On May 1st, 1700, Dryden died, and with him a dramatic age passed away. What Miss Trotter's exact relations with the great poet had been is uncertain; she not only celebrated his death in a long elegy, in which she speaks on behalf of the Muses, but wrote another and more important poem, in which she gives very sound advice to the poetical beginner, who is to take Dryden as a model, and to be particularly careful to disdain Settle, Durfey, and Blackmore, typical poetasters of the period. She recommends social satire to the playwright:-- "Let the nice well-bred beau himself perceive The most accomplished, useless thing alive; Expose the bottle-sparks that range the town,-- Shaming themselves with follies not their own,-- But chief these foes to virgin innocence, Who, while they make to honour vain pretence, With all that's base and impious can dispense." Honour to those who aim high and execute boldly! "If Shakespeare's spirit, with transporting fire, The animated scene throughout inspire; If in the piercing wit of Vanbrugh drest, Each sees his darling folly made a jest; If Garth's and Dryden's genius, through each line, In artful praise and well-turn'd satire shine,-- To us ascribe the immortal sacred flame." In this dead period of the stage Catharine Trotter found a warm friend and doubtless an efficient patron in a Lady Piers, of whom we should be glad to know more. Sir George Piers, the husband of this lady, was an officer of rank under the Duke of Marlborough, later to become useful to Catharine Trotter. Meanwhile the latter returned to the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, where, in 1701, under the patronage of Lord Halifax--Pope's "Bufo"--she produced her third tragedy, _The Unhappy Penitent_. The dedication of this play to Halifax is a long and interesting essay on the poetry of the age. The author passes Dryden, Otway, Congreve, and Lee under examination, and finds technical blemishes in them all:-- "The inimitable Shakespeare seems alone secure on every side from an attack. I speak not here of faults against the rules of poetry, but against the natural Genius. He had all the images of nature present to him, studied her thoroughly, and boldly copied all her various features, for though he has chiefly exerted himself on the more masculine passions, 'tis as the choice of his judgment, not the restraint of his genius, and he has given us as a proof he could be every way equally admirable." Lady Piers wrote the prologue to _The Unhappy Penitent_ in verses better turned than might have been expected. She did not stint praise to her young friend, whom she compares to the rising sun:-- "Like him, bright Maid, Thy great perfections shine As awful, as resplendent, as divine!... Minerva and Diana guard your soul!"