1

Introduction

This paper is going to give us an overview of the two periods or era which are the

Restoration and the Revolutionary periods and some of the literary works of these periods. The

characteristics of the literary works will also be described in this paper. The main highlight of the

paper is the contributions of the legendary John Dryden on both of these periods. His life will be

described for us to have an overview as to how he created these literary pieces that have

surpassed two eras and most of how these literary pieces have contributed to the undying and

preserved beauty of The English Literature. The connection of the Restoration period and the

Revolutionary period literary pieces with the touch of different personalities of the writers will

be shown so that we can determine how the situations from these periods with the literary

influences affect and inspired the works of John Dryden. We will be unfolding the connections

and differences that will create the masterpiece that we are honouring right now from the works

of John Dryden that have contributed a big part to English Literature.

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Body

The Restoration Period

The Commonwealth, which preceded the English Restoration, might have continued if

Oliver Cromwell's son Richard, who was made Lord Protector on his father's death, had been

capable of carrying on his father's policies. Richard Cromwell's main weakness was that he did

not have the confidence of the army. After seven months, an army faction known as the

Wallingford House party removed him on 6 May 1659 and reinstalled the Rump Parliament.

Charles Fleetwood was appointed a member of the Committee of Safety and of the Council of

State, and one of the seven commissioners for the army. On 9 June 1659, he was nominated lord-

general (commander-in-chief) of the army. However, his leadership was undermined in

Parliament, which chose to disregard the army's authority in a similar fashion to the post-First

Civil War Parliament. A royalist uprising was planned for 1 August 1659, but it was foiled.

However, Sir George Booth gained control of Cheshire; Charles II hoped that with Spanish

support he could effect a landing, but none was forthcoming. Booth held Cheshire until the end

of August when he was defeated by General Lambert. The Commons, on 12 October 1659,

cashiered General John Lambert and other officers, and installed Fleetwood as chief of a military

council under the authority of the Speaker. The next day Lambert ordered that the doors of the

House be shut and the members kept out. On 26 October a "Committee of Safety" was

appointed, of which Fleetwood and Lambert were members. Lambert was appointed major-

general of all the forces in England and Scotland, Fleetwood being general.The Committee of

Safety sent Lambert with a large force to meet George Monck, who was in command of the

English forces in Scotland, and either negotiate with him or force him to come to terms. It was

into this atmosphere that Monck, the governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, marched south
 3

with his army from Scotland. Lambert's army began to desert him, and he returned to London

almost alone. Monck marched to London unopposed. The Presbyterian members, excluded in

Pride's Purge of 1648, were recalled, and on 24 December the army restored the Long

Parliament.Fleetwood was deprived of his command and ordered to appear before Parliament to

answer for his conduct. On 3 March 1660, Lambert was sent to the Tower of London, from

which he escaped a month later. He tried to rekindle the civil war in favour of the

Commonwealth by issuing a proclamation calling on all supporters of the "Good Old Cause" to

rally on the battlefield of Edgehill, but he was recaptured by Colonel Richard Ingoldsby, a

participant in the regicide of Charles I who hoped to win a pardon by handing Lambert over to

the new regime. Lambert was incarcerated and died in custody on Guernsey in 1694; Ingoldsby

was indeed pardoned.

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Restoration of Charles II

The departure of Charles II from Scheveningen (1660). On 4 April 1660, Charles II

issued the Declaration of Breda, in which he made several promises in relation to the reclamation

of the crown of England. Monck organised the Convention Parliament, which met for the first

time on 25 April. On 8 May it proclaimed that King Charles II had been the lawful monarch

since the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649. "Constitutionally, it was as if the last

nineteen years had never happened." Charles returned from exile, leaving the Hague on 23 May

and landing at Dover on 25 May. He entered London on 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday. To

celebrate His Majesty's Return to his Parliament, 29 May was made a public holiday, popularly

known as Oak Apple Day. He was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661. Some

contemporaries described the Restoration as "a divinely ordained miracle". The sudden and

unexpected deliverance from usurpation and tyranny was interpreted as a restoration of the

natural and divine order.The Cavalier Parliament convened for the first time on 8 May 1661, and

it would endure for over 17 years, finally being dissolved on 24 January 1679. Like its

predecessor, it was overwhelmingly Royalist. It is also known as the Pensionary Parliament for

the many pensions it granted to adherents of the King. The leading political figure at the

beginning of the Restoration was Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. It was the "skill and

wisdom of Clarendon" which had "made the Restoration unconditional". Many Royalist exiles

returned and were rewarded. Prince Rupert of the Rhine returned to the service of England,

became a member of the privy council, and was provided with an annuity. George Goring, 1st

Earl of Norwich, returned to be the Captain of the King's guard and received a pension.

Marmaduke Langdale returned and was made "Baron Langdale". William Cavendish, Marquess

of Newcastle, returned and was able to regain the greater part of his estates. He was invested in
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1666 with the Order of the Garter (which had been bestowed upon him in 1650), and was

advanced to a dukedom on 16 March 1665.

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England and Wales

Commonwealth regicides and rebels

Thomas Harrison, the first person found guilty of regicide during the Restoration. The Indemnity

and Oblivion Act, which became law on 29 August 1660, pardoned all past treason against the

crown, but specifically excluded those involved in the trial and execution of Charles I. Thirty-

one of the 59 commissioners (judges) who had signed the death warrant in 1649 were living. The

regicides were hunted down; some escaped but most were found and put on trial. Three escaped

to the American colonies. New Haven, Connecticut, secretly harbored Edward Whalley, William

Goffe and John Dixwell, and after American independence named streets after them to honour

them as forefathers of the American Revolution. In the ensuing trials, twelve were condemned to

death. Fifth Monarchist Thomas Harrison, the first person found guilty of regicide, who had been

the seventeenth of the 59 commissioners to sign the death warrant, was the first regicide to be

hanged, drawn and quartered because he was considered by the new government still to represent

a real threat to the re-established order. In October 1660, at Charing Cross or Tyburn, London,

ten were publicly hanged, drawn and quartered: Thomas Harrison, John Jones, Adrian Scrope,

John Carew, Thomas Scot, and Gregory Clement, who had signed the king's death warrant; the

preacher Hugh Peters; Francis Hacker and Daniel Axtell, who commanded the guards at the

king's trial and execution; and John Cooke, the solicitor who directed the prosecution. The 10

judges who were on the panel but did not sign the death warrant were also convicted. Oliver

Cromwell, Henry Ireton, Judge Thomas Pride, and Judge John Bradshaw were posthumously

attainted for high treason. Because Parliament is a court, the highest in the land, a bill of

attainder is a legislative act declaring a person guilty of treason or felony, in contrast to the

regular judicial process of trial and conviction. In January 1661, the corpses of Cromwell, Ireton
 7

and Bradshaw were exhumed and hanged in chains at Tyburn. In 1661 John Okey, one of the

regicides who signed the death warrant of Charles I, was brought back from Holland along with

Miles Corbet, friend and lawyer to Cromwell, and John Barkstead, former constable of the

Tower of London. They were all imprisoned in the Tower. From there they were taken to Tyburn

and hanged, drawn and quartered on 19 April 1662. A further 19 regicides were imprisoned for

life. John Lambert was not in London for the trial of Charles I. At the Restoration, he was found

guilty of high treason and remained in custody in Guernsey for the rest of his life. Sir Henry

Vane the Younger served on the Council of State during the Interregnum even though he refused

to take the oath which expressed approbation (approval) of the King's execution. At the

Restoration, after much debate in Parliament, he was exempted from the Indemnity and Oblivion

Act. In 1662 he was tried for high treason, found guilty and beheaded on Tower Hill on 14 June

1662.
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Regrant of certain Commonwealth titles

Further information: Knights, baronets and peers of the Protectorate

The Instrument of Government, The Protectorate's written constitutions, gave to the Lord

Protector the King's power to grant titles of honour. Over 30 new knighthoods were granted

under the Protectorate. These knighthoods passed into oblivion upon the Restoration of Charles

II, however many were regranted by the restored King. Of the eleven Protectorate baronetcies,

two had been previously granted by Charles I during the Civil War – but under Commonwealth

legislation they were not recognised under the Protectorate (hence the Lord Protector's regranting

of them), however when that legislation passed into oblivion these two baronets were entitled to

use the baronetcies granted by Charles I – and Charles II regranted four more. Only one now

continues: Sir Richard Thomas Willy, 14th baronet, is the direct successor of Sir Griffith

Williams. Of the remaining Protectorate baronets one, Sir William Ellis, was granted a

knighthood by Charles II. Edmund Dunch was created Baron Burnell of East Wittenham in April

1658, but this barony was not regranted. The male line failed in 1719 with the death of his

grandson, also Edmund Dunch, so no one can lay claim to the title. The one hereditary

viscountcy Cromwell created for certain, (making Charles Howard Viscount Howard of Morpeth

and Baron Gilsland) continues to this day. In April 1661, Howard was created Earl of Carlisle,

Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and Baron Dacre of Gillesland. The present Earl is a direct

descendant of this Cromwellian creation and Restoration recreation.

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Venner rebellion (1661)

On 6 January 1661, about 50 Fifth Monarchists, headed by a wine-cooper named Thomas

Venner, tried to gain possession of London in the name of "King Jesus". Most were either killed

or taken prisoner; on 19 and 21 January 1661, Venner and 10 others were hanged, drawn and

quartered for high treason.

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Church of England settlement

The Church of England was restored as the national Church in England, backed by the Clarendon

Code and the Act of Uniformity 1662. People reportedly "pranced around May poles as a way of

taunting the Presbyterians and Independents" and "burned copies of the Solemn League and

Covenant".
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Ireland

Main article: Restoration (Ireland)

"The commonwealth parliamentary union was, after 1660, treated as null and void".As in

England the republic was deemed constitutionally never to have occurred. The Convention

Parliament was dissolved by Charles II in January 1661, and he summoned his first parliament in

Ireland in May 1661. In 1662, 29 May was made a public holiday. Coote, Broghill and Sir

Maurice Eustace were initially the main political figures in the Restoration. George Monck,

Duke of Albemarle was given the position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland but he did not assume

office. In 1662 the 1st Duke of Ormonde returned as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and became

the predominant political figure of the Restoration period.

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Scotland

Main article: Restoration (Scotland)

Charles was proclaimed King again on 14 May 1660. He was not crowned, having been

previously crowned at Scone in 1651. The Restoration "presented an occasion of universal

celebration and rejoicing throughout Scotland". Charles II summoned his parliament on 1

January 1661, which began to undo all that been forced on his father Charles I of Scotland. The

Rescissory Act 1661 made all legislation back to 1633 'void and null'.
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English Colonies

Main article: Restoration in the English colonies

Caribbean

Barbados, as a haven for refugees fleeing the English republic, had held for Charles II

under Lord Willoughby until defeated by George Ayscue. When news reached Barbados of the

King's restoration, Thomas Modyford declared Barbados for the King in July 1660. The planters,

however, were not eager for the return of the former governor Lord Willoughby, fearing disputes

over titles, but the King ordered he be restored. Jamaica had been a conquest of Oliver

Cromwell's and Charles II's claim to the island was therefore questionable. However, Charles II

chose not to restore Jamaica to Spain and in 1661 it became a British colony and the planters

would claim that they held rights as Englishmen by the King's assumption of the dominion of

Jamaica. The first governor was Lord Windsor. He was replaced in 1664 by Thomas Modyford

who had been ousted from Barbados

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North America

New England, with its Puritan settlement, had supported the Commonwealth and the

Protectorate. Acceptance of the Restoration was reluctant in some quarters as it highlighted the

failure of puritan reform. Rhode Island declared in October 1660 and Massachusetts lastly in

August 1661.New Haven provided refuge for Regicides such as Edward Whalley, William Goffe

and John Dixwell and would be subsequently merged into Connecticut in 1662, perhaps in

punishment. John Winthrop, a former governor of Connecticut, and one of whose sons had been

a captain in Monck's army, went to England at the Restoration and in 1662 obtained a Royal

Charter for Connecticut with New Haven annexed to it. Maryland had resisted the republic until

finally occupied by New England Puritans/Parliamentary forces after the Battle of the Severn in

1655. In 1660 the Governor Josias Fendall tried to turn Maryland into a Commonwealth of its

own in what is known as Fendall's Rebellion but with the fall of the republic in England he was

left without support and was replaced by Philip Calvert upon the Restoration. Virginia was the

most loyal of King Charles II's dominions. It had, according to the eighteenth-century historian

Robert Beverley, Jr., been "the last of all the King's Dominions that submitted to the

Usurpation". Virginia had provided sanctuary for Cavaliers fleeing the English republic. Sir

William Berkeley, who had previously been governor up until 1652, was elected governor in

1660 by the House of Burgesses and he promptly declared for the King. The Anglican Church

was restored as the established church. In 1663 the Province of Carolina was formed as a reward

given to some supporters of the Restoration. The province was named after the King's father,

Charles I.
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Restoration Britain

Historian Roger Baker argues that the Restoration and Charles' coronation mark a

reversal of the stringent Puritan morality, "as though the pendulum swung from repression to

licence more or less overnight". Theatres reopened after having been closed during the

protectorship of Oliver Cromwell, Puritanism lost its momentum, and the bawdy "Restoration

comedy" became a recognisable genre. In addition, women were allowed to perform on the

commercial stage as professional actresses for the first time. In Scotland, Episcopacy was

reinstated. To celebrate the occasion and cement their diplomatic relations, the Dutch Republic

presented Charles with the Dutch Gift, a fine collection of old master paintings, classical

sculptures, furniture, and a yacht.

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End of the Restoration

Main article: Glorious Revolution

Equestrian portrait of William III by Jan Wyck, commemorating the start of the Glorious

Revolution in 1688

The Glorious Revolution ended the Restoration. The Glorious Revolution which

overthrew King James II of England was propelled by a union of English Parliamentarians with

the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange). William's successful

invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his accession to the English throne as

William III of England jointly with his wife Mary II of England, James' daughter. In April 1688,

James had re-issued the Declaration of Indulgence and ordered all Anglican clergymen to read it

to their congregations. When seven bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, submitted

a petition requesting the reconsideration of the King's religious policies, they were arrested and

tried for seditious libel. On 30 June 1688, a group of seven Protestant nobles invited the Prince

of Orange to come to England with an army; by September it became clear that William would

invade England. When William arrived on 5 November 1688, James lost his nerve, declined to

attack the invading Dutch and tried to flee to France. He was captured in Kent; later, he was

released and placed under Dutch protective guard. Having no desire to make James a martyr,

William, Prince of Orange, let him escape on 23 December. James was received in France by his

cousin and ally, Louis XIV, who offered him a palace and a pension. William convened a

Convention Parliament to decide how to handle the situation. While the Parliament refused to

depose James, they declared that James, having fled to France had effectively abdicated the

throne, and that the throne was vacant. To fill this vacancy, James's daughter Mary was declared
 17

Queen; she was to rule jointly with her husband William, Prince of Orange, who would be king.

The English Parliament passed the Bill of Rights of 1689 that denounced James for abusing his

power. The abuses charged to James included the suspension of the Test Acts, the prosecution of

the Seven Bishops for merely petitioning the crown, the establishment of a standing army, and

the imposition of cruel punishments. The bill also declared that henceforth no Roman Catholic

was permitted to ascend the English throne, nor could any English monarch marry a Roman

Catholic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restoration
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John Dryden

John Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in

Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was rector of All Saints. He was the eldest of

fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary Pickering, paternal grandson of Sir

Erasmus Dryden, 1st Baronet (1553–1632), and wife Frances Wilkes, Puritan landowning gentry

who supported the Puritan cause and Parliament. He was a second cousin once removed of

Jonathan Swift. As a boy, Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, where it is likely

that he received his first education. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's

Scholar where his headmaster was Dr. Richard Busby, a charismatic teacher and severe

disciplinarian. Having been re-founded by Elizabeth I, Westminster during this period embraced

a very different religious and political spirit encouraging royalism and high Anglicanism.

Whatever Dryden's response to this was, he clearly respected the headmaster and would later

send two of his sons to school at Westminster. As a humanist public school, Westminster

maintained a curriculum which trained pupils in the art of rhetoric and the presentation of

arguments for both sides of a given issue. This is a skill which would remain with Dryden and

influence his later writing and thinking, as much of it displays these dialectical patterns. The

Westminster curriculum included weekly translation assignments which developed Dryden's

capacity for assimilation. This was also to be exhibited in his later works. His years at

Westminster were not uneventful, and his first published poem, an elegy with a strong royalist

feel on the death of his schoolmate Henry, Lord Hastings from smallpox, alludes to the execution

of King Charles I, which took place on 30 January 1649, very near the school where Dr. Busby

had first prayed for the King and then locked in his schoolboys to prevent their attending the

spectacle. In 1650 Dryden went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he would have
 19

experienced a return to the religious and political ethos of his childhood: the Master of Trinity

was a Puritan preacher by the name of Thomas Hill who had been a rector in Dryden's home

village.Though there is little specific information on Dryden's undergraduate years, he would

most certainly have followed the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric, and mathematics. In

1654 he obtained his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year. In June of the same year

Dryden's father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income, but not enough to

live on. Returning to London during the Protectorate, Dryden obtained work with Oliver

Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. This appointment may have been the result of

influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering. At

Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets John Milton

and Andrew Marvell. Shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas

(1659), a eulogy on Cromwell's death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display. In

1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with

Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. In this work the interregnum is illustrated as a

time of anarchy, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order.
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Later life and career

After the Restoration, as Dryden quickly established himself as the leading poet and

literary critic of his day, he transferred his allegiances to the new government. Along with

Astraea Redux, Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics: To His Sacred

Majesty: A Panegyric on his Coronation (1662) and To My Lord Chancellor (1662). These

poems suggest that Dryden was looking to court a possible patron, but he was to instead make a

living in writing for publishers, not for the aristocracy, and thus ultimately for the reading public.

These, and his other nondramatic poems, are occasional—that is, they celebrate public events.

Thus they are written for the nation rather than the self, and the Poet Laureate (as he would later

become) is obliged to write a certain number of these per annum. In November 1662 Dryden

was proposed for membership in the Royal Society, and he was elected an early fellow.

However, Dryden was inactive in Society affairs and in 1666 was expelled for non-payment of

his dues.
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Dryden, by John Michael Wright, 1668

Dryden, by James Maubert, c. 1695

On 1 December 1663 Dryden married the royalist sister of Sir Robert Howard—Lady

Elizabeth. Dryden's works occasionally contain outbursts against the married state but also

celebrations of the same. Thus, little is known of the intimate side of his marriage. Lady

Elizabeth bore three sons and outlived her husband. With the reopening of the theatres in 1660

after the Puritan ban, Dryden began writing plays. His first play The Wild Gallant appeared in

1663, and was not successful, but was still promising, and from 1668 on he was contracted to

produce three plays a year for the King's Company in which he became a shareholder. During the

1660s and 1670s, theatrical writing was his main source of income. He led the way in

Restoration comedy, his best-known work being Marriage à la Mode (1673), as well as heroic

tragedy and regular tragedy, in which his greatest success was All for Love (1678). Dryden was

never satisfied with his theatrical writings and frequently suggested that his talents were wasted

on unworthy audiences. He thus was making a bid for poetic fame off-stage. In 1667, around the

same time his dramatic career began, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem

which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in

1666. It was a modern epic in pentameter quatrains that established him as the preeminent poet

of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and

historiographer royal (1670). When the Great Plague of London closed the theatres in 1665,

Dryden retreated to Wiltshire where he wrote Of Dramatick Poesie (1668), arguably the best of

his unsystematic prefaces and essays. Dryden constantly defended his own literary practice, and

Of Dramatick Poesie, the longest of his critical works, takes the form of a dialogue in which four

characters—each based on a prominent contemporary, with Dryden himself as 'Neander'—debate

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the merits of classical, French and English drama. The greater part of his critical works introduce

problems which he is eager to discuss, and show the work of a writer of independent mind who

feels strongly about his own ideas, ideas which demonstrate the breadth of his reading. He felt

strongly about the relation of the poet to tradition and the creative process, and his best heroic

play Aureng-zebe (1675) has a prologue which denounces the use of rhyme in serious drama. His

play All for Love (1678) was written in blank verse, and was to immediately follow Aureng-

Zebe. At around 8pm on 18 December 1679, Dryden was attacked in Rose Alley behind the

Lamb & Flag pub, near his home in Covent Garden, by thugs hired by the Earl of Rochester,

with whom he had a long-standing conflict. The pub was notorious for staging bare-knuckle

prize fights, earning the nickname "The Bucket of Blood". Dryden's poem, "An Essay upon

Satire", contained a number of attacks on King Charles II, his mistresses and courtiers, but most

pointedly for the Earl of Rochester, a notorious womaniser. Rochester responded by hiring thugs

who attacked Dryden whilst walking back from Will's Coffee House (a popular London coffee

house where the Wits gathered to gossip, drink and conduct their business) back to his house on

Gerrard Street.. Dryden survived the attack, offering £50 for the identity of the thugs placed in

the London Gazette, and a Royal Pardon if one of them would confess. No one claimed the

reward. Dryden's greatest achievements were in satiric verse: the mock-heroic Mac Flecknoe, a

more personal product of his laureate years, was a lampoon circulated in manuscript and an

attack on the playwright Thomas Shadwell. Dryden's main goal in the work is to "satirize

Shadwell, ostensibly for his offenses against literature but more immediately we may suppose for

his habitual badgering of him on the stage and in print." It is not a belittling form of satire, but

rather one which makes his object great in ways which are unexpected, transferring the

ridiculous into poetry.This line of satire continued with Absalom and Achitophel (1681) and The
 23

Medal (1682). His other major works from this period are the religious poems Religio Laici

(1682), written from the position of a member of the Church of England; his 1683 edition of

Plutarch's Lives Translated From the Greek by Several Hands in which he introduced the word

biography to English readers; and The Hind and the Panther, (1687) which celebrates his

conversion to Roman Catholicism.

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Frontispiece and title page, vol. II, 1716 edition, Works of Virgil translated by Dryden

He wrote Britannia Rediviva celebrating the birth of a son and heir to the Catholic King

King and Queen on 10 June 1688. When later in the same year James II was deposed in the

Glorious Revolution, Dryden's refusal to take the oaths of allegiance to the new monarchs,

William and Mary, left him out of favour at court. Thomas Shadwell succeeded him as Poet

Laureate, and he was forced to give up his public offices and live by the proceeds of his pen.

Dryden translated works by Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, Lucretius, and Theocritus, a task which he

found far more satisfying than writing for the stage. In 1694 he began work on what would be his

most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was

published by subscription. The publication of the translation of Virgil was a national event and

brought Dryden the sum of £1,400. His final translations appeared in the volume Fables Ancient

and Modern (1700), a series of episodes from Homer, Ovid, and Boccaccio, as well as

modernised adaptations from Geoffrey Chaucer interspersed with Dryden's own poems. As a

translator, he made great literary works in the older languages available to readers of English.

Dryden died on 12 May 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before

being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later. He was the subject of poetic

eulogies, such as Luctus Brittannici: or the Tears of the British Muses; for the Death of John

Dryden, Esq. (London, 1700), and The Nine Muses. A Royal Society of Arts blue plaque

commemorates Dryden at 43 Gerrard Street in London's Chinatown. He lived at 137 Long Acre

from 1682 to 1686 and at 43 Gerrard Street from 1686 until his death.
 25

In his will, he left The George Inn at Northampton to trustees, to form a school for the children

of the poor of the town. This became John Dryden's School, later The Orange School.
 26

Dryden near end of his life

Dryden was the dominant literary figure and influence of his age. He established the

heroic couplet as a standard form of English poetry by writing successful satires, religious

pieces, fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues, and plays with it; he also introduced the

alexandrine and triplet into the form. In his poems, translations, and criticism, he established a

poetic diction appropriate to the heroic couplet—Auden referred to him as "the master of the

middle style"—that was a model for his contemporaries and for much of the 18th century. The

considerable loss felt by the English literary community at his death was evident in the elegies

written about him. Dryden's heroic couplet became the dominant poetic form of the 18th century.

Alexander Pope was heavily influenced by Dryden and often borrowed from him; other writers

were equally influenced by Dryden and Pope. Pope famously praised Dryden's versification in

his imitation of Horace's Epistle II.i: "Dryden taught to join / The varying pause, the full

resounding line, / The long majestic march, and energy divine." Samuel Johnson summed up the

general attitude with his remark that "the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every

cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the

sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry." His poems were very widely read, and are

often quoted, for instance, in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones and Johnson's essays. Johnson also

noted, however, that "He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic; and

had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in

others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure." Readers in the first half of the 18th century did not

mind this too much, but later generations considered Dryden's absence of sensibility a fault.
 27

One of the first attacks on Dryden's reputation was by William Wordsworth, who complained

that Dryden's descriptions of natural objects in his translations from Virgil were much inferior to

the originals. However, several of Wordsworth's contemporaries, such as George Crabbe, Lord

Byron, and Walter Scott (who edited Dryden's works), were still keen admirers of Dryden.

Besides, Wordsworth did admire many of Dryden's poems, and his famous "Intimations of

Immortality" ode owes something stylistically to Dryden's "Alexander's Feast". John Keats

admired the "Fables", and imitated them in his poem Lamia. Later 19th-century writers had little

use for verse satire, Pope, or Dryden; Matthew Arnold famously dismissed them as "classics of

our prose." He did have a committed admirer in George Saintsbury, and was a prominent figure

in quotation books such as Bartlett's, but the next major poet to take an interest in Dryden was T.

S. Eliot, who wrote that he was "the ancestor of nearly all that is best in the poetry of the

eighteenth century", and that "we cannot fully enjoy or rightly estimate a hundred years of

English poetry unless we fully enjoy Dryden." However, in the same essay, Eliot accused

Dryden of having a "commonplace mind". Critical interest in Dryden has increased recently, but,

as a relatively straightforward writer (William Empson, another modern admirer of Dryden,

compared his "flat" use of language with Donne's interest in the "echoes and recesses of words"),

his work has not occasioned as much interest as Andrew Marvell's, John Donne's or Pope's.

Dryden, believed the first to posit that English sentences should not end in prepositions because

Latin sentences cannot Dryden is believed to be the first person to posit that English sentences

should not end in prepositions because Latin sentences cannot end in prepositions. Dryden

created the proscription against preposition stranding in 1672 when he objected to Ben Jonson's

1611 phrase, "the bodies that those souls were frighted from", though he did not provide the

rationale for his preference. Dryden often translated his writing into Latin, to check whether his
 28

writing was concise and elegant, Latin being considered an elegant and long-lived language with

which to compare; then Dryden translated his writing back to English according to Latin-

grammar usage. As Latin does not have sentences ending in prepositions, Dryden may have

applied Latin grammar to English, thus forming the rule of no sentence-ending prepositions,

subsequently adopted by other writers. The phrase "blaze of glory" is believed to have originated

in Dryden's 1686 poem The Hind and the Panther, referring to the throne of God as a "blaze of

glory that forbids the sight".

\
 29

Poetic style

What Dryden achieved in his poetry was neither the emotional excitement of the early

nineteenth-century romantics nor the intellectual complexities of the metaphysicals. His subject

matter was often factual, and he aimed at expressing his thoughts in the most precise and

concentrated manner. Although he uses formal structures such as heroic couplets, he tried to

recreate the natural rhythm of speech, and he knew that different subjects need different kinds of

verse. In his preface to Religio Laici he says that "the expressions of a poem designed purely for

instruction ought to be plain and natural, yet majestic... The florid, elevated and figurative way is

for the passions; for (these) are begotten in the soul by showing the objects out of their true

proportion.... A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth."

 30

Translation style

While Dryden had many admirers, he also had his share of critics, Mark Van Doren

among them. Van Doren complained that in translating Virgil's Aeneid, Dryden had added "a

fund of phrases with which he could expand any passage that seemed to him curt". Dryden did

not feel such expansion was a fault, arguing that as Latin is a naturally concise language it cannot

be duly represented by a comparable number of words in English. "He...recognized that Virgil

'had the advantage of a language wherein much may be comprehended in a little space' (5:329–

30). The 'way to please the best Judges...is not to Translate a Poet literally; and Virgil least of

any other' (5:329)".

For example, take lines 789–795 of Book 2 when Aeneas sees and receives a message from the

ghost of his wife, Creusa.

 iamque vale et nati serva communis amorem.'

 haec ubi dicta dedit, lacrimantem et multa volentem

 dicere deseruit, tenuisque recessit in auras.

 ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum;

 ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,

 par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno.

 sic demum socios consumpta nocte reviso

 31

Dryden translates it like this:

 I trust our common issue to your care.'

 She said, and gliding pass'd unseen in air.

 I strove to speak: but horror tied my tongue;

 And thrice about her neck my arms I flung,

 And, thrice deceiv'd, on vain embraces hung.

 Light as an empty dream at break of day,

 Or as a blast of wind, she rush'd away.

 Thus having pass'd the night in fruitless pain,

 I to my longing friends return again

Dryden's translation is based on presumed authorial intent and smooth English. In line 790

the literal translation of haec ubi dicta dedit is "when she gave these words." But "she said" gets

the point across, uses half the words, and makes for better English. A few lines later, with ter

conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago, he alters the

literal translation "Thrice trying to give arms around her neck; thrice the image grasped in vain

fled the hands", in order to fit it into meter and the emotion of the scene.
 32

In his own words,

The way I have taken, is not so streight as Metaphrase, nor so loose as Paraphrase: Some

things too I have omitted, and sometimes added of my own. Yet the omissions I hope, are but of

Circumstances, and such as wou'd have no grace in English; and the Addition, I also hope, are

easily deduc'd from Virgil's Sense. They will seem (at least I have the Vanity to think so), not

struck into him, but growing out of him. (5:529) In a similar vein, Dryden writes in his Preface to

the translation anthology Sylvae: Where I have taken away some of Expressions, and cut them

shorter, it may possibly be on this consideration, that what was beautiful in the Greek or Latin,

would not appear so shining in the English; and where I have enlarg’d them, I desire the false

Criticks would not always think that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are

secretly in the Poet, or may be fairly deduc’d from him; or at least, if both those considerations

should fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishman,

they are such as he wou’d probably have written.

 33

Personal life

On 1 December 1663 Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard (died 1714). The marriage

was at St. Swithin's, London, and the consent of the parents is noted on the licence, though Lady

Elizabeth was then about twenty-five. She was the object of some scandals, well or ill founded; it

was said that Dryden had been bullied into the marriage by her brothers. A small estate in

Wiltshire was settled upon them by her father. The lady's intellect and temper were apparently

not good; her husband was treated as an inferior by those of her social status. Both Dryden and

his wife were warmly attached to their children. They had three sons: Charles (1666–1704), John

(1668–1701), and Erasmus Henry (1669–1710). Lady Elizabeth Dryden survived her husband,

but went insane soon after his death. Though some have historically claimed to be from the

lineage of John Dryden, his three children had no children themselves.

 34

Selected works

The title page of The Hind and the Panther

An illustration in Alexander's Feast

Dramatic works

Dates given are (acted/published) and unless otherwise noted are taken from Scott's edition.

 The Wild Gallant, a Comedy (1663/1669)

 The Rival Ladies, a Tragi-Comedy (1663/1664)

 The Indian Queen, a Tragedy (1664/1665)

 The Indian Emperor, or the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards (1665/)

 Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen (1667/)

 Sir Martin Mar-all, or the Feigned Innocence, a Comedy (1667/1668)

 The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, a Comedy (1667/1670), an adaptation with

William D'Avenant of Shakespeare's The Tempest

 An Evening's Love, or the Mock Astrology, a Comedy (1668/1668)

 Tyrannick Love, or the Royal Martyr, a Tragedy (1668 or 1669/1670)

 Almanzor and Almahide, or the Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards, a Tragedy, Part I

& Part II (1669 or 1670/1672)

 35

 Marriage-a-la-Mode, a Comedy (1673/1673)

 The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery, a Comedy (1672/1673)

 Amboyna; or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants, a Tragedy (1673/1673)

 The Mistaken Husband (comedy) (1674/1675)

 The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man, an Opera (/1674)

 Aureng-Zebe, a Tragedy (1676/1676)

 All for Love, or the World Well Lost, a Tragedy (1678/1678)

 Limberham, or the Kind Keeper, a Comedy (/1678)

 Oedipus, a Tragedy (1678 or 1679/1679), an adaptation with Nathaniel Lee of Sophocles'

Oedipus

 Troilus and Cressida, or Truth found too late, a Tragedy (/1679)

 The Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery (1681 or 1682/)

 The Duke of Guise, a Tragedy (1682/1683) with Nathaniel Lee

 Albion and Albanius, an Opera (1685/1685)

 Don Sebastian, a Tragedy (1690/1690)

 Amphitryon, or the Two Sosias, a Comedy (1690/1690)

 King Arthur, or the British Worthy, a Dramatic Opera (1691/1691)

 Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy (1692/1692)

 Love Triumphant, or Nature will prevail, a Tragedy (1693 or 1694/1693 or 1694)

 The Secular Masque (1700/1700)

 The infant Prince of Wales whose birth Dryden celebrated in Britannia Rediviva
 36

 Other works

 Astraea Redux, 1660

 Annus Mirabilis (poem), 1667

 An Essay of Dramatick Poesie, 1668

 Absalom and Achitophel, 1681

 Mac Flecknoe, 1682

 The Medal, 1682

 Religio Laici, 1682

 Threnodia Augustalis, 1685

 The Hind and the Panther, 1687

 A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687

 Britannia Rediviva, 1688, written to mark the birth of James, Prince of Wales.

 Epigram on Milton, 1688

 Creator Spirit, by whose aid, 1690. Translation of Rabanus Maurus' Veni Creator Spiritus

 The Works of Virgil, 1697

 Alexander's Feast, 1697

 Fables, Ancient and Modern, 1700

 The Art of Satire

 To the Memory of Mr. Oldham, 1684

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dryden
 37

Conclusion

The Restoration period was between the years 1660-1688. The restoration of English

monarchy took place in the Stuart Period. It began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish

monarchies were all restored under King Charles II. This followed the Interregnum, also called

the Protectorate, that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The term Restoration is used to

describe both the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and the period of several

years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established. It is very often used to

cover the whole reign of Charles II (1660–1685) and often the brief reign of his younger brother

James II (1685–1688). In certain contexts it may be used to cover the whole period of the later

Stuart monarchs as far as the death of Queen Anne and the accession of the Hanoverian George I

in 1714; for example Restoration comedy typically encompasses works written as late as 1710.

John Dryden, an English Poet was born on August 19, 1631 and died May 12, 1700 at the age of

68 in London, England. He was a poet, literary critic, playwright liberals. There is a skill that had

remain Dryden and influence his later writing and thinking, as much of it displays these

dialectical patterns and this is a curriculum which trained pupils in the art of rhetoric and the

presentation of arguments for both sides of a given issue. It includes weekly translation and

assignments. His first published poem was about the death of his schoolmate Henry, Lord

Hastings from smallpox, alludes to the execution of King Charles I, which took place on 30

January 1649, very near the school where Dr. Busby had first prayed for the King and then

locked in his schoolboys to prevent their attending the spectacle. He immediately established him

elf after the restoration as the leading poet. His poems suggest that Dryden was looking to court a

possible patron, but he was to instead make a living in writing for publishers, not for the

aristocracy, and thus ultimately for the reading public. Dryden was never satisfied with his
 38

theatrical writings and frequently suggested that his talents were wasted on unworthy audiences.

On December 1679, Dryden was attacked in Rose Alley behind the Lamb & Flag pub, near his

home in Covent Garden, by thugs hired by the Earl of Rochester, with whom he had a long-

standing conflict.[10] The pub was notorious for staging bare-knuckle prize fights, earning the

nickname "The Bucket of Blood". Dryden's poem, "An Essay upon Satire", contained a number

of attacks on King Charles II, his mistresses and courtiers, but most pointedly for the Earl of

Rochester, a notorious womaniser. Rochester responded by hiring thugs who attacked Dryden

whilst walking back from Will's Coffee House (a popular London coffee house where the Wits

gathered to gossip, drink and conduct their business) back to his house on Gerrard Street..

Dryden survived the attack, offering £50 for the identity of the thugs placed in the London

Gazette, and a Royal Pardon if one of them would confess. No one claimed the reward. Dryden's

greatest achievements were in satiric verse: the mock-heroic Mac Flecknoe, a more personal

product of his laureate years, was a lampoon circulated in manuscript and an attack on the

playwright Thomas Shadwell. Dryden's main goal in the work is to "satirize Shadwell, ostensibly

for his offenses against literature but more immediately we may suppose for his habitual

badgering of him on the stage and in print." It is not a belittling form of satire, but rather one

which makes his object great in ways which are unexpected, transferring the ridiculous into

poetry. This line of satire continued with Absalom and Achitophel (1681) and The Medal (1682).

His other major works from this period are the religious poems Religio Laici (1682), written

from the position of a member of the Church of England; his 1683 edition of Plutarch's Lives

Translated From the Greek by Several Hands in which he introduced the word biography to

English readers; and The Hind and the Panther, (1687) which celebrates his conversion to

Roman Catholicism. Dryden therefore used his observations and his personal life to create a
 39

beautiful masterpiece that has contributed a big part in English Literature that has been later on

edited by different authors and were also critiqued.

 40

References

Books

Adams, John. John Adams: A Biography in His Own Words. Edited by James Bishop Peabody.

New York: Newsweek, 1973.

Allison, Robert J. American Eras: The Revolutionary Era (1754-1783). Detroit: Gale, 1998.

Becker, Carl L. Benjamin Franklin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1946.

Bowen, Catherine Drinker. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Scenes from the Life of

Benjamin Franklin. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974.

Avery, Gillian. Behold the Child: American Children and Their Books, 1621–1922. Baltimore,

MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

Commager, Henry Steele, and Richard B. Morris, eds. The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of

the American Revolution as Told by Participants. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995, pp. 892–911.
 41

Franklin, Benjamin. Poor Richard's Almanack, 1733-1758. In Benjamin Franklin: Writings. New

York: Library of America, 1987, pp. 1181–1304.

Hawke, David. The Colonial Experience. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.

Johnson, Paul. "The Role of Benjamin Franklin." In A History of the American People. New

York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Emerson, Everett, ed. Major Writers of Early American Literature. Madison: University of

Wisconsin Press, 1972.

Fleming, Thomas. The Man Who Dared the Lightning: A New Look at Benjamin Franklin. New

York: William Morrow, 1970.

Franklin, Benjamin. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. Edited by J. A. Leo Lemay and P. M.

Zall. New York: Norton, 1986.

Nye, Russell B. The Cultural Life of the New Nation, 1776–1830. New York: Harper, 1960.
 42

Tyler, Moses C. The Literary History of the American Revolution: 1763–1863. New York: F.

Ungar, 1957.

Wright, Louis B. The Cultural Life of the American Colonies, 1607–1763. New York: Harper,

1957.

Web Sites

Campbell, D. Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events: Pre-1620 to 1920. [Online]

Available http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/timefram.htm

Web Sites

"Franklin, Benjamin." DISCovering U. S. History.

http://www.galenet.com

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 2: Colonial Period: 1700–1800—An Introduction." PAL: Perspectives

in American Literature—A Research and Reference Guide. [Online] Available

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap2/2intro.html
 43

Appendix

Literature and the Arts in the Revolutionary Era

By the time of the American Revolution (1775–83), American writers had ventured beyond the

Puritan literary style and its religious themes and had developed styles of writing that grew from

distinctly American experiences. (The Puritans were a group of Protestants who broke with the

Church of England; they believed that church rituals should be simplified and that people should

follow strict religious discipline.) The colonial fascination with science, nature, freedom, and

innovation came through in the writings of the Revolutionary period. The colonists developed

their own way of speaking as well, no longer copying the more formal style of British writers.

(Noah Webster's Blue-Backed Speller, published in 1783, helped to standardize the new

American version of English.)

Author David Hawke offered an example of the American literary style in The Colonial

Experience. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), he noted, "took the seventeenth-

century saying 'Three may keep counsel, if two be away' and converted it into 'Three may keep a

secret, if two of them are dead.'"

Some of the best literature of the colonial era described everyday life in New England and, in the

process, depicted aspects of the fledgling American character. The colonists who would form a

new nation were firm believers in the power of reason; they were ambitious, inquisitive,

optimistic, practical, politically astute, and self-reliant.

 44

What colonial children read

Up until about twenty-five years before the Revolutionary War began, the reading material for

American children was restricted basically to the Bible and other religious works. Gradually,

additional books were published and read more widely. Rivaling the Bible in popularity were

almanacs. Children loved to read them for the stories, weather forecasts, poetry, news events,

advice, and other assorted and useful information they contained. The most famous of these was

Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack, first published in 1732 claimed to have written

Poor Richard because his wife could not bear to see him "do nothing but gaze at the Stars; and

has threatened more than once to burn all my Books… if I do not make some profitable Use of

them for the good of my Family." We have Poor Richard to thank for such lasting sayings as:

"Eat to live, and not live to eat"; "He that lies down with Dogs, shall rise up with fleas"; "Little

strokes fell big oaks"; and "Early to bed and early to rise/Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and

wise."

All the American colonies had printing presses by 1760, but Americans and their children

continued to rely on England as the source for most of their books. A London publisher by the

name of John Newberry (1713–1767) is said to have had the greatest influence on children's

literature in pre-Revolutionary America. He began publishing children's books in the 1740s.

Most of them were educational, with titles such as A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies

or A private tutor for little Masters and Misses (1750; a how-to book on proper behavior) and

The Pretty Book for Children (1750; a guide to the English language).
 45

Books were quite expensive in the 1700s, though, so children usually advanced from the Bible

and religious verses straight to adult-type literature. Especially popular in that category were

storybooks such as Robinson Crusoe and Arabian Nights.

Prior to the Revolution, schoolbooks were imported from England and were available only to the

wealthy. These books stressed self-improvement through hard work and careful spending. Such

qualities, it was believed, could lead to wealth, which was the lesson learned in the popular

storybook Goody Two-Shoes: The Means by which she acquired her Learning and Wisdom, and

in consequence thereof her Estate [everything she owned](1765). Goody Two-Shoes was a girl

named Margery Meanwell, an orphan who was thrilled to receive two shoes to replace her one.

She rose from humble beginnings, learning to read and later becoming a teacher; she went on to

marry a wealthy man and matured into a "Lady" and a generous person.

The role of satire in the Revolutionary era

Up until the Revolutionary era, the Puritans who had settled New England had a profound

influence on what was printed in the colonies: nearly all publications centered on a religious

topic of some sort. The Puritans frowned on dramatic performances, as well. But by the mid-

1700s, the Puritan influence was fading. In 1749 the first American acting troupe was established

in Philadelphia. Seventeen years later, America's first permanent playhouse was built in the same

city; in 1767 the Southwark Theatre staged the first play written by a native-born American,

Thomas Godfrey's (1736–1763) Prince of Parthia.

 46

By the mid-1760s, political writings by colonists were increasingly common and more and more

forceful in nature. James Otis (1725–1783), a lawyer from Boston, published The Rights of

British Colonists Asserted and Proved in 1764. And the hated Stamp Act, a tax law passed by the

British in 1765 (see Chapter 4: The Roots of Rebellion [1763–1769]), prompted an even greater

outpouring of writing of a political nature. (Parliament, England's lawmaking body, passed the

Stamp Act to raise money from the colonies without receiving the consent of the colonial

assemblies, or representatives.

One of the most popular forms of political writing was satire, especially plays, essays, and

poems. Satire pokes fun at human vices and foolishness. While most satiric works were written

by men, some of the best-known plays of the day were written by a woman named Mercy Otis

Warren (1728–1814).

Warren was the sister and wife of two patriots (James Otis and James Warren, respectively) and

an eager participant in the political meetings held so often at her home. She was strategically

placed in Boston to follow the events leading up to the American Revolution. Her first political

drama, The Adulateur, was published anonymously (without her name) in Boston in 1773, soon

after the shocking publication of Governor Thomas Hutchinson's (1711–1780) letters revealing

his anti-patriot views (see Chapter 4: The Roots of Rebellion [1763–1769]). Not surprisingly,

Warren's gift for satire was directed at pro-British leaders. The play's last words are spoken by a

character based on Warren's brother, James Otis. Although he foresees war, he also predicts

fame, victory, and eternal prosperity for the party of liberty.

 47

During the war, Warren wrote several other dramatic satires that actively promoted the

revolutionary cause, but her plays were never performed on stage. They were read by many

people, though, and were performed privately for Warren's family and friends, including

prominent Revolutionary figures such as Samuel, John, and Abigail Adams (see Chapter 4: The

Roots of Rebellion [1763–1769].)

Other notable satirists put the war on stage. John Leacock's play The Fall of British Tyranny,

which was performed in 1776, portrayed the notorious Battle of Bunker Hill (see Chapter 6:

Lexington, Concord, and the Organization of Colonial Resistance) and the military discussions

of American war leader George Washington. In plays by Warren and Leacock, Americans

appeared as mythical or real figures from Greek and Roman days. In Warren's Adulateur, for

example, the characters inspired by James Otis and his friend Samuel Adams are renamed Brutus

and Cassius (early Roman political leaders). Audiences enjoyed the game of identifying the

dramatists' thinly disguised portraits of public figures.

Benjamin Franklin, who seemed to be able to do anything, produced a long stream of political

satires making fun of British policies. In his 1773 Edict by the King of Prussia, for example, he

drew parallels between the settlement of England in the fifth century by Germans (then called

Prussians) and the settlement of America. His intention was to show how ridiculous it was for

Great Britain to think that just because she had settled America, she had the right to lay heavy

taxes on her subjects. (The British held just the opposite view.) In the Edict, the King of Prussia
 48

makes the same trade and tax demands on the former German colonists in England that England

was making on the American colonies in the 1760s and 1770s.

American lawyer and poet John Trumbull's (1750–1831) epic poem "M'Fingal," first published

in 1776, became the most popular satirical poem of the American Revolution. The silly hero,

M'Fingal, is a clownish Loyalist who argues at a town meeting that tyranny (unjust, severe, and

often cruel rule) is justice. He is bested in this battle of words by the patriot Honorius, a character

apparently based on American statesman (and, later, U.S. president) John Adams.

Poetry and popular songs of the Revolutionary era

As was true of most American arts before the Revolution, the Puritan influence on music was

strong. The first songbook published in the colonies was the 1640 edition of the Bay Psalm

Book. (Psalms [pronounced SOMS] are religious songs.) Another popular type of American

music was the tavern song. Both psalms and tavern songs were forms of "community singing."

By the time of the Revolution, music in the colonies had not changed very much. Bostonian

William Billings (1746–1800), who was the first important American composer, published six

books of music, much of it original, including instructions on styles of singing to make it more

lively. Billings mixed the serious with the humorous. His religious song "Chester" was so

popular that he rewrote the words during the Revolution, transforming it into a warlike version

called "Let Tyrants Shake."

 49

Revolutionary-era songwriters wrote to inspire their listeners. Songs about the events of the day

were especially popular because everyone—even those who could not read or write— could join

in. American poet and wit Joel Barlow (1754–1812) wrote: "One good song is worth a dozen

addresses or proclamations." Some patriotic songs were written by established writers of serious

works. For example, John Dickinson (1732–1808), author of Letters from a Farmer in

Pennsylvania to Inhabitants of the British Colonies, also wrote the popular "Liberty Song." But

most songs seemed to come out of nowhere as anonymous or cooperative productions, evolving

as people added to and altered the verses. Some of these songs have survived to the present-day,

among them the ever-popular "Yankee Doodle." Originally a derogatory (DUR-oga-tore-ee;

negative and belittling) ditty sung by the British (it depicted New Englanders as fools), this folk

song later became the battle cry of the colonial forces.

Poetic expressions of patriotism were popular as well. Philip Freneau (1752–1832) produced so

many well-written and stirring patriotic poems that he became known as the Poet of the

American Revolution. Freneau became the new country's first lyric poet; that is, he wrote in a

new, more personal, and more emotional style than had ever been known before.

One of the best-known Revolutionary-era poets was Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784), an African

American slave from Boston. Her poems, which were even more successful in England than in

the colonies, ranged from those on Christian topics, to translations of the Latin poet Ovid, to

patriotic odes (poems designed for singing). She was so popular that one of her patriotic verses
 50

added to the vocabulary of the Revolution: in her 1775 poem to General Washington, she coined

the usage of "Columbia" to refer to the new United States.

The role of wartime literature

Words may have been just as important as weapons in the Revolutionary cause. Patriotic

writings came in many varieties. Some were crude efforts designed to sway public opinion to a

cause, others were well-reasoned political arguments, and some were collections of inspirational

verse.

In 1776 English-born political writer Thomas Paine (1737–1809) published a pamphlet titled

Common Sense. This immensely popular work called for equality, freedom, and complete

separation from Britain. According to Paine, the move toward independence was pure "common

sense." Albert Marrin commented in The War for Independence: The Story of the American

Revolution, "Tom Paine did more than anyone to change American minds in favor of

independence…. Common Sense had the right ideas at the right time and became the first

American bestseller…. Paine lit a fire that leaped across America."

Well before the release of Paine's Common Sense, other writers put forward arguments that

paved the way toward independence. John Dickinson (1732–1808), author of the
 51

"Olive Branch Petition," did not ask for independence from England as much as for legal justice

for Americans in matters of taxation and representation. The character he portrayed—the

gentleman farmer—was convincing because it represented many American ideals: industry (hard

work), honesty, frugality (conserving; not being wasteful), education, and common sense.

As the war progressed, firsthand accounts of the fighting seized people's attention and kept them

firm in their goal of defeating the British. Revolutionary soldier Ethan Allen (1738-1789) of

Vermont wrote about his experiences as a prisoner of war. His wartime book, A Narrative of

Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity (1779), praised the courage of his Green Mountain Boys (an

irregular army unit) and condemned the British. General Washington believed the book helped

keep the Revolutionary cause alive during a particularly critical period in the war. Allen was

famous before he wrote his book, but many ordinary people—women as well as men—also

wrote about their Revolutionary War experiences.

By the end of the war, American writers were firmly established as important contributors to a

uniquely American national identity—an identity separate from the colonists' European roots.

Many of the writers who rose to prominence during the Revolution became even more famous

after it was over. Mercy Otis Warren wrote a three-volume History of the Rise, Progress, and

Termination of the American Revolution (1805), which appeared under her own name—a

remarkable accomplishment in an era dominated by male writers.

 52

The role of the press in colonial America

The earliest American newspaper on record was published in the South in 1638. By the time of

the American Revolution, there were forty–two newspapers being printed in the colonies, with

the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies represented evenly. About a third of the

newspapers were Loyalist in tone (they favored the preservation of colonial ties to Britain). The

majority of the colonial newspapers were issued weekly and were purchased by subscription by

several hundred people. But many more colonists actually heard the news, which was read aloud

in taverns.

Sharing the news by reading it aloud in public places served two purposes: 1) it made the news

available to those unable to pay for a paper, and 2) it informed people of current events even if

they were unable to read. (At the time of the American Revolution, almost half the male

population was illiterate.)

Colonial newspapers provided different information than modern papers do. A typical colonial

paper, sometimes called a broadsheet or broadside, was four pages long (a large sheet folded in

half and printed as four pages). The front page was filled with advertisements. The other pages

carried reprints of news stories from other papers and the text of speeches and sermons. The

papers also offered poetry, letters, essays, and editorials (statements of opinions). Many

editorials were unsigned so that the authorities could not find and punish the colonial authors

who urged the colonists to rebel against English rule.

 53

In colonial America prior to 1775, information was shared by people traveling by horseback, on

foot, or by ship. News arrived slowly and was eagerly awaited. The newspapers were one way

for patriots to share their messages of the benefits of declaring the American colonies'

independence from England. At this point in time, each colony considered itself a separate entity.

By showing the colonists that they had something in common (their grievances against England),

the

Newspapers helped forge a sense of community among the colonies. This feeling of unity—of

being one nation—was vital to the colonies' success in gaining their freedom from England.

Arts of the Revolutionary era

Before about 1750, wealthy Americans imported most of their artworks and home furnishings

from England. As more and more artisans (crafters) arrived in the New World, they began to

produce goods that rivaled the best England could turn out. Other American artists admired the

sophisticated styles of Europe, but they were comfortable with a range of tastes and styles.

Boston patriot Paul Revere (1735–1818), for example, made everything from fine silver and

pewter bowls to a set of false teeth for General Washington.

The early eighteenth century brought European painters to the colonies. They pleased their

wealthy customers by imitating successful European styles, often producing portraits of rich
 54

colonials posed as they might have been in an English portrait. A rich man who had earned his

money in trade, for instance, might be depicted standing at a window gazing out at a ship.

As the century progressed, young American artists began to paint in a new way. Artists like

Benjamin West (1738–1820), Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828), Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827),

and John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) represented the finest in American artistic achievement.

Their subjects were portrayed in the act of pursuing everyday endeavors. Copley depicted patriot

John Adams standing with a document in one hand and pointing at another on his desk,

apparently in the middle of writing a speech. Likewise, he portrayed

Paul Revere in his work clothes, sitting at his work table near a teapot he had made.

The arts developed slowly in the New World. John Adams believed that this was the way it

should be, because there was more important and practical work to be done first. In John Adams:

A Biography in His Own Words, Adams declared: "I must study politics and war, that my sons

may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval

architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to

study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."

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The Many Sides of Benjamin Franklin

American printer, politician, inventor, and writer Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) hailed from an

extremely large lower-middle-class family. (He was one of 17 children.) Because the Franklin

family had only enough money to get by, young Ben received just two years of formal schooling.

But hard work and success early in life allowed him time later on to devote to scientific

experiments, political affairs, and public service. He is even credited with establishing America's

first circulating library.

In 1729 Franklin bought the struggling Pennsylvania Gazette (later called the Saturday Evening

Post) and transformed it into a profitable publication. While pursuing daring new scientific

research—in 1751 he published New Experiments and Observations on Electricity—Franklin

became involved in colonial politics, first as a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly and later

as America's spokesperson in England. He is

Remembered as a key leader in the fight for American rights. As early as 1754 Franklin had

outlined his Plan of the Union, charting the course for colonial unity and independence from

Great Britain. He later served as a member of the committee that drafted the Declaration of

Independence.
 56

Loyalist Writers during the Revolutionary Era

Not all colonists supported the war effort; many wanted to maintain political ties with Britain.

Their "Loyalist" philosophy was represented in the works of poets Jonathan Odell (1737–1818)

and Joseph Stansbury. Loyalists' writings and their mixed feelings about American independence

lasted throughout the war and beyond. Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804), an English clergyman

and Loyalist writer who spent sixteen years in the colonies, fled to England in 1775. After the

war he wrote a Loyalist interpretation of the conflict, A View of the Causes and Consequences of

the American Revolution (1797). Although he disagreed with the patriot cause, he admired its

leader and dedicated his book to George Washington.

Patience Wright, Sculptor and Spy

The first known professional portrait sculptor in America was a woman. Patience Lovell Wright

(1725–c. 1785) worked with wax, molding realistic busts (representations of a head, neck, and

upper chest) as well as hands and faces. Sometimes her life-size hands and faces were attached to

clothed figures. She turned to this line of work in 1769 after her husband died, leaving her with

five children to support.

In the mid-1770s Wright moved to London, where her artistic skill and odd mannerisms (a loud

voice and intense stare) attracted the attention of many important people. She listened to their

gossip, and when the American Revolution began, she was able to pass on useful information to

the American patriots. She sometimes hid messages in the wax heads she made of important
 57

British politicians, then sent the heads to her sister Rachel in Philadelphia, who forwarded the

messages to General Washington.

Source: Wayne Craven, Sculpture in America. New York: Crowell, 1968. See also "Wright,

Patience Lovell" in The Britannica Encyclopedia of American Art. New York: Simon &

Schuster, 1973, p. 610.

 58

Citations

The Restoration Period

The Commonwealth, which preceded the English Restoration, might have continued if Oliver

Cromwell's son Richard, who was made Lord Protector on his father's death, had been capable of

carrying on his father's policies. Richard Cromwell's main weakness was that he did not have the

confidence of the army. After seven months, an army faction known as the Wallingford House

party removed him on 6 May 1659 and reinstalled the Rump Parliament. Charles Fleetwood was

appointed a member of the Committee of Safety and of the Council of State, and one of the

seven commissioners for the army. On 9 June 1659, he was nominated lord-general

(commander-in-chief) of the army. However, his leadership was undermined in Parliament,

which chose to disregard the army's authority in a similar fashion to the post-First Civil War

Parliament. A royalist uprising was planned for 1 August 1659, but it was foiled. However, Sir

George Booth gained control of Cheshire; Charles II hoped that with Spanish support he could

effect a landing, but none was forthcoming. Booth held Cheshire until the end of August when he

was defeated by General Lambert. The Commons, on 12 October 1659, cashiered General John

Lambert and other officers, and installed Fleetwood as chief of a military council under the

authority of the Speaker. The next day Lambert ordered that the doors of the House be shut and

the members kept out. On 26 October a "Committee of Safety" was appointed, of which

Fleetwood and Lambert were members. Lambert was appointed major-general of all the forces in

England and Scotland, Fleetwood being general.The Committee of Safety sent Lambert with a

large force to meet George Monck, who was in command of the English forces in Scotland, and
 59

either negotiate with him or force him to come to terms. It was into this atmosphere that Monck,

the governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, marched south with his army from Scotland.

Lambert's army began to desert him, and he returned to London almost alone. Monck marched to

London unopposed. The Presbyterian members, excluded in Pride's Purge of 1648, were

recalled, and on 24 December the army restored the Long Parliament.Fleetwood was deprived of

his command and ordered to appear before Parliament to answer for his conduct. On 3 March

1660, Lambert was sent to the Tower of London, from which he escaped a month later. He tried

to rekindle the civil war in favour of the Commonwealth by issuing a proclamation calling on all

supporters of the "Good Old Cause" to rally on the battlefield of Edgehill, but he was recaptured

by Colonel Richard Ingoldsby, a participant in the regicide of Charles I who hoped to win a

pardon by handing Lambert over to the new regime. Lambert was incarcerated and died in

custody on Guernsey in 1694; Ingoldsby was indeed pardoned.

 60

Restoration of Charles II

The departure of Charles II from Scheveningen (1660). On 4 April 1660, Charles II issued the

Declaration of Breda, in which he made several promises in relation to the reclamation of the

crown of England. Monck organised the Convention Parliament, which met for the first time on

25 April. On 8 May it proclaimed that King Charles II had been the lawful monarch since the

execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649. "Constitutionally, it was as if the last nineteen years

had never happened." Charles returned from exile, leaving the Hague on 23 May and landing at

Dover on 25 May. He entered London on 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday. To celebrate His

Majesty's Return to his Parliament, 29 May was made a public holiday, popularly known as Oak

Apple Day. He was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661. Some contemporaries

described the Restoration as "a divinely ordained miracle". The sudden and unexpected

deliverance from usurpation and tyranny was interpreted as a restoration of the natural and divine

order.The Cavalier Parliament convened for the first time on 8 May 1661, and it would endure

for over 17 years, finally being dissolved on 24 January 1679. Like its predecessor, it was

overwhelmingly Royalist. It is also known as the Pensionary Parliament for the many pensions it

granted to adherents of the King. The leading political figure at the beginning of the Restoration

was Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. It was the "skill and wisdom of Clarendon" which had

"made the Restoration unconditional". Many Royalist exiles returned and were rewarded. Prince

Rupert of the Rhine returned to the service of England, became a member of the privy council,

and was provided with an annuity. George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich, returned to be the

Captain of the King's guard and received a pension. Marmaduke Langdale returned and was

made "Baron Langdale". William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle, returned and was able to
 61

regain the greater part of his estates. He was invested in 1666 with the Order of the Garter

(which had been bestowed upon him in 1650), and was advanced to a dukedom on 16 March

1665.
 62

England and Wales

Commonwealth regicides and rebels

Thomas Harrison, the first person found guilty of regicide during the Restoration. The Indemnity

and Oblivion Act, which became law on 29 August 1660, pardoned all past treason against the

crown, but specifically excluded those involved in the trial and execution of Charles I. Thirty-

one of the 59 commissioners (judges) who had signed the death warrant in 1649 were living. The

regicides were hunted down; some escaped but most were found and put on trial. Three escaped

to the American colonies. New Haven, Connecticut, secretly harbored Edward Whalley, William

Goffe and John Dixwell, and after American independence named streets after them to honour

them as forefathers of the American Revolution. In the ensuing trials, twelve were condemned to

death. Fifth Monarchist Thomas Harrison, the first person found guilty of regicide, who had been

the seventeenth of the 59 commissioners to sign the death warrant, was the first regicide to be

hanged, drawn and quartered because he was considered by the new government still to represent

a real threat to the re-established order. In October 1660, at Charing Cross or Tyburn, London,

ten were publicly hanged, drawn and quartered: Thomas Harrison, John Jones, Adrian Scrope,

John Carew, Thomas Scot, and Gregory Clement, who had signed the king's death warrant; the

preacher Hugh Peters; Francis Hacker and Daniel Axtell, who commanded the guards at the

king's trial and execution; and John Cooke, the solicitor who directed the prosecution. The 10

judges who were on the panel but did not sign the death warrant were also convicted. Oliver

Cromwell, Henry Ireton, Judge Thomas Pride, and Judge John Bradshaw were posthumously

attainted for high treason. Because Parliament is a court, the highest in the land, a bill of
 63

attainder is a legislative act declaring a person guilty of treason or felony, in contrast to the

regular judicial process of trial and conviction. In January 1661, the corpses of Cromwell, Ireton

and Bradshaw were exhumed and hanged in chains at Tyburn. In 1661 John Okey, one of the

regicides who signed the death warrant of Charles I, was brought back from Holland along with

Miles Corbet, friend and lawyer to Cromwell, and John Barkstead, former constable of the

Tower of London. They were all imprisoned in the Tower. From there they were taken to Tyburn

and hanged, drawn and quartered on 19 April 1662. A further 19 regicides were imprisoned for

life. John Lambert was not in London for the trial of Charles I. At the Restoration, he was found

guilty of high treason and remained in custody in Guernsey for the rest of his life. Sir Henry

Vane the Younger served on the Council of State during the Interregnum even though he refused

to take the oath which expressed approbation (approval) of the King's execution. At the

Restoration, after much debate in Parliament, he was exempted from the Indemnity and Oblivion

Act. In 1662 he was tried for high treason, found guilty and beheaded on Tower Hill on 14 June

1662.
 64

Regrant of certain Commonwealth titles

Further information: Knights, baronets and peers of the Protectorate

The Instrument of Government, The Protectorate's written constitutions, gave to the Lord

Protector the King's power to grant titles of honour. Over 30 new knighthoods were granted

under the Protectorate. These knighthoods passed into oblivion upon the Restoration of Charles

II, however many were regranted by the restored King. Of the eleven Protectorate baronetcies,

two had been previously granted by Charles I during the Civil War – but under Commonwealth

legislation they were not recognised under the Protectorate (hence the Lord Protector's regranting

of them), however when that legislation passed into oblivion these two baronets were entitled to

use the baronetcies granted by Charles I – and Charles II regranted four more. Only one now

continues: Sir Richard Thomas Willy, 14th baronet, is the direct successor of Sir Griffith

Williams. Of the remaining Protectorate baronets one, Sir William Ellis, was granted a

knighthood by Charles II. Edmund Dunch was created Baron Burnell of East Wittenham in April

1658, but this barony was not regranted. The male line failed in 1719 with the death of his

grandson, also Edmund Dunch, so no one can lay claim to the title. The one hereditary

viscountcy Cromwell created for certain, (making Charles Howard Viscount Howard of Morpeth

and Baron Gilsland) continues to this day. In April 1661, Howard was created Earl of Carlisle,

Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and Baron Dacre of Gillesland. The present Earl is a direct

descendant of this Cromwellian creation and Restoration recreation.

 65

Venner rebellion (1661)

On 6 January 1661, about 50 Fifth Monarchists, headed by a wine-cooper named Thomas

Venner, tried to gain possession of London in the name of "King Jesus". Most were either killed

or taken prisoner; on 19 and 21 January 1661, Venner and 10 others were hanged, drawn and

quartered for high treason.

 66

Church of England settlement

The Church of England was restored as the national Church in England, backed by the Clarendon

Code and the Act of Uniformity 1662. People reportedly "pranced around May poles as a way of

taunting the Presbyterians and Independents" and "burned copies of the Solemn League and

Covenant".
 67

Ireland

Main article: Restoration (Ireland)

"The commonwealth parliamentary union was, after 1660, treated as null and void".As in

England the republic was deemed constitutionally never to have occurred. The Convention

Parliament was dissolved by Charles II in January 1661, and he summoned his first parliament in

Ireland in May 1661. In 1662, 29 May was made a public holiday. Coote, Broghill and Sir

Maurice Eustace were initially the main political figures in the Restoration. George Monck,

Duke of Albemarle was given the position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland but he did not assume

office. In 1662 the 1st Duke of Ormonde returned as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and became

the predominant political figure of the Restoration period.

 68

Scotland

Main article: Restoration (Scotland)

Charles was proclaimed King again on 14 May 1660. He was not crowned, having been

previously crowned at Scone in 1651. The Restoration "presented an occasion of universal

celebration and rejoicing throughout Scotland". Charles II summoned his parliament on 1

January 1661, which began to undo all that been forced on his father Charles I of Scotland. The

Rescissory Act 1661 made all legislation back to 1633 'void and null'.
 69

English Colonies

Main article: Restoration in the English colonies

Caribbean

Barbados, as a haven for refugees fleeing the English republic, had held for Charles II under

Lord Willoughby until defeated by George Ayscue. When news reached Barbados of the King's

restoration, Thomas Modyford declared Barbados for the King in July 1660. The planters,

however, were not eager for the return of the former governor Lord Willoughby, fearing disputes

over titles, but the King ordered he be restored. Jamaica had been a conquest of Oliver

Cromwell's and Charles II's claim to the island was therefore questionable. However, Charles II

chose not to restore Jamaica to Spain and in 1661 it became a British colony and the planters

would claim that they held rights as Englishmen by the King's assumption of the dominion of

Jamaica. The first governor was Lord Windsor. He was replaced in 1664 by Thomas Modyford

who had been ousted from Barbados

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North America

New England, with its Puritan settlement, had supported the Commonwealth and the

Protectorate. Acceptance of the Restoration was reluctant in some quarters as it highlighted the

failure of puritan reform. Rhode Island declared in October 1660 and Massachusetts lastly in

August 1661.New Haven provided refuge for Regicides such as Edward Whalley, William Goffe

and John Dixwell and would be subsequently merged into Connecticut in 1662, perhaps in

punishment. John Winthrop, a former governor of Connecticut, and one of whose sons had been

a captain in Monck's army, went to England at the Restoration and in 1662 obtained a Royal

Charter for Connecticut with New Haven annexed to it. Maryland had resisted the republic until

finally occupied by New England Puritans/Parliamentary forces after the Battle of the Severn in

1655. In 1660 the Governor Josias Fendall tried to turn Maryland into a Commonwealth of its

own in what is known as Fendall's Rebellion but with the fall of the republic in England he was

left without support and was replaced by Philip Calvert upon the Restoration. Virginia was the

most loyal of King Charles II's dominions. It had, according to the eighteenth-century historian

Robert Beverley, Jr., been "the last of all the King's Dominions that submitted to the

Usurpation". Virginia had provided sanctuary for Cavaliers fleeing the English republic. Sir

William Berkeley, who had previously been governor up until 1652, was elected governor in

1660 by the House of Burgesses and he promptly declared for the King. The Anglican Church

was restored as the established church. In 1663 the Province of Carolina was formed as a reward

given to some supporters of the Restoration. The province was named after the King's father,

Charles I.
 71

Restoration Britain

Historian Roger Baker argues that the Restoration and Charles' coronation mark a reversal of the

stringent Puritan morality, "as though the pendulum swung from repression to licence more or

less overnight". Theatres reopened after having been closed during the protectorship of Oliver

Cromwell, Puritanism lost its momentum, and the bawdy "Restoration comedy" became a

recognisable genre. In addition, women were allowed to perform on the commercial stage as

professional actresses for the first time. In Scotland, Episcopacy was reinstated. To celebrate the

occasion and cement their diplomatic relations, the Dutch Republic presented Charles with the

Dutch Gift, a fine collection of old master paintings, classical sculptures, furniture, and a yacht.
 72

End of the Restoration

Main article: Glorious Revolution

Equestrian portrait of William III by Jan Wyck, commemorating the start of the Glorious

Revolution in 1688

The Glorious Revolution ended the Restoration. The Glorious Revolution which overthrew King

James II of England was propelled by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch

stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange). William's successful invasion of

England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his accession to the English throne as William III of

England jointly with his wife Mary II of England, James' daughter. In April 1688, James had re-

issued the Declaration of Indulgence and ordered all Anglican clergymen to read it to their

congregations. When seven bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, submitted a

petition requesting the reconsideration of the King's religious policies, they were arrested and

tried for seditious libel. On 30 June 1688, a group of seven Protestant nobles invited the Prince

of Orange to come to England with an army; by September it became clear that William would

invade England. When William arrived on 5 November 1688, James lost his nerve, declined to

attack the invading Dutch and tried to flee to France. He was captured in Kent; later, he was

released and placed under Dutch protective guard. Having no desire to make James a martyr,

William, Prince of Orange, let him escape on 23 December. James was received in France by his

cousin and ally, Louis XIV, who offered him a palace and a pension. William convened a

Convention Parliament to decide how to handle the situation. While the Parliament refused to

depose James, they declared that James, having fled to France had effectively abdicated the

throne, and that the throne was vacant. To fill this vacancy, James's daughter Mary was declared
 73

Queen; she was to rule jointly with her husband William, Prince of Orange, who would be king.

The English Parliament passed the Bill of Rights of 1689 that denounced James for abusing his

power. The abuses charged to James included the suspension of the Test Acts, the prosecution of

the Seven Bishops for merely petitioning the crown, the establishment of a standing army, and

the imposition of cruel punishments. The bill also declared that henceforth no Roman Catholic

was permitted to ascend the English throne, nor could any English monarch marry a Roman

Catholic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restoration
 74

John Dryden

John Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire,

where his maternal grandfather was rector of All Saints. He was the eldest of fourteen children

born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary Pickering, paternal grandson of Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st

Baronet (1553–1632), and wife Frances Wilkes, Puritan landowning gentry who supported the

Puritan cause and Parliament. He was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift. As a

boy, Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, where it is likely that he received his first

education. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar where his headmaster

was Dr. Richard Busby, a charismatic teacher and severe disciplinarian. Having been re-founded

by Elizabeth I, Westminster during this period embraced a very different religious and political

spirit encouraging royalism and high Anglicanism. Whatever Dryden's response to this was, he

clearly respected the headmaster and would later send two of his sons to school at Westminster.

As a humanist public school, Westminster maintained a curriculum which trained pupils in the

art of rhetoric and the presentation of arguments for both sides of a given issue. This is a skill

which would remain with Dryden and influence his later writing and thinking, as much of it

displays these dialectical patterns. The Westminster curriculum included weekly translation

assignments which developed Dryden's capacity for assimilation. This was also to be exhibited

in his later works. His years at Westminster were not uneventful, and his first published poem, an

elegy with a strong royalist feel on the death of his schoolmate Henry, Lord Hastings from

smallpox, alludes to the execution of King Charles I, which took place on 30 January 1649, very

near the school where Dr. Busby had first prayed for the King and then locked in his schoolboys

to prevent their attending the spectacle. In 1650 Dryden went up to Trinity College, Cambridge.

Here he would have experienced a return to the religious and political ethos of his childhood: the
 75

Master of Trinity was a Puritan preacher by the name of Thomas Hill who had been a rector in

Dryden's home village.Though there is little specific information on Dryden's undergraduate

years, he would most certainly have followed the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric, and

mathematics. In 1654 he obtained his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year. In June

of the same year Dryden's father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income,

but not enough to live on. Returning to London during the Protectorate, Dryden obtained work

with Oliver Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. This appointment may have been the

result of influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert

Pickering. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets

John Milton and Andrew Marvell. Shortly thereafter he published his first important poem,

Heroic Stanzas (1659), a eulogy on Cromwell's death which is cautious and prudent in its

emotional display. In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of

Charles II with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. In this work the interregnum is

illustrated as a time of anarchy, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order.
 76

Later life and career

After the Restoration, as Dryden quickly established himself as the leading poet and literary

critic of his day, he transferred his allegiances to the new government. Along with Astraea

Redux, Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics: To His Sacred Majesty: A

Panegyric on his Coronation (1662) and To My Lord Chancellor (1662). These poems suggest

that Dryden was looking to court a possible patron, but he was to instead make a living in writing

for publishers, not for the aristocracy, and thus ultimately for the reading public. These, and his

other nondramatic poems, are occasional—that is, they celebrate public events. Thus they are

written for the nation rather than the self, and the Poet Laureate (as he would later become) is

obliged to write a certain number of these per annum. In November 1662 Dryden was proposed

for membership in the Royal Society, and he was elected an early fellow. However, Dryden was

inactive in Society affairs and in 1666 was expelled for non-payment of his dues.
 77

Dryden, by John Michael Wright, 1668

Dryden, by James Maubert, c. 1695

On 1 December 1663 Dryden married the royalist sister of Sir Robert Howard—Lady Elizabeth.

Dryden's works occasionally contain outbursts against the married state but also celebrations of

the same. Thus, little is known of the intimate side of his marriage. Lady Elizabeth bore three

sons and outlived her husband. With the reopening of the theatres in 1660 after the Puritan ban,

Dryden began writing plays. His first play The Wild Gallant appeared in 1663, and was not

successful, but was still promising, and from 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a

year for the King's Company in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and 1670s,

theatrical writing was his main source of income. He led the way in Restoration comedy, his

best-known work being Marriage à la Mode (1673), as well as heroic tragedy and regular

tragedy, in which his greatest success was All for Love (1678). Dryden was never satisfied with

his theatrical writings and frequently suggested that his talents were wasted on unworthy

audiences. He thus was making a bid for poetic fame off-stage. In 1667, around the same time

his dramatic career began, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which

described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. It

was a modern epic in pentameter quatrains that established him as the preeminent poet of his

generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and historiographer

royal (1670). When the Great Plague of London closed the theatres in 1665, Dryden retreated to

Wiltshire where he wrote Of Dramatick Poesie (1668), arguably the best of his unsystematic

prefaces and essays. Dryden constantly defended his own literary practice, and Of Dramatick

Poesie, the longest of his critical works, takes the form of a dialogue in which four characters—

each based on a prominent contemporary, with Dryden himself as 'Neander'—debate the merits
 78

of classical, French and English drama. The greater part of his critical works introduce problems

which he is eager to discuss, and show the work of a writer of independent mind who feels

strongly about his own ideas, ideas which demonstrate the breadth of his reading. He felt

strongly about the relation of the poet to tradition and the creative process, and his best heroic

play Aureng-zebe (1675) has a prologue which denounces the use of rhyme in serious drama. His

play All for Love (1678) was written in blank verse, and was to immediately follow Aureng-

Zebe. At around 8pm on 18 December 1679, Dryden was attacked in Rose Alley behind the

Lamb & Flag pub, near his home in Covent Garden, by thugs hired by the Earl of Rochester,

with whom he had a long-standing conflict. The pub was notorious for staging bare-knuckle

prize fights, earning the nickname "The Bucket of Blood". Dryden's poem, "An Essay upon

Satire", contained a number of attacks on King Charles II, his mistresses and courtiers, but most

pointedly for the Earl of Rochester, a notorious womaniser. Rochester responded by hiring thugs

who attacked Dryden whilst walking back from Will's Coffee House (a popular London coffee

house where the Wits gathered to gossip, drink and conduct their business) back to his house on

Gerrard Street.. Dryden survived the attack, offering £50 for the identity of the thugs placed in

the London Gazette, and a Royal Pardon if one of them would confess. No one claimed the

reward. Dryden's greatest achievements were in satiric verse: the mock-heroic Mac Flecknoe, a

more personal product of his laureate years, was a lampoon circulated in manuscript and an

attack on the playwright Thomas Shadwell. Dryden's main goal in the work is to "satirize

Shadwell, ostensibly for his offenses against literature but more immediately we may suppose for

his habitual badgering of him on the stage and in print." It is not a belittling form of satire, but

rather one which makes his object great in ways which are unexpected, transferring the

ridiculous into poetry.This line of satire continued with Absalom and Achitophel (1681) and The
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Medal (1682). His other major works from this period are the religious poems Religio Laici

(1682), written from the position of a member of the Church of England; his 1683 edition of

Plutarch's Lives Translated From the Greek by Several Hands in which he introduced the word

biography to English readers; and The Hind and the Panther, (1687) which celebrates his

conversion to Roman Catholicism.

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Frontispiece and title page, vol. II, 1716 edition, Works of Virgil translated by Dryden

He wrote Britannia Rediviva celebrating the birth of a son and heir to the Catholic King King

and Queen on 10 June 1688. When later in the same year James II was deposed in the Glorious

Revolution, Dryden's refusal to take the oaths of allegiance to the new monarchs, William and

Mary, left him out of favour at court. Thomas Shadwell succeeded him as Poet Laureate, and he

was forced to give up his public offices and live by the proceeds of his pen. Dryden translated

works by Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, Lucretius, and Theocritus, a task which he found far more

satisfying than writing for the stage. In 1694 he began work on what would be his most

ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by

subscription. The publication of the translation of Virgil was a national event and brought

Dryden the sum of £1,400. His final translations appeared in the volume Fables Ancient and

Modern (1700), a series of episodes from Homer, Ovid, and Boccaccio, as well as modernised

adaptations from Geoffrey Chaucer interspersed with Dryden's own poems. As a translator, he

made great literary works in the older languages available to readers of English. Dryden died on

12 May 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and

reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later. He was the subject of poetic eulogies, such as

Luctus Brittannici: or the Tears of the British Muses; for the Death of John Dryden, Esq.

(London, 1700), and The Nine Muses. A Royal Society of Arts blue plaque commemorates

Dryden at 43 Gerrard Street in London's Chinatown. He lived at 137 Long Acre from 1682 to

1686 and at 43 Gerrard Street from 1686 until his death.

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In his will, he left The George Inn at Northampton to trustees, to form a school for the children

of the poor of the town. This became John Dryden's School, later The Orange School.
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Dryden near end of his life

Dryden was the dominant literary figure and influence of his age. He established the heroic

couplet as a standard form of English poetry by writing successful satires, religious pieces,

fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues, and plays with it; he also introduced the alexandrine

and triplet into the form. In his poems, translations, and criticism, he established a poetic diction

appropriate to the heroic couplet—Auden referred to him as "the master of the middle style"—

that was a model for his contemporaries and for much of the 18th century. The considerable loss

felt by the English literary community at his death was evident in the elegies written about him.

Dryden's heroic couplet became the dominant poetic form of the 18th century. Alexander Pope

was heavily influenced by Dryden and often borrowed from him; other writers were equally

influenced by Dryden and Pope. Pope famously praised Dryden's versification in his imitation of

Horace's Epistle II.i: "Dryden taught to join / The varying pause, the full resounding line, / The

long majestic march, and energy divine." Samuel Johnson summed up the general attitude with

his remark that "the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every cultivator of English

literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the

numbers of English poetry." His poems were very widely read, and are often quoted, for

instance, in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones and Johnson's essays. Johnson also noted, however, that

"He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic; and had so little sensibility

of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave

him no pleasure." Readers in the first half of the 18th century did not mind this too much, but

later generations considered Dryden's absence of sensibility a fault.

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One of the first attacks on Dryden's reputation was by William Wordsworth, who complained

that Dryden's descriptions of natural objects in his translations from Virgil were much inferior to

the originals. However, several of Wordsworth's contemporaries, such as George Crabbe, Lord

Byron, and Walter Scott (who edited Dryden's works), were still keen admirers of Dryden.

Besides, Wordsworth did admire many of Dryden's poems, and his famous "Intimations of

Immortality" ode owes something stylistically to Dryden's "Alexander's Feast". John Keats

admired the "Fables", and imitated them in his poem Lamia. Later 19th-century writers had little

use for verse satire, Pope, or Dryden; Matthew Arnold famously dismissed them as "classics of

our prose." He did have a committed admirer in George Saintsbury, and was a prominent figure

in quotation books such as Bartlett's, but the next major poet to take an interest in Dryden was T.

S. Eliot, who wrote that he was "the ancestor of nearly all that is best in the poetry of the

eighteenth century", and that "we cannot fully enjoy or rightly estimate a hundred years of

English poetry unless we fully enjoy Dryden." However, in the same essay, Eliot accused

Dryden of having a "commonplace mind". Critical interest in Dryden has increased recently, but,

as a relatively straightforward writer (William Empson, another modern admirer of Dryden,

compared his "flat" use of language with Donne's interest in the "echoes and recesses of words"),

his work has not occasioned as much interest as Andrew Marvell's, John Donne's or Pope's.

Dryden, believed the first to posit that English sentences should not end in prepositions because

Latin sentences cannot Dryden is believed to be the first person to posit that English sentences

should not end in prepositions because Latin sentences cannot end in prepositions. Dryden

created the proscription against preposition stranding in 1672 when he objected to Ben Jonson's

1611 phrase, "the bodies that those souls were frighted from", though he did not provide the

rationale for his preference. Dryden often translated his writing into Latin, to check whether his
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writing was concise and elegant, Latin being considered an elegant and long-lived language with

which to compare; then Dryden translated his writing back to English according to Latin-

grammar usage. As Latin does not have sentences ending in prepositions, Dryden may have

applied Latin grammar to English, thus forming the rule of no sentence-ending prepositions,

subsequently adopted by other writers. The phrase "blaze of glory" is believed to have originated

in Dryden's 1686 poem The Hind and the Panther, referring to the throne of God as a "blaze of

glory that forbids the sight".

\
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Poetic style

What Dryden achieved in his poetry was neither the emotional excitement of the early

nineteenth-century romantics nor the intellectual complexities of the metaphysicals. His subject

matter was often factual, and he aimed at expressing his thoughts in the most precise and

concentrated manner. Although he uses formal structures such as heroic couplets, he tried to

recreate the natural rhythm of speech, and he knew that different subjects need different kinds of

verse. In his preface to Religio Laici he says that "the expressions of a poem designed purely for

instruction ought to be plain and natural, yet majestic... The florid, elevated and figurative way is

for the passions; for (these) are begotten in the soul by showing the objects out of their true

proportion.... A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth."

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Translation style

While Dryden had many admirers, he also had his share of critics, Mark Van Doren among them.

Van Doren complained that in translating Virgil's Aeneid, Dryden had added "a fund of phrases

with which he could expand any passage that seemed to him curt". Dryden did not feel such

expansion was a fault, arguing that as Latin is a naturally concise language it cannot be duly

represented by a comparable number of words in English. "He...recognized that Virgil 'had the

advantage of a language wherein much may be comprehended in a little space' (5:329–30). The

'way to please the best Judges...is not to Translate a Poet literally; and Virgil least of any other'

(5:329)".

For example, take lines 789–795 of Book 2 when Aeneas sees and receives a message from the

ghost of his wife, Creusa.

• iamque vale et nati serva communis amorem.'

• haec ubi dicta dedit, lacrimantem et multa volentem

• dicere deseruit, tenuisque recessit in auras.

• ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum;

• ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,

• par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno.

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• sic demum socios consumpta nocte reviso

Dryden translates it like this:

• I trust our common issue to your care.'

• She said, and gliding pass'd unseen in air.

• I strove to speak: but horror tied my tongue;

• And thrice about her neck my arms I flung,

• And, thrice deceiv'd, on vain embraces hung.

• Light as an empty dream at break of day,

• Or as a blast of wind, she rush'd away.

• Thus having pass'd the night in fruitless pain,

• I to my longing friends return again

Dryden's translation is based on presumed authorial intent and smooth English. In line 790 the

literal translation of haec ubi dicta dedit is "when she gave these words." But "she said" gets the

point across, uses half the words, and makes for better English. A few lines later, with ter

conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago, he alters the
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literal translation "Thrice trying to give arms around her neck; thrice the image grasped in vain

fled the hands", in order to fit it into meter and the emotion of the scene.
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In his own words,

The way I have taken, is not so streight as Metaphrase, nor so loose as Paraphrase: Some things

too I have omitted, and sometimes added of my own. Yet the omissions I hope, are but of

Circumstances, and such as wou'd have no grace in English; and the Addition, I also hope, are

easily deduc'd from Virgil's Sense. They will seem (at least I have the Vanity to think so), not

struck into him, but growing out of him. (5:529) In a similar vein, Dryden writes in his Preface to

the translation anthology Sylvae: Where I have taken away some of Expressions, and cut them

shorter, it may possibly be on this consideration, that what was beautiful in the Greek or Latin,

would not appear so shining in the English; and where I have enlarg’d them, I desire the false

Criticks would not always think that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are

secretly in the Poet, or may be fairly deduc’d from him; or at least, if both those considerations

should fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishman,

they are such as he wou’d probably have written.

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Personal life

On 1 December 1663 Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard (died 1714). The marriage was at

St. Swithin's, London, and the consent of the parents is noted on the licence, though Lady

Elizabeth was then about twenty-five. She was the object of some scandals, well or ill founded; it

was said that Dryden had been bullied into the marriage by her brothers. A small estate in

Wiltshire was settled upon them by her father. The lady's intellect and temper were apparently

not good; her husband was treated as an inferior by those of her social status. Both Dryden and

his wife were warmly attached to their children. They had three sons: Charles (1666–1704), John

(1668–1701), and Erasmus Henry (1669–1710). Lady Elizabeth Dryden survived her husband,

but went insane soon after his death. Though some have historically claimed to be from the

lineage of John Dryden, his three children had no children themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dryden