pointed satire it was absolutely the best instrument ever devised. Such adherence to formality carried with it a restriction of matter and theme, if indeed it was not this increasing restriction that helped to fix the form. Certain it is that poetry in the hands of Dryden, with all its frequent gorgeousness, grew less "rich and strange." Wordsworth said that there was not in the whole body of his works "a single image from nature." Johnson said that he had little power over the pathetic because he seemed “not much acquainted with the simple and elemental passions." His work suffered, too, from carelessness. Devoted to “correctness" as a principle, he often neglected to observe it in detail. He produced enormously, refusing to polish, and trusting to the excellence of what was good. Again, his work suffers from the too frequently local or temporary interest of his themes. The broad humanity of Shakespeare, the religious passion of Milton and Bunyan, are replaced by arguments upon matters of state, or satires aimed at passing fashions and insignificant men. But in spite of all this, his range remains very great, his vigor unequalled, and his mastery in the field of his own highest achievements unchallenged by the best of his disciples.

One other count to his credit must not be forgotten. In the course of his defence of certain theories of poetry, he produced a considerable body of critical prose, conspicuously A Critic, and the Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668). By virtue of Reformer this he is recognized as the leader and almost the of Prose. founder of English criticism, and along with that as the founder of modern English prose. Modern English was already a thing two centuries old. But prose structure and style still needed regulation. We have only to turn to Milton's prose to see what a chaotic condition it was weltering in. Since the time of Malory it had departed more and more from native directness and simplicity, wandering into a hopeless tangle of classical involutions or degenerating into ragged uncouthness. In the hands of Bacon, Milton, and Browne, it possessed strength, or majesty, or splendor, beyond anything, indeed, that was to be

known again for nearly two centuries. But precision, lucidity, and regularity it did not possess. These were imparted to it by Dryden, with a little help it may be from Cowley before him, and doubtless a great deal of long unrecognized help, never felt by Dryden himself, from the humble works of Bunyan. The short, manageable sentence, the compact phrase, the grammatical coherence, which make English prose to-day the great practical "instrument of the average purpose," were largely Dryden's bequest. The very ideals to which he tried to make his poetry conform are easily seen to be in a measure prosaic ideals. He was a genuine poet; there is no thought of gainsaying that; but he was eminently the poet to be herald of that eighteenth century on the threshold of which he died, the "age of prose and reason.”

The character of the period now under discussion has necessarily been sketched in part in following the work of Dryden, and not a great deal remains to say. The House of Stuart was still reigning, but Mary, the daughter of James, and her husband William of Orange, to whom she brought the crown, were Protestants, as was also Anne, the last of the Stuarts, who succeeded them; furthermore the Act of Settlement declared against any possible Catholic successor. The seventeenth century passed, and with it most of the political and religious turmoil that had made it a time of such rapid and radical changes. The Parliament had finally won in its long struggle with the Crown; a constitutional form of government was firmly established; the will of the Commons was to be henceforth virtually supreme. There was still war on the part of the Grand Alliance against France and Spain, and there were jealousy and suspicion at home as long as there was a Jacobite party strong enough to think of rallying to the standard of James's son, the "Pretender." Any