DRY DEN. 331 



than any other man has ever rendered. He says he formed 

 his style upon Tillotson s (Bossuet, on the other hand, 

 formed his upon Corneille s) ; but I rather think he got it 

 at Will s, for its great charm is that it has the various 

 freedom of talk.* In verse, he had a pomp which, excellent 

 in itself, became pompousness in his imitators. But he had 

 nothing of Milton s ear for various rhythm and interwoven 

 harmony. He knew how to give new modulation, sweet 

 ness, and force to the pentameter ; but in what used to be 

 called pindarics, I am heretic enough to think he generally 

 failed. His so much praised &quot; Alexander s Feast &quot; (in 

 parts of it, at least) has no excuse for its slovenly metre 

 and awkward expression, but that it was written for music. 

 He himself tells us, in the epistle dedicatory to &quot; King 

 Arthur,&quot; that the numbers of poetry and vocal music are 

 sometimes so contrary, that in many places I have been 

 obliged to cramp my verses and make them rugged to the 

 reader that they may be harmonious to the hearer.&quot; His 

 renowned ode suffered from this constraint, but this is 

 no apology for the vulgarity of conception in too many 

 passages.f 



Dryden s conversion to Romanism has been commonly 

 taken for granted as insincere, and has therefore left an 

 abiding stain on his character, though the other mud 

 thrown at him by angry opponents or rivals brushed off 

 so soon as it was dry. But I think his change of faith 

 susceptible of several explanations, none of them in any 

 way discreditable to him. Where Church and State are 



* To see what he rescued us from in pedantry on the one hand, and 

 vulgarism on the other, read Feltham and Tom Brown if you can. 



t &quot; Cette ode mise en musique par Purcell (si je ne me trompe), 

 passe en Angleterre pour le chef-d oeuvre de la poesie la plus sublime 

 et la plus variee ; et je vous avoue que, comme je sais mieux 1 anglais 

 que le grec, j aime cent fois mieux cette ode que tout Pindare.&quot; 

 VOLTAIIIE to M. DE CHABANON, 9 mars 1772. 



Dryden would have agreed with Voltaire. &quot;When Chief-Justice 

 Marlay, then a young Templar, &quot;congratulated him on having 

 produced the finest and noblest Ode that had ever been written in any 

 language, You are right, young gentleman (replied Dryden), a 

 nobler Ode never was produced, nor ever will. &quot; MALONE. 



