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Waller is characterized with some elegance, but the wish expressed, after the couplet,

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Thy verse can show e'en Cromwell's innocence,
And compliment the storm that bore him hence,"

that his muse had not 66 come an age too soon," but had survived to celebrate "great Nassau" and "his Maria" on the throne, is, to say the least of it, peculiarly unfortunate in its juxtaposition. After a civil salute to Roscommon and Denham on his way, he summons all his powers for those happy lines, once familiar to every reader:

"But see where artful Dryden next appears,

Grown old in rhyme, but charming e'en in years,
Great Dryden next, whose tuneful Muse affords
The sweetest numbers and the fittest words.
Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs

She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears.
If satire or heroic strains she writes,

Her hero pleases and her satire bites.

From her no harsh unartful numbers fall,

She wears all dresses, and she charms in all."

Now that the dramatic works of Dryden are nearly forgotten, while those of Congreve are the only performances of his which keep him in remembrance, it is a kind of surprise to find him proceeding thus:

"How might we fear our English poetry,

That long has flourished, should decay with thee,
Did not the Muse's other hope appear,

Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear:

DRYDEN AND CONGREVE. MONTAGUE.

Congreve! whose fancy's unexhausted store
Has given already much, and promis'd more,
Congreve shall still preserve thy name alive,
And Dryden's Muse shall in his friend survive."

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He

It is perhaps still more extraordinary that Dryden himself, in an address to Congreve on his comedy of the Double Dealer, should have complimented him as the destined future wearer of his own laurel. had as yet published nothing but a novel and two prose comedies, and except that some of his occasional poems, performances, it must be said, of very slender merit, -were probably already printed in the miscellanies, we should be led to imagine that the drama was considered by these high authorities as forming a species of poetry in itself, without regard to the circumstance of its being written in verse or prose. More probably however, this is one of the frequent instances in which the partiality, or flattery, of contemporaries has ventured upon auguries of future success and glory which have been falsified by the event. In this case, we must likewise make allowance for the unusual dearth of poetical genius at the time.

No other dramatists, not even Shakspeare, is found in this scanty catalogue of English poets; but "justice demands," says our author, that "The noble Montague" should not be left unsung, "For wit, for humour and for judgment famed," and who be

sides addressing lord Dorset, "In numbers such as Dorset's self might use," had adorned his lines with the "god-like acts" of the hero of the Boyne. He adds,

"But now to Nassau's secret councils rais'd,
He aids the hero whom before he prais'd."

Possibly we may be allowed to infer from the last couplet, that it was as much to the statesman as the poet that the homage of Addison was in this instance offered. The poem concludes with an expression of the author's intention to quit poetry and prepare to tell of "greater truths."*

It may be interesting to compare with this poem of Addison's, a passage in Garth's Dispensary, written not many years afterwards, indeed, yet when the catalogue of living English poets had already received some important accessions, including that of Addison himself. It will be seen that Congreve and Montague still retained in the estimation of the best contemporary judges a reputation which, as poets, they have totally lost with posterity: so capricious is literary taste, so liable to be affected by temporary or personal considerations.

* All the early pieces of Addison referred to in this chapter, together with his translation from Virgil, and of the story of Salmacis from Ovid were published in the third and fourth vols. of Miscellany Poems. London 1693, 1694. See Wood's Athenæ Oxon. by Bliss, vol. iv. col. 603.

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LINES BY GARTH.

"In sense and numbers if you would excel,
Read Wycherley, consider Dryden well.
In one, what vigorous turns of fancy shine!
In th' other Sirens warble in each line!
If Dorset's sprightly Muse but touch the lyre,
The Smiles and Graces melt in soft desire,
And little Loves confess their am'rous fire.
The gentle Isis claims the ivy crown

To bind th' immortal brows of Addison.
As tuneful Congreve tries his rural strains,
Pan quits the woods, the list'ning Fauns the plains,
And Philomel in notes like his complains;

And Britain since * Pausanias was writ,

Knows Spartan virtue and Athenian wit.

When Stepney paints the godlike acts of kings,

Or what Apollo dictates Prior sings,

The banks of Rhine a pleas'd attention show,
And silver Sequana forgets to flow.

'Tis Montague's rich vein alone must prove, None but a Phidias should attempt a Jove.”

The Dispensary, Cant. iv. 1. 207.

By Mr. Norton.

CHAPTER III.

1695 to 1700.

POEMS ON PUBLIC OCCASIONS WHY GENERALLY FAILURES. LINES OF ADDISON TO THE KING. TO LORD SOMERS, WHO BECOMES HIS PATRON. ACCOUNT OF SOMERS. LATIN POEM ON THE PEACE INSCRIBED TO CHARLES MONTAGUE. ACCOUNT OF HIM. HE PATRONISES ADDISON. ADDISON RELUCTANT TO TAKE ORDERS. DIFFERENT CAUSES ASSIGNED FOR IT. MONTAGUE'S SHARE IN IT. HE AND SOMERS PROCURE HIM A PENSION FROM THE KING TO TRAVEL. PUBLICATION OF MUSE ANGLICANE. ACCOUNT OF HIS LATIN POEMS. HIS CELEBRATION OF DR. BURNET'S THEORY. BOILEAU'S REMARKS ON HIS POEMS. HE SETS OUT ON HIS TRAVELS HIS LETTERS TO SEVERAL FRIENDS. TAKES UP HIS RESIDENCE AT BLOIS. HIS MODE OF LIFE THERE. LETTERS. FRIENDSHIP AND CORRESPONDENCE WITH WORTLEY MONTAGUE. LETTERS TO BISHOP HOUGH AND OTHERS.

It was another of the unfavourable results of that activity of the spirit of literary patronage which, with its causes, has been already adverted to, that it tempted the poets to an injudicious choice of themes. Extraordinary as it may at first sight appear, facts will bear out the assertion, that public events of the day, whatever their nature or magnitude, however agitating to the passions or important to the destinies of a people, have scarcely ever, in a single instance, served for the foundation of an excellent poem.

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