[Footnote 466: "Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ, Conquering with force of arms and dint of wit: Theirs was the giant race before the flood, And thus, when Charles return'd, our empire stood. Like Janus, he the stubborn soil manured, With rules of husbandry the rankness cured; Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude, And boisterous English wit with art endured.... But what we gain'd in skill we lost in strength, Our builders were with want of genius curst; The second temple was not like the first." --"Epistle 12 to Congreve," XI. 59.] [Footnote 467: "Held up the buckler of the people's cause Against the crown, and skulk'd against the laws.... Desire of power, on earth a vicious weed, Yet, sprung from high, is of celestial seed!" --"Absalom and Achitophel," Part I.] [Footnote 468: "Why then should I, encouraging the bad, Turn rebel, and run popularly mad?" --Ibid.] [Footnote 469: "Though Huguenots contemn our ordination. Succession, ministerial vocation," etc. ("The Hind and the Panther," Part. II. 10. 166). Such are the harsh words we often find in his books.] [Footnote 470: Preface to the "Religio Laid," X. 32.] [Footnote 471: What Augustus says about Horace is charming, but cannot be quoted, even in Latin.] [Footnote 472: Epistle 15, XI. 75.] [Footnote 473: Beginning of "Religio Laici," X. 37.] [Footnote 474: "The Hind and the Panther," Part I. lines 64-75, X. 121.] [Footnote 475: "Theodore and Honoria," XI. 435.] [Footnote 476: "The Hind and the Panther," Part III. lines 553-560, X. 214.] [Footnote 477: "For her the weeping heavens become serene, For her the ground is clad in cheerful green, For her the nightingales are taught to sing, And nature for her has delayed the Spring." These charming verses on the Duchess York remind one of those of La Fontaine in "Le Songe," addressed to the Princess of Conti.] [Footnote 478: For instance, in the "Chant du Cirque."] [Footnote 479: "Alexander's Feast," XI. 183-188.] [Footnote 480: "Alexander's Feast" was written in 1697, soon after the publication of the Vergil. In 1699 appeared Dryden's translated tales and original poems, generally known as "The Fables," in which the portrait of the English country gentleman is to be found.--Tr.] [Footnote 481: He was paid two hundred and fifty guineas for ten thousand lines.] [Footnote 482: Postscript of Vergil's Works, as translated by Dryden, XV. p. 187.] CHAPTER THIRD The Revolution Section I.--The Moral Revolution With the constitution of 1688 a new spirit appears in England. Slowly, gradually, the moral revolution accompanies the social: man changes with the state, in the same sense and for the same causes; character moulds itself to the situation; and little by little, in manners and in literature, we see spring up a serious, reflective, moral spirit, capable of discipline and independence, which can alone maintain and give effect to a constitution.