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 eonfide in, He 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. 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 merit 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 declaimel 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, hereafter 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 bastard pleasure 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 mind; but the author can give the stage no better than what was given him by nature; and the actors must represent such things as they are capable to perform, and by which both they and the scribbler may get their living. After all, it is a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness. Beasts can weep when they suffer, but they cannot laugh.' His remarks on Invention are more to the purpose : "The principal parts of painting and poetry next follow. Invention is the first part, and absolutely necessary to them both; yet no rule ever was or ever can be given, how to compass it. A happy genius is the gift of nature it depends on the influence of the stars, say the astrologers; on the organs of the body, say the naturalists; it is the particular gift of heaven, say the divines, both Christians and heathens. How to improve it, many books can teach us; how to obtain it, none; that nothing can be done without it, all agree— Tu nihil invita dices faciesve Minerva. Without invention, a painter is but a copier, and a poet but a plagiary of others. Both are allowed sometimes to copy, and translate; but as our author tells you, that is not the best part of their reputation. 'Imitators are but a servile kind of cattle,' says the poet; or at best, the keepers of cattle for other men: they have nothing which is properly their own: that is a sufficient mortification for me, while I am translating Virgil. But to copy the best author, is a kind of praise, if I perform it as I ought; as a copy after Raffaelle is more to be commended than an original of any indifferent painter.” And yet, on principle, he was opposed to unnecessary digressions on the larger scale : As in the composition of a picture the painter is to take care that. nothing enter into it which is not proper or convenient to the subject, so likewise is the poet to reject all incidents which are foreign to his poem and are naturally no parts of it; they are wens and other excrescences, which belong not to the body, but deform it. No person, no incident in the piece or in the play, but must be of use to carry on the main design. All things else are like six fingers to the hand, when nature, which is superfluous in nothing, can do her work with five. A painter must reject all trifling ornaments, so must a poet refuse all tedious and unnecessary descriptions. A role which is too heavy is less an ornament than a burthen. We might expect to find the prose diction of a poet highly coloured, and profusely embellished with imagery. Dryden's is the reverse of this-familiar, clear, vigorous, and full of epigrammatic point. "I have endeavoured," he says, "to write English as near as I could distinguish it from the tongue of pedants and that of affected travellers." He expressly apologises for the "poetical expressions" in his translation of Du Fresnoy; he "dares not promise that some of them are not fustian, or at least highly metaphorical," but the fault lay with the original. There is little geniality in his style; he knew as well as any body where his power lay, and he said of himself that "he could write severely with more ease than he could write gently." When he girds on his sword for a sarcastic onslaught, he goes to work with all his heart. In the controversy with Stillingfleet, his intense feeling sometimes betrays him into bare unadorned abuse; he calls his adversary, by comparison with "the meekness, devotion, and sincerity" of the pious lady's declaration, “disingenuous, foul-mouthed, and shuffling." But this is a passage of exceptional heat; most of the sarcasm is clothed in fresh and splendid language, and takes the form of rough but brilliant wit, throwing his tamer rival into the shade: indeed, had his cause not been so hopelessly unpopular, the attack would have been overwhelming. OTHER WRITERS. THEOLOGY. The most eminent divine in the early part of this period was Isaac Barrow (1630-1677), a man of extremely fertile and versatile talents. He was the son of a linen-draper in London. In 1649 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and for some time thereafter studied medicine. In 1652 he was a candidate for the Greek Professorship, but was disappointed. He then spent some years in travelling along the shores of the Mediterranean. In 1660 he again tried for the same post, and was successful. He had been but two years Professor of Greek when he discovered his preference for mathematics by accepting the Professorship of Geometry in Gresham College. In 1663 he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in Cambridge. In 1669, having not yet found his life-work, he vacated his professorship in favour of his pupil Isaac Newton, and thereafter devoted himself exclusively to divinity. In 1670 he was made D.D. by royal mandate, receiving at the time a high compliment from the lips of the King. In 1672 he was nominated to the Mastership of Trinity. He published several mathematical works in Latin. His English writings are all theological, consisting of seventyseven Sermons; Expositions of the Apostles' Creed, The Lord's Prayer, The Decalogue, &c.; a Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy;' and a 'Discourse concerning the Unity of the Church.’ "He was in person of the lesser size, and lean; of extraordinary strength, of a fair and calm complexion, a thin skin, very sensible of the cold; his eyes grey, clear, and somewhat short-sighted; his hair of a light auburn, very fine and curling." He was abstracted in his manner, and of slovenly habits. Anecdotes are told of his personal courage and presence of mind. He was a great smoker, and an immoderate eater of fruit. He died of fever, to which he was subject. The most striking things in his sermons are the extraordinary copiousness and vigour of the language, and the ex haustiveness and subtlety of the thought. He is a perfect mine of varied and vigorous expression. His sentences are thrown up with a rough careless vigour; an extreme antithesis to the polished flow of language and ideas in Addison. In his love of scrupulous definitions and qualifications we discover the mathematician; he divides and subdivides with Baconian minuteness, and in drawing parallels adjusts the compared particulars with acute exactness. The simple and felicitous diction of John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury (1630-1694), was praised by Dryden and by Addison, and long held up as a model.1 Born in Yorkshire, of Puritan parents, he was educated at Cambridge, submitted to the Act of Uniformity in 1662, and entered the Church. Going to London in 1663, his preaching soon drew attention, and he was rapidly promoted. At the Revolution he was made Dean of St Paul's, and in 1691 was raised to the supreme height of ecclesiastical dignity. He was a man of great moderation and good sense, without excitability or enthusiasm, "loving neither the ceremony nor the trouble of a great place." Though he received preferment in the reign of Charles, he was not an extravagant royalist: his wife was the niece of Oliver Cromwell, and daughter-in-law of Bishop Wilkins. Ready to serve his friends, he was literary executor to Wilkins and to Barrow, gave an opinion on Burnet's History of the Reformation' before it was published, and edited the 'Discourses' of Dr Hezekiah Burton. A good, easy, clear-headed man, with not a little of the character of Paley. The merits of his style are simplicity, and a happy fluency in the choice and combination of words. He probably had no small influence in forming the style of Addison. The defects are considerable. In his easy way he lingers upon an idea, and gives two or three expressions where one would serve the purpose; passing on, he rambles back again, and presents the idea in several other different aspects. The result is an enfeebling tautology and want of method. Taken individually, the expressions are admirably easy and felicitous; but there are too many of them, and they are ill arranged. Edward Stillingfleet (1635-1699), made Bishop of Worcester in 1689, was much before the public as a controversialist during this period. He fought against Atheists, Unitarians, Papists, and Dissenters, and rendered distinguished service to his cause. His bestknown engagements were with Dryden and Locke. Against Dryden, though far inferior in style, he had the best of the argument; 1 Dryden is said to have "owned with pleasure that if he had any talent for English prose it was owing to his having often read the writings of Archbishop Tillotson." This is but a random compliment; Dryden showed his talent for English prose before Tillotson had published a line, and long before he became famous. Y |