DRYDEN. 285 



define this want of propriety in diction. Vulgar is too 

 strong, and commonplace too weak. Perhaps bourgeois 

 comes as near as any. It is to be noticed that Dryden 

 does not unequivocally condemn the passage he quotes, but 

 qualifies it with an &quot;if I am not much mistaken,&quot; Indeed, 

 though his judgment in substantials, like that of Johnson, is 

 always worth having, his taste, the negative half of genius, 

 never altogether refined itself from a colloquial familiarity, 

 which is one of the charms of his prose, and gives that air 

 of easy strength in which his satire is unmatched. In his 

 &quot;Royal Martyr&quot; (1669), the tyrant Maximin says to the 

 gods : 



&quot; Keep you your rain and sunshine in the skies, 

 And I ll keep back my flame and sacrifice ; 

 Your trade of Heaven shall soon be at a stand, 

 And all your goods lie dead upon your hand&quot; 



a passage which has as many faults as only Dryden was 

 capable of committing, even to a false idiom forced by the 

 last rhyme. The same tyrant in dying exclaims : 



&quot; And after thee I ll go, 



Revenging still, and following e en to th other world my blow, 

 And, shoving back this earth on which I sit, 

 I ll mount and scatter all the gods I hit.&quot; 



In the &quot;Conquest of Grenada&quot; (1670), we have: 



&quot; This little loss in our vast body shews 

 So small, that half have never heard the news ; 

 Fame s out of breath e er she can fly so far 

 To tell em all that you have e er made war.&quot;* 



* This probably suggested to Young the grandiose image in his 

 &quot;Last Day&quot; (B. ii.) : 



&quot; Those overwhelming armies . . . 

 Whose rear lay wrapt in night, while breaking down 

 Roused the broad front and called the battle on.&quot; 



This, to be sure, is no plagiarism ; but it should be carried to Dryden s 

 credit that we catch the poets of the next half-century oftener with 

 their hands in his pockets than in those of any one else. 



