_An Ode to St. Cecilia_, are the principal illustrations of this new
power.

Gray, who was remarkable for his own lyric power, told Dr. Beattie that if
there were any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly
from Dryden.

The _Ode on St. Cecilia's Day_, also entitled "_Alexander's Feast_," in
which he portrays the power of music in inspiring that famous monarch to
love, pity, and war, has to the scholar the perfect excellence of the best
Greek lyric. It ends with a tribute to St. Cecilia.

At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame:
Now let Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown.
He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down,

Dryden's prose, principally in the form of prefaces and dedications, has
been admired by all critics; and one of the greatest has said, that if he
had turned his attention entirely in that direction, he would have been
_facile princeps_ among the prose writers of his day. He has, in general
terms, the merit of being the greatest refiner of the English language,
and of having given system and strength to English poetry above any writer
up to his day; but more than all, his works are a transcript of English
history--political, religious, and social--as valuable as those of any
professed historian. Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of
an earl, who, it is said, was not a congenial companion, and who
afterwards became insane. He died from a gangrene in the foot. He declared
that he died in the profession of the Roman Catholic faith; which raises a
new doubt as to his sincerity in the change. Near the monument of old
father Chaucer, in Westminster, is one erected, by the Duke of Buckingham,
to Dryden. It merely bears name and date, as his life and works were
supposed to need no eulogy.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBELLION AND OF THE RESTORATION.

The English Divines. Hall. Chillingworth. Taylor. Fuller. Sir T.
Browne. Baxter. Fox. Bunyan. South. Other Writers.

THE ENGLISH DIVINES.

Having come down, in the course of English Literature, to the reign of
William and Mary, we must look back for a brief space to consider the
religious polemics which grew out of the national troubles and
vicissitudes. We shall endeavor to classify the principal authors under
this head from the days of Milton to the time when the Protestant
succession was established on the