Note 497 — Chapter IV · DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

Preface to Miscellanies, ii.; Scott, ed. cit., xii. 295; Ker, i. 263. I wish that Dryden were alive for many reasons: not least because he would certainly pay the debt that he owes to my friend Mr Ker magnificentissime. No one has vindicated him better against the half-witted blunderers. But I am not quite so much inclined as even Mr Ker is to father his critical style on Chapelain and La Mesnardière, Sarrasin and Scudéry, or on Corneille himself. It is not till Saint-Evremond, perhaps even till Fénelon, that I can find in French the indescribable omne tulit punctum as in him. And both, are his inferiors.