voluntary effusion; in this, therefore, it might be hoped, that the full effulgence of his genius would be found. But unhappily the subject is rather argumentative than poetical; he intended only a specimen of metrical disputation:

And this unpolish'd rugged verse I chose,
As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose.

This, however, is a composition of great excellence in its kind, in which the familiar is very properly diversified with the solemn, and the grave with the humorous; in which metre has neither weakened the force, nor clouded the perspicuity of argument; nor will it be easy to find another example equally happy in this middle kind of writing, which, though prosaic in some parts, rises to high poetry in others, and neither towers to the skies, nor creeps along the ground.

Of the same kind, or not far distant from it, is the Hind and Panther, the longest of all Dryden's original poems; an allegory intended to comprise and to decide the controversy between the Romanists and Protestants. The scheme of the work is injudicious and incommodious; for what can be more absurd than that one beast should counsel another to rest her faith upon a pope and council? He seems well enough skilled in the usual topics of argument, endeavours to show the necessity of an infallible judge, and reproaches the reformers with want of unity; but is weak enough to ask, why, since we see without knowing how, we may not have an infallible judge without knowing where?

The Hind at one time is afraid to drink at the common brook, because she may be worried; but, walking home with the Panther, talks by the way of the Nicene Fathers, and at last declares herself to be the Catholic Church.

This absurdity was very properly ridiculed in the City Mouse and Country Mouse of Montague and Prior; and in the detection and censure of the incongruity of the fiction chiefly consists the value of their performance, which, whatever reputation it might obtain by the help of temporary passions, seems, to readers almost a century distant, not very forcible or animated.

Pope, whose judgment was perhaps a little bribed by the subject, used to mention this poem as the most correct specimen of Dryden's versification. It was indeed written when he had completely formed his manner, and may be supposed to exhibit, negligence excepted, his deliberate and ultimate scheme of metre.

We may therefore reasonably infer, that he did not approve the perpetual uniformity which confines the sense to couplets, since he has broken his lines in the initial paragraph.

A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged:
Without unspotted, innocent within,

She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds,

And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds

Aim'd at her heart; was often forced to fly,

t And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.

These lines are lofty, elegant, and musical, notwithstanding the interruption of the pause, of which the effect is rather increase of pleasure by variety, than offence by ruggedness.

To the first part it was his intention, he says, "to give the majestic turn of heroic poesy;" and perhaps he might have executed his design not unsuccessfully, had not an opportunity of satire, which he cannot forbear, fallen> sometimes in his way. The character of a Presbyterian, whose emblem is the Wolf, is not very heroically majestic:40 10W

More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race.
Appear with belly gaunt and famish'd face;
Never was so deform'd a beast of grace.

His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears,

Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears,
And pricks up his predestinating ears.

His general character of the other sorts of beasts that never go to church, though sprightly and keen, has, however, not much of heroic poesy:

These are the chief; to number o'er the rest,
And stand like Adam naming every beast,
Were weary work; nor will the Muse describe
A slimy-born, and sun-begotten tribe,
Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound,
In fields their sullen conventicles found.
These gross, half-animated, lumps I leave;
Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive;
But, if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher
Than matter, put in motion, may aspire;
Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay,
So drossy, so divisible are they,

As would but serve pure bodies for allay;
Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things
As only buzz to heaven with evening wings;
Strike in the dark, offending but by chance;
Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance.
They know no being, and but hate a name;
To them the Hind and Panther are the same.

One more instance, and that taken from the narrative part, where style was more in his choice, will show how steadily he kept his resolution of heroic dignity.

For when the herd, sufficed, did late repair
To ferny heaths and to their forest lair,
She made a mannerly excuse to stay,
Proffering the Hind to wait her half the way;
That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk
Might help her to beguile the tedious walk.
With much good-will the motion was embraced,
To chat awhile on their adventures past:
Nor had the grateful Hind so soon forgot
His friend and fellow-sufferer in the plot.
Yet, wondering how of late she grew estranged,
Her forehead cloudy and her count'nance changed,
She thought this hour th' occasion would present
To learn her secret cause of discontent,

Which well she hoped might be with ease redress'd.
Considering her a well-bred civil beast,

And more a gentlewoman than the rest.

After some common talk what rumours ran,

The lady of the spotted muff began..

The second and third parts he professes to have reduced to diction more familiar and more suitable to dispute and conversation; the difference is not, however, very easily perceived; the first has familiar, and the two others have sonorous, lines. The original incongruity runs through the whole; the King is now Cesar, and now the Lion; and the name Pan is given to the Supreme Being.

But when this constitutional absurdity is forgiven, the poem must be confessed to be written with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images; the controversy is embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and enlivened by sallies of invective. Some of the facts to which allusions are made are now

N

become obscure, and perhaps there may be many satirical passages little understood.

As it was by its nature a work of defiance, a composition which would naturally be examined with the utmost acrimony of criticism, it was probably laboured with uncommon attention, and there are, indeed, few negligences in the subordinate parts. The original impropriety, and the subsequent unpopularity of the subject, added to the ridiculousness of its first elements, have sunk it into neglect; but it may be usefully studied, as an example of poetical ratiocination, in which the argument suffers little from the metre.

In the poem on the Birth of the Prince of Wales, nothing is very remarkable but the exorbitant adulation, and that insensibility of the precipice on which the king was then standing, which the laureat apparently shared with the rest of the courtiers. A few months cured him of controversy, dismissed him from court, and made him again a playwright and translator.

Of Juvenal there had been a translation by Stapylton, and another by Holyday; neither of them is very poetical. Stapylton is more smooth; and Holyday's is more esteemed for the learning of his notes. A new version was proposed to the poets of that time, and undertaken by them in conjunction. The main design was conducted by Dryden, whose reputation was such that no man was unwilling to serve the Muses under him.

The general character of this translation will be given, when it is said to preserve the wit, but to want the dignity, of the original. The peculiarity of Juvenal is a mixture of gaiety and stateliness, of pointed sentences, and declamatory grandeur. His points have not been neglected; but his grandeur none of the band seemed to consider as necessary to be imitated, except Creech, who undertook the thirteenth satire. It is therefore perhaps possible to give a better representation of that great satirist, even in those parts which Dryden himself has translated, some passages excepted, which will never be excelled.

With Juvenal was published Persius, translated wholly by Dryden. This work, though like all other productions of Dryden it may have shining parts, seems to have been written merely for wages, in an uniform mediocrity, without any eager endeavour after excellence, or laborious effort of the mind.

There wanders an opinion among the readers of poetry, that one of these satires is an exercise of the school. Dryden says, that he once translated it at school; but not that he preserved or published the juvenile performance.

Not long afterwards he undertook perhaps the most arduous work of its kind, a translation of Virgil, for which he had shown how well he was qualified by his version of the Pollio, and two episodes, one of Nisus and Euryalus, the other of Mezentius and Lausus.

In the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the discriminative excellence of Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, and that of Virgil is grace and splendour of diction. The beauties of Homer are therefore difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained. The massy trunk of sentiment is safe by its solidity, but the blossoms of elocution easily drop away. The author, having the choice of his own images, selects those which he can best adorn; the translator must, at all hazards, follow his original, and express thoughts which perhaps he would not have chosen. When to this primary difficulty is added the inconvenience of a language so much inferior in harmony to the Latin, it cannot be expected that they who read the Georgic and the Æneid should be much delighted with any version.

All these obstacles Dryden saw, and all these he determined to encounter. The expectation of his work was undoubtedly great; the nation considered its honour as interested in the event. One gave him the different editions of

his author, another helped him in the subordinate parts. The arguments of the several books were given him by Addison.

The hopes of the public were not disappointed. He produced, says Pope. "the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language." It certainly excelled whatever had appeared in English, and appears to have satisfied his friends, and, for the most part, to have silenced his enemies. Milbourne, indeed, a clergyman, attacked it; but his outrages seem to be ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than bad poetry can excite, and previously resolved not to be pleased.

His criticism extends only to the Preface, Pastorals, and Georgics; and, e professes to give his antagonist an opportunity of reprisal, he has added own version of the first and fourth Pastorals, and the first Georgic. The world has forgotten his book; but, since his attempt has given him a place in literary history, I will preserve a specimen of his criticism, by inserting his remarks on the invocation before the first Georgic, and of his poetry, by annexing his own version.

Ver. 1.

"What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn
The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn.

It's unlucky, they say, to stumble at the threshold: but what has a plenteous harvest to do here? Virgil would not pretend to prescribe rules for that which depends not on the husbandman's care, but the disposition of Heaven altogether. Indeed, the plenteous crop depends somewhat on the good method of tillage; and where the land's ill-manured, the corn, without a miracle, can be but indifferent; but the harvest may be good, which is its properest epithet, though the husbandman's skill were never so indifferent. The next sentence is too literal, and when to plough had been Virgil's meaning, and intelligible to everybody; and when to sow the corn is a needless addition.

Ver. 3.

The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine,

And when to geld the lambs, and sheer the swine,

would as well have fallen under the cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit pecori, as Mr. D.'s deduction of particulars.

Ver. 5.

The birth and genius of the frugal bee

I sing, Maecenas, and I sing to thee.

But where did experientia ever signify birth and genius ? or what ground was there for such a figure in this place? How much more manly is Mr. Ogilby's version !

What makes rich grounds, in what celestial signs
'Tis good to plough, and marry elms with vines;
What best fits cattle, what with sheep agrees,
And several arts improving frugal bees

I sing, Mæcenas.

;

Which four lines, though faulty enough, are yet much more to the purpose than Mr. D.'s six.

Ver. 22.

From fields and mountains to my song repair.

For patrium linquens nemus, saltusque Lycai-Very well explained! Ver. 23, 24.

Inventor Pallas, of the fattening oil,

Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman's toil !

Written as if these had been Pallas's invention. The ploughman's toil's impertinent.

Ver. 25.

-The shroud-like cypress --

Why shroud-like? Is a cypress, pulled up by the roots, which the sculpture in the last Eclogue fills Silvanus's hand with, so very like a shroud? Or did not Mr. D. think of that kind of cypress used often for scarves and hat bands at funerals formerly, or for widows' veils, &c.? if so, 'twas a deep, good thought.

Ver. 26.
That wear

The royal honours, and increase the year.

What's meant by increasing the year? Did the gods or goddesses add more months, or days, or hours, to it? Or how can arva tueri signify to wear rural honours? Is this to translate, or abuse an author? The next couplet is borrowed from Ogilby, I suppose, because less to the purpose than ordinary.

Ver. 33.

The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard.

Idle, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense of the precedent couplet; so again, he interpolates Virgil with that and the round circle of the year to guide powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st around; a ridiculous Latinism, and an impertinent addition; indeed the whole period is but one piece of absurdity and nonsense, as those who lay it with the original must find. Ver. 42, 43.

And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the seas.

Was he consul or dictator there?

And watery virgins for thy bed shall strive.

Both absurd interpolations.

Ver. 47, 48.

Where in the void of Heaven a place is free.

Ah happy D--n, were that place for thee!

But where is that void? Or, what does our translator mean by it? He knows what Ovid says God did to prevent such a void in Heaven; perhaps this was then forgotten: but Virgil talks more sensibly.

Ver. 49.

The scorpion ready to receive thy laws.

No, he would not then have gotten out of his way so fast.

Ver. 56.

Though Proserpine affects her silent seat.

What made her then so angry with Ascalaphus, for preventing her return? She was now mused to Patience under the determinations of Fate, rather *han fond of her residence.

Ver. 61, 62, 63.

Which is such a wretched perversion of Virgil's noble thought as Vicars would have blush'd at; but Mr. Ogilby makes us some amends, by his better lines:

O wheresoe'er thou art, from thence incline,
And grant assistance to my bold design!
Pity, with me, poor husbandmen's affairs,
And now, as if translated, hear our prayers.

This is sense, and to the purpose: the other, poor mistaken stuff."

Such were the strictures of Milbourne, who found few abettors, and of