DRYDEN. 297 



to praise an author with any appearance of justice must be 

 sure to take him on the strongest side, and where he is least 

 liable to exceptions.&quot; This is true also of one who wishes 

 to measure an author fairly, for the higher wisdom of 

 criticism lies in the capacity to admire. 



&quot; Leser, wie gefall ich dir ? 

 Leser, wie gefallst du mir ? &quot; 



are both fair questions, the answer to the first being more 

 often involved in that to the second than is sometimes 

 thought. The poet in Dryden was never more fully 

 revealed than in such verses as these : 



&quot; And threatening France, placed like a painted Jove,* 

 Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand ; &quot; 



&quot; Silent in smoke of cannon they come on ; &quot; 



&quot; And his loud guns speak thick, like angry men ; &quot; 



&quot; The rigorous seaman every port-hole plies, 

 And adds his heart to every gun he fires ; &quot; 



&quot; And, though to me unknown, they sure fought well, 

 Whom Rupert led, and who were British born.&quot; 



This is masculine writing, and yet it must be said that 

 there is scarcely a quatrain in which the rhyme does not 



* Perhaps the hint was given by a phrase of Corneille, monarque 

 en peinture. Dryden seldom borrows, unless from Shakespeare, without 

 improving, and he borrowed a great deal. Thus in &quot; Don Sebastian &quot; 

 (of suicide) : 



&quot; Brutus and Cato might discharge their souls, 

 And give them furloughs for the other world ; 

 But we, like sentries, are obliged to stand 

 In starless nights and wait the appointed hour.&quot; 



The thought is Cicero s, but how it is intensified by the &quot;starless 

 nights ! &quot; Dryden, I suspect, got it from his favourite, Montaigne, 

 who says, &quot; Que nous ne pouvons abandonner cette garnison du 

 monde, sans le commandement exprez de celuy qui nous y a mis.&quot; 

 (L. ii. chap. 3.) In the same play, by a very Drydenish verse, lie 

 gives new force to an old comparison : 



&quot; And I should break through laws divine and human, 

 And think em cobwebs spread for little man, 

 Which all the bulky herd of Nature breaks.&quot; 



