They are seldom visited from above; but a single vision so transports
them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives. Mortality cannot
bear it often: it finds them in the eagerness and height of their
devotion; they are speechless for the time that it continues, and
prostrate and dead when it departs." Such eulogy was the taste of the
days of Charles, when ladies were deified in dedications and painted as
Venus or Diana upon canvas. In our time, the elegance of the language
would be scarcely held to counterbalance the absurdity of the
compliments.
Lee, the dramatic writer, an excellent poet, though unfortunate in his
health and circumstances evinced his friendship for Dryden, rather than
his judgment, by prefixing to the "State of Innocence" a copy of verses,
in which he compliments the author with having refined the ore of
Milton. Dryden repaid this favour by an epistle, in which he beautifully
apologises for the extravagancies of his friend's poetry, and consoles
him for the censure of those cold judges, whose blame became praise when
they accused the warmth which they were incapable of feeling.[32]
Having thus brought the account of our author's productions down to
1674, from which period we date a perceptible change in his taste and
mode of composition, I have only to add, that his private situation was
probably altered to the worse, by the burning of the King's Theatre, and
the debts contracted in rebuilding it.
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