Of the images which the two following citations afford, the first is elegant, the second magnificent; whether either be just, let the reader judge:
What precious drops are these,
Which silently each other's track pursue,
Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?
———Resign your castle———
—Enter, brave Sir; for, when you speak the word,
The gates shall open of their own accord;
The genius of the place its Lord shall meet,
And bow its towery forehead at your feet.
These bursts of extravagance Dryden calls the "Dalilahs" of the Theatre; and owns that many noisy lines of Maximin and Almanzor call out for vengeance upon him; "but I knew," says he, "that they were bad enough to please, even when I wrote them." There is surely reason to suspect that he pleased himself as well as the audience; and that these, like the harlots of other men, had his love, though not his approbation.
He had sometimes faults of a less generous and splendid kind. He makes, like
