greve's peculiar genius is
well shown in his ability to make her manner of speech reveal her
characteristics. His plays are unfortunately disfigured with the
coarseness of the age.

The blemishes in the drama did not exist, however, without an emphatic
contemporary protest. Jeremy Collier (1650-1729), a non-conforming
bishop, in his _Short View of the Immorality of the Stage_ (1698),
complains that the unworthy hero of one of Congreve's plays "is
crowned for the man of merit, has his wishes thrown into his lap, and
makes the happy exit."

Such attacks had their weight and prepared the way far the more moral
sentimental comedies of Richard Steele and succeeding playwrights. The
sacrifice of plot to moral purpose and the deliberate introduction of
scenes designed to force an appeal to sentiment caused the later drama
to deteriorate in a different way. We shall see that the natural
hearty humor of Goldsmith's comedy, _She Stoops to Conquer_(1773),
afforded a welcome relief from such plays.

JOHN DRYDEN, 1631-1700

[Illustration: JOHN DRYDEN. _From the painting by Sir Godfrey
Knellwe, National Portrait Gallery_.]

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF DRYDEN. _From a print._]

Life.--John Dryden was born in 1631 in the small village of
Aldwinkle, in the northern part of Northamptonshire. Few interesting
facts concerning his life have come down to us. His father was a
baronet; his mother, the daughter of a rector. Young Dryden graduated
from Cambridge in 1654.

During his entire life, Dryden was a professional literary man; and
with his pen he made the principal part of his living. This necessity
often forced him against his own better judgment to cater to the
perverted taste of the Restoration. When he found that plays had more
market value than any other kind of literature, he agreed to furnish
three plays a year for the king's actors, but was unable to produce
that number. For fifteen years in the prime of his life, Dryden did
little but write plays, the majority of which are seldom read to-day.
His only important poem during his dramatic period was _Annus
Mirabilis_ (_The Wonderful Year_, 1666), memorable for the great
London fire and for naval victories over the Dutch.

By writing the greatest political satire in the language at the age of
fifty, he showed the world where his genius lay. During the last
twenty years of his life, he produced but few plays. His greatest
satires, didactic poems, and lyrics belong to this