Of hardly less moment than Dryden's work in poetry was his work in prose. In continuity and grandeur indeed, as in grace and music of phrase, the new prose of the Restoration fell far short of the prose of Hooker or Jeremy Taylor, but its clear nervous structure, its handiness and flexibility, its variety and ease, fitted it far better for the work of popularization on which literature was now to enter. It fitted it for the work of journalism, and every day journalism was playing a larger part in the political education of Englishmen. It fitted it to express the life of towns. With the general extension of prosperity and trade the town was coming into greater prominence as an element of national life; and London above all was drawing to it the wealth and culture which had till now been diffused through the people at large. It was natural that this tendency should be reflected in literature; from the age of the Restoration indeed literature had been more and more becoming an expression of the life of towns; and it was town-life which was now giving to it its character and form. As cities ceased to be regarded simply as centres of trade and money-getting, and became habitual homes for the richer and more cultured; as men woke to the pleasure and freedom of the new life which developed itself in the street and the mall, of its quicker movement, its greater ease, its abundance of social intercourse, its keener taste, its subtler and more delicate courtesy, its flow of conversation, the stately and somewhat tedious prose-writer of days gone by passed into the briefer and nimbler essayist. [Sidenote: The Essayists.]