Lecture on Dryden.

Owing to the bad weather, Sever 11 was not more than comfortably filled last evening at the lecture by E. Charlton Black on Dryden.

It is not so much because of Dryden's own intellectual strength that he is remarkable as because he embodied the literature of the English Restoration and represented not only its characteristics but also its peculiarities. Dryden was made famous more by circumstances than by personal greatness.

The old Puritan regime was overthrown and the reaction was strong against solemnity and restraint. The succeeding literature showed little reverence or earnestness, but bubbled over with jollity.

Everything in fact was sacrificed to wit. Besides this, French influence made itself felt strongly, both in spirit and the form of literature. The tendency was strongly toward an affectation of loose morals - much worse than the reality, in fact, - bred partly by the hatred of Puritan sanctity and partly by the following of French ideas.

A natural expression of this new spirit was the revival of the drama. Play houses were opened in London, actresses were permanently introduced, and the ballet also made its appearance. The audience was course and sensual, and the plays pandered to its taste.

Before such audiences John Dryden made his fame or, perhaps better won his popularity. His plays at first very poor, gradually grew better until finally he captured the London court, and henceforth his position was secure. Dryden was hardly a man of lofty ideals, and he much preferred the popularity of the moment and its substantial rewards than any amount of posthumous glory.

Yet his dramatic writings are not altogether without merit. His description of the fire and pestilence in London gave evidence of a master mind, and his essay in defense of rhyme has the first step to a simplified and purified English.

Once made poet laureate, Dryden's career as dramatist closes and he now turns to satire. In satire his genius lay, and in his productions of this kind we have fit members of the great body of English literature. His language was direct, emphatic, incisive, - there was an impetuous flow about his verses, every line struck a blow, every epithet had its significance, every simile its effect. Dryden's satire was both glorious and terrible.

Dryden's lack of principle, or possibly his indolent disposition led him always to submit to the ruling powers. He was Puritan in his youth, royalist in his manhood, papist in his old age. Yet after all the man was so easily influenced that it was almost impossible for him not to follow the lead of the majority. Whatever may have been his character as a man, certainly as a poet he gave with every advancing year added proof of strength, maturity and nobility. His genius was rather receptive than creative; the seeds that were planted in his mind bore their best fruit latest in life.

Dryden's most substantial benefit to literature was in his breaking away from the cumbrous classical expressions and forced metaphors with which the language was being strangled and in giving a strong impulse to the natural forms of expressions. Extravagant and fantastic in youth, his old age shows a clear and simple English, not very imaginative, not finely sentimental, but certainly strong, significant, graceful and forcible.