Videt et erubit lympha pudica Deum!
"The modest water, awed by power divine,
Beheld its God, and blushed itself to wine."
Dryden's complete works form the largest amount of poetical composition from the pen of one writer, in the English language; and yet he published scarcely anything until he was nearly thirty years of age. From that period he was actively engaged in authorship for forty years, and gave us some of the finest touches of his genius in his second spring of life. Addison wrote of Dryden at this period the following lines:—
"But see where artful Dryden next appears,
Grown old in rhyme, but charming e'en in years;
Great Dryden next, whose tuneful Muse affords
The sweetest numbers and the fittest words.
Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs
She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears;
If satire or heroic strains she writes,
Her hero pleases and her satire bites;
From her no harsh, unartful numbers fall,
She wears all dresses, and she charms in all."
Richard Porson, the profound scholar, linguist, and wit, reared many monuments of classic learning, which have however crumbled away, leaving his name familiar to us only as a writer of jeux d'esprit; but these are admirable. He was full of the sunshine of wit; and though sarcastic and personal, as the nature of his bon-mots compelled, he had no bitterness in his reflections, and uttered them with a good-natured laugh. Wonderful stories are told of his powers of memory. He could repeat several consecutive pages of a book after reading them once. It was he who wrote a hundred epigrams in one night on the subject of Pitt's drinking habit, one of which occurs to us:—
"When Billy found he scarce could stand,
'Help, help!' he cried, and stretched his hand,
To faithful Harry calling.
Quoth he, 'My friend, I'm sorry for't,
'Tis not my practice to support
A minister that's falling.'"
The "faithful Harry" was Dundas, Viscount Melville.
The reply of Pitt to Walpole, March 6, 1741, is one of the finest, most polished, and biting retorts on record: "The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience."
Dr. Gilles, the historian of Greece, and Dr. Porson used often to meet and discuss matters of mutual interest relating to the classics. These interviews were certain to lead to very earnest arguments; Porson was much the better scholar of the two. Dr. Gilles was one day speaking to him of the Greek tragedies and of the Odes of Pindar. "We know nothing," said Gilles, emphatically, "of the Greek metres." Porson answered: "If, Doctor, you will put your observation in the singular number, I believe it will be quite correct." In repartee he was remarkable. "Dr. Porson," said a gentleman with whom he had been disputing,—"Dr. Porson, my opinion of you is most contemptible." "Sir," responded the Doctor promptly, "I never knew an opinion of yours that was not contemptible." Porson was a natural wit, so to speak. Being once at a dinner-party where the conversation turned upon Captain Cook and his celebrated voyages, an ignorant person in order to contribute something towards the conversation asked, "Pray, was Cook killed on his first voyage?" "I believe he was," answered Porson, "though he did not mind it much, but immediately entered upon a second."
The sharpest repartee is both witty and satirical. James II., when Duke of York, made a visit to Milton, prompted by curiosity. In the course of his conversation the Duke said to the poet that he thought his blindness was a judgment of Heaven on him because he had written against Charles I., the Duke's father; whereupon the immortal poet replied: "If your Highness thinks that misfortunes are indexes of the wrath of Heaven, what must you think of your father's tragical end? I have lost my eyes—he lost his head."