thoughts and rugged metre, some
advances towards nature and harmony had been already made by Waller and
Denham;" but, in distributing the praise of this improvement, he adds, "It
may be doubted whether Waller and Denham could have over-born [_overborne_]
the prejudices which had long prevailed, and which even then were sheltered
by the protection of Cowley. The new versification, as it was called, may
be considered as owing its establishment to Dryden; from whose time it is
apparent that English poetry has had no tendency to relapse to its former
savageness."--_Johnson's Life of Dryden: Lives_, p. 206. To Pope, as the
translator of Homer, he gives this praise: "His version may be said to have
tuned the English tongue; for since its appearance no writer, however
deficient in other powers, has wanted melody."--_Life of Pope: Lives_, p.
567. Such was the opinion of Johnson; but there are other critics who
object to the versification of Pope, that it is "monotonous and cloying."
See, in Leigh Hunt's Feast of the Poets, the following couplet, and a note
upon it:

"But ever since Pope spoil'd the ears of the town
With his cuckoo-song verses half up and half down."

27. The unfortunate Charles I, as well as his father James I, was a lover
and promoter of letters. He was himself a good scholar, and wrote well in
English, for his time: he ascended the throne in 1625, and was beheaded in
1648. Nor was Cromwell himself, with all his religious and military
enthusiasm, wholly insensible to _literary_ merit. This century was
distinguished by the writings of Milton, Dryden, Waller, Cowley, Denham,
Locke, and others; and the reign of Charles II, which is embraced in it,
has been considered by some "the Augustan age of English literature." But
that honour, if it may well be bestowed on any, belongs rather to a later
period. The best works produced in the eighteenth century, are so generally
known and so highly esteemed, that it would be lavish of the narrow space
allowed to this introduction, to speak particularly of their merits. Some
grammatical errors may be found in almost all books; but our language was,
in general, written with great purity and propriety by Addison, Swift,
Pope, Johnson, Lowth, Hume, Horne, and many other celebrated authors who
flourished in the last century. Nor was it much before this period, that
the British writers took any great pains to be accurate in the use of their
own language;

"Late, very