ere there was as striking an identity
of form. In poetry this showed itself in the death of the lyric, as in
the universal popularity of the rhetorical ode, in the loss of all
delight in variety of poetic measure, and in the growing restriction of
verse to the single form of the ten-syllable line. Prose too dropped
everywhere its grandeur with its obscurity; and became the same quick,
clear instrument of thought in the hands of Addison as in those of
Voltaire.

[Sidenote: Creation of a literary class.]

How strongly this had become the bent of English letters was seen in the
instance of Dryden. In the struggle of the Revolution he had struck
fiercely on the losing side, and England had answered his blows by a
change of masters which ruined and beggared him. But it was in these
later years of his life that his influence over English literature
became supreme. He is the first of the great English writers in whom
letters asserted an almost public importance. The reverence with which
men touched in after-time the hand of Pope, or listened to the voice of
Johnson, or wandered beside his lakes with Wordsworth, dates from the
days when the wits of the Revolution clustered reverently round the old
man who sate in his armchair at Will's discussing the last comedy, or
recalling his visit to the blind poet of the "Paradise Lost." It was by
no mere figure that the group called itself a republic of letters, and
honoured in Dryden the chosen chief of their republic. He had done more
than any man to create a literary class. It was his resolve to live by
his pen that first raised literature into a profession. In the stead of
gentlemen amusing a curious leisure with works of fancy, or Dependants
wringing bread by their genius from a patron's caprice, Dryden saw that
the time had come for the author, trusting for support to the world of
readers, and wielding a power over opinion which compensates for the
smallness of his gains. But he was not only the first to create a
literary class; he was the first to impress the idea of literature on
the English mind. Master as he was alike of poetry and of prose,
covering the fields both of imagination and criticism, seizing for
literary treatment all the more prominent topics of the society about
him, Dryden realized in his own personality the existence of a new
power which was thenceforth to tell steadily on the world.

[Sidenote: The new poetry.]

And to this power he gave for nearly a centur