evidence, stature, mysterious, vigorous, eloquence, vehemence, Lichfield, Stourbridge, magnitude. EXERCISE 2.-Write a short memoir of Dr. Samuel Johnson; say when and where he lived, his pursuits, the character of his writings, and his appearance and character as a man; with the time and place of his death. JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE POETS. Anabaptist, a believer in the Thebes and Athens, ancient cities Criticism, marking out the beau- Audience, people who hear. Imagery, representations by figures of speech. Exaggeration, representations beyond the truth. Marathon, a town near Athens, where the Greeks defeated the Persians. Publishing, making generally known, now usually done by printing. Malicious, with an unkind mo- Lavished, gave too bountifully. Dramatist, a writer of dramas Contemporaries, those living at the same time. Probabilities, events likely to happen. Encomiastic, consisting of high praise. Longinus, a Greek writer of the third century. Demosthenes, the greatest Greek orator. JOHN DRYDEN was born August 9th, 1632, at Aldwinkle, near Oundle; the son of Erasmus Dryden, of Titchmersh, who was the third son of Sir Erasmus Dryden, Baronet, of Canons Ashby. All these places are in Northamptonshire ; but the original stock of the family was in the county of Cumberland. He is reported by Derrick to have inherited from his father an estate of two hundred a year, and to have been bred, as was said, an Anabaptist. For either of these particulars no authority is given. Such a fortune ought to have secured him from that poverty which seems always to have oppressed him; or if he had wasted it, to have made him ashamed of publishing his necessities. But though he had many enemies, who undoubtedly examined his life with a scrutiny sufficiently malicious, I do not remember that he is ever charged with waste of his patrimony. He was indeed sometimes reproached for his first religion. I am therefore inclined to believe that Derrick's intelligence was partly true and partly erroneous. From Westminster School, where he was instructed as one of the king's scholars by Dr. Busby, whom he long after continued to reverence, he was in 1650 elected to one of the Westminster scholarships at Cambridge. At the university he does not appear to have been eager of poetical distinction, or to have lavished his early wit either on fictitious subjects or public occasions. He probably considered that he who proposed to be an author ought first to be a student. He obtained, whatever was the reason, no fellowship in the college. Why he was excluded cannot now be known, and it is vain to guess; had he thought himself injured he knew how to complain. In the life of Plutarch he mentions his education in the college with gratitude; but in a prologue at Oxford he has these lines: Oxford to him a dearer name shall be Than his own mother university. Thebes did his rude, unknowing youth engage; Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism; as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles the merit of composition. Of our former poets, the greatest dramatist wrote without rules conducted through life and nature by a genius that rarely misled and rarely deserted him. Of the rest, those who knew the laws of propriety had neglected to teach them. Two "Arts of English Poetry" were written in the days of Elizabeth by Webb and Puttenham, from which something might be learned, and a few hints had been given by Jonson and Cowley; but Dryden's "Essay on Dramatic Poetry" was the first regular and valuable treatise on the art of writing. He who, having formed his opinions in the present age of English literature, turns back to peruse this dialogue, will not, perhaps, find much increase of knowledge or much novelty of instruction; but he is to remember that critical principles were then in the hands of a few, who had gathered them partly from the ancients, and partly from the Italians and French. The structure of dramatic poems was then not generally understood. Audiences applauded by instinct, and poets, perhaps, often pleased by chance. A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre. Of an opinion which is no longer doubted, the evidence ceases to be examined. Of an art universally practised, the first teacher is forgotten. Learning once made popular is no longer learning; it has the appearance of something which we have bestowed upon ourselves, as the dew appears to rise from the field which it refreshes. To judge rightly of an author, we must transport ourselves to his time, and examine what were the wants of his contemporaries and what were his means of supplying them. That which is easy at one time is difficult at another. Dryden at least imported his science, and gave his country what it wanted before; or rather, he imported only the materials, and manufactured them by his own skill. The "Dialogue on the Drama" was one of his first essays in criticism, written when he was yet a timorous candidate for reputation, and therefore laboured with that diligence which he might allow himself somewhat to remit when his name gave sanction to his positions, and his awe of the public was abated, partly by custom and partly by success. It will not be easy to find in all the opulence of our language, a treatise so artfully variegated with successive representations of opposite probabilities, so enlivened with imagery, so brightened with illustrations. His portraits of the English dramatist are wrought with great spirit and diligence. The account of Shakespeare may stand as a perpetual model of encomiastic criticism; exact without minuteness, and lofty without exaggeration. The praise lavished by Longinus on the attestation of the heroes of Marathon by Demosthenes fades away before it. In a few lines is exhibited a character so extensive in its comprehension and so curious in its limitations, that nothing can be added, diminished, or reformed. Nor can the editors and admirers of Shakespeare, in all their emulation of reverence, boast of much more than of having diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence; of having changed Dryden's gold for baser metal, of lower value though of greater bulk. In this, and in all his other essays on the same subject, the criticism of Dryden is the criticism of a poet; not a dull collection of theorems, nor a rude detection of faults, which perhaps the censor was not able to have committed; but a gay and vigorous dissertation, where delight is mingled with instruction, and where the author proves his right of judgment by his power of performance. EXERCISE 1.-Define :-Inherit, secured, oppressed, examined, reverence, author, student, principles, opinions, dialogue, ancients, imported, materials, limitation, emulation, paraphrase. EXERCISE 2.-Give Johnson's estimate of Dryden as an author, 65 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM COWPER. Production, bringing into being. Bereaved, having had something taken away. Oculist, one who studies and treats the eye. Satirical, severe in words which expose folly. Patrimony, property received from a parent, Lucrative, producing money. Congenial, agreeing in feeling. Suggestion, an off hand hint. Didactic, tending to teach, Paralysis, a loss of the power to feel and act, Chaplain, a minister of a family or institution. Susceptible, liable to be moved or impressed, Eminent, rising above most others, Serials, books or magazines issued at regular times. Recoiled, started back from. Despondency, a condition without hope. Expostulation, a calm but earnest reasoning with. Annuity, a yearly payment without service. THE year 1773, or that immediately preceding the death of poor Goldsmith, saw the production of a small volume of hymns, known as the "Olney Collection," the joint production of the Rev. J. Newton, who was the curate of Olney in Buckinghamshire, and William Cowper, of whom we propose now to give a slight sketch. The Rev. John Cowper, the son of a judge and nephew of a lord chancellor, was a royal chaplain, and rector of Great Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, where, in 1736, his son William was born. After six years of tender and watchful care the true and gentle mother died, and the sensitive child thus early experienced a sorrow that time failed to heal. How enduring were the love and gratitude inspired by those few short years of maternal care, we may see in the heart-spoken lines of the poet, written on receipt of his mother's picture, at some fifty years after her death. The little bereaved boy was soon sent to a boarding school, where the heart, so susceptible of a love that nothing could quench, experiencing for two years the |