thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there with such company, and that for ever and ever-oh, by what tongue or pen zas can their glorious joy be expressed! Thus they came up to the gate.

18. Now, when they were come up to the gate, there was written over it in letters of gold, "Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may 230 enter in through the gates into the city."

19. Then I saw in my dream that the two Shining Men bade them call at the gate. The which when they did, some from above looked over the gate-to wit, Enoch, Moses, and Elijah, etc.—to whom it was said, "These pilgrims are come from the 235 City of Destruction for the love that they bear to the King of this place;" and then the pilgrims gave in unto them each man his certificate which they had received in the beginning. Those, therefore, were carried in to the King, who, when he had read them, said, "Where are the men?" To whom it was answered, 240 "They are standing without the gate." The King then commanded to open the gate, "that the righteous nation," said he, "that keepeth truth may enter in."

20. Now I saw in my dream that these two men went in at the gate; and, lo! as they entered they were transfigured, and they 245 had raiment put on that shone like gold. There were also that met them with harps and crowns, and gave them to them-the harps to praise withal,* and the crowns in token of honor. Then

233. The which. The use of the definite | 237. gave in, delivered.

article with "which" originates 241. without the gate outside of the in an ellipsis of a noun, "which"

gate.

being primarily an indefinite ad- 242, 243. righteous nation... may enter ·
jective. Compare Fr. lequel.
in. Isaiah xxvi., 2.

236. City of Destruction. The "City of 247, 248. the harps to praise withal.

Destruction" (the natural or

unregenerate state of man) was
the place whence the Pilgrim
set out on his progress.

"Withal" (prep.) = with ; and,

supplying the relative, the construction is "the harps with which to praise."

LITERARY ANALYSIS. 232, 233. that the two... gate. clause is this? Of what verb is it the object? 245. transfigured. Give synonyms of this word.

What kind of

I heard in my dream that all the bells in the city rang again for joy, and that it was said unto them, "Enter ye into the joy of 250 your Lord." I also heard the men themselves that they sang with a loud voice, saying, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever."

21. Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I 255 looked in after them, and behold, the city shone like the sun; the streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps, to sing praises withal.

22. There were also of them that had wings, and they answered 200 one another without intermission, saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord!" And after that, they shut up the gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them. * * *

23. So I awoke; and behold, it was a dream.

254. for ever and ever. See Rev. v., 13. | 260. of them: that is, some of them.

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-250, 251. Enter ye into the joy of your Lord. Analyze this sentence.

255-264. Now, just... dream. In the last three paragraphs, containing 103 words, only six are of other than Anglo-Saxon origin: which are these words?

Jor: Dryden.

CHARACTERIZATION BY WALTER SCOTT.'

1. If Dryden received but a slender share of the gifts of fortune, it was amply made up to him in reputation. Even while a poet militant upon earth, he received no ordinary portion of that

1

applause which is too often reserved for the "dull cold ear of death." He combated, it is true, but he conquered and, in despite of faction, civil and religious; of penury, and the contempt which follows it; of degrading patronage and rejected solicitation, the name of Dryden was first in English literature.

2. The distinguishing characteristic of Dryden's genius seems to have been the power of reasoning and of expressing the re-' sult in appropriate language. This may seem slender praise; yet these were the talents which led Bacon into the recesses of philosophy, and conducted Newton to the cabinet of nature. The prose works of Dryden bear repeated evidence to his philosophical powers. Indeed, his early and poetical studies gave his researches somewhat too much of a metaphysical character; and it was a consequence of his mental acuteness that his dramatic personages often philosophized or reasoned when they ought only to have felt. The more lofty, the fiercer, the more ambitious feelings seem also to have been his favorite studies.

He

3. With this power Dryden's poetry was gifted in a degree surpassing in modulated harmony that of all who had preceded him, and inferior to none that has since written English verse. first showed that the English language was capable of uniting smoothness and strength. The hobbling verses of his predecessors were abandoned even by the lowest versifiers; and by the force of his precept and example the meanest lampooners of the year seventeen hundred wrote smoother lines than Donne and Cowley, the chief poets of the earlier half of the seventeenth century. What was said of Rome adorned by Augustus has been, by Johnson, applied to English poetry improved by Dryden: that he found it of brick, and left it of marble.

4. The satirical powers of Dryden were of the highest order. He draws his arrow to the head, and dismisses it straight upon his object of aim. In this walk he wrought almost as great a reformation as upon versification in general-a fact which will plainly appear if we consider that, before Dryden's time, satire bore the same reference to Absalom and Achitophel which an ode of Cowley bears to Alexander's Feast. But he and his imitators had adopted a metaphysical satire, as the poets in the earlier part of the century had created a metaphysical vein of serious poetry. Both required store of learning to supply the

perpetual expenditure of extraordinary and far-fetched illustration. The object of both was to combine and hunt down the strangest and most fanciful analogies; and both held the attention of the reader perpetually on the stretch, to keep up with the meaning of the author. There can be no doubt that this metaphysical vein was much better fitted for the burlesque than the sublime. Yet the perpetual scintillation of Butler's wit is too dazzling to be delightful; and we can seldom read far in Hudibras without feeling more fatigue than pleasure. His fancy is employed with the profusion of a spendthrift, by whose eternal round of banqueting his guests are at length rather wearied out than regaled. Dryden was destined to correct this among other errors of his age; to show the difference between burlesque and satire; and to teach his successors in that species of assault rather to thrust than to flourish with their weapon.

5. In lyrical poetry, Dryden must be allowed to have no equal. Alexander's Feast is sufficient to show his supremacy in that brilliant department. In this exquisite production, he flung from him all the trappings with which his contemporaries had embarrassed the ode. The language, lofty and striking as the ideas are, is equally simple and harmonious. Without far-fetched allusions or epithets or metaphors, the story is told as intelligibly as if it had been in the most humble prose. The change of tone in the harp of Timotheus regulates the measure and the melody and the language of every stanza. The hearer, while he is led on by the successive changes, experiences almost the feelings of the Macedonian and his peers; nor is the splendid poem disgraced by one word or line unworthy of it. . . . We listen for the completion of Dryden's stanza as for the explication of a difficult passage in music; and wild and lost as the sound appears, the ear is proportionably gratified by the unexpected ease with which harmony is extracted from discord and confusion. . . .

...

6. Educated in a pedantic taste and a fanatical religion, Dryden was destined, if not to give laws to the stage of England, at least to defend its liberties; to improve burlesque into satire; to teach posterity the powerful and varied poetical 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 that of Milton and of Shakespeare.