Davenant was perhaps at this time his favourite author, though Gondibert never appears to have been popular; and from Davenant he learned to please his ear with the stanza of four lines alternately rhymed.
Dryden very early formed his versification: there are in this early production no traces of Donne's or Jonson's ruggedness; but he did not so soon free his mind from the ambition of forced conceits. In his verses on the Restoration, he says of the King's exile,
He, toss'd by Fate—
Could taste no sweets of youth's desir'd age,
But found his life too true a pilgrimage.
And afterwards, to shew how virtue and wisdom are increased by adversity, he makes this remark:
Well might the ancient poets then confer
On Night the honour'd name of counsellor,
Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind,
We light alone in dark afflictions find.
His praise of Monk's dexterity comprises such a cluster of thoughts unallied to one another, as will not elswhere be easily found:
