Drydcn and the Critical Canons of flic Eik!;hfccnfli Ccnfiiry 3 



Of such bare correctness of expression without imaginative gild- 

 ing or alloy it is Pope, however, who is the great master, as the 

 currency of his phrases testifies. And remarkably enough, such 

 is the capability of the process in its perfection, he has succeeded 

 in imparting to these bald scitfcnfiac a kind of vague emotional 

 thrill, a sort of sentimental tremulo, as though they were even 

 more than they are. 



"E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot. 

 The last and greatest art, the art to lilot." 



This is very little, if at all, better than prose ; and yet how well it 

 apes the sensibility of poetry ! 



"The last and greatest art, the art to blot" ! 



It has quite the romantic quaver. 



In order to define this idea of propriety a little more exactly it 

 might be well to compare, with such verses as these of Pope's and 

 Dryden's, a poetry like the Elizabethan which neither recognized 

 nor followed any such principle. In Troiliis and Crcssida Shake- 

 speare has an admired passage, which begins as follows : 



"But value dwells not in particular will ; 

 It holds his estimate and dignity 

 As well wherein 't is precious of itself 

 As in the prizer : 't is mad idolatry 

 To make the service greater than the God.'" 



Here the purpose is the same as Pope's and Dryden's — the ex- 

 pression of a general moral' truth. The four first lines lack clear- 

 ness, but the figure is admirable and quite in Pope's and Dry- 

 den's way. They might either of them have been glad to write 

 it, if they could have done so. But what they never would have 

 done — they would never have concluded the passage as Shake- 

 speare does. 



"And the will dotes that is attributive 

 To what infectiously itself afifects 

 Without some image of the affected merit." 



It w^as this kind of thing in Shakespeare and his contempo- 

 raries which offended so much the taste of the succeeding age. 



'Shakespeare. Troilus and Crcssida. II, ii. 



3 



