nd poetry were much the same. In verse he adopted the short,
easily understood unit of the classical couplet; and in prose, the
short, direct sentence.

Dryden's prose deals chiefly with literary criticism. Most of his
prose is to be found in the prefaces to his plays and poems. His most
important separate prose composition is his _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_,
a work which should be read by all who wish to know some of the
foundation principles of criticism.

Satiric Poetry.--No English writer has surpassed Dryden in satiric
verse. His greatest satire is _Absalom and Achitophel_, in which,
under the guise of Old Testament characters, he satirizes the leading
spirits of the Protestant opposition to the succession of James, the
brother of Charles II., to the English throne. Dryden thus satirizes
Achitophel, the Earl of Shaftesbury:--

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else, why should he, with wealth and honor blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son.
* * * * *
In friendship false, implacable in hate,
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state."

Zimri, the Duke of Buckingham, is immortalized thus:--

"Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long."

_Mac Flecknoe_ is another satire of almost as great merit, directed
against a certain Whig poet by the name of Shadwell. He would have
been seldom mentioned in later times, had it not been for two of
Dryden's lines:--

"The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense."

_All for Love_, one of Dryden's greatest plays, shows the delicate
keenness of his satire in characterizing the cold-blooded Augustus
Caesar, or Octavius, as he is there called. Antony has sent a
challenge to Octavius, who replies that he has more ways than one to
die. Antony rejoins:--

"He has more ways than one;
But he would choose them all before that one.
_Ventidius._ He first would choose an ague or a fever.
_Antony._ No; it must be an ague, not a fever;
He has not warmth enough to die by that."

Dryden could make his satire as direct and blasting as a thunde