326 DRYDEN. 



He dares the world, and, eager of a name, 

 He thrusts about andjustles into fame. 

 So fond of loud report that, not to miss 

 Of being known (his last and utmost bliss). 

 He rather would be known for what he is.&quot; 



It would be hard to find in Pope such compression of 

 meaning as in the first, or such penetrative sarcasm as 

 in the second of the passages I have underscored. Dry- 

 den s satire is still quoted for its comprehensiveness of 

 application, Pope s rather for the elegance of its finish and 

 the point of its phrase than for any deeper qualities.* I do 

 not remember that Dryden ever makes poverty a reproach, f 

 He was above it, alike by generosity of birth and mind. 

 Pope is always the parvenu, always giving himself the airs 

 of a fine gentleman, and, like Horace Walpole and Byron, 

 affecting superiority to professional literature. Dryden, 

 like Lessing, was a hack-writer, and was proud, as an 

 honest man has a right to be, of being able to get his bread 

 by his brains. He lived in Grub Street all his life, and 

 never dreamed that where a man of genius lived was not 

 the best quarter of the town. &quot; Tell his Majesty,&quot; said 

 sturdy old Jonson, &quot;that his soul lives in an alley.&quot; 



Dryden s prefaces are a mine of good writing and judi 

 cious criticism. His obiter dicta have often the penetration, 

 and always more than the equity, of Voltaire s, for Dryden 

 never loses temper, and never altogether qualifies his judg 

 ment by his self-love. &quot; He was a more universal writer 



* Coleridge says excellently : &quot; You will find this a good gauge or 

 criterion of genius, whether it progresses and evolves, or only spins 

 upon itself. Take Dryden s Achitophel and Zimri ; every line adds 

 to or modifies the character, which is, as it where, a-building up to 

 the very last verse ; whereas in Pope s Timon, etc., the first two or 

 three couplets contain all the pith of the character, and the twenty or 

 thirty lines that follow are so much evidence or proof of overt acts of 

 jealousy, or pride, or whatever it may be that is satirised.&quot; (Table- 

 Talk, ]92.) Some of Dryden s best satirical hits are let fall by seem 

 ing accident in his prose,&quot; as where he says of his Protestant assailants, 

 &quot; Most of them love all whores but her of Bxbylon.&quot; They had first 

 attacked him on the score of his private morals. 



t That he taxes Shadwell with it is only a seeming exception, as 

 any careful reader will see. 



