tans believed to comprise a poet. It seems never to
have been suspected that Dryden was speaking
with his most communicative cadences in the sat-
ires and the epistles. But nothing is more natural
than that his best music should be heard in the
poems which he most meant. It was when he was
most oblivious of the problem of adapting sound to
sense, when he was fullest of the scorn or the admi-
ration which he knew better than any other poet to
express, that he fell into his properest rhythms.
These two utterly contemptuous lines from Absalom
and Achitophel,

A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed,
Of the true old enthusiastic breed,

are perfectly tuned; the vowels and the consonants,
whether or not they were thoughtfully chosen, are
steeped in disdain. This gracious triplet from the
poem To the Memory of Mr. Oldham,

Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime,
Still shewed a quickness; and maturing time
But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme,

is otherwise attuned, but its attunement too is per-
fect. The acceleration in the second line speaks
eagerness to praise whatever can be praised; the
long, ripe cadence of the close breathes consola-
tion. Such passages are worth, as poetry, a thou-
sand Camillas and all the rocks that ever were
heard rebellowing to the roar. It is in them that the
true fire of Dryden's genius will be found to burn.

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