The two odes on St Cecilia's Day are both admirable in different ways. "Alexander's Feast," like Burns's "Tam o' Shanter," seems to come out at once "as from a mould." It is pure inspiration, but of the second order—rather that of the Greek Pythoness than of the Hebrew prophet. Coleridge or Wordsworth makes the objection to it, that the Bacchus it describes is the mere vulgar deity of drink—
"Flush'd with a purple grace,
He shows his honest face"—
not the ideal Bacchus, clad in vine-leaves, returning from the conquest of India, and attended by a procession of the lions and tigers he had tamed. But this, although a more imaginative representation of the god of wine, had not been so suitably sung at an entertainment presided over by an Alexander and a Thais, a drunk conqueror and a courtezan. Dryden himself, we have seen, thought this the best ode that ever was or would be written in the English language. In a certain sense he was right. For vivacity, freedom of movement, and eloquence, it has never been equalled. But there are some odes—such as Coleridge's "Ode to France" and Wordsworth's "Power of Sound"—which as certainly excel it in strength of imagination, grandeur of conception, and unity of execution and effect.
Of Dryden's Satires we have already spoken in a general way. "Absalom and Achitophel" is of course the masterpiece, and cannot be too highly praised as a gallery of portraits, and for the daring force and felicity of its style. Why enlarge on a poem, almost every line of which has become a proverb? "The Medal" is inferior only in condensation—in spirit and energy it is quite equal. In "MacFlecknoe," the mock-heroic is sustained with unparalleled vigour from the first line to the last. Shadwell is a favourite of Dryden's ire. He fancies him, and loves to empty out on his head all the riches of his wrath. What can be more terrible than the words occurring in the second part of "Absalom and Achitophel"—
"When wine hath given him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God—but God before curst him!"
He has written two pieces, which may be called didactic or controversial poems—"Religio Laici" and "The Hind and Panther." The chief power of the former is in its admirable combination of two things, often dissociated—reason and rhyme; and its chief interest lies in the light it casts upon Dryden's uncertainty of religious view. The thought has little originality, the versification less varied music than is his wont, and no passage of transcendent power occurs. Far more faulty in plan, and far more unequal, is "The Hind and Panther;" but it has, on the other hand, many passages of amazing eloquence—some satirical pictures equal to anything in "Absalom and Achitophel"—some vivid natural descriptions; and even the absurdities of the fable, and the sophistries of the argument add to its character as the most exquisitely perverted piece of ingenuity in the language. Nothing but high genius, very vigorously exerted, could reconcile us to a story so monstrous, and to reasoning so palpably one-sided and weak.
His Epistles are of divers merit, but all discover Dryden's usual sense, sarcastic observation, and sweeping force of style. The best are that to Sir Godfrey Kneller—remarkable for its knowledge of, and graceful tribute to, the "serene and silent art" of painting; and the very noble epistle addressed to Congreve, which reminds you of one giant hand of genius held out to welcome and embrace another. Gross flatterer as Dryden often was, there is something in this epistle that rings true, and the emotion in it you feel even all his powers could never have enabled him to counterfeit. Such generous patronage of rising, by acknowledged merit, was as rare then as it is still. The envy of the literary man too often crowns his gray hairs with a chaplet of nightshade, and pours its dark poison into the latest cup of existence.
His "Annus Mirabilis" is another instance of perverted power, and ingenuity astray. Written in that bad style he found prevalent in his early days—the style of the metaphysical poets, Cowley, Donne, and Drayton—the author ever and anon soars out of his trammels into strong and simple poetry, fervid description, and in one passage—that about the future fortunes of London—into eloquent prophecy. The fire of London is vigorously pictured, but its breath of flame should have burned up petty conceit and tawdry ornament. He should have sternly daguerreotyped the spectacle of the capital of the civilised world burning—a spectacle awful, not only in the sight of men, but, as Hall says of the French Revolution, in that of superior beings. We need not dwell on the far-famed absurdities which the poem contains—about God turning a "crystal pyramid into a broad extinguisher" to put out the fire—of the ship compared to a sea-wasp floating on the waves—and of men in the fight killed by "aromatic splinters" from the Spice Islands! Criticism has long ago said its best and its worst about these early escapades of a writer whose taste, to the last, was never commensurate with his genius.
His Translations we have not included in this edition, as we reserve them, along with other masterpieces of translated verse, for a separate issue afterwards. That of the "Art of Poetry," sometimes included in editions of his works, was not his, but only revised by him. We may say here, in general, however, that although there are more learned and more correct translators than Dryden, there are few who have produced versions so vigorous, so full of exuberant life, and, in those parts of the authors suitable to the peculiarities of the translator's own genius, so faithful to their spirit and soul, if not to their letter and their body, as he. Parts of Virgil he does not translate well; he has no sympathy with Maro's elegance, concinnitas, chaste grandeur, and minute knowledge of nature; but wherever Virgil begins to glow and gallop, Dryden glows and gallops with him; and wherever Virgil is nearest Homer, Dryden is nearest him.
We have reserved to the close his Fables, as, on the whole, forming the culmination of Dryden the artist, if not, perhaps, of Dryden the poet. In preparing his poems for publication, how refreshing we found it to pass from a needful although cursory perusal of his plays, and a revision of his prologues, to these comparatively pure, right-manly, and eloquent compositions—the fables of Dryden! We do not, because it would be hardly fair, with Wordsworth, seek to compare them with the Chaucerian originals—a comparison under which they would be infallibly crushed. We prefer looking at them as bearing only the relation to Chaucer which Macpherson's, did to the original, Ossian. And regarding them in this light, as adaptations, where the original author furnishes only the ground-work, they are surely masterpieces and models of composition, if not exemplars of creative power and genius. How free and majestic their numbers! How bold and buoyant their language! How interesting the stories they tell! How perfect the preservation, and artful the presentment, of the various characters! What a fine chivalrous spirit breathes in "Palamon and Arcite!" What a soft yet purple, pure yet gorgeous, light of love hovers over the "Flower and the Leaf!"—the only poem of Dryden's in which—thanks perhaps to his master, Chaucer—the poet discovers the slightest perception of that