world, early prejudices vanished, his true nature asserted itself, and
it was John Dryden himself, not merely the son of his father, who
celebrated Charles' return.

On December 1, 1663, he married Lady Elizabeth Howard, eldest daughter
of the Earl of Berkshire, and the sister of a literary intimate.
Tradition has pronounced the marriage an unhappy one, but facts do not
bear out tradition. He nowhere referred other than affectionately to his
wife, and always displayed a father's warm affection for his sons, John,
Charles, and Erasmus. Lady Elizabeth outlived her husband and eventually
died insane.

During the great plague in London, 1665, Dryden fled with his wife to
Charleton. He lived there for two years, and during that time wrote
three productions that illustrate the three departments of literature to
which he devoted himself: _Annus Mirabilis_, a narrative and descriptive
poem on the fire of 1666 and the sea fight with the Dutch, the _Essay on
Dramatic Poesy_, his first attempt at literary criticism in prose, and
the _Maiden Queen_, a drama. In _Annus Mirabilis_ we find the best work
yet done by him. Marinist quaintness still clings here and there, and he
has temporarily deserted the classical distich for a quatrain stanza;
but here, for the first time, we taste the Dryden of the _Satires_ and
the _Fables_. His _Essay on Dramatic Poesy_ started modern prose.
Hitherto English prose had suffered from long sentences, from involved
sentences, and from clumsy Latinisms or too bald vernacular. Dryden
happily united simplicity with grace, and gave us plain, straightforward
sentences, musically arranged in well-ordered periods. This was the
vehicle in which he introduced literary criticism, and he continued it
in prefaces to most of his plays and subsequent poems.