Remarks on Prince Arthur," written in his vigour, attain even to
classical criticism.[37] Aristotle and Bossu lay open before him, and
he developes and sometimes illustrates their principles with close
reasoning. Passion had not yet blinded the young critic with rage; and
in that happy moment, Virgil occupied his attention even more than
Blackmore.

The prominent feature in his literary character was good sense; but in
literature, though not in life, good sense is a penurious virtue.
Dennis could not be carried beyond the cold line of a precedent, and
before he ventured to be pleased, he was compelled to look into
Aristotle. His learning was the bigotry of literature. It was ever
Aristotle explained by Dennis. But in the explanation of the obscure
text of his master, he was led into such frivolous distinctions, and
tasteless propositions, that his works deserve inspection, as examples
of the manner of a true mechanical critic.

This blunted feeling of the mechanical critic was at first concealed
from the world in the pomp of critical erudition; but when he trusted
to himself, and, destitute of taste and imagination, became a poet and
a dramatist, the secret of the Royal Midas was revealed. As his evil
temper prevailed, he forgot his learning, and lost the moderate sense
which he seemed once to have possessed. Rage, malice, and dulness,
were the heavy residuum; and now he much resembled that congenial soul
whom the ever-witty South compared to the tailor's goose, which is at
once hot and heavy.

Dennis was sent to Cambridge by his father, a saddler, who imagined a
genius had been born in the family. He travelled in France and Italy,
and on his return held in contempt every pursuit but poetry and
criticism. He haunted the literary coteries, and dropped into a galaxy
of wits and noblemen. At a time when our literature, like our
politics, was divided into two factions, Dennis enlisted himself under
Dryden and Congreve;[38] and, as legitimate criticism was then an
awful novelty in the nation, the young critic, recent from the
Stagirite, soon became an important, and even a tremendous spirit.
Pope is said to have regarded his judgment; and Mallet, when young,
tremblingly submitted a poem, to live or die by his breath. One would
have imagined that the elegant studies he was cultivating, the views
of life which had opened on him, and the polished circle around, would
have influenced the grossness which was the natural growth