ture within the
compass of his volumes.

His life divides itself into two parts. There is some debatable ground
on the common frontier; but the line may be drawn with tolerable
accuracy. The year 1678 is that on which we should be inclined to fix
as the date of a great change in his manner. During the preceding period
appeared some of his courtly panegyrics--his Annus Mirabilis, and most
of his plays; indeed, all his rhyming tragedies. To the subsequent
period belong his best dramas,--All for Love, the Spanish Friar, and
Sebastian,--his satires, his translations, his didactic poems, his
fables, and his odes.

Of the small pieces which were presented to chancellors and princes it
would scarcely be fair to speak. The greatest advantage which the Fine
Arts derive from the extension of knowledge is, that the patronage of
individuals becomes unnecessary. Some writers still affect to regret the
age of patronage. None but bad writers have reason to regret it. It is
always an age of general ignorance. Where ten thousand readers are eager
for the appearance of a book, a small contribution from each makes up
a splendid remuneration for the author. Where literature is a luxury,
confined to few, each of them must pay high. If the Empress Catherine,
for example, wanted an epic poem, she must have wholly supported
the poet;--just as, in a remote country village, a man who wants a
muttonchop is sometimes forced to take the whole sheep;--a thing which
never happens where the demand is large. But men who pay largely for the
gratification of their taste, will expect to have it united with some
gratification to their vanity. Flattery is carried to a shameless
extent; and the habit of flattery almost inevitably introduces a
false taste into composition. Its language is made up of hyperbolical
commonplaces,--offensive from their triteness,--still more offensive
from their extravagance. In no school is the trick of overstepping the
modesty of nature so speedily acquired. The writer, accustomed to find
exaggeration acceptable and necessary on one subject, uses it on all. It
is not strange, therefore, that the early panegyrical verses of Dryden
should be made up of meanness and bombast. They abound with the conceits
which his immediate predecessors had brought into fashion. But his
language and his versification were already far superior to theirs.

The Annus Mirabilis shows great command of expression, and a fine ear
for heroic rhyme. Here