A fair retrospect of Davenant's career enables us to select without
difficulty that one of his labors which is most deserving of
applause. Not his "Gondibert," notwithstanding it abounds in fine
passages,--notwithstanding Gay thought it worth continuation and
completion, and added several cantos,--notwithstanding Lamb eulogized
it with enthusiasm, Southey warmly praised, and Campbell and Hazlitt
coolly commended it. Nor his comedies, which are deservedly forgotten;
nor his improvements in the production of plays, serviceable as they
were to the acting drama. But to his exertions Milton owed impunity
from the vengeance otherwise destined for the apologist of regicide,
and so owed the life and leisure requisite to the composition of
"Paradise Lost." Davenant, grateful for the old kindness of the
ex-secretary, used his influence successfully with Charles to let the
offender escape.[18] This is certainly the greenest of Davenant's
laurels. Without it, the world might not have heard one of the
sublimest expressions of human genius.

Davenant died in 1668. The laurel was hung up unclaimed until 1670,
when John Dryden received it, with patent dated back to the summer
succeeding Davenant's death. Dryden assures us that it was Sir Thomas
Clifford, whose name a year later lent the initial letter to the
"Cabal," who presented him to the king, and procured his
appointment.[19] Masques had now ceased to be the mode. What the
dramatist could do to amuse the _blasé_ court of Charles II. he
was obliged to do within the limits of legitimate dramatic
representation, due care being taken to follow French models, and
substitute the idiom of Corneille and Molière for that of
Shakspeare. Dryden, whose plays are now read only by the curious, was,
in 1670, the greatest of living dramatists. He had expiated his