Chapter VII: Section III (2)

The want of the dignity of rhyme was therefore, according to his idea, an essential deficiency in the "Paradise Lost." According to Aubrey, Dryden communicated to Milton his intention of adding this grace to his poem; to which the venerable bard gave a contemptuous consent, in these words: "Ay, you may _tag_ my verses if you will." Perhaps few have read so far into the "State of Innocence" as to discover that Dryden did not use this licence to the uttermost and that several of the scenes are not tagg'd with rhyme.

Dryden at this period engaged in a research recommended to him by "a noble wit of Scotland," as he terms Sir George Mackenzie, the issue of which, in his apprehension, pointed out further room for improving upon the epic of Milton. This was an inquiry into the "turn of words and thoughts" requisite in heroic poetry. These "turns," according to the definition and examples which Dryden has given us, differ from the points of wit, and quirks of epigram, common in the metaphysical poets, and consist in a happy, and at the same time a natural, recurrence of the same form of expression, melodiously varied. Having failed in his search after these beauties in Cowley, the darling of his youth, "I consulted," says Dryden, "a greater genius (without offence to the manes of that noble author), I mean--Milton; but as he endeavours everywhere to express Homer, whose age had not arrived to that fineness, I found in him a true sublimity, lofty thoughts, which were clothed with admirable Grecisms, and ancient words, which he had been digging from the mines of Chaucer and Spenser, and which, with all their rusticity, had somewhat of venerable in them. But I found not there neither that for which I looked." This judgment Addison has proved to be erroneous, by quoting from Milton the most beautiful example of a turn of words which can be found in English poetry.[31] But Dryden, holding it for just, conceived, doubtless, that in his "State of Innocence" he might exert his skill successfully, by supplying the supposed deficiency, and for relieving those "flats of thought" which he complains of, where Milton, for a hundred lines together, runs on in a "track of scripture;" but which Dennis more justly ascribes to the humble nature of his subject in those passages. The graces, also, which Dryden ventured to interweave with the lofty theme of Milton, were rather those of Ovid than of Virgil, rather turns of verbal expression than of thought. Such is that conceit which met with censure at the time:

"Seraph and cherub, careless of their charge,
And wanton, in full ease now live at large;
Unguarded leave the passes of the sky,
And all dissolved in hallelujahs lie."

"I have heard," said a petulant critic, "of anchovies dissolved in sauce; but never of an angel dissolved in hallelujahs." But this raillery Dryden rebuffs with a quotation from Virgil:

"_Invadunt urbem, somno vinoque sepultam_."

It might have been replied, that Virgil's analogy was familiar and simple, and that of Dryden was far-fetched, and startling by its novelty. The majesty of Milton's verse is strangely degraded in the following speeches, which precede the rising of Pandaemonium. Some of the couplets are utterly flat and bald, and, in others, the balance of point and antithesis is substituted for the simple sublimity of the original:

_Moloch_. Changed as we are, we're yet from homage free;
We have, by hell, at least gained liberty:
That's worth our fall; thus low though we are driven.
Better to rule in hell, than serve in heaven.

_Lucifer_. There spoke the better half of Lucifer!

_Asmoday_. 'Tis fit in frequent senate we confer,
And then determine how to steer our course;
To wage new war by fraud, or open force.
The doom's now past, submission were in vain.

_Mol_. And were it not, such baseness I disdain;
I would not stoop, to purchase all above,
And should contemn a power, whom prayer could move,
As one unworthy to have conquered me.

_Beelzebub_. Moloch, in that all are resolved, like thee
The means are unproposed; but 'tis not fit
Our dark divan in public view should sit;
Or what we plot against the Thunderer,
The ignoble crowd of vulgar devils hear.

_Lucif._ A golden palace let be raised on high;
To imitate? No, to outshine the sky!
All mines are ours, and gold above the rest:
Let this be done; and quick as 'twas exprest.

I fancy the reader is now nearly satisfied with Dryden's improvements on Milton. Yet some of his alterations have such peculiar reference to the taste and manners of his age, that I cannot avoid pointing them out. Eve is somewhat of a coquette even in the state of innocence. She exclaims:

"from each tree
The feathered kind press down to look on me;
The beasts, with up-cast eyes, forsake their shade,
And gaze, as if I were to be obeyed.
Sure, I am somewhat which they wish to be,
And cannot,--I myself am proud of me."

Upon receiving Adam's addresses, she expresses, rather unreasonably in the circumstances, some apprehensions of his infidelity; and, upon the whole, she is considerably too knowing for the primitive state. The same may be said of Adam, whose knowledge in school divinity, and use of syllogistic argument, Dryden, though he found it in the original, was under no necessity to have retained.

The "State of Innocence," as it could not be designed for the stage, seems to have been originally intended as a mere poetical prolusion; for Dryden, who was above affecting such a circumstance, tells us, that it was only made public, because, in consequence of several hundred copies, every one gathering new faults, having been dispersed without his knowledge, it became at length a libel on the author, who was forced to print a correct edition in his own defence. As the incidents and language were ready composed by Milton, we are not surprised when informed, that the composition and revision were completed in a single month. The critics having assailed the poem even before publication, the author has prefixed an "Essay upon Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence;" in which he treats chiefly of the use of metaphors, and of the legitimacy of machinery.

The Dedication of the "State of Innocence," addressed to Mary of Este, Duchess of York, is a singular specimen of what has been since termed the _celestial_ style of inscription. It is a strain of flattery in the language of adoration; and the elated station of the princess is declared so suited to her excellence, that Providence has only done justice to its own works in placing the most perfect work of heaven where it may be admired by all beholders. Even this flight is surpassed by the following:--"Tis true, you are above all mortal wishes; no man desires impossibilities, because they are beyond the reach of nature. To hope to be a god is folly exalted into madness; but, by the laws of our creation, we are obliged to adore him, and are permitted to love him too at human distance. 'Tis the nature of perfection to be attractive; but the excellency of the object refines the nature of the love. It strikes an impression of awful reverence; 'tis indeed that love which is more properly a zeal than passion. 'Tis the rapture which anchorites find in prayer, when a beam of the divinity shines upon them; that which makes them despise all worldly objects; and yet 'tis all but contemplation. They are seldom visited from above; but a single vision so transports them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives. Mortality cannot bear it often: it finds them in the eagerness and height of their devotion; they are speechless for the time that it continues, and prostrate and dead when it departs." Such eulogy was the taste of the days of Charles, when ladies were deified in dedications and painted as Venus or Diana upon canvas. In our time, the elegance of the language would be scarcely held to counterbalance the absurdity of the compliments.

Lee, the dramatic writer, an excellent poet, though unfortunate in his health and circumstances evinced his friendship for Dryden, rather than his judgment, by prefixing to the "State of Innocence" a copy of verses, in which he compliments the author with having refined the ore of Milton. Dryden repaid this favour by an epistle, in which he beautifully apologises for the extravagancies of his friend's poetry, and consoles him for the censure of those cold judges, whose blame became praise when they accused the warmth which they were incapable of feeling.[32]

Having thus brought the account of our author's productions down to 1674, from which period we date a perceptible change in his taste and mode of composition, I have only to add, that his private situation was probably altered to the worse, by the burning of the King's Theatre, and the debts contracted in rebuilding it. The value of his share in that company must consequently have fallen far short of what it was originally. In other respects, he was probably nearly in the same condition as in 1672. The critics, who assailed his literary reputation, had hitherto spared his private character; and, excepting Rochester, whose malignity towards Dryden now began to display itself, he probably had not lost one person whom he had thought worthy to be called a friend. Lee, who seems first to have distinguished himself about 1672, was probably then added to the number of his intimates. Milton died shortly before the publication of the "State of Innocence;" and we may wish in vain to know his opinion of that piece; but if tradition can be trusted, he said, perhaps on that undertaking, that Dryden was a good rhymer, but no poet. Blount, who had signalised himself in Dryden's defence, was now added to the number of his friends. This gentleman dedicated his "_Religio Laici_" to Dryden in 1683, as his much-honoured friend; and the poet speaks of him with kindness and respect in 1696, three years after his unfortunate and violent catastrophe.

Dryden was, however, soon to experience the mutability of the friendship of wits and courtiers. A period was speedily approaching, when the violence of political faction was to effect a breach between our author and many of those with whom he was now intimately connected; indeed, he was already entangled in the quarrels of the great, and sustained a severe personal outrage, in consequence of a quarrel with which he had little individual concern.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In "Repartees between Cat and Puss at a caterwauling, in the modern heroic way:"

"_Cat_. Forbear, foul ravisher, this rude address;
Canst thou at once both injure and caress?

_Puss_. Thou hast bewitched me with thy powerful charms,
And I, by drawing blood, would cure my harms.

_C_. He that does love would set his heart a tilt,
Ere one drop of his lady's should be spilt.

_P_. Your wounds are but without, and mine within:
You wound my heart, and I but prick your skin;
And while your eyes pierce deeper than my claws,
You blame the effect of which you are the cause.

_C_. How could my guiltless eyes your heart invade,
Had it not first been by your own betrayed?
Hence 'tis, my greatest crime has only been
(Not in mine eyes, but yours) in being seen.

_P_. I hurt to love, but do not love to hurt.

_C_. That's worse than making cruelty a sport.

_P_. Pain is the foil of pleasure and delight,
That sets it off to a more noble height.

_C_. He buys his pleasure at a rate too vain,
That takes it up beforehand of his pain.

_P_. Pain is more dear than pleasure when 'tis past.

_C_. But grows intolerable if it last," etc.

[2] Life of Lope de Vega, p. 208.

[3] Dryden was severely censured by the critics for his supernatural persons, and ironically described as the "man, nature seemed to make choice of to enlarge the poet's empire and to complete those discoveries others had begun to shadow. That Shakespeare and Fletcher (as some think) erected the pillars of poetry, is a grosse errour; this Zany of Columbus has discovered a poeticall world of greater extent than the naturall, peopled with Atlantick colonies of notionall creatures, astrall spirits, ghosts, and idols, more various than ever the Indians worshipt, and heroes more lawless than their savages."--_Censure of the Rota_.

[4] His mistress having fallen in love with a disguised barber, a less polished rival exclaims,--

"_Sir Hum_. Nay, for my part, madam, if you must love a cudgelled
barber, and take him for a valiant count, make much of him; I shall
desist: there are more ladies, heaven be thanked.

"_Trim_. Yes, sir, there are more ladies; but if any man affirms
that my fair Dorinda has an equal, I thus fling down my glove, and do
demand the combat for her honour.--This is a nice point of honour I
have hit."--_Bury Fair_.

[5] The author of the "Friendly Vindication of Mr. Dryden from the Censure of the Rota" (Cambridge, 1673) mentions, "his humble and supplicant addresses to men and ladies of honour, to whom he presented the most of his plays to be read, and so passing through their families, to comply with their censures before-hand; confessing ingenuously, that had he ventured his wits upon the tenter-hooks of Fortune (like other poets who depended more upon the merits of their pens), he had been more severely entangled in his own lines long ago."--Page 7.

[6] Of this want of talent the reader may find sufficient proof in the extracts from his Grace's reflections upon "Absalom and Achitophel."

[7] See "Key to the Rehearsal." "Our most noble author, to manifest his just indignation and hatred of this fulsome new way of writing, used his utmost interest and endeavours to stifle it at its first appearance on the stage, by engaging all his friends to explode and run down these plays; especially the 'United Kingdoms,' which had like to have brought his life into danger.

"The author of it being nobly born, of an ancient and numerous family, had many of his relations and friends in the cock-pit during the acting of it. Some of them perceiving his Grace to head a party, who were very active in damning the play, by hissing and laughing immoderately at the strange conduct thereof, there were persons laid wait for him as he came out; but there being a great tumult and uproar in the house and the passages near it, he escaped; but he was threatened hard. However, the business was composed in a short time, though by what means I have not been informed." The trade of criticism was not uniformly safe in these days. In the Preface to the "Reformation," a beau is only directed to venture to abuse a new play, _if he knows, the author is no fighter._

[8] [Scott has Dryden's authority (in the letter to Hyde already referred to) for this word, but it is pretty certainly rhetorical. See article on "Butler," by the present writer, in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, ninth edition.--ED.]

[9] [It may be well to mention that the editions of the "Rehearsal" are very numerous, and that fresh parodies of fresh plays as they appeared were incorporated in them. Scott does not seem to have been fully aware of this.--ED.]

[10] Preface to "An Evening's Love."

[11] Mr. Malone inclines to think there is no allusion to "Marriage à la Mode" in the "Rehearsal." But surely the whimsical distress of Prince Prettyman, "sometimes a fisher's son, sometimes a prince," is precisely that of Leonidas, who is first introduced as the son of a shepherd; secondly, discovered to be the son of an unlawful king called Polydamas; thirdly, proved anew to be the son of the shepherd, and finally proved to be the son of neither of them, but of the lawful king, Theogenes. Besides, the author of the "Key to the Rehearsal" points out a parallel between the revolution of state in the farce, and that by which Leonidas, after being carried off to execution, on a sudden snatches a sword from one of the guards, proclaims himself rightful king, and, without more ceremony, deposes the powerful and jealous usurper, who had sentenced him to death.

[12] Spence's "Anecdotes," quoted by Mr. Malone, vol. i. p. 106.

[13] "I answered not the 'Rehearsal,' because I knew the author sat to himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own farce; because also I knew, that my betters were more concerned than I was in that satire; and, lastly, because Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson, the main pillars of it, were two such languishing gentlemen in their conversation, that I could liken them to nothing but to their own relations, those noble characters of men of wit and pleasure about the town."--_Dedication to Juvenal_.

[14] The pains which Dryden bestowed on the character of Zimri, and the esteem in which he held it, is evident from his quoting it as the master-piece of his own satire. "The character of Zimri in my 'Absalom' is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem: it is not bloody, but it is ridiculous enough; and he, for him it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury. If I had railed, I might have suffered for it justly; but I managed my own work more happily, perhaps more dexterously. I avoided the mention of great crimes, and applied myself to the representing of blind-sides, and little extravagancies; to which, the wittier a man is, he is generally the more obnoxious. It succeeded as I wished; the jest went round, and he was laughed at in his turn who began the frolic."

[15] In one of Cibber's moods of alteration, he combined the comic scenes of these two plays into a comedy entitled, "The Comical Lovers."

[16]
"You are changed too, and your pretence to see
Is but a nobler name for charity;
Your own provisions furnish out our feasts,
While you, the founders, make yourselves the guests."--Vol. x.

[17]
"Some have expected, from our bills to-day,
To find a satire in our poet's ploy.
The zealous route from Coleman street did run.
To see the story of the Friar and Nun;
Or tales yet more ridiculous to hear,
Vouched by their vicar often pounds a-year,--
Nuns who did against temptation pray,
And discipline laid on the pleasant way:
Or that, to please the malice of the town,
Our poet should in some close cell have shown
Some sister, playing at content alone.
This they did hope; the other side did fear;
And both, you see, alike are cozened here."

[18]
"_Bayes._ I remember once, in a play of mine, I set off a scene,
i'gad, beyond expectation, only with a petticoat and the belly-ache.

_Smith_. Pray, how was that, sir?

_Bayes_. Why, sir, I contrived a petticoat to be brought in upon
a chair (nobody knew how), into a prince's chamber, whose father was
now to see it, that came in by chance.

_Johns_. God's-my-life, that was a notable contrivance indeed!

_Smith_. Ay, but, Mr. Bayes, how could you contrive the
belly-ache?

_Bayes._ The easiest i' the world, i'gad: I'll tell you how; I
made the prince sit down upon the petticoat, no more than so, and
pretended to his father that he had just then got the belly-ache;
whereupon his father went out to call a physician, and his man ran
away with the petticoat."--_Rehearsal_.

[19] Not Matthew, but Martin, as it is correctly printed before.--Ed.

[20] "To begin with your character of Almanzor, which you avow to have taken from the Achilles in Homer; pray hear what Famianus Strada says of such talkers as Mr. Dryden: _Ridere soleo, cum video homines ab Homeri virtibus strenue declinates, si quid vero irrepsi vitii, id avide arripientes._ But I might have spared this quotation, and you your avowing; for this character might as well have been borrowed from some of the stalls in Bedlam, or any of your own hair-brained cox-combs which you call heroes, and persons of honour. I remember just such another fuming Achilles in Shakespeare, one ancient Pistol, whom he avows to be a man of so fiery a temper, and so impatient of an injury, even from Sir John Falstaff his captain, and a knight, that he not only disobeyed his commands about carrying a letter to Mrs. Page, but returned him an answer as full of contumely, and in as opprobrious terms, as he could imagine:

'Let vultures gripe thy guts, for gourd and Fullam holds,
And high and low beguiles the rich and poor.
Tester I'll have in pouch, when thou shalt lack,
Base Phrygian Turk,' etc.

"Let's see e'er an Abencerrago fly a higher pitch. Take him at another turn, quarrelling with corporal Nym and old Zegri: The difference arose about mine hostess Quickly (for I would not give a rush for a man unless he be particular in matters of this moment); they both aimed at her body, but Abencerrago Pistol defies his rival in these words:

'Fetch from the powdering-tub of infamy
That lazar-kite of Cressid's kind,
Doll Tearsheet, she by name, and her espouse:
I have, and I will hold,
The quondam Quickly for the only she.
And _pauca_.'

There's enough. Does not quotation sound as well as I[20a]?

"But the four sons of Aminon, the three bold Beachams, the four London Prentices, Tamerlain, the Scythian Shepherd, Muleasses, Amurath, and Bajazet, or any raging Turk at the Red-bull and Fortune, might as well have been urged by you as a pattern of your Almanzor, as the Achilles in Homer; but then our laureate had not passed for so learned a man as he desires his unlearned admirers should esteem him.

"But I am strangely mistaken, if I have not seen this very Almanzor of your's in some disguise about this town, and passing under another name. Prithee tell me true, was not this huff-cap once the Indian Emperor, and, at another time, did not he call himself Maximme? Was not Lyndaraxa once called Almeria, I mean under Montezuma the Indian Emperor? I protest and vow they are either the same, or so alike, that I can't for my heart distinguish one from the other. You are, therefore, a strange unconscionable thief, that art not content to steal from others, but do'st rob thy poor wretched self too."

[20a] [There is no I in the original where Clifford quotes:

[Greek: Oinobares, kunos ommat echon kradiaen d elaphoio.
Daemoboros basileus.]

I owe my copy of this curious monument of belated spite to the kindness of Mr. Austin Dobson.--ED.]

[21] "Amongst several other late exercises of the Athenian virtuosi in the Coffee-academy, instituted by Apollo for the advancement of Gazette Philosophy, Mercury's, Diurnalli, etc., this day was wholly taken up in the examination of the 'Conquest of Granada.' A gentleman on the reading of the First Part, and there in the description of the bull-baiting, said, that Almanzor's playing at the bull was according to the standard of the Greek heroes, who, as Mr. Dryden had learnedly observed (Essay of Dramatic Poesy), were great beef-eaters. And why might not Almanzor as well as Ajax, or Don Quixote, worry mutton, or take a bull by the throat, since the author had elsewhere explained himself, by telling us the heroes were more noble beasts of prey, in his Epistle to his 'Conquest of Granada,' distinguishing them into wild and tame; and in his play we have Almanzor shaking his chains, and frighting his keeper, broke loose, and tearing those that would reclaim his rage. To this he added, that his bulls excelled other heroes, as far as his own heroes surpassed his gods; that the champion bull was divested of flesh and blood, and made immortal by the poet, and bellowed after death; that the fantastic bull seemed fiercer than the true, and the dead bellowings in verse were louder than the living; concluding with a wish, that Mr. Dryden had the good luck to have varied that old verse quoted in his dramatic essay:

'_Atque Ursum, el Pugiles media inter carmina poscunt
Tauros, et Pugiles pruna inter carmina posco_;'

and prefixed it to the front of his play, instead of

'_Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo,
Majus ojius moveo_.'"

--_Censure of the Rota_, p. 1.

[22] "But however, if he were taken for no good comic poet, or satirist, he had found a way of much easier licence (though more remarkable in the sense of some), which was, not only to libel men's persons, but to represent them on the stage too. That to this purpose he made his observations of men, their words, and actions, with so little disguise, that many beheld themselves acted for their half-crown; yet, after all, was unwilling to believe, that this was not both good comedy, and no less good manners."--_Friendly Vindication of Mr. Dryden_, p. 8.

[23] Dedication to the "Assignation."

[24] Dryden either confines himself to two pamphlets, or, more probably, speaks of the three as written by only two authors. Leigh is, I presume, the contemptible pedant, and the Sir Fastidious Brisk of Oxford. The Cambridge author, who imitated his style, is the Fungoso of the Dedication:--"As for the errors they pretend to find in me, I could easily show them that the greatest part of them are beauties; and for the rest, I could recriminate upon the best poets of our nation, if I could resolve to accuse another of little faults, whom at the same time I admire for greater excellencies. But I have neither concernment enough upon me to write any thing in my own defence, neither will I gratify the ambition of two wretched scribblers, who desire nothing more than to be answered. I have not wanted friends, even amongst strangers, who have defended me more strongly than my contemptible pedant could attack me; for the other, he is only like Fungoso in the play, who follows the fashion at a distance, and adores the Fastidious Brisk of Oxford. You can bear me witness, that I have not consideration enough for either of them to be angry: let Mævius and Bavius admire each other; I wish to be hated by them and their fellows, by the same reason for which I desire to be loved by you."--_Dedication to the Assignation_, vol. iv.

[25] A student of law in the Temple, and author of that notable alteration of "Titus Andronicus" mentioned in the commentaries on Shakespeare. Besides the "Citizen turned Gentleman," he wrote the "Careless Lovers," "Scaramouch, a Philosopher," the "Wrangling Lovers," "Edgar and Alfreda," the "English Lawyer," the "London Cuckolds," distinguished by Cibber as the grossest play that ever succeeded, "Dame Dobson," the said alteration of "Titus Andronicus," the "Canterbury Guests," and the "Italian Husband,"--in all twelve plays, not one of which has the least merit.

[26]
"An author did, to please you, let his wit run,
Of late, much on a serving-man and cittern;
And yet, you would not like the serenade,--
Nay, and you damned his nuns in masquerade;
You did his Spanish sing-song too abhor;
_Ah! que locura con tanto rigor!_
In fine, the whole by you so much was blamed,
To act their parts, the players were ashamed.
Ah, how severe your malice was that day!
To damn, at once, the poet and his play:
But why was your rage just at that time shown,
When what the author writ was all his own?
Till then, he borrowed from romance, and did translate;
And those plays found a mere indulgent fate."

[27] "For my own part, I, who am the least among the poets, have yet the fortune to be honoured with the _best patron_, and the best friend; for (to omit some great persons of our court, to whom I am many ways obliged, and who have taken care of me during the exigencies of a war.) I have found a better Maecenas in the person of my Lord Treasurer Clifford, and a more elegant Tibullus in that of Sir Charles Sedley."-- _Dedication to the Assignation_.

[28] In his Dedication of the Pastorals of Virgil to Hugh Lord Clifford, he says: "I have no reason to complain of fortune, since, in the midst of that abundance, I could not have chosen better than the worthy son of so illustrious a father. He was the patron of my manhood, when I flourished in the opinion of the world, though with small advantage to my fortune, till he awakened the remembrance of my royal master. He was that Pollio, or that Varus, _who introduced me to Augustus_."

[29] The elder Richardson has told a story, that Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, was the first who introduced the "Paradise Lost," then lying like waste paper in the bookseller's hands, to the notice of Dryden. But this tradition has been justly exploded by Mr. Malone, _Life of Dryden_, vol. i. p. 114. Indeed it is by no means likely that Dryden could be a stranger to the very existence of a large poem, written by a man of such political as well as literary eminence, even if he had not happened, as was the case, to be personally known to the author. [The various legends as to Dryden and "Paradise Lost," Dorset and "Paradise Lost," etc., are well handled by Professor Masson, _Life of Milton_, vol. vi. pp. 628-635.--ED.]

[30] Dennis's Letters, quoted by Malone.

[31]
"With thee conversing, I forget all time,
All seasons, and their change; all please alike:
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glist'ning with dew: fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers, and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild: then, silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glist'ning with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon;
Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet."

"The variety of images in this passage is infinitely pleasing, and the recapitulation of each particular image, with a little varying of the expression, makes one of the finest turns of words that I have ever seen; which I rather mention, because Mr. Dryden has said, in his Preface to Juvenal, that he could meet with no turn of words in Milton."--_Tatler_, No. 114.

[32] See this Epistle. It was prefixed to "Alexander the Great;" a play, the merits and faults of which are both in extreme.