Madison Whig advocate. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1839-1841, 1839-07-13
From the metropolitan
DRYDEN and Swift,

Dryden and Swift. E'Alike-yet. O.
how different" alike in holiness OF
character and imagination-in the great
influence which each exercised over the
literature Of his country-in energy of
mind-in clearness and sagacity of I'M
derstanding-in unequalled powers of
satire-in perfect mastery over English
thoughts, English words. In the art of
ruling his fellow men and bending them
to his purpose, Swift was the greater:
in the power of delighting persuading
and convincing them, Dryden bore off
the balm. Both were great reasoners;
but Dryen only was the great poet.
Swift scarcely ever scared beyond those
uers-de-sOciete, which he flung off with
out labor as relief to his dark melan-
choly, or bitter thoughts. He looked
upon literature as pastime-as means
OF gratifying his desire for personal dis
tinction-or as a part of his system of
rire la bagatele, which hes propounded
as rule of life. To Dryden, literature
was daily bread. 1t brought him his
laureatship and its butt of canary, and
it compensated for their loss when they
were taken away. His little puritani-
cal patrimony of BIakesley would have
confined him for life to his suit of drug
get, but for his rhyming plays, his pro-
logues, epiIogues, dedications, and trans
lations. Dryden wrote hurriedly-pain-
fully; pandering too often to a depraved
taste and corrupt passions. Yet how
gloriously at times did he lift himself
above that stagnant and pestifcrous at
mosphere! The image of the old poet
composing ODE, his grey hairs waving
round his inspired features, tremulous
with mental emotion, and lighted up with
the fires of genius, forms one of the
nobIest pictures of which our literary
annals afford a glimpse. Nor is the
scene less striking or affecting when we
recall him, in advanced life, pausIng
amidst his tolls, his vanities, and his
controversies; repenting that his youth
had been winged with vain Desires"
or repeating in all the fuIness of convic-
tion-solemn as autumn winds or rivers
in solitude-hIs deep and awful soliIo-
guy
'1Dim as the borrowed beams ofmoon and stars
To lonely weary, wandering travellers,
Is Reason to the soul; and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light as here; so Reasons gllmmerlng ray
Was lent not to assure doubtful way,
But guide us upward to better day.
A nd as those nightly tapers disappear,
When Days bright lord ascends our hem
isphere;
So pale grows Reason at Religions flight;
So dies and SO dissolves in supernatural light
The life ofSwift presents no such ex-
allied moods as these. He could wither
with irony and invective-excite to
mirth with his wit and invention-trans-
port US with wonder at his marvellous
powers of grotesque and ludicrious COM
bination, his knowledge of human ma
ture, lpiercing "quite through the deeds
of men,'o and his nlatchless power of
feigning reality and assuming at pleas
ure different characters and situations
in life. But he welded the rod of en-
pire chiefly TO throw down and deface,
not to build up or embellish- He hurled
some indignant philippies at the abuse
of power, breathing the utmost scorn and
defence of oppression; but this was not
his usual vein. To strip the world OF
all its pleasant drapery and DISCUSSES,
its romance. its morning and twilight
tints of fancy. was his constant object.
He was like the Puritans, who painted