was thirty-three when he overthrew Antony; and he held the mastership of the Roman world for forty-four years. 4. Realm-an Old-French form, from the Latin regalis. The hard g disappears into a y in ordinary French royal. 5. Absolute monarch in the realms of Nonsense. The position of the word absolute at the end of the line gives a sudden weight to the meaning. 6. To settle who should succeed him in ruling the state. This problem had come up twice in Dryden's time-first in the case of Cromwell, and next in the case of Charles II., who had no children. 7. Ponder = to weigh, from Latin pondus, a weight. The French have refined pondus away into pois. 8. We should have expected eternal; but immortal is better here. Dryden's meaning is that Flecknoe's sons were so stupid as not to know when they were killed in the war with wit. Compare Schiller's lines:

Unsinn, du siegst, und ich muss untergehn!

Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.

9. See p. 278, Ex. 1, note 2. 10. Onely-the right spelling. But we should have expected to find alone. 11. Even when most immature, always perfectly mature-in dulness (or stupidity). 12. Claim. The words pretend and pretence had in Dryden's time no element of deceit. The term Pretender in the next century had simply the meaning of one who claims; and it is possible -and indeed probable that the conduct of the Stuart family between 1715 and 1745 gave to the word its present meaning. It is not improbable, moreover, that the word claimant may have a similar history. 13. Deviates = goes out of the way. From Latin de viâ. Shadwell keeps the broad and well-beaten highway of nonsense, and never loses his way into sense. 14. The emphasis is on may and contradicts the verse-accent. The line should be read thus :

Sóme | beams of wít | on oth-er souls | máy || fáll.

15. Genuine unmixed. A blackness of darkness; a darkness that may be felt; an absolute blank. 16. Prevail over in prose. 17. Fabric, or architectural structure, of nonsense. 18. Thoughtless majesty, not in the modern sense of heedless, but=vacant of all thought. 19. Lazily.

Ex. 3. Prepare the Veni Creator with the following notes:

1. Our hearts. 2. Comforter. 3. This line might have been omitted; it is an excellent example of Dryden's too-muchness.-Scan also the first four lines.

Ex. 4. Copy out the verses on Shaftesbury, and mark the cæsuras, thus:

Ex. 5. Write notes on the peculiar words and phrases in the short quotations from (a) to (p).

Ex. 6. Comment upon any of the passages from (a) to (p) which have struck you most.

Ex. 7. Compare the treatment of Dryden with that of Chaucer in the following passage from The Knightes Tale:

DRYDEN.

Conscience (that of all physic works the last)
Caused him to send for Emily in haste;
With her, at his desire, came Palamon.
Then, on his pillow raised, he thus begun :
"No language can express the smallest part
Of what I feel and suffer in my heart
For you, whom best I love and value most;
But to your service I bequeath my ghost;
Which, from this mortal body when untied,
Unseen, unheard, shall hover at your side,
Nor fright you waking, nor your sleep offend,
But wait officious, and your steps attend.
How I have loved! excuse my faltering tongue;
My spirit's feeble, and my pains are strong.
This I may say: I only grieve to die,
Because I lose my charming Emily.

To die when Heaven had put you in my power,—
Fate could not choose a more malicious hour
What greater curse could envious fortune give
Than just to die when I began to live?

Vain men, how vanishing a bliss we crave,

Now warm in love, now withering in the grave!

Never, O never more to see the sun;

Still dark in a damp vault, and still alone!"

Ex. 8. Put into lines the following passage from Dryden's translation of the 29th Ode of the Third Book of Horace.

Happy [is] the man, and he alone [is] happy, he who can call to-day his own: He who, secure within, can say, To-morrow, do thy worst, for to-day I have [already] lived. Be [it] fair or foul, [be it] or rain or shine, the joys I have possessed are mine, in spite of fate. Not [even] heaven itself has power upon the past; but what has been, has been; and I have had my hour. [It will be seen from the above, that when Dryden is at his best, his language is of the most simple kind.]

Ex. 9. Extract from the above passage all the words of Latin origin; and count the number of monosyllables. [It will be seen that the whole passage consists almost entirely of monosyllables, and that all these monosyllables are pure English, or "Saxon."]

Ex. 10. Scan the passage in Ex. 8, placing the name of the verse at the end of each line, thus:

Happy the man, and happy he alone (5 x a).

CHAUCER.

And certeynly ther nature wil not wirche,1
Farwel phisik; go ber the man to chirche.
This al and som,2 that Arcyta moot dye.
For which he sendeth after Emelye,
And Palamon, that was his cosyn deere.
Than seyde he thus, as ye schul after heere.
"Naught may the woful spirit in myn herte
Declare o3 poynt of alle my sorwes smerte
To you, my lady, that I love most;
But I byquethe the service of my gost
To you aboven every creature

Syn that my lyf ne may no lenger dure.1
Allas, the woo! allas the peynës stronge
That I for you have suffred, and so longe!
Allas the deth! allas myn Emelye!
Allas departyng of our compainye!
Allas, myn hertës queen! allas my wyf!
Myn hertës lady, endere of my lyf !

What is this world? what asken men to have?

Now with his love, now in his coldë grave

Allone withouten eny compainye.

Farwel, my swete foo! myn Emelye!
And softë tak me in your armës tweye,
For love of God and herkneth what I seye."

1. Work.

2. In fine.

3. One point.

4. Endure no longer.

TABLE OF CONTEMPORARIES.

FROM THE BIRTH or MILTON TO THE DEATH OF DRYDEN.

1.

CHAPTER XV.

FROM DRYDEN TO POPE.

HE great writers of the latter part of the seventeenth century were chiefly prose-writers. They are Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, ISAAC BARROW, TILLOTSON, South, and LOCKE. Only a short notice of each can be given here.

2. SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE (1628-1699) was the son of the Master of the Rolls in Ireland, under Charles I. He spent

his life chiefly as a diplomatist; and was our ambassador for several years at the Hague. On his retirement, he was much consulted by Charles II., James II., and William III.; and it is to him that we owe the foundation of the king's Privy Council. He wrote on political subjects, and also essays on gardening; and his book on Ancient and Modern Learning gave rise to the great literary controversy of that age. Temple defended ancient learning, and maintained its superiority at all points over the modern. He was a relative and patron of Swift's, who contributed to this dispute his famous Battle of the Books.

His merit with regard to English Literature, is that he paid great attention to the construction of his sentences. They are shorter and more highly finished, and have a finer cadence than most of the English prose-writers of the preceding generations. Dr. Johnson says: "Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose." But this can hardly be considered an accurate judgment, if we remember the beautiful rhythm of Jeremy Taylor. Thackeray says: "His style is the perfection of practised and easy goodbreeding." He places his words well, and is careful to round off the conclusion of his sentences. The following are examples:

LEARNING AND ORIGINALITY.

1

Who can tell, whether learning may not even weaken invention 1 in a man that has great advantages from nature and birth; whether the weight and