often felt the "classic rod" of Dr. Busby, but the boy's temperament was such that neither punishments nor abuse had much power to affect his serene self-confidence. He was very susceptible to praise, and in this we see the root of his subsequent literary methods. Dryden did not win many honours at Cambridge, whither he went at the age of nineteen, but he took his degree; and then, as his income was very small, he went to live in London as secretary to a kinsman. Here his career began. All his interests were with the Puritan party, and on the death of Cromwell he wrote an elegy strong in praise of republicanism. But Dryden was bent on personal advancement, and for the true welfare of England he had little regard; at heart he was a time-server and a political and religious turncoat. At the Restoration his hopes from the Puritan party were frustrated, and among the flatterers who sang the glories of the old order of things, he stood pre-eminent. In "Astrea Redux,” and other poems about Charles II., Dryden's tributes to the king's virtues and god-like qualities might almost rank as satire, if that were possible. In the beginning of Dryden's career he married a woman of rank and beauty, but little happiness came to him. Lady Elizabeth Howard was quick-tempered, and he was not domestic in his tastes, and much friction was, therefore, the inevitable result. A man who, to his wife's wish that she were a book that she might have more of his company, could reply: “Be an almanac then, my dear, that I may change you once a year," could not be called a model husband. Attracted to the stage in the same way as Davenant had been, Dryden brought out his first play in 1662, but it fell flat. Successful with his third, and wishing to win the favour of a king who advocated the use of rhyme, Dryden soon began those rhyming dramas which have been so justly condemned. Pepys, though he censured the rhyme as breaking the sense, said that he and his wife returned home after the performance of one of these plays before the king, mightily contented. Dryden's plays were artificial; showed no insight into character; no pathos or tenderness, and, worst of all, they were disfigured by those obscenities which make them utterly unfit to be read. Pepys pronounced many of them "very smutty." During the year of the fire and the plague, when the theatres were closed, Dryden wrote that work which has won him distinction as a critic, "The Essay of Dramatic Poesy." In this he defended the use of rhyme, but profiting by the parodies of the Duke of Buckingham, Dryden soon changed his opinion of rhyme, and we find that whenever he employed blank verse he gained in both depth and range. Dryden's "Essay on the Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy," in which he paid tributes to the Shakespearean drama, show him with all his ethical limitations to have possessed an intellectual breadth and accessibility to ideas very essential in a critic. In these essays, and his numerous dedications and prefaces, we see Dryden's decided power as a writer of prose. In 1670, two years after the death of Davenant, Dryden was made laureate. The appointment of Historiographer added another hundred pounds to his income. But the court favour, which had first been obtained by being false to hereditary traditions, could only be kept by obedience to the same methods. When James II. came to the throne, Dryden, probably to please him, became a Roman Catholic. But the poet who with such eloquence had upheld the Church of England in “Religio Laici," and the Church of Rome in "The Hind and Panther," could not, with any dignity, recant in the short space of three years and swear allegiance to the Protestant William. Therefore, at the Revolution, which deprived James of his crown, poor Dryden was left out in the cold. The people had little patience with the Romanist laureate. Lord Dorset, the Lord Chancellor, was compelled to yield to the popular voice, and Dryden was deposed. 66 In 1678 a change in Dryden's literary methods manifested itself, which resulted in works of greater scope and individuality. After this we have his great satires, his best plays, his odes, and his translations and Fables. It would be impossible to speak of these in detail. In the splendid satire " Absalom and Achitophel" Dryden first showed the hand of the master. He has immortalised his literary rivals as well as political foes. In "MacFlecknoe" Dryden's satire became still more caustic and pointed, but many of his hits degenerate into caricature, and prove that satire is one of the falsest of guides. From Shadwell himself Dryden might have learned a lesson of steadfastness and political constancy which would have done him good. It must have been hard for Dryden to have had the Laureateship taken from him and given to the very man whom he had treated so unjustly. Dryden lived eleven years after the loss of the laurel, and some of his best work was done under the pressure of poverty, notably that magnificent “Ode on St. Cecilia's Day,” called also "Alexander's Feast," which was the finest burst of his lyrical genius. Dryden laboured hard at his translations and Fables, and his rewards were fame and money, but even during the last of his life we find his poetry, with all its intellectual subtlety, its felicity of style, its charm and its power, disfigured by that disregard of moral purity and dignity which was a feature of the poet's own character and of the age in which he lived. When Jeremy Collier attacked the stage, of course his vigorous criticism touched the literary lion of the day whose influence was so widespread and powerful. Dryden felt the criticism to be just, and with singular openness of mind confessed so publicly. Two years after the publication of Collier's great work, Dryden died of an inflammation of the foot, and was buried with great pomp in the grand old Abbey. It is almost certain that, had he lived, we should have had poetry from his hand purer and greater than any which he had written before. William Whitehead, one of the laureates of the latter end of the eighteenth century, thus feelingly painted the situation of Dryden in his last days: "The hapless Dryden of a shameless age! "He is a Leslie Stephen but recently wrote of Dryden : master within his own sphere of thought. But there is something depressing about his atmosphere. . . He ought to be on our shelves, but he will rarely be found in our hearts." SELECTIONS FROM DRYDEN. SONG FOR SAINT CECILIA'S DAY, 1687. FROM Harmony, from heavenly Harmony When Nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head, Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry And Music's power obey. From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, What passion cannot Music raise and quell? His listening brethren stood around, And, wondering, on their faces fell To worship that celestial sound. Less than a God they thought there could not dwell Within the hollow of that shell That spoke so sweetly and so well. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? The trumpet's loud clangour Excites us to arms, And mortal alarms, The double double double beat Cries" Hark! the foes come; Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat!" The soft complaining flute Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Depth of pains, and height of passion But oh! what act can teach, Orpheus could lead the savage race, But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher: GRAND CHORUS. As from the power of sacred lays So when the last and dreadful hour ALEXANDER'S FEAST: OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC, AN ODE IN HONOUR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY, NOVEMBER, 1697. "TWAS at the royal feast for Persia won By Philip's warlike son: Aloft in awful state The godlike hero sate On his imperial throne: His valiant peers were placed around; Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound: |