'Gan thunder, and both ends1 of heaven; the clouds2
From many a horrid rift abortive poured
Fierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire
In ruin3 reconciled; nor slept the winds
Within their stony caves, but rushed abroad
From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vexed wilderness, whose tallest pines,
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks,
Bowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer. Ill wast thou shrouded5 then,
O patient Son of God, yet only stood'st
Unshaken nor yet stayed the terror there;
Infernal ghosts, and hellish furies round

Environed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked:
Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou

Satst unappalled in calm and sinless peace.
Thus passed the night so foul, till morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps in amices grey,
Who with a radiant finger stilled the roar
Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the winds,
And grisly spectres, which the fiend had raised
To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.
And now the sun, with more effectual beams,
Had cheered the face of earth, and dried the wet
From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds
Who all things now behold more fresh and green,
After a night of storms so ruinous,

Cleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray,
To gratulate the sweet return of morn.

(1) Both ends, &c.—. e. East and West. This and the last expression taken together imply, of course, that the thunder rolled all around.

(2) The clouds, &c.-i. e. the clouds from many a dreadful fissure (“rift ”) or opening in the sky, precipitately and with supernatural vehemence ("abortive") poured down their torrents.

(3) Ruin-used here in the original sense of the Latin ruina, downfall; the sense, therefore, is-water and fire, two incongruous elements, were united in the one object of rushing down upon the earth.

(4) Stony caves-in allusion to the story of Æolus (see "Eneid ").

(5) Shrouded-sheltered; an ancient use of the word (see p. 258, note 3). (6) Amice-literally, a sacerdotal habiliment used in the Romish Church-here employed in the general sense of a garment or robe.

(7) Sweet return, &c.--"The preceding description," remarks Dr. Warton, "exhibits some of the finest lines which Milton has written in all his poems."

A A

DRYDEN.

PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-John Dryden, the founder of what is by some called the artificial style of English Poetry, was born in 1631, at Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire. His father, who was a gentleman of some property, gave his son the benefit of a learned education, by placing him under the famous Dr. Busby, at Westminster School. He thence removed, in 1650, to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he resided three years after taking his degree of Master of Arts. In early life he was a friend and visitor of Milton, and seems to have been generally attached to the party of Cromwell, on whose death he wrote some highly eulogistic stanzas. The versatility, however, of his principles, was clearly evinced by the publication shortly afterwards of courtly strains of fulsome adulation in honour of Charles II. In 1666, he married Lady Eliza. beth Howard, an alliance-like that subsequently formed by Addison with a lady of rank and title-which very little promoted the happiness of the poet. For some years before, and long after this epoch, he wrote for the stage. In 1668, he was appointed Poet Laureate, but appears at this time in the ranks of the political adversaries of the king's or high court party. Subsequently, with more ease than honour, he passed directly over to those whom he had previously assailed, and discovered for their benefit his powerful but hitherto unappreciated vein of satire, by writing the famous poem of " Absalom and Achitophel," which was soon succeeded by others of the same character. On the accession of James II., we find Dryden with suspicious, though in his case not remarkable, flexibility, attaching himself to the Roman Catholic Church. the Revolution all his prospects were overclouded, and for the remainder of his life he was compelled to depend upon his literary labours for the means of subsistence. He died on the 1st of May, 1700, at his house in Gerard Street, London, and was buried at Westminster Abbey, between Chaucer and Cowley.

At

PRINCIPAL WORKS.-Dryden's most important miscellaneous Annus Mirabilis,' poems are Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew," and " Alexander's Feast;" of his dramatical works, the only two now considered above mediocrity are "Don Sebastian," and "All for Love;" as satires, "Absalom and Achitophel," the Medal," and "Mac-Flecnoe," are best known, and perhaps "Religio Laici," and the "Hind and the Panther," may be referred to

66

the same head. He translated the whole of Virgil, and paraphrased and modernised several of Chaucer's and Boccacio's tales.

CHARACTERISTIC SPIRIT AND STYLE.-"Dryden and Pope are the great masters of the artificial style of poetry in our language, as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspere, and Milton, were of the natural; and though this artificial style is generally and very justly acknowledged to be inferior to the other, yet those who stand at the head of that class ought, perhaps, to rank higher than those who occupy an inferior place in a superior class."

"He [Dryden] is a writer of manly and elastic character. His strong judgment gave force as well as direction to a flexible fancy; and his harmony is generally the echo of solid thoughts. But he was not gifted with intense or lofty sensibility, on the contrary, the grosser any idea is, the happier he seems to expatiate upon it. The transports of the heart, and the deep and varied delineations of the passions, are strangers to his poetry. He could describe character in the abstract, but could not embody it in the drama, for he entered into character more from clear perception than fervid sympathy. This great high priest of all the Nine was not a confessor to the finer secrets of the human breast."2

VERSIFICATION.- "What can be said of his versification will be little more than a dilatation of the praise given it by Pope :

'Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join

The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.'

"Some improvements had been already made in English numbers; but the full force of our language was not yet felt; the verse that was smooth was commonly feeble. If Cowley had sometimes a finished line, he had it by chance. Dryden knew how to choose the flowing and the sonorous words; to vary the pauses, and adjust the accents; to diversify the cadence, and yet preserve the smoothness of his metre."3

(1) Hazlitt. "Lectures," &c., p. 135.

(2) Campbell. "Specimens," &c., Introduction, p. lxxxv.
(3) Johnson. "Lives of the Poets."

CHARACTER OF SHAFTESBURY,

UNDER THE NAME OF ACHITOPHEL.1

Or these2 the false Achitopel3 was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst;
For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,

And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;

Pleased with the danger when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his
age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeathered two legged thing, a son,
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolved to ruin or to rule the State:

(1) From the Satire of "Absalom and Achitophel"-considered by many com petent judges the finest poem of the kind in our language. It was written in 1681, to defend the king, Charles II., against the political factions raised by his own son, the Duke of Monmouth, and his crafty counsellor, the Earl of Shaftesbury.

(2) Of these, &c.-i. e. of those who had factiously risen against the monarch. (3) Achitophel-The character of the original Achitophel, and his connection with Absalom, may be seen in 2 Sam. xvi. 23.

(4) O'er-informed-over-animated (see note 3, p. 130).

(5) Great wits, &c.-Charles Lamb thus controverts the above position :-"The greatest wits," says he, "will ever be found to be the sanest writers. It is impossible for the mind to conceive of a mad Shakspere. The greatness of wit, by which the poetic talent is here chiefly to be understood, manifests itself in the admirable balance of all the faculties. Madness is the disproportionate straining or excess of any one of them."

To compass this, the triple bond1 he broke,
The pillars of the public safety shook,
And fitted Israel2 for a foreign yoke:
Then seized with fear, yet still affecting3 fame,
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.
So easy still it proves, in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes;
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's will!
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own!
Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.4
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin5
With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean;
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress,
Swift of despatch, and easy of access.

Oh! had he been content to serve the crown
With virtues only proper for the gown;
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle,6 that oppressed the noble seed;
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And Heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand;
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
Achitopel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.8

WHENCE but from Heaven could men unskilled in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,

(1) The triple bond-the alliance between England, Sweden, and Holland.

(2) Israel-England.

(3) Affecting-aiming at, seeking after.

(4) Praise the judge-Shaftesbury, as Lord Chancellor, is said to have given wise and impartial judgments, though unfurnished with legal knowledge.

(5) Abethdin-the title of one of the judges of the court of the Sanhedrim here

it means Lord Chancellor.

(6) Cockle-a weed that infests growing corn.

(7) David-Charles II.

(8) From "Religio Laici."