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"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. Learn ing 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 cotemporaries, and what were his means of supplying them. That which was easy at one time was 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 of 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 dramatists are wrought with great spirit and diligence. The account of Shakspeare may stand as a perpetual model of encomiastic criticism; being lofty without exaggeration. The praise lavished by Longinus on the attestation of the herds 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 Shakspeare, 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 зame subject, the criticism of Dryden is the criticism of a poet, not a dull collection of theorems, not a rude detection of faults, which perhaps the censor was not able to have com

mitted; 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,"

SOUTH.

DR. ROBERT SOUTH, a divine celebrated for his wit as well as his learning, was descended of the Souths of Kelstone and Kielby in Lincolnshire, and born at Hackney in 1633, his father being an eminent merchant. He entered as king's scholar of Westminster school in 1647, under Dr. Busby; and rendered himself remarkable the following year, by reading the Latin prayers in the school, on the day of the martyrdom of Charles I. and by praying for his majesty by name. In 1651, he was chosen student in Christ-church, Oxford.

Having taken his degrees in arts, and entered into orders, the following year, 1659, he was appointed to preach the assize sermon before the judges, in which he displayed a warm

zeal against the Independents, to the great satisfaction of the Presbyterians; though towards the latter end of the year he was no less severe against the hypocrisy of the latter. In 1660, he was chosen public orator of the university; in which office, on the election of the earl of Clarendon as chancellor of the university, he received him with an elegant Latin speech; and addressed another to him on his investiture. Hence he became domestic chaplain to the chancellor: and in 1663, was installed prebendary of Westminster, and soon after created doctor of divinity.

After the earl's banishment in 1667, the doctor was appointed chaplain to James duke of York, and collated to, a canonry of Christchurch in 1670, by the king. In 1676, he attended Laurence Hyde, esq. younger son of the earl of Clarendon, in quality of chaplain, on his embassy to Poland; of which country he wrote a brief account in a letter from Dantzic, 1677, to Dr. Edward Pococke, regius professor of Hebrew, and canon of Christchurch. After his return he was presented, in 1678, by the dean and chapter of Westminster, to the rectory of Islip in Oxfordshire. He was also one of Charles the Second's chaplains in

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