DRYDEN. 275 



Strange cozenage ! none would live past years again, 

 Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain, 

 And from the dregs of life think to receive 

 What the first sprightly running could not give. 

 I m tired of waiting for this chymic gold 

 Which fools us young and beggars us when old.&quot; 



The &quot;first sprightly running &quot; of Dryden a vintage was, 

 it must be confessed, a little muddy, if not beery ; but if 

 his own soil did not produce grapes of the choicest flavour, 

 he knew where they were to be had ; and his product, like 

 sound wine, grew better the longer it stood upon the lees. 

 He tells us, evidently thinking of himself, that in a poet, 

 &quot; from fifty to threescore, the balance generally holds, even 

 in our colder climates, for he loses not much in fancy ; and 

 judgment, which is the effect of observation, still increases. 

 His succeeding years afford him little more than the 

 stubble of his own harvest, yet, if his constitution be 

 healthful, his mind may still retain a decent vigour, and the 

 gleanings of that of Ephraim, in comparison with others, 

 will surpass the vintage of Abiezer. 5; * Since Chaucer, 

 none of our poets has had a constitution more healthful, 

 and it was his old age that yielded the best of him, In 

 him the understanding was, perhaps, in overplus for his 

 entire good fortune as a poet, and that is a faculty among 

 the earliest to mature. We have seen him, at only ten 

 years, divining the power of reason in Polybius.f The same 

 turn of mind led him later to imitate the French school of 

 tragedy, and to admire in Ben Jonson the most correct of 

 English poets. It was his imagination that needed quick 

 ening, and it is very curious to trace through his different 

 prefaces the gradual opening of his eyes to the causes of 

 the solitary pre-eminence of Shakespeare. At first he is 

 sensible of an attraction towards him which he cannot 

 explain, and for which he apologises, as if it were wrong. 

 But he feels himself drawn more and more strongly, till at 



* Dedication of the Georgics. 



t Dryden s penetration is always remarkable. His general judg 

 ment of Polybius coincides remarkably with that of Mommsen. 

 (Rom. Gesch. II. 448, seq.) 



