resistance, as little fords; and in short, the very heart of a nation, so valiant of old against Rome, so obstinate against Spain, now subdued, and in a manner abandoning all before their danger appeared: we may justly have our recourse to the secret and fixed periods of all human greatness, for the account of such a revolution; or rather to the unsearchable decrees and irresistible force of divine providence; though it seems not more impious to question it, than to measure it by our scale; or reduce the issues and motions of that eternal will and power to a conformity with what is esteemed just, or wise, or good, by the usual consent or the narrow comprehension of poor mortal men.' Pathos.-In his grave treatises he is too composed and stately for the lively expression of affection, sorrow, or a fresh sense of beauty. Yet he never passes by a touching occasion without some sign of feeling. The mood of the writer appears in the temperate and refined mournfulness of the language. Thus "The noblest spirit of genius in the world, if it falls, though never so bravely, in its first enterprises, cannot deserve enough of mankind to pretend to so great a reward as the esteem of heroic virtue. And yet perhaps many a person has died in the first battle or adventure he achieved, and lies buried in silence and oblivion; who, had he outlived as many dangers as Alexander did, might have shined as bright in honour and fame." "When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over. Wit.-As under Strength passages may be singled out where the grave vigour and dignity of his style gains the ascendancy, and soars into a loftier strain, so under Wit we may single out passages where his pointed animation gains the ascendancy, and becomes keener and more sparkling. He is too grave and temperate to turn anybody or anything into violent ridicule. The fine flavour of polished wit is always uppermost. The following is an example: "A man that tells me my opinions are absurd or ridiculous, impertinent or unreasonable, because they differ from his, seems to intend a quarrel instead of a dispute, and calls me fool or madman with a little more circumstance, though, perhaps, I pass for one as well in my senses as he, as pertinent in talk, and as prudent in life; yet these are the common civilities, in religious argument, of sufficient and conceited men, who talk much of right reason, and mean always their own; and make their private imagination the measure of general truth. But such language determines all between us, and the dispute comes to end in three words at last, which it might as well have ended in at first, That he is in the right, and I am in the wrong. Examples of his more genial point are to be found chiefly in his letters. The essay on the "Cure of the Gout" is written in a sprightly vein. For example : "All these things put together, with what a great physician writes of cures by whipping with rods, and another with holly, and by other cruel ties of cutting and burning, made me certainly conclude, that the gout was a companion that ought to be treated like an enemy, and by no means like a friend, and that grew troublesome chiefly by good usage; and this was confirmed to me by considering that it haunted usually the easy and the rich, the nice and the lazy, who grow to endure much, because they can endure little; that make much of it as soon as it comes, and yet leave not making much of themselves too; that take care to carry it presently to bed, and keep it safe and warm, and indeed lay up the gout for two or three months, while they give out that the gout lays up them. On the other side it hardly approaches the rough and the poor, such as labour for meat, and eat only for hunger; that drink water, either pure or but discoloured with malt; that know no use of wine, but for a cordial, as it is, and perhaps was only intended: or if such men happen by their native constitutions to fall into the gout, either they mind it not at all, having no leisure to be sick; or they use it like a dog, they walk on, or they toil and work as they did before, they keep it wet and cold; or if they are laid up, they are perhaps forced by that to fast more than before, and if it lasts, they grow impatient, and fall to beat it, or whip it, or cut it, or burn it; and all this while, perhaps, never know the very name of gout." If Taste. As might be inferred from his character, our author's style is very highly refined. Affectation of terms or phrases, abruptness, extravagance, maudlin sentimentality, coarse invective, are as foreign as may be to his characteristic manner. the standard of a good English style is the style that shall please the majority of educated Englishmen, he errs on the side of too great refinement. In many respects he is a contrast to Macaulay, still more to Carlyle. KINDS OF COMPOSITION. Narrative. In a preface to the third part of Temple's 'Memoirs,' Swift claims him as the first Englishman "(at least of any consequence) who ever attempted that manner of writing." Though it is a personal record, the style, as already noticed, is not gossiping and diffuse, but on the contrary compact and brief to the verge of abstruseness. As the principal actor in some of the transactions, he had exceptional advantages for knowing the hidden springs of events. At one time he intended to write a History of England, having often felt the want of a good general history, and being far from satisfied with the Chroniclers. Obliged by pressure of other employments to abandon this design, he completed an 'Introduction to the History of England,' "from the first originals, as far as he could find any ground of probable story, or of fair conjecture," "through the great and memorable changes of names, people, customs, and laws that passed here, until the end of the first Norman reign." The work is instructive, abounding in sagacious criticism of social and political institutions. It is interesting to contrast his views of history with Macaulay's : "I have likewise omitted the accounts and remarks wherein some writers have busied their pens, of strange comets, inclemencies of seasons, raging diseases, or deplorable fires that are said to have happened in this age and kingdom; and are represented by some as judgments of God upon the king's reign, because I rather esteem them accidents of time or chance, such as happen in one part or other of the world, perhaps every age, at some periods of time, or from some influence of stars, or by the conspiring of some natu ral or casual circumstances, and neither argue the virtues or vices of princes, nor serve for example or instruction to posterity, which are the great ends of history, and ought to be the chief care of all historians." His 'Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands' is an example of a conspectus, or general view of a state of society in all its parts at a particular time. It is a model of painstaking observation and search, and is full of sagacious remarks. After recounting the rise and progress of the Federation, he delineates their condition towards 1672 under six heads :-their Government, their Situation, their People and Dispositions, their Religion, their Trade, their Forces and Revenues. The performance is very different from the third chapter of Macaulay's History. It is as severely didactic and thorough as Macaulay's is pictorial and superficial. JOHN DRYDEN, 1631-1700. From the beginning to the end of his poetical career, Dryden, not content to leave his works to the chances of criticism, loved to defend in prose his principles of composition, and issued hardly anything without an apologetic or explanatory preface or dedication. In this casual form he has left some ingenious special pleading for his own practice, as well as many valuable remarks on his predecessors, and interesting comparisons of the most eminent names. Besides these stray pieces, he published, in 1668, a formal Essay of Dramatic Poesy'-"a little discourse in dialogue, for the most part borrowed from the observations of others" which, says Johnson, "was the first regular and valuable treatise on the art of writing." It is now interesting chiefly for its defence of rhyming in tragedies-a style abandoned in the author's later works. It also contains some clever argument in favour of the superiority of modern to ancient playwriters. After his conversion to the Catholic Church, he was employed by James II. to defend against Stillingfleet a paper found in the strong-box of the deceased king, purporting to be written by the Duchess of York in explanation of her departure from the Protestant faith. In this controversy there was little that could be called argument on either side-it was very much like other controversies of that time, a pitched battle of abuse; and Dryden, in the exuberant and careless "horseplay" of his raillery, laid himself fatally open to the cool retorts of his antagonist. In the list of his prose works are included two translations from the French-Bouhours' 'Life of Francis Xavier' (1687), and Du Fresnoy's 'Art of Painting' (1695). He also wrote the life of Plutarch prefixed to what is known as 'Dryden's Translation' of Plutarch's Lives. But the only prose works of his that are now read are his Prefaces and the Essay of Dramatic Poesy.' The fact that these are still worth reading has been fixed in our minds by Byron's happy doggerel lines— "Read all the Prefaces of Dryden, For these the critics much confide in, Dryden's prose, as well as Temple's, is a marked improvement on the prose of the Commonwealth generation. His expressions have not the curious felicity of Cowley's; but the sentences are much more flowing. He displays to some extent what Dr Blair considered such a beauty in Temple's composition-the "harmonious pause," the measured sentence of several members. He aims very much at antithetic point, reserving emphatic statements for the close of the sentence, and practising occasionally the abrupt introduction of a general statement before its application is known. The peculiarities of his sentence-structure may be studied in the following extract from his Preface to 'Absalom and Achitophel,' published in 1681: in it we see the rudiments of certain abrupt arts of style more fully developed by Johnson and Macaulay : "It is not my intention to make an apology for my poem: some_will think it needs no excuse, and others will receive none. The design, I am sure, is honest; but he who draws his pen for one party must expect to make enemies of the other: for wit and fool are consequents of Whig and Tory; and every man is a knave or an ass to the contrary side. There is a treasury of merits in the Fanatic church, as well as in the Popish, and a pennyworth to be had of saintship, honesty, and poetry, for the lewd, the factious, and the blockheads: but the longest chapter in Deuteronomy has not curses enough for an Anti-Bromingham. My comfort is, their manifest prejudice to my cause will render their judgment of less authority against me. Yet if a poem have genius, it will force its own reception in the world; for there is a sweetness in good verse which tickles even while it hurts; and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleases him against his will. The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted. But I can be satisfied on more easy terms: if I happen to please the more moderate sort, I shall be sure of an honest party, and in all probability of the best judges; for the least concerned are probably the least corrupt. And I confess I have laid in for those, by rebating the satire (where justice would allow it) from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced, at their own cost, that I can write severely with more ease than I can gently. I have but laughed at some men's follies, where I could have declaimed against their vices; and other men's virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes. The violent on both sides will condemn the character of Absalom, as either too favourably or too hardly drawn: but they are not the violent whom I desire to please. The fault, on the other hand, is to extenuate, palliate, and indulge; and, to confess freely, I have endeavoured to commit it. Besides the respect which I owe his birth, I have a greater for his heroic virtues; and David himself could not be more tender of the young man's life than I would be of his reputation. But since the most excellent natures are always the most easy, and, as being such, are the soonest perverted by ill counsels, especially when baited with fame and glory, it is no more a wonder that he withstood not the temptations of Achitophel, than it was for Adam not to have resisted the two devils, the serpent and the woman. clusion of the story I purposely forbore to prosecute, because I could not obtain from myself to show Absalom unfortunate. The frame of it was cut out but for a picture to the waist, and if the draught be so far true, it is as much as I designed. The con "Were I the inventor, who am only the historian, I should certainly conclude the piece with the reconcilement of Absalom to David; and who knows but this may come to pass; things were not brought to an extremity where I left the story; there seems yet to be room left for a composure, here after there may be only for pity. I have not so much as an uncharitable wish against Achitophel, but am content to be accused of a good-natured error, and to hope, with Origen, that the devil himself may at last be saved; for which reason, in this poem, he is neither brought to set his house in order, nor to dispose of his person afterwards as he in wisdom shall think fit.' "" Dryden had no idea of observing paragraph law; his genius was the reverse of methodical. He rambles on, making a point here and a point there, and dashing heartily away from his immediate subject whenever he sees an opening for his vigorous wit. His prose has something of the irregular zigzag lightning vigour and splendour of his verse. Any one reading his prose fragments for the strokes of comprehensive terseness, brilliant epigram, and happy aptness of expression, should be on their guard against the infection of his negligent manner; none should take it for granted that their genius is, like his, sufficient to hide any number of irregularities. The following remarks on Laughter, from his 'Parallel between Poetry and Painting,' prefixed to the translation of Du Fresnoy, exemplify his rather incoherent agglomeration of vigorous sen tences: Laughter is indeed the propriety of a man, but just enough to distinguish him from his elder brother with four legs. It is a kind of bastardpleasure too, taken in at the eyes of the vulgar gazers, and at the ears of the beastly audience. Church painters use it to divert the honest countryman at public prayers, and keep his eyes open at a heavy sermon; and farce scribblers make use of the same noble invention, to entertain citizens, country-gentlemen, and Covent Garden fops. If they are merry all goes well on the poet's side. The better sort go thither too, but in despair of sense and the just images of nature, which are the adequate pleasures of the |