one, in particular, he seemed in raptures. "I must acknowledge," said he, "that there are abundance of fine things in my hands, and such as do honor to the personages who wrote them; but I am under an indispensable necessity of giving the highest preference to my Lord Dorset. I must request that your lordships will hear it, and I believe all will be satisfied with my judgment: 'I promise to pay John Dryden or order, on demand, the sum of five hundred pounds. Dorset.""

Dryden's life cannot be considered a failure, though even his warmest friends must regard it with "respectful sorrow." Talents so great as his cannot be concealed by faults of character, or grossness of style. He was a fine reasoner, an able critic, and possessed a wonderful power over language.

Johnson, who was always partial in his opinions, called him the "Father of Criticism," and said, in describing his style, that he did for the English language what Augustus did for Rome-" found it brick and left it marble."

No one can help regretting that he did not carry out his favorite plan of composing an epic poem on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the same subject which Milton once thought of attempting. With such a theme, he would have given us something worthy of his genius.

I must give you a few more lines from his works, just as they happen to strike me in running them over, that you may see how lavishly he scattered gems of thought before that good-for-nothing court-literally casting his "pearls before swine:

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

"But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land."

"Beware the fury of a patient man."

"He trudged along, unknowing what he sought, And whistled as he went, for want of thought."

"Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below."

"Men are but children of a larger growth."

But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle, nonę durst walk but he."

66 Forgiveness to the injured does belong;

But they ne'er pardon, who have done the wrong."

"This is the porcelain clay of human kind."

"Time gives himself, and is not valued."

"Death in itself is nothing; but we fear

To be we know not what, we know not where."

"Love either finds equality, or makes it."

"That bad thing, gold, buys all good things."

"The secret pleasure of the generous act, Is the great mind's great bribe."

"Few know the use of life, before 'tis past."

"When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat,

Yet, fooled with hope, men favor the deceit;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay;
To-morrow's falser than the former day;

Lies worse; and while it says, ' We shall be blest
With some new joys,' cuts off what we possessed,
Strange courage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give."

"Of no distemper, of no blast he died,

But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long;
Even wondered at, because he dropt no sooner.

Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;

Till, like a clock worn out with calling time,

The wheels of weary life-at last stood still."

He was very ready in extempore composition. Talking one day at his friend's, Mrs. Creed's, upon the origin of names and their significance, he bowed to the good old lady, and recited this impromptu:

"So much religion in your name doth dwell,

Your soul must needs with piety excel.

Thus names, like well-wrought pictures drawn of old,
Their owner's nature and their story told.

Your name but half expresses; for in you

Belief and practice do together go.

My prayers shall be, while this short life endures,
These may go hand in hand, with you and yours;
Till faith hereafter is in vision drowned,

And practice is with endless glory crowned."

His assertion that he was not good at repartee, is certainly disproved by his witty reply to his wife, who, in a good-humored mood, wished that she might be a book, and so enjoy more of his company:

"Be an almanac, then, my dear,

That I may change you once a year!"

Lowell, in a recent North American, has an able criticism of Dryden, from which I will copy a few sentences:

"In the second class of English poets, perhaps no one stands, on the whole, so high as he; during his lifetime, in spite of jealousy, detraction, unpopular politics, and a suspicious change of faith, his preeminence was conceded; he was the earliest complete type of the purely literary man, in the modern sense; there is a singular unanimity in allowing him a certain claim to greatness, which would be denied to men as famous and more read; to Pope or

Swift, for example; he is supposed, in some way or other, to have reformed English poetry."

I cannot better close this rambling talk than by quoting the words of his biographer, Scott, at the close of his work:

"I have thus detailed the life and offered some remarks on the literary character of John Dryden, who, educated in a pedantic taste, and a fanatical religion, was destined, if not to give laws to the stage of England, at least to defend its liberties; to improve burlesque into satire, to free translation from the fetters of verbal metaphrase, and exclude it from the license of paraphrase; to teach posterity the powerful and varied harmony of which their language was capable; to give an example of the lyric ode of unapproached excellence; and to leave to English literature a name second only to those of Milton and Shakespeare."

ON the 1st of May, 1672, in the house of a Wiltshire dean, could be heard the cries of a little babe, so feeble and puny that it was christened on the day of its birth, no one daring to hope for its life. This delicate child became a man whom I want you all to love and admire, for his name, given in such sad haste by anxious friends, became one of the brightest and purest in English literature. JOSEPH ADDISON's early life was passed at his father's rectory, and of those days we know but little. There is a story which makes him ringleader in a "barring"