energy which characterized him, he now devoted himself to sustained
effort. In 1693 he published a translation of _Juvenal_, and in the same
year began his translation of _Virgil_, which was published in 1697. The
work was sold by subscription, and the poet was fairly well paid.
Dryden's translations are by no means exact; but he caught the spirit of
his poet, and carried something of it into his own effective verse.

Dryden was not great in original work, but he was particularly happy in
adaptation; and so it happened that his best play, _All for Love_, was
modeled on Shakspere's _Antony and Cleopatra_, and his best poem,
_Palamon and Arcite_, was a paraphrase of the _Knight's Tale_ of
Chaucer. Contrary to the general taste of his age, he had long felt and
often expressed great admiration for the fourteenth-century poet. His
work on Ovid had first turned his thought to Chaucer, he tells us, and
by association he linked with him Boccaccio. As his life drew near its
close he turned to those famous old story-tellers, and in the _Fables_
gave us paraphrases in verse of eight of their most delightful tales,
with translations from Homer and Ovid, a verse letter to his kinsman
John Driden, his second _St. Cedlia's Ode_, entitled _Alexander's
Feast_, and an _Epitaph_.

The _Fables_ were published in 1700. They were his last work. Friends of
the poet, and they were legion, busied themselves at the beginning of
that year in the arrangement of an elaborate benefit performance for him
at the Duke's Theater; but Dryden did not live to enjoy the compliment.
He suffered severely from gout; a lack of proper treatment induced
mortification, which spread rapidly, and in the early morning of the
first of May, 1700, he died.

He had been the literary figurehead of his generation, and the elaborate