polished style: in poetry, especially the drama, the French had never struck out into original methods, as the English had done. Their plays had been modelled on the great drama of the Greeks, made according to certain fixed rules of art. All French classic poetry followed the same line-and-plummet mode of measure as their drama; its rules were laid out as if verse-making were a craft as exact in its methods as shoemaking. This style now became the fashion in England; and you will perceive that there are fashions in literature as well as fashions in dress. Dryden was a man of genius, but of the sort of genius which would be likely to adapt itself to the taste of his age, not, like Milton or Shakespeare, a man who would compel taste to follow him. And Dryden was also a man of painstaking and thorough industry, who, having chosen any style, would perfect it and refine it to the uttermost. He accordingly set to work to refine and polish his verse as no English poet had done before. Consequently his poetry was almost artificially perfect, although I think we shall agree that he never touches the heart as Shakespeare or Milton does, or seizes on the imagination as Spenser does.

Unlike Milton, Dryden believed in rhyme. He said Milton did not rhyme in Paradise Lost because he could not write smooth and elegant rhymes, and Dryden actually made a rhyming opera out of Paradise Lost, fancying it an improvement on Milton's mighty verse. This is as bad as if he had taken the sonatas of Beethoven and set them to be ground out by a travelling beggar on a handorgan. He had a great fancy for altering the older poets. He put some of Chaucer's Tales into his more fashionable verse, and re-wrote Shakespeare's Tempest, adding new characters and scenes to this grand play. It is difficult to forgive any poet such stupidity. Yet, in spite of this, Dryden was so great a master that he compels admiration, and he was also great enough to recognize the grandeur of Shakespeare and Milton when the age around him was blind to their superiority.

Dryden wrote such a number of plays (twenty-seven in all)

that I shall not attempt to mention them. I like best All for Love, Don Sebastian, The Indian Queen, and The Indian Emperor. All for Love is a play on the same subject as Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Dryden says of this play that it is the one of his works which he wrote purely to please himself; the rest were made to please the people. This is not written in rhyme, as so many of his dramatic works are, and to my taste is the finest of all his plays. I therefore select a scene from this as the best specimen of his dramatic style. You can contrast it, for criticism, with one of Shakespeare's scenes from Antony and Cleopatra. Antony has just been told of Cleopatra's death, and is left with his faithful friend Ventidius, one of the generals of his army :

What should I fight for now? my queen is dead.
I was but great for her; my power, my empire,

Were but my merchandise to buy her love,

And conquered kings, my factors. Now she's dead,

Let Cæsar take the world,

An empty circle, since the jewel 's gone

Which made it worth my strife. My being's nauseous,
For all the bribes of life are gone away.

Yes, I would be taken,

And as a Roman ought, — dead, my Ventidius;
For I'll convey my soul from Cæsar's reach
And lay down life myself. 'T is time the world
Should have a lord, and know whom to obey.
We two have kept its homage in suspense,
And bent the globe, on whose each side we trod,
Till it was dented inwards. Let him walk

Alone upon it. I'm weary of my part;

My torch is out, and the world stands before me
Like a black desert at the approach of night.
I'll lay me down and stray no further on.
Vent. I could be grieved,

But that I'll not outlive you; choose your death,
For I have seen him in such various shapes

I care not which I take. I'm only troubled
The life I bear is worn to such a rag

'Tis scarce worth giving. I could wish, indeed,
We threw it from us with a better grace;

That, like two lions taken in the toils,

We might at last thrust out our paws and wound

The hunters that enclose us.

Antony.

Ventidius, you must live.

Vent.

I have thought on it, —

I must not, sir.

Ant. Wilt thou not live, to speak some good of me, To stand by my fair fame, and guard the approaches

From the ill tongues of men?

Vent.

For living after you?

Ant.

Who shall guard mine

Say I command it.

Vent. If we die well, our deaths will speak themselves, And need no living witness.

Ant.

Thou hast loved me,

And fain I would reward thee; I must die.

Kill me! and take the merit of my death

To make thee friends with Cæsar.

Vent.

Thank your kindness;

You said I loved you, and in recompense
You bid me turn a traitor. Did I think

You would have used me thus? That I should die
With a hard thought of you?

Ant.

Forgive me, Roman.

Since I have heard of Cleopatra's death,

My reason bears no rule upon my tongue,
But lets my thoughts break all at random out.
I've thought better. Do not deny me twice.
Vent. By Heaven! I will not,

Let it not be to outlive you.

And then die thou: for 't is but just thou serve

Thy friend before thyself.

Vent.

We soon shall meet again.

Give me your hand,

Now farewell, Emperor.

[They embrace.

Methinks that word's too cold to be my last;
Since death sweeps all distinctions,

Farewell, friend!

That's all:

I will not make a business of a trifle;

And yet I cannot look on you and kill you.

Pray turn your face.

Ant. I do; strike home - be sure!

Vent. Home, as my sword will reach.

Ant.

[Ventidius kills himself.

Oh, thou mistak'st;

That wound was none of thine; give it me back;
Thou robb'st me of my death.

But think 't is the first time I e'er deceived you,
If that may plead my pardon. And, you gods,
Forgive me, if you will, for I die perjured
Rather than kill my friend.

Ant. Farewell! Ever my leader, even in death,
My queen and thou have got the start of me,
And I'm the lag of honor Gone so soon?
Is death no more? he used him carelessly,
With a familiar kindness ere he knocked,
Ran to the door, and took him in his arms,

As who should say, You 're welcome at all hours.

A friend need give no warning

Books had spoiled him,

[Dies.

For all the learned are cowards by profession. 'Tis not worth

My further thought, for death, for aught I know,

Is but to think no more.

Here's to be satisfied

[Falls on his sword.

I've missed my heart. Oh, unperforming hand,
Thou never could'st have erred in a worse time!
My fortune jades me to the last, and death,
Like a great man, takes state, and makes me wait
For my admittance. Some perhaps from Cæsar.

[Noise heard within.

If he should find me living, and suspect
That I played booty with my life, — I'll mend
My work ere they can reach me.

[Rises to his knees. Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, and Iras.] Cleo. Where is my lord? Where is he? Char.

And dead Ventidius by him.

There he lies,

Cleo. My fears were prophets. I am come too late. Oh! that accursed Alexas.

We live both. Sit thee down, my Cleopatra.

I'll make the most I can of life, to stay

A moment more with thee.

Cleo.
Ant.

How is it with you?

'T is as with a man

Removing in a hurry, all packed up
But one dear jewel that his haste forgot,
And he, for that, returns upon the spur.
So I come back for thee.

Cleo. Too long, ye heavens, ye have been cruel to me;
Now show your mended faith, and give me back

Ant. Enough; my life 's not long enough for more.
Thou say'st thou wilt come after; I believe thee,
For I can now believe whate'er thou say'st,

That we may part more kindly.

I will come;

Cleo.
Doubt not, my life, I'll come, and quickly too;
Cæsar shall triumph o'er no part of thee.

Ant

But grieve not while thou stayest

My last disastrous times.

Think we have had a clear and glorious day,
And heaven did kindly to delay the storm
Just till our close of evening. Ten years' love,
And not a moment lost, but all improved

To the utmost joys, — what ages we have lived!

And now to die each other's, and so dying,
While hand in hand we walk in groves below,
Whole troops of lovers' ghosts shall flash about us,

And all the train be ours.

Cleo. Your words are like the notes of dying swans,
Too sweet to last. Were there so many hours

For your unkindness, and not one for love?

Ant. No, not a minute. This one kiss

More worth than all I leave to Cæsar ·

[He dies.

Cleo. My lord, my lord! speak, if thou yet have being!

Sign to me, if thou cannot speak, or cast

One look. Do anything that shows you live.

Iras. He's gone too far to hear you,

And this you see, a lump of senseless clay,
The leavings of a soul.

I think that this scene shows Dryden at his very best. His rhymed dramas (and over one third of his plays are entirely rhyme) do not approach this in nobility. I will give you a few lines from the Indian Emperor, the scenes of which are laid in Peru, to show you his rhymed style. As the play opens, the principal characters, Cortez and