In th' English fleet each ship resounds with joy,
And loud applause of their great leader's fame :
In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy,

And, flumbering, fmile at the imagin'd flame.

Not fo the Holland fleet, who, tir'd and done,
Stretch'd on their decks, like weary oxen die;
Faint fweats all down their mighty members run,
(Vast bulks, which little fouls but ill fupply).

In dreams they fearful precipices tread,

Or, fhipwreck'd, labour to fome distant shore: Or, in dark churches, walk among the dead;

They wake with horror, and dare fleep no more.

It is a general rule in poetry, that all appropriated terms of art fhould be funk in general expreffions, because poetry is to fpeak an univerfal language. This rule is ftill ftronger with regard to arts not liberal, or confined to few, and therefore far removed from common knowledge; and of this kind, certainly, is technical navigation. Yet Dryden was of opinion, that a fea-fight ought to be described in the nautical language; "and certainly," fays he, "as thofe, who "in a logical difputation keep to general terms, would hide a fallacy, fo those who do it in poetical de"fcription would veil their ignorance."

Let us then appeal to experience; for by experience at laft we learn as well what will please as what will profit. In the battle, his terms feem to have been blown away; but he deals them liberally in the dock :

So here fome pick out bullets from the fide,
Some drive old okum thro' each feam and rift:
Their left hand does the calking-iron guide,
The rattling mallet with the right they lift.

With boiling pitch another near at hand

(From friendly Sweden brought) the feams in-flops; Which, well laid o'er, the falt-fea waves withftand, And fhake them from the rifing beak in drops.

Some the gall'd ropes with dawby marling bind,
Or fear-cloth mafts with strong tarpawling coats :
To try new hrouds one mounts into the wind, ́
And one below their ease or fuiffness notes.

I fuppofe there is not one term which every reader does not with away.

His digreffion to the original and progrefs of navigation, with his profpect of the advancement which it fhall receive from the Royal Society, then newly inftituted, may be confidered as an example feldom equalled of feasonable excurfion and artful return.

One line, however, leaves me difcontented; he fays, that, by the help of the philofophers,

Inftructed fhips fhall fail to quick commerce,
By which remoteft regions are allied,—

Which he is constrained to explain in a note "by a "more exact measure of longitude." It had better become Dryden's learning and genius to have laboured fcience into poetry, and have fhewn, by explaining longitude, that verfe did not refufe the ideas of philofophy.

His defcription of the Fire is painted by refolute meditation, out of a mind better formed to reason than to feel. The conflagration of a city, with all its tumults of concomitant diftrefs, is one of the moft dreadful spectacles which this world can offer to human eyes; yet it feems to raise little emotion in the breaft of the poet; he watches the flame coolly from

from ftreet to ftreet, with now a reflection, and now a fimile, till at last he meets the King, for whom he makes a speech, rather tedious in a time so busy; and then follows again the progrefs of the fire. There are, however, in this part fome paffages that deserve attention; as in the beginning;

The diligence of trades and noiseful gain,
And luxury, more late, asleep were laid!
All was the Night's, and in her filent reign
No found the rest of Nature did invade
In this deep quiet-

The expreffion "All was the Night's" is taken from Seneca, who remarks on Virgil's line,

Omnia noctis erant, placida composta quiete,

that he might have concluded better,

Omnia noctis erant,

The following quatrain is vigorous and animated;

The ghosts of traitors from the bridge descend
With bold fanatick spectres to rejoice;

About the fire into a dance they bend,

And fing their fabbath notes with feeble voice.

His prediction of the improvements which shall be made in the new city is elegant and poetical, and with an event which Poets cannot always boaft has been happily verified. The poem concludes with a fimile that might have better been omitted.

Dryden, when he wrote this poem, feems not yet fully to have formed his verfification, or fettled his fyftem of propriety.

From

From this time he addicted himself almost wholly to the ftage," to which," fays he, “my genius "never much inclined me," merely as the most profitable market for poetry. By writing tragedies in rhyme, he continued to improve his diction and his numbers. According to the opinion of Harte, who had ftudied his works with great attention, he fettled his principles.of verfification in 1676, when he produced the play of Aureng Zebe; and according to his own account of the short time in which he wrote Tyrannick Love, and The State of Innocence, he foon obtained the full effect of diligence, and added facility to exactness.

Rhyme has been fo long banished from the theatre, that we know not its effects upon the paffions of an audience: but it has this convenience, that fentences ftand more independent on each other, and ftriking paffages are therefore cafily felected and retained. Thus the description of Night in The Indian Emperor, and the rife and fall of empire in The Conquest of Granada, are more frequently repeated than any lines in All for Love, or Don Sebaftian.

To fearch his plays for vigorous fallies and fententious elegances, or to fix the dates of any little pieces which he wrote by chance, or by folicitation, were labour too tedious and minute.

His dramatick labours did not fo wholly abforb his thoughts, but that he promulgated the laws of translation in a preface to the English Epiftles of Ovid; one of which he tranflated himself, and another in conjunction with the Earl of Mulgrave.

Abfalom

Abfalom and Achitophel is a work fo well known, that a particular criticifm is fuperfluous. If it be confidered as a poem political and controverfial, it will be found to comprife all the excellences of which the fubject is fufceptible; acrimony of cenfure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of characters, variety and vigour of fentiment, happy turns of language, and pleafing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to fuch a height as can scarcely be found in any other English compofition.

It is not, however, without faults; fome lines are inelegant or improper, and too many are irreligiously licentious. The original structure of the poem was defective; allegories drawn to great length will always break; Charles could not run continually parallel with David.

The fubject had likewise another inconvenience: it admitted little imagery or defcription; and a long poem of mere fentiments easily becomes tedious; though all the parts are forcible, and every line kindles new rapture, the reader, if not relieved' by the interpofition of fomething that fooths the fancy, grows weary of admiration, and defers the

reft.

As an approach to the hiftorical truth was neceffary, the action and catastrophe were not in the poet's power; there is therefore an unpleafing difproportion between the beginning and the end. We are alarmed by a faction formed of many fects, various in their principles, but agreeing in their purpose of mischief, formidable for their numbers, and strong by their fupports; while the King's friends are few and weak. The chiefs on either

part