[An attempt, notable, but not convincing, to father
MacFlecknoe
on Oldham.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v08
Diary of lady Warwick.
Her Occa-
sional Meditations. Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe. Letters of
Rachel Lady Russell. Memoirs of Queen Mary II
266
## p. xi (#17) ##############################################
Contents
xi
CHAPTER XI
PLATONISTS AND LATITUDINARIANS
By J. Bass MULLINGER, M. A. , St John's College
PAGE
Distinction between the Cambridge Platonists and the latitudinarians.
Benjamin Whichcote. His position as defined by himself. His
Aphorisms and Sermons. Whichcote not a Platonist. Henry
More. His life and habits. Cudworth and his Treatise concerning
Eternal and Immutable Morality. More's Song of the Soul.
Joseph Beaumont's Psyche. More's Immortality of the Soul,
Grand Mystery of Godliness and Mystery of Iniquity His
Divine Dialogues. Cudworth's True Intellectual System of
the Universe. More and Cudworth compared. John Smith's
Select Discourses. John Smith and Henry More contrasted.
Culverwels Light of Nature. George Rust (bishop of Dromore).
Glanvill's Lux Orientalis. His controversy with Henry Stubbs.
Richard Cumberland (bishop of Peterborough) and other con-
tributors to the latitudinarian movement.
273
CHAPTER XII
DIVINES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
1660-1700
By the Ven. W. H. HUTTON, B. D. , Archdeacon of Northampton,
Canon of Peterborough and Fellow of St John's College,
Oxford
Old and new influences on the style of the English pulpit in the
period following the restoration. Gradual transition. Herbert
Thorndike, John Cosin and George Morley. Isaac Barrow: his
sermons and his treatise on the Pope's Supremacy. Pearson's
Exposition of the Creed. John Wilkins as a link with the later
generation. Robert Leighton and his preaching. Burnet as a
theologian. His Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles. His
Pastoral Care. Stillingfleet and Patrick. Fashionable preachers
of the age. Extempore preaching begins to be popular. Tillotson.
South and the controversial style. Sherlock. Samuel Parker's
Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity. Henry Compton's Episco-
palia. George Bull. Sancroft's Fur Praedestinatus. Henry
Wharton. Non-jurors: Ken, Kettlewell, Dodwell and Hickes.
Robert Nelson's Companion for the Festivals and Fasts. In.
fluence of foreign, and especially of French, culture upon English
divines
293
## p. xii (#18) #############################################
xii
Contents
CHAPTER XIII
LEGAL LITERATURE
I
By F. J. C. HEARNSHAW, M. A. , LL. D. , formerly scholar of Peter-
house, Professor of History in King's College, University of
London
PAGE
The beginnings of English legal literature. The laws of Ethelbert of
Kent and other early kings. The era of the capitularies. Com-
plications introduced by the Norman conquest. - English common
law in the twelfth century. New type of legal writings: Tractatus
de Legibus et Consuetudinibus R. Angliae, called by the name of
Ranulf de Glanvil. Bracton's treatise bearing the same title.
Fleta and Britton. The Year Books and their value. Fortescue's
De Laudibus Legum Angliae and Littleton's Tenures. Early
printed law books. Law Reports. Equity and common law:
Bacon and Cowell; Coke. Selden and his legal works. English
as the language of the law. Sir Matthew Hale. Revival of the
common law, and of the use of Latin and French. Sir William
Dugdale and William Prynne. Hobbes and the advent of a new
era
309
II
SELDEN'S Table-Talk
By A. W. WARD, Litt. D.
Predecessors of Selden's Table-Talk. Authenticity of the book.
Scanty references to personal experiences. Chief political and
religious topics. Selden's wit and wisdom
321
0
CHAPTER XIV
JOHN LOCKE
By W. R. SORLEY, Litt. D. , F. B. A. , Fellow of King's College,
Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy
Locke the most important figure in English philosophy. His personal
and literary life. Controversy with Stillingfleet. The 'new way
of ideas' opened by Locke. Plan of An Essay concerning Human
Understanding. Locke's doctrine of knowledge. Its nature and
extent. "The twilight of probability. Two Treatises of Govern-
ment. Economic writings. Economists contemporary with Locke:
Sir William Petty. Letters concerning Toleration. Earlier pleas.
Locke's views on church and state. Thoughts concerning Educa-
tion; Locke's theory. His critics and followers. Richard Bur.
thogge. John Norris and his Ideal World
328
## p. xiii (#19) ############################################
Contents
X111
CHAPTER XV
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
By A. E. SHIPLEY, Sc. D. , F. R. S. , Master of Christ's College
PAGE
Lateness of the scientific reawakening. Outburst of scientific enquiry
in the seventeenth century and its causes. The heritage of Bacon.
Milton and scientific enquiry. Lord Herbert of Cherbury. His
knowledge of medicine and allied subjects. Evelyn and Pepys.
Witches, astrologers and alchemists. Intelligence of the Stewarts
in matters scientific: Charles II and prince Rupert. The marquis
of Worcester. Sir Kenelm Digby. Mathematics: John Wallis
and Seth Ward; Newton. Harvey and the circulation of the
blood. Other great physiologists and physicians: Sir Theodore de
Mayerne; John Mayow; Thomas Sydenham; Francis Glisson.
bert Boyle. Origin and beginnings of the Royal Society.
Contemporary poets and scientific research : Cowley, Donne, Butler.
Political economists of the seventeenth century: Sir William
Petty and Locke
:
349
CHAPTER XVI
THE ESSAY AND THE BEGINNING OF MODERN
ENGLISH PROSE
By A. A. TILLEY, M. A. , Fellow of King's College
The new prose and its causes. Interest in science and demand for
clearness of style. Growing plainness and simplicity of pulpit
oratory. The style of Dryden and its conversational character.
Early beginnings of French influence on English literature; its
increase under Charles I. English exiles in France: D'Avenant,
Cowley and others. French influence through translations. Heroic
romances. Urquhart's Rabelais; Pascal; Descartes; Corneille,
Racine and Molière. Influence of French criticism. Boileau.
Chapelain, Le Bossu and Dacier. Evidence of Dryden, Rapin and
Rymer. Saint-Évremond and the renewal of the popularity of
Montaigne in England. Francis Osborne. Cowley's Essays.
Sir William Temple, Dorothy Osborne and lady Giffard. Temple's
letters and Memoirs. His miscellaneous works: Essays. In-
fluence of Montaigne. Halifax's Miscellanies: The Character of
a Trimmer; A Letter to a Dissenter. Clarendon's Essays. Dry-
den's influence on English style. The Preface to the Fables
368
391
Bibliographies.
Table of Principal Dates
Index of Names
484
488
## p. xiv (#20) #############################################
## p. xv (#21) ##############################################
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
VOLUME VIII. THE AGE OF DRYDEN
Second Impression, 1920, Corrections and Additions
The errata mentioned in volumes of the History published later than the first
edition of this volume have been corrected in the present impression. In addition,
some misprints noticed later have been corrected, and a few alterations made.
Addenda to the present (2nd) impression
p. 50, 11. 6, 7. Mr H. B. Wheatley had in his possession Tonson's accounts with
Dryden, which give some further information as to the terms of the subscription.
p. 215, 11. 14–19 should be omitted. The verses, “Why dost thou shade thy lovely
face,' here ascribed to Rochester, are the work of Quarles, and were first published in
his Emblems. They have been printed in many editions of Rochester's poems, but
whether they were claimed by him in jest, or falsely attributed to him by his editors,
we have no means of knowing.
The following additions should be made to the bibliographies :
pp. 391 ff. chapter i. Dryden:
Under Drydeniana:
Villiers, George, 2nd duke of Buckingham. The Rehearsal. Ed. Summers, M.
Shakespeare Head Press. 1914.
Under Modern Criticism:
Babington, Percy L. Dryden not the Author of “Macflecknoe. ' Rptd from The
Modern Language Review, Vol. xm, No. 1, January 1918.
[An attempt, notable, but not convincing, to father MacFlecknoe on Oldham. ]
Boas, F. S. Stage Censorship under Charles I. I. The Amboyna Outrage. The
Times Literary Supplement, 13 Dec. 1917.
[An extremely interesting account of an earlier dramatic treatment (1633) of
the same incident. ]
Verrall, A. W. Dryden. In Collected Literary Essays, Classical and Modern. Ed.
Bayfield, M. A. , and Duff, J. D. (1913).
Lectures on Dryden. Ed. Margaret de G. Verrall. Cambridge, 1914.
pp. 416 ff. chapters v, vi and vii. The Restoration Drama:
Nettleton, G. H. English Drama of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century (1642–
1780). 1914.
pp. 464 ff. chapter xil. Legal Literature:
Worrall, John. Bibliotheca Legum: a new and complete list of the Common and
Statute Law Books of this Realm up to 1735, Alphabetically arranged. 1736.
## p. xvi (#22) #############################################
pp. 471 ff. chapter xiv. John Locke:
Locke, John. Lettres inédites à ses amis. Ed. Ollion, H. and Boei, T. J. de. La
Haye, 1912.
Gibson, J. Locke's Theory of Knowledge. Cambridge, 1917.
pp. 480 ff. chapter xvi. The Essay and the beginning of Modern English Prose :
Cowley, Abraham. Essays and other Prose Writings. Ed. Gough, A. B. Oxford,
1915.
Savile, George, Marquis of Halifax. Complete Works. Ed. Raleigh, Sir W. Oxford,
1912.
Under B. French Influence, etc. :
Villey, P. L'influence de Montaigne sur Charles Blount et sur les Déistes anglais.
Rev. du seizième siècle, 1, pp. 190 ff. and 392 ff.
## p. 1 (#23) ###############################################
CHAPTER I
DRYDEN
1
"THE Age of Dryden' seems an expression as appropriate as
any description of a literary period by the name of a single writer
can be, and yet, in one sense, it is a misnomer. On the one hand,
in the chapter of English literary history which more or less covers
the forty years between the restoration and the opening of the
eighteenth century, not only is Dryden's the most conspicuous
personality, but there are few literary movements of importance
marking the period of which he did not, as if by right divine,
assume the leadership, and which did not owe to him most of what
vitality they proved to possess. On the other hand, as has been
again and again pointed out, Dryden, of all great English writers,
and, more especially, of all great English poets, was the least
original, the least capable of inspiring his generation with new
ideas, of discovering for it new sources of emotion, even of pro-
ducing new artistic forms. Many currents of thought and feeling
suggested to him by his age were supplied by the power of his
genius with an impetus of unprecedented strength; more than
one literary form, offering itself for his use at an inchoate, or at
a relatively advanced, stage of development owed the recognition
which it secured to the resourceful treatment of it by his master-
hand. Whether or not the debt which his extraordinary pro-
ductivity as a writer owed to the opportunities given him by his
times can be taken into account as against the transformation of
his material by his genius may be regarded as a question open
to debate. There cannot, however, be any doubt at all that
neither can Dryden's own achievements be appreciated apart
from the influences of his age, nor is any judgment of the literary
produce of that age, as a whole, to be formed without an estimate
of his contribution to it being regarded as the dominant factor in
the result. Thus, in an attempt to sketch, once more, the course
of his literary endeavours, it would be futile to detach their
1
E. L. VIII.
CH. 1.
## p. 2 (#24) ###############################################
N
Dryden
succession from the experiences of his personal life, largely deter-
mined, as these were, by political reaction and revolution, and by
other changes in the condition of the country and in that of its
intellectual centre, the capital.
John Dryden (he wrote his name thus, though, before him, the
spelling was varied both by his kinsmen and by his parents) was
born 9 August 1631, in the parsonage house of Aldwinkle All
Saints, near Oundle in Northamptonshire, of which his maternal
grandfather, Henry Pickering, was rector! . His parents were of
good county descent; but his father, Erasmus Dryden, was a
younger son with many brothers and sisters, and his estate at
Blakesley, on the other side of the county (near Canons-Ashby,
the family seat), which afterwards descended to the poet, con-
siderably burdened, was valued at sixty pounds a year in the
money of the time. He appears to have resided generally at
Tichmarsh, the chief seat of his wife's family, near Oundle. On
both the father's and the mother's side, the future laureate of the
Stewarts was connected with the parliamentary side; his mother's
cousin-german, Sir Gilbert Pickering, was one of the judges of
Charles I (though he did not sit on the final day), and, afterwards,
became chamberlain at the protector Oliver's court and a member
a
of his House of Lords? . After receiving his early education either
at Tichmarsh or (as is the more usual tradition) at Oundle grammar
school, Dryden—at what precise date is unknown-was admitted
as a king's scholar at Westminster, where he was trained under
the redoubtable Busby. In a note to a translation of the Third
Satire of Persius, published by Dryden in 16933, Dryden states
that he remembered translating this satire at Westminster school
'for a Thursday-night's exercise. ' The direct influence which
exercises of this kind, vigilantly supervised, must have had upon
the formation of his style as a writer of English verse is obvious ;
but, though Dryden surmises that copies of his translations were
preserved by Busby, none is extant, and the sole poetical relic of
his Westminster days is his contribution to Lachrymae Musarum
(1649), in memory of his schoolfellow, Henry Lord Hastings-
a small volume, whose black-bordered title-page heralds not less
See a valuable article in The Saturday Review, 17 April 1875, entitled “The
Birthplace of Dryden,' which, besides summarising what is known as to the localities
of his birth and childhood, gives an account of most of what remains on record
concerning his kith and kin.
? It would seem to be this Sir Gilbert, who, in The Medal of John Bayes, and else-
where, is held up to scorn as a committee-man or sequestrator.
8 The translation of the Fifth Satire is inscribed to Busby.
## p. 3 (#25) ###############################################
School and College Years
3
than thirty-three elegiac pieces, by Herrick, Denham, Marvell and
others. About Dryden's juvenile elegy, much that is superfluous
has been written; it was not wonderful that a schoolboy poet
should exaggerate the bad taste into which the followers of an
artificial school of poetry frequently lapsed"; but the verses also
give proof of that rapidity in connecting thoughts (the very
essence of wit) and that felicity in expressing them which were
among the chief characteristics of the formed style of Dryden,
In May 1650, he was admitted as a Westminster scholar at
Trinity college, Cambridge, whence he matriculated in the follow-
ing July. Of his college career, nothing is known, except that,
quite early in his third year of residence, he underwent a not
very serious disciplinary punishment. He took his B. A. degree
in January 1654, but did not proceed to M. A. , which degree he
only obtained in 1668, when it was conferred on him at the king's
request by the archbishop of Canterbury (Sheldon). It appears,
probably on his own authority 3, that he continued in residence at
Cambridge till 1657; but there is no evidence as to the date when
he began his life in London, though he may be concluded to have
done so before the death of the protector Oliver (September
1658).
Cambridge would not seem to have fascinated the imagination,
or to have enchained the sympathies, of an alumnus destined to
hold a prominent place in her long list of poets. In the earliest
years of the second half of the century, the university had
much to suffer from the ascendancy of the army, and may even
momentarily have trembled for its existence. During Oliver's
protectorate, however, when the university was represented in
parliament by his son Richard, it began to revive under a more
tolerant régime. Dryden's family connection was, as has been
seen, with the party in power; nor was his a nature into which
the iron of political tyranny was likely to enter very deeply. But
it is quite unnecessary to seek for explanations of the preference
which, a quarter of a century later, in one of the several prologues
1 See, besides the notorious allusions to the small-pox, the concluding apostrophe
to the young lord's betrothed.
9 There is no evidence to support the assertion of Shadwell (in The Medal of John
Bayes) that Dryden, having traduced a nobleman'and suffered castigation, narrowly
escaped expulsion from his college in consequence.
In Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco (1674), oited by Malone,
Life of Dryden, p. 27, Dryden is spoken of as 'a man of seven years' standing at
Cambridge. ' He had himself a band in this pamphlet.
4 The date of the particular Prologue, first printed in 1684, is safely conjectured
by Christie to have been 1681.
1-2
## p. 4 (#26) ###############################################
4
Dryden
6
6
addressed by him to the university of Oxford, he avowed for it, as
‘Athens,' over his own mother-university, 'Thebes'-nor need this
preference be taken very seriously? And, in any case, it is quite
out of keeping with his usual indifference to such attacks to sup-
pose that his coldness towards Cambridge was due to a captious
'Cambridge' pamphlet (which, by the way, was published at
Oxford), The Censure of the Rota on Mr Dryden's Conquest
of Granada (1673); while equally little importance attaches, in
this connection, to the statement of Dennis (a Caius man) that,
about the same time, not only the town (London), but, also, the
university of Cambridge, was very much divided as between
Settle and Dryden, 'the younger fry,' in both places, 'inclining
to Elkanah 2
In 1654, soon after Dryden had taken his bachelor's degree,
his father died, and he became the owner of the small paternal
estate. From the time of his residence at Cambridge, either
before or after this event, hardly any literary remains have come
down to us. Dryden, as Malone points out, had no share in any
of the collections of contemporary Cambridge verse printed during
his period of residence. On the other hand, from the first year
of his undergraduateship date the pleasing lines, proudly signed
'J. Dryden of Trin. C. ,' prefixed to a volume of Epigrams (1650)
put forth by his friend John Hoddesdon, who, unlike Dryden
himself, was moved to seek reputation as a poet
before the down begin
To peep, as yet, upon [his] smoother skin.
And a more personal interest attached to a copy of verses
forming part of a letter written by him, in acknowledgment of
the gift of a silver inkstand, to his cousin Honor, the daughter
of Sir John Dryden, the head of the family. They are, as Scott
points out, in Cowley's fantastic and farfetched style, and are not
altogether pleasing. For the superstructure of a supposed attach-
ment and blighted hopes which has been raised upon the evidence
of this letter, there is not a tittle of proof 3.
1 As Christie points out, the poet, in transmitting to Rochester another Prologue
addressed to · Athenian judges' six months earlier, and asserting, inter alia, that
poetry which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade,
observed to his patron 'how easy 'tis to pass anything upon a University. '
2 Cited by Saintsbury, G. , Dryden (English Men of Letters), p. 65.
3 To be sure, one of the two heiresses of Dryden's second acted play, The Rival-
Ladies, is named Honoria, and one of the stories included by Dryden in his last
important work is Boccaccio's tale of Theodore and Honoria. To be sure, too, Honor
Dryden, though she inherited a large portion, never married.
## p. 5 (#27) ###############################################
Heroick Stanzas on Cromwell
5
When, in 1657 or 1658, Dryden took up his abode in London,
to which, with the exception of occasional visits to Northampton-
shire and other easily accessible parts of the country, he remained
faithful during the rest of his life, Cromwell's rule had, for some
years, been firmly established, and Sir Gilbert Pickering was in full
possession of the great man's favour. That the young Dryden
actually became 'clerk' or secretary to his influential kinsman
rests only on the late evidence of Shadwell's lampoon? But no
special connection of the kind with the protector's court or person
is needed to account for Dryden's first public appearance as a
writer with A Poem upon the Death of His Late Highness,
Oliver, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, first
published separately early in 1659, and reprinted in the same year,
in company with an ode on the same subject by Thomas Sprat
(afterwards dean of Westminster and bishop of Rochester) and
some lines by Waller Upon the late Storme and Death of the
Protector. Sprat's is a not undignified effort in a style in which
he acquitted himself so well as to become known as “Pindaric
Sprat,' and contains a daring figure afterwards appropriated by
the master of the species, “the incomparable Dr Cowley? . ' Waller's
> lines, as usual with him, beat out the gold of a single thought into
very thin leaf. Dryden, on the contrary, whose poem was again
reprinted in 1659, revised, and under the title of Heroick Stanzas
consecrated to the Memory, etc. , surveyed his theme with not less
circumspection than ardour, and chose his topics of eulogy not
only, as Scott says, with attention to truth, but, also, with a
manifest desire to avoid hyperbole. Even the fine passage
Such was our Prince, yet owned a soul above
The highest acts it could produce to show
cannot be censured as an exaggeration, except by those who deny
that Cromwell was a great man and, as such, necessarily greater
than his deeds. The poem, though still studded with farfetched
and not always appropriate conceits (e. g. War, our consumption,'
st. XII; “Bolognia’s walls,” st. XVI; the death of Tarpeia,
st. XXXIV), shows Dryden already controlling the form chosen
by him with a certainty not to be found in his juvenile efforts,
and master of an overpowering directness which was to become
6
>
2
1 In The Medal of John Bayes (1682).
He brought them to the Borders, but a Second hand
Did settle and secure them, in the promis'd Land.
The passage shows that Sprat's tribute, like Dryden's, was intended to meet the eye
of Oliver's successor.
## p. 6 (#28) ###############################################
6
Dryden
.
+
one of his most notable characteristics? . Thus, the Heroick
Stanzas, though, necessarily, they attracted little attention at
a time when the immediate future absorbed public interest, and
though their author, naturally, was willing to allow them to be
forgotten, hold a permanent place among his poetical achieve-
ments.
Dryden's working days in the service of the muses had now
begun. With his very modest income, and without any family
interest that could be of use to him, he can have looked the world
in the face in no very sanguine mood; and, indeed, a certain
reserve and lack of satisfaction in life and in the work which
he had to do in it is noticeable in his writings, as it seems to have
been in his personal bearing. Shadwell's sneer that Dryden had
‘turn'd journeyman to a bookseller' probably applies to a rather
later period of his career, and may be an illnatured perversion of
an insignificant fact? But, in any case, Dryden, till he had studied
his brief and taken up his pen, was devoid of the political, and,
still more, of the religious, enthusiasm which might have sufficed
to inspire him as a writer; and few poets have ever been less
manifestly moved by spontaneous lyric impulse. What he wrote
in the earlier part of his literary career was, as it were, auto-
matically suggested by the great changes in contemporary public
life, to which his literary powers, growing surer of themselves in
each successive trial, responded without any apparent hesitation,
As there had not been any signs of ardour or strong personal
conviction in the Heroick Stanzas, so, when the restoration of the
Stewart monarchy had been accomplished as the only feasible
termination of the crisis, and when Dryden, once more, went with
the times, he went with them in his own temperate and reasoning
way. This may certainly be averred with regard to the substance
of the paean sounded by him on the occasion of the return of
- Charles II. For, although, in Astraea Redux (1660), he did not
shrink from any extravagance in picturing the popular joy, and the
hopes in which, now Time's whiter series is begun,' the subjects of
Charles II indulged, yet, the royal qualities on which he enlarged
as warranting these emotions were those which the king actually
His grandeur he derived from heaven alone. (St. vi. )
When absent, yet we conquered in his right. (St. xxiv. )
He made us freemen of the continent. (St. XXIX. )
• The bookseller is stated, in a note, to have been H. Herringman, who kept him
at his house for the purpose. ' Dryden seems to have lodged over Herringman's shop
in the New Exchange, Strand, and Herringman was the publisher of the poems of Sir
Robert Howard, Dryden's future brother-in-law. The combination was irresistible.
6
## p. 7 (#29) ###############################################
Astraea Redux and Other Panegyrics 7
7
possessed, or, at least, was anxious to display-prudence in adversity,
and clemency in the day of success. At the same time, he abstained
from personal abuse, either of Cromwell (for the comparison to
the bold Typhoeus' cannot be set down as abuse) or of any other
leader of the rebellion. There is, of course, much audacious misuse
of the classical and Scriptural illustrations in which this poem
abounds; but that was part of the 'noble' style which is essential
to courtly panegyric. The general spirit of the poem is merely that
of frank timeservice; though the shameless apostrophising of the
rechristened Naseby, which had earned some of the naval laurels
celebrated in the Heroick Stanzas, as 'now no longer England's
shame,' must be allowed to call for severe censure. The genius of
the poet shows itself not only in magnificent aberrations, like the
comparison to the star of Bethlehem of the star that had shone at
Charles II's birth and now shone again,
Guiding our eyes to find and worship you;
but, also, in exquisitely graceful turns of expression, to which the
metre suits its music with inimitable ease, such as the tribute to
May, the month in which the king was born :
You and the flowers are its peculiar care 1.
Nor are characteristic strokes of wit wanting, like that on the
grief inflicted by Charles II's departure to the Dutch (against whom
Dryden was beginning to cultivate an irrepressible dislike? ):
True sorrow-Holland to regret a King!
On the occasion of Charles II's coronation (1661), Dryden was
ready with another panegyric,' again in heroic couplets, To His
Sacred Majesty, congratulating him on his pacific intentions in
convoking the Savoy conference (not yet a declared failure), and
on his improvements in St James's park, where
the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects,
So safe are all things which our King protects,
as well as on his approaching marriage. With this piece of pure
adulation-merum mel-may be mentioned the lines To My Lord
Chancellor, offered to Clarendon on New Year's day 1662, in
which the conceptions of derived greatness and original merit are
skilfully mixed, but, as is perhaps explicable, without any great
· The emphasised use of the pronoun you became one of the notes of Dryden's
verse.
2 See Satire on the Dutch written in the year 1662, which, ten years later, Dryden
frugally utilised for the prologue and epilogue to Amboyna.
## p. 8 (#30) ###############################################
8
Dryden
expenditure of personal sympathy? The Verses to Her Royal
Highness the Duchess (Clarendon's daughter) belong to a later
date (1665) and, apparently, were not known till printed with the
preface to Annus Mirabilis, in which poem are sung the praises
of victorious York. ' As might be expected, they show a marked
advance in concentrated vigour of phrase, though not rising any-
where to the beauty of the passage, justly singled out for praise
by Saintsbury, which then seemed to summarise the fortunes of
Clarendon?
The whole of the first group of Dryden's poems may be said to
be brought to a close by Annus Mirabilis, or The Year of Wonders
(1666); but, before the production of this work, he had already
brought out several plays. It was, not improbably, in this way
that he was brought into contact with Sir Robert Howard, a
younger son of the earl of Berkshire, who had long been connected
with the Stewart court and whose wife was a daughter of the
great lord Burghley. On 1 December 1663, Dryden married lord
Berkshire's daughter Elizabeth, then twenty-five years of age.
The marriage took place with her father's consent, and lady
Elizabeth seems, sooner or later, to have brought her husband
some addition to his estate. She was, no doubt, his superior in
rank, but not in any unusual measure. That Dryden was not, at
this time, leading the life of a bookseller's hack is shown, inter
alia, by his election, in November 1662, as a fellow of the Royal
Society, in its early days often as much of a social as of a
scientific honour.
sional Meditations. Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe. Letters of
Rachel Lady Russell. Memoirs of Queen Mary II
266
## p. xi (#17) ##############################################
Contents
xi
CHAPTER XI
PLATONISTS AND LATITUDINARIANS
By J. Bass MULLINGER, M. A. , St John's College
PAGE
Distinction between the Cambridge Platonists and the latitudinarians.
Benjamin Whichcote. His position as defined by himself. His
Aphorisms and Sermons. Whichcote not a Platonist. Henry
More. His life and habits. Cudworth and his Treatise concerning
Eternal and Immutable Morality. More's Song of the Soul.
Joseph Beaumont's Psyche. More's Immortality of the Soul,
Grand Mystery of Godliness and Mystery of Iniquity His
Divine Dialogues. Cudworth's True Intellectual System of
the Universe. More and Cudworth compared. John Smith's
Select Discourses. John Smith and Henry More contrasted.
Culverwels Light of Nature. George Rust (bishop of Dromore).
Glanvill's Lux Orientalis. His controversy with Henry Stubbs.
Richard Cumberland (bishop of Peterborough) and other con-
tributors to the latitudinarian movement.
273
CHAPTER XII
DIVINES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
1660-1700
By the Ven. W. H. HUTTON, B. D. , Archdeacon of Northampton,
Canon of Peterborough and Fellow of St John's College,
Oxford
Old and new influences on the style of the English pulpit in the
period following the restoration. Gradual transition. Herbert
Thorndike, John Cosin and George Morley. Isaac Barrow: his
sermons and his treatise on the Pope's Supremacy. Pearson's
Exposition of the Creed. John Wilkins as a link with the later
generation. Robert Leighton and his preaching. Burnet as a
theologian. His Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles. His
Pastoral Care. Stillingfleet and Patrick. Fashionable preachers
of the age. Extempore preaching begins to be popular. Tillotson.
South and the controversial style. Sherlock. Samuel Parker's
Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity. Henry Compton's Episco-
palia. George Bull. Sancroft's Fur Praedestinatus. Henry
Wharton. Non-jurors: Ken, Kettlewell, Dodwell and Hickes.
Robert Nelson's Companion for the Festivals and Fasts. In.
fluence of foreign, and especially of French, culture upon English
divines
293
## p. xii (#18) #############################################
xii
Contents
CHAPTER XIII
LEGAL LITERATURE
I
By F. J. C. HEARNSHAW, M. A. , LL. D. , formerly scholar of Peter-
house, Professor of History in King's College, University of
London
PAGE
The beginnings of English legal literature. The laws of Ethelbert of
Kent and other early kings. The era of the capitularies. Com-
plications introduced by the Norman conquest. - English common
law in the twelfth century. New type of legal writings: Tractatus
de Legibus et Consuetudinibus R. Angliae, called by the name of
Ranulf de Glanvil. Bracton's treatise bearing the same title.
Fleta and Britton. The Year Books and their value. Fortescue's
De Laudibus Legum Angliae and Littleton's Tenures. Early
printed law books. Law Reports. Equity and common law:
Bacon and Cowell; Coke. Selden and his legal works. English
as the language of the law. Sir Matthew Hale. Revival of the
common law, and of the use of Latin and French. Sir William
Dugdale and William Prynne. Hobbes and the advent of a new
era
309
II
SELDEN'S Table-Talk
By A. W. WARD, Litt. D.
Predecessors of Selden's Table-Talk. Authenticity of the book.
Scanty references to personal experiences. Chief political and
religious topics. Selden's wit and wisdom
321
0
CHAPTER XIV
JOHN LOCKE
By W. R. SORLEY, Litt. D. , F. B. A. , Fellow of King's College,
Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy
Locke the most important figure in English philosophy. His personal
and literary life. Controversy with Stillingfleet. The 'new way
of ideas' opened by Locke. Plan of An Essay concerning Human
Understanding. Locke's doctrine of knowledge. Its nature and
extent. "The twilight of probability. Two Treatises of Govern-
ment. Economic writings. Economists contemporary with Locke:
Sir William Petty. Letters concerning Toleration. Earlier pleas.
Locke's views on church and state. Thoughts concerning Educa-
tion; Locke's theory. His critics and followers. Richard Bur.
thogge. John Norris and his Ideal World
328
## p. xiii (#19) ############################################
Contents
X111
CHAPTER XV
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
By A. E. SHIPLEY, Sc. D. , F. R. S. , Master of Christ's College
PAGE
Lateness of the scientific reawakening. Outburst of scientific enquiry
in the seventeenth century and its causes. The heritage of Bacon.
Milton and scientific enquiry. Lord Herbert of Cherbury. His
knowledge of medicine and allied subjects. Evelyn and Pepys.
Witches, astrologers and alchemists. Intelligence of the Stewarts
in matters scientific: Charles II and prince Rupert. The marquis
of Worcester. Sir Kenelm Digby. Mathematics: John Wallis
and Seth Ward; Newton. Harvey and the circulation of the
blood. Other great physiologists and physicians: Sir Theodore de
Mayerne; John Mayow; Thomas Sydenham; Francis Glisson.
bert Boyle. Origin and beginnings of the Royal Society.
Contemporary poets and scientific research : Cowley, Donne, Butler.
Political economists of the seventeenth century: Sir William
Petty and Locke
:
349
CHAPTER XVI
THE ESSAY AND THE BEGINNING OF MODERN
ENGLISH PROSE
By A. A. TILLEY, M. A. , Fellow of King's College
The new prose and its causes. Interest in science and demand for
clearness of style. Growing plainness and simplicity of pulpit
oratory. The style of Dryden and its conversational character.
Early beginnings of French influence on English literature; its
increase under Charles I. English exiles in France: D'Avenant,
Cowley and others. French influence through translations. Heroic
romances. Urquhart's Rabelais; Pascal; Descartes; Corneille,
Racine and Molière. Influence of French criticism. Boileau.
Chapelain, Le Bossu and Dacier. Evidence of Dryden, Rapin and
Rymer. Saint-Évremond and the renewal of the popularity of
Montaigne in England. Francis Osborne. Cowley's Essays.
Sir William Temple, Dorothy Osborne and lady Giffard. Temple's
letters and Memoirs. His miscellaneous works: Essays. In-
fluence of Montaigne. Halifax's Miscellanies: The Character of
a Trimmer; A Letter to a Dissenter. Clarendon's Essays. Dry-
den's influence on English style. The Preface to the Fables
368
391
Bibliographies.
Table of Principal Dates
Index of Names
484
488
## p. xiv (#20) #############################################
## p. xv (#21) ##############################################
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
VOLUME VIII. THE AGE OF DRYDEN
Second Impression, 1920, Corrections and Additions
The errata mentioned in volumes of the History published later than the first
edition of this volume have been corrected in the present impression. In addition,
some misprints noticed later have been corrected, and a few alterations made.
Addenda to the present (2nd) impression
p. 50, 11. 6, 7. Mr H. B. Wheatley had in his possession Tonson's accounts with
Dryden, which give some further information as to the terms of the subscription.
p. 215, 11. 14–19 should be omitted. The verses, “Why dost thou shade thy lovely
face,' here ascribed to Rochester, are the work of Quarles, and were first published in
his Emblems. They have been printed in many editions of Rochester's poems, but
whether they were claimed by him in jest, or falsely attributed to him by his editors,
we have no means of knowing.
The following additions should be made to the bibliographies :
pp. 391 ff. chapter i. Dryden:
Under Drydeniana:
Villiers, George, 2nd duke of Buckingham. The Rehearsal. Ed. Summers, M.
Shakespeare Head Press. 1914.
Under Modern Criticism:
Babington, Percy L. Dryden not the Author of “Macflecknoe. ' Rptd from The
Modern Language Review, Vol. xm, No. 1, January 1918.
[An attempt, notable, but not convincing, to father MacFlecknoe on Oldham. ]
Boas, F. S. Stage Censorship under Charles I. I. The Amboyna Outrage. The
Times Literary Supplement, 13 Dec. 1917.
[An extremely interesting account of an earlier dramatic treatment (1633) of
the same incident. ]
Verrall, A. W. Dryden. In Collected Literary Essays, Classical and Modern. Ed.
Bayfield, M. A. , and Duff, J. D. (1913).
Lectures on Dryden. Ed. Margaret de G. Verrall. Cambridge, 1914.
pp. 416 ff. chapters v, vi and vii. The Restoration Drama:
Nettleton, G. H. English Drama of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century (1642–
1780). 1914.
pp. 464 ff. chapter xil. Legal Literature:
Worrall, John. Bibliotheca Legum: a new and complete list of the Common and
Statute Law Books of this Realm up to 1735, Alphabetically arranged. 1736.
## p. xvi (#22) #############################################
pp. 471 ff. chapter xiv. John Locke:
Locke, John. Lettres inédites à ses amis. Ed. Ollion, H. and Boei, T. J. de. La
Haye, 1912.
Gibson, J. Locke's Theory of Knowledge. Cambridge, 1917.
pp. 480 ff. chapter xvi. The Essay and the beginning of Modern English Prose :
Cowley, Abraham. Essays and other Prose Writings. Ed. Gough, A. B. Oxford,
1915.
Savile, George, Marquis of Halifax. Complete Works. Ed. Raleigh, Sir W. Oxford,
1912.
Under B. French Influence, etc. :
Villey, P. L'influence de Montaigne sur Charles Blount et sur les Déistes anglais.
Rev. du seizième siècle, 1, pp. 190 ff. and 392 ff.
## p. 1 (#23) ###############################################
CHAPTER I
DRYDEN
1
"THE Age of Dryden' seems an expression as appropriate as
any description of a literary period by the name of a single writer
can be, and yet, in one sense, it is a misnomer. On the one hand,
in the chapter of English literary history which more or less covers
the forty years between the restoration and the opening of the
eighteenth century, not only is Dryden's the most conspicuous
personality, but there are few literary movements of importance
marking the period of which he did not, as if by right divine,
assume the leadership, and which did not owe to him most of what
vitality they proved to possess. On the other hand, as has been
again and again pointed out, Dryden, of all great English writers,
and, more especially, of all great English poets, was the least
original, the least capable of inspiring his generation with new
ideas, of discovering for it new sources of emotion, even of pro-
ducing new artistic forms. Many currents of thought and feeling
suggested to him by his age were supplied by the power of his
genius with an impetus of unprecedented strength; more than
one literary form, offering itself for his use at an inchoate, or at
a relatively advanced, stage of development owed the recognition
which it secured to the resourceful treatment of it by his master-
hand. Whether or not the debt which his extraordinary pro-
ductivity as a writer owed to the opportunities given him by his
times can be taken into account as against the transformation of
his material by his genius may be regarded as a question open
to debate. There cannot, however, be any doubt at all that
neither can Dryden's own achievements be appreciated apart
from the influences of his age, nor is any judgment of the literary
produce of that age, as a whole, to be formed without an estimate
of his contribution to it being regarded as the dominant factor in
the result. Thus, in an attempt to sketch, once more, the course
of his literary endeavours, it would be futile to detach their
1
E. L. VIII.
CH. 1.
## p. 2 (#24) ###############################################
N
Dryden
succession from the experiences of his personal life, largely deter-
mined, as these were, by political reaction and revolution, and by
other changes in the condition of the country and in that of its
intellectual centre, the capital.
John Dryden (he wrote his name thus, though, before him, the
spelling was varied both by his kinsmen and by his parents) was
born 9 August 1631, in the parsonage house of Aldwinkle All
Saints, near Oundle in Northamptonshire, of which his maternal
grandfather, Henry Pickering, was rector! . His parents were of
good county descent; but his father, Erasmus Dryden, was a
younger son with many brothers and sisters, and his estate at
Blakesley, on the other side of the county (near Canons-Ashby,
the family seat), which afterwards descended to the poet, con-
siderably burdened, was valued at sixty pounds a year in the
money of the time. He appears to have resided generally at
Tichmarsh, the chief seat of his wife's family, near Oundle. On
both the father's and the mother's side, the future laureate of the
Stewarts was connected with the parliamentary side; his mother's
cousin-german, Sir Gilbert Pickering, was one of the judges of
Charles I (though he did not sit on the final day), and, afterwards,
became chamberlain at the protector Oliver's court and a member
a
of his House of Lords? . After receiving his early education either
at Tichmarsh or (as is the more usual tradition) at Oundle grammar
school, Dryden—at what precise date is unknown-was admitted
as a king's scholar at Westminster, where he was trained under
the redoubtable Busby. In a note to a translation of the Third
Satire of Persius, published by Dryden in 16933, Dryden states
that he remembered translating this satire at Westminster school
'for a Thursday-night's exercise. ' The direct influence which
exercises of this kind, vigilantly supervised, must have had upon
the formation of his style as a writer of English verse is obvious ;
but, though Dryden surmises that copies of his translations were
preserved by Busby, none is extant, and the sole poetical relic of
his Westminster days is his contribution to Lachrymae Musarum
(1649), in memory of his schoolfellow, Henry Lord Hastings-
a small volume, whose black-bordered title-page heralds not less
See a valuable article in The Saturday Review, 17 April 1875, entitled “The
Birthplace of Dryden,' which, besides summarising what is known as to the localities
of his birth and childhood, gives an account of most of what remains on record
concerning his kith and kin.
? It would seem to be this Sir Gilbert, who, in The Medal of John Bayes, and else-
where, is held up to scorn as a committee-man or sequestrator.
8 The translation of the Fifth Satire is inscribed to Busby.
## p. 3 (#25) ###############################################
School and College Years
3
than thirty-three elegiac pieces, by Herrick, Denham, Marvell and
others. About Dryden's juvenile elegy, much that is superfluous
has been written; it was not wonderful that a schoolboy poet
should exaggerate the bad taste into which the followers of an
artificial school of poetry frequently lapsed"; but the verses also
give proof of that rapidity in connecting thoughts (the very
essence of wit) and that felicity in expressing them which were
among the chief characteristics of the formed style of Dryden,
In May 1650, he was admitted as a Westminster scholar at
Trinity college, Cambridge, whence he matriculated in the follow-
ing July. Of his college career, nothing is known, except that,
quite early in his third year of residence, he underwent a not
very serious disciplinary punishment. He took his B. A. degree
in January 1654, but did not proceed to M. A. , which degree he
only obtained in 1668, when it was conferred on him at the king's
request by the archbishop of Canterbury (Sheldon). It appears,
probably on his own authority 3, that he continued in residence at
Cambridge till 1657; but there is no evidence as to the date when
he began his life in London, though he may be concluded to have
done so before the death of the protector Oliver (September
1658).
Cambridge would not seem to have fascinated the imagination,
or to have enchained the sympathies, of an alumnus destined to
hold a prominent place in her long list of poets. In the earliest
years of the second half of the century, the university had
much to suffer from the ascendancy of the army, and may even
momentarily have trembled for its existence. During Oliver's
protectorate, however, when the university was represented in
parliament by his son Richard, it began to revive under a more
tolerant régime. Dryden's family connection was, as has been
seen, with the party in power; nor was his a nature into which
the iron of political tyranny was likely to enter very deeply. But
it is quite unnecessary to seek for explanations of the preference
which, a quarter of a century later, in one of the several prologues
1 See, besides the notorious allusions to the small-pox, the concluding apostrophe
to the young lord's betrothed.
9 There is no evidence to support the assertion of Shadwell (in The Medal of John
Bayes) that Dryden, having traduced a nobleman'and suffered castigation, narrowly
escaped expulsion from his college in consequence.
In Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco (1674), oited by Malone,
Life of Dryden, p. 27, Dryden is spoken of as 'a man of seven years' standing at
Cambridge. ' He had himself a band in this pamphlet.
4 The date of the particular Prologue, first printed in 1684, is safely conjectured
by Christie to have been 1681.
1-2
## p. 4 (#26) ###############################################
4
Dryden
6
6
addressed by him to the university of Oxford, he avowed for it, as
‘Athens,' over his own mother-university, 'Thebes'-nor need this
preference be taken very seriously? And, in any case, it is quite
out of keeping with his usual indifference to such attacks to sup-
pose that his coldness towards Cambridge was due to a captious
'Cambridge' pamphlet (which, by the way, was published at
Oxford), The Censure of the Rota on Mr Dryden's Conquest
of Granada (1673); while equally little importance attaches, in
this connection, to the statement of Dennis (a Caius man) that,
about the same time, not only the town (London), but, also, the
university of Cambridge, was very much divided as between
Settle and Dryden, 'the younger fry,' in both places, 'inclining
to Elkanah 2
In 1654, soon after Dryden had taken his bachelor's degree,
his father died, and he became the owner of the small paternal
estate. From the time of his residence at Cambridge, either
before or after this event, hardly any literary remains have come
down to us. Dryden, as Malone points out, had no share in any
of the collections of contemporary Cambridge verse printed during
his period of residence. On the other hand, from the first year
of his undergraduateship date the pleasing lines, proudly signed
'J. Dryden of Trin. C. ,' prefixed to a volume of Epigrams (1650)
put forth by his friend John Hoddesdon, who, unlike Dryden
himself, was moved to seek reputation as a poet
before the down begin
To peep, as yet, upon [his] smoother skin.
And a more personal interest attached to a copy of verses
forming part of a letter written by him, in acknowledgment of
the gift of a silver inkstand, to his cousin Honor, the daughter
of Sir John Dryden, the head of the family. They are, as Scott
points out, in Cowley's fantastic and farfetched style, and are not
altogether pleasing. For the superstructure of a supposed attach-
ment and blighted hopes which has been raised upon the evidence
of this letter, there is not a tittle of proof 3.
1 As Christie points out, the poet, in transmitting to Rochester another Prologue
addressed to · Athenian judges' six months earlier, and asserting, inter alia, that
poetry which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade,
observed to his patron 'how easy 'tis to pass anything upon a University. '
2 Cited by Saintsbury, G. , Dryden (English Men of Letters), p. 65.
3 To be sure, one of the two heiresses of Dryden's second acted play, The Rival-
Ladies, is named Honoria, and one of the stories included by Dryden in his last
important work is Boccaccio's tale of Theodore and Honoria. To be sure, too, Honor
Dryden, though she inherited a large portion, never married.
## p. 5 (#27) ###############################################
Heroick Stanzas on Cromwell
5
When, in 1657 or 1658, Dryden took up his abode in London,
to which, with the exception of occasional visits to Northampton-
shire and other easily accessible parts of the country, he remained
faithful during the rest of his life, Cromwell's rule had, for some
years, been firmly established, and Sir Gilbert Pickering was in full
possession of the great man's favour. That the young Dryden
actually became 'clerk' or secretary to his influential kinsman
rests only on the late evidence of Shadwell's lampoon? But no
special connection of the kind with the protector's court or person
is needed to account for Dryden's first public appearance as a
writer with A Poem upon the Death of His Late Highness,
Oliver, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, first
published separately early in 1659, and reprinted in the same year,
in company with an ode on the same subject by Thomas Sprat
(afterwards dean of Westminster and bishop of Rochester) and
some lines by Waller Upon the late Storme and Death of the
Protector. Sprat's is a not undignified effort in a style in which
he acquitted himself so well as to become known as “Pindaric
Sprat,' and contains a daring figure afterwards appropriated by
the master of the species, “the incomparable Dr Cowley? . ' Waller's
> lines, as usual with him, beat out the gold of a single thought into
very thin leaf. Dryden, on the contrary, whose poem was again
reprinted in 1659, revised, and under the title of Heroick Stanzas
consecrated to the Memory, etc. , surveyed his theme with not less
circumspection than ardour, and chose his topics of eulogy not
only, as Scott says, with attention to truth, but, also, with a
manifest desire to avoid hyperbole. Even the fine passage
Such was our Prince, yet owned a soul above
The highest acts it could produce to show
cannot be censured as an exaggeration, except by those who deny
that Cromwell was a great man and, as such, necessarily greater
than his deeds. The poem, though still studded with farfetched
and not always appropriate conceits (e. g. War, our consumption,'
st. XII; “Bolognia’s walls,” st. XVI; the death of Tarpeia,
st. XXXIV), shows Dryden already controlling the form chosen
by him with a certainty not to be found in his juvenile efforts,
and master of an overpowering directness which was to become
6
>
2
1 In The Medal of John Bayes (1682).
He brought them to the Borders, but a Second hand
Did settle and secure them, in the promis'd Land.
The passage shows that Sprat's tribute, like Dryden's, was intended to meet the eye
of Oliver's successor.
## p. 6 (#28) ###############################################
6
Dryden
.
+
one of his most notable characteristics? . Thus, the Heroick
Stanzas, though, necessarily, they attracted little attention at
a time when the immediate future absorbed public interest, and
though their author, naturally, was willing to allow them to be
forgotten, hold a permanent place among his poetical achieve-
ments.
Dryden's working days in the service of the muses had now
begun. With his very modest income, and without any family
interest that could be of use to him, he can have looked the world
in the face in no very sanguine mood; and, indeed, a certain
reserve and lack of satisfaction in life and in the work which
he had to do in it is noticeable in his writings, as it seems to have
been in his personal bearing. Shadwell's sneer that Dryden had
‘turn'd journeyman to a bookseller' probably applies to a rather
later period of his career, and may be an illnatured perversion of
an insignificant fact? But, in any case, Dryden, till he had studied
his brief and taken up his pen, was devoid of the political, and,
still more, of the religious, enthusiasm which might have sufficed
to inspire him as a writer; and few poets have ever been less
manifestly moved by spontaneous lyric impulse. What he wrote
in the earlier part of his literary career was, as it were, auto-
matically suggested by the great changes in contemporary public
life, to which his literary powers, growing surer of themselves in
each successive trial, responded without any apparent hesitation,
As there had not been any signs of ardour or strong personal
conviction in the Heroick Stanzas, so, when the restoration of the
Stewart monarchy had been accomplished as the only feasible
termination of the crisis, and when Dryden, once more, went with
the times, he went with them in his own temperate and reasoning
way. This may certainly be averred with regard to the substance
of the paean sounded by him on the occasion of the return of
- Charles II. For, although, in Astraea Redux (1660), he did not
shrink from any extravagance in picturing the popular joy, and the
hopes in which, now Time's whiter series is begun,' the subjects of
Charles II indulged, yet, the royal qualities on which he enlarged
as warranting these emotions were those which the king actually
His grandeur he derived from heaven alone. (St. vi. )
When absent, yet we conquered in his right. (St. xxiv. )
He made us freemen of the continent. (St. XXIX. )
• The bookseller is stated, in a note, to have been H. Herringman, who kept him
at his house for the purpose. ' Dryden seems to have lodged over Herringman's shop
in the New Exchange, Strand, and Herringman was the publisher of the poems of Sir
Robert Howard, Dryden's future brother-in-law. The combination was irresistible.
6
## p. 7 (#29) ###############################################
Astraea Redux and Other Panegyrics 7
7
possessed, or, at least, was anxious to display-prudence in adversity,
and clemency in the day of success. At the same time, he abstained
from personal abuse, either of Cromwell (for the comparison to
the bold Typhoeus' cannot be set down as abuse) or of any other
leader of the rebellion. There is, of course, much audacious misuse
of the classical and Scriptural illustrations in which this poem
abounds; but that was part of the 'noble' style which is essential
to courtly panegyric. The general spirit of the poem is merely that
of frank timeservice; though the shameless apostrophising of the
rechristened Naseby, which had earned some of the naval laurels
celebrated in the Heroick Stanzas, as 'now no longer England's
shame,' must be allowed to call for severe censure. The genius of
the poet shows itself not only in magnificent aberrations, like the
comparison to the star of Bethlehem of the star that had shone at
Charles II's birth and now shone again,
Guiding our eyes to find and worship you;
but, also, in exquisitely graceful turns of expression, to which the
metre suits its music with inimitable ease, such as the tribute to
May, the month in which the king was born :
You and the flowers are its peculiar care 1.
Nor are characteristic strokes of wit wanting, like that on the
grief inflicted by Charles II's departure to the Dutch (against whom
Dryden was beginning to cultivate an irrepressible dislike? ):
True sorrow-Holland to regret a King!
On the occasion of Charles II's coronation (1661), Dryden was
ready with another panegyric,' again in heroic couplets, To His
Sacred Majesty, congratulating him on his pacific intentions in
convoking the Savoy conference (not yet a declared failure), and
on his improvements in St James's park, where
the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects,
So safe are all things which our King protects,
as well as on his approaching marriage. With this piece of pure
adulation-merum mel-may be mentioned the lines To My Lord
Chancellor, offered to Clarendon on New Year's day 1662, in
which the conceptions of derived greatness and original merit are
skilfully mixed, but, as is perhaps explicable, without any great
· The emphasised use of the pronoun you became one of the notes of Dryden's
verse.
2 See Satire on the Dutch written in the year 1662, which, ten years later, Dryden
frugally utilised for the prologue and epilogue to Amboyna.
## p. 8 (#30) ###############################################
8
Dryden
expenditure of personal sympathy? The Verses to Her Royal
Highness the Duchess (Clarendon's daughter) belong to a later
date (1665) and, apparently, were not known till printed with the
preface to Annus Mirabilis, in which poem are sung the praises
of victorious York. ' As might be expected, they show a marked
advance in concentrated vigour of phrase, though not rising any-
where to the beauty of the passage, justly singled out for praise
by Saintsbury, which then seemed to summarise the fortunes of
Clarendon?
The whole of the first group of Dryden's poems may be said to
be brought to a close by Annus Mirabilis, or The Year of Wonders
(1666); but, before the production of this work, he had already
brought out several plays. It was, not improbably, in this way
that he was brought into contact with Sir Robert Howard, a
younger son of the earl of Berkshire, who had long been connected
with the Stewart court and whose wife was a daughter of the
great lord Burghley. On 1 December 1663, Dryden married lord
Berkshire's daughter Elizabeth, then twenty-five years of age.
The marriage took place with her father's consent, and lady
Elizabeth seems, sooner or later, to have brought her husband
some addition to his estate. She was, no doubt, his superior in
rank, but not in any unusual measure. That Dryden was not, at
this time, leading the life of a bookseller's hack is shown, inter
alia, by his election, in November 1662, as a fellow of the Royal
Society, in its early days often as much of a social as of a
scientific honour.
