[16] In his preface to "All for Love," he says, evidently alluding to himself: "If he have a friend whose hastiness in writing is his greatest fault, Horace would have taught him to have minced the matter, and to have called it readiness of thought and a flowing fancy." And in the Preface to the Fables he says of Homer: "This vehemence of his, I confess, is more suitable to my temper." He makes other allusions to it.
[17] Preface to the Fables.
[18] Wool is Sylvester's word. Dryden reminds us of Burke in this also, that he always quotes from memory and seldom exactly. His memory was better for things than for words. This helps to explain the length of time it took him to master that vocabulary at last so various, full, and seemingly extemporaneous. He is a large quoter, though, with his usual inconsistency, he says, "I am no admirer of quotations." (Essay on Heroic Plays.)
[19] In the Epimetheus of a poet usually as elegant as Gray himself, one's finer sense is a little jarred by the
"Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses."
[20] This probably suggested to Young the grandiose image in his
"Last Day" (B. ii.):—
"Those overwhelming armies….
Whose rear lay wrapt in night, while breaking dawn
Roused the broad front and called the battle on."
This, to be sure, is no plagiarism; but it should be carried to Dryden's credit that we catch the poets of the next half-century oftener with their hands in his pockets than in those of any one else.
[21] Essay on Satire.
[22] Ibid.