Of Dryden it can be said without qualification that he is representative of his age. Indeed, it has been urged as a fault against his character that he adapted himself with too facile a conscience to the changing fortunes of the times. His earliest work of any importance is pre-Restoration, and consists of a laudation of Oliver Cromwell. At the Restoration he changed his views, attaching himself to the fortunes of Charles II and to the Church of England. This loyalty brought its rewards in honors and pensions, so that for many years Dryden was easily the most considerable literary figure in the land. Yet his career was not without its thorns, for smaller men were busy with their slanders. On the accession of James II in 1685 Dryden changed his faith and political persuasion, becoming a Roman Catholic. To his new beliefs he adhered steadfastly, even when in 1688 the Revolution brought certain disasters to such public men as adhered to Catholicism. Thus Dryden lost his posts of Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal. The Laureateship was conferred on Shadwell, his most rancorous foe; and Dryden retired with dignity to sustain his last years with his literary labors. To this last period of his career we owe some of his finest translations and narrative poems. When he died in 1700 he was accorded a splendid funeral in Westminster Abbey, though it was many years before his grave was marked by a tombstone. =2. His Poetry.= Dryden began his life’s work with poetry; he concluded it with poetry; and the years between are starred with the brightness of his greater poems. As early as February, 1664, Pepys records in his diary that he met “Mr. Dryden, the poet”; and he remained “Mr. Dryden, the poet,” till the day of his death. It is therefore as a poet that Dryden is chiefly to be judged. His first published poem of any consequence was a series of heroic stanzas on the death of the Protector Oliver Cromwell (1659). It consists of thirty-seven quatrains of no particular merit. They move stiffly, and are quite uninspired by any political or personal enthusiasm, but they show a certain angular force and a little metrical dexterity. Two stanzas will show the art of the earliest Dryden: His grandeur he derived from Heaven alone, For he was great, ere Fortune made him so; And wars, like mists that rise against the sun, Made him but greater seem, not greater grow. No borrowed bays his temples did adorn, But to our crown he did fresh laurels bring; Nor was his virtue poisoned, soon as born, With the too early thoughts of being king.