fly again to England, and leaving for another hour Shelley and
Hunt and Keats, and Croly and Milman and Heber, and Sterling and Milnes
and Tennyson, with some younger aspirants of our own day; and Gray,
Collins, and Goldsmith, and lesser stars of that constellation, let us
alight on the verge of that famous era when the throne was occupied by
Dryden, and then by Pope--searching still for a Great Poem. Did either
of them ever write one? No--never. Sir Walter says finely of glorious
John,

"And Dryden in immortal strain,
Had raised the Table Round again,
But that a ribald King and Court,
Bade him play on to make them sport,
The world defrauded of the high design,
Profaned the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line."

But why, we ask, did Dryden suffer a ribald king and court to debase and
degrade him, and strangle his immortal strain? Because he was poor! But
could he not have died of cold, thirst, and hunger--of starvation? Have
not millions of men and women done so, rather than sacrifice their
conscience? And shall we grant to a great poet that indulgence which
many a humble hind would have flung with scorn in our teeth, and rather
than have availed himself of it, faced the fagot, or the halter, or the
stake set within the sea-flood? But it is satisfactory to know that
Dryden, though still glorious John, was not a Great Poet. He was seldom
visited by the pathetic or the sublime--else had his genius held fast
its integrity--been ribald to no ribald--and indignantly kicked to the
devil both court and king. But what a master of reasoning in verse! And
of verse what a volume of fire! "The long-resounding march and energy
divine." Pope, again, with the common frailties of humanity, was an
ethereal creature--and played on his own harp with finest taste, and
wonderful execution. We doubt, indeed, if such a finished style has ever
been heard since from any one of the King Apollo's musicians. His
versification may be monotonous, but without a sweet and potent charm
only to ears of leather. That his poetry has no passion is the creed of
critics "of Cambyses' vein;" "Heloise" and "The Unfortunate Lady" have
made the world's heart to throb. As for Imagination, we shall continue
till such time as that Faculty has been distinguished from Fancy, to see
it shining in "The Rape of the Lock," with a lambent lustre; if high
intellect be not dominant in his "Epistles" and his "Essay on Man," you
will look