like supplements to a mutilated statue of antiquity, injure our preconceived associations, and hurt, by their incongruity with our feelings, more than they give pleasure by their own excellence.  But to antiquaries Dryden has sufficiently justified himself, by declaring his version made for the sake of modern readers, who understand sense and poetry as well as the old Saxon admirers of Chaucer, when that poetry and sense are put into words which they can understand.  Let us also grant him, that, for the beauties which are lost, he has substituted many which the original did not afford; that, in passages of gorgeous description, he has added even to the chivalrous splendour of Chaucer, and has graced with poetical ornament the simplicity of Boccacio; that, if he has failed in tenderness, he is never deficient in majesty; and that if the heart be sometimes untouched, the understanding and fancy are always exercised and delighted.

The philosophy of Dryden, we have already said, was that of original and penetrating genius; imperfect only, when, from want of time and of industry, he adopted the ideas of others, when he should have communed at leisure with his own mind.  The proofs of his philosophical powers are not to be sought for in any particular poem or disquisition.  Even the “Religio Laici,” written expressly as a philosophical poem, only shows how easily the most powerful mind may entangle itself in sophistical toils of its own weaving; for the train of argument there pursued was completed by Dryden’s conversion to the Roman Catholic faith.[15] It is therefore in the discussion of incidental subjects, in his mode of treating points of controversy, in the new lights which he seldom fails to throw upon a controversial subject, in his talent of argumentive discussion, that we are to look for the character of Dryden’s moral powers.  His opinions, doubtless, are often inconsistent, and sometimes absolutely contradictory; for, pressed by the necessity of discussing the object before him, he seldom looked back to what he said formerly, or forward to what he might be obliged to say in future.  His sole subject of consideration was to maintain his present point; and that by authority, by declamation, by argument, by every means.  But his philosophical powers are not the less to be estimated, because thus irregularly and unphilosophically employed.  His arguments, even in the worst cause, bear witness to the energy of his mental conceptions; and the skill with which they are stated, elucidated, enforced, and exemplified, ever commands our admiration, though, in the result, our reason may reject their influence.  It must be remembered also, to Dryden’s honour, that he was the first to hail the dawn of experimental philosophy in physics; to gratulate his country on possessing Bacon, Harvey, and Boyle; and to exult over the downfall of the Aristotelian tyranny.[16] Had he lived to see a similar revolution commenced in ethics, there can be little doubt he would have