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In this sense, too--as in his
use of the comparative method, as in the singular grace and aptness
of his style--Dryden was a pioneer in the field of English criticism.
III. Over the century that parts Dryden from Johnson it is not well
to linger. During that time criticism must be said, on the whole, to
have gone back rather than to have advanced. With some reservations
to be noticed later, the critics of the eighteenth century are a
depressing study. Their conception of the art they professed was barren;
their judgments of men and things were lamentably narrow. The more
valuable elements traceable in the work of Dryden--the comparative and
the historical treatment--disappear or fall into the background. We
are left with little but the futile exaltation of one poet at the
expense of his rivals, or the still more futile insistence upon faults,
shortcomings, and absurdities. The _Dunciad_, the most marked critical
work of the period, may be defended on the ground that it _is_ the
Dunciad; a war waged by genius upon the fool, the pedant, and the
fribble.


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