Drydcn and the Critical Canons of the Eighteenth Century 29 



parison but in the same key. Nothing hke them, however, occurs 

 from Dryden to Johnson. The nearest I can think of are things 

 Hke this : 



"Oh had I courage but to meet my fate. 

 That short dark passage to a future state, 

 ' That melancholj' riddle of a breath !, 



That something, or that nothing, after death !"^ 



And how remote even this is ! The highest flights of the time 

 are, in reahty, flights of eloquence rather than of poetry. The 

 close of the Dunciad itself is rather eloquent than poetic. And 

 that is the reason, it seems to me, that Dryden has reached points 

 of greater elevation than Pope — because Dryden was naturally 

 eloquent. In some such way as this may be explained the curious 

 similarity of tone as between Dryden and Corneille ; for as a gen- 

 eral thing eloquence seems to be the noblest modern expression 

 of a strictly classical age or nature. 



VI 



But though the poetry of the eighteenth century lacked imag- 

 ination, it possessed one faculty which is sadly to seek at present. 

 It had a very keen sense for ethical ideas. For broad moral gen- 

 eralization, like that of Greek tragedy, it had dottbtless little sym- 

 pathy and still less capacity. There was nothing cosmical about 

 its point of view. But to everything that bore upon the character 

 and the conduct of the individual in society it was very sensitive. 

 And to modern criticism, curiously enough, it is this strong, if 

 limited moral sense which has proved its most disconcerting fea- 

 ture. There is no word more often in the mouths of the Avriters 

 of the age than the word nature. Nature, they assert, is their 

 standard; it is nature which they pretend to imitate. "First fol- 

 low nature," says Pope,- repeating the commonplace of his day. 

 And yet to all appearance, if there is anything in which the cen- 

 tury seems deficient, it is a feeling for nature as we understand it. 



^Dryden. Aureng-Zebe, v, 1. 



* Pope. Essay on Criticism, i, 68. 



29 



