272 DRYDEN. 



O, had lie died of old, how great a strife 



Had been who from his death should draw their life ! 



Who should, by one rich draught, become whate er 



Seneca, Cato, Numa, Csesar, were, 



Learned, virtuous, pious, great, and have by this 



An universal metempsychosis ! 



Must all these aged sires in one funeral 



Expire ? all die in one so young, so small ? &quot; 



It is said that one of Allston s early pictures was brought 

 to him, after he had long forgotten it, and his opinion asked 

 as to the wisdom of the young artist s persevering in the 

 career he had chosen. Allston advised his quitting it forth 

 with as hopeless. Could the same experiment have been 

 tried with these verses upon Dryden, can any one doubt 

 that his counsel would have been the same ? It should be 

 remembered, however, that he was barely turned eighteen 

 when they were written, and the tendency of his style is 

 noticeable in so early an abandonment of the participial ed 

 in learned and aged. In the next year he appears again in 

 some commendatory verses prefixed to the sacred epigrams 

 of his friend, John Hoddesdon. In these he speaks of the 

 author as a 



&quot;Young eaglet, who, thy nest thus soon forsook, 

 So lofty and divine a course hast took 

 As all admire, before the down begin 

 To peep, as yet, upon thy smoother chin. &quot; 



Here is almost every fault which Dryden s later nicety 

 would have condemned. But perhaps there is no schooling 

 so good for an author as his own youthful indiscretions. 

 After this effort Dryden seems to have lain fallow for ten 

 years, and then he at length reappears in thirty-seven 

 &quot; heroic stanzas &quot; on the death of Cromwell. The versifica 

 tion is smoother, but the conceits are there again, though in 

 a milder form. The verse is modelled after &quot; Gondibert.&quot; 

 A single image from nature (he was almost always happy in 

 these) gives some hint of the maturer Dryden : 



&quot; And wars, like mists that rise against the sun, 

 Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.&quot; 



