Pope was not content to satisfy; he desired to excèl, and therefore always endeavored to do his bèst; he did not court the cándor, but dared the judgment of his reader, and, expecting no indulgence from others, he showed none 5 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 10 hands, while he considered and rèconsidered them. The only poems which can be supposed to have been written with such regard to the times as might hasten their publicátion, were the two satires of Thirty-eight of which Dodsley told me, that they were brought to him by the 15 author, that they might be fairly copied. "Every line," said he, "was then written twice òver; I gave him a clean trànscript, which he sent some time afterwards to me for the préss, with every line written twice over a sècond time." 20 His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their publicátion, was not strictly true. His parental attention nèver abandoned them; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that fòllowed. He appears to have revised the Iliad, and freed 25 it from some of its imperfèctions; and the Essay on Críticism received many improvements, after its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he áltered without adding clearness, élegance, or vigor. Pope had perhaps the judgment of Drýden; but Dryden certainly wanted 30 the diligence of Pòpe. In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholàstic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for stúdy, with better means of information. His 35 mind has a larger ránge, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general náture, and Pope in his local mànners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculátion, and those of 40 Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Drýden, and more cértainty in that of Pope. Poetry was not the sole praise of either: for both ex celled likewise in pròse: but Pope did not borrow his prose from his prèdecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and ùniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope 5 constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vèhement and rápid; Pope is always smooth, úniform, and gèntle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetátion: Pope's is a 10 velvet lawn, shaven by the síthe and levelled by the ròller. Of génius, that power which constitutes a póet; that quality without which judgment is còld, and knowledge is inért; that energy which collècts, combines, àmplifies, and ánimates; the superiority must, with some hesitation, be 15 allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred, that of this poetical vigor Pope had only a little, because Dryden had móre; for every other writer since Milton, must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be said that if he has brighter páragraphs, he has not better poems. 20 Dryden's performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necèssity; he composed without considerátion, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at càll, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all 25 that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condénse his sèntiments, to múltiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might prodúce, or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire 30 the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more régular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pópe never falls below it. Dryden is read with frèquent astónishment, and Pope with perpétual delight. LESSON XIX. THE PURITANS.-Macaulay. The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of supèrior béings and etérnal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overrùling Providence, 5 they habitually ascribed évery event to the will of the Great Being, for whose pòwer nothing was too vást, for whose inspéction nothing was too minùte. To know Him, to sèrve Him, to enjoy Him, was with them the grèat énd of existence. They rejected with contèmpt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pùre 5 wórship of the sòul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring véil, they aspired to gaze fùll on the intólerable brightness, and to commune with Him fáce to face. Hence originated their contempt for terréstrial distinctions. The difference be10 tween the greatest and méanest of mankind, seemed to vànish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole ràce from Him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but Hís fàvor; and cónfident of that favor, 15 they despised all the accòmplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply réad in the óracles of Gòd. If their names were not found in the registers of héralds, they felt assured that they were 20 recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of ménials, legions of ministering àngels had charge over them. Their pálaces were houses not made with hànds: their díadems, crowns of glory which should never fade awày! 25 On the rích and the èloquent, on nòbles and priests, they looked down with contèmpt: for they esteemed themselves rich in a more précious trèasure, and eloquent in a more sublíme language, nobles by the right of an earlier creátion, and priests by the imposition of a mígh30 tier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mystèrious and térrible impòrtance 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 35 which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed awày. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For hís sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For 40 his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pèn of the evangelist, and the hárp of the prophet. He had been rescued by nó còmmon deliverer from the grasp of no cómmon fòe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of nó vùlgar ágony, by the blood of nò éarthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sùn had been darkened,* that the ròcks had been rènt, that the dèad had arisen, that áll nàture had shuddered at the sufferings of her expíring 5 God! Thus the Puritan was made up of twò different mèn, the one all self-abàsement, pènitence, gràtitude, pássion; the other proud, càlm, infléxible, sagàcious. He próstrated himself in the dùst before his Máker: but he set 10 his foot on the néck of the king. In his devotional retírement, he prayed with convulsions, and gróans, and tears. He was half maddened by glòrious or térrible illùsions. He heard the lyres of ángels, or the tempting whispers of fiènds. He caught a gleam of the beatific 15 vísion, or wcke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Váne, he thought himself intrusted with the scèptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his sóul that Gòd had híd his fàce from him. But when he took his séat. in the council, or girt on his 20 sword for wár, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left nò percéptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncóuth vìsages, and heard nothing from them but their gròans and their hýmns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason 25 to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debáte, or in the field of battle. The Puritans brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment, and an immutability of púrpose, which some writers have thought inconsistent with their 30 religious zeal, but which were in fact the nécessary effècts of it. The intensity of their feelings on óne subject, made them trànquil on évery òther. One overpowering sèntiment had subjected to itself pity and hátred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its térrors, and pléasure its 35 charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their ráptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stòics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar påssion and préjudice, and raised them above the influence of dánger and of cor40 rùption. * When an emphatic series causes, thus, a succession of falling inflections, the second one in each clause, falls lower than the first. LESSON XX.-POETRY.-CHANNING. [Marked for Inflections.] We believe that poetry, far from injuring society, is one of the great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. It lifts the mind abòve ordinary life, gives it a rèspite from depressing cares, and awakens the consciousness of 5 its affinity with what is púre and nòble. In its legitimate and highest efforts, it has the same tèndency and áim with Christianity; that is, to spiritualize our nature. True, poetry has been made the instrument of vice, the pànder of bad pássions; but when genius thùs stóops, it dìms its 10 fires, and parts with múch of its power; and even when Poetry is enslaved to licéntiousness and misànthropy, she cannot wholly forgét her trúe vocàtion. Strains of púre fèeling, touches of tenderness, images of ínnocent happiness, sympathies with what is good in our nature, bursts 15 of scòrn or indignátion at the hóllowness of the world, passages true to our mòral náture, often escape in an immóral work, and show us how hard it is for a gifted spírit to divorce itself whòlly from what is good. Poetry has a natural alliance with our best affèctions. 20 It delights in the beauty and sublimity of òutward náture and of the sòul. It indeed portrays with terrible energy the excèsses of the pássions, but they are passions which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, which command áwe, and excite a deep though shuddering sym25 pathy. Its great tendency and púrpose, is, to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dùsty, weary walks of òrdinary life; to lift it into a pùrer element, and to breathe into it more profound and génerous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the 30 fréshness of youthful fèeling, revives the rèlish of símple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful lòve, strengthens our interest in human nature, by vivid delineations of its tènderest and lóftiest feelings, spreads 35 our sympathies over all classes of society, knits us by new ties with univérsal bèing, and, through the brightness of its pròphetic vísions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life. We are aware that it is objected to poetry, that it gives 40 wrong views, and excites fàlse expectations of life, peoples the mind with shadows and illúsions, and builds up ima |