ath of
argument which must have conducted him to the fountain of truth, and to
resort with indolence or indifference to the leaky cisterns which had
been hewn out by former critics. But where his pride or his taste are
interested, he shows evidently, that it was not want of the power of
systematising, but of the time and patience necessary to form a system,
which occasions the discrepancy that we often notice in his critical and
philological disquisitions. This power of ratiocination, of
investigating, discovering, and appreciating that which is really
excellent, if accompanied with the necessary command of fanciful
illustration, and elegant expression, is the most interesting quality
which can be possessed by a poet. It must indeed have a share in the
composition of everything that is truly estimable in the fine arts, as
well as in philosophy. Nothing is so easily attained as the power of
presenting the extrinsic qualities of fine painting, fine music, or fine
poetry; the beauty of colour and outline, the combination of notes, the
melody of versification, may be imitated by artists of mediocrity; and
many will view, hear, or peruse their performances, without being able
positively to discover why they should not, since composed according to
all the rules, afford pleasure equal to those of Raphael, Handel, or
Dryden. The deficiency lies in the vivifying spirit, which, like
_alcohol_, may be reduced to the same principle in all, though it
assumes such varied qualities from the mode in which it is exerted or
combined. Of this power of intellect, Dryden seems to have possessed
almost an exuberant share, combined, as usual, with the faculty of
correcting his own conceptions, by observing human nature, the practical
and experimental philosophy as well of poetry as of ethics or physics.
The early habits of Dryden's education and poetical studies gave his
researches somewhat too much of a metaphysical character; and it was a
consequence of his mental acuteness, that his dramatic personages often
philosophised or reasoned, when they ought only to have felt. The more
lofty, the fiercer, the more ambitious feelings, seem also to have been
his favourite studies. Perhaps the analytical mode in which he exercised
his studies of human life tended to confine his observation to the more
energetic feelings of pride, anger, ambition, and other high-toned
passions. He that mixes in public life must see enough of these stormy
convulsions; b