Dryden quotes

Wordsworth says somewhere that wherever Virgil seems to have composed 'with his eye on the object', Dryden fails to render him. Homer invariably composes 'with his eye onthe object', whether the object be moral or a material one: Pope composes with his eye on his style, into which he translates his object, whatever it is.

- Matthew Arnold
On Translating Homer, lecture1.

The difference between genuine poetry and the poetry of Dryden,Pope, and all their school, is briefly this: their poetry is conceived and composed in their wits, genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.

- Matthew Arnold
  Essays in Criticism Second Series,'Thomas Gray'.

Ev'n copious Dryden, wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

- Alexander Pope
  Imitations of Horace, bk.2, epistle1, l.280^1.