He calls it his best hitherto, and attributes his success
to the excellence of his subject, "incomparably the best he had ever had,
_excepting only the Royal Family_." The first part is devoted to the
Dutch war; the last to the fire of London. The martial half is infinitely
the better of the two. He altogether surpasses his model, Davenant. If
his poem lack the gravity of thought attained by a few stanzas of
"Gondibert," it is vastly superior in life, in picturesqueness, in the
energy of single lines, and, above all, in imagination. Few men have read
"Gondibert," and almost every one speaks of it, as commonly of the dead,
with a certain subdued respect. And it deserves respect as an honest
effort to bring poetry back to its highest office in the ideal treatment
of life. Davenant emulated Spenser, and if his poem had been as good as
his preface, it could still be read in another spirit than that of
investigation. As it is, it always reminds me of Goldsmith's famous
verse. It is remote, unfriendly, solitary, and, above all, slow. Its
shining passages, for there are such, remind one of distress-rockets sent
up at intervals from a ship just about to founder, and sadden rather than
cheer.[37]
The first part of the "Annus Mirabilis" is by no means clear of the false
taste of the time,[38] though it has some of Dryden's manliest verses and
happiest comparisons, always his two distinguishing merits.
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