of Charles the IId; and the same year, his Panegyric to the king on his
coronation: In the former of these pieces, a remarkable distich has
expos'd our poet to the ridicule of the wits.

An horrid stillness first invades the ear,
And in that silence we the tempest hear.

Which it must be owned is downright nonsense, and a contradiction in
terms: Amongst others captain Radcliff has ridiculed this blunder in the
following lines of his News from Hell.

Laureat who was both learn'd and florid,
Was damn'd long since for silence horrid:
Nor had there been such clutter made,
But that his silence did invade.
Invade, and so it might, that's clear;
But what did it invade? An ear!

In 1662 he addressed a poem to the lord chancellor Hyde, presented on
new-year's-day; and the same year published a satire on the Dutch. His
next piece, was his Annus Mirabilis, or the Year of Wonders, 1668, an
historical poem, which celebrated the duke of York's victory over the
Dutch. In the same year Mr. Dryden succeeded Sir William Davenant as
Poet Laureat, and was also made historiographer to his majesty; and that
year published his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, addressed to Charles earl
of Dorset and Middlesex. Mr. Dryden tells his patron, that the writing
this Essay, served as an amusement to him in the country, when he was
driven from town by the violence of the plague, which then raged in
London; and he diverted himself with thinking on the theatres, as lovers
do by ruminating on their absent mistresses: He there justifies the