Opening the text

The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 09Dryden, John

General

The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 09

Name: The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 09
Author: Dryden, John

Dryden, John

English literature

with all the graces of elocution, to write more figuratively, and to
confess as well the labour as the force of his imagination. Though he
describes his Dido well and naturally, in the violence of her passions,
yet he must yield in that to the Myrrha, the Biblis, the Althæa, of
Ovid; for, as great an admirer of him as I am, I must acknowledge,
that if I see not more of their souls than I see of Dido's, at least I
have a greater concernment for them: and that convinces me, that Ovid
has touched those tender strokes more delicately than Virgil could. But
when action or persons are to be described, when any such image is to
be set before us, how bold, how masterly, are the strokes of Virgil!
We see the objects he presents us with in their native figures, in
their proper motions; but so we see them, as our own eyes could never
have beheld them so beautiful in themselves. We see the soul of the
poet, like that universal one of which he speaks, informing and moving
through all his pictures:

    ----_Totamque infusa per artus
    Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet._

We behold him embellishing his images, as he makes Venus breathing
beauty upon her son Æneas:

    ---- ----_lumenque juventæ
    Purpureum, & lætos oculis afflârat honores:
    Quale manus addunt ebori decus, aut ubi flavo
    Argentum, Pariusve lapis, circundatur auro._

See his Tempest, his Funeral Sports, his Combat of Turnus and Æneas:
and in his "Georgics," which I esteem the divinest part of all his
writings, the Plague, the Country, the Battle of the Bulls, the labour
of the Bees; and those many other excellent images of nature, most of
which are neither great in themselves, nor have any natural ornament
to bear them up; but the words wherewith he describes them are so
excellent, that it might be well applied to him, which was said by
Ovid, _Materium superabat opus_: the very sound of his words has often
somewhat that is connatural to the subject; and while we read him,
we sit, as in a play, beholding the scenes of what he represents. To
perform this, he made frequent use of tropes, which you know change
the nature of a known word, by applying it to some other signification;
and this is it which Horace means in his Epistle to the Piso's:

    _Dixeris egregiè, notum si callida verbum
    Reddiderit junctura novum._----

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 09Dryden, John

General

The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 09

Dryden, John

English literature

with all the graces of elocution, to write more figuratively, and to
confess as well the labour as the force of his imagination. Though he
describes his Dido well and naturally, in the violence of her passions,
yet he must yield in that to the Myrrha, the Biblis, the Althæa, of
Ovid; for, as great an admirer of him as I am, I must acknowledge,
that if I see not more of their souls than I see of Dido's, at least I
have a greater concernment for them: and that convinces me, that Ovid
has touched those tender strokes more delicately than Virgil could. But
when action or persons are to be described, when any such image is to
be set before us, how bold, how masterly, are the strokes of Virgil!
We see the objects he presents us with in their native figures, in
their proper motions; but so we see them, as our own eyes could never
have beheld them so beautiful in themselves. We see the soul of the
poet, like that universal one of which he speaks, informing and moving
through all his pictures:

    ----_Totamque infusa per artus
    Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet._

We behold him embellishing his images, as he makes Venus breathing
beauty upon her son Æneas:

    ---- ----_lumenque juventæ
    Purpureum, & lætos oculis afflârat honores:
    Quale manus addunt ebori decus, aut ubi flavo
    Argentum, Pariusve lapis, circundatur auro._

See his Tempest, his Funeral Sports, his Combat of Turnus and Æneas:
and in his "Georgics," which I esteem the divinest part of all his
writings, the Plague, the Country, the Battle of the Bulls, the labour
of the Bees; and those many other excellent images of nature, most of
which are neither great in themselves, nor have any natural ornament
to bear them up; but the words wherewith he describes them are so
excellent, that it might be well applied to him, which was said by
Ovid, _Materium superabat opus_: the very sound of his words has often
somewhat that is connatural to the subject; and while we read him,
we sit, as in a play, beholding the scenes of what he represents. To
perform this, he made frequent use of tropes, which you know change
the nature of a known word, by applying it to some other signification;
and this is it which Horace means in his Epistle to the Piso's:

    _Dixeris egregiè, notum si callida verbum
    Reddiderit junctura novum._----

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 09

The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 09

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