[Footnote 366: "Though marriage be a lottery in which there are a wondrous many blanks, yet there is one inestimable lot, in which the only heaven upon earth is written." "To be capable of loving one, doubtless, is better than to possess a thousand."--Vanbrugh.] [Footnote 367: "She Stoops to Conquer."] [Footnote 368: "The Works of Lord Byron", 18 vols. ed. Moore, 1833, II. p. 303.] [Footnote 369: Acres: "Odds blades! David, no gentleman will ever risk the loss of his honour!" David: "I say, then, it would be but civil in honour never to risk the loss of a gentleman.--Look ye, master, this honour seems to me to be a marvellous false friend; ay, truly, a very courtier-like servant."--The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1828; "The Rivals," IV. 1.] [Footnote 370: Sir Anthony: "Nay, but Jack, such eyes! so innocently wild! so bashfully irresolute! Not a glance but speaks and kindles some thought of love! Then, Jack, her cheeks! so deeply blushing at the insinuations of her tell-tale eyes! Then, Jack, her lips! O Jack, lips, smiling at their own discretion! and if not smiling, more sweetly pouting, more lovely in sullenness!"--Ibid. III. 1.] [Footnote 371: "The School for Scandal," II. 2.] [Footnote 372: "The School for Scandal," I. 1.] [Footnote 373: Ibid. II. 2.] [Footnote 374: "The School for Scandal," I. 1.] [Footnote 375: Ibid.] CHAPTER SECOND Dryden Comedy has led us a long way; we must return on our steps and consider other kinds of writing. A higher spirit moves in the midst of the great current. In the history of this talent we shall find the history of the English classical spirit, its structure, its gaps, and its powers, its formation and its development. Section I.--Dryden's Début The subject of the following lines is a young man, Lord Hastings, who died of smallpox at the age of nineteen: "His body was an orb, his sublime soul Did move on virtue's and on learning's pole; ... Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make If thou this hero's altitude canst take. ... Blisters with pride swell'd, which through's flesh did sprout Like rose-buds, stuck i' the lily skin about. Each little pimple had a tear in it, To wail the fault its rising did commit.... Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, The cabinet of a richer soul within? No comet need foretell his change drew on Whose corpse might seem a constellation."[376] With such a pretty morsel, Dryden, the greatest poet of the classical age, makes his _début._