=2. Imitation of the French.= Charles II had spent most of his years of exile in France, and when he returned to England he brought with him a new admiration for French literature. In particular the effects of this penetrated very deeply into the drama, especially into comedy, the most copious literary product of the Restoration. Of French comedy the great Molière was the outstanding exponent, and his influence was very great. In the more formal tragedy French and classical models were combined to produce a new type called the _heroic play_. The type is well represented by Dryden’s _Tyrannic Love_. =3. The “Correct” School.= The Elizabethans too had drawn upon the ancients, but they used their gains freely and joyously, bending the work of the classical authors to their own wills. The imitative work of the new school was of a frigid and limited quality. The school of Dryden was loath to alter; the age of Pope abandoned freedom altogether. Pope puts it thus: Those Rules of old, discovered, not devised, Are Nature still, but Nature methodised. Thus they evolved a number of “rules,” which can usefully be summarized in the injunction “Be correct.” “Correctness” means avoidance of enthusiasm; modern opinions moderately expressed; strict care and accuracy in poetical technique; and humble imitation of the style of the Latin classics. Dryden did not attain altogether to this ideal. Pope and his immediate successors called him “copious,” thus hinting at a lack of care and an unrestrained vigor that were survivals of an earlier virility. Yet Dryden has the new tendency very clearly marked. To him Dr. Johnson first applied the epithet “Augustan,” saying that Dryden did to English literature what Augustus did to Rome, which he “found of brick and left of marble.” Dryden is the first great exponent of the new ideas that were to dominate our literature till the end of the eighteenth century. JOHN DRYDEN (1631–1700) =1. His Life.= Dryden’s life was a long one. It was, in addition, an exceedingly fruitful one. For forty years he continued to produce an abundance of literary works of every kind--poems, plays, and prose works. The quality of it was almost unfailingly good, and at the end of his life his poetry was as fresh and vivacious as it had been in the prime of his manhood.