Dryden Author:George Saintsbury Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. PERIOD OF DRAMATIC ACTIVITY. Tiikiik are not many portions of English literature which lmvo boon treated with greater severity by critics than... more » the EiMtontioo drama, and of the Restoration dramatists few Iiavo mot with less favour, in proportion to their general lilomry eminence, than Dryden. Of his comedies, in par- liiMiliir, fow Imve been found to say a good word. His Ktiiriliiwl, i'lminpion, Scott, dismisses them as " heavy;" Haz- litl, u ilcfcmlor of the Restoration comedy in general, finds litl.ln in Uioiii but " ribaldry and extravagance;" and I have lul.cly nomi thoin spoken of with a shudder as "horrible." Tho trni.ilii' Imvo fared better, but not much better; and Iliim tlio roinnrknblo spectacle is presented of a general Ininili'iiiimtioii, varied only by the faintest praise, of the work to which an admitted master of English devoted, iilnnml. i'xi'liinivoly, twenty years of the flower of his man- lininl, No i.inii|iliili. is ilio oblivion into which these dramas li'ii ii i ill. n. Unit n lias Iniriod in its folds the always charm- Inn iinil minii'liiiii'M exquisite songs which they contain. |i'm.ii|i|, In I'niiijri'vc'N iwo editions, and in the bulky edi- Hi.n ni Mi'nll, I ii.vilrn':i ihoniiv U unattainable, and thus the ".ii"illv uT i'riiilorB lmvo but little opportunity of correct- liniii Individual study, tlio unfnvourablo impressions . .1 ii.'in Mi.. M'nliola of the critics. For myself, I amChap, in.] PERIOD OF DRAMATIC ACTIVITY. 39 very far from considering Dryden's dramatic work as on a level with his purely poetical work. But, as nearly always happens, and as happened, by a curious coincidence, in the case of his editor, the fact that he did something else much better has obscured the fact that he did this thing in not a few instances very we...« less