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He look’d in years, yet in his years were seen A youthful vigor, and autumnal green.

John Dryden

A woman’s counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego, Where at heart’s ease he liv’d; and might have been As free from sorrow as he was from sin.
JOHN DRYDEN

Himself Man Paradise Sin Sorrow Woman
A farce is that in poetry which grotesque (caricature) is in painting. The persons and actions of a farce are all unnatural, and the manners false, that is, inconsistent with the characters of mankind; and grotesque painting is the just resemblance of this.
JOHN DRYDEN

Character Kind Man Natural Painting Person Poetry
I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
JOHN DRYDEN

Freedom Man Nature Run Savage Wild
Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass’d; The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go; To make a third, she join’d the former two.
JOHN DRYDEN

Age Distant Force Herself Nature Poet
Railing and praising were his usual themes; and both showed his judgment in extremes. Either over violent or over civil, so everyone to him was either god or devil.
JOHN DRYDEN

Himself Judgement Praise Theme
Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
JOHN DRYDEN

Degree River Sea
Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.
JOHN DRYDEN

Bold Fear Greatness Mask
A happy genius is the gift of nature.
JOHN DRYDEN

Genius Gift Happy Nature
Riches cannot rescue from the grave, which claims alike the monarch and the slave.
JOHN DRYDEN

Claim Grave Rich Slave
Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.
JOHN DRYDEN

Build Destroy
Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.
JOHN DRYDEN

Age Genius Kind Live Study Universe
There is a proud modesty in merit.
JOHN DRYDEN

Advantage Modesty Proud
Men’s virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes.
JOHN DRYDEN

Crime Freedom Tax Virtue
They live too long who happiness outlive.
JOHN DRYDEN

Happiness Live
He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fear Learning Lesson
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not heaven itself upon the past has power; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fair Fate Myself Possession Rain Shine Time

He look’d in years, yet in his years were seen A youthful vigor, and autumnal green.

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He look’d in years, yet in his years were seen A youthful vigor, and autumnal green.

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