of Rochester. For fourteen years, however, after the publication of Annus Mirabilis, Dryden has to be treated exclusively as a dramatist. The peculiar character of his plays, however, was not without influence on his style as a poet. In the heroic plays, which were written in rhyme, he had an opportunity of increasing the volume and polishing the structure of his couplets, and in this way of preparing for his future and purely poetical triumphs. His plays, moreover, contained songs, which are valuable guides to the critic in estimating Dryden's progress as a metrist. "I feed a flame within," in the Maiden Queen of 1668, and "After the pangs of a desperate lover," and "Celimena, of my heart," both in An Evening's Love (1671), are the best instances of Dryden's early songs:

"I feed a flame within, which so torments me,

That it both pains my heart, and yet contents me:
Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it,
That I had rather die, than once remove it.

“Yet he, for whom I grieve, shall never know it ;
My tongue does not betray, nor my eyes show it.
Not a sigh, nor a tear, my pain discloses,
But they fall silently, like dew on roses.

"Thus, to prevent my love from being cruel,
My heart's the sacrifice, as 'tis the fuel:
And while I suffer this to give him quiet,

My faith rewards my love, though he deny it."

In these, and still more in later and better examples, he shows that he possessed a genuine lyric grace, the existence of which we should otherwise scarcely have suspected. His songs are entirely unlike those of the earlier English dramatists, and remind us rather, in their grace and courtly turns of thought, of the kind of poetry introduced into France by Voiture and his friends.

These fourteen years of Dryden's exclusive attachment to drama mark a very low spot indeed in English poetical literature. Dryden himself had reached his fiftieth year without writing anything which was really admirable in any very supreme sense, or which, if

he had died before 1680, could have secured his name a high place in human memory. What is of greatest importance to poetical students is to observe what progress Dryden made in the new prosody, and how by means of it he drew out those qualities which had been too much neglected in the verse of the previous age— ease, intelligibility, and flexibility. The heroic plays were not wholly useless, if they merely trained the English ear, so long accustomed to discord, to enjoy such harmonious periods as these, in which we see Dryden at his best in 1670:

"Ethereal music did her death prepare,

Like joyful sounds of spousals in the air;
A radiant light did her crowned temples gild,
And all the place with fragrant scents was filled;
The balmy mist came thickening to the ground,
And sacred silence covered all around.

But when (its work performed) the cloud withdrew,
And day restored us to each other's view,

I sought her head, to bring it on my spear,-
In vain I sought it, for it was not there;
No part remained, but, from afar, our sight
Discovered in the air long tracts of light;

Of charming notes we heard the last resounds,
And music dying in remoter sounds."

Dryden's command over versification, moreover, is shown in the prologues and epilogues which he produced not merely for his own plays, but for those of others. His study of the drama of the Elizabethans presently led him to a certain change of opinion. While continuing to hold the couplet to be the proper vehicle for pure poetry, he began to be dissatisfied with rhyme on the stage. Mr. Saintsbury thinks that a tendency to overflow in the verse of the rhymed tragedy of Aureng-Zebe (1676), shows that Dryden was recurring to the form of Shakespeare. Whether this be so or not, in All for Love (1678) we find him returning to blank verse, in direct rivalry with the exquisite cadences of Antony and Cleopatra. From this time forth Dryden drew a careful distinction between the couplet, which was to be used for serious poetry of all non

dramatic kinds, and blank verse, which, in spite of what Milton had said, was to be restricted to the theatre. His own dramatic blank verse, from this time onward, was more severe than any which had been used, except by Milton, since Ben Jonson.

It was not characteristic of Dryden to invent forms of writing or to introduce fresh material to public consideration. He was never an innovator, since an innovator stands outside contemporary feeling, that he may direct it. This Dryden had no inclination to attempt; he always represented the public and was led by it, his function being, when the town had accepted a certain form or a certain taste, to bring his superlative gifts to the task of making that taste or form as classical and splendid as possible. Hence, when, at the age of fifty, he suddenly achieved the highest distinction in a field new to him, the field of satire, it came very naturally from the fact that the public had within two or three years past become strongly interested anew in that species of poetic work. We shall speak later on of those satires of Marvell and Oldham which led the way for Dryden. He so far surpassed those his forerunners, and made the style so completely his own, that we need not delay here for their consideration. It is valuable, however, to note that these less brilliant writers selected the form of political satire for Dryden, that the Scriptural tissue thrown as a light veil over the story was suggested by an anonymous tract, called Naboth's Vineyard, in 1679, and that the very name of Achitophel had been nailed upon Shaftesbury before the great poet stirred a hand. It is highly characteristic of Dryden that he should remain in watchful inaction until all the tools were forged which he needed, and that when he moved it was to produce a work of finished magnificence. When he did speak, it was as a master, and his wonderful fourfold group of satires forms the most faultless section of his work.

The four famous Tory satires were published in quick succession, within the course of twelve months. The first part of Absalom and Achitophel appeared in November 1681, when Shaftesbury (Achitophel) was in the Tower; The Medal appeared

I

DRYDEN'S SATIRES

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in March 1682, after the bill of high treason against him, a bill which Dryden's poem was intended to support, had been thrown out by the grand jury; MacFlecknoe, which was specially directed against the Whig bard, Shadwell, is dated October 1682; and the ensuing month saw the publication of the second part of Absalom and Achitophel, written after the arrest of Monmouth (Absalom) at Stafford. The first of these four poems is the most important, and the longest too, and of the last only two hundred lines are certainly from Dryden's pen, the remainder being written under the poet's supervision by Nahum Tate. In the original Absalom and Achitophel there is but a thin strain of narrative or allegory, the story of the critical state of English affairs at the moment being told under a Hebrew disguise. The poem really consists of a series of satirical portraits, cut and polished like jewels, and flashing malignant light from all their facets. The sketch of Absalom is indulgent enough, for the secret love of the king to Monmouth was well known, but none of the other Whig leaders were spared,-Shaftesbury himself,

"A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,

And o'er-informed the tenement of clay";

Zimri (Buckingham), whose death-piece was to be so magnificently added by Pope; Shimei (Slingsby Bethel), whose

"business was, by writing, to persuade

That kings were useless, and a clog to trade";

and Corah (Titus Oates), who proved his "saint-like" grace by "A church vermilion and a Moses' face,"

all these were drawn at full length, with a precision never approached by any of the popular "character "-makers of the preceding half-century, and in verse the like of which had never been heard in England for vigorous alternation of thrust and parry. The heroic couplet had become by this time, in Dryden's hands, a rapier of polished and tempered steel.

The success of Absalom and Achitophel surpassed anything of the kind which had been witnessed since the Restoration. It was a comparatively short work, containing little over a thousand lines, and the air was darkened by pamphlets of a like size, imitations, parodies, replies, encouragements. None of these possessed any real merit, or gave more than momentary satisfaction or annoyance to Dryden. His next satire, The Medal, is less often read at present, although it is much shorter, and shows no less ability. Dr. Johnson's criticism of it still holds good. "It is now [1780] not much read, nor perhaps generally understood; yet, a slight acquaintance with the history of the period removes all obscurity; and though we cannot sympathise with the fervour of politics which it contains, the poetry has claims to popularity widely independent of the temporary nature of the subject." There were, however, none of Dryden's brilliant portraits in this diatribe against the political career of Shaftesbury, and this gave the poem a certain monotony. The most stirring passage in the Medal is that in which the poet satirises the instability of public opinion:

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'Almighty crowd! thou shortenest all dispute ;

Power is thy essence, wit thy attribute !

Nor faith nor reason make thee at a stay ;

Thou leap'st o'er all eternal truths in thy pindaric way!

Athens, no doubt, did righteously decide,

When Phocion and when Socrates were tried ;

As righteously they did those dooms repent ;
Still they were wise, whatever way they went :
Crowds err not, though to both extremes they run ;
To kill the father and recall the son.

Some think the fools were most as times went then,
But now the world's o'erstocked with prudent men.
The common cry is even religion's test,—

The Turk's is at Constantinople best,

Idols in India, Popery at Rome,

And our own worship only true at home;
And true but for the time, 'tis hard to know
How long we please it shall continue so;
This side to-day, and that to-morrow burns ;
So all are God-Almighties in their turns."