poet, had a magnificent funeral and a most flattering epitaph, but though one enthusiastic admirer went so far as to declare that the Great Fire left the Abbey untouched because Fate would that Cowley’s tomb should be preserved, his works did not long survive him. Close to him was laid John Dryden, who as a boy had been well whipped by the great Doctor Busby. He says himself that he "endeavoured to write good English," and he produced several plays and some excellent political satires. He was not a great poet, but he had the knack of reasoning well in verse, of choosing apt words, and of writing vigorously. And we must remember that he lived in the days of the later Stuarts, when poets had well-nigh forgotten the sweet music of the Elizabethan age. Near to his tomb stands the bust of his bitter enemy, Shadwell, of whom he had written:— "Shadwell alone of all my sons is he Who stands confirmed in all stupidity. The rest to some faint meaning made pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense." Even so did the Abbey unite these rival poets-laureate. [Illustration: POETS’ CORNER] Another satirist, Samuel Butler, has a monument, but not a tomb, in the Abbey. He also died in abject poverty, and of him these lines were written, which apply to more than one of those commemorated in the Poets’ Corner:— "When Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, No generous patron would a dinner give. Behold him starved to death and turned to dust, Presented with a monumental bust. The poet’s fate is here in emblem shown: He asked for bread, and he received a stone."