INTRODUCTION .
victory
at
the
price
he
knew
he must
pay
for it,
in
being subject to the reading
and hearing of
so many
ill
verses
as
he was sure would be made upon
it.'
Now
so
far
as
we can separate
it
from
the literary
skill
let
us
particularly
consider
the
courage
of
this
opening
—
which
may
challenge
anything
in
Plato
.
Dryden
no
more
fears
to
introduce
a
high literary dis
cussion
straight upon
the retreating Dutch
cannon
than
did
Boccaccio
to
oppose his merry
tales against
a
back
ground
of
plague
-
swept
Florence
:
for
Boccaccio
and
Dryden
,
as
greatmen
,
saw
and trusted
that man
's
con
cern
in
what literature
can
do
for him
is
actually more
vital
and
assuredly
more permanent than his agitation
,
sharper
for
the moment
,
over
any
national
crisis
or
public
calamity
.
It
takes
(I
say
)
a
great and
a
brave
man
to
perceive
this
;
a
very
brave
man
indeed
to
maintain
it
when
every
neighbour he meets will accuse
him
for
a
fool and worse
.
Dryden
chooses
to
be
bolder
yet
,
and pays our
admission
to
his high
discourse with
a
foolish
light
coin
that
passes
current wherever men
and women
have
nothing
more serious
on
hand than
to
dine
and
chat
and
make
themselves
agreeable
.
For Howard
's
pleasantry
(
as
old
as
Juvenal
,
and
older
)
has
in
truth
very
little
sense
to
commend
it.
I
am
writing
this by
a
window
which
stands open above
a
two
-
mile
beach
,
along
which
the
tide has for
some
three hours been
advancing
.
Parables
,
analogies
,
have
usually
a
weak
point somewhere
;
and
so
I
dare
say has
this
,
which
I
take
for
an
illustration
only
.
But the
seventh
or
ninth
wave which
hurls itself
in
on
so
proud
a
crest
,
to
capture whole
yards
of
territory
,
owes
its
impetus
to
the moving
mass
of
water
behind
,
though