compared to those of Shakspeare, they are of "the earth, earthy." They
are the down of the thistle, carried on a light breeze upwards.
Shakspeare's resemble aerial notes--snatches of superhuman
melody--descending from above. Compared to the warm-gushing songs of
Burns, Dryden's are cold. Better than his songs are his Odes. That on
the death of Mrs Killigrew has much divided the opinion of critics--Dr
Johnson calling it magnificent, and Warton denying it any merit. We
incline to a mediate view. It has bold passages; the first and the last
stanzas are very powerful, and the whole is full of that rushing
torrent-movement characteristic of the poet. But the sinkings are as
deep as the swellings, and the inequality disturbs the general effect.
This is still more true of "Threnodia Augustalis," the ode on the death
of Charles II. Not only is its spirit fulsome, and its statement of
facts grossly partial, but many of its lines are feeble, and the whole
is wire-spun. Yet what can be nobler in thought and language than the
following, descriptive of the joy at the king's partial recovery!--

"Men met each other with erected look,
The steps were higher that they took;
Each to congratulate his friend made haste,
And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass'd."

How admirably this last line describes that sudden solution of the
hostile elements in human nature-that swift sense of unity in society,
produced by some glad tidings or great public enthusiasm, when for an
hour the Millennium is anticipated, and the poet's wish, that

"Man wi' man, the warld o'er,
Shall brithers be, for a' that,"