Edue T 819,890, 140 Harvard Univery, TRANSFERRED TO HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY Copyright, 1897, by DRYDEN W. P. I INTRODUCTION. JOHN DRYDEN was born August 9, 1631, three centuries after Chaucer. Shakespeare had been dead fifteen years; Milton was a young man of twenty-three, his great poem "Paradise Lost" yet to be begun; Edmund Waller was writing graceful poetry; Donne and Herbert had just reached the end of their career; and-by no means least noteworthy-the famous King James translation of the Bible, which appeared in 1611, was still new. Thus Dryden followed an era of great literary activity and achievement, and preceded another productive period, that of Pope and Addison, a period on which his own writings were to have no little influence. For this reason we associate him not so much with the poets that precede, or with Milton, who, though a contemporary, stands apart and independent, as with the poets that followed,-the artificial, scholarly, brilliant poets of the "Augustan ” period. Young Dryden attended Westminster School, and later Trinity College, Cambridge. On leaving college he came to London and began his fight for fame. In those days a young poet who wished advancement would write flattering verses to the king or to some nobleman prominent in politics, and would, if so fortunate as to please him, receive in return gifts of money or possibly |