is fulfilled!

The two odes on St Cecilia's Day are both admirable in different ways.
"Alexander's Feast," like Burns's "Tam o' Shanter," seems to come out at
once "as from a mould." It is pure inspiration, but of the second
order--rather that of the Greek Pythoness than of the Hebrew prophet.
Coleridge or Wordsworth makes the objection to it, that the Bacchus it
describes is the mere vulgar deity of drink--

"Flush'd with a purple grace,
He shows his honest face"--

not the ideal Bacchus, clad in vine-leaves, returning from the conquest
of India, and attended by a procession of the lions and tigers he had
tamed. But this, although a more imaginative representation of the god
of wine, had not been so suitably sung at an entertainment presided over
by an Alexander and a Thais, a drunk conqueror and a courtezan. Dryden
himself, we have seen, thought this the best ode that ever was or would
be written in the English language. In a certain sense he was right. For
vivacity, freedom of movement, and eloquence, it has never been
equalled. But there are some odes--such as Coleridge's "Ode to France"
and Wordsworth's "Power of Sound"--which as certainly excel it in
strength of imagination, grandeur of conception, and unity of execution
and effect.

Of Dryden's Satires we have already spoken in a general way. "Absalom
and Achitophel" is of course the masterpiece, and cannot be too highly
praised as a gallery of portraits, and for the daring force and felicity
of its style. Why enlarge on a poem, almost every line of which has
become a proverb? "The Medal" is inferior only in condensation--in