parably the best critical treatise which had appeared in our language. From the Annus Mirabilis dates the definition and dominance of the "Critical School" in poetry; from the Essay of Dramatic Poesy the definition and dominance of the modern as distinguished from the Elizabethan and Caroline style, and the appearance in England of literary criticism in the modern sense of the term.

1668-1681.

On his return to London, probably in the autumn of 1667, he betook himself immediately to dramatic work, and about this time contracted with the Company of the King's Theatre to supply them, in consideration of receiving a share and a quarter of the profits of the theatre, with three plays a year. He did not fulfil his share of the contract, but the Company, with great liberality, allowed him to receive, in return for the plays which he did write, the full sum originally agreed upon. It is not necessary to enumerate the plays produced by him during these years. In August, 1670, he succeeded James Howell as Historiographer Royal, and Sir William Davenant as Poet Laureate.

And now he was brought into contact with opponents who disturbed his peace, and whom he was destined to gibbet, for the amusement of contemporaries and posterity,with Zimri and Doeg, with Og and Mephibosheth. Dryden's Heroic Plays were at this time the rage of the town. How easily they lent themselves to ridicule, to ludicrous parodies of their style, to burlesque travesties of their sentiments, their incidents and their characters, must have been obvious to any mischievous humourist. The Duke of Buckingham, then one of the

leading wits and most prominent figures in Court and in theatrical circles, had long had his eye on them. Calling to his assistance Martin Clifford, Thomas Sprat, and, it is said, Samuel Butler, he produced a farce called The Rehearsal-a farce which subsequently furnished Sheridan with the idea and with many of the points of The Critic. The central figure of the piece is a silly and conceited dramatist, Bayes; and Bayes is Dryden. With all the licence of the Athenian stage, Dryden's personal peculiarities, his florid complexion, his dress, his snuff-taking, the tone of his voice, his gestures, his favourite oaths, "Gad's my life," "I'fackins," "Gadsooks," and the like, were faithfully caught and copied. Buckingham, who was inimitable as a mimic, spent immense pains in training Lacy, the actor, to sustain the part. In a few weeks Bayes, indistinguishable from Dryden, was convulsing all London with laughter, and Dryden had moreover the mortification of hearing that the very theatre, which had, a few nights before, been ringing with the sonorous couplets of his Siege of Granada, was now hoarse with laughing at ludicrous parodies of his favourite passages and most effective scenes. He made no immediate reply, but calmly, or with affected indifference, admitted that the satire had a great many good strokes. But this was not the only annoyance to which he was submitted. About a year and a half afterwards Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, had for some reason, which cannot now be certainly explained, resolved to annoy Dryden. He had for this purpose become the patron of a wretched poetaster named Elkanah Settle, who had just written a play in every way. worthy of its author, entitled The Empress of Morocco. By the Earl's influence it was acted.

at Whitehall, the lords at Court and the maids of honour supporting the principal characters. It was then splendidly printed, adorned with cuts, and inscribed to the Earl of Norwich in a dedication in which Dryden was studiously insulted. The town was loud in its praises, and Dryden, it was said, had found a formidable rival. With Aurengzebe, which appeared in 1675, Dryden closed his series of Heroic Plays. He had now, he said, another taste of wit, and was growing weary of his longloved mistress, Rhyme. "He was anxious indeed," as he writes in the interesting dedication of Aurengzebe to Mulgrave, "to make the world amends for many ill plays by an heroic poem," and this project he long nursed. In his Essay on Satire he tells that he had had two subjects for such a poem in his mind-the one King Arthur conquering the Saxons, the other the subjugation of Spain and the restoration of Pedro by the Black Prince. But poverty compelled him to abandon the idea, and the necessity of providing for the passing hour confined him. to deal only with what was of interest to the passing hour, and to the passing hour, unhappily, of the world of Charles II. And so it was left for Scott to lament

"Dryden in immortal strain

Had rais'd the Table Round again,
But that a ribbald King and Court
Bade him toil on to make them sport,
Demanded for their niggard pay,

Fit for their souls a looser lay,

Licentious satire, song and play.

The world defrauded of the high design

Profaned the God-given strength and marr'd the
lofty rhyme." *

*Introduction to Marmion.

Macaulay, though fully aware of the limitations of Dryden's powers as a poet, regrets that this heroic poem was never written. But the loss is probably not a great ⚫ one. Nature never intended him to be the rival of Virgil and Milton, but there is every indication that she had well qualified him to become the rival of Lucretius and Juvenal.

In his next play, All for Love (1677-8), he declared himself the disciple of Shakespeare, and exchanged rhyme for blank verse. It stands with Don Sebastian at the head of his dramas, and may be said to stand high in tragedy of the secondary order of the tragedy, that is to say, of rhetoric, as distinguished from the tragedy of nature and passion. Dryden was now at the height of his theatrical fame. All for Love had been a great success, and though the plays produced subsequentlyEdipus written in conjunction with Nathaniel Lee, Troilus and Cressida, and Limberham, the most disgraceful of his comedies-had not maintained his reputation, in The Spanish Friar he struck a note which found response enthusiastic, even to frenzy, in the breasts of thousands." It appeared in the autumn of 1681. The nation was now on fire with faction, and a momentous crisis in the struggle between the Court Party and the Roman Catholics on the one hand, and the County Party and Exclusionists on the other, was at hand. The Spanish Friar, a virulent attack on the Roman Catholics and the Anti-Exclusionists, was the first of Dryden's contributions to the great religious and political controversy of the time. It marks the transition from the second to the third epoch into which we have divided his career.

1681-1688.

During these years Dryden produced his most important poems, three of which, the satires Absalom and Achitophel, The Medal, and Mac Flecknoe are printed with introductions and notes in this volume. In these introductions and notes will, I hope, be found all that is required to elucidate the political and literary controversies in which Dryden was, during this period, engaged. It will only, therefore, be necessary here to say a few words about the other works which employed him. The first part of Absalom and Achitophel appeared in November, 1681; The Medal in the beginning of March, 1682; Mac Flecknoe in October, and the second part of Absalom and Achitophel in the following November. Simultaneously with the last poem was published the Religio Laici. From politics to religion was at that time an easy transition, and this powerful poem, which is in the form of an epistle to his friend Henry Dickenson, is at once a vindication of Revealed as distinguished from Natural Religion, and an appeal to Christians not to confound what is essential and vital in religious truth with what is accidental and of secondary importance. It is a defence of the Church of England against the Papists and the Sectaries, by one who had satisfied himself of the social and political importance of a State religion, but who had satisfied himself of little else.

It is strange and melancholy to find the author of poems so brilliant, so powerful, and so popular, condemned by the meanness of his royal and aristocratic patrons to toil like a hack in a Grub Street garret. Yet so it was.