t adding clearness,
elegance, or vigor.

Pope had perhaps the judgment of Dryden, but Dryden certainly wanted
the diligence of Pope.

In acquired knowledge the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose
education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author,
had been allowed more time for study, with better means of
information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images
and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science.
Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local
manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive
speculation, and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more
dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of
Pope.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excelled likewise
in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The
style of Dryden is capricious and varied, that of Pope is cautious and
uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind, Pope constrains his
mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and
rapid, Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a
natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied
exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by
the scythe, and leveled by the roller.

Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet, that quality without
which judgment is cold and knowledge is inert, that energy which
collects, combines, amplifies, and animates, the superiority must,
with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred,
that of this poetical vigor Pope had only a little because Dryden had
more; for every other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; and
even of Dryden it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he
has not better poems. Dryden's performances were always hasty, either
excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity;
he composed without consideration, and published without correction.
What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was
all that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope
enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and
to accumulate all that study might produce or chance might supply. If
the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on
the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the
heat is more