ON
THE FORMATION OF CLASSICAL ENGLISH:
AN EXTRACT FROM
A LECTURE ON DRYDEN.
Dryden, a true littérateur, simply reflects his epoch; the revolution he was intent upon, and which we are especially bound to consider, was that of English verse composition. While Newton was balancing the earth, and Locke weighing the intellect, Dryden was measuring syllables. While Penn and Locke were venturing experiments in government, he was making them in prosody. Political movements and agitations the plot and the new plot dissolutions and elections falls of ministries and impeachments and deaths were to him chiefly of interest because he must mould the subject of his verse accordingly. To please the King as laureate he is in duty bound; and to serve his cause with rhyme to the purpose. Also prose.
Yet what side should a littérateur of real excellence take if not that of the King and the court? who certainly had the best taste, were the most judicious critics as well as the most likely paymasters. Settle and Shadwell might suit the Aldermen and the Exclusionists, who knew no better. And nothing, I imagine, more completely suited Dryden, more exactly met his feelings, and gave freer scope to his talents, than the revolution in literature which the new King and court sought to naturalise in England. To guide the process of that change and to elevate
