Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/28

22 By thee inspir'd the rumbling verses roll, As if that rhyme and bombast lent a soul: And with that soul they seem taught duty too; To huffing words does humble nonsense bow, As if it would thy worthless worth enhance, To th' lowest rank of fops thy praise advance; To whom, by instinct, all thy stuff is dear; Their loud claps echo to the theatre. From breaths of fools thy commendation spreads, Fame sings of praise with mouths of loggerheads. With noise and laughing each thy fustian greets, 'Tis clapt by choirs of empty-headed cits, Who have their tribute sent, and homage given, As men in whispers send loud noise to heaven.

"Thus I have daubed him with his own puddle: and now we are come from aboard his dancing, masking, rebounding, breathing fleet; and, as if we had landed at Gotham, we meet nothing but fools and nonsense."

Such was the criticism to which the genius of Dryden could be reduced, between rage and terrour; rage with little provocation, and terrour with little danger. To Rh