44

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.

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!
Ill-fated bard! where'er thy name appears
The weeping verse a sad momento bears;
Ah! what availed the enormous blaze between
Thy dawn of glory and thy closing scene?'

"

Leslie Stephen but recently wrote of Dryden: "He is a 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
This universal frame began:
When Nature underneath a heap

Of jarring atoms lay,

And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high
Arise, ye more than dead!

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.

From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began :

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in man.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell

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,
With shrill notes of anger

And mortal alarms,

The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum

Cries" Hark! the foes come;

Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat!"

The soft complaining flute

In dying notes discovers
The woes of hapless lovers,

Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.

Sharp violins proclaim

Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,

Depth of pains, and height of passion
For the fair disdainful dame.

But oh! what act can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,

Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.

Orpheus could lead the savage race,
And trees uprooted left their place
Sequacious of the lyre:

But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appear'd—
Mistaking earth for heaven.

GRAND CHORUS.

As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the blest above:

So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.

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: