t without decided theories that ran counter to the
practice of the master. It is plainly not by accident that each stanza
contains one clear-cut brilliant point. The poem is an academic
exercise, and it seems to be animated by an under-current of strong
contumacious protest against the irregularities tolerated by the
authorities. Dryden had studied the ancient classics for himself, and
their method of uniformity and elaborate finish commended itself to his
robust and orderly mind. In itself the poem is a magnificent tribute to
the memory of Cromwell.

To those who regard the poet as a seer with a sacred mission, and refuse
the name altogether to a literary manufacturer to order, it comes with a
certain shock to find Dryden, the hereditary Puritan, the panegyrist of
Cromwell, hailing the return of King Charles in _Astraea Redux_ (1660),
deploring his long absence, and proclaiming the despair with which he
had seen "the rebel thrive, the loyal crost." _A Panegyric on the
Coronation_ followed in 1661. From a literary point of view also,
_Astraea Redux_ is inferior to the _Heroic Stanzas_.

Dryden was compelled to supplement his slender income by his writings.
He naturally first thought of tragedy,--his own genius, as he has
informed us, inclining him rather to that species of composition; and in
the first year of the Restoration he wrote a tragedy on the fate of
Henry, duke of Guise. But some friends advised him that its construction
was not suited to the requirements of the stage, so he put it aside, and
used only one scene of the original play later on, when he again
attempted the subject with a more practised hand. Having failed to write
a suitable tragedy, he next turned his attention to comedy, although, as
he admitted, he had little natural turn for it. "I confess," he said, in
a short essay in his own defence, printed before _The Indian Emperor_,
"my chief endeavours are to delight the age in which I live. If the
humour of this be for low comedy, small accidents and raillery, I will
force my genius to obey it, though with more reputation I could write in
verse. I know I am not so fitted by nature to write comedy; I want that
gaiety of humour which is required to it. My conversation is slow and
dull; my humour saturnine and reserved; in short, I am none of those who
endeavour to break jests in company or make repartees. So that those who
decry my comedies do me no injury, except it be in point of profit;
reputation