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DRYDEN'S PLACE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.


It remains to indicate briefly Dryden's position in English literature.
To the critics of his own time he was without question the greatest man
of letters in his generation, and so he undeniably was after the death
of Milton. We are not ready to say with Dr. Johnson that "he found
English of brick and left it of marble," for there was much marble
before Dryden was dreamed of, and his own work is not entirely devoid of
brick; but that Dryden rendered to English services of inestimable value
is not to be questioned. For forty years the great aim of his life was,
as he tells us himself, to improve the English language and English
poetry, and by constant and tireless effort in a mass of production of
antipodal types he accomplished his object. He enriched and extended our
vocabulary, he modulated our meters, he developed new forms, and he
purified and invigorated style.

There are a few poets in our literature who are better than Dryden;
there are a great many who are worse; but there has been none who worked
more constantly and more conscientiously for its improvement. Mr.
Saintsbury has admirably summarized the situation: "He is not our
greatest poet; far from it. But there is one point in which the
superlative may safely be applied to him. Considering what he started
with, what he accomplished, and what advantages he left to his
successors, he must be pronounced, without exception, the greatest
craftsman in English Letters."