The life of Dryden has been given to the world by two of the greatest of English writers. The triumphs and sufferings of that literary career have been recorded by Dr. Johnson and Sir Walter Scott, and upon the genius and writings of this poet some of the best essays in the language have been penned.
In succeeding such biographers there can be but little to perform, and yet how difficult that little! What remains for us but to compile from their narratives a short memoir of the Laureate; and in doing so to avail ourselves of the few more recent materials that exist—to collect some scattered notices—and to add some criticism upon his genius and character?
It is trite to tell any well-informed reader that Dryden was satirist, dramatist, didactic poet, essayist, translator, controversialist, and critic; that he was the monarch of his own age, and the idol of the first men of the next; that his life is the history of half a century; and that he is at once the glory and the shame of our literature.
To classify the sons of genius has always been a difficult
