as themselves. The very beginning of this ode might have served him as a proof of this truth: Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, Who does not feel a debasement, approaching to the ludicrous, in this allusion to a gazette list of promotions, by which the reception of a soul into the celestial mansions is imaged? He goes on, Whose palms, new-pluck'd from Paradise, It is, surely, a false thought, that in a state of eternal and increasing felicity, the honours of a newly-admitted guest should be more conspicuous than those of all the former inmates. The remainder of this first stanza, with which Dr. Johnson is particularly transported, has that mixture of grandeur and meanness in conception, which appears in so many of the efforts of this poet. After having supposed, in some very lofty and melodious lines, that her present residence is either in some planet, fixed star, or other more exalted region of Heaven, he bids her for a time cease her celestial songand why? to hear him sing. A most lame and impotent conclusion! The next stanza touches upon the metaphysical question, whether souls are derived from parents to children, ex traduce, or whether, from a pre-existent state, they have successively passed through different bodies? If the latter was the case, he says, hers -did through all the mighty poets roll, a compliment much too hyperbolical for the reader to acquiesce in, even if he were not to reflect that several of these poets were contemporaries. In the third stanza he supposes that all heaven kept holiday on his heroine's birth; an idea which gives occasion to a most extravagant, and almost impious, piece of bombast: And if no clust'ring swarm of bees On thy sweet mouth distill'd their golden dew, "Twas that such vulgar miracles Heaven had no leisure to renew; For all thy blest fraternity of love Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy holy-day above. Certainly Dr. Johnson could not admire such passages as these at the time he criticised Donne and Cowley! A very just and feeling censure of himself, and the other poets of that vicious age, for perverting their sacred art to the most licentious purposes, next succeeds, to which nothing can be objected, but the offensiveness of the images expressed in a line or two. The following stanza, describing the poetical and moral character of the lady, is not only unexceptionable, but contains lines of exquisite beauty, though rather of the Ovidian than Pindaric strain: E'en love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest) Was but a lambent flame which play'd about her breast, Light as the vapours of a morning dream; So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest, 'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream. The sixth stanza relates to the skill in painting possessed by this extraordinary fair-one. The poet begins by considering what he calls painture as an additional province exposed to her inroads, where she establishes a chamber of dependencies; and he runs this fancy quite out of breath, in Cowley's manner. He proceeds to give views, rather pretty than masterly, of her various productions in landscape-painting; summing up the whole in a couplet which looks like burlesque, and certainly will not convey a high idea of Dryden's taste in this art, notwithstanding he translated Fresnoy: So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before, We are next presented, in some spirited lines, with pictures of the king and queen, as painted by Mrs. Killigrew. A simile is then introduced, which, whether perfectly just or not, is at least very poetically expressed: Thus nothing to her genius was denied, And her bright soul broke out on ev'ry side. At the close, he resumes the idea of a conqueror in a most extravagant hyperbole : What next she had design'd, heaven only knows: In the succeeding stanza, he seems to have forgot that what he had before been celebrating were charms of the mind only, for it is the loss of so much beauty that he now deplores, with some ingenious turns relative to her being robbed of her beauties before she lost her life. The sentiment which follows, respecting her "warlike brother on the seas," is natural and pathetic; but its effect is injured by the artificial idea with which it concludes, of his recognizing his sister in a new-kindled star, among the Pleiades. The finishing stanza presents a picture of the last judg ment; a scene, Dr. Johnson says, "so awful in itself, that it can owe little to poetry." That it may, however, easily be debased by poetry, Dryden has taken care to prove. These are some lines on the subject in this paragon of odes: When in the valley of Jehosophat, The judging God shall close the book of fate; For those who wake, and those who sleep : When rattling bones together fly From the four corners of the sky; When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, &c. At the general resurrection, he says, the poets shall rise first, For they are cover'd with the lightest ground. Was it from this Ode that Johnson thought himself warranted to speak of Dryden, as "shewing the rectitude of his mind by the rejection of unnatural thoughts?" That the piece possesses great variety of imagery, a splendor of diction and brilliance of fancy in various parts, and elevation in some others, may be safely acknowledged; at the same time, it seems to want throughout that warmth of pathos, and sublimity of conception, which are requisite to the perfection of lyric compositions; and if, to this consideration, we add the deductions for so many false and extravagant thoughts, inadequate and trivial images, we may surely be authorized to assert, that nothing but the grossest prejudice could have caused the critic's unqualified preference of this poem to many others of the same class in our language. It may be observed as a remarkable instance either of caprice, or of singularity in judgment, that, while Dr. Johnson is so extremely partial to Dryden's poetical merit in pieces which readers in general pass over with neglect, he has hardly deigned to bestow a single sentence of approbation on his Fables, which by other critics are supposed to contain the richest vein of poetry to be found in all his works, the Feast of Alexander alone excepted. 1787, Nov. J. A. XCIX. Union of Imagination and Judgment indispensably required in Poetry. Nov. 6. MR. URBAN, IT is asserted by ARISTOTLE, that "Poetry is the production either of the Man of Genius or the Enthusiast," Eupues Ευφυές Hointien 15 Manny, cap. XVII. Winst. Ed. Arist. Poet. His imitator, HORACE, also allows the distinguished title of Poet, in the strictest sense, to him only " ingenium cui sit, cui mens divinior," Sat. 1. 4. 43: and yet the same author, in another passage, affirms, without any qualification of his assertion, that scribendi recte SAPERE est et principium et fons." A. P. 309. Let us see how these two passages of the Roman critic may be reconciled, and shew with what propriety good sense or Judgment may be called the source of excellent composition. The offices of Imagination and Judgment are not only distinct, but contrary to each other. It is the business of Imagination either to collect ideas already adopted, or to create new images; but the work of Judgment is to separate what may have been collected, and to reject many conceptions of a productive genius. Yet, with this diversity in their operations, they are both necessary to the True Poet; so necessary, that without Imagination the productions of sober Judgment would be tame and insipid; without Judgment, the works of Imagination would be absurd and inconsistent: where they both unite, is excellence; where either is separated from the other, must be defect. If we examine the writings of the best poets, whether ancient or modern, we shall find that, in those unfavourable moments when Judgment neglected to guide Imagination, they fell into gross errors. Particular instances, in proof of this assertion, may be adduced from the allegorical person ages and metaphorical figures of the poets. Though allegories and metaphors are justly styled the lights of composition, yet, without extreme circumspection in the use of them, writers are wont to confound their imaginary conceptions with real circumstances, and to introduce ideas not congruous to each other. Even Virgil is not without fault on this account, as the following lines will shew: Jamque volans apicem et latera ardua cernit Atlantis duri, cœlum qui vertice fulcit; VIRG. En. iv. 246. From the whole of this passage we are to conceive ATLAS a person; but if so, how can rivers flow from his chin? What should we think of his taste, who should form a mountain statue in imitation of Farnese Atlas, and contrive to make real water run out of its chin? Thus, by a failure of Judgment in one circumstance, a description, in other respects noble, loses much of its beauty. In the representation which HORACE gives of the river TIBER, B. 1. Od. ii. we see the same confusion of imaginary personage and literal circumstance: Iliæ dum se nimium querenti JACTAT ultorem, VAGUS et sinistra Here, in the same passage, TIBER is introduced as an avenging deity, and as an overflowing river. If the Tiber be a deity, then how could he overflow? but if a river, how could he console Ilia by threatening vengeance on the murderers of Julius Cæsar? It will be no excuse to plead that Homer has taken the same unwarrantable liberty in the twenty-first book of the Iliad. SCAMANDER there expostulates with ACHILLES, appearing avg μs; and yet presently we find him supplanting the hero, vrata pewv, by flowing on under his feet." The speaking god and flowing river are here confounded together; and it must be acknowledged that in this allegorical fiction "Dormitat Homerus.” By a single word has HORACE debased an allegory, otherwise poetical and bold. He promises himself immortality, and, under the figure of a swan, says, in a strain very animated, |