I admire his talents and genius highly, but his is not a poetical genius.

The only qualities I can find in Dryden that are _essentially_ poetical, are a certain ardour and impetuosity of mind, with an excellent ear.

It may seem strange that I do not add to this, great command of language.

_That_ he certainly has, and of such language too, as it is most desirable that a poet should possess, or rather, that he should not be without.

But it is not language that is, in the highest sense of the word, poetical, being neither of the imagination nor of the passions; I mean the amiable, the ennobling, or the intense passions.