I trust in God that I shall not want fortitude; but my loss is great and irreparable....

TO WALTER SCOTT

Dryden

Patterdale, 7 Nov. 1805.

MY DEAR SCOTT,

I was much pleased to hear of your engagement with Dryden:  not that he is, as a poet, any great favourite of mine:  I admire his talents and genius highly, but his is not a poetical genius.  The only qualities I can find in Dryden that are essentially poetical, are a certain ardour and impetuosity of mind, with an excellent ear.  It may seem strange that I do not add to this, great command of language:  that he certainly has, and of such language too, as it is most desirable that a poet should possess, or rather that he should not be without.  But it is not language that is, in the highest sense of the word, poetical, being neither of the imagination nor of the passions; I mean the amiable, the ennobling, or the intense passions.  I do not mean to say that there is nothing of this in Dryden, but as little, I think, as is possible, considering how much he has written.  You will easily understand my meaning, when I refer to his versification of Palamon and Arcite, as contrasted with the language of Chaucer.  Dryden had neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity.  Whenever his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men or of individuals, That his cannot be the language of imagination, must have necessarily followed from this,—­that there is not a single image from nature in the whole body of his works; and in his translation from Virgil, wherever Virgil can be fairly said to have had his eye upon his object, Dryden always spoils the passage.

But too much of this; I am glad that you are to be his editor.  His political and satirical pieces may be greatly benefited by illustration, and even absolutely require it.  A correct text is the first object of an editor, then such notes as explain difficult or obscure passages; and lastly, which is much less important, notes pointing out authors to whom the poet has been indebted, not in the fiddling way of phrase here and phrase there, (which is detestable as a general practice), but where he has had essential obligations either as to matter or manner.

If I can be of any use to you, do not fail to apply to me.  One thing I may take the liberty to suggest, which is, when you come to the fables, might it not be advisable to print the whole of the Tales of Boccace in a smaller type in the original language?  If this should look too much like swelling a book, I should certainly make such extracts as would show where Dryden has most strikingly improved upon, or fallen below, his original.  I think his translations from Boccace are the best, at least the most poetical, of his poems.  It is many years since I saw Boccace,