Epistles; as a rule, they are but flatteries, almost always awkward, often mythological, interspersed with somewhat commonplace sentences. "I have studied Horace," he says, "and hope the style of his Epistles is not ill imitated here."[470] But don't believe him. Horace's Epistles, though in verse, are genuine letters, brisk, unequal in movement, always unstudied, natural. Nothing is further from Dryden than this original and thorough man of the world, philosophical and lewd,[471] this most refined and most nervous of epicureans, this kinsman (at eighteen centuries' distance) of Alfred de Musset and Voltaire. Like Horace, an author must be a thinker and a man of the world to write agreeable morality, and Dryden was no more than his contemporaries either a man of the world or a thinker. But other characteristics, as eminently English, sustain him. Suddenly, in the midst of the yawns which these Epistles occasioned, our eyes are arrested. A true accent, new ideas, are brought out. Dryden, writing to his cousin, a country gentleman, has lighted on an English original subject. He depicts the life of a rural squire, the referee of his neighbors, who shuns lawsuits and town doctors, who keeps himself in health by hunting and exercise. Here is his portrait: How bless'd is he, who leads a country life, Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife!... With crowds attended of your ancient race, You seek the champaign sports, or sylvan chase; With well-breathed beagles you surround the wood, Even then industrious of the common good; And often have you brought the wily fox To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks; Chased even amid the folds, and made to bleed, Like felons, where they did the murderous deed. This fiery game your active youth maintain'd; Not yet by years extinguish'd though restrain'd:... "A patriot both the king and country serves; Prerogative and privilege preserves: Of each our laws the certain limit shows; One must not ebb, nor t'other overflow; Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand, The barriers of the state on either hand; May neither overflow, for then they drown the land When both are full, they feed our bless'd abode; Like those that water'd once the paradise of God. Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share; In peace the people, and the prince in war: Consuls of moderate power in calms were made; When the Gauls came, one sole dictator sway'd. Patriots, in peace, assert the people's right, With noble stubbornness resisting might; No lawless mandates from the court receive, Nor lend by force, but in a body give."[472]