DRYDEN. 315 



&quot; He starts out wide 



And bounds into a vice that bears him far_ 

 From his first course, and plunges him in ills ; 

 But, when his danger makes him find his fault, 

 Quick to observe, and full of sharp remorse, 

 He censures eagerly his own misdeeds, 

 Judging himself with malice to himself, 

 And not forgiving what as man he did, 

 Because his other parts are more than man. &quot; 



But bad though they nearly all are as wholes, his plays 

 contain passages which only the great masters have 

 surpassed, and to the level of which no subsequent writer 

 for the stage has ever risen. The necessity of rhyme often 

 forced him to a platitude, as where he says, 



&quot; My love was blind to your deluding art, 

 But blind men feel when stabbed so near the heart.&quot;* 



But even in rhyme he not seldom justifies his claim to the 

 title of &quot; glorious John.&quot; In the very play from which I 

 have just quoted are these verses in his best manner : 



&quot; No, like his better Fortune I ll appear, 

 With open arms, loose veil, and flowing hair, 

 Just flying forward from her rolling sphere.&quot; 



His comparisons, as I have said, are almost always happy. 

 This, from the &quot; Indian Emperor,&quot; is tenderly pathetic : 



&quot;As callow birds, 



Whose mother s killed in seeking of the prey, 

 Cry in their nest and think her long away, 

 And, at each leaf that stirs, each blast of wind, % 

 Gape for the food which they must never find.&quot; 



And this, of the anger with which the Maiden Queen, striving 

 to hide her jealousy, betrays her love, is vigorous : 



&quot; Her rage was love, and its tempestuous flame, 

 Like lightning, showed the heaven from whence it came.&quot; 



The following simile from the &quot; Conquest of Grenada &quot; is 

 as well expressed as it is apt in conception : 



&quot; I scarcely understand my own intent ; 

 But, silk-worm like, so long within have wrought, 

 That I am lost in my own web of thought.&quot; 

 * Conquest of Grenada, Second Part 



