judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy, which
collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the superiority must, with
some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred, that of
this poetical vigour Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more;
for every other writer, since Milton, must give place to Pope: and even
of Dryden it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has
not better poems. Dryden's performances were always hasty, either
excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he
composed without consideration, and published without correction. What
his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that
he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled
him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to
accumulate all that study might produce, or chance might supply. If the
flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the
wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope the heat is
more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope
never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and
Pope with perpetual delight."[7]

As the eighteenth century advanced, the difference between the styles of
these celebrated authors became yet more manifest. It was then obvious,
that though Pope's felicity of expression, his beautiful polish of
sentiment, and the occasional brilliancy of his wit, were not easily
imitated, yet many authors, by dint of a good ear, and a fluent
expression, learned to command the unaltered sweetness of his melody,
which, like a favourite tune, when descended to hawkers and
ballad-singers, became disgusting as it became common. The admirers of
poetry then reverted to the brave negligence of Dryden's versification,
as, to use Johnson's simile, the eye, fatigued with the uniformity of a
lawn, seeks variety in the uncultivated glade or swelling mountain. The
preference for which Dennis, asserting the cause of Dryden, had raved
and thundered in vain, began, by degrees, to be assigned to the elder
bard; and many a poet sheltered his harsh verses and inequalities under
an assertion that he belonged to the school of Dryden. Churchill--

"Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind,"--

Churchill was one of the first to seek in the "Mac-Flecknoe," the
"Absalom," and "The Hind and