They have every fault of his manner,
without a hint of the subtile and often profound thought that more than
redeems it. As the Doctor himself would have said, here is Donne outdone.
The young nobleman died of the small-pox, and Dryden exclaims
pathetically,--
"Was there no milder way than the small-pox,
The very filthiness of Pandora's box?"
He compares the pustules to "rosebuds stuck i' the lily skin about," and
says that
"Each little pimple had a tear in it
To wail the fault its rising did commit."
But he has not done his worst yet, by a great deal. What follows is even
finer:--
"No comet need foretell his change drew on,
Whose corpse might seem a constellation.
O, had he died of old, how great a strife
Had been who from his death should draw their life!
Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er
Seneca, Cato, Numa, Caesar, were,
Learned, virtuous, pious, great, and have by this
An universal metempsychosis!
Must all these aged sires in one funeral
Expire? all die in one so young, so small?"
It is said that one of Allston's early pictures was brought to him, after
he had long forgotten it, and his opinion asked as to the wisdom of the
young artist's persevering in the career he had chosen.
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