Wordsworth could not love Dryden, because there is not an image in all his poetry suggested by nature. While Chaucer seems to have been always out of doors, Dryden apparently never knew there was any out of doors. He could not create, could not be pathetic, but in power of argument, in satirical skill, in “declamatory magnificence,” he is without a peer in the language. Thomas Shadwell, “mature in dullness from his tender years,” who only lives through the grace of Dryden’s crucifying satire, by a fortune no art can explain enjoyed the laurel that had decked the brow of Dryden for a generation. Without poetic merit he was skillful as a hater, shrewd as a schemer; he missed no opportunity to make Dryden wince until he made himself acknowledged as his rival, and when William and Mary ascended the throne the only way they could effectively snub the royalty they supplanted was to transfer the laurel from Dryden to Shadwell, who owed all the fame he ever enjoyed to his artful drawing of Dryden’s fire. It is too bad that William and Mary were fated to divest their reign of all literary glory by bestowing the court honors first upon Shadwell and then upon Nahum Tate, who had some veins of merit, but no popular talent. Dryden praised him in his day, and the “Book of Common Prayer” and our church hymn books retain some choice lines that he wrote. Queen Anne retained him ten years, but he was almost universally regarded as stupid and juiceless in poetry, and at the age of sixty-five, poor, homeless, unable to earn a living, she ejected him from the laureateship, and he retired to the “Mint,” the prison for the better class of poor debtors. Thus, in poverty and humility ended the days of him who wrote our familiar hymn, “While shepherds watched their flocks by night, All seated on the ground; The angel of the Lord came down, And glory shone around.” Nicholas Rowe, with no popular fervor of verse, won high favor in classic circles through an independent fortune and rare social gift. Pope’s friendship welcomed him to the circle of rare visits, while the _élite_ of Queen Anne’s reign courted him with royal art. Few men of real genius ever have been so splendidly rewarded as he. Swift and Addison were only second in their admiration to Pope, who wrote this tender epitaph: “Thy relics, Rowe, to this sad shrine we trust, And near thy Shakspere place the honored bust; Oh! next him skilled to draw the tender tear, For never heart felt passion more sincere; To nobler sentiment to fire the brave, For never Briton more disdained a slave. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Blest is thy genius, is thy love, too, blest! And blest that timely from our scene removed, Thy soul enjoys the liberty it loved.”