Annus Mirabilis consists of 304 quatrains on the Gondibert model, reasons for the adoption of which Dryden gives (not so forcibly perhaps as is usual with him) in the before-mentioned letter to his brother-in-law. He speaks of rhyme generally with less respect than he was soon to show, and declares that he has adopted the quatrain because he judges it more noble and full of dignity" than any other form he knows. The truth seems to be that he was still to a great extent under the influence of Davenant, and that Gondibert as yet retained sufficient prestige to make its stanza act as a not unfavourable advertisement of poems written in it. With regard to the nobility and dignity of this stanza, it may safely be said that Annus Mirabilis itself, the best poem ever written therein, killed it by exposing its faults. It is indeed, at least when the rhymes of the stanzas are unconnected, a very bad metre for the purpose. For it is chargeable with more than the disjointedness of the couplet, without the possibility of relief, while on the other hand the quatrains have not, like the Spenserian stave or the ottava rima, sufficient bulk to form units in themselves, and to include within them varieties of harmony. Despite these drawbacks, however, Dryden produced a very fine poem in Annus Mirabilis, though I am not certain that even its best passages equal those cited from the couplet pieces. At any rate in this poem the characteristics of the master in what may be called his poetical adolescence are displayed to the fullest extent. The weight and variety of his line, his abundance of illustration and fancy, his happy turns of separate phrase, and his singular faculty of bending to poetical uses the most refractory names and things, all make themselves fully felt here. On the other hand there is still an undue tendency to conceit and exuberance of simile. The famous lines

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those;
These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy;

are followed in the next stanza by a most indubitably "metaphysical" statement that

Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall

And some by aromatic splinters die.

This cannot be considered the happiest possible means of informing us that the Dutch fleet was laden with spices. and magots. Such puerile fancies are certainly unworthy of a poet who could tell how

The mighty ghosts of our great Harrys rose

And armed Edwards looked with anxious eyes;

and who, in the beautiful simile of the eagle, has equalled the Elizabethans at their own weapons. I cannot think, however, admirable as the poem is in its best passages (the description of the fire for instance), that it is technically the equal of Astræa Redux. The monotonous recurrence of the same identical cadence in each stanzaa recurrence which even Dryden's art was unable to prevent, and which can only be prevented by some such interlacements of rhymes and enjambements of sense as those which Mr. Swinburne has successfully adopted in Laus Veneris-injures the best passages The best of all is undoubtedly the following:

In this deep quiet, from what source unknown,
Those seeds of fire their fatal birth disclose;
And first few scattering sparks about were blown,
Big with the flames that to our ruin rose.

Then in some close-pent room it crept along
And, smouldering as it went, in silence fed;
Till the infant monster, with devouring strong,
Walked boldly upright with exalted head.

Now, like some rich and mighty murderer,

Too great for prison which he breaks with gold,
Who fresher for new mischiefs does appear

And dares the world to tax him with the old,

So 'scapes the insulting fire his narrow jail
And makes small outlets into open air;
There the fierce winds his tender force assail
And beat him downward to his first repair.

The winds, like crafty courtesans, withheld

His flames from burning but to blow them more:
And, every fresh attempt, he is repelled

With faint denials, weaker than before.

And now, no longer letted of his prey
He leaps up at it with enraged desire,
O'erlooks the neighbours with a wide survey
And nods at every house his threatening fire.

The ghosts of traitors from the Bridge descend,
"With bold fanatic spectres to rejoice;

About the fire into a dance they bend

And sing their sabbath notes with feeble voice.

The last stanza indeed contains a fine image finely expressed, but I cannot but be glad that Dryden tried no more experiments with the recalcitrant quatrain.

Annus Mirabilis closes the series of early poems, and for fourteen years from the date of its publication Dryden. was known, with insignificant exceptions, as a dramatic writer only. But his efforts in poetry proper, though they had not as yet resulted in any masterpiece, had, as I have endeavoured to point out, amply entitled him to the position of a great and original master of the formal part of poetry, if not of a poet who had distinctly found his He had carried out a conception of the couplet which was almost entirely new, having been anticipated

way.

only by some isolated and ill-sustained efforts. He had manifested an equal originality in the turn of his phrase, an extraordinary command of poetic imagery, and, above all, a faculty of handling by no means promising subjects in an indisputably poetical manner. Circumstances which I shall now proceed to describe called him away from the practice of pure poetry, leaving to him, however, a reputation amply deserved and acknowledged even by his enemies, of possessing unmatched skill in versification. Nor were the studies upon which he now entered wholly alien to his proper function, though they were in some sort a bye-work. They strengthened his command over the language, increased his skill in verse, and above all tended by degrees to reduce and purify what was corrupt in his phraseology and system of ornamentation. Fourteen years of dramatic practice did more than turn out some admirable scenes and some even more admirable criticism. They acted as a filtering reservoir for his poetical powers, so that the stream which, when it ran into them, was the turbid and rubbish-laden current of Annus Mirabilis flowed out as impetuous, as strong, but clear and without base admixture, in the splendid verse of Absalom and Achitophel.

CHAPTER III.

PERIOD OF DRAMATIC ACTIVITY.

THERE are not many portions of English literature which have been treated with greater severity by critics than the Restoration drama, and of the Restoration dramatists few have met with less favour, in proportion to their general literary eminence, than Dryden. Of his comedies in particular few have been found to say a good word. His sturdiest champion, Scott, dismisses them as "heavy;" Hazlitt, a defender of the Restoration comedy in general, finds little in them but "ribaldry and extravagance;" and I have lately seen them spoken of with a shudder as "horrible." The tragedies have fared better, but not much better; and thus the remarkable spectacle is presented of a general condemnation, varied only by the faintest praise, of the work to which an admitted master of English devoted, almost exclusively, twenty years of the flower of his manhood. So complete is the oblivion into which these dramas have fallen, that it has buried in its folds the always charming and sometimes exquisite songs which they contain. Except in Congreve's two editions, and in the bulky edition of Scott, Dryden's theatre is unattainable, and thus the majority of readers have but little opportunity of correcting from individual study the unfavourable impressions derived from the