[92] To see what he rescued us from in pedantry on the one hand, and
vulgarism on the other, read Feltham and Tom Brown--if you can.
[93] "Cette ode mise en musique par Purcell (si je ne me trompe),
passe en Angleterre pour le chef-d'oeuvre de la poesie la plus
sublime et la plus variee; et je vous avoue que, comme je sais mieux
l'anglais que le grec, j'aime cent fois mieux cette ode que tout
Pindare."--Voltaire to M. De Chabanon, 9 mars, 1772.
Dryden would have agreed with Voltaire. When Chief-Justice Marlay,
then a young Templar, "congratulated him on having produced the
finest and noblest Ode that had ever been written in any language,
You are right, young gentleman' (replied Dryden), 'a nobler Ode never
_was_ produced, nor ever _will_.'"--Malone.
[94] This was true of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and still more of
Southey who in some respects was not unlike Dryden.
[95] Pope's notion of gentility was perhaps expressed in a letter
from Lord Cobham to him: "I congratulate you upon the fine weather.
'T is a strange thing that people of condition and men of parts must
enjoy it in common with the rest of the world." (Ruffhead's Pope, p
276, _note_.
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