he world that age had not dimmed the
fire of his genius, he takes as his caption,--

... nec tarda senectus
Debilitat vires animi, mutat que vigorem.

This latter part of his life claims a true sympathy, because he is every
inch a man.

It must not be forgotten that Dryden presented Chaucer to England anew,
after centuries of neglect, almost oblivion; for which the world owes him
a debt of gratitude. This he did by modernizing several of the Canterbury
Tales, and thus leading English scholars to seek the beauties and
instructions of the original. The versions themselves are by no means well
executed, it must be said. He has lost the musical words and fresh diction
of the original, as a single comparison between the two will clearly show.
Perhaps there is no finer description of morning than is contained in
these lines of Chaucer:

The besy lark, the messager of day,
Saleweth in hir song the morwe gray;
And firy Phebus riseth up so bright
That all the orient laugheth of the sight.

How expressive the words: the _busy_ lark; the sun rising like a strong
man; _all the orient_ laughing. The following version by Dryden, loses at
once the freshness of idea and the felicity of phrase:

The morning lark, the messenger of day,
Saluted in her song the morning gray;
And soon the sun arose with beams so bright
That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight.

The student will find this only one of many illustrations of the manner
in which Dryden has belittled Chaucer in his versions.

ODES.--Dryden has been regarded as the first who used the heroic couplet
with entire mastery. In his hands it is bold and sometimes rugged, but
always powerful and handled with great ease: he fashioned it for Pope to
polish. Of this, his larger poems are full of proof. But there is another
verse, of irregular rhythm, in which he was even more successful,--lyric
poetry as found in the irregular ode, varying from the short line to the
"Alexandrine dragging its slow length along;" the staccato of a harp
ending in a lengthened flow of melody.

Thus long ago,
Ere heaving billows learned to blow,
While organs yet were mute;
Timotheus to his breathing flute
And sounding lyre
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.

When he became a Roman Catholic, St. Cecilia, "inventress of the vocal
frame," became his chief devotion; and the _Song on St. Cecilia's Day_ and