214 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOK. 



READING AND ELOCUTION. XX. 



PROMISCUOUS EXERCISES (continued;. 

 II. THE PURITANS. 



[Marked for Inflections.'] 



THE Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character 

 from the daily contemplation of superior Wings and eternal interests. 

 Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Pro- 

 vidence, they habitually ascribed eVery event to the will of the Great 

 Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection 

 nothing was too minute. To know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him, 

 was with them the great e'nd of existence. The"y rejected with con- 

 tempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the 

 pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of 

 the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on the 

 intolerable brightness, and to commune with Him face to face. 

 Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The 

 difference between the greatest and meanest of mankind seemed to 

 vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated 

 the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were constantly 

 fixed. They recognised no title to superiority but His favour; and, 

 confident of that favour, they despised all the accomplishments and all 

 the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works 

 of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. 

 If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt 

 assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps 

 were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of minis- 

 tering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were bouses not 

 made with hands ; their diadems, crowns of glory which should never 

 fade away ! 



On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down 

 with contempt ; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious 

 treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language ; nobles by the right 

 of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier 

 hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mys- 

 terious and terrible importance belonged, on whose slightest Action 

 the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest ; who 

 had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a 

 felicity which should continue, when heaven and earth should have 

 passed away. 



Events which shortsighted politicians ascribed to Earthly causes, 

 had been ordained on his account. For his sake, empires had risen, 

 and flourished, and decayed. For his sake, the Almighty had pro- 

 claimed his will by the pen of the evangelist and the harp of the pro- 

 phet. He had been rescued by no common deliverer, from the grasp 

 of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no 

 vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him 

 that the sun had been darkened,* that the rocks had been rent, that 

 the dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of 

 her expiring God. 



Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the one all 

 self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion ; the other proud, calm, 

 inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his 

 Maker ; but he set his foot on the neck of the king. In his devotional 

 retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He 

 was half-maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the 

 ly'res of angels, or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam 

 of the beatific vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting 

 fire. Like Vane, he thought himself entrusted with the sceptre of the 

 millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his 

 soul, that God had hid his face from him. But when he took his seat 

 in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous work- 

 ings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People 

 who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard 

 nothing from them but their groans and their hy'mns, might laugh at 

 thsm. But those had little reason to laugh, who encountered them in 

 the hall of debate, or in the field of battle. 



The Puritans brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of 

 judgment, and an immutability of purpose, which some writers have 

 thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact 

 the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one 

 subject made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sen- 

 timsnt had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. 

 Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their 

 smiles ard their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the 

 things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared 

 their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them 

 above the influence of danger and of corruption. Macaulay. 



III. POPE AND DRYDEN. 



[This piece is marked in application of the rides of Inflection.'] 

 Pope professed to have learnt his poetry from Dry' den, whom, 

 Whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole 



* When an emphatic series causes, thus, a succession of falling 

 inflections, the second one in each clause falls lower than the first. 



life with unvaried liberality ; and, perhaps, his character may receive 

 some illustration, if he be compared with his master. 



Integrity of understanding, and nicety of discernment, were not 

 allotted in a less proportion to Dry'den than to Pope. The rectitude 

 of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his 

 poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and 

 rugged numbers. - But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgment 

 that he had. He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the 

 people ; and when he pleased others, he contented himself. He spent 

 no time in struggles to rouse latent powers ; he never attempted to 

 make that better which was already good, nor often to mend what he 

 must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very 

 little consideration : when occasion or necessity called upon him, he 

 poured out what the present moment happened to supply', and, when 

 once it had passsd the press, ejected it from his mind ; for when he 

 had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude. 



Pope was not content to satisfy ; he desired to excel, and therefore 

 always endeavoured to do his best ; he did not court the candour, but 

 dared the judgment of his reader, and, expecting no indulgence from 

 others, he showed none to himself. He examined lines and words 

 with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every part 

 with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven. 



For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, while he 

 considered and reconsidered them. The only poems which can be 

 supposed to have been written with such regard to the times as might 

 hasten their publication, were the two satires of Thirty- eight : of which 

 Dodsley told me, that they were brought to him by the author, that 

 they might be fairly copied. " Every line," said he, " was then 

 written twice over ; I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some 

 time afterwards to me for the press, with every line written twice over 

 a second time." 



His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their publi- 

 cation, was not strictly true. His parental attention never abandoned 

 them ; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected 

 in those that followed. He appears to have revised the Iliad, and 

 freed it from some of its imperfections ; and the Essay on Criticism 

 received many improvements, after its first appearance. It will seldom 

 be found that he altered without adding clearness, elegance, or vigour. 

 Pope had, perhaps, the judgment of Dry'den ; but Dryden certainly 

 wanted the diligence of Pope. 



In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dry den, 

 whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an 

 author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of 

 information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images 

 and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. 

 Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local 

 manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive 

 speculation, and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more 

 dignity in the knowledge of Dry'den, and more certainty in that of 

 Pope. 



Poetry was not the sole praise of either : for both excelled likewise 

 in prose : but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. 

 The style of Dryden is capricious and varied ; that of Pope is cautious 

 and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind ; Pope 

 constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is some- 

 times vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and 

 gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and 

 diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation ; Pope's is 

 a velvet lawn, shaven by the scy'the and levelled by the roller. 



Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet ; that quality with- 

 out which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy 

 which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates ; the superiority 

 must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dry'den. It is not to be 

 inferred, that of this poetical vigour Pope had only a little, because 

 Dryden had more; for every other writer since Milton must give place 

 to Pope ; and even of Dry'deu it must be said, that if he lias brightei 

 paragraphs, he has not better posms. Dryden's performances were 

 always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by 

 domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published 

 without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in 

 one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The 

 dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to 

 multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce, 

 or chance might supply'. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are 

 higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire th 

 blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. 

 Dry'den often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. 

 Dry den is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual 

 delight. Johnson. 



IV. UNIVERSAL DECAY. 



[Marked for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections.']* 

 We receive such repeated intimations of decay \\ in the wo*rld through 



* The learner having been conducted through the application of the 

 rules for Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections separately, will now be 

 prepared to study and apply them in conjunction. 



