All For Love | Page 4

years later defended his
new religion in "The Hind and the Panther," an allegorical debate between two animals
standing respectively for Catholicism and Anglicanism.
The Revolution of 1688 put an end to Dryden's prosperity; and after a short return to

dramatic composition, he turned to translation as a means of supporting himself. He had
already done something in this line; and after a series of translations from Juvenal,
Persius, and Ovid, he undertook, at the age of sixty-three, the enormous task of turning
the entire works of Virgil into English verse. How he succeeded in this, readers of the
"Aeneid" in a companion volume of these classics can judge for themselves. Dryden's
production closes with the collection of narrative poems called "Fables," published in
1700, in which year he died and was buried in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Dryden lived in an age of reaction against excessive religious idealism, and both his
character and his works are marked by the somewhat unheroic traits of such a period. But
he was, on the whole, an honest man, open minded, genial, candid, and modest; the
wielder of a style, both in verse and prose, unmatched for clearness, vigor, and sanity.
Three types of comedy appeared in England in the time of Dryden-- the comedy of
humors, the comedy of intrigue, and the comedy of manners--and in all he did work that
classed him with the ablest of his contemporaries. He developed the somewhat bombastic
type of drama known as the heroic play, and brought it to its height in his "Conquest of
Granada"; then, becoming dissatisfied with this form, he cultivated the French classic
tragedy on the model of Racine. This he modified by combining with the regularity of the
French treatment of dramatic action a richness of characterization in which he showed
himself a disciple of Shakespeare, and of this mixed type his best example is "All for
Love." Here he has the daring to challenge comparison with his master, and the greatest
testimony to his achievement is the fact that, as Professor Noyes has said, "fresh from
Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra,' we can still read with intense pleasure Dryden's
version of the story."
DEDICATION
To the Right Honourable, Thomas, Earl of Danby, Viscount Latimer, and Baron Osborne
of Kiveton, in Yorkshire; Lord High Treasurer of England, one of His Majesty's Most
Honourable Privy Council, and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.
My Lord,
The gratitude of poets is so troublesome a virtue to great men, that you are often in
danger of your own benefits: for you are threatened with some epistle, and not suffered to
do good in quiet, or to compound for their silence whom you have obliged. Yet, I confess,
I neither am or ought to be surprised at this indulgence; for your lordship has the same
right to favour poetry, which the great and noble have ever had--
Carmen amat, quisquis carmine digna gerit.
There is somewhat of a tie in nature betwixt those who are born for worthy actions, and
those who can transmit them to posterity; and though ours be much the inferior part, it
comes at least within the verge of alliance; nor are we unprofitable members of the
commonwealth, when we animate others to those virtues, which we copy and describe
from you.
It is indeed their interest, who endeavour the subversion of governments, to discourage
poets and historians; for the best which can happen to them, is to be forgotten. But such
who, under kings, are the fathers of their country, and by a just and prudent ordering of
affairs preserve it, have the same reason to cherish the chroniclers of their actions, as they
have to lay up in safety the deeds and evidences of their estates; for such records are their
undoubted titles to the love and reverence of after ages. Your lordship's administration
has already taken up a considerable part of the English annals; and many of its most

happy years are owing to it. His Majesty, the most knowing judge of men, and the best
master, has acknowledged the ease and benefit he receives in the incomes of his treasury,
which you found not only disordered, but exhausted. All things were in the confusion of a
chaos, without form or method, if not reduced beyond it, even to annihilation; so that you
had not only to separate the jarring elements, but (if that boldness of expression might be
allowed me) to create them. Your enemies had so embroiled the management of your
office, that they looked on your advancement as the instrument of your ruin. And as if the
clogging of the revenue, and the confusion of accounts, which you found in your entrance,
were not sufficient, they added their own weight of malice