of of inconsistence and
apostasy. One passage, which plainly applies to the civil wars in
general, was wrested to signify an explicit approbation of the murder of
Charles the First; and the whole piece was reprinted by an incensed
antagonist, under the title of "An Elegy on the Usurper O.C., by the
author of Absalom and Achitophel, published (it is ironically added) to
show the loyalty and integrity of the poet,"--an odd piece of vengeance,
which has perhaps never been paralleled, except in the single case of
"Love in a Hollow Tree."[37] The motives of the Duchess of Marlborough,
in reprinting Lord Grimestone's memorable dramatic essay, did not here
apply. The elegy on Cromwell, although doubtless sufficiently faulty,
contained symptoms of a regenerating taste; and, politically considered,
although a panegyric on an usurper, the topics of praise are selected
with attention to truth, and are, generally speaking, such as Cromwell's
worst enemies could not have denied to him. Neither had Dryden made the
errors, or misfortunes, of the royal family, and their followers, the
subject of censure or of contrast. With respect to them, it was hardly
possible that a eulogy on such a theme could have less offence in it.
This was perhaps a fortunate circumstance for Dryden at the Restoration;
and it must be noticed to his honour, that as he spared the exiled
monarch in his panegyric on the usurper, so, after the Restoration, in
his numerous writings on the side of royalty, there is no instance of
his recalling his former praise of Cromwell.

After the frequent and rapid changes which the government of England
underwent from the death of Cromwell, in the spring of 1660, Charles II.
was restored to the throne of his ancestors. It may be easily imagined,
that this event, a subject in itself highly fit for poetry, and which
promised the revival of poetical pursuits, was hailed with universal
acclamation by all whose turn for verse had been suppressed and stifled
during the long reign of fanaticism. The Restoration led the way to the
revival of letters, as well as that of legal government. With diaries,
as Dryden has expressed it,

The officious muses came along,
A gay, harmonious quire, like angels ever young.

It was not, however, to be expected, that an alteration of the taste
which had prevailed in the days of Charles I., was to be the immediate
consequence of the new order of things. The muse awoke, like the
sleeping beauty of