DRYDEN. 325 



elegy on the satirist Oldham, whom Hallam, without reading 

 him, I suspect, ranks next to Dryden,* he says : 



&quot; For sure our souls were near allied, and tliine 

 Cast in the same poetic mould with mine ; 

 One common note in either lyre did strike, 

 And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.&quot; 



His practice is not always so delicate as his theory ; but 

 if he was sometimes rough, he never took a base advantage. 

 He knocks his antagonist down, and there an end. Pope 

 seems to have nursed his grudge, and then, watching his 

 chance, to have squirted vitriol from behind a corner, 

 rather glad than otherwise if it fell on the women of those 

 he hated or envied. And if Dryden is never dastardly, as 

 Pope often was, so also he never wrote anything so mali 

 ciously depreciatory as Pope s unprovoked attack on Addi- 

 son. Dryden s satire is often coarse, but where it is 

 coarsest, it is commonly in defence of himself against 

 attacks that were themselves brutal. Then, to be sure, he 

 snatches the first ready cudgel, as in Shadwell s case, 

 though even then there is something of the good-humour of 

 conscious strength. Pope s provocation was too often the 

 mere opportunity to say a biting thing, where he could do 

 it safely. If his victim showed fight, he tried to smooth 

 things over, as with Dennis. Dryden could forget that he 

 had ever had a quarrel, but he never slunk away from any, 

 least of all from one provoked by himself.t Pope s satire 

 is too much occupied with the externals of manners, habits, 

 personal defects, and peculiarities. Dryden goes right to 

 the rooted character of the man, to the weaknesses of his 

 nature, as where he says of Burnet : 



&quot; Prompt to assail, and careless of defence, 

 Invulnerable in his impudence, 



* Probably on the authority of this very epitaph, as if epitaphs were 

 to be believed even under oath ! A great many authors live because 

 we read nothing but their tombstones. Oldham was, to borrow one of 

 Dryden s phrases, &quot; a bad or, which is worse, an indifferent poet.&quot; 



t &quot; He was of a nature exceedingly humane and compassionate, 

 easily forgiving injuries, and capable of a prompt and sincere recon 

 ciliation with them that had offended him.&quot; CONGREVE. 



