" He makes
other allusions to it.
[17] Preface to the Fables.
[18] _Wool_ is Sylvester's word. Dryden reminds us of Burke in this
also, that he always quotes from memory and seldom exactly. His
memory was better for things than for words. This helps to explain
the length of time it took him to master that vocabulary at last so
various, full, and seemingly extemporaneous. He is a large quoter,
though, with his usual inconsistency, he says, "I am no admirer of
quotations." (Essay on Heroic Plays.)
[19] In the _Epimetheus_ of a poet usually as elegant as Gray
himself, one's finer sense is a little jarred by the
"Spectral gleam their snow-white _dresses_."
[20] This probably suggested to Young the grandiose image in his
"Last Day" (B. ii.):--
"Those overwhelming armies....
Whose rear lay wrapt in night, while breaking dawn
Roused the broad front and called the battle on."
This, to be sure, is no plagiarism; but it should be carried to
Dryden's credit that we catch the poets of the next half-century
oftener with their hands in his pockets than in those of any one
else.
[21] Essay on Satire.
[22] Ibid.
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