While Dryden examined, discussed,
admitted, or rejected the rules proposed by others, he forbore, from
prudence, indolence, or a regard for the freedom of Parnassus, to erect
himself into a legislator. His doctrines, which chiefly respect the
intrinsic qualities necessary in poetry, are scattered, without system
of pretence to it, over the numerous pages of prefatory and didactic
essays, with which he enriched his publications. It is impossible to
read far in any of them, without finding some maxim for doing or
forbearing, which every student of poetry will do well to engrave upon
the tablets of his memory. But the author's mode of instruction is
neither harsh nor dictatorial. When his opinion changed, as in the case
of rhyming tragedies, he avows the change with candour, and we are
enabled the more courageously to follow his guidance, when we perceive
the readiness with which he retracts his path, if he strays into error.
The gleams of philosophical spirit which so frequently illumine these
pages of criticism; the lively and appropriate grace of illustration;
the true and correct expression of the general propositions; the simple
and unaffected passages, in which, when led to allude to his personal
labours and situation, he mingles the feelings of the man with the
instructions of the critic,--unite to render Dryden's Essays the most
delightful prose in the English language.
The didactic criticism of Dryden is necessarily, at least naturally,
mingled with that which he was obliged to pour forth in his own defence;
and this may be one main cause of its irregular and miscellaneous form.
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