=4. John Crowne (1640–1703).= Crowne is another of the dramatists who attacked Dryden and who were in turn assailed by the bigger man. A voluminous playwright, Crowne’s best-known works are the tragedies of _Caligula_ (1698), a heroic play, and _Thyestes_, in blank verse, and a comedy, _Sir Courtly Nice_ (1685). Crowne is quite a good specimen of the average Restoration dramatist. The plays show considerable talent and a fair amount of skill in versification. =5. Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718).= During his lifetime Rowe was a person of some importance, and was made Poet Laureate in 1714. His best-known plays are _Tamerlane_ (1702), _The Fair Penitent_ (1703), and the popular _Jane Shore_ (1714). Johnson says of him, “His reputation comes from the reasonableness of some of his scenes, the elegance of his diction, and the suavity of his verse.” POETRY =Samuel Butler (1612–80).= Besides Dryden and the tragedy-writers the only considerable poet of the period is Samuel Butler, and his fame rests on one work, _Hudibras_. As a middle-aged man Butler saw the rough and tumble of the Civil War, and was nearly fifty when the Restoration occurred. He seems to have been of humble birth and to have served as a kind of superior menial in a number of noble households. In the course of these several occupations he acquired the varied knowledge that he was to put to good use in his poem. In 1663 he published _Hudibras_, which was at once a success. Two other parts followed in 1664 and 1678 respectively. _Hudibras_ was topical, for it was a biting satire on the Puritans, who were the reverse of popular when the King returned. In general outline it is modeled upon the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, who find their respective parallels in Sir Hudibras and his squire Ralpho. Sir Hudibras is a Puritan knight who undergoes many absurd adventures; but the poem lacks the real pathos and genuine insight of its great Spanish original. It is wholly, almost spitefully, satirical. The poem is composed artfully. The adventures are well chosen in order to throw the greatest amount of ridicule on the maladroit hero; the humor, though keen and caustic, is never absolutely brutal in expression; there is a freakish spattering of tropes and a mock-solemn parade of scholastic learning; and (a feature that added immeasurably to its success) it is cast in an odd jigging octosyllabic couplet. This meter of _Hudibras_ is remarkable. It is varied and yet uniform, and it carries the tale with an easy relish. Though it is sometimes almost doggerel, it has always a kind of distinction, and each couplet is clenched with an ingenious rhyme that is the most amusing feature of all.