Here we have the regular flow, and the nice balance between the first
and second member of each couplet, and the first and second part of each
line, which characterized the verse of Dryden and Pope.
Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long resounding march and energy divine.
Thus wrote Pope, using for the nonce the triplet and alexandrine by
which Dryden frequently varied the couplet. Pope himself added a greater
neatness and polish to Dryden's verse and brought the system to such
monotonous perfection that he "made poetry a mere mechanic art."
The lyrical poetry of this generation was almost entirely worthless. The
dissolute wits of Charles the Second's court, Sedley, Rochester,
Sackville, and the "mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease," threw off a
few amatory trifles; but the age was not spontaneous or sincere enough
for genuine song. Cowley introduced the Pindaric ode, a highly
artificial form of the lyric, in which the language was tortured into a
kind of spurious grandeur, and the meter teased into a sound and fury,
signifying nothing. Cowley's Pindarics were filled with something which
passed for fire, but has now utterly gone out. Nevertheless, the fashion
spread, and "he who could do nothing else," said Dr.
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