is a riddle, but not melancholy enough, in Dryden's splendid verse. The question, which has certainly been waiting, may justly be asked: whether, without this which Dryden lacks, verse can be poetry? What is man to decide what poetry is? Dryden's use of language is not, like that of Swinburne, weakening and demoralizing. Let us take as a final test his elegy upon Oldham, which deserves not to be mutilated:-- Farewell, too little and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own; For sure our souls were near allied, and thine Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike. To the same goal did both our studies drive; The last set out the soonest did arrive. Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place, Whilst his young friend performed and won the race. O early ripe! to thy abundant store What could advancing age have added more? It might (what nature never gives the young) Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue. But satire needs not those, and wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line. A noble error, and but seldom made, When poets are by too much force betrayed. Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime, Still showed a quickness; and maturing time But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme. Once more, hail, and farewell; farewell, thou young, But ah! too short, Marcellus of our tongue! Thy brows with ivy and with laurels bound; But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around. From the perfection of such an elegy we cannot detract; the lack of nebula is compensated by the satisfying completeness of the statement. Dryden lacked what his master Jonson possessed, a large and unique view of life; he lacked insight, he lacked profundity. But where Dryden fails to satisfy, the nineteenth-century does not satisfy us either; and where that century has condemned him, it is itself condemned. In the next revolution of taste it is possible that poets may turn to the study of Dryden. He remains one of those who have set standards for English verse which, it is desperate to ignore. [Footnote 1: "John Dryden," by Mark van Doren (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe).] II. THE METAPHYSICAL POETS