Of such selection there is no end. I will add only a few more passages; of which the first, though it may, perhaps, not be quite clear in prose, is not too obscure for poetry, as the meaning that it has is noble[123]:
No, there is a necessity in fate,
Why still the brave bold man is fortunate;
He keeps his object ever full in sight;
And that assurance holds him firm and right;
True, 'tis a narrow way that leads to bliss,
But right before there is no precipice;
Fear makes men look aside, and so their footing miss.
Of the images which the two following citations afford, the first is elegant, the second magnificent; whether either be just, let the reader judge:
What precious drops are these,
Which silently each other's track pursue,
Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?
Resign your castle——
—Enter, brave sir; for, when you speak the word,
The gates shall open of their own accord;
The genius of the place its lord shall meet,
And bow its tow'ry forehead at your feet.
These bursts of extravagance, Dryden calls the "Dalilahs" of the theatre; and owns that many noisy lines of Maximin and Almanzor call out for vengeance upon him: "but I knew," says he, "that they were bad enough to please, even when I wrote them." There is, surely, reason to suspect that he pleased himself, as well as his audience; and that these, like the harlots of other men, had his love, though not his approbation.
He had, sometimes, faults of a less generous and splendid kind. He makes, like almost all other poets, very frequent use of mythology, and sometimes connects religion and fable too closely without distinction.
He descends to display his knowledge with pedantick ostentation; as when, in translating Virgil, he says, "tack to the larboard,"—and "veer starboard;" and talks, in another work, of "virtue spooning before the wind."—His vanity now and then betrays his ignorance: