[29]. Mr. Southey is, it is hoped, politically reconciled to Mr. Dryden, since his succession to the Laureatship. Which of these two writers is the better poet, it would be presumptuous in us to determine. We could sooner determine which was the honester man. Mr. Dryden, we believe, never wrote Regicide Sonnets, Jacobin Odes, or Revolutionary Epic Poems. How the Prince must laugh, if he can laugh at any thing. He might as well have made his chaplain his historical painter!
[30]. As a contrast to the story at the beginning of this article, it will be not amiss to mention that of Sir Isaac Newton, on a somewhat similar occasion. He had prepared some papers for the press with great care and study, but happening to leave a lighted candle on the table with them, his dog Diamond overturned the candle, and the labour of several years was destroyed. This great man, on seeing what was done, only shook his head, and said with a smile, ‘Ah, Diamond, you don’t know what mischief you have done!’
[31]. We have an instance in our own times of a man, equally devoid of understanding and principle, but who manages the House of Commons by his manner alone.
[32]. Sheer impudence answers almost the same purpose. ‘Those impenetrable whiskers have confronted flames.’ Many persons, by looking big and talking loud, make their way through the world without any one good quality. We have here said nothing of mere personal qualifications, which are another set-off against sterling merit. Fielding was of opinion that ‘the more solid pretensions of virtue and understanding vanish before perfect beauty.’ ‘A certain lady of a manor’ (says Don Quixote in defence of his attachment to Dulcinea, which however was quite of the Platonic kind), ‘had cast the eyes of affection on a certain squat, brawny lay brother of a neighbouring monastery, to whom she was lavish of her favours. The head of the order remonstrated with her on this preference shown to one whom he represented as a very low, ignorant fellow, and set forth the superior pretensions of himself, and his more learned brethren. The lady having heard him to an end, made answer: All that you have said may be very true; but know, that in those points which I admire, Brother Chrysostom is as great a philosopher, nay greater than Aristotle himself!’ So the Wife of Bath:
‘To church was mine husband borne on the morrow
With neighbours that for him maden sorrow,
And Jenkin our clerk was one of tho:
As help me God, when that I saw him go
After the bier, methought he had a pair
Of legs and feet, so clean and fair,