But Dryden's was the age of satire. Those he wrote called forth
others. He was surrounded and followed by many imitators, and it
is well to remember Dryden as the greatest of them all. His
satires were so powerful, too, that the people against whom they
were directed felt them keenly, and no wonder. "There are
passages in Dryden's satires in which every couplet has not only
the force but the sound of a slap in the face," says a recent
writer.*
*Saintsbury.
Among the younger writers Dryden took the place Ben Jonson used
hold. He kinged it in the coffee-house, then the fashionable
place at which the wits gathered, as Jonson had in the tavern.
He was given the most honored seat, in summer by the window, in
winter by the fire. And although he was not a great talker like
Jonson, the young wits crowded around him, eager for the honor of
a word or a pinch from the great man's snuff-box.
Besides his plays and satires Dryden wrote a poem in support of
the English Church called Religio Laici. Then a few years later,
when Charles II died and James II came to the throne, Dryden
turned Roman Catholic and wrote a poem called The Hind and the
Panther in praise of the Church of Rome.
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