3i6 DRYDEN. 



In the &quot; Rival Ladies/ Angelina, walking in the dark, 

 describes her sensations naturally and strikingly : 



&quot; No noise but what my footsteps make, and they 

 Sound dreadfully and louder than by day : 

 They double too, and every step I take 

 Sounds thick, methinks, and more than one could make.&quot; 



In all the rhymed plays* there are many passages which 

 one is rather inclined to like than sure he would be right 

 in liking them. The following verses from &quot; Aurengzebe &quot; 

 are of this sort : 



&quot; My love was such it needed no return, 

 Rich in itself, like elemental fire, 

 Whose pureness does no aliment require.&quot; 



This is Cowleyish, and pureness is surely the wrong word 

 and yet it is better than mere commonplace. Perhaps 

 what oftenest turns the balance in Dryden s favour, when 

 we are weighing his claims as a poet, is his persistent 

 capability of enthusiasm. To the last he kindles and 

 sometimes almost flashes out that supernatural light which 

 is the supreme test of poetic genius. As he himself so 

 finely and characteristically says in &quot;Aurengzebe,&quot; there 

 was no period in his life when it was not true of him that 



&quot; He felt the inspiring heat, the absent god return.&quot; 



The verses which follow are full of him, and, with the 

 exception of the single word underwent, are in his luckiest 

 manner : 



&quot; One loose, one sally of a hero s soul, 

 Does all the military art control. 

 While timorous wit goes round, or fords the shore, 

 He shoots the gulf, and is already o er, 

 And, when the enthusiastic fit is spent, 

 Looks back amazed at what he underwent, &quot;t 



Pithy sentences and phrases always drop from Dryden s 

 pen as if unawares, whether in prose or verse. I string 

 together a few at random : 



* In most, he mingles blank verse. t Conquest of Grenada. 



