“Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality, without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy, which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden.  It is not to be inferred, that of this poetical vigour Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; for every other writer, since Milton, must give place to Pope:  and even of Dryden it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems.  Dryden’s performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without correction.  What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave.  The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce, or chance might supply.  If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing.  If of Dryden’s fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope the heat is more regular and constant.  Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it.  Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight."[7]

As the eighteenth century advanced, the difference between the styles of these celebrated authors became yet more manifest.  It was then obvious, that though Pope’s felicity of expression, his beautiful polish of sentiment, and the occasional brilliancy of his wit, were not easily imitated, yet many authors, by dint of a good ear, and a fluent expression, learned to command the unaltered sweetness of his melody, which, like a favourite tune, when descended to hawkers and ballad-singers, became disgusting as it became common.  The admirers of poetry then reverted to the brave negligence of Dryden’s versification, as, to use Johnson’s simile, the eye, fatigued with the uniformity of a lawn, seeks variety in the uncultivated glade or swelling mountain.  The preference for which Dennis, asserting the cause of Dryden, had raved and thundered in vain, began, by degrees, to be assigned to the elder bard; and many a poet sheltered his harsh verses and inequalities under an assertion that he belonged to the school of Dryden.  Churchill—­

  “Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
  And to party gave up what was meant for mankind,”—­

Churchill was one of the first to seek in the “Mac-Flecknoe,” the “Absalom,” and “The Hind and Panther,” authority for bitter and personal sarcasm, couched in masculine, though irregular versification, dashed from the pen without revision, and admitting occasional rude and flat passages, to afford the author a spring to comparative elevation.  But imitation always approaches to caricature; and the powers of Churchill have been unable to protect him from the oblivion into which his poems are daily sinking, owing