rhyming dialogue too, in which the play was
written, had an imperative and tyrannical sound; and to a foreigner,
ignorant of the language, might have appeared as magnificent as that of
Dryden. But it must raise our admiration, that the witty court of
Charles could patiently listen to a "tale told by an idiot, full of
noise and fury, signifying nothing," and give it a preference over the
poetry of Dryden. The following description of a hail-storm will
vindicate our wonder:

"This morning, as our eyes we upward cast,
The desert regions of the air lay waste.
But straight, as if it had some penance bore,
A mourning garb of thick black clouds it wore.
But on the sudden,
Some aery demon changed its form, and now
That which looked black above looked white below;
The clouds dishevelled from their crusted locks,
Something like gems coined out of crystal rocks.
The ground was with this strange bright issue spread,
As if heaven in affront to nature had
Designed some new-found tillage of its own,
And on the earth these unknown seeds had sown.
Of these I reached a grain, which to my sense
Appeared as cool as virgin-innocence;
And like that too (which chiefly I admired),
Its ravished whiteness with a touch expired.
At the approach of heat, this candid rain
Dissolved to its first element again.

_Muly-H._ Though showers of hail Morocco never see,
Dull priest, what does all this portend to me?

_Ham_. It does portend--

_Muly._ What?

_Ham_. That the fates design--

_Muly_. To tire me with impertinence like thine."

Such were the strains once preferred to the magnificent verses of
Dryden; whose very worst bombast is sublimity compared to them. To prove
which, the reader need only peruse the Indian's account of the Spanish
fleet in the "Indian Emperor," to which the above lines are a parallel;
each being the description of an object familiar to the audience, but
new to the describer. The poet felt the disgraceful preference more
deeply than was altogether becoming; but he had levelled his powers,
says Johnson, when he levelled his desires to those of Settle, and
placed his happiness in the claps of multitudes. The moral may be
carried yet further; for had not Dryden stooped to call to the aid of
his poetry the auxiliaries of scenery, gilded truncheons, and verse of
more noise than meaning, it is impossible his plays could have been
drawn into comparison with those of Settl