yden alone we have the
sparkle and the heat together. Those great satirists succeeded in
communicating the fervour of their feelings to materials the most
incombustible, and kindled the whole mass into a blaze, at once dazzling
and destructive. We cannot, indeed, think, without regret, of the part
which so eminent a writer as Dryden took in the disputes of that period.
There was, no doubt, madness and wickedness on both sides. But there was
liberty on the one, and despotism on the other. On this point, however,
we will not dwell. At Talavera the English and French troops for a
moment suspended their conflict, to drink of a stream which flowed
between them. The shells were passed across from enemy to enemy without
apprehension or molestation. We, in the same manner, would rather
assist our political adversaries to drink with us of that fountain of
intellectual pleasure, which should be the common refreshment of both
parties, than disturb and pollute it with the havoc of unseasonable
hostilities.

Macflecnoe is inferior to Absalom and Achitophel only in the subject. In
the execution it is even superior. But the greatest work of Dryden was
the last, the Ode on Saint Cecilia's Day. It is the masterpiece of the
second class of poetry, and ranks but just below the great models of the
first. It reminds us of the Pedasus of Achilles--

os, kai thnetos eon, epeth ippois athanatoisi.

By comparing it with the impotent ravings of the heroic tragedies we may
measure the progress which the mind of Dryden had made. He had learned
to avoid a too audacious competition with higher natures, to keep at
a distance from the verge of bombast or nonsense, to venture on no
expression which did not convey a distinct idea to his own mind. There
is none of that "darkness visible" of style which he had formerly
affected, and in which the greatest poets only can succeed. Everything
is definite, significant, and picturesque. His early writings resembled
the gigantic works of those Chinese gardeners who attempt to rival
nature herself, to form cataracts of terrific height and sound, to
raise precipitous ridges of mountains, and to imitate in artificial
plantations the vastness and the gloom of some primeval forest. This
manner he abandoned; nor did he ever adopt the Dutch taste which Pope
affected, the trim parterres, and the rectangular walks. He rather
resembled our Kents and Browns, who imitating the great features of
landscape without emu