amuse his fair correspondent by an assemblage of ludicrous and antithetical expressions and ideas, which, when accurately examined, express little more than the bustle and confusion which attends every funeral procession of uncommon splendour. Upon this ground-work, Mrs. Thomas (the Corinna of Pope and Cromwell) raised, at the distance of thirty years, the marvellous structure of fable, which bhas been copied by all Dryden's biographers, till the industry of Mr. Malone has sent it, with other fig-"Whoever shall censure me, I dare be confident, ments of the same lady, to "the grave of all the you, my lord, will excuse me for any thing that I shall Capulets." She appears to have been something say with due regard to a gentleman, for whose perassisted by a burlesque account of the funeral, son I had as just an affection as I have an admiraimputed by Mr. Malone to Tom Brown, who cer- tion of his writings. And indeed Mr. Dryden had ertainly continued to insult Dryden's memory when- personal qualities to challenge both love and esrever an opportunity offered. Indeed, Mrs. Thomas teem from all who were truly acquainted with him. herself quotes this last respectable authority. It He was of a nature exceedingly humane and must be a well-conducted and uncommon public compassionate; easily forgiving injuries, and capaceremony, where the philosopher can find nothing ble of a prompt and sincere reconciliation with them 45 condemn, nor the satirist to ridicule; yet, to our who had offended him. Vino fon olimagination, what can be more striking, than the procession of talent and rank, which escorted the remains of DRYDEN to the tomb of CHAUCER!

"To the best of my knowledge and observation, he was, of all the men that ever I knew, one of the most modest, and the most easily to be discountenanced in his approaches either to his superiors or his equals."

This portrait is from the pen of friendship; yet, if we consider all the circumstances of Dryden's life, we cannot deem it much exaggerated. For about forty years, his character, personal and literary, was the object of assault by every subaltern scribbler, titled or untitled, laureated or pilloried. My mor als," he himself has said, "have been sufficiently aspersed; that only sort of reputation, which ought to be dear to every honest man, and is to me." In such an assault, no weapon would remain unhandled, no charge, true or false, unpreferred, providing it was but plausible. Such qualities, therefore, as we do not, in such circumstances, find excepted against, must surely be admitted to pass to the credit of Dryden. His change of political opinion, from the time he entered life under the protection of a favourite of Cromwell, might have argued instability, if he had changed a second time, when the current of power. and popular opinion set against the doctrines of the Reformation. As it is, we must hold Dryden to have acted from conviction, since personal interest, had that been the ruling motive of his political conduct, would have operated as strongly in 1688 as in 1660. The change of his religion we have elsewhere

But though the painter's art can never show it,
That his exemplar was so great a poet,
Yet are the lines and tints so subtly wrought,
You may perceive he was a man of thought.
Closterman, 't is confess'd, has drawn him well,
But short of Absalom and Achitophel."

vided it was just, from whatever unexpected and undignified quarter it happened to come. In genes ral, however, it may be supposed, that few ventured to dispute his opinion, or place themselves in the gap between him and the object of his censure. He was most falsely accused of carrying literary jealousy to such a length, as feloniously to encourage Creech to venture on a translation of Horace, that he might lose the character he had gained by a version of Lucretius. But this is positively contradicted, upon the authority of Southerne.*

ings of Dryden have been, however, preserved which, if not witty, are at least jocose. He is said to have been the original author of the repartee to the Duke of Buckingham, who, in bowling, offered to lay his soul to a turnip," or something still more vile. "Give me the odds," said Dryden, “and I take the bet." When his wife wished to be a book, that she might enjoy more of his company, "Be an almanack then, my dear," said the poet, "that I may change you once a-year." Another time, a friend expressing his astonishment that even D'UrWe have so often stopped in our narrative of Dry- fey could write such stuff as a play they had just den's life, to notice the respectability of his general witnessed. Ah, sir," replied Dryden, "You do society, that little need here be said on the subject. not know my friend Tom so well as I do; I'll anA contemporary authority, the reference to which I swer for him, he can write worse yet." None of have mislaid, says, that Dryden was shy and silent these anecdotes intimate great brilliancy of reparin society, till a moderate circulation of the bottle tee; but that Dryden, possessed of such a fund of had removed his natural reserve, and that he fre- imagination, and acquired learning, should be dull quently justified this degree of conviviality by say-in conversation, is impossible. He is known freing, "there was no deceit in a brimmer." But, al- quently to have regaled his friends, by communicathough no enemy to conviviality, Dryden is pro- ting to them a part of his labours; but his poetry nounced by Pope to have been regular in his hours, suffered by his recitation. He read his productions in comparison with Addison, who, otherwise, lived very ill ;t owing, perhaps, to the modest reserve of the same coffee-house course of life. He has him- his temper, which prevented his showing an animaself told us, that he was 'saturnine and reserved, tion in which he feared his audience might not and not one of those who endeavour to entertain participate. The same circumstance may have recompany by lively sallies of merriment and wit;" pressed the liveliness of his conversation. I know and an adversary has put into his mouth this couplet: not, however, whether we are, with Mr. Malone, to "Nor wine nor love could ever see me gay, impute to diffidence his general habit of consulting To writing bred, I know not what to say." his literary friends upon his poems, before they Dryden's Satire to his Muse. became public, since it might as well arise from a wish to anticipate and soften criticism.

But the admission of the author, and the censure of the satirist, must be received with some limitation. Dryden was thirty years old before he was freed from the fetters of puritanism; and if the habits of lively expression in society are not acquired before that age, they are seldom gained afterward. But this applies only to the deficiency of repartee, in the sharp encounter of wit which was fashionable at the court of Charles, and cannot be understood to exclude Dryden's possessing the more solid qualities of agreeable conversation, arising from a memory profoundly stocked with knowledge, and a fancy which supplied modes of illustration faster than the author could use them. Some few saybrings out of the country with one: however, in spite of my bash fulness and appearance, I used now and then to thrust myself into Will's, to have the pleasure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who used to resort thither. The second time that ever I was there, Mr. Dryden was speaking of his own things, as he frequently did, especially of such as had been lately published. "If any thing of mine is good,' says he, 't is my Mac Flecknoe; and I value myself the more on it, because it is the first piece of ridicule written in heroics." Lockier overhearing this, plucked up his spirit so far, as to say, in a voice just loud enough to be heard, that Mac-Flecknoe was a very fine poem, but that he had not imagined it to be the first that ever was wrote that way. On this Dryden turned short upon him, as surprised at his interposing; asked him how long he had been a dealer in poetry; and added, with a smile,But pray, sir, what is it, that you did magine to have been writ so before Lockier named Boilean's Lutrin, and Tassoni's Secchia Rapita; which he had read, and knew Dry

den had borrowed some strokes from each. Tis true,' says Dryden;-I had forgot them. A little after, Dryden went out, and in going spoke to Lockier again, and desired him to come to him the next day. Lockier was highly delighted with the invita tion, and was well acquainted with him as long as he lived."MALONE, Vol. I. p. 481.

"I have often heard," says Mr. George Russel. " that Mr. Dryden, dissatisfied and envious at the reputation Creech obtain ed by his translation of Lucretius, purposely advised him to undertake Horace, to which he knew him unequal, that he might by his ill performance lose the fame he had acquired. Mr. Southerne, author of Oroonoko.' set me right as to the conduct of Mr. Dry den in this affait; affirming, that, being one evening at Mr. Dryden's lodgings, in company with Mr. Creech, and some other ingenious mer., Mr. Creech told the company of his design to transTate Horace; from which Mr. Dryden, with many arguments, dissuaded him, as an attempt which his genius was not adapted to, and which would risk his losing the good opinion the world had of him, by his successful translation of Lucretius. I thought it proper to acquaint you with this circumstance, since it rescues the fame of one of our greatest poets from the imputation of envy and malevolence." See also, upon this subject, a note on page 200 of vol. VIII. Yet Jacob Tonson told Spence, that Dryden would compliment Crowne when a play of his failed, but was cold to him if he met with success. He used sometimes to say. that Crowne had some genius; but then he always added, that his father and Crowne's mother were very well acquainted."MALONE, vol. 1 p. 500.

↑ His conversation is thus characterized by a contemporary

Writer:

"O, sir, there's a medium in all things. Silence and chat are distant enough, to hev anvenient discourse come between

Of Dryden's learning, his works form the best proof. He had read Polybius before he was ten years of age;s and was doubtless well acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics. But from these studies he could descend to read romances; and the present editor records with pride, that Dryden was a decided admirer of old ballads, and popu lar tales. His researches sometimes extended into the vain province of judicial astrology, in which he was a firm believer; and there is reason to think that he also credited divination by dreams. In the country, he delighted in the pastime of fishing, and used, says Mr. Malone, to spend some time with Mr. Jones of Ramsden, in Wiltshire, D'Urfey was sometimes of this party; but Dryden appears to have undervalued his skill in fishing, as much as his attempts at poetry. Hence Fenton, in his epistle to Mr. Lambard:

"By long experience, D'Urfey may no doubt
Ensnare a gudgeon, or sometimes a trout;
Yet Dryden once exclaim'd, in partial spite,

He fish-because the man attempts to write."
I may conclude this notice of Dryden's habits
researches of Mr. Malone, with two notices of a
which I have been enabled to give chiefly by the
minute nature. Dryden was a great taker of snuff,
which he prepared himself. Moreover, as a prepa-
ration to a course of study, he usually took medi-
cine, and observed a cooling diet.**

Dryden's house, which he appears to have resided in from the period of his marriage till his death, was them; and thus far I agree with you, that the company of the author of Absalom and Achitophel' is more valuable, though not so talkative, than that of the modern men of denter; for what he says is like what he writes, much to the purpose, and full of mighty sense; and if the town were for any thing desirable, it were for the conversation of him, and one or two more of the same character."The Humours and Conversation of the Town exposed, in two Dialogues, 1693, p. 78.

"When Dryden, our first great master of verse and harmony brought his play of Amphitryon to the stage, I heard him give it his first reading to the actors; in which, though it is true he delivered the plain sense of every period, yet the whole was in so cold, so flat and unafieeling a manner, that I am afraid of not being believed, when I aflirm it."-Ciller's Apology, 4to. See page 25.

§ Vol. XVII. p. 31.

"I find," says Gildon, "Mr. Bayes, the younger. [Rowe,L has two qualities, like Mr. Bayes, the clder: his admiration of some odd books, as 'Reynard the Fox.' and the old ballads of Jane Shore, &c.-Remarks on Mr. Rowe's Plays. "Reynard the Fox," is also mentioned in "The Town and Country Mouse, as a favourite book of Dryden's. And Addison, in the 85th nunber of the Spectator, informs us, that Dorset and Dryden delighted in perusing the collection of old ballads which the latter possessed

** Vol. XVIII. p. 110.

E

1.

d

3 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN.

in Gerard-street, the fifth on the left hand coming
from Little Newport-street. The back windows
looked upon the gardens of Leicester-House, of
which circumstance our poet availed himself to pay
a handsome compliment to the noble owner. His
excursions to the country seem to have been fre-
quent; perhaps the more so, as Lady Elizabeth
always remained in town. In his latter days, the
friendship of his relations, John Driden of Chester-
ton, and Mrs. Steward of Cotterstock, rendered
their houses agreeable places of abode to the aged
poet. They appear also to have had a kind solici-
tade about his little comforts, of value infinitely be-
yond the contributions which they made towards
aiding them. And thus concludes all that we have
learned of the private life of Dryden.

The fate of Dryden's family must necessarily
interest the admirers of English literature. It con-
sisted of his wife, Lady Elizabeth Dryden, and three
sons, John, Charles, and Erasmus-Henry. Upon
the poet's death, it may be believed, they felt them-
selves slenderly provided for, since all his efforts,
while alive, were necessary to secure them from
the gripe of penury. Yet their situation was not
very distressing. John and Erasmus-Henry were
abroad; and each had an office at Rome, by which
he was able to support himself. Charles had for
some time been entirely dependent on his father,
and administered to his effects, as he died without
a will. The liberality of the Duchess of Ormond,
and of Driden of Chesterton, had been lately receiv-
ed, and probably was not expended. There was,
besides, the poet's little patrimonial estate, and a
small property in Wiltshire, which the Earl of Berk-
shire settled upon Lady Elizabeth at her marriage,
and which yielded 50%, or 601. annually. There was
therefore an income of about 100l. a year, to main-
tain the poet's widow and children; enough in those
times to support them in decent frugality.

Lady Elizabeth Dryden's temper had long dis'His turbed her husband's domestic happiness. invectives," says Mr. Malone, "against the married state, are frequent and bitter, and were continued to the latest period of his life;" and he adds, from most respectable authority, that the family of the poet held no intimacy with his lady, confining their intercourse to mere visits of ceremony. A similar alienation seems to have taken place between her and her own relations, Sir Robert Howard, perhaps, being excepted; for her brother, the Honourable Edward Howard, talks of Dryden's being engaged in a translation of Virgil, as a thing he had learned merely by common report. Her wayward disposition was, however, the effect of a disordered imagination, which, shortly after Dryden's death, degenerated into absolute insanity, in which state she remained until her death in summer 1714, probably, says Mr. Malone, in the seventy-ninth year of her life. Dryden's three sons, says the inscription by Mrs. Creed, were ingenious and accomplished gentlemen. Charles, the eldest, and favourite son of the poet, was born at Charlton, Wiltshire, in 1666. He received a classical education under Dr. Busby, his father's preceptor, and was chosen King's Scholar in 1680. Being elected to Trinity College in Cambridge, he was admitted a member in 1683. It would have been difficult for the son of Dryden to refrain from attempting poetry; but though Charles escaped the fate of Icarus, he was very, very far from emulating his father's soaring flight. Mr. Malone has furnished a list of his compositions in Latin and English. About 1692, he went to Italy, and through the interest of Cardinal Howard, to

whom he was related by the mother's side, he be-
came chamberlain of the household; not, as Co-
rinna pretends, "to that remarkably fine gentleman,
Pope Clement XI." but to Pope Innocent XII.
His way to this preferment was smoothed by a
pedigree drawn up in Latin by his father, of the
families of Dryden and Howard, which is said to
have been deposited in the Vatican. Dryden, whose
turn for judicial astrology we have noticed, had
calculated the nativity of his son Charles; and it
would seem, that a part of his predictions were for-
tuitously fulfilled. Charles, however, having suffered,
while at Rome, by a fall, and his health, in conse-
quence, being much injured, his father prognosti-
cated he would begin to recover in the month of
September, 1697. The issue did no great credit to
the prediction; for young Dryden returned to En-
gland in 1698 in the same indifferent state of health,
as is obvious from the anxious solicitude with
which his father always mentions Charles in his
correspondence. Upon the poet's death, Charles,
we have seen, administered to his effects on 10th
June, 1700, Lady Elizabeth, his mother, renouncing
the succession. In the next year, Granville con-
ferred on him the profits arising from the author's
night of an alteration of Shakespeare's "Merchant
of Venice;" and his liberality to the son of one-
great bard may be admitted to balance his pre-
sumption, in manufacturing a new drama out of
the labours of another.§ Upon the 20th August,
1704, Charles Dryden was drowned, in an attempt
to swim across the Thames, at Datchet, near Wind-
sor. I have degraded into the appendix, the roman-
tic narrative of Corinna, concerning his father's
prediction, already mentioned. It contains, like her
account of the funeral of the poet, much positive
falsehood, and gross improbability, with some slight
scantling of foundation in fact.

John Dryden, the poet's second son, was born in 1667, or 1668, was admitted a king's scholar in Westminster in 1682, and elected to Oxford in 1685. Here he became a private pupil of the celebrated Obadiah Walker, master of University College, a Roman Catholic. It seems probable that young Dryden became a convert to that faith before his father. His religion making it impossible for him to succeed in England, he followed his brother Charles to Rome, where he officiated as his deputy in the Pope's household. John Dryden translated the fourteenth satire of Juvenal, published in his father's version, and wrote a comedy entitled, "The Husband his own Cuckold," acted in Lincoln'sInn-Fields in 1696: Dryden, the father, furnishing a prologue, and Congreve an epilogue. In 1700-1, he made a tour through Sicily and Malta, and his journal was published in 1706. It seems odd, that in the whole course of his journal, he never mentions his father's name, nor makes the least allusion to his very recent death. John Dryden, the younger, died at Rome soon after this excursion.

Erasmus-Henry, Dryden's third son, was born 2d May, 1669, and educated in the Charter-House, to which he was nominated by Charles II., shortly after the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel."¶ He does not appear to have been at any university; probably his religion was the obstacle. Like his

The prologue was spoken by the ghosts of Shakespeare and Dryden: from which Mr. Malone selects the following curious quotation: Mr. Bevil Higgons, the writer of it, ventured to make the representative of our great dramatic poet speak these

gies: the great were as much astonished at their own neglect of such an object of bounty, as if the same omission had never been practised before; and expressed as much compunction, as it were never to occur again. The poets were not silent; but their strains only evinced their woeful degeneracy from him whom they mourned. Henry Playford, a publisher of music, collected their effusions into a compilation, entitled, "Luctus Britannici, or the Tears of the British Muscs, for the death of John Dryden;" which he published about two months after Dryden's death.s Nine ladies assuming each the character of a Muse, and clubbing a funeral ode, or elegy, produced "The Nine Muses;" of which very rare (and very worthless) collection, I have given a short account in the Appendix; where the reader will also find an ode on the same subject, by Oldys, which may serve for ample specimen of the poetical lamentations over Dryden.

brothers, he went to Rome; and as both his father and mother request his prayers, we are to suppose he was originally destined for the church. But he became a captain in the Pope's guards, and remained at Rome till John Dryden, his elder brother's death. After this event, he seems to have returned to England, and in 1708 succeeded to the title of Baronet, as representative of Sir Erasmus Driden, the author's grandfather. But the estate of CanonsAshby, which should have accompanied and supported the title, had been devised by Sir Robert Driden, the poet's first cousin, to Edward Dryden, the eldest son of Erasmus, the younger brother of the poet. Thus, if the author had lived a few years longer, his pecuniary embarrassments would have been embittered by his succeeding to the honours of his family, without any means of sustaining the rank they gave him. With this Edward Dryden, Şir Erasmus-Henry seems to have resided until his death, which took place at the family mansion of The more costly, though equally unsubstantial Canons-Ashby in 1710. Edward acted as a mana-honour of a monument, was projected by Montague; ger of his cousin's affairs; and Mr. Malone sees rea- and loud were the acclamations of the poets on his son to think, from their mode of accounting, that generous forgiveness of past discords with Dryden, Sir Erasmus-Henry had, like his mother, been visited and the munificence of this universal patron. But with mental derangement before his death, and had Montague never accomplished his purpose, if he se resigned into Edward's hands the whole manage- riously entertained it. Pelham, Duke of Newcas ment of his concerns. Thus ended the poet's fami- tle, announced the same intention; received the ly, none of his sons surviving him above ten years. panegyric of Congreve for having done so; and, The estate of Canons-Ashby became again united to having thus pocketed the applause, proceeded no the title, in the person of John Dryden, the surviving further than Montague had done. At length Pope, brother.* in some lines which were rather an epitaph on Dryden, who lay in the vicinity, than on Rowe, over whose tomb they were to be placed, roused Dryden's original patron, Sheffield, formerly Earl of Mulgrave, and now Duke of Buckingham, to erect over the grave of his friend the present simple monument which distinguishes it. The inscription was comprised in the following words:-J. Dryden. Ir Dryden received but a slender share of the gifts Natus 1632. Mortuus 1 Maii 1700. Joannes Shefof fortune, it was amply made up to him in reputa-field Dux Buckinghamiensis posuit, 1720.** tion. Even while a poet militant upon earth, he received no ordinary portion of that applause, which is too often reserved for the "dull cold ear of death." He combated, it is true, but he conquered; and, in despite of faction, civil and religious, of penury, and the contempt which follows it, of degrading patron-overment, which is designed to be in Chaucer's grave, in Westage, and rejected solicitation, from 1666 to the year of his death, the name of Dryden was first in English literature. Nor was his fame limited to Britain. Of the French literati, although Boileau,t with unworthy affectation, when he heard of the honours paid to the poet's remains, pretended ignorance even of his name, yet Rapin, the famous critic, learned the English language on purpose to read the works of Dryden. Sir John Shadwell, the son of our author's ancient adversary, bore an honourable and manly testimony to the general regret among the men of letters at Paris for the death of Dryden.

SECTION VIII.

The State of Dryden's Reputation at his death, and afterwards-
The general character of his mind-His merit as a Dramatist-
As a Lyrical Poet-As a Satirist-As a Narrative Poet-As a
Philosophical and Miscellaneous Poet-As a Translator-As a

Prose Author-As a Critic.

"The men of letters here lament the loss of Mr. Dryden very much. The honours paid to him have done our countrymen no small service; for, next to having so considerable a man of our own growth, 't is a reputation to have known how to value him; as patrons very often pass for wits, by esteeming those that are so." And from another authority we learn, that the engraved copies of Dryden's portrait were bought up with avidity on the Continent.Il But in England the loss of Dryden was as a naional deprivation. It is seldom the extent of such a loss is understood, till it has taken place; as the size of an object is best estimated, when we see the space void which it has long occupied. The men of literature, starting as it were from a dream, began to heap commemorations, panegyrics, and ele

Mr. Malone says, "Edward Dryden, the eldest son of the Jast Sir Erasmus Dryden, left by his wife, Elizabeth Allen, who died in London in 1761, five sons; the youngest of whom, Bevil, was father of the present Lady Dryden. Sir John, the eldest, survived all his brothers, and died without issue, at Canons-Ashby, March 20, 1770,"

Life and Works of Arthur Maynwaring, 1715, p. 17.
So says Charles Blount, in the dedication to the Religio
Laici. He is contradicted by Tom Brown.

In a poem published on Dryden's death, by Brome, written, as Mr Malone conjectures, by Captain Gibbon, son of the physi

clan.

In "The Postboy," for Tuesday, May 7, 1700, Playford inserted the following advertisement:

"The death of the famous John Dryden, Esq., Poet Laureat to
their two late Majesties, King Charles, and King James the
Second, being a subject capable of employing the best pens; and
several persons of quality, and others, having put a stop to his
minster Abbey; this is to desire the gentlemen of the two famous
Universities, and others, who have a respect for the memory of
the deceased, and are inclinable to such performances, to send
what copies they please, as Epigrams, &c. to Henry Playford, at
inserted in a Collection, which is designed after the same nature,
his shop at the Temple Change, in Fleet-street, and they shall be
and in the same method, (in what language they shall please,) as
is usual in the composures which are printed on solemn occasions,
at the two Universities aforesaid."
This advertisement, (with some alterations,) was continued for
a month in the same paper.

"Thy reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust,
And sacred place by Dryden's awful dust:
Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies,
To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes:
Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!
Blest in thy genius, in thy love too, blest!
One grateful woman to thy fame supplies,
What a whole thankless land to his denies."
**The epitaph at first intended by Pope for this monument

was,

"This Sheffield rais'd; the sacred dust below

Was Dryden once the rest, who does not know?" Atterbury had thus written to him on this subject, in 1720: "What I said to you in mine, about the monument, was intended only to quicken, not to alarm you. It is not worth your while to know what I meant by it; but when I see you, you shall. I hope you may be at the Deanery towards the end of October, by which time I think of settling there for the winter. What do you think of some such short inscription as this in Latin, which may, in a few words, say all that is to be said of Dryden, and yet nothing more than he deserves? "JOHANNI DRYDENO,

CUI POESIS ANGLICANA
VIM SUAM AC VENERES DEBET;

ET SI QUA IN POSTERUM AUGEBITUR LAUDE,
EST ADHUC DEBITURA.
HONORIS ERGO P. ETC.

"To show you that I am as much in earnest in the affair as you yourself, something I will send you of this kind in English If your design holds, of fixing Dryden's name only below, and his busto above, may not lines like these be graved just under the

name?

"This Sheffield raised, to Dryden's ashes just;
Here fixed his name, and there his laurell'd bust.