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great poets, for the reason that in Dryden's own words he is larger and more comprehensive than any of them. But with the exception of Shakespeare, the greatest poets in different styles are, in the eyes of a sound poetical criticism, very much on an equality. Dryden's peculiar gift, in which no poet of any language has surpassed him, is the faculty of treating any subject which he does treat poetically. His range is enormous, and wherever it is deficient, it is possible to see that external circumstances had to do with the apparent limitation. That the author of the tremendous satire of the political pieces should be the author of the exquisite lyrics scattered about the plays; that the special pleader of Religio Laici should be the taleteller of Palamon and Arcite, are things which, the more carefully I study other poets and their comparatively limited perfection, astonish me the more. My natural man may like Kubla Khan, or the Ode on a Grecian Urn, or the Ode on Intimations of Immortality, or O World! O Life! O Time! with an intenser liking than that which it feels for anything of Dryden's. But that arises from the pure accident that I was born in the first half of the nineteenth century, and Dryden in the first half of the seventeenth. The whirligig of time has altered and is altering this relation between poet and reader in every generation. But what it cannot alter is the fact that the poetical virtue which is present in Dryden is the same poetical virtue that is present in Lucretius and in Eschylus, in Shelley and in Spenser, in Heine and in Hugo.

INDEX.

Absalom and Achitophel, 73-74, | Chaucer, 132-134, 135, 153, 154,

77, 80-84, 88-90, 92, 96, 100,

109, 112, 136, 180

Addison, 56, 105, 128, 130
Aldwinkle, 1, 3-4
Alexander's Feast, 169

Annus Mirabilis, 28, 33-37, 109
Astræa Redux, 28, 29-32

Bacon, 122, 130

Behn, Mrs. Aphra, 62, 177
Berkshire, Earl of, 23, 25
Bethel, Slingsby, 81-82
Blackmore, Sir Richard, 156-157,
168

Boccaccio, 135, 153, 155-156, 164
167

Bolingbroke, 182
Boyle, 118

Britannia Rediviva, 98

Buckingham, Duke of, 51, 77, 81
Bunyan, John, 122, 130
Burleigh, Dryden at, 146
Burnet, Bishop, 97, 104
Busby, Dr., 5

Butler, Samuel, 16, 51-52, 75

Canons Ashby, 1-3, 7, 179
Care, H., 83

Castlemaine, Lady, 28

155, 158-160, 163, 174
Chesterfield, Lord, 146, 149

Chesterton, 4, 168

Churchill, 76

Clarendon, Lord, 75, 121, 122, 130;

poem to, 28, 32

Cleveland, Duchess of, 70
Clifford, Lord, 146, 149
Clifford, Martin, 51

Collier, Jeremy, 119, 156-157, 166
Comedy of Humours, 39-41
Congreve, William, vi, 38, 42, 44,
54, 151, 179
Corneille, 44, 125
Cotterstock, 4, 5, 173-174

Couplet, the heroic, 17, 28-29, 31,
57, 74-76

Creed, Mrs. (Dryden's cousin), 5,
145, 173

Cromwell, stanzas on death of,
10-12, 27-28

Crowne, John, 52, 53-54, 59, 69,
86, 137, 182

Curll, Edmund, bookseller, 177-
178

Davenant, Sir W., 13, 17, 19, 34,
40, 44, 51, 65, 67, 118

Denham Court, seat of Sir William
Bowyer, 146

Charles II., 43, 72, 73, 84, 91, 92, Denham, Sir J., 7

101

Charleton, Dr., 28

Charlton, 3, 25, 33, 183

Diderot, 119

Donne, John, 15-16, 75

Dorset, Lord, 68, 113 175

Draghi, the composer, 110
Drama, at the Restoration, 13-20,
40-41; rhyme in, 19-20
Dramatic Poesy, Essay on, 92, 126,
131

Drayton, the poet, 172
Driden, Honor (cousin), 7-9
Driden, John, Epistle to, 168-170
Driden, Sir John (uncle), 2, 9-10
Dryden, Charles (son), 33, 66, 111,
179

Dryden, Erasmus (father), 2, 4, 9,
182

Dryden, Erasmus (son), 66, 179
Dryden, John (son), 56, 179
Dryden, John (the poet), birth
and ancestry, 1-4; school-days,
5; at Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, 5-6; earliest poems, 7-
12; his income, 10, 67-68, 100,
108; his part in politics, 12-15,
72; state of literature at the
Restoration, 15-22; marriage,
23-26; early literary work,
27-37; period of dramatic ac-
tivity, 38-65; position as a
dramatist, 38-39, 118-121;
Poet Laureate, 67; his in-
timates, 68; assaulted in Rose
Alley, 70, 99; conversion to
Roman Catholicism, 98, 101-106;
appointment in the Customs,
101; his literary earnings, 111-
112, 114, 149-151, 154-155;
later dramatic activity, 114-
121; period of translation, 135-
152; the Fables, 153-173;
death, 178; funeral, 178

As a writer: conceits, 11, 18,
32; the heroic couplet, 17, 28-
29, 31, 57, 74-76; metres, 17,
28-29, 34, 57, 62-63, 74-75, 85,
93, 170-173; a literary re-
former, 22; position as a dra-
matist, 38-39, 118-121; songs
in his plays, 39, 44, 61-63, 117;
prologues and epilogues, 60, 63-
66, 111-112; character of
Dryden's satire, 76-80, 90, 144;

versification, didactic poems, 79,
91-98; prefaces and dedications,
125-128; prose style, 129-131;
aptitude for translation, 135-
137; characteristics of Dryden's
work, 184-192

Biographies of, v, vi; editions
of his works, vi, 38, 141
Dryden, Lady Elizabeth (wife),
23-25, 66, 108, 174, 179-180
Dryden, Sir Erasmus (grandfather),
2

Durfey, Tom, 62

Eleonora, 151

Epic Poetry, Discourse on, 152
Etherege, Sir George, 41, 68, 109-
110

Fables, the, 115, 128, 131, 153-172,
177; Character of a Good Par-
son, 163-164; Cock and Fox,
159; Cymon and Iphigenia,
166-167; Flower and the Leaf,
161-162; Palamon and Arcite,
55, 109, 154, 156, 157-158, 192;
Tancred and Sigismunda, 165-
166; Theodore and Honoria, 154,
167-168; Wife of Bath's Tale,
162-163

Fetter Lane, 66-67 note
Flecknoe, Father, 87
Fotheringhay Castle, 4-5
Gerrard Street, 66, 183
Green, J. R., 25-26
Gwyn, Nell, 44, 64

Hastings, Lord, elegy on, 7-8, 16,
27
Hazlitt, 38

Heroic play, origin of, 19
Herringman, Mr., publisher, 18,
67 note, 126

Hind and the Panther, 79-80, 92,
95-98, 102, 109
Hoddesdon, John, 7-8
Howard of Escrick, Lord, 78
Howard, Sir Robert, 24, 33, 42,
51, 126-127

Howell, 67

Hudson, Dr., 14

Hyde, Anne, 107

Hyde, Lawrence, 52, 116

James II., 91, 92, 101, 104, 106
Jonson, Ben, 64

Juvenal, 128, 144-145

Keats, 191

Operas. See Plays

Ormond, Duke of, 128, 155-156
Oxford University, Dryden's Pro-
logue to, 6, 64-65

Painting (Dufresnoy's), Art of, 152
Pepys, Samuel, 26, 33, 58 note,
163-164, 179, 182

Pickering, Mary (Dryden's mother),
2, 4

Killegrew, Mrs. Anne, Ode to the Pickering, Rev. Henry, 1

Memory of, 94-95, 151

Kneller, Sir G., 151

League, History of the, 128
Lee, 60, 65, 114
Leicester, Lord, 115-116
Leveson-Gower, Sir W., 116
Lloyd, 76

Lucian, Life of, 152

Macaulay, Lord, 64, 68, 103, 149,
156, 163, 186
Macflecknoe, 79, 87-90, 137, 183
Mackenzie, Sir G., 56
Malherbe, 125

Malone, 67

Marston, 75

Marvill, 75

Mary, Queen, 114-115
Masques. See Plays

Medal, The, 83, 84-85, 100, 112,
127

Milton, 12, 55-56, 63, 108, 121,
122, 170

Miscellanies, The, 110, 141

Molière, 41, 42, 44, 73, 115

Monmouth, Duke of, 81

Pickering, Sir Gilbert, 10, 12
Plays: Albion and Albanius, 111,

114, 116; All for Love, 55, 58-
60, 115, 117, 127; Amboyna, 55,
72; Amphitryon, 44, 115; Assig-
nation, 55; Aurengzebe, 56-58,
59, 117; Cleomenes, 116-117;
Conquest of Granada, 42, 46-51,
54, 56, 117; Don Sebastian, 59,
115, 118, 188; Duke of Guise,
61, 92, 111-112, 114, 127;
Indian Emperor, 42-43, 126;
King Arthur, 63, 116; Limber-
ham, 59; Love for Love, 41;
Love Triumphant, 117; Maiden
Queen, 33, 43, 44; Marriage à la
Mode, 44, 54-55, 117; Mock
Astrologer, 44; Edipus, 60, 63;
Rival Ladies, 42; Sir Martin
Mar-all, 43; Spanish Friar, 61,
114-115, 118, 120, 127, 188;
State of Innocence, 55, 56;
Tempest, 44; Troilus and Cres-
sida, 60, 127; Tyrannic Love,
43, 44-46, 64; Wild Gallant,
39, 41-42

Montague, Charles, 98, 161, 179, Poetry, Metaphysical School of,

'182

Morris, William, 171

15-18

Pope, 77, 111, 146-147

Mulgrave, Lord, 68-70, 139, 146, Popish Plot, the, 24, 72, 81, 99

149, 182

Nene Valley, the, 3, 4, 183
Newcastle, Duke of, 43
Newman, Cardinal, 102

Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, 110
Oldham, Address to, 94

Pordage, Samuel, 83, 85, 105
Portsmouth, Duchess of, 76
Prior, Matthew, 98, 161, 182
Prose in the seventeenth century,
20-21, 121-123
Purcell, Dr., 116

Queen Mary, 114

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