forced to take the whole sheep;--a thing which never happens
where the demand is large. But men who pay largely for the
gratification of their taste, will expect to have it united with
some gratification to their vanity. Flattery is carried to a
shameless extent; and the habit of flattery almost inevitably
introduces a false taste into composition. Its language is made
up of hyperbolical commonplaces,--offensive from their
triteness,--still more offensive from their extravagance. In no
school is the trick of overstepping the modesty of nature so
speedily acquired. The writer, accustomed to find exaggeration
acceptable and necessary on one subject, uses it on all. It is
not strange, therefore, that the early panegyrical verses of
Dryden should be made up of meanness and bombast. They abound
with the conceits which his immediate predecessors had brought
into fashion. But his language and his versification were
already far superior to theirs.

The Annus Mirabilis shows great command of expression, and a fine
ear for heroic rhyme. Here its merits end. Not only has it no
claim to be called poetry, but it seems to be the work of a man
who could never, by any possibility, write poetry. Its affected
similes are the best part of it. Gaudy weeds present a more
encouraging spectacle than utter barrenness. There is scarcely a
single stanza in this long work to which the imagination seems to
have contributed anything. It is produced, not by creation, but
by construction. It is made up, not of pictures, but of
inferences. We will give a single instance, and certainly a
favourable instance,--a quatrain which Johnson has praised.
Dryden is describing the sea-fight with the Dutch--