immortalized his name, and which will, to the latest posterity, vindicate his genius, though his dramas be neglected and forgotten. Every reader will remember that just at this period of the poet's life there raged most fiercely the contest between the supporters of the Duke of York and the followers of Monmouth and Shaftesbury. It was an age of squibs, and all the rhyming talent, though it was only such as was possessed by Shadwell, Settle, and the like, was on the Whig side. Dryden, as Laureate, was expected to come to the rescue; and though he had of late been neglected by the Court, he was conciliated by kind words and fair promises. He was not wanting on the occasion, and in November, 1681, appeared the greatest satire in our language—"Absalom and Achitophel." Neither the plan or style of the poem were entirely new, but it is so vastly superior to the lucubrations which may have suggested it, that it does not require the praise of novelty to enhance its merits.
After the criticisms of Addison, Johnson, Sir W. Scott, and so many others, it is needless to enter into any discussion of its merits. A depreciatory and unfair criticism from a writer of eminence should perhaps here be quoted. No less a man than Schlegel, in his Lectures on Dramatic Poetry, makes the extraordinary assertion, that Dryden, "from his influence in fixing the laws of versification and poetical language, especially in rhyme, has acquired a reputation altogether disproportionate to his true merit." He ventures also to doubt "whether his translations of the Latin Poets are not manneristical paraphrases, and whether his political allegories (now that party-interest is dead) can be read without the greatest weariness."
It would appear from this, that even German industry cannot avail to save a man who attempts a vast subject in his teaching, from being occasionally shallow and unjust. If his charge against the translations have something of
