he dregs of life, think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.
I'm tir'd with waiting for this chemic gold,
Which fools us young and beggars us when old."

General Characteristics.--In point of time, Dryden is the first
great poet of the school of literary artists. His verse does not
tolerate the unpruned irregularities and exaggerations of many former
English poets. His command over language is remarkable. He uses words
almost as he chooses, but he does not invest them with the warm glow
of feeling. He is, however, something more than a great word artist.
Many of his ideas bear the stamp of marked originality.

In the field of satiric and didactic poetry, he is a master. The
intellectual, not the emotional, side of man's nature appeals strongly
to him. He heeds not the song of the bird, the color of the rose, nor
the clouds of evening.

Although more celebrated for his poetry than for his prose, he is the
earliest of the great modern prose stylists, and he displays high
critical ability.

DANIEL DEFOE, 1659?-1731

[Illustration: DANIEL DEFOE. _From a print by Vandergucht_.]

Varied Experiences.--Daniel Defoe was born in London, probably the
year before the Restoration. His father, a butcher in good
circumstances, sent the boy to a school in which English, instead of
Latin, was the medium of instruction. He was taught how to express
himself in the simple, forceful English for which he became famous.
His education was planned to make him a dissenting minister; but he
preferred a life of varied activity. He became a trader, a
manufacturer of tiles, a journalist, and a writer of fiction. By also
serving as a government agent and spy, he incurred the severe
criticism of contemporaries. It is doubtful if even Shakespeare had
more varied experiences or more vicissitudes in life.

For writing what would to-day be considered a harmless piece of irony,
_The Shortest Way with Dissenters_, in which Defoe, who was himself a
dissenter, advocated banishment or hanging, he suffered the
mortification of exposure for three days in the pillory and of
imprisonment in the pestilent Newgate jail. His business of making
tiles was consequently ruined. These experiences, with which his
enemies taunted him, colored his entire life and made him realize that
the support of his wife and six children necessitated care in his
choice and treatment of subjects.

His life was a succession of changing fortunes. He d