DRYDEN. 311 



always showing the disastrous influence of that portentous 

 comet. It is the style perruque in another than the French 

 meaning of the phrase, and the skill lay in dressing it 

 majestically, so that, as Gibber says, &quot; upon the head of 

 a man of sense, if it became him, it could never fail of 

 drawing to him a more partial regard and benevolence than 

 could possibly be hoped for in an ill-made one.&quot; It did not 

 become Dryden, and he left it off.* 



Like his own Zimri, Dryden was &quot; all for &quot; this or 

 that fancy, till he took up with another. But even 

 while he was writing on French models, his judgment 

 could not be blinded to their defects. &quot; Look upon the 

 * Cinna and the * Pompey, they are not so properly to 

 be called plays as long discourses of reason of State, and 

 1 Polieucte in matters of religion is as solemn as the long 

 stops upon our organs ; . . . their actors speak by the 

 hour-glass like our parsons. ... I deny not but this may 

 suit well enough with the French, for as we, who are a 

 more sullen people, come to be diverted at our plays, so 

 they, who are of an airy and gay temper, come thither to 

 make themselves more serious, &quot;f With what an air of 

 innocent unconsciousness the sarcasm is driven home ! 

 Again, while he was still slaving at these bricks without 

 straw, he says : &quot; The present French poets are generally 

 accused that, wheresoever they lay the scene, or in what 

 ever age, the manners of their heroes are wholly French. 

 Racine s Bajazet is bred at Constantinople, but his civilities 

 are conveyed to him by some secret passage from Versailles 

 into the Seraglio.&quot; It is curious that Voltaire, speaking of 

 the Berenice of Racine, praises a passage in it for precisely 

 what Dryden condemns: &quot;II semble qu on entende Hen- 

 riette d Angleterre elle-meme parlant au marquis de Vardes. 

 La politesse de la cour de Louis XIV., 1 agrement de la 

 langue Frangaise, la douceur de la versification la plus 

 iiaturelle, le sentiment le plus tendre, tout se trouve dans 



* In more senses than one. His last and best portrait shows him 

 in his own grey hair. 

 t Essay on Dramatick Poesy, 



