of those who merely give back what they have received more or less changed in form or in manner he has been as a in politics as a in religion and in literature as the of a succession of schools the reasons for and against these charges cannot be examined here and there seems something specially in treating of in a tone of apology at the same time both his life and works the relations between which are peculiarly intimate often require to be protected from some of the with which they have been visited many of our poets have been subjected to criticism but none has so to speak been so r as he was the of ancestors on both the father s and the mother s side his own according to an adversary of the poet s � was a committee man and one of his maternal cousins was a peer of s creation nothing could therefore be more natural or becoming than that on the protector s death then a young man of twenty seven should have sung the praises of our prince generally selecting for qualities which even s enemies would not have denied him to have possessed that the author of the heroic should with the restoration have forth as a no at all it should not be forgotten that the restoration was not a mere party act and that much had happened between it and the death of what ever may have been the hereditary politics of and john was a bom and with the restoration his political changes were at an end poetry was the fashion of the age and the and readiness of dry den s genius made it easy for him to in this kind of composition to be sure even the most willing and the most muse must rapidly such a theme as the virtues of king charles ii and in his written on the king s death found little to add to what he had sung in the composed in honour of the restoration � except that his majesty died hard in shorter pieces in honour of the king the of york and lord displayed the same talent for waving gorgeous the poets b of in he hailed the birth of a whom half the regarded as a before he and his parents were no has ever earned like dr den the butt of which the economy of king james new reign off from his salary of all the de force by him however the most extraordinary is that in which he undertook to flatter the nation as well as the to the top of their bent the fire and spirit of the are nothing short of when the which beset the though partly by his own choosing are remembered there was first the of his subject which as a perusal of the poem cannot fail to reveal to the most reader was by no means made up altogether of materials for yet the must really have d me good to the public even at the present day it agreeably the john bull sentiment of patriotism and prejudice in the comer of an englishman s heart another difficulty but in this instance a self imposed one was the form of verse in which the poem was written it was chosen for the sake of its dignity but as well knew and told from whose it was borrowed it put a far greater strain upon the ingenuity and skill of the author thus though has written that is more thoroughly he has written nothing that is more characteristic of himself than this long series of the glorious dash of the performance is his own and so is the victorious struggle against the drag of a difficult and rather dull but it was a yet different kind of poem by which the loyal of the throne first became a in english politics no modem reader whether his sympathies be with the or whether he think that there may be something to be said even in favour of the is likely to refuse his admiration to the greatest � greatest without even a suggestion of of english political this position in a literature rich in of the same kind to political and a or rather the first part of the satire owes to the reason which made it so singularly effective at the season of its publication besides being executed with vigour and and as finished in detail as it is impetuous in flow it has the supreme merit for a work of this kind of being completely adapted to its special purpose and is a political satire pure and simple not like john dr a on a whole full of political and religious the form of the satire while so familiar in itself as to save all trouble in the author s just for the real theme beneath a decent disguise but it by no means with a quality necessary for the of the work � its accordingly every shaft flies home in every character from and to the lesser which are as it were merely touched in passing precisely those features are marked as to which it is desirable to strengthen and the suspicions of the popular instinct the object of the writer being not to furnish a narrative of a complete historical episode but to give a striking picture of the influences which had led to the situation existing at the time when was to be placed on his trial for treason the real completion of the plot of the poem would have been furnished by the event which it was designed to bring about � namely the conviction and condemnation of its treacherous hero thus the first part with its vehement and fervent enthusiasm a moderation proving the author s hand to be that of a shrewd as well as a keen the blows are not dealt as 