us; there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect. 'Tis true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him; for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine; but this opinion is not worth confuting, 'tis so gross and obvious an error. Dryden died in 1700 and with a splendid public funeral was laid near Chaucer in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. In the progress of letters Dryden's position was unique; he stood at the gateway of modern literature, looking backward as well as forward. Though himself a complete embodiment of his own unworthy period, he did much to bridge the chasm of the Revolution and to lead literary taste away from false classicism, back to the romanticism of the past, especially to his "divine Shakespeare." And he marked out the chief literary highways to be traveled throughout the Augustan age. The minor poets and especially the court wits were busily employed in parading their knowledge of the new rules of art, in all the forms used by Dryden, but their work is of com Poetasters of the Period paratively slight value. They talked wisely about Aristotle and wrote dull imitations of Horace and Boileau, and, as Dryden said of Little, if their poems "rhymed and rattled, all was well." They flattered each other in fulsome dedications or abused each other in libelous satires. The old lyric was continued by the poetical noblemen, Sedley, Dorset, and Rochester. "With Rochester," says Gosse, "the power of writing songs died in England until the age of Blake and Burns. He was the last of the Cavalier lyrists." A few pleasing lyrics of his may still be read, but it is enough for his memory, perhaps, to have written the "epitaph" on Charles II: Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King, Who never said a foolish thing, Nor ever did a wise one. The theater was a social institution where "the quality" delighted to see its life portrayed with the boldest realism. Society was in form "polite," but in feeling brutal, and the morality of the drama now fell to its lowest ebb. Tragedy Decline of the Drama expired in a vain endeavor to be classical. In Thomas Otway's The Orphan and Venice Preserved, and in Nicholas Rowe's Fair Penitent, the old romantic fire of natural passion flamed up briefly. But there was nothing substantial in the life of society or nation for tragedy to live upon, no earnestness, aspiration, or faith,and so it perished. On the other hand comedy flourished vigorously on the elaborate shams of social life. Artificial comedy, or the comedy of manners, reached its highest development in the school of Congreve; but the fidelity with which the leaders The School of this school painted the morals as well as the of Congreve manners of the time makes their comedies intolerable to modern taste. "This part of our literature," says Macaulay, "is a disgrace to our language and our national character." The comedy of manners in its best estate, as perfected by Goldsmith and Sheridan, began with Sir George Etherege's The Man of Mode. The Sir Fopling Flutter of this play is the parent of a long line of celebrated stage fops, descending to Lord Dundreary and Beau Brummel. Having discovered while living in Paris a new theory of comedy in Molière, Etherege dropped the buffoonery and hurly-burly intrigue of the old Spanish type and aimed at a realistic picturing of familiar characters of the day, touched up with satire, and at elegant and witty dialogue. This method was fully developed by William Congreve, William Wycherley, John Vanbrugh, George Farquhar, and Colley Cibber. Congreve's dramatic style is brilliant in a way that is excessive and unique. His prose dialogue is refined to a uniform surface of elegance that is like the luster of rich silk. It sparkles Congreve's and scintillates with polished phrases, pointed epigrams, and witty repartee. Mr. Gosse asserts that The Way of the World "is the best written, the most dazzling, the most intellectually accomplished of all English comedies, perhaps of all the comedies of the world." But it is overburdened with this richness; the movement is impeded by the load of jewels it is made to carry, and for this reason the play was a failure on the stage. But there is no soul of beautiful thought beneath the glittering surface of these comedies, no charm of human character. Nothing is natural, not even the vice. It is all a palace of pleasure, filled with an atmosphere of immorality. A reaction in favor of decency began with the appearance, in 1698, of Jeremy Collier's Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, by which the deadened con Sentimental science of society was startled into new life. Among the first to attempt definite reforms was Richard Steele, whose sentimental and moralized comedies were the foundation of the "Sentimental School," which was sustained for a time by fashionable society. In competition with comedy, other forms of entertainment appeared, the opera and the novel. Comedy declined as an original creative form of art, and after a sudden and brief blaze of glory in the plays of Goldsmith and Sheridan its light was extinguished. PROGRAM OF WORK CLASS READING AND STUDY. DRYDEN: Alexander's Feast; Song for St. Cecilia's Day; Lines Printed under the Portrait of Milton; MacFlecknoe; Absalom and Achitophel, 150-227; Religio Laici, 276-333; Hind and Panther, 1-61; Essays: Essay of Dramatic Poesy (Cl. P., English Readings, Garnett, Manly, Pancoast); Preface to the Fables (Globe Edition, Garnett). BUTLER: Hudibras, selections in Manly or Ward. PEPYS: The Diary, ad libitum, or selections in Manly. SEDLEY: To Celia; Song: Phillis is my only joy; Song: Ah! Chloris. ROCHESTER: Love and Life; Song: My dear Mistress has a heart; Constancy; Song: When on those lovely locks I gaze; To his Mistress. BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. Saintsbury's Dryden (E. M. L.); Hinchman and Gummere; Christie's Globe Edition; Garnett's Age of Dryden; Gosse's Eighteenth Century; Lowell's Essay on Dryden; Macaulay's Essay on Dryden; Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Noyes's Selected Dramas of Dryden; Strunk's Dryden's Essays on the Drama (English Readings); Courthope, vol. III, ch. xv (Poets of the Court), ch. xvi (Dryden), vol. IV, ch. xvi (Dryden and the Drama); Cambridge, vol. vIII, ch. i (Dryden), ch. ii (Butler), chs. v, vi, vii (Restoration Drama), ch. viii (Court Poets), ch. xvi (The Essay); Stevenson's Familiar Studies of Men and Books (Pepys); Hazlitt's English Comic Writers (Drama); Gosse's Congreve (G. W.); Lamb's Essays (Artificial Comedy); Macaulay's Essay on the Comic Dramatists of the Restoration. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. Sidney's Social Life in England from the Restoration to the Revolution; Green, ch. ix, secs. 1, 2, 3; Cheyney, ch. xvi; Trevelyan's England under the Stuarts, ch. xi; Taine, bk. III, ch. i, pt. 1, secs. 1-3 (The Roisterers), pt. II, secs. 1, 2 (The Worldlings). TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH 1. The reaction against Puritanism and its effect on literature. 2. Obtain from Pepys's Diary the contemporary opinion of Shakepeare's plays (consult Index). 3. Explain and illustrate the peculiar features of Butler's verse. 4. Make a selection of witty and wise epigrams from Hudibras. 5. Character and influence of Hobbes's philosophy (Taine, bk. III, ch. i, sec. 5). 6. Define clearly the literary principles introduced from France. 7. Outline of the life of Dryden. 8. Breadth and variety of his literary achievement. 9. Comparison between Dryden's character and Milton's character. 10. In what form of poetry does Dryden show his finest ability as a poet? 11. Justify Hale's comment on Dryden's poetic style: "There is always a singular fitness in his language; he uses always the right word." 12. Study the preface to the Fables with reference (1) to sound critical judgment and (2) to naturalness of expression. 13. Discuss Lowell's phrase for Dryden: "The first of the moderns." 14. Does Dryden's Palamon and Arcite contain merits that justify the "translating" of Chaucer? 15. Read and report on The Indian Emperor. 16. Compare Dryden's Tempest with Shakespeare's, as an example of the "improving" of Shakespeare. 17. Present Dryden's argument for rhyme in tragedy (Essay of Dramatic Poesy). 18. Comparison of Dryden's All for Love with Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. 19. Examples of the treatment of Shakespeare's plays (Lounsbury's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, ch. viii). General Age CHAPTER XIII THE AUGUSTAN AGE 1700-1744 THE eighteenth century is called the age of prose. In its most brilliant literary period, the reign of Queen Anne, the great authors with one exception were prose writers. The subject-matter of the poetry is essentially prose matter; poetry is concerned, for the most part, with criticism, satire, didactic and philosophic discourse. The influence of French classicism, though more apparent in the poetry, was perhaps more beneficial to prose, giving to it the needed istics of the qualities of directness, clearness, and grace. There was an almost total absence of spontaneity and idealism. It was an age of small things and petty pursuits. There were no large human interests, no visions of new empires, and no dreams of Utopias. The literature appeals to the head, not to the heart, and is saved from intolerable dullness by intellectual brilliancy and the graces and piquancies generally included in the term "wit." It is a town literature; the beauties of the country and the wonders of nature are unknown. The chief interest of authors is the every day conduct of men and women in society and politics. "The proper study of mankind is man," wrote Pope, and he wrote for his age. Within these limitations, this literature was brought to a high degree of perfection. In no other age has writing been so studiously cultivated on its artistic side. The classical move |