The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II | Page 3

am naturally more delighted with any thing that is
amiable, than with any thing that is wonderful.

Whoever shall censure me, I dare be confident, you, my Lord, will
excuse me for any thing that I shall say with due regard to a gentleman,
for whose person I had as just an affection as I have an admiration of
his writings. And indeed Mr Dryden had personal qualities to challenge
both love and esteem from all who were truly acquainted with him.
He was of a nature exceedingly humane and compassionate; easily
forgiving injuries, and capable of a prompt and sincere reconciliation
with them who had offended him.
Such a temperament is the only solid foundation of all moral virtues
and sociable endowments. His friendship, where he professed it, went
much beyond his professions; and I have been told of strong and
generous instances of it by the persons themselves who received them,
though his hereditary income was little more than a bare competency.
As his reading had been very extensive, so was he very happy in a
memory, tenacious of every thing that he had read. He was not more
possessed of knowledge than he was communicative of it. But then his
communication of it was by no means pedantic, or imposed upon the
conversation; but just such, and went so far, as, by the natural turns of
the discourse in which he was engaged, it was necessarily promoted or
required. He was extreme ready and gentle in his correction of the
errors of any writer, who thought fit to consult him; and full as ready
and patient to admit of the reprehension of others, in respect of his own
oversight or mistakes. He was of very easy, I may say, of very pleasing
access; but something slow, and, as it were, diffident in his advances to
others. He had something in his nature, that abhorred intrusion into any
society whatsoever. Indeed, it is to be regretted, that he was rather
blameable in the other extreme; for, by that means, he was personally
less known, and, consequently, his character might become liable both
to misapprehensions and misrepresentations.
To the best of my knowledge and observation, he was, of all the men
that ever I knew, one of the most modest, and the most easily to be
discountenanced in his approaches either to his superiors or his equals.
I have given your Grace this slight sketch of his personal character, as

well to vindicate his memory, as to justify myself for the love which I
bore to his person; and I have the rather done it, because I hope it may
be acceptable to you to know, that he was worthy of the distinction you
have shewn him, as a man, as well as an author.
As to his writings, I shall not take upon me to speak of them: For to say
little of them would not be to do them right; and to say all that I ought
to say, would be to be very voluminous. But I may venture to say, in
general terms, that no man hath written in our language so much, and
so various matter, and in so various manners so well. Another thing I
may say very peculiar to him, which is, that his parts did not decline
with his years, but that he was an improving writer to his last, even to
near seventy years of age, improving even in fire and imagination, as
well as in judgment; witness his Ode on St Cecilia's Day, and his
Fables, his latest performances.
He was equally excellent in verse and in prose. His prose had all the
clearness imaginable, together with all the nobleness of expression; all
the graces and ornaments proper and peculiar to it, without deviating
into the language or diction of poetry. I make this observation, only to
distinguish his style from that of many poetical writers, who, meaning
to write harmoniously in prose, do, in truth, often write mere blank
verse.
I have heard him frequently own with pleasure, that if he had any talent
for English prose, it was owing to his having often read the writings of
the great Archbishop Tillotson.
His versification and his numbers he could learn of no body; for he first
possessed those talents in perfection in our tongue. And they, who have
best succeeded in them since his time, have been indebted to his
example; and the more they have been able to imitate him, the better
have they succeeded.
As his style in prose is always specifically different from his style in
poetry, so, on the other hand, in his poems, his diction is, wherever his
subject requires it, so sublimely and so truly poetical, that its essence,
like that of pure gold, cannot