Th' extremes of glory and of shame, -Wholesale critics, that in coffee- -Antichristian assemblies To mischief bent as far 's in thèm lies. Bruis'd in body, And conjured into safe custòdy. That proud dame Used him so like a base rascallion, That old Pyg-what d' ye call him-malion, That cut his mistress out of stone, Had not so hard a hearted one. It was a question whether he Or's horse were of a family More worshipful; till antiquàries, After they'd almost por❜d out their eyes, Did very learnedly decide The business on the horse's side. Have they invented tones to win Doctor epidemic, Stor'd with deletery med' cines, Which whosoever took is dead since. So th' Emperor Caligula, That triumph'd o'er the British sea, Madame, I do, as is my duty Honour the shadow of your shoe-tie. Conven'd at midnight in outhouses, 'Mong these there was a politician, So politic, as if one eye Upon the other were a spy That to trepan the one to think The other blind, both strove to blink.1 1 "Strove to blink." This was Lord Shaftesbury. What an idea of craft and self-deception! a man's two eyes, the most united and friendly of all things, and which cannot stir but in unison, endeavouring to outwit one another! PASSAGES FROM THE POSTHUMOUS POEMS. CAUTION AGAINST OVER-REFORM. Should once the world resolve t' abolish All that's ridiculous and foolish, It would have nothing left to do, T apply in jest or earnest to; Or state, to pass the time away. LOFTY CARRIAGE OF IGNORANCE. The truest characters of ignorance, Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance; As blind men use to bear their noses higher Than those that have their eyes and sight entire. CAUTION AGAINST PROSELYTISM. More proselytes and converts use t' accrue But truth has but one way to be i' th' right. The greatest saints and sinners have been made A convert 's but a fly, that turns about HOLLAND AND THE DUTCH. A country that draws fifty foot of water; In which men do not live, but go aboard.1 1 Our great satirist is here indulging himself in one of the pleasant "extravagances" which he recommends as refreshments of thought: but it is impossible to take leave of extracts from such a writer without expressing a kind of transport at the perfection of his wit and good sense. DRYDEN. BORN, 1631-died, 1701. Is Dryden had been cast in a somewhat finer mould, and added sentiment to his other qualifications, he would have been almost as great a poet in the world of nature, as he was in that of art and the town. He had force, expression, scholarship, geniality, admirable good sense, musical enthusiasm. The rhymed heroic couplet in his hands continues still to be the finest in the language. But his perceptions were more acute than subtle; more sensual, by far, than spiritual. The delicacy of them had no proportion to the strength. He prized the flower, but had little sense of the fragrance; was gross as well as generous in his intellectual diet; and if it had not been genuine and hearty, would have shown an almost impudent delight in doing justice to the least refined of Nature's impressions. His Venus was not the Celestial. He would as soon have described the coarsest flower, as a rose; sooner, if it |