with all the noblest authors grac'd:
Horace and Virgil, in whose mighty lines
Immortal wit and solid learning shines;
Sharp Juvenal, and amorous Ovid too,
Who all the turns of love's soft passion knew:
He that with judgment reads his charming lines,
In which strong art with stronger nature joins,
Must grant his fancy does the best excel;
His thoughts so tender, and express'd so well:
With all those moderns, men of steady sense,
Esteem'd for learning and for eloquence.
In some of these, as fancy should advise,
I'd always take my morning exercise;
For sure no minutes bring us more content
Than those in pleasing useful studies spent.

I'd have a clear and competent estate,
That I might live genteely, but not great;
As much as I could moderately spend;
A little more, sometimes t'oblige a friend.
Nor should the sons of poverty repine
Too much at fortune; they should taste of mine;
And all that objects of true pity were,

Should be reliev'd with what my wants could spare;
For that our Maker has too largely given
Should be return'd in gratitude to Heaven.
A frugal plenty should my table spread;
With healthy, not luxurious, dishes spread;
Enough to satisfy, and something more,
To feed the stranger, and the neighbouring poor.
Strong meat indulges vice, and pampering food
Creates diseases, and inflames the blood.
But what's sufficient to make nature strong,
And the bright lamp of life continue long,
I'd freely take; and, as I did possess,
The bounteous Author of my plenty bless.

EARL OF DORSET.

CHARLES SACKVILLE, EARLOF DORSET (1637-1706), wrote little, but was capable of doing more, and being a liberal patron of poets, was a nobleman highly popular in his day. Coming very young to the possession of two plentiful estates, and in an age when pleasure was more in fashion than business, he applied his talents rather to books and conversation than to politics. In the first Dutch war he went a volunteer under the Duke of York, and wrote or finished a song (his best composition, one of the prettiest that ever was made,' according to Prior) the night before the naval engagement in which Opdanı, "he Dutch admiral, was blown up, with all

his crew. He was a lord of the bedchamber to
Charles II., and was chamberlain of the household
to William and Mary. Prior relates, that when
Dorset, as lord chamberlain, was obliged to take the
king's pension from Dryden, he allowed him an
equivalent out of his own estate. He introduced
Butler's Hudibras to the notice of the court, was
consulted by Waller, and almost idolised by Dryden.
Hospitable, generous, and refined, we need not
wonder at the incense which was heaped upon
Dorset by his contemporaries. His works are
trifling; a few satires and songs make up the cata-
logue. They are elegant, and sometimes forcible;
but when a man like Prior writes of them, 'there
is a lustre in his verses like that of the sun in Claude
Lorraine's landscapes,' it is impossible not to be
struck with that gross adulation of rank and fashion
which disgraced the literature of the age. Dorset's
satire on Mr Edward Howard has some pointed lines:
They lie, dear Ned, who say toy brain is barren,
When deep conceits, like maggots, breed in carrion.
Thy stumbling founder'd jade can trot as high
As any other Pegasus can fly;

So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mud
Than all the swift-finn'd racers of the flood.
As skilful divers to the bottom fall
Sooner than those who cannot swim at all,
So in this way of writing, without thinking,
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.

Song.

Dorinda's sparkling wit and eyes,
United, cast too fierce a light,
Which blazes high, but quickly dies;
Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight

Love is a calmer, gentler joy;
Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace,
Her Cupid is a blackguard boy,

That runs his link full in your face.

Song.

Written at sea, the first Dutch war, 1665, the night belon an engagement.

To all you ladies now at land,

We men at sea indite;

But first would have you understand

How hard it is to write;

The Muses now, and Neptune too,

We must implore to write to you.

With a fa la, la, la, la.

For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain;

Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind,

To wave the azure main,

Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,

Roll up and down our ships at sea.

With a fa, &c.

Then, if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind;
Nor yet conclude our ships are lost
By Dutchmen or by wind:
Our tears we'll send a speedier way;
The tide shall bring them twice a-day.
With a fa, &c.

The king with wonder and surprise,
Will swear the seas grow bold;
Because the tides will higher rise
Than e'er they did of old :
But let him know it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall-stairs.
With a fa, &c.

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And quit their fort at Goree; For what resistance can they find

With a fa, &c.

Let wind and weather do its worst,

Be you to us but kind;

Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse,
No sorrow we shall find:

'Tis then no matter how things go,

Or who's our friend, or who's our foe.
With a fa, &c.

To pass our tedious hours away,
We throw a merry main;
Or else at serious ombre play;
But why should we in vain
Each other's ruin thus pursue?
We were undone when we left you.
With a fa, &c.

But now our fears tempestuous grow,
And cast our hopes away;
Whilst you, regardless of our wo,
Sit careless at a play:
Perhaps permit some happier man
To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan.
With a fa, &c.

When any mournful tune you hear,
That dies in every note,

As if it sigh'd with each man's care

For being so remote: Think then how often love we've made To you, when all those tunes were play'd.

With a fa, &c.

In justice, you cannot refuse
To think of our distress,
When we for hopes of honour lose
Our certain happiness;

All those designs are but to prove
Ourselves more worthy of your love.
With a fa, &c.

And now we've told you all our loves,
And likewise all our fears,
In hopes this declaration moves
Some pity for our tears;
Let's hear of no inconstancy,
We have too much of that at sea.
With a fa la, la, la, la.

DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,

JOHN SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE (1649-1721) was associated in his latter days with the wits and poets of the reign of Queen Anne, but he properly belongs to the previous age. He went with Prince Rupert against the Dutch, and was afterwards colonel of a regiment of foot. In order to learn the art of war under Marshall Turenne, he made a campaign in the French service. The literary taste of Sheffield was never neglected amidst the din of arms, and he made himself an accomplished scholar. He was a member of the privy council of James II., but acquiesced in the Revolution, and was afterwards a member of the cabinet council of William and Mary, with a pension of £3000. Sheffield is said to have 'made love' to Queen Anne when they were both young, and her majesty heaped honours on the favourite immediately on her accession to the throne. He was an opponent of the court of George I., and continued actively engaged in public affairs till his death. Sheffield wrote several poems and copies of verses. Among the

[Extract from the Essay on Poetry.]

Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief master-piece is writing well;
No writing lifts exalted man so high,
As sacred and soul-moving poesy:

No kin 1 of work requires so nice a touch,
And, if well finish'd, nothing shines so much.
But heaven forbid we should be so profane
To grace the vulgar with that noble name.
'Tis not a flash of fancy, which, sometimes
Dazzling our minds, sets off the slightest rhymes;
Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done:
True wit is everlasting like the sun,
Which, though sometimes behind a cloud retir'd,
Breaks out again, and is by all admir'd.
Number and rhyme, and that harmonious sound
Which not the nicest ear with harshness wound,
Are necessary, yet but vulgar arts;
And all in vain these superficial parts
Contribute to the structure of the whole;
Without a genius, too, for that's the soul:
A spirit which inspires the work throughout,
As that of nature moves the world about;
A flame that glows amidst conceptions fit,
Even something of divine, and more than wit;
Itself unseen, yet all things by it shown,
Describing all men, but describ'd by none.
Where dost thou dwell? what caverns of the brain
Can such a vast and mighty thing contain?
When I at vacant hours in vain thy absence mourn,
O where dost thou retire? and why dost thou return,
Sometimes with powerful charms, to hurry me away
From pleasures of the night and business of the day!
Ev'n now too far transported, I am fain
To check thy course, and use the needful rein,
As all is dulness when the fancy 's bad,
So without judgment fancy is but mad:
And judgment has a boundless influence,
Not only in the choice of words or sense,
But on the world, on manners, and on men:
Fancy is but the feather of the pen;
Reason is that substantial useful part

Which gains the head, while t'other wins the heart.

*

*

*

First, then, of songs, which now so much abound;
Without his song no fop is to be found.
A most offensive weapon which he draws
On all he meets, against Apollo's laws;
Though nothing seems more easy, yet no part
Of poetry requires a nicer art;
For as in rows of richest pearl there lies
Many a blemish that escapes our eyes,
The least of which defects is plainly shown
In one small ring, and brings the value down:
So songs should be to just perfection wrought;
Yet when can one be seen without a fault?
Exact propriety of words and thought;
Expression easy, and the fancy high;
Yet that not seem to creep, nor this to fly;
No words transpos'd, but in such order all,
As wrought with care, yet seem by chance to fall.

*

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Of all the ways that wisest men could find To mend the age, and mortify mankind, Satire well writ has most successful prov'd, And cures, because the remedy is lov'd.

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"Tis hard to write on such a subject more,
Without repeating things oft said before.
Some vulgar errors only we'll remove,
That stain a beauty which we so much love.
Of chosen words some take not care enough,
And think they should be, as the subject, rough;
This poem must be more exactly made,
And sharpest thoughts in smoothest words convey'd.
Some think, if sharp enough, they cannot fail,
As if their only business was to rail;
But human frailty, nicely to unfold,
Distinguishes a satire from a scold.
Rage you must hide, and prejudice lay down;
A Satyr's smile is sharper than his frown;
So, while you seem to slight some rival youth,
Malice itself may pass sometimes for truth.

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By painful steps at last we labour up
Parnassus' hill, on whose bright airy top
The epic poets so divinely show,
And with just pride behold the rest below.
Heroic poems have just a pretence
To be the utmost stretch of human sense;
A work of such inestimable worth,
There are but two the world has yet brought forth-
Homer and Virgil; with what sacred awe

Do those mere sounds the world's attention draw!
Just as a changeling seems below the rest
Of men, or rather as a two-legg'd beast,
So these gigantic souls, amaz'd we find
As much above the rest of human kind!
Nature's whole strength united! endless fame,
And universal shouts attend their name!
Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, so poor,
Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
Had Bossu never writ, the world had still,
Like Indians, view'd this wondrous piece of skill;
As something of divine the work admir'd,
Not hope to be instructed, but inspir'd;
But he, disclosing sacred mysteries,
Has shown where all their mighty magic lies;
Describ'd the seeds, and in what order sown,
That have to such a vast proportion grown.
Sure fron, some angel he the secret knew,
Who through this labyrinth has lent the clue.

But what, alas! avails it, poor mankind,
To see this promis'd land, yet stay behind?
The way is shown, but who has strength to go?
Who can all sciences profoundly know?
Whose fancy flies beyond weak reason's sight,
And yet has judgment to direct it right?
Whose just discernment, Virgil-like, is such,
Never to say too little or too much?
Let such a man begin without delay;
But he must do beyond what I can say;
Must above Tasso's lofty heights prevail;
Succeed when Spenser, and ev'n Milton fail.

DRAMATISTS.

JOHN DRYDEN.

trical representation the regular introduction of actresses, or female players, and the use of moveable scenery and appropriate decorations. Females had performed on the stage previous to the Restoration, and considerable splendour and variety of scenery had been exhibited in the Court Masques and Revels. Neither, however, had been familiar to the public, and they now formed a great attraction to the two patent theatres. Unfortunately, these powerful auxiliaries were not brought in aid of the good old dramas of the age of Elizabeth and James. Instead of adding grace and splendour to the creations of Shakspeare and Jonson, they were lavished to support a new and degenerate dramatic taste, which Charles II. had brought with him from the continent. Rhyming or heroic plays had long been fashionable in France, and were dignified by the genius of Corneille and Racine. They had little truth of colouring or natural passion, but dealt exclusively with personages in high life and of transcendent virtue or ambition; with fierce combats and splendid processions; with superhuman love and beauty; and with long dialogues alternately formed of metaphysical subtlety and the most extravagant and bombastic expression. 'Blank verse,' says Dryden, 'is acknowledged to be too low for a poem, nay more, for a paper of verses; but if too low for an ordinary sonnet, how much more for tragedy!' Accordingly, the heroic plays were all in rhyme, set off not only with superb dresses and decorations, but with 'the richest and most ornate kind of verse, and the farthest removed from ordinary colloquial diction.' The comedies were degenerate in a different way. They were framed after the model of the Spanish stage, an 1 adapted to the taste of the king, as exhibiting a variety of complicated intrigues, successful disguises, and constantly-shifting scenes and adventures. The old native English virtues of sincerity, conjugal fidelity, and prudence, were held up to constant ridicule, as if amusement could only be obtained by obliterating the moral feelings. Dryden ascribes the licentiousness of the stage to the example of the king. Part, however, must be assigned to the earlier comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, and part to the ascetic puritanism and denial of all public amusements during the time of the commonwealth. If the Puritans had contented themselves with regulating and purifying the theatres, they would have conferred a benefit on the nation; but, by shutting them up entirely, and denouncing all public recreations, they provoked a counteraction in the taste and manners of the people. The over-austerity of one period led naturally to the shameless degeneracy of the succeeding period; and deeply is it to be deplored, that the great talents of Dryden were the most instrumental in extending and prolonging this depravation of the national taste.

The operas and comedies of Sir William Davenant were the first pieces brought out on the stage after the Restoration. He wrote twenty-five in all; but, notwithstanding the partial revival of the old dramatists, none of Davenant's productions have been reprinted. His last work,' says Southey, 'was his worst; it was an alteration of the Tempest, executed in conjunction with Dryden; and marvelous indeed it is, that two men of such great and indubitable genius should have combined to debase, and vulgarise, and pollute such a poem as the Tempest.' The marvel is enhanced when we consider that Dryden writes of their joint labour with evident complacency, at the same time that his prologue to the adapted play contains the following just and

At the restoration of the monarchy the drama was also restored, and with new lustre, though less decency. Two theatres were licensed in the metropolis, one under the direction of Sir William Davenant, who, as already mentioned, had been permitted to act plays even during the general proscription of the drama, and whose performers were now (in comphment to the Duke of York) named the Duke's Company. The other establishment was managed by Thomas Killigrew, a well-known wit and courtier, beautiful character of is great predecessor :whose company took the name of the King's Servants. As when a tree's cut down, the secret root Davenant effected two great improvements in thea- | Lives under ground, and thence new branches shoot;

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So, from old Shakspeare's honour'd dust, this day
Springs up and buds a new reviving play.
Shakespeare, who (taught by none) did first impart
To Fletcher wit; to labouring Jonson art;
He, monarch-like, gave these his subjects law,
And is that nature which they paint and draw.
Fletcher reach'd that which on his heights did grow,
Whilst Jonson crept and gather'd all below.
This did his love and this his mirth digest;
One imitates him most; the other best.

If they have since outwrit all other men,

'Tis with the drops which fell from Shakspeare's pen.
The storm which vanish'd on the neighbouring shore,
Was taught by Shakspeare's Tempest first to roar.
That innocence and beauty which did smile
In Fletcher, grew on this Enchanted Isle.
Fut Shakspeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.

Dryden was in the full tide of his theatrical popularity when Davenant died, in 1688. The great poet

commenced writing for the stage in 1662, when he produced his Wild Gallant, which was followed next year by the Rival Ladies, the serious parts of which are in rhyme. He then joined Sir Robert Howard in composing the Indian Queen, a rhyming heroic play, brought out in 1664, with a splendour never before seen in England upon a public stage. A continuation of this piece was shortly afterwards written

by Dryden, entitled the Indian Emperor, and both were received with great applause. All the defects of his style, and many of the choicest specimens of his smooth and easy versification, are to be found in these inflated tragedies. In 1667 was represented his Maiden Queen, a tragi-comedy; and shortly afterwards the Tempest. These were followed by two comedies copied from the French of Moliere and Corneille; by the Royal Martyr. another furious tragedy, and by his Conquest of Granada, in two parts, in which he concentrated the wild magnificence, incongruous splendour, and absurd fable that run through all his heroic plays, mixed up with occasional gleams of true genius. The extravagance and unbounded popularity of the heroic drama, now at its height, prompted the Duke of Buckingham to compose a lively and amusing farce, in ridicule of Dryden and the prevailing taste of the public, which was produced in 1671, under the title of the Rehearsal. The success of the 'Rehearsal' was unbounded; the very popularity of the plays ridiculed aiding, as Sir Walter Scott has remarked, 'the effect of the satire, since everybody had in their recollection the origiaals of the passages parodied.' There is little genuine wit or dramatic art in the 'Rehearsal, but it is a clever travesty, and it was well-timed. A fatal blow was struck at the rhyming plays, and at the rant and fustian to which they gave birth. Dryden now resorted to comedy, and produced Marriage a-laMode, and the Assignation. In 1673 he constructed a dramatic poem, the State of Innocence, or the Fall of Man, out of the great epic of Milton, destroying, of course, nearly all that is sublime, simple, and pure, in the original. His next play, Aureng-Zebe (1675), was also 'heroic,' stilted, and unnatural; but this was the last great literary sin of Dryden. He was now engaged in his immortal satires and fables, and he abandoned henceforward the false and glittering taste which had so long deluded him. His All for Love, and Troilus and Cressida, are able adaptations from Shakspeare in blank verse. The Spanish Friar 18 a good comedy, remarkable for its happy union of two plots, and its delineation of comic character. His principal remaining plays are Don Sebastian (1690), Amphitryon (1690), Cleomenes (1692), and Love Triumphant (1694). 'Don Sebastian' is his highest effort in dramatic composition, and though de

formed, like all his other plays, by scenes of spurious and licentious comedy, it contains passages that approach closely to Shakspeare. The quarre. and reconciliation of Sebastian and Dorax is a masterly copy from the similar scene between Brutus and Cassius. In the altercation between Ventidius and Antony in 'All for Love,' he has also challenged comparison with the great poet, and seems to have been inspired to new vigour by the competition. This latter triumph in the genius of Dryden was completed by his 'Ode to St Cecilia' and the 'Fables,' published together in the spring of 1700, a few weeks before his death-thus realising a saying of his own

Sebastian

A setting sun

Should leave a track of glory in the skies. Dryden's plays have fallen completely into oblivion. He could reason powerfully in verse, and had the

command of rich stores of language, information, and imagery. Strong energetic characters and pas

sions he could portray with considerable success, but he had not art or judgment to construct an interesting or consistent drama, or to preserve himself from extravagance and absurdity. The female character and softer passions seem to have been entirely beyond his reach. His love is always licentiousness -his tenderness a mere trick of the stage. Like Voltaire, he probably never drew a tear from reader

or spectator. His merit consists in a sort of Eastern magnificence of style, and in the richness of his versification. The bowl and dagger-glory, ambition, lust, and crime-are the staple materials of his tragedy, and lead occasionally to poetical grandeur and brilliancy of fancy. His comedy is, with scarce an exception, false to nature, improbable and illarranged, and subversive equally of taste and morality.

Before presenting a scene from Dryden, we shall string together a few of those similes or detached sentiments which relieve the great mass of his turgid dramatic verse :

Love is that madness which all lovers have;
But yet 'tis sweet and pleasing so to rave.
'Tis an enchantment, where the reason's bound;
But Paradise is in th' enchanted ground.
A palace void of envy, cares, and strife;
Where gentle hours delude so much of life.
To take those charms away, and set me free,
Is but to send me into misery.
And prudence, of whose cure so much you boast,
Restores those pains which that sweet folly lost.

Conquest of Granada, Part II.

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So Venus moves, when to the Thunderer,
In smiles or tears, she would some suit prefer.
When with her cestus girt,
And drawn by doves, she cuts the liquid skies,
To every eye a goddess is confest;

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A change so swift what heart did ever feel!
It rush'd upon me like a mighty stream,
And bore me in a moment far from shore.
I've loved away myself; in one short hour
Already am I gone an age of passion.

Was it his youth, his valour, or success?
These might, perhaps, be found in other men.
'Twas that respect, that awful homage paid me;
That fearful love which trembled in his eyes,
And with a silent earthquake shook his soul.
But when he spoke, what tender words he said!
So softly, that, like flakes of feather'd snow,
They melted as they fell.

[Midnight Repose.]

Spanish Friar.

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Ber. Now death draws near, a strange perplexity Creeps coldly on me, like a fear to die: Courage uncertain dangers may abate, But who can bear th' approach of certain fate?

St. Cath. The wisest and the best some fear may show,
And wish to stay, though they resolve to go.
Ber. As some faint pilgrim, standing on the shere,
First views the torrent he would venture o'er,
And then his inn upon the farther ground,
Loath to wade through, and loather to go round:
Then dipping in his staff, does trial make
How deep it is, and, sighing, pulls it back:
Sometimes resolved to fetch his leap; and then
Runs to the bank, but there stops short again:
So I at once

Both heavenly faith and human fear obey;
And feel before me in an unknown way.
For this blest voyage I with joy prepare,
Yet am asham'd to be a stranger there.

Tyrannic Love.

[Love Anticipated after Death.]

PORPHYRIUS. BERENICE.

Por. You either this divorce must seek, or die.
Ber. Then death from all my griefs shall set me free.
Por. And would you rather choose your death than

me?

Ber. My earthy part,

Which is my tyrant's right, death will remove.
I'll come all soul and spirit to your love.
With silent steps I'll follow you all day,
Or else before you in the sunbeams play;
I'll lead you thence to melancholy groves,
And there repeat the scenes of our past loves.
At night, I will within your curtains peep;
With empty arms embrace you while you sleep.
In gentle dreams I often will be by,
And sweep along before your closing eye.
All dangers from your bed I will remove,
But guard it most from any future love.
And when, at last, in pity, you will die,
I'll watch your birth of immortality;
Then, turtle-like, I'll to my mate repair,
And teach you your first flight in open air.

[Adam after the Fall.]

ADAM. RAPHAEL. EVE.

Mid

Adam. Heaven is all mercy; labour I would choose; And could sustain this Paradise to lose: The bliss; but not the place. 'Here,' could I say, 'Heaven's winged messenger did pass the day; Under this pine the glorious angel stay'd:' Then show my wondering progeny the shade. In woods and lawns, where'er thou didst appear, Each place some monument of thee should bear. I, with green turfs, would grateful altars raise, And heaven, with gums and offer'd incense, praise. Raph. Where'er thou art, He is; th' eternal ming Acts through all places; is to none confined: Fills ocean, earth, and air, and all above. And through the universal mass does move. Thou canst be no where distant: yet this place Had been thy kingly seat, and here thy race, From all the ends of peopled earth, had come To reverence thee, and see their native home.

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