The coarseness, too, is not the
coarseness of an ignorant people who know no better, but rather
of a people who do know better and who yet prefer to be coarse.
I do not mean to say that there are no well-drawn characters, no
beautiful lines, in Dryden's plays for that would not be true.
Many of them are clever, the songs in them are often beautiful,
but nearly all are unpleasant to read. The taste of the
Restoration times condemned Dryden to write in a way unworthy of
himself for money. "Neither money nor honour--that in two words
was the position of writers after the Restoration."*
*Beljame, Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres in Angleterre.
"And Dryden, in immortal strain,
Had raised the table-round again
But that a ribald King and Court
Bade him toil on to make them sport,
Demanding for their niggard pay,
Fit for their souls, a loser lay."*
*Walter Scott, Marmion.
Had Dryden written nothing but plays we should not remember him
as one of our great poets. Yet it was during this time of play-
writing that Dryden was made Poet Laureate and Historiographer
Royal with the salary of 200 pounds a year and a butt of sack.
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