Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/128

 and delight than his Paradise Lost. Shakespeare, whose name is immortal, had an imagination which had the power of creation, a genius which could form new beings, and make a language proper for them. Ben Johnson, who writ at the same time, had a vast deal of true humour in his comedies, and very fine writing in his tragedies; but then he is a laborious writer, a great many of those beautiful speeches in Sejanus and Catiline are translations from the classicks, and he can by no means be admitted into any competition with Shakespeare. But I think any comparison between them ridiculous; for what Mr. Addison says of Homer and Virgil, that reading the Iliad is like travelling through a country uninhabited, where the fancy is entertained with a thousand savage prospects of vast deserts, wide uncultivated marshes, huge forests, mis-shapen rocks and precipices; on the contrary, the Æneid is like a well-ordered garden, where it is impossible to find out any part unadorned, or to cast our eyes upon a single spot that does not produce some beautiful plant or flower; is equally applicable to Shakespeare and Ben Johnson, so that to say that one or the other writes best, is like saying of a wilderness, that it is not a regular garden; or, of a regular garden, that it does not run out into that wildness which raises the imagination, and is to be found in places where only the hand of nature is to be seen. In my opinion, the same thing will hold as to Corneille and Racine: Corneille is the French ShakepeareShakespeare [sic], and Racine their Ben Johnson. The genius of Corneille, like a fiery courser, is hard to be restrained; while Racine goes on in a majestick pace, and never turns out of the way, either to the right or the left. The smoothness of Waller's verse resembles a gentle cooling stream, which gives pleasure, and yet keeps the mind in calmness and serenity; while Dryden's genius is like a rapid river, ready to