to year; Peace to the husbandman, and a' his tribe, May a' her tenants sit fu' snug and bien, Frae the hard grip o' ails and poortith freed, BRAID CLAITH YE wha are fain to hae your name To laurell'd wreath, But hap ye weel, baith back and wame, He that some ells o' this may fa', And slae-black hat on pow like snaw, Bids bauld to bear the gree awa, Wi' a' this graith, When bienly clad wi' shell fu' braw Waesuck for him wha has nae feck o't! 15 20 25 30 35 A chiel that ne'er will be respeckit While he draws breath, Till his four quarters are bedeckit On Sabbath-days the barber spark, Gangs trigly, faith! Or to the Meadows, or the Park, Weel might ye trow, to see them there, Would be right laith, When pacing wi' a gawsy air If ony mettled sirrah grien He maunna care for bein' seen His body in a scabbard clean O' gude braid claith. For, gin he come wi' coat thread-bare, But crook her bonny mou fu' sair, And scauld him baith: Wooers should aye their travel spare, Withoot braid claith. Braid claith lends fouk an unco heeze: Gies mony a doctor his degrees, For little skaith: In short, you may be what you please, For tho' ye had as wise a snout on, As Shakespeare or Sir Isaac Newton, Your judgment fouk would hae a doubt on, Till they could see ye wi' a suit on O' gude braid claith. 40 45 50 NOTES JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700) THERE have been greater names in the history of English literature than that of Dryden, but to no other man has it been given to hold the absolute position in relation to his period that Dryden holds. It is not too much to say of him that without his influence to formulate and direct, the literary conditions of the Restoration period would have reverted to chaos. He did what a greater man probably could not have done at least what one greater man did not do. Milton lived for fourteen years after the Restoration, and in that time published greater work than Dryden ever conceived. But the general reading public was scarcely aware of its publication, and the literary influence of Milton was hardly felt until a half-century or more after his death. But from 1670 to 1700, Dryden, inferior to Milton in almost every poetic quality, was dominating every literary movement that was on foot. It was not an age that appreciated or understood the highest type of poetry. It desired the intellectual rather than the imaginative; the didactic rather than the beautiful. A man of the type of Milton stood apart from the whole taste and temper of the period. The main influence of such a time must be intellectual instead of purely poetic. A fair judgment of Dryden's work necessarily places it in the second class of poetry — poetry in which imagination takes a subordinate place. The lyric element and the highest dramatic elements are almost lacking. But of that second class, it stands in the highest rank. The age preferred didactic and satiric poetry, and Dryden gave it the best of that kind. He held the taste and the attention of the public to the very best that it was capable of appreciating. In the Restoration period no man could have done more. Dryden's literary period falls into four divisions. Up to 1667 he did miscellaneous writing, largely panegyric. For the next fourteen |