be it conceded to the full, as Mr. Bell concedes, that there is nothing of what is called sentiment in Dryden; that he seldom produces any other emotions than those of indignation, ridicule, or surprise; that though he constantly makes you think, he but very rarely makes you feel; and that few and far between are the lines, fewer and farther between the whole passages, that reach the verge of pathos:[1] yet would we insist on a study of this robust piece of English manhood, as profitable for these times, and as one of the likeliest of antidotes to the bane of epidemic laxity, dropsy, flux, or whatever other name the prevalent disease may deserve. How refreshing to turn from the close sick-chamber of the modern Muse, languid and lack-a-daisical, to
—where the pulse of man beats loud and strong
In the frank flow of Dryden's lusty song.[2]
Mr. Bell aptly observes, that while none of our poets have been subjected to more conflicting judgments than Dryden, out of this conflict comes an indestructible fame, commanding the common assent of all. "There must have been a permanent element in his genius to produce this. What was it? In one word—power. This power, inclusive of many modes of excellence, and never failing him in its application, was his great characteristic. A more precise definition might be given; but for a succinct and general answer to the question. What was it that raised Dryden above all his contemporaries, and preserves him on his elevation? this is sufficiently close and comprehensive. He was distinguished, above all things else, for strength of thought, strength of purpose, strength of diction. He was a strong man in verse and prose; bold, energetic, self-reliant, and wide in his reach." This is excellently said, and would have secured the genial critic an illimitable dip into the great man's snuff-box, as he sunned himself in the balcony at Will's. In developing this able and strikingly just characterisation of Dryden, Mr. Bell goes on to say: "Perhaps there was not much tenderness; yet he had a certain manly sweetness at times, that was all the more precious and affecting from its rarity, and because it seemed to come from the depths of his nature. There was real physical passion—undisguised sensuousness; no love. Robust in all things, his poetry has a weight and an earnestness that takes it out of the atmosphere of the imaginative. It is never airy, never sportive. He made poetry the vehicle of politics and controversy, not of feeling or of fancy. There is not a single love passage throughout the whole, such as we find in Shakspeare or in Fletcher, touching the spring of tears in the heart, and awakening in the reader the emotion it depicts. When he ventures in this direction, it is to exhibit highly-wrought artificial turns of gallantry, as in the Lines on the Duchess of Portsmouth; or luscious descriptions, as in the Cymon and Iphigenia. He treads heavily, and every footfall crushes the earth beneath. He has none of the characteristics of the cavalier party to which he belonged, except their licentiousness, and that only when it suits his purpose on the stage. He has none of their grace, their sophistry, their lacework. Even his licentiousness differed from
- ↑ Bell's Memoir of Dryden, pp. 93–4.
- ↑ Sir E. Bulwer Lytton: New Timon. Part II.
