26 Prosscr Hall Fryc 



and exuberance which sometimes carried him beyond his own the- 

 ories and put his criticism hard to it to follow. For it must be 

 remembered that Dryden had this trait in common with Lessing 

 and other critics who .have been writers as well ; he criticises from 

 the craftsman's point of view. His criticism is largely a criticism 

 of method. This peculiarity makes it very instructive with regard 

 to the ideas of the time. lUit naturally enough under the circum- 

 stances it is blind to everything outside his own performance, the 

 kind of thing that he was trying to accomplish himself at the mo- 

 ment. In short, he seldom perceives a critical position before he 

 has taken it up jioetically. In a sense he furnishes his own data 

 just as he illustrates his own dicta ; and all his criticism is self- 

 criticism. Hence his art and his appreciation develop hand in 

 hand. And as he has no hesitation in recording his opinions as 

 fast as they change, his constant development gives his criticism 

 an appearance of inconsistency which is occasionally disconcert- 

 ing. A poet is expected to grov/ ; he is indulged in half a dozen 

 manners, if necessary. But, unreasonably enough, the critic is 

 expected to form his conclusions once for all and stick to them 

 inflexibly. And yet one of the most praiseworthy, as surprising, 

 things in Dryden's criticism is just this capacity for growth. 

 There is hardly a matter of taste touched in his earlier work with 

 regard to which he has not changed his mind sooner or later for 

 the better, for with regard to his fundamental principles he re- 

 mains pretty nearly fixed. He comes to have a very much higher 

 opinion of Shakespeare, without relinquishing the original 

 grounds on which he criticised him at first. He reverses his opin- 

 ion with respect to the relative dramatic merits of the couplet and 

 blank verse without altering his general theor}- of dramatic poetry, 

 as I shall try to show a little later. And it is very probable that 

 if he had bethought himself he would finally have passed quite 

 another judgment upon "sweet marjoram" and such like "village 

 words" and one more in accord with his own example. But how- 

 ever this may be. it is precisely the fixity of his fundamental prin- 

 ciples and the flexibility of his judgment which constitute his 

 merit as a critic. 



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