"
In the "Rival Ladies," Angelina, walking in the dark, describes her
sensations naturally and strikingly:--
"No noise but what my footsteps make, and they
Sound dreadfully and louder than by day:
They double too, and every step I take
Sounds thick, methinks, and more than one could make."
In all the rhymed plays[64] there are many passages which one is rather
inclined to like than sure he would be right in liking them. The
following verses from "Aurengzebe" are of this sort:--
"My love was such it needed no return,
Rich in itself, like elemental fire,
Whose pureness does no aliment require."
This is Cowleyish, and _pureness_ is surely the wrong word; and yet it is
better than mere commonplace. Perhaps what oftenest turns the balance in
Dryden's favor, when we are weighing his claims as a poet, is his
persistent capability of enthusiasm. To the last he kindles, and
sometimes _almost_ flashes out that supernatural light which is the
supreme test of poetic genius. As he himself so finely and
characteristically says in "Aurengzebe," there was no period in his life
when it was not true of him that
"He felt the inspiring heat, the absent god return."
The verses which follow are full of him, and, with the exception of the
single word _underwent_, are in his luckiest manner:--
"One loose, one sally of a hero's soul,
Does all the military art control.
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