petty mannerism of rhetoric and affectations of style, a master of verse, a slave to his idea, with that abundance of thought which is the sign of true genius: "Thoughts such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to choose or to reject, to run them into verses, or to give them the other harmony of prose: I have so long studied and practised both, that they are grown into a habit, and become familiar to me."[458] With these powers he entered upon his second career; the English constitution and genius opened it to him. Section VII.--How Literature in England is Occupied with Politics and Religion "A man," says La Bruyère, "born a Frenchman and a Christian finds himself constrained in satire; great subjects are forbidden to him; he essays them sometimes, and then turns aside to small things, which he elevates by the beauty of his genius and his style." It was not so in England. Great subjects were given up to vehement discussion; politics and religion, like two arenas, invited every talent and every passion to boldness and to battle. The king, at first popular, had roused opposition by his vices and errors, and bent before public discontent as before the intrigue of parties. It was known that he had sold the interests of England to France; it was believed that he would deliver up the consciences of Protestants to the Papists. The lies of Oates, the murder of the magistrate Godfrey, his corpse solemnly paraded in the streets of London, had inflamed the imagination and prejudices of the people; the judges, blind or intimidated, sent innocent Roman Catholics to the scaffold, and the mob received with insults and curses their protestations of innocence. The king's brother had been dismissed from his offices, and it was proposed to exclude him from the throne. The pulpit, the theatre, the press, the hustings, resounded with discussions and recriminations. The names of Whigs and Tories arose, and the loftiest debates of political philosophy were carried on, enlivened by the feeling of present and practical interests, embittered by the rancor of old and wounded passions. Dryden plunged in; and his poem of "Absalom and Achitophel" was a political pamphlet. "They who can criticise so weakly," he says in the preface, "as to imagine that I have done my worst, may be convinced at their own cost that I can write severely with more ease than I can gently." A Biblical allegory, suited to the taste of the time, hardly concealed the names, and did not hide the men. He describes the tranquil old age and incontestable right of King David;[459] the charm, pliant humor, popularity of his natural son Absalom;[460] the genius and treachery of Achitophel,[461] who stirs up the son against the father, unites the clashing ambitions, and reanimates the conquered factions. There is hardly any wit here; there is no time to be witty in such contests; think of the roused people who