Is sung, but breaks off in the middle."
Hudibras and his man Ralpho attack the bear, but are defeated, and then Hudibras retires and makes love to a rich widow. He is a Presbyterian, and Ralpho an Independent; and in the course of the story all the leading characters of the Commonwealth, Cromwell, Fleetwood, Desborough, Lambert, are ridiculed by name, as are Pym, Calamy, Case, Byfield, Lentham, and the rest under more or less transparent nicknames, as Ashley Cooper, under the name of the "politician," and John Lilburne, under that of "brother haberdasher." The first part was published in 1663, the second in 1664, and the third in 1678, fourteen years later. Still the poem remained unfinished. It did not require, however, even the second part to make it famous. It was received with one universal burst of laughter and applause by the Royalists. Charles II. and his courtiers were merrier over it than all, and Charles quoted it continually with unfailing gusto. The Earl of Dorset resolved to seize the opportunity, and introduce the author, through Buckingham, to Charles. Buckingham gave him an audience, but just as they were entering on conversation, Buckingham saw some ladies of loose character going past, ran out after them, and the poet was not only forgotten, but could never get a second interview. Clarendon, however, promised to see him duly rewarded, but never kept his word, and Butler lived poor and died neglected, at the age of eighty. This shameful neglect has been much commented on; but no one seems to have reflected that there may have been more in this than mere neglect. Butler, in his double-edged satire, made some very hard hits at the Church, and, while ridiculing the Puritans, gave some not very light back-strokes to the licentiousness of the Royalists. He wrote an avowed "Satire on the Licentiousness of the Age;" and in his third part so far vented his resentment at his neglect as to satirise Charles himself for being led by the apronstrings of his numerous mistresses. He laughed at the sages of the newly established Royal Society in his "Elephant in the Moon;" and such a man is more frequently kicked than rewarded. The Church did not forget his sallies against it, and refused him burial in Westminster Abbey. When he wrote the questions and answers between the man disguised as a devil and Hudibras—
"What makes a church a den of thieves?—
A dean, a chapter, and white sleeves.
What makes all points of doctrine clear?—
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was proved true before,
Prove false again?—Two hundred more"—
though the sting was intended for the Puritans, the Puritans laid hold on the passage, and quoted it against the Church, and this and like blows rebounded, no doubt, on the poets head.
The most illustrious name of this period next to that of Milton is that of John Dryden (b. 1631; d. 1701). He wrote almost every kind of poetry—satires, odes, plays, romantic stories—and translated Juvenal, Persius, the epistles of Ovid, and Virgil. It was unfortunate for the genius of Dryden that he was generally struggling with poverty, and by marrying an aristocratic and uncongenial wife, the sister of Sir Robert Howard, he was all the more compelled to exert his powers to live in the style which their circumstances demanded. Hence he produced an immense mass of writings which added little to his fame. Foremost amongst these are his plays, nearly thirty in number, which were mostly unsuccessful, and which abound with such gross indecencies that, had they even high merit otherwise, they would be found to be unperusable. He had the presumption to new-model Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" and the "Tempest"—two of the most poetical compositions in existence—and blurred them with the foul leprosy of obscenity. He treated the "Paradise Lost" in the same way; nor did his necessities lead him to these enormities only; but there is little doubt they drove him to apostatise from his religion, and from his original political faith. His first poem of any note was a most eulogistic elegy on the death of Cromwell, in which, amongst many other such things, he said—