Here, as
almost everywhere else in Dryden, measuring him merely as poet, we recall
what he, with pathetic pride, says of himself in the prologue to
"Aurengzebe":--
"Let him retire, betwixt two ages cast,
The first of this, the hindmost of the last."
What can be worse than what he says of comets?--
"Whether they unctuous exhalations are
Fired by the sun, or seeming so alone,
Or each some more remote and slippery star
Which loses footing when to mortals shown."
Or than this, of the destruction of the Dutch India ships?--
"Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,
And now their odors armed against them fly;
Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall,
And some by aromatic splinters die."
Dear Dr. Johnson had his doubts about Shakespeare, but here at least was
poetry! This is one of the quatrains which he pronounces "worthy of our
author."[39]
But Dryden himself has said that "a man who is resolved to praise an
author with any appearance of justice must be sure to take him on the
strongest side, and where he is least liable to exceptions." This is true
also of one who wishes to measure an author fairly, for the higher wisdom
of criticism lies in the capacity to admire.
Leser, wie gefall ich dir?
Leser, wie gefaellst du mir?
are both fair questions, the answer to the first being more often
involved in that to the second than is sometimes thought.
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