Book I. 231

THE

WORKS

OF

JOHN DRYDEN,

NOW FIRST COLLECTED

_IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES_.

ILLUSTRATED

WITH NOTES,

HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,

AND

A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.

VOL. XVIII.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,

BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.

1808.

CONTENTS

OF

VOLUME EIGHTEENTH.

PAGE.

Preface to a Dialogue concerning Women; being

a Defence of the Sex, 1

Character of M. St Evremont, 9

The Character of Polybius, 17

The Life of Lucian, 53

Dryden’s Letters, 83

Appendix, 183

Index, i

PREFACE

TO

A DIALOGUE CONCERNING WOMEN;

BEING

A DEFENCE OF THE SEX,

ADDRESSED TO EUGENIA, BY WILLIAM WALSH, ESQ.

8VO, 1691.

PREFACE

TO

A DIALOGUE CONCERNING WOMEN.

The author of this Dialogue, as Dr Johnson has observed, was more

remarkable for his familiarity with men of genius, than for any

productions of his own. He was the son of Joseph Walsh of Abberley,

in Worcestershire, and was born to an easy fortune. This last

circumstance may have contributed something to the extreme respect in

which he seems to have been held by the most accomplished of his age.

Dryden, in the Postscript to “Virgil,” calls Walsh the best critic

of the English nation; and, in the following Preface, he is profuse

in his commendation. But though these praises may have exceeded the

measure of Walsh’s desert, posterity owe a grateful remembrance to

him, who, though a staunch Whig, respected and befriended Dryden in

age and adversity, and who encouraged the juvenile essays of Pope, by

foretelling his future eminence. Walsh’s own Poems and Essays entitle

him to respectable rank among the minor poets. His Essay on the

Pastorals of Virgil, which he contributed to our author’s version, may

be found Vol. XIII. p. 345.

The “Dialogue concerning Women,” contains a critical disquisition upon

the virtues and foibles of the sex. But though the pleasantry be stale,

and the learning pedantic, it seems to have excited some attention when

published; perhaps because, as an angry Defender of the ladies observes,

----“To begin with Dryden’s dreadful name,

Should mark out something of no common fame.”

I cannot omit remarking, that the Dialogue concludes with a profuse

panegyric, upon a theme not very congenial to Dryden’s political

feelings, the character of Queen Mary.

PREFACE

TO

WALSH’S DIALOGUE

CONCERNING WOMEN.

The perusal of this Dialogue, in defence of the fair sex, written by

a gentleman of my acquaintance, much surprised me; for it was not

easy for me to imagine, that one so young[1] could have treated so

nice a subject with so much judgment. It is true, I was not ignorant,

that he was naturally ingenious, and that he had improved himself by

travelling; and from thence I might reasonably have expected that air

of gallantry, which is so visibly diffused through the body of the

work, and is indeed the soul that animates all things of this nature;

but so much variety of reading, both in ancient and modern authors,

such digestion of that reading, so much justness of thought, that it

leaves no room for affectation, or pedantry, I may venture to say,

are not over-common amongst practised writers, and very rarely to be

found amongst beginners. It puts me in mind of what was said of Mr

Waller, the father of our English numbers, upon the sight of his first

verses, by the wits of the last age; that he came out into the world

forty thousand strong, before they heard of him.[2] Here, in imitation

of my friend’s apostrophes, I hope the reader need not be told, that

Mr Waller is only mentioned for honour’s sake; that I am desirous of

laying hold on his memory, on all occasions, and thereby acknowledging

to the world, that unless he had written, none of us could write.

I know, my friend will forgive me this digression; for it is not only a

copy of his style, but of his candour. The reader will observe, that he

is ready for all hints of commending merit, and the writers of this age

and country are particularly obliged to him, for his pointing out those

passages which the French call _beaux endroits_, wherein they have

most excelled. And though I may seem in this to have my own interest in

my eyes, because he has more than once mentioned me[3] so much to my

advantage, yet I hope the reader will take it only for a parenthesis,

because the piece would have been very perfect without it. I may be

suffered to please myself with the kindness of my friend, without

valuing myself upon his partiality; he had not confidence enough to

send it out into the world, without my opinion of it, that it might

pass securely, at least amongst the fair readers, for whose service it

was principally designed. I am not so presuming to think my opinion

can either be his touchstone, or his passport; but I thought I might

send him back to Ariosto, who has made it the business of almost thirty

stanzas, in the beginning of the thirty-seventh book of his “Orlando

Furioso,” not only to praise that beautiful part of the creation, but

also to make a sharp satire on their enemies; to give mankind their

own, and to tell them plainly, that from their envy it proceeds, that

the virtue and great actions of women are purposely concealed, and the

failings of some few amongst them exposed with all the aggravating

circumstances of malice. For my own part, who have always been their

servant, and have never drawn my pen against them, I had rather see

some of them praised extraordinarily, than any of them suffer by

detraction; and that in this age, and at this time particularly,

wherein I find more heroines than heroes. Let me therefore give them

joy of their new champion. If any will think me more partial to him

than really I am, they can only say, I have returned his bribe; and

the worst I wish him is, that he may receive justice from the men, and

favour only from the ladies.

CHARACTER

OF

M. ST. EVREMONT.

CHARACTER OF M. ST. EVREMONT.

CHARLES DE ST DENIS, Seigneur de St Evremont, was born in 1613, of a

noble Norman family, and was early distinguished by the vivacity of his

wit, as well as by his gallantry; for, like all the French noblesse, he

followed the profession of arms. The Duke D’Enghien, afterwards Prince

of Conde, was particularly attached to him, and gave him an appointment

in his household. This he lost by ill-timed raillery on his patron.

He was committed to the Bastile for a joke on cardinal Mazarine; and

afterwards forced to fly into Holland for writing a satirical history

of the peace of the Pyrenees. From Holland St Evremont retreated

to England, where, at the witty court of Charles, his raillery was

better understood than in Holland, and less likely to incur unpleasant

consequences than in France. St Evremont naturally addressed himself

to his fair countrywomen Louise de Querouaille Duchess of Portsmouth,

and the Duchess of Mazarine; and, though they were rivals in Charles’s

affections, they united in protecting the Norman _bel-esprit_. The

king conferred on him a thousand caresses, and a small pension; on

which he lived, amusing himself by the composition of lighter pieces of

literature, and despising the country which afforded him refuge so very

thoroughly, that he did not even deign to learn English. The people

of England did not, however, consider the labours of their foreign

guest with similar apathy. After several surreptitious editions of his

various tracts had appeared, there was published, in 1692, a collection

entitled, “Miscellaneous Essays, by Monsieur St Evremont, translated

out of French; with his character, by a person of honour here in

England, continued by Mr Dryden.” Desmaiseaux, by whom a complete

edition of St Evremont’s works was edited in 1705, mentions it as well

known, that Dr Knightly Chetwood, who died dean of Gloucester, was the

person of honour in the title-page of 1692. His connection with Dryden

makes this highly probable; although there is reason to believe, that

the title of “person of honour” was not strictly applicable, and was

probably assumed for the purpose of disguising the real translator.

CHARACTER OF M. ST. EVREMONT.

I know how nice an undertaking it is to write of a living author; yet

the example of Father Bouhours has somewhat encouraged me in this

attempt. Had not Monsieur St Evremont been very considerable in his

own country, that famous jesuit would not have ventured to praise a

person in disgrace with the government of France, and living here in

banishment. Yet, in his “_Pensees Ingenieuses_,” he has often cited our

author’s thoughts and his expressions, as the standard of judicious

thinking, and graceful speaking; an undoubted sign that his merit was

sufficiently established, when the disfavour of the court could not

prevail against it. There is not only a justness in his conceptions,

which is the foundation of good writing, but also a purity of language,

and a beautiful turn of words, so little understood by modern writers;

and which, indeed, was found at Rome but at the latter end of the

commonwealth, and ended with Petronius, under the monarchy. If I durst

extend my judgment to particulars, I would say, that our author has

determined very nicely in his opinion of Epicurus; and that what he

has said of his morals, is according to nature and reason.

It is true, that as I am a religious admirer of Virgil, I could wish

that he had not discovered our father’s nakedness.[4] But, after all,

we must confess, that Æneas was none of the greatest heroes, and that

Virgil was sensible of it himself. But what could he do? the Trojan on

whom he was to build the Roman empire, had been already vanquished;

he had lost his country, and was a fugitive. Nay more, he had fought

unsuccessfully with Diomedes, and was only preserved from death by

his mother-goddess, who received a wound in his defence. So that

Virgil, bound as he was to follow the footsteps of Homer, who had thus

described him, could not reasonably have altered his character, and

raised him in Italy to a much greater height of prowess than he found

him formerly in Troy. Since, therefore, he could make no more of him

in valour, he resolved not to give him that virtue, as his principal;

but chose another, which was piety. It is true, this latter, in the

composition of a hero, was not altogether so shining as the former; but

it entitled him more to the favour of the gods, and their protection,

in all his undertakings; and, which was the poet’s chiefest aim, made

a nearer resemblance betwixt Æneas and his patron Augustus Cæsar, who,

above all things, loved to be flattered for being pious, both to the

gods and his relations. And that very piety, or gratitude, (call it

which you please,) to the memory of his uncle Julius, gave him the

preference, amongst the soldiers, to Mark Antony; and, consequently,

raised him to the empire. As for personal courage, that of Augustus

was not pushing;[5] and the poet, who was not ignorant of that defect,

for that reason durst not ascribe it, in the supreme degree, to him

who was to represent his emperor under another name: which was managed

by him with the most imaginable fineness; for had valour been set

uppermost, Augustus must have yielded to Agrippa. After all, this is

rather to defend the courtier than the poet; and to make his hero

escape again, under the covert of a cloud. Only we may add, what I

think Bossu says, that the Roman commonwealth being now changed into a

monarchy, Virgil was helping to that design; by insinuating into the

people the piety of their new conqueror, to make them the better brook

this innovation, which was brought on them by a man who was favoured by

the gods. Yet we may observe, that Virgil forgot not, upon occasion, to

speak honourably of Æneas, in point of courage, and that particularly

in the person of him by whom he was overcome. For Diomedes compares him

with Hector, and even with advantage:

_Quicquid apud duræ cessatum est mænia Trojæ,

Hectoris Æneæque manu victoria Graiûm

Hæsit, et in decimum vestigia retulit annum:

Ambo animis, ambo insignes præstantibus armis;

Hic pietate prior._

As for that particular passage, cited by Monsieur St Evremont, where

Æneas shows the utmost fear, in the beginning of a tempest,

_Extemplo Æneæ solvuntur frigore membra_, &c.

why may it not be supposed, that having been long at sea, he might

be well acquainted with the nature of a storm; and, by the rough

beginning, foresee the increase and danger of it? at least, as a father

of his people, his concernment might be greater for them than for

himself: and if so, what the poet takes from the merit of his courage,

is added to the prime virtue of his character, which was his piety.

Be this said with all manner of respect and deference to the opinion

of Monsieur St Evremont; amongst whose admirable talents, that of

penetration is not the least. He generally dives into the very bottom

of his authors; searches into the inmost recesses of their souls,

and brings up with him those hidden treasures which had escaped the

diligence of others. His examination of the “_Grand Alexandre,_”[6] in

my opinion, is an admirable piece of criticism; and I doubt not, but

that his observations on the English theatre had been as absolute in

their kind, had he seen with his own eyes, and not with those of other

men. But conversing in a manner wholly with the court, which is not

always the truest judge, he has been unavoidably led into mistakes,

and given to some of our coarsest poets a reputation abroad, which

they never had at home. Had his conversation in the town been more

general, he had certainly received other ideas on that subject; and not

transmitted those names into his own country, which will be forgotten

by posterity in ours.

Thus I have contracted my thoughts on a large subject; for whatever has

been said falls short of the true character of Monsieur St Evremont,

and his writings: and if the translation you are about to read does

not every where come up to the original, the translator desires you to

believe, that it is only because that he has failed in his undertaking.

THE CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS.

FIRST PRINTED IN OCTAVO, IN 1692.

CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS.

The character of Polybius was prefixed to a translation executed by

Sir Henry Shere, or Sheers;[7] the same gentleman whom Dryden has

elsewhere classed among the “finer spirits of the age.”[8] Our author

had announced this work to the public in the preface to “Cleomenes.”[9]

It was probably at that time under the press, or at least subjected

to Dryden for his correction. The translation itself is of little

value. Sir Henry disclaims all extent of erudition, and frankly

confesses, he “has no warrant from his depth of learning whereof to

make ostentation; wherein, indeed, he who most abounds ever finds

least cause of boasting.” Accordingly, his preface is employed in an

attempt to convince the world, that mere scholars, or book-learned men,

have rather traduced than translated Polybius, and most authors of

his class; such being totally at a loss to discover the sense of many

passages in history, wherein matters military and naval are handled. He

therefore takes up the pen as a man of the world, of business, science,

and conversation, long intimate with such matters as are principally

treated of by the historian. Finally, he describes his undertaking as

an “employment, wherein he who performs best, traffics for small gain,

and it would be unfair and unconscionable to make the loss more than

the adventure; and, at the worst, it having been rather a diversion

than a task, helping me to while away a few winter hours, which is some

recreation to one who has led a life of action and business; and whose

humour and fortune suit not with the pleasures of the town. Wherefore I

shall have little cause of complaint, if my well-meaning in consenting

to its publication be not so well received: I have been worse treated

by the world, to which I am as little indebted as most men, who have

spent near thirty years in public trusts; wherein I laboured, and

wasted my youth and the vigour of my days, more to the service of my

country, and the impairment of my health, than the improvement of

my fortune; having stood the mark of envy, slander, and hard usage,

without gleaning the least of those advantages, which use to be the

anchor-hold and refuge of such as wrongfully or otherwise suffer the

stroke of censure.”

Our author, who seems to have had an especial regard for Sir Henry

Shere, contributed this preliminary discourse.

Mr Malone has fixed Sir Henry Shere’s death to the year 1713, when his

library was exposed to sale by advertisement in “The Guardian.”

THE CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS, AND HIS WRITINGS.

The worthy author of this translation, who is very much my friend, was

pleased to entrust it in my hands for many months together, before he

published it, desiring me to review the English, and to correct what I

found amiss; which he needed not have done, if his modesty would have

given him leave to have relied on his own abilities, who is so great a

master of our style and language, as the world will acknowledge him to

be, after the reading of this excellent version.

It is true, that Polybius has formerly appeared in an English

dress,[10] but under such a cloud of errors in his first translation,

that his native beauty was not only hidden, but his sense perverted

in many places; so that he appeared unlike himself, and unworthy of

that esteem which has always been paid him by antiquity, as the most

sincere, the clearest, and most instructive of all historians. He is

now not only redeemed from those mistakes, but also restored to the

first purity of his conceptions; and the style in which he now speaks

is as plain and unaffected as that he wrote. I had only the pleasure

of reading him in a fair manuscript, without the toil of alteration;

at least it was so very inconsiderable, that it only cost me the dash

of a pen in some few places, and those of very small importance. So

much had the care, the diligence, and exactness of my friend prevented

my trouble, that he left me not the occasion of serving him, in a work

which was already finished to my hands. I doubt not but the reader will

approve my judgement. So happy it is for a good author to fall into the

hands of a translator, who is of a genius like his own; who has added

experience to his natural abilities; who has been educated in business

of several kinds; has travelled, like his author, into many parts of

the world, and some of them the same with the present scene of history;

has been employed in business of the like nature with Polybius,

and, like him, is perfectly acquainted not only with the terms of

the mathematics, but has searched into the bottom of that admirable

science, and reduced into practice the most useful rules of it, to his

own honour, and the benefit of his native country; who, besides these

advantages, possesses the knowledge of shipping and navigation; and,

in few words, is not ignorant of any thing that concerns the tactics:

so that here, from the beginning, we are sure of finding nothing that

is not thoroughly understood.[11] The expression is clear, and the

words adequate to the subject. Nothing in the matter will be mistaken;

nothing of the terms will be misapplied: all is natural and proper;

and he who understands good sense and English, will be profited by the

first, and delighted with the latter. This is what may be justly said

in commendation of the translator, and without the note of flattery to

a friend.

As for his author, I shall not be ashamed to copy from the learned

Casaubon, who has translated him into Latin,[12] many things which I

had not from my own small reading, and which I could not, without great

difficulty, have drawn, but from his fountain; not omitting some which

came casually in my way, by reading the preface of the Abbot Pichon to

the Dauphin’s “Tacitus,” an admirable and most useful work; which helps

I ingenuously profess to have received from them, both to clear myself

from being a plagiary of their writings, and to give authority, by

their names, to the weakness of my own performance.

The taking of Constantinople, by Mahomet the Great, fell into the

latter times of Pope Nicholas the Fifth,[13] a pope not only studious

of good letters, and particularly of history, but also a great

encourager of it in others. From the dreadful overthrow of that city,

and final subversion of the Greek empire, many learned men escaped,

and brought over with them into Italy that treasure of ancient

authors,[14] which, by their unhappiness, we now possess; and, amongst

the rest, some of these remaining fragments of Polybius. The body of

this history, as he left it finished, was consisting of forty books,

of which the eighth part[15] is only remaining to us entire. As for

his negociations, when he was sent ambassador either from his own

countrymen,[16] the commonwealth of the Achaians, or afterwards was

employed by the Romans on their business with other nations, we are

obliged to Constantine the Great for their preservation; for that

emperor was so much in love with the dexterous management and wisdom

of our author, that he caused them all to be faithfully transcribed,

and made frequent use of them in his own dispatches and affairs with

foreign princes, as his best guides in his concernments with them.

Polybius, as you will find in reading of him, though he principally

intended the history of the Romans, and the establishment of their

empire over the greatest part of the world which was then known, yet

had in his eye the general history of the times in which he lived, not

forgetting either the wars of his own country with their neighbours

of Etolia, or the concurrent affairs of Macedonia and the provinces

of Greece, which is properly so called; nor the monarchies of Asia

and Egypt; nor the republic of the Carthaginians, with the several

traverses of their fortunes, either in relation to the Romans, or

independent to the wars which they waged with them; besides what

happened in Spain and Sicily, and other European countries. The time,

which is taken up in this history, consists of three-and-fifty years;

and the greatest part of it is employed in the description of those

events, of which the author was an eye-witness, or bore a considerable

part in the conduct of them. But in what particular time or age it was,

when mankind received that irrecoverable loss of this noble history,

is not certainly delivered to us. It appears to have been perfect in

the reign of Constantine, by what I have already noted; and neither

Casaubon, nor any other, can give us any further account concerning it.

The first attempt towards a translation of him, was by command of the

same Pope Nicholas the Fifth, already mentioned, who esteemed him the

prince of Greek historians; would have him continually in his hands;

and used to make this judgement of him,--that, if he yielded to one

or two, in the praise of eloquence, yet, in wisdom, and all other

accomplishments belonging to a perfect historian, he was at least equal

to any other writer, Greek or Roman, and perhaps excelled them all.

This is the author, who is now offered to us in our mother-tongue,

recommended by the nobility of his birth, by his institution in arts

and sciences, by his knowledge in natural and moral philosophy, and

particularly the politics; by his being conversant both in the arts

of peace and war; by his education under his father Lycortas, who

voluntarily deposed himself from his sovereignty of Megalopolis to

become a principal member of the Achaian commonwealth, which then

flourished under the management of Aratus; by his friendship with

Scipio Africanus, who subdued Carthage, to whom he was both a companion

and a counsellor; and by the good-will, esteem, and intimacy, which he

had with several princes of Asia, Greece, and Egypt, during his life;

and after his decease, by deserving the applause and approbation of all

succeeding ages.

This author, so long neglected in the barbarous times of Christianity,

and so little known in Europe, (according to the fate which commonly

follows the best of writers,) was pulled from under the rubbish which

covered him, by the learned bishop, Nicholas the Fifth; and some parts

of his history (for with all his diligence he was not able to recover

the whole) were by him recommended to a person knowing both in the

Greek and Roman tongues, and learned for the times in which he lived,

to be translated into Latin; and, to the honour of our Polybius, he was

amongst the first of the Greek writers, who deserved to have this care

bestowed on him; which, notwithstanding so many hindrances occurred

in this attempt, that the work was not perfected in his popedom,

neither was any more than a third part of what is now recovered in his

hands; neither did that learned Italian,[17] who had undertaken him,

succeed very happily in that endeavour; for the perfect knowledge of

the Greek language was not yet restored, and that translator was but

as a one-eyed man amongst the nation of the blind; only suffered till

a better could be found to do right to an author, whose excellence

required a more just interpreter than the ignorance of that age

afforded. And this gives me occasion to admire, (says Casaubon,) that

in following times, when eloquence was redeemed, and the knowledge

of the Greek language flourished, yet no man thought of pursuing

that design, which was so worthily begun in those first rudiments of

learning. Some, indeed, of almost every nation in Europe, have been

instrumental in the recovery of several lost parts of our Polybius,

and commented on them with good success; but no man before Casaubon

had reviewed the first translation, corrected its errors, and put the

last hand to its accomplishment. The world is therefore beholden to

him for this great work; for he has collected into one their scattered

fragments, has pieced them together, according to the natural order

in which they were written, made them intelligible to scholars, and

rendered the French translator’s task more easy to his hands.

Our author is particularly mentioned with great honour by Cicero,

Strabo, Josephus, and Plutarch; and in what rank of writers they are

placed, none of the learned need to be informed. He is copied in whole

books together, by Livy, commonly esteemed the prince of the Roman

history, and translated word for word, though the Latin historian

is not to be excused, for not mentioning the man to whom he had been

so much obliged, nor for taking, as his own, the worthy labours of

another. Marcus Brutus, who preferred the freedom of his country to

the obligations which he had to Julius Cæsar, so prized Polybius,

that he made a compendium of his works; and read him not only for

his instruction, but for the diversion of his grief, when his noble

enterprize for the restoration of the commonwealth had not found the

success which it deserved. And this is not the least commendation of

our author, that he, who was not wholly satisfied with the eloquence

of Tully, should epitomise Polybius with his own hand.[18] It was on

the consideration of Brutus, and the veneration which he paid him, that

Constantine the Great took so great a pleasure in reading our author,

and collecting the several treaties of his embassies; of which, though

many are now lost, yet those which remain are a sufficient testimony

of his abilities; and I congratulate my country, that a prince of

our extraction (as was Constantine,) has the honour of obliging the

Christian world by these remainders of our great historian.

It is now time to enter into the particular praises of Polybius, which

I have given you before in gross; and the first of them (following the

method of Casaubon,) is his wonderful skill in political affairs. I

had read him, in English, with the pleasure of a boy, before I was ten

years of age; and yet, even then, had some dark notions of the prudence

with which he conducted his design, particularly in making me know, and

almost see, the places where such and such actions were performed. This

was the first distinction which I was then capable of making betwixt

him and other historians which I read early. But when being of a riper

age, I took him again into my hands, I must needs say, that I have

profited more by reading him than by Thucydides, Appian, Dion Cassius,

and all the rest of the Greek historians together; and amongst all the

Romans, none have reached him, in this particular, but Tacitus, who is

equal with him.

It is wonderful to consider with how much care and application he

instructs, counsels, warns, admonishes, and advises, whensoever he

can find a fit occasion. He performs all these sometimes in the

nature of a common parent of mankind; and sometimes also limits his

instructions to particular nations, by a friendly reproach of those

failings and errors to which they were most obnoxious. In this last

manner he gives instructions to the Mantinæans, the Elæans, and several

other provinces of Greece, by informing them of such things as were

conducing to their welfare. Thus he likewise warns the Romans of their

obstinacy and wilfulness, vices which have often brought them to the

brink of ruin. And thus he frequently exhorts the Greeks, in general,

not to depart from their dependence on the Romans; nor to take false

measures, by embroiling themselves in wars with that victorious people,

in whose fate it was to be masters of the universe. But as his peculiar

concernment was for the safety of his own countrymen, the Achaians, he

more than once insinuates to them the care of their preservation, which

consisted in submitting to the yoke of the Roman people, which they

could not possibly avoid; and to make it easy to them, by a cheerful

compliance with their commands, rather than unprofitably to oppose them

with the hazard of those remaining privileges which the clemency of the

conquerors had left them. For this reason, in the whole course of his

history he makes it his chiefest business to persuade the Grecians in

general, that the growing greatness and fortune of the Roman empire was

not owing to mere chance, but to the conduct and invincible courage of

that people, to whom their own virtue gave the dominion of the world.

And yet this counsellor of patience and submission, as long as there

was any probability of hope remaining to withstand the progress of the

Roman fortune, was not wanting to the utmost of his power to resist

them, at least to defer the bondage of his country, which he had long

foreseen. But the fates inevitably drawing all things into subjection

to Rome, this well-deserving citizen was commanded to appear in that

city,[19] where he suffered the imprisonment of many years; yet even

then his virtue was beneficial to him, the knowledge of his learning

and his wisdom procuring him the friendship of the most potent in the

senate; so that it may be said with Casaubon, that the same virtue

which had brought him into distress, was the very means of his relief,

and of his exaltation to greater dignities than those which he lost;

for by the intercession of Cato the Censor, Scipio Æmilianus, who

afterwards destroyed Carthage, and some other principal noblemen, our

Polybius was restored to liberty. After which, having set it down as a

maxim, that the welfare of the Achaians consisted, as I have said, in

breaking their own stubborn inclinations, and yielding up that freedom

which they no longer could maintain, he made it the utmost aim of his

endeavours to bring over his countrymen to that persuasion; in which,

though, to their misfortunes, his counsels were not prevalent, yet

thereby he not only proved himself a good patriot, but also made his

fortunes with the Romans. For his countrymen, by their own unpardonable

fault, not long afterwards drew on themselves their own destruction;

for when Mummius, in the Achaian war, made a final conquest of that

country, he dissolved the great council of their commonwealth.[20]

But, in the mean time, Polybius enjoyed that tranquillity of fortune

which he had purchased by his wisdom, in that private state, being

particularly dear to Scipio and Lælius, and some of the rest, who were

then in the administration of the Roman government. And that favour

which he had gained amongst them, he employed not in heaping riches

to himself, but as a means of performing many considerable actions;

as particularly when Scipio was sent to demolish Carthage,[21] he

went along with him in the nature of a counsellor and companion of

his enterprize. At which time, receiving the command of a fleet from

him, he made discoveries in many parts of the Atlantic Ocean, and

especially on the shores of Africa; and[22] doing many good offices

to all sorts of people whom he had power to oblige, especially to the

Grecians, who, in honour of their benefactor, caused many statues of

him to be erected, as Pausanias has written. The particular gratitude

of the Locrians in Italy is also an undeniable witness of this truth;

who, by his mediation, being discharged from the burden of taxes which

oppressed them, through the hardship of those conditions which the

Romans had imposed on them in the treaty of peace, professed themselves

to be owing for their lives and fortunes, to the interest only and good

nature of Polybius, which they took care to express by all manner of

acknowledgment.

Yet as beneficent as he was, the greatest obligement which he could lay

on human kind, was the writing of this present history; wherein he has

left a perpetual monument of his public love to all the world in every

succeeding age of it, by giving us such precepts as are most conducing

to our common safety and our benefit. This philanthropy (which we have

not a proper word in English to express,) is every-where manifest in

our author; and from hence proceeded that divine rule which he gave

to Scipio,--that whensoever he went abroad, he should take care not

to return to his own house, before he had acquired a friend by some

new obligement. To this excellency of nature we owe the treasure which

is contained in this most useful work: this is the standard by which

all good and prudent princes ought to regulate their actions. None

have more need of friends than monarchs; and though ingratitude is too

frequent in the most of those who are obliged, yet encouragement will

work on generous minds; and if the experiment be lost on thousands,

yet it never fails on all: and one virtuous man in a whole nation is

worth the buying, as one diamond is worth the search in a heap of

rubbish. But a narrow-hearted prince, who thinks that mankind is made

for him alone, puts his subjects in a way of deserting him on the

first occasion;[23] and teaches them to be as sparing of their duty,

as he is of his bounty. He is sure of making enemies, who will not be

at the cost of rewarding his friends and servants; and by letting his

people see he loves them not, instructs them to live upon the square

with him, and to make him sensible in his turn, that prerogatives are

given, but privileges are inherent. As for tricking, cunning, and

that which in sovereigns they call king-craft, and reason of state in

commonwealths, to them and their proceedings Polybius is an open enemy.

He severely reproves all faithless practices, and that κακοπραγμὁσυνη,

or vicious policy, which is too frequent in the management of the

public. He commends nothing but plainness, sincerity, and the common

good, undisguised, and set in a true light before the people. Not but

that there may be a necessity of saving a nation, by going beyond

the letter of the law, or even sometimes by superseding it; but then

that necessity must not be artificial,--it must be visible, it must

be strong enough to make the remedy not only pardoned, but desired,

to the major part of the people; not for the interest only of some

few men, but for the public safety: for otherwise, one infringement

of a law draws after it the practice of subverting all the liberties

of a nation, which are only entrusted with any government, but can

never be given up to it. The best way to distinguish betwixt a

pretended necessity and a true, is to observe if the remedy be rarely

applied, or frequently; in times of peace, or times of war and public

distractions, which are the most usual causes of sudden necessities.

From hence Casaubon infers, that this our author, who preaches virtue,

and probity, and plain-dealing, ought to be studied principally by

kings and ministers of state; and that youth, which are bred up to

succeed in the management of business, should read him carefully, and

imbibe him thoroughly, detesting the maxims that are given by Machiavel

and others, which are only the instruments of tyranny. Furthermore,

(continues he,) the study of truth is perpetually joined with the

love of virtue; for there is no virtue which derives not its original

from truth; as, on the contrary, there is no vice which has not its

beginning from a lie. Truth is the foundation of all knowledge, and the

cement of all societies; and this is one of the most shining qualities

in our author.

I was so strongly persuaded of this myself, in the perusal of the

present history, that I confess, amongst all the ancients I never found

any who had the air of it so much; and amongst the moderns, none but

Philip de Commines.[24] They had this common to them, that they both

changed their masters. But Polybius changed not his side, as Philip

did: he was not bought off to another party, but pursued the true

interest of his country, even when he served the Romans. Yet since

truth, as one of the philosophers has told me, lies in the bottom of

a well, so it is hard to draw it up: much pains, much diligence, much

judgment is necessary to hand it us; even cost is oftentimes required;

and Polybius was wanting in none of these.

We find but few historians of all ages, who have been diligent enough

in their search for truth: it is their common method to take on

trust what they distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood

once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity.

But Polybius weighed the authors from whom he was forced to borrow

the history of the times immediately preceding his, and oftentimes

corrected them, either by comparing them each with other, or by the

lights which he had received from ancient men of known integrity

amongst the Romans, who had been conversant in those affairs which were

then managed, and were yet living to instruct him. He also learned

the Roman tongue; and attained to that knowledge of their laws, their

rights, their customs, and antiquities, that few of their own citizens

understood them better: having gained permission from the senate to

search the Capitol, he made himself familiar with their records, and

afterwards translated them into his mother-tongue. So that he taught

the noblemen of Rome their own municipal laws, and was accounted more

skilful in them than Fabius Pictor, a man of the senatorian order, who

wrote the transactions of the Punic wars. He who neglected none of the

laws of history, was so careful of truth, (which is the principal,)

that he made it his whole business to deliver nothing to posterity

which might deceive them; and by that diligence and exactness, may

easily be known to be studious of truth, and a lover of it. What

therefore Brutus thought worthy to transcribe with his own hand out

of him, I need not be ashamed to copy after him: “I believe,” says

Polybius, “that nature herself has constituted truth as the supreme

deity, which is to be adored by mankind, and that she has given it

greater force than any of the rest; for being opposed, as she is on all

sides, and appearances of truth so often passing for the thing itself,

in behalf of plausible falsehoods, yet by her wonderful operation

she insinuates herself into the minds of men; sometimes exerting her

strength immediately, and sometimes lying hid in darkness for length of

time; but at last she struggles through it, and appears triumphant over

falsehood.” This sincerity Polybius preferred to all his friends, and

even to his father: “in all other offices of life,” says he, “praise

a lover of his friends, and of his native country; but in writing

history, I am obliged to divest myself of all other obligations, and

sacrifice them all to truth.”

Aratus, the Sicyonian, in the childhood of our author, was the chief

of the Achaian commonwealth; a man in principal esteem, both in his

own country and all the provinces of Greece; admired universally for

his probity, his wisdom, his just administration, and his conduct: in

remembrance of all which, his grateful countrymen, after his decease,

ordained him those honours which are only due to heroes. Him our

Polybius had in veneration, and formed himself by imitation of his

virtues; and is never wanting in his commendations through the course

of his history. Yet even this man, when the cause of truth required

it, is many times reproved by him for his slowness in counsel, his

tardiness in the beginning of his enterprises, his tedious and more

than Spanish deliberations; and his heavy and cowardly proceedings are

as freely blamed by our Polybius, as they were afterwards by Plutarch,

who questionless drew his character from this history. In plain terms,

that wise general scarce ever performed any great action but by night:

the glittering of a sword before his face was offensive to his eyes:

our author therefore boldly accuses him of his faint-heartedness;

attributes the defeat at Caphiæ wholly to him; and is not sparing to

affirm, that all Peloponnesus was filled with trophies, which were set

up as the monuments of his losses. He sometimes praises, and at other

times condemns the proceedings of Philip, king of Macedon, the son of

Demetrius, according to the occasions which he gave him by the variety

and inequality of his conduct; and this most exquisite on either side.

He more than once arraigns him for the inconstancy of his judgment,

and chapters even his own Aratus on the same head; shewing, by many

examples, produced from their actions, how many miseries they had both

occasioned to the Grecians; and attributing it to the weakness of

human nature, which can make nothing perfect. But some men are brave

in battle, who are weak in counsel, which daily experience sets before

our eyes; others deliberate wisely, but are weak in the performing

part; and even no man is the same to-day, which he was yesterday,

or may be to-morrow. On this account, says our author, “a good man

is sometimes liable to blame, and a bad man, though not often, may

possibly deserve to be commended.” And for this very reason he severely

taxes Timæus, a malicious historian, who will allow no kind of virtue

to Agathocles, the tyrant of Sicily, but detracts from all his actions,

even the most glorious, because in general he was a vicious man. “Is

it to be thought,” says Casaubon, “that Polybius loved the memory of

Agathocles, the tyrant, or hated that of the virtuous Aratus?” But it

is one thing to commend a tyrant, and another thing to overpass in

silence those laudable actions which are performed by him; because it

argues an author of the same falsehood, to pretermit what has actually

been done, as to feign those actions which have never been.

It will not be unprofitable, in this place, to give another famous

instance of the candour and integrity of our historian. There had

been an ancient league betwixt the republic of Achaia and the kings

of Egypt, which was entertained by both parties sometimes on the

same conditions, and sometimes also the confederacy was renewed on

other terms. It happened, in the 148th Olympiad,[25] that Ptolomy

Epiphanes, on this occasion, sent one Demetrius, his ambassador, to

the commonwealth of Achaia. That republic was then ruinously divided

into two factions; whereof the heads on one side were Philopœmen, and

Lycortas, the father of our author; of the adverse party, the chief

was Aristænus, with some other principal Achaians. The faction of

Philopœmen was prevalent in the council, for renewing the confederacy

with the king of Egypt; in order to which, Lycortas received a

commission to go to that court and treat the articles of alliance.

Accordingly, he goes, and afterwards returns, and gives account to his

superiors, that the treaty was concluded. Aristænus, hearing nothing

but a bare relation of a league that was made, without any thing

belonging to the conditions of it, and well knowing that several forms

of those alliances had been used in the former negociations, asked

Lycortas, in the council, according to which of them this present

confederacy was made? To this question of his enemy, Lycortas had not

a word to answer; for it had so happened by the wonderful neglect of

Philopœmen and his own, and also that of Ptolomy’s counsellors, (or, as

I rather believe, by their craft contrived,) that the whole transaction

had been loosely and confusedly managed, which, in a matter of so great

importance, redounded to the scandal and ignominy of Philopœmen and

Lycortas, in the face of that grave assembly. Now these proceedings

our author so relates, as if he had been speaking of persons to whom

he had no manner of relation, though one of them was his own father,

and the other always esteemed by him in the place of a better father.

But being mindful of the law which himself had instituted, concerning

the indispensable duty of an historian, (which is truth,) he chose

rather to be thought a lover of it, than of either of his parents. It

is true, Lycortas, in all probability, was dead when Polybius wrote

this history; but, had he been then living, we may safely think, that

his son would have assumed the same liberty, and not feared to have

offended him in behalf of truth.

Another part of this veracity is also deserving the notice of the

reader, though, at the same time we must conclude, that it was also an

effect of a sound judgment, that he perpetually explodes the legends of

prodigies and miracles, and instead of them, most accurately searches

into the natural causes of those actions which he describes; for, from

the first of these, the latter follows of direct consequence. And

for this reason, he professes an immortal enmity to those tricks and

jugglings, which the common people believe as real miracles; because

they are ignorant of the causes which produced them. But he had made

a diligent search into them, and found out, that they proceeded either

from the fond credulity of the people, or were imposed on them by the

craft of those whose interest it was that they should be believed.

You hear not in Polybius, that it rained blood or stones; that a

bull had spoken; or a thousand such impossibilities, with which Livy

perpetually crowds the calends of almost every consulship.[26] His new

years could no more begin without them, during his description of the

Punic wars, than our prognosticating almanacks without the effects of

the present oppositions betwixt Saturn and Jupiter, the foretelling of

comets and coruscations in the air, which seldom happen at the times

assigned by our astrologers, and almost always fail in their events.

If you will give credit to some other authors, some god was always

present with Hannibal or Scipio to direct their actions; that a visible

deity wrought journey-work under Hannibal, to conduct him through

the difficult passages of the Alps; and another did the same office

of drudgery for Scipio, when he besieged New Carthage, by draining

the water, which otherwise would have drowned his army in their rash

approaches; which Polybius observing, says wittily and truly, that the

authors of such fabulous kind of stuff write tragedies, not histories;

for, as the poets, when they are at a loss for the solution of a plot,

bungle up their catastrophe with a god descending in a machine, so

these inconsiderate historians, when they have brought their heroes

into a plunge by some rash and headlong undertaking, having no human

way remaining to disengage them with their honour, are forced to have

recourse to miracle, and introduce a god for their deliverance. It is

a common frenzy of the ignorant multitude, says Casaubon, to be always

engaging heaven on their side; and indeed it is a successful stratagem

of any general to gain authority among his soldiers, if he can persuade

them, that he is the man by fate appointed for such or such an action,

though most impracticable. To be favoured of God, and command (if it

may be permitted so to say,) the extraordinary concourse of Providence,

sets off a hero, and makes more specious the cause for which he fights,

without any consideration of morality, which ought to be the beginning

and end of all our actions; for, where that is violated, God is only

present in permission; and suffers a wrong to be done, but not commands

it. Light historians, and such as are superstitious in their natures,

by the artifice of feigned miracles captivate the gross understandings

of their readers, and please their fancies by relations of things which

are rather wonderful than true; but such as are of a more profound and

solid judgment, (which is the character of our Polybius), have recourse

only to their own natural lights, and by them pursue the methods at

least of probability, if they cannot arrive to a settled certainty. He

was satisfied that Hannibal was not the first who had made a passage

through the Alps, but that the Gauls had been before him in their

descent on Italy; and also knew, that this most prudent general, when

he laid his design of invading that country, had made an alliance with

the Gauls, and prepossessed them in his favour; and before he stirred a

foot from Spain, had provided against all those difficulties which he

foresaw in his attempt, and compassed his undertaking, which indeed

was void of miracles, but full of conduct, and military experience.

In the same manner, Scipio, before he departed from Rome, to take

his voyage into Spain, had carefully considered every particular

circumstance which might cross his purpose, and made his enterprize

as easy to him as human prudence could provide; so that he was

victorious over that nation, not by virtue of any miracle, but by his

admirable forecast, and wise conduct in the execution of his design.

Of which, though Polybius was not an eye-witness, he yet had it from

the best testimony, which was that of Lælius, the friend of Scipio,

who accompanied him in that expedition; of whom our author, with great

diligence; enquired concerning every thing of moment which happened in

that war, and whom he commends for his sincerity in that relation.

Whensoever he gives us the account of any considerable action, he never

fails to tell us why it succeeded, or for what reason it miscarried;

together with all the antecedent causes of its undertaking, and the

manner of its performance; all which he accurately explains: of which I

will select but some few instances, because I want leisure to expatiate

on many. In the fragments of the seventeenth book he makes a learned

dissertation concerning the Macedonian phalanx, or gross body of foot,

which was formerly believed to be invincible, till experience taught

the contrary by the success of the battle which Philip lost to the

commonwealth of Rome; and the manifest and most certain causes are

therein related, which prove it to be inferior to the Roman legions.

When also he had told us in his former books, of the three great

battles wherein Hannibal had overthrown the Romans, and the last at

Cannæ, wherein he had in a manner conquered that republic, he gives

the reasons of every defeat, either from the choice of ground, or the

strength of the foreign horse in Hannibal’s army, or the ill-timing of

the fight on the vanquished side. After this, when he describes the

turn of fortune on the part of the Romans, you are visibly conducted

upwards to the causes of that change, and the reasonableness of the

method which was afterwards pursued by that commonwealth, which raised

it to the empire of the world. In these and many other examples,

which for brevity are omitted, there is nothing more plain than that

Polybius denies all power to fortune, and places the sum of success in

Providence; συμβαινογγων τὑχην ἁιτιασθι φαυλον, indeed, are his words,

It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in

herself she is nothing, can rule nothing, but is ruled by prudence. So

that whenever our author seems to attribute any thing to chance, he

speaks only with the vulgar, and desires so to be understood.

But here I must make bold to part company with Casaubon for a moment.

He is a vehement friend to any author with whom he has taken any

pains; and his partiality to Persius, in opposition to Juvenal, is too

fresh in my memory to be forgotten.[27] Because Polybius will allow

nothing to the power of chance, he takes an occasion to infer, that

he believed a providence; sharply inveighing against those who have

accused him of atheism. He makes Suidas his second in this quarrel; and

produces his single evidence, and that but a bare assertion, without

proof, that Polybius believed, with us Christians, God administered

all human actions and affairs. But our author will not be defended

in this case; his whole history reclaims to that opinion. When he

speaks of Providence, or of any divine admonition, he is as much in

jest, as when he speaks of fortune; it is all to the capacity of the

vulgar. Prudence was the only divinity which he worshipped, and the

possession of virtue the only end which he proposed. If I would have

disguised this to the reader, it was not in my power. The passages

which manifestly prove his irreligion are so obvious that I need not

quote them. Neither do I know any reason why Casaubon should enlarge so

much in his justification; since to believe false gods, and to believe

none, are errors of the same importance. He who knew not our God, saw

through the ridiculous opinions of the heathens concerning theirs; and

not being able without revelation to go farther, stopped at home in

his own breast, and made prudence his goddess, truth his search, and

virtue his reward. If Casaubon, like him, had followed truth, he would

have saved me the ungrateful pains of contradicting him; but even the

reputation of Polybius, if there were occasion, is to be sacrificed to

truth, according to his own maxim.

As for the wisdom of our author, whereby he wonderfully foresaw the

decay of the Roman empire, and those civil wars which turned it down

from a commonwealth to an absolute monarchy, he who will take the pains

to review this history will easily perceive, that Polybius was of the

best sort of prophets, who predict from natural causes those events

which must naturally proceed from them. And these things were not to

succeed even in the compass of the next century to that wherein he

lived, but the person was then living who was the first mover towards

them; and that was that great Scipio Africanus, who, by cajoling the

people to break the fundamental constitutions of the government in

his favour, by bringing him too early to the consulship,[28] and

afterwards by making their discipline of war precarious, first taught

them to devolve the power and authority of the senate into the hands

of one, and then to make that one to be at the disposition of the

soldiery; which though he practised at a time when it was necessary

for the safety of the commonwealth, yet it drew after it those fatal

consequences, which not only ruined the republic, but also in process

of time, the monarchy itself. But the author was too much in the

interests of that family, to name Scipio; and therefore he gives other

reasons, to which I refer the reader, that I may avoid prolixity.

By what degrees Polybius arrived to this height of knowledge, and

consummate judgment in affairs, it will not be hard to make the reader

comprehend; for presupposing in him all that birth or nature could give

a man, who was formed for the management of great affairs, and capable

of recording them, he was likewise entered from his youth into those

employments which add experience to natural endowments; being joined in

commission with his father Lycortas, and the younger Aratus, before the

age of twenty, in an embassy to Egypt: after which he was perpetually

in the business of his own commonwealth, or that of Rome. So that it

seems to be one part of the Roman felicity, that he was born in an age

when their commonwealth was growing to the height; that he might be the

historian of those great actions, which were performed not only in his

lifetime, but the chief of them even in his sight.

I must confess, that the preparations to his history, or the

Prolegomena, as they are called, are very large, and the digressions in

it are exceeding frequent. But as to his preparatives, they were but

necessary to make the reader comprehend the drift and design of his

undertaking: and the digressions are also so instructive, that we may

truly say, they transcend the profit which we receive from the matter

of fact. Upon the whole, we may conclude him to be a great talker; but

we must grant him to be a prudent man. We can spare nothing of all he

says, it is so much to our improvement; and if the rest of his history

had remained to us, in all probability it would have been more close:

for we can scarce conceive what was left in nature for him to add, he

has so emptied almost all the common-places of digressions already; or

if he could have added any thing, those observations might have been as

useful and as necessary as the rest which he has given us, and that are

descended to our hands.

I will say nothing farther of the “Excerpta,” which (as Casaubon

thinks,) are part of that epitome which was begun to be made by Marcus

Brutus, but never finished; nor of those embassies which are collected

and compiled by the command of Constantine the Great; because neither

of them are translated in this work. And whether or no they will be

added in another impression, I am not certain; the translator of these

five books having carried his work no farther than it was perfect. He,

I suppose, will acquaint you with his own purpose, in the preface which

I hear he intends to prefix before Polybius.

Let us now hear Polybius himself describing an accomplished historian,

wherein we shall see his own picture, as in a glass, reflected to him,

and given us afterwards to behold in the writing of this history.

Plato said of old, that it would be happy for mankind, if either

philosophers administered the government, or that governors applied

themselves to the study of philosophy. I may also say, that it would

be happy for history, if those who undertake to write it, were men

conversant in political affairs; who applied themselves seriously

to their undertaking, not negligently, but as such who were fully

persuaded that they undertook a work of the greatest moment, of the

greatest excellency, and the most necessary for mankind; establishing

this as the foundation whereon they are to build, that they can never

be capable of performing their duty as they ought, unless they have

formed themselves beforehand to their undertaking, by prudence, and

long experience of affairs; without which endowments and advantages,

if they attempt to write a history, they will fall into a various and

endless labyrinth of errors.

When we hear this author speaking, we are ready to think ourselves

engaged in a conversation with Cato the Censor, with Lælius, with

Massinissa, and with the two Scipios; that is, with the greatest heroes

and most prudent men of the greatest age in the Roman commonwealth.

This sets me so on fire, when I am reading either here, or in any

ancient author, their lives and actions, that I cannot hold from

breaking out with Montagne into this expression: “It is just,” says he,

“for every honest man to be content with the government and laws of his

native country, without endeavouring to alter or subvert them; but if I

were to choose, where I would have been born, it should have been in a

commonwealth.” He indeed names Venice, which, for many reasons, should

not be my wish; but rather Rome in such an age, if it were possible,

as that wherein Polybius lived; or that of Sparta, whose constitution

for a republic, is by our author compared with Rome, to which he justly

gives the preference.

I will not undertake to compare Polybius and Tacitus; though, if I

should attempt it upon the whole merits of the cause, I must allow to

Polybius the greater comprehension, and the larger soul; to Tacitus,

the greater eloquence, and the more close connection of his thoughts.

The manner of Tacitus in writing is more like the force and gravity

of Demosthenes; that of Polybius more like the copiousness and

diffusive character of Cicero. Amongst historians, Tacitus imitated

Thucydides, and Polybius, Herodotus. Polybius foresaw the ruin of the

Roman commonwealth, by luxury, lust, and cruelty; Tacitus foresaw in

the causes those events which would destroy the monarchy. They are

both of them, without dispute, the best historians in their several

kinds. In this they are alike, that both of them suffered under the

iniquity of the times in which they lived; both their histories are

dismembered, the greatest part of them lost, and they are interpolated

in many places. Had their works been perfect, we might have had longer

histories, but not better. Casaubon, according to his usual partiality,

condemns Tacitus that he may raise Polybius; who needs not any sinister

artifice to make him appear equal to the best. Tacitus described the

times of tyranny; but he always writes with some kind of indignation

against them. It is not his fault that Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and

Domitian, were bad princes. He is accused of malevolence, and of taking

actions in the worst sense: but we are still to remember, that those

were the actions of tyrants. Had the rest of his history remained to

us, we had certainly found a better account of Vespasian, Titus, Nerva,

and Trajan, who were virtuous emperors; and he would have given the

principles of their actions a contrary turn. But it is not my business

to defend Tacitus; neither dare I decide the preference betwixt him

and our Polybius. They are equally profitable and instructive to the

reader; but Tacitus more useful to those who are born under a monarchy,

Polybius to those who live in a republic.

What may farther be added concerning the history of this author, I

leave to be performed by the elegant translator of his work.[29]

THE LIFE OF LUCIAN.

FIRST PRINTED IN 8VO, IN 1711.

THE LIFE OF LUCIAN.

The Dialogues of Lucian were translated by Walter Moyle, Sir Henry

Shere, Charles Blount, and others, and seem to have been intended

for publication about 1696, when our author supplied the following

prefatory life. The design was, however, for a time laid aside, and

the work did not appear until 1711 several years after Dryden’s death.

Hence the preface wants those last corrections, which, I suspect,

Dryden contented himself with bestowing upon the proof sheets, as they

came from press. I have followed several of Mr Malone’s judicious, and

indeed indispensable, corrections of the printed copy.

THE LIFE OF LUCIAN.

The writing a life is at all times, and in all circumstances, the most

difficult task of an historian; and, notwithstanding the numerous tribe

of biographers, we can scarce find one, except Plutarch, who deserves

our perusal, or can invite a second view. But if the difficulty

be so great where the materials are plentiful, and the incidents

extraordinary, what must it be when the person, that affords the

subject, denies matter enough for a page? The learned seldom abound

with action, and it is action only that furnishes the historian with

things agreeable and instructive. It is true, that Diogenes Laertius,

and our learned countryman Mr Stanley,[30] have both written the “Lives

of the Philosophers;” but we are more obliged to the various principles

of their several sects, than to any thing remarkable that they did,

for our entertainment.

But Lucian, as pleasing and useful as he was in his writings, in the

opinion of the most candid judges, has left so little of his own

affairs on record, that there is scarce sufficient to fill a page, from

his birth to his death.

There were many of the name of Lucian among the ancients, eminent

in several ways, and whose names have reached posterity with honour

and applause. Suidas mentions one, as a man of singular probity,

who, having discharged the administration of the chief prefect of

the Oriental empire,[31] under Arcadius, with extraordinary justice

and praise of the people, drew on himself the envy and hate of the

courtiers, (the constant attendant of eminent virtue and merit,)

and the anger of the emperor himself; and was at last murdered by

Rufinus.[32]

Among those, who were eminent for their learning, were some divines

and philosophers. Of the former, we find one in St Cyprian, to whom

the fourth and seventeenth epistles are inscribed. There was another,

priest of the church of Antioch, who, as Suidas assures us, reviewed,

corrected, and restored to its primitive purity, the Hebrew Bible; and

afterward suffered martyrdom, at Nicomedia, under Maximilian.[33] A

third was a priest of Jerusalem, who not only made a figure among the

learned of his own age,[34] but, as Gesnerus observes, conveyed his

reputation to posterity by the remains of his writings.

But none of this name has met with the general applause of so many

ages, as Lucian the philosopher and eminent sophist, who was author of

the following Dialogues, of whose birth, life, and death, I shall give

you all I could collect of any certain and historical credit.

He had not the good fortune to be born of illustrious or wealthy

parents, which give a man a very advantageous rise on his first

appearance in the world; but the father of our Lucian laboured under

so great a straitness of estate, that he was fain to put his son

apprentice to a statuary, whose genius for the finer studies was

so extraordinary and so rare; because he hoped from that business,

not only a speedy supply to his own wants, but was secure that his

education in that art would be much less expensive to him.

He was born in Samosata, a city of Syria, not far from the river

Euphrates; and for this reason, he calls himself more than once an

Assyrian, and a Syrian; but he was derived from a Greek original, his

forefathers having been citizens of Patras in Achaia.

We have nothing certain as to the exact time of his birth. Suidas

confirms his flourishing under the Emperor Trajan; but then he was

likewise before him. Some mention the reign of Adrian; but it cannot

be fixed to any year or consulate.[35]

The person he was bound to was his uncle, a man of a severe and morose

temper, of whom he was to learn the statuary’s and stone-cutter’s

art; for his father observing our Lucian, now a boy, of his own head,

and without any instructor, make various figures in wax, he persuaded

himself, that if he had a good master, he could not but arrive to an

uncommon excellence in it.

But it happened, in the very beginning of his time, he broke a model,

and was very severely called to account for it by his master. He, not

liking this treatment, and having a soul and genius above any mechanic

trade, ran away home.

After which, in his sleep, there appeared to him two young women, or

rather the tutelar goddesses of the statuary art, and of the liberal

sciences, hotly disputing of their preference to each other; and on a

full hearing of both sides, he bids adieu to statuary, and entirely

surrenders himself to the conduct of virtue and learning. And as his

desires of improvement were great, and the instructions he had, very

good, the progress he made was as considerable, till, by the maturity

of his age and his study, he made his appearance in the world.

Though it is not to be supposed, that there is any thing of reality in

this dream, or vision, of Lucian, which he treats of in his works, yet

this may be gathered from it,--that Lucian himself, having consulted

his genius, and the nature of the study his father had allotted him,

and that to which he found a propensity in himself, he quitted the

former, and pursued the latter, choosing rather to form the minds of

men than their statues.

In his youth, he taught rhetoric in Gaul, and in several other places.

He pleaded likewise at the bar in Antioch, the capital of Syria;

but the noise of the bar disgusting, and his ill success in causes

disheartening him, he quitted the practice of rhetoric and the law, and

applied himself to writing.

He was forty years old, when he first took to philosophy. Having a

mind to make himself known in Macedon, he took the opportunity of

speaking in the public assembly of all that region. In his old age, he

was received into the imperial family, and had the place of intendant

of Egypt,[36] after he had travelled through almost all the known

countries of that age to improve his knowledge in men, manners, and

arts; for some writers make this particular observation on his travel

into Gaul, and residence in that country, that he gained there the

greatest part of his knowledge in rhetoric, that region being in

his age, and also before it, a nursery of eloquence and oratory, as

Juvenal, Martial, and others, sufficiently witness.[37]

The manner of his death is obscure to us, though it is most probable

he died of the gout. Suidas alone tells a story of his being worried

to death, and devoured by dogs, returning from a feast; which being so

uncommon a death, so very improbable, and attested only by one author,

has found little credit with posterity. If it be true, that he was once

a Christian, and afterwards became a renegade to our belief, perhaps

some zealots may have invented this tale of his death, as a just and

signal punishment for his apostacy. All men are willing to have the

miracle, or at least the wonderful providence, go on their side, and

will be teaching God Almighty what he ought to do in this world, as

well as in the next; as if they were proper judges of his decrees,

and for what end he prospers some, or punishes others, in this life.

Ablancourt, and our learned countryman Dr Mayne,[38] look on the story

as a fiction: and, for my part, I can see no reason either to believe

he ever professed Christianity, or, if he did, why he might[39] not

more probably die in his bed at so great an age as fourscore and ten,

than be torn in pieces and devoured by dogs, when he was too feeble to

defend himself. So early began the want of charity, the presumption of

meddling with God’s government, and the spirit of calumny amongst the

primitive believers.

Of his posterity we know nothing more, than that he left a son behind

him, who was as much in favour with the Emperor Julian, as his father

had been with Aurelius the philosopher. This son became in time a

famous sophist; and among the works of Julian we find an epistle of

that great person to him.[40]

I find that I have mingled, before I was aware, some things which are

doubtful with some which are certain; forced indeed by the narrowness

of the subject, which affords very little of undisputed truth. Yet I

find myself obliged to do right to Monsieur d’Ablancourt,[41] who is

not positively of opinion, that Suidas was the author of this fable;

but rather that it descended to him by the tradition of former times,

yet without any certain ground of truth. He concludes it, however, to

be a calumny, perhaps a charitable kind of lie, to deter others from

satirizing the new dogmas of Christianity, by the judgment shown on

Lucian. We find nothing in his writings, which gives any hint of his

professing our belief; but being naturally curious, and living not

only amongst Christians, but in the neighbourhood of Judea, he might

reasonably be supposed to be knowing in our points of faith, without

believing them. He ran a muck, and laid about him on all sides with

more fury on the heathens, whose religion he professed; he struck at

ours but casually, as it came in his way, rather than as he sought it;

he contemned it too much to write in earnest against it.

We have indeed the highest probabilities for our revealed religion;

arguments which will preponderate with a reasonable man, upon a long

and careful disquisition; but I have always been of opinion, that we

can demonstrate nothing, because the subject-matter is not capable of a

demonstration. It is the particular grace of God, that any man believes

the mysteries of our faith; which I think a conclusive argument against

the doctrine of persecution in any church. And though I am absolutely

convinced, as I heartily thank God I am, not only of the general

principles of Christianity, but of all truths necessary to salvation

in the Roman church, yet I cannot but detest our inquisition, as it

is practised in some foreign parts, particularly in Spain and in the

Indies.

Those reasons, which are cogent to me, may not prevail with others, who

bear the denomination of Christians; and those which are prevalent with

all Christians, in regard of their birth and education, may find no

force, when they are used against Mahometans or heathens. To instruct

is a charitable duty; to compel, by threatenings and punishment, is the

office of a hangman, and the principle of a tyrant.

But my zeal in a good cause, as I believe, has transported me beyond

the limits of my subject. I was endeavouring to prove, that Lucian had

never been a member of the Christian church; and methinks it makes

for my opinion, that, in relating the death of Peregrinus, who, being

born a Pagan, pretended afterwards to turn Christian, and turned

himself publicly at the Olympic games, at his death professing himself

a cynic philosopher, it seems, I say, to me, that Lucian would not

have so severely declaimed against this Proteus, (which was another of

Peregrinus his names,) if he himself had been guilty of that apostacy.

I know not that this passage has been observed by any man before

me;[42] and yet in this very place it is, that this author has more

severely handled our belief, and more at large, than in any other part

of all his writings, excepting only the Dialogue of Triephon and

Critias,[43] wherein he lashes his own false gods with more severity

than the true; and where the first Christians, with their cropped hair,

their whining voices, melancholy faces, mournful discourses, and nasty

habits, are described with a greater air of Calvinists or Quakers, than

of Roman Catholics or Church of England men.

After all, what if this discourse last mentioned, and the rest of the

dialogues wherein the Christians are satirized, were none of Lucian’s?

The learned and ingenious Dr Mayne, whom I have before cited, is

of this opinion, and confirms it by the attestation of Philander,

Obsobœus, Mycillus, and Cognatus, whom since I have not read, or two of

them but very superficially, I refer you for the faith of his quotation

to the authors themselves.[44]

The next supposition concerning Lucian’s religion is, that he was of

none at all. I doubt not but the same people, who broached the story of

his being once a Christian, followed their blow upon him in this second

accusation.

There are several sorts of Christians at this day reigning in the

world, who will not allow any man to believe in the Son of God, whose

other articles of faith are not in all things conformable to theirs.

Some of these exercise this rigid and severe kind of charity, with

a good intent of reducing several sects into one common church; but

the spirit of others is evidently seen by their detraction, their

malice, their spitting venom, their raising false reports of those

who are not of their communion. I wish the ancientness of these

censorious principles may be proved by better arguments, than by any

near resemblance they have with the primitive believers. But till I am

convinced that Lucian has been charged with atheism of old, I shall be

apt to think that this accusation is very modern.

One of Lucian’s translators pleads in his defence, that it was very

improbable a man, who has laughed paganism out of doors, should believe

no God; that he, who could point to the sepulchre of Jupiter in Crete,

as well as our Tertullian, should be an atheist. But this argument, I

confess, is of little weight to prove him a deist, only because he was

no polytheist. He might as well believe in none, as in many gods; and

on the other side, he might believe in many, as Julian did, and not in

one. For my own part, I think it is not proved that either of them were

apostates, though one of them, in hopes of an empire, might temporize,

while Christianity was the mode at court. Neither is our author cleared

any thing the more, because his writings have served, in the times of

the heathens, to destroy that vain, unreasonable, and impious religion;

_that_ was an oblique service, which Lucian never intended us; for his

business, like that of some modern polemics, was rather to pull down

every thing, than to set up any thing. With what show of probability

can I urge in his defence, that one of the greatest among the fathers

has drawn whole homilies from our author’s dialogue, since I know that

Lucian made them not for that purpose? The occasional good which he has

done, is not to be imputed to him. St Chrysostom, St Augustin, and many

others, have applied his arguments on better motives than their author

proposed to himself in framing them.

These reasons therefore, as they make nothing against his being an

atheist, so they prove nothing of his believing one God; but only leave

him as they found him, and leave us in as great an obscurity concerning

his religion as before. I may be as much mistaken in my opinion as

these great men have been before me; and this is very probable, because

I know less of him than they; yet I have read him over more than once,

and therefore will presume to say, that I think him either one of the

Eclectic[45] school, or else a Sceptic: I mean, that he either formed

a body of philosophy for his own use out of the opinions and dogmas of

several heathen philosophers, disagreeing amongst themselves, or that

he doubted of every thing; weighed all opinions, and adhered to none

of them; only used them as they served his occasion for the present

dialogue, and perhaps rejected them in the next. And indeed this last

opinion is the more probable of the two, if we consider the genius of

the man, whose image we may clearly see in the glass which he holds

before us of his writings, which reflects him to our sight.

Not to dwell on examples, with which his works are amply furnished,

I will only mention two. In one, Socrates convinces his friend

Chærephon of the power of the gods in transformations, and of a supreme

Providence which accompanies that power in the administration of the

world. In another, he confutes Jupiter, and pulls him down from heaven

to earth, by his own Homerical chain; and makes him only a subservient

slave to blind eternal fate. I might add, that he is, in one half of

his book, a Stoic, in the other an Epicurean; never constant to himself

in any scheme of divinity, unless it be in despising his gentile gods.

And this derision, as it shews the man himself, so it gives us an idea

of the age in which he lived; for if that had been devout or ignorant,

his scoffing humour would either have been restrained, or had not

passed unpunished; all knowing ages being naturally sceptic, and not at

all bigotted; which, if I am not much deceived, is the proper character

of our own.

To conclude this article: He was too fantastical, too giddy, too

irresolute, either to be any thing at all, or any thing long; and in

this view I cannot think he was either a steady atheist, or a deist,

but a doubter, a sceptic, as he plainly declares himself to be, when he

puts himself under the name of Hermotimus the Stoic, in the dialogue

called the “Dialogue of the Sects.”

As for his morals, they are spoken of as variously as his opinions.

Some are for decrying him more than he deserves; his defenders

themselves dare not set him up for a pattern of severe virtue. No

man is so profligate, as openly to profess vice; and therefore it is

no wonder, if under the reign of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two

Antonines, of which the last was his patron and benefactor, he lived

not so much a libertine as he had it to be in his nature. He is more

accused for his love of boys than of women. Not that we have any

particular story to convince us of this detestable passion in him; but

his own writings bear this record against him, that he speaks often of

it, and I know not that ever he condemns it. Repeated expressions, as

well as repeated actions, witness some secret pleasure in the deed, or

at least some secret inclination to it. He seems to insinuate, in his

“Dialogue of Loves,” that Socrates was given to this vice; but we find

not that he blames him for it, which, if he had been wholly innocent

himself, it became a philosopher to have done. But as we pass over a

foul way as hastily as we can, so I will leave this abominable subject,

which strikes me with horror when I name it.

If there be any who are guilty of this sin, we may assure ourselves

they will never stop at any other; for when they have overleaped the

bounds of nature, they run so fast to all other immoralities, that the

grace of God, without a miracle, can never overtake them.

Lucian is accused likewise for his writing too lusciously in his

“Dialogue of the Harlots.”[46] It has been the common fault of all

satirists, to make vice too amiable, while they expose it; but of all

men living, I am the most unfit to accuse Lucian, who am so little

able to defend myself from the same objection. We find not, however,

that Lucian was charged with the wantonness of his “Dialogues” in his

own life-time. If he had been, he would certainly have answered for

himself, as he did to those who accused him for exposing Socrates,

Plato, Diogenes, and other great philosophers, to the laughter of the

people, when Jupiter sold them by an inch of candle. But, to confess

the truth, [as] I am of their opinion, who think that answer of his not

over-ingenuous, viz. that he only attacked the false philosophers of

their sects, in their persons whom he honoured; so I am persuaded, that

he could not have alleged more in his excuse for these “Dialogues,”

than that as he taught harlots to deceive, so, at the same time, he

discovered their deceits to the knowledge of young men, and thereby

warned them to avoid the snare.

I find him not charged with any other faults, than what I have already

mentioned. He was otherwise of a life as unblameable as any man, for

aught we find to the contrary: and I have this probable inducement to

believe it, because he had so honourable an employment under Marcus

Aurelius, an emperor as clear-sighted as he was truly virtuous; for

both which qualities we need not quote Lucian, who was so much obliged

to him, but may securely appeal to Herodian, and to all the historians

who have written of him,--besides the testimony of his own admirable

works, which are yet in the hands of all the learned.

As for those who condemn our author for the too much gall and virulency

of his satires, it is to be suspected, says Dr Mayne, that they

themselves are guilty of those hypocrisies, crimes, and follies, which

he so sharply exposes, and at the same time endeavours to reform. I

may add, that, for the most part, he rather laughs like Horace, than

bites like Juvenal. Indeed his genius was of kin to both, but more

nearly related to the former. Some diseases are curable by lenitives;

to others corrosives are necessary. Can a man inveigh too sharply

against the cruelty of tyrants, the pride and vanity of the great,

the covetousness of the rich, the baseness of the Sophists, and

particularly of the Cynics, (who while they preach poverty to others,

are heaping up riches, and living in gluttony,) besides the wrangling

of the sects amongst themselves about supreme happiness, which he

describes at a drunken feast, and calls it the battle of the Lapithæ.

Excepting what already is excepted, he seems to me to be an enemy

to nothing but to vice and folly. The pictures which he draws of

Nigrinus and of Demonax are as fair as that of virtue herself, if,

as the philosopher said, she could wear a body. And if we oppose to

them the lives of Alexander the false prophet, and of Peregrinus, how

pleasingly, and with how much profit, does the deformity of the last

set off the beauty of the first!

Some of his censurers accuse him of flatness and want of wit in many

places. These I suppose have read him in some Latin translations, which

I confess, are generally dull; and this is the only excuse I can make

for them. Otherwise they accuse themselves too manifestly for want

of taste or understanding. Of this number is the wretched author of

the _Lucien en Belle Humeur_, who being himself as insipid as a Dutch

poet, yet arraigns Lucian for his own fault; introduces the ghost of

Ablancourt, confessing his coldness in many places, the poorness of

his thoughts, and his want of humour; represents his readers tired

and yawning at his ill buffoonery and false mirth, and sleeping

over his melancholic stories, which are every where stuffed with

improbabilities. He could have said no worse of a Leyden slip.[47]

The best on it is, the jaundice is only in his own eyes, which makes

Lucian look yellow to him. All mankind will exclaim against him for

preaching this doctrine; and be of opinion when they read his Lucian,

that he looked in a glass when he drew his picture. I wish I had the

liberty to lash this frog-land wit as he deserves; but when a speech

is not seconded in parliament, it falls of course; and this author has

the whole senate of the learned to pull him down: _incipient omnes pro

Cicerone loqui_.

It is to be acknowledged, that his best translator, Ablancourt, thinks

him not a profound master in any sort of philosophy; but only that

he skimmed enough from every sect, to serve his turn in rhetoric,

which was his profession. This he gathers from his superficial way of

arguing. But why may not another man reply in his defence, that he

made choice of those kinds of reasons which were most capable of being

made to shine in his facetious way of arguing; and those undoubtedly

were not the most knotty, nor the deepest, but the most diverting by

the sharpness of the raillery. Dr Mayne, so often praised, has another

opinion of Lucian’s learning, and the strength of his witty arguments,

concluding on that subject in these words, or near them: “For my part,

I know not to whose writings we owe more our Christianity, where the

true God has succeeded a multitude of false,--whether to the grave

confutation of Clemens Alexandrinus, Arnobius, Justin Martyr, St.

Augustin, Lactantius, &c. or the facetious wit of Lucian.”--I cannot

doubt but the treacherous translator would have given his hand to

what the Englishman has said of their common author. The success has

justified his opinion in the sight of all the world. Lucian’s manner

of convincing, was certainly more pleasant than that of the Christian

writers, and we know the effect was full as powerful; so easily can the

Eternal Wisdom draw good out of evil, and make his enemy subservient to

the establishment of his faith.

I will not enlarge on the praises of his oratory. If we compare his

style with the Greek historians, his contemporaries, or near his time,

we shall find it much more pure than that of Plutarch, Dion, or Appian,

though not so grave; because his subjects and theirs required to be

treated after a different manner. It was not of an uniform web, says

Mayne, like Thucydides, Polybius, and some others whom he names, but

was somewhat peculiar to himself; his words well chosen, his periods

round, the parts of his sentences harmoniously divided, a full flood

or even a torrent of persuasion, without inequalities or swellings;

such as might be put in equal comparison with the best orations of

Demosthenes or Isocrates; not so dry as the first, nor so flowery as

the last. His wit, says Ablancourt, was full of urbanity, that attic

salt, which the French call, fine raillery; not obscene, not gross,

not rude, but facetious, well mannered, and well bred: only he will

not allow his love the quality last mentioned, but thinks it rustical,

and according either to his own genius, or that of the age in which he

lived.

If wit consists in the propriety of thoughts and words, (which I

imagined I had first found out, but since am pleasingly convinced that

Aristotle has made the same definition in other terms,) then Lucian’s

thoughts and words are always proper to his characters and his subject.

If the pleasure arising from comedy and satire be either laughter, or

some nobler sort of delight, which is above it, no man is so great a

master of irony as our author. That figure is not only a keen, but a

shining weapon in his hand; it glitters in the eyes of those it kills;

his own gods, his greatest enemies, are not butchered by him, but

fairly slain: they must acknowledge the hero in the stroke, and take

the comfort which Virgil gives to a dying captain:

_Æneæ magni dextrâ cadis._

I know not whom Lucian imitated, unless it might be Aristophanes; (for

you never find him mentioning any Roman wit, so much the Grecians

thought themselves superior to their conquerors;) but he, who has best

imitated him in Latin, is Erasmus; and in French, Fontenelle, in his

“Dialogues of the Dead,” which I never read but with a new pleasure.

Any one may see, that our author’s chief design was to dis-nest heaven

of so many immoral and debauched deities; his next, to expose the mock

philosophers; and his last, to give us examples of a good life in the

persons of the true.

The rest of his discourses are on mixed subjects, less for profit than

delight; and some of them too libertine.

The way which Lucian chose of delivering these profitable and pleasing

truths, was that of dialogue: a choice worthy of the author; happily

followed, as I said above, by Erasmus, and Fontenelle particularly, to

whom I may justly add a triumvir of our own,--the reverend, ingenious,

and learned Dr Eachard,[48] who, by using the same method, and the same

ingredients of raillery and reason, has more baffled the philosopher of

Malmesbury, than those who assaulted him with blunt heavy arguments,

drawn from orthodox divinity; for Hobbes foresaw where those strokes

would fall, and leaped aside before they could descend; but he could

not avoid those nimble passes, which were made on him by a wit more

active than his own, and which were within his body, before he could

provide for his defence.

I will not here take notice of the several kinds of dialogue, and the

whole art of it, which would ask an entire volume to perform. This

has been a work long wanted, and much desired, of which the ancients

have not sufficiently informed us; and I question whether any man now

living can treat it accurately. Lucian, it seems, was very sensible

of the difficult task, which he undertook in writing dialogues, as

appears in his discourse against one who had called him Prometheus.

He owns himself, in this particular, to be like to him, to whom he

was resembled, to be the inventor of a new work, attempted in a new

manner,--the model of which he had from none before him; but adds

withal, that if he could not give it the graces which belong to so

happy an invention, he deserves to be torn by twelve vultures, instead

of one, which preys upon the heart of that first man-potter. For,

to quit the beaten road of the ancients, and take a path of his own

choosing, he acknowledges to be a bold and ridiculous attempt, if it

succeed not. “The mirth of dialogue and comedy in my work,” says he,

“is not enough to make it pleasing, because the union of two contraries

may as well produce a monster as a miracle; as a centaur results from

the joint natures of a horse and man. It is not but that from two

excellent beings a third may arise of perfect beauty; but it is what I

dare not promise to myself; for dialogue being a solemn entertainment

of grave discourse, and comedy the wit and fooling of a theatre, I

fear that through the corruption of two good things, I have made one

bad. But whatever the child be, it is my own at least; I beg not with

another’s brat upon my back. From which of the ancients should I have

stolen or borrowed it? My chimeras have no other being than my own

imagination; let every man produce who can; and whether this be a

lawful birth, or a misshapen mass, is left for the present age, and for

posterity, to judge.”

This is the sense of my author’s words contracted in a narrow compass;

for, if you will believe Ablancourt, and others, his greatest fault is,

that he exhausts his argument,--like Ovid, knows not when to give over,

but is perpetually galloping beyond his stage.

But though I cannot pursue our author any farther, I find myself

obliged to say something of those translators of the following

Dialogues, whom I have the honour to know, as well as of some other

translations of this author; and a word or two of translation itself.

As for the translators, all of them, that I know, are men of

established reputation, both for wit and learning, at least

sufficiently known to be so among all the finer spirits of the age.

Sir Henry Sheers has given many proofs of his excellence in this kind;

for while we, by his admirable address, enjoy Polybius in our mother

tongue, we can never forget the hand that bestowed the benefit. The

learning and judgment above his age, which every one discovers in Mr

Moyle,[49] are proofs of those abilities he has shewn in his country’s

service, when he was chose to serve it in the senate, as his father

had done. The wit of Mr Blount,[50] and his other performances, need

no recommendation from me; they have made too much noise in the world

to need a herald. There are some other persons concerned in this

work, whose names deserve a place among the foremost, but that they

have not thought fit to be known, either out of a bashful diffidence

of their own performance, or out of apprehension of the censure of

an ill-natured and ill-judging age; for criticism is now become mere

hangman’s work, and meddles only with the faults of authors; nay, the

critic is disgusted less with their absurdities than excellence; and

you cannot displease him more than in leaving him little room for his

malice, in your correctness and perfection; though that indeed is what

he never allows any man; for, like the bed of Procrustes, they stretch

or cut off an author to its length. These spoilers of Parnassus are

a just excuse for concealing the name, since most of their malice is

levelled more at the person than the thing; and as a sure mark of their

judgment, they will extol to the skies the anonymous work of a person

they will not allow to write common sense.

But this consideration of our modern critics has led me astray, and

made me insensibly deviate from the subject before me; the modesty or

caution of the anonymous translators of the following work. Whatever

the motive of concealing their names may be, I shall not determine; but

it is certain, nothing could more contribute to make a perfect version

of Lucian, than a confederacy of many men of parts and learning to do

him justice. It seems a task too hard for any one to undertake; the

burden would indeed be insupportable, unless we did what the French

have done in some of their translations, allow twenty years to perfect

the work, and bestow all the brightest intervals, the most sprightly

hours, to polish and finish the work.[51]

But this has not been the fate of our author hitherto; for Lucian, that

is the sincere example of attic eloquence, as Grævius says of him, is

only a mass of solecism, and mere vulgarisms in Mr Spence.[52] I do

not think it worth my while to rake into the filth of so scandalous a

version; nor had I vouchsafed so much as to take notice of it, had it

not been so gross an affront to the memory of Lucian, and so great a

scandal to our nation. D’Ablancourt has taken a great deal of pains to

furnish this intruder into print, with Lucian, in a language more known

to him than Greek; nay, he has left him not one crabbed idiom to study

for, since he has admirably clothed him in a garb more familiar to the

moderns, still keeping the sense of his author in view. But in spite of

all these helps, these leading-strings were not sufficient to keep Mr

Spence from falling to the ground every step he made; while he makes

him speak in the style and language of a jack-pudding, not a master of

eloquence, admired for it through all the ages since he wrote. But too

much of this trifler.

I have said enough already of the version of the learned Dr Mayne, to

shew my approbation of it; but it is only a select parcel of Lucian’s

Dialogues which pleased him most, but far from the whole. As for any

other translation, if there be any such in our language, it is what I

never saw,[53] and suppose it must be antiquated, or of so inferior a

degree, as not even to rival Spence.

The present translation, as far as I can judge by what I have seen, is

no way inferior to Ablancourt’s, and in many things is superior. It

has indeed the advantage of appearing in a language more strong and

expressive than French, and by the hands of gentlemen who perfectly

understand him and their own language.

This has brought me to say a word or two about translation in general;

in which no nation might more excel than the English, though, as

matters are now managed, we come so far short of the French. There may

indeed be a reason assigned, which bears a very great probability;

and that is, that here the booksellers are the undertakers of works

of this nature, and they are persons more devoted to their own gain

than the public honour. They are very parsimonious in rewarding the

wretched scribblers they employ; and care not how the business is done,

so that it be but done. They live by selling titles, not books; and if

that carry off one impression, they have their ends, and value not the

curses they and their authors meet with from the bubbled chapmen. While

translations are thus at the disposal of the booksellers, and have no

better judges or rewarders of the performance, it is impossible that

we should make any progress in an art so very useful to an enquiring

people, and for the improvement and spreading of knowledge, which is

none of the worst preservatives against slavery.

It must be confessed, that when the bookseller has interest with

gentlemen of genius and quality, above the mercenary prospects of

little writers, as in that of Plutarch’s Lives,[54] and this of Lucian,

the reader may satisfy himself that he shall have the author’s spirit

and soul in the traduction. These gentlemen know very well, that they

are not to creep after the words of their author, in so servile a

manner as some have done; for that must infallibly throw them on a

necessity of introducing a new mode of diction and phraseology with

which we are not at all acquainted, and would incur that censure which

my Lord Dorset made formerly on those of Mr Spence, viz. that he was

so cunning a translator, that a man must consult the original, to

understand the version. For every language has a propriety and idiom

peculiar to itself, which cannot be conveyed to another without

perpetual absurdities.

The qualification of a translator, worth reading, must be, a mastery

of the language he translates out of, and that he translates into; but

if a deficience be to be allowed in either, it is in the original;

since if he be but master enough of the tongue of his author, as to

be master of his sense, it is possible for him to express that sense

with eloquence in his own, if he have a thorough command of that.

But without the latter, he can never arrive at the useful and the

delightful; without which reading is a penance and fatigue.

It is true that there will be a great many beauties, which in every

tongue depend on the diction, that will be lost[55] in the version of a

man not skilled in the original language of the author; but then on the

other side, first it is impossible to render all those little ornaments

of speech in any two languages; and if he have a mastery in the sense

and spirit of his author, and in his own language have a style and

happiness of expression, he will easily supply all that is lost by that

defect.

A translator that would write with any force or spirit of an original,

must never dwell on the words of his author. He ought to possess

himself entirely, and perfectly comprehend the genius and sense of his

author, the nature of the subject, and the terms of the art or subject

treated of; and then he will express himself as justly, and with as

much life, as if he wrote an original; whereas, he who copies word for

word, loses all the spirit in the tedious transfusion.

I would not be understood that he should be at liberty to give such a

turn as Mr Spence has in some of his; where for the fine raillery and

attic salt of Lucian, we find the gross expressions of Billingsgate, or

Moorfields and Bartholomew Fair. For I write not to such translators,

but to men capacious of the soul and genius of their authors, without

which all their labour will be of no use but to disgrace themselves,

and injure the author that falls into their slaughter-house.

I believe I need give no other rules to the reader than the following

version, where example will be stronger than precept, to which I now

refer them; in which a man justly qualified for a translator will

discover many rules extremely useful to that end. But [to] a man who

wants these natural qualifications which are necessary for such an

undertaking, all particular precepts are of no other use, than to make

him a more remarkable coxcomb.

DRYDEN’S LETTERS.

LETTERS OF DRYDEN.

The Letters of Dryden, so far as hitherto given to the public,

are, with a few exceptions, singularly uninteresting. To the

publication of some, which are known to exist, there were found to

occur still stronger objections. I have been only able to add one

to those collected by Mr Malone; and I was strongly tempted to omit

several. There is, however, a satisfaction in seeing how such a man

expressed himself, even upon the most trivial occasions; and I have

therefore retained those complimentary acknowledgments of turkeys,

marrow-puddings, and bacon, which have nothing but such a consideration

to recommend them.

DRYDEN’S LETTERS.

LETTER I.

TO THE FAIRE HANDS OF MADAME HONOR DRYDEN THESE CRAVE ADMITTANCE.[56]

MADAME, Camb. May 23, 16[55.]

If you have received the lines I sent by the reverend Levite, I doubt

not but they have exceedingly wrought upon you; for beeing so longe

in a clergyman’s pocket, assuredly they have acquired more sanctity

than theire authour meant them. Alasse, Madame! for ought I know, they

may become a sermon ere they could arrive at you; and believe it,

haveing you for the text, it could scarcely proove bad, if it light

upon one that could handle it indifferently. But I am so miserable a

preacher, that though I have so sweet and copious a subject, I still

fall short in my expressions; and, instead of an use of thanksgiving, I

am allways makeing one of comfort, that I may one day againe have the

happinesse to kisse your faire hand; but that is a message I would not

so willingly do by letter, as by word of mouth.

This is a point, I must confesse, I could willingly dwell longer

on; and, in this case, what ever I say you may confidently take for

gospell. But I must hasten. And indeed, Madame, (_beloved_ I had almost

sayd,) hee had need hasten who treats of you; for to speake fully to

every part of your excellencyes, requires a longer houre than most

persons[57] have allotted them. But, in a word, your selfe hath been

the best expositor upon the text of your own worth, in that admirable

comment you wrote upon it; I meane your incomparable letter. By all

that’s good, (and you, Madame, are a great part of my oath,) it hath

put mee so farre besides my selfe, that I have scarce patience to

write prose, and my pen is stealing into verse every time I kisse your

letter. I am sure, the poor paper smarts for my idolatry, which, by

wearing it continually neere my brest, will, at last, be burnt and

martyrd in those flames of adoration, which it hath kindled in mee. But

I forgett, Madame, what rarityes your letter came fraught with, besides

words. You are such a deity that commands worship by provideing the

sacrifice. You are pleasd, Madame, to force me to write, by sending me

materialls, and compell me to my greatest happinesse. Yet, though I

highly value your magnificent presente, pardon mee, if I must tell the

world, they are imperfect emblems of your beauty; for the white and red

of waxe and paper are but shaddowes of that vermillion and snow in your

lips and forehead; and the silver of the inkehorne, if it presume to

vye whitenesse with your purer skinne, must confesse it selfe blacker

then the liquor it containes. What then do I more then retrieve your

own guifts, and present you with that paper adulterated with blotts,

which you gave spotlesse?

For, since ’twas mine, the white hath lost its hiew,

To show ’twas n’ere it selfe, but whilst in you:

The virgin waxe hath blusht it selfe to red,

Since it with mee hath lost its maydenhead.

You, fairest nymph, are waxe: oh! may you bee

As well in softnesse, as in purity!

Till fate, and your own happy choice, reveale,

Whom you so farre shall blesse, to make your seale.

Fairest Valentine, the unfeigned wishe of your humble votary,

JO. DRYDEN.

LETTER II.

TO [JOHN WILMOT,] EARL OF ROCHESTER.

MY LORD, Tuesday. [July, 1673.][58]

I have accused my selfe this month together, for not writing to you.

I have called my selfe by the names I deserved, of unmannerly and

ungratefull. I have been uneasy, and taken up the resolutions of a man,

who is betwixt sin and repentance, convinc’d of what he ought to do,

and yet unable to do better. At the last, I deferred it so long, that

I almost grew hardened in the neglect; and thought I had suffered so

much in your good opinion, that it was in vain to hope I could redeem

it. So dangerous a thing it is to be inclin’d to sloath, that I must

confess, once for all, I was ready to quit all manner of obligations,

and to receive, as if it were my due, the most handsome compliment,

couch’d in the best language I have read, and this too from my Lord

of Rochester, without shewing myself sensible of the favour. If your

Lordship could condescend so far to say all those things to me, which I

ought to have say’d to you, it might reasonably be concluded, that you

had enchanted me to believe those praises, and that I owned them in my

silence. ’Twas this consideration that moved me at last to put off my

idleness. And now the shame of seeing my selfe overpay’d so much for an

ill Dedication, has made me almost repent of my address. I find, it is

not for me to contend any way with your Lordship, who can write better

on the meanest subject, then I can on the best. I have only engaged

my selfe in a new debt, when I had hoped to cancell a part of the old

one; and should either have chosen some other patron, whom it was in

my power to have obliged by speaking better of him then he deserv’d,

or have made your Lordship only a hearty Dedication of the respect and

honour I had for you, without giving you the occasion to conquer me, as

you have done, at my own weapon.

My only relief is, that what I have written is publique, and I am so

much my own friend as to conceal your Lordship’s letter; for that which

would have given vanity to any other poet, has only given me confusion.

You see, my Lord, how far you have push’d me; I dare not own the honour

you have done me, for fear of shewing it to my own disadvantage. You

are that _rerum natura_ of your own Lucretius;

_Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri._[59]

You are above any incense I can give you, and have all the happiness

of an idle life, join’d with the good-nature of an active. Your

friends in town are ready to envy the leisure you have given your

selfe in the country, though they know you are only their steward, and

that you treasure up but so much health as you intend to spend on

them in winter. In the mean time, you have withdrawn your selfe from

attendance, the curse of courts; you may think on what you please,

and that as little as you please; for, in my opinion, thinking it

selfe is a kind of pain to a witty man; he finds so much more in it to

disquiet than to please him. But I hope your Lordship will not omitt

the occasion of laughing at the great Duke of B[uckingham,] who is

so uneasy to him selfe by pursuing the honour of lieutenant-general,

which flyes him, that he can enjoy nothing he possesses,[60] though, at

the same time, he is so unfit to command an army, that he is the only

man in the three nations, who does not know it; yet he still picques

himself, like his father, to find another Isle of Rhe in Zealand;[61]

thinking this disappointment an injury to him, which is indeed a

favour, and will not be satisfied but with his own ruin and with ours.

’Tis a strange quality in a man to love idleness so well as to destroy

his estate by it; and yet, at the same time, to pursue so violently the

most toilsome and most unpleasant part of business. These observations

would soon run into lampoon, if I had not forsworn that dangerous

part of wit; not so much out of good-nature, but lest from the inborn

vanity of poets I should shew it to others, and betray my selfe to a

worse mischief than what I do to my enemy. This has been lately the

case of Etherege, who, translating a satyr of Boileau’s, and changing

the French names for English, read it so often, that it came to their

ears who were concern’d, and forced him to leave off the design, e’re

it were half finish’d. Two of the verses I remember:

I call a spade, a spade; Eaton,[62] a bully;

Frampton,[63] a pimp; and brother John, a cully.

But one of his friends imagin’d those names not enough for the dignity

of a satyr, and chang’d them thus:

I call a spade, a spade; Dunbar,[64] a bully;

Brounckard,[65] a pimp; and Aubrey Vere,[66] a cully.

Because I deal not in satyr, I have sent your Lordship a prologue and

epilogue, which I made for our players, when they went down to Oxford.

I hear they have succeeded; and by the event your Lordship will judge

how easy ’tis to pass any thing upon an university, and how gross

flattery the learned will endure.[67] If your Lordship had been in

town, and I in the country, I durst not have entertained you with three

pages of a letter; but I know they are very ill things which can be

tedious to a man, who is fourscore miles from Covent Garden. ’Tis upon

this confidence, that I dare almost promise to entertain you with a

thousand _bagatelles_ every week, and not to be serious in any part of

my letter, but that wherein I take leave to call myself your Lordship’s

Most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER III.

_The following Note and Letter contains the determination of a dispute,

and probably of a wager, which had been referred to our author by the

parties. It concerns a passage in Creech’s “Lucretius,” and probably

was written soon after the publication of that translation in 1682,

when it was a recent subject of conversation. The full passage in

“Lucretius” runs thus_:

Præterea quæcunque vetustate amovet ætas,

Si penitus perimit, consumens materiam omnem,

Unde animale genus generatim in lumina vitæ

Redducit Venus?----

_Which Creech thus renders_:

_Besides, if o’er whatever years prevail

Should wholly perish, and its matter fail,

How could the powers of all kind Venus breed

A constant race of animals to succeed?_

_The translation of Creech is at least complicated and unintelligible;

and I am uncertain whether even Dryden’s explanation renders it

grammatical. Dryden speaks elsewhere with great applause of Creech’s

translation._

_The original of this decision (in Dryden’s hand-writing) is in the

possession of Mrs White of Bownham-hall, Gloucestershire, and was most

obligingly communicated to the editor by that lady, through the medium

of Mr Constable of Edinburgh._

* * * * *

The two verses, concerning which the dispute is rais’d, are these:

Besides, if o’re whatever yeares prevaile

Shou’d wholly perish, and its matter faile.

The question arising from them is, whether any true grammatical

construction can be made of them? The objection is, that there is

no nominative case appearing to the word _perish_, or that can be

understood to belong to it.

I have considered the verses, and find the authour of them to have

notoriously bungled; that he has plac’d the words as confus’dly as if

he had studied to do so. This notwithstanding, the very words, without

adding or diminishing in theire proper sence, (or at least what the

authour meanes,) may run thus:--_Besides, if what ever yeares prevaile

over, should wholly perish, and its matter faile._

I pronounce therefore, as impartially as I can upon the whole, that

there _is_ a nominative case, and that figurative, so as Terence and

Virgil, amongst others, use it; that is, the whole clause precedent

is the nominative case to _perish_. My reason is this, and I think

it obvious; let the question be ask’d, what it is that should wholly

perish, or that perishes? The answer will be, That which yeares

prevaile over. If you will not admit a clause to be in construction a

nominative case, the word _thing_, _illud_, or _quodcunque_, is to be

understood, either of which words, in the femine gender, agree with

_res_, so that he meanes what ever _thing_ time prevails over shou’d

wholly perish, and its matter faile.

Lucretius, his Latine runs thus:

_Prætereà, quæcunque vetustate amovet ætas,

Si penitus perimit, consumens materiam omnem,

Unde animale genus, generatim in lumina vitæ

Redducit Venus? &c._

which ought to have been translated thus:

Besides, what ever time removes from view,

If he destroys the stock of matter too,

From whence can kindly propagation spring,

Of every creature, and of every thing?

I translated it _whatever_ purposely, to shew, that _thing_ is to

be understood; which, as the words are heere plac’d, is so very

perspicuous, that the nominative case cannot be doubted.

The word, _perish_, used by Mr Creech, is a verb neuter; where

Lucretius puts _perimit_, which is active; a licence which, in

translating a philosophical poet, ought not to be taken; for some

reason, which I have not room to give. But to comfort the loser, I am

apt to believe, that the cross-grain confused verse put him so much out

of patience, that he wou’d not suspect it of any sence.

* * * * *

SIR,

The company having done me so great an honour as to make me their

judge, I desire from you the favour of presenting my acknowledgments

to them; and shou’d be proud to heere from you, whether they rest

satisfyed in my opinion, who am,

Sir,

Your most humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.[68]

LETTER IV.

TO THE REV. DR BUSBY.

HONOUR’D SIR, Wednesday Morning, [1682.]

We have, with much ado, recover’d my younger sonn,[69] who came home

extreamly sick of a violent cold, and, as he thinks him selfe, a

chine-cough. The truth is, his constitution is very tender; yet

his desire of learning, I hope, will inable him to brush through

the college. He is allwayes gratefully acknowledging your fatherly

kindnesse to him; and very willing to his poore power, to do all things

which may continue it. I have no more to add, but only to wish the

eldest may also deserve some part of your good opinion; for I believe

him to be of vertuous and pious inclinations; and for both, I dare

assure you, that they can promise to them selves no farther share of my

indulgence, then while they carry them selves with that reverence to

you, and that honesty to all others, as becomes them. I am, honour’d

Sir,

Your most obedient servant and scholar,

JOHN DRYDEN.[70]

LETTER V.

TO THE REV. DR BUSBY.

SIR, [1682.]

If I could have found in my selfe a fitting temper to have waited

upon you, I had done it the day you dismissed my sonn[71] from the

college; for he did the message: and by what I find from Mr Meredith,

as it was delivered by you to him; namely, that you desired to see

me, and had somewhat to say to me concerning him. I observ’d likewise

somewhat of kindnesse in it, that you sent him away, that you might not

have occasion to correct him. I examin’d the business, and found, it

concern’d his having been _custos_[72] foure or five dayes together.

But if he admonished, and was not believed, because other boyes

combined to discredit him with false witnesseing, and to save them

selves, perhaps his crime is not so great. Another fault, it seems,

he made, which was going into one Hawkes his house, with some others;

which you hapning to see, sent your servant to know who they were, and

he onely returned you my sonn’s name; so the rest escaped.

I have no fault to find with my sonn’s punishment; for that is, and

ought to be, reserv’d to any master, much more to you, who have been

his father’s. But your man was certainly to blame to name him onely;

and ’tis onely my respect to you, that I do not take notice of it

to him. My first rash resolutions were, to have brought things past

any composure, by immediately sending for my sonn’s things out of

college; but upon recollection, I find, I have a double tye upon me

not to do it: one, my obligations to you for my education; another, my

great tendernesse of doeing any thing offensive to my Lord Bishop of

Rochester,[73] as cheife governour of the college. It does not consist

with the honour I beare him and you to go so precipitately to worke;

no, not so much as to have any difference with you, if it can possibly

be avoyded. Yet, as my sonn stands now, I cannot see with what credit

he can be elected; for, being but sixth, and (as you are pleased to

judge,) not deserving that neither, I know not whether he may not go

immediately to Cambridge, as well as one of his own election went to

Oxford this yeare[74] by your consent. I will say nothing of my second

sonn, but that, after you had been pleased to advise me to waite on my

Lord Bishop for his favour, I found he might have had the first place,

if you had not opposed it; and I likewise found at the election, that,

by the pains you had taken with him, he in some sort deserved it.

I hope, Sir, when you have given your selfe the trouble to read thus

farr, you, who are a prudent man, will consider, that none complaine,

but they desire to be reconciled at the same time: there is no mild

expostulation, at least, which does not intimate a kindness and respect

in him who makes it. Be pleas’d, if there be no merit on my side, to

make it your own act of grace to be what you were formerly to my sonn.

I have done something, so far to conquer my own spirit as to ask it;

and, indeed, I know not with what face to go to my Lord Bishop, and

to tell him I am takeing away both my sonns; for though I shall tell

him no occasion, it will looke like a disrespect to my old master, of

which I will not be guilty, if it be possible. I shall add no more, but

hope I shall be so satisfyed with a favourable answer from you, which

I promise to my selfe from your goodnesse and moderation, that I shall

still have occasion to continue,

Sir,

Your most obliged humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.[75]

LETTER VI.

TO LAURENCE HYDE, EARL OF ROCHESTER[76]

MY LORD, [Perhaps August 1683.]

I know not whether my Lord Sunderland has interceded with your Lordship

for half a yeare of my salary; but I have two other advocates, my

extreme wants, even almost to arresting, and my ill health, which

cannot be repaired without immediate retireing into the country.

A quarter’s allowance is but the Jesuit’s powder to my disease;

the fit will return a fortnight hence. If I durst, I would plead a

little merit, and some hazards of my life from the common enemyes; my

refuseing advantages offered by them, and neglecting my beneficiall

tudyes, for the King’s service: but I only thinke I merit not to

sterve. I never apply’d myselfe to any interest contrary to your

Lordship’s; and on some occasions, perhaps not known to you, have

not been unserviceable to the memory and reputation of my Lord, your

father.[77] After this, my Lord, my conscience assures me, I may write

boldly, though I cannot speake to you. I have three sonns growing

to man’s estate; I breed them all up to learning, beyond my fortune;

but they are too hopefull to be neglected, though I want. Be pleased

to looke on me with an eye of compassion. Some small employment would

render my condition easy. The King is not unsatisfied of me; the Duke

has often promised me his assistance; and your Lordship is the conduit

through which they passe, either in the Customes, or the Appeals of

the Excise,[78] or some other way, meanes cannot be wanting, if you

please to have the will. ’Tis enough for one age to have neglected Mr

Cowley, and sterv’d Mr Butler; but neither of them had the happiness to

live till your Lordship’s ministry. In the meane time, be pleased to

give me a gracious and speedy answer to my present request of halfe a

yeare’s pention for my necessityes. I am going to write somewhat by his

Majesty’s command,[79] and cannot stir into the country for my health

and studies, till I secure my family from want. You have many petitions

of this nature, and cannot satisfy all; but I hope, from your goodness,

to be made an exception to your general rules,[80] because I am, with

all sincerity,

Your Lordship’s

Most obedient humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER VII.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

_The letters to Tonson are without dates. I have retained those which

Mr Malone has attached to them, from circumstances of internal evidence

which it seems unnecessary to detail, but which appear in general

satisfactory, though not given as absolutely conclusive._

MR TONSON, Monday Morning, [1684.]

The two melons you sent I received before your letter, which came

foure houres after: I tasted one of them, which was too good to need

an excuse; the other is yet untouched. You have written diverse things

which give me great satisfaction; particularly that the History of the

League is commended: and I hope the onely thing I feared in it is not

found out.[81] Take it all together, and I dare say without vanity,

’tis the best translation of any history in English, though I cannot

say ’tis the best history; but that is no fault of mine. I am glad

my Lord Duke of Ormond has one: I did not forget him; but I thought

his sorrows were too fresh upon him to receive a present of that

nature.[82] For my Lord Roscommon’s Essay,[83] I am of your opinion,

that you should reprint it, and that you may safely venture on a

thousand more. In my verses before it, pray let the printer mend his

errour, and let the line stand thus:

That heer his conqu’ring ancestors were nurs’d;--[84]

Charles his copy[85] is all true. The other faults my Lord Roscommon

will mend in the booke, or Mr Chetwood[86] for him, if my Lord be gone

for Ireland; of which, pray send me word.

Your opinion of the Miscellanyes[87] is likewise mine: I will for

once lay by the “_Religio Laici_,” till another time. But I must also

add, that since we are to have nothing but new, I am resolved we will

have nothing but good, whomever we disoblige. You will have of mine,

four Odes of Horace, which I have already translated; another small

translation of forty lines from Lucretius; the whole story of Nisus and

Eurialus, both in the fifth and the ninth of Virgil’s Æneids: and I

care not who translates them beside me; for let him be friend or foe, I

will please myself, and not give off in consideration of any man. There

will be forty lines more of Virgil in another place, to answer those

of Lucretius: I meane those very lines which Montagne has compared

in those two poets; and Homer shall sleep on for me,--I will not now

meddle with him. And for the Act which remains of the Opera,[88] I

believe I shall have no leysure to mind it, after I have done what I

proposed; for my business here is to unweary my selfe after my studyes,

not to drudge.

I am very glad you have pay’d Mr Jones, because he has carryed him

selfe so gentlemanlike to me; and, if ever it lyes in my power, I will

requite it. I desire to know whether the Duke’s House are makeing

cloaths, and putting things in a readiness for the singing Opera, to be

played immediately after Michaelmasse.[89] For the actors in the two

playes[90] which are to be acted of mine this winter, I had spoken with

Mr Betterton by chance at the Coffee-house the afternoon before I came

away; and I believe that the persons were all agreed on, to be just

the same you mentioned; only Octavia was to be Mrs Butler, in case Mrs

Cooke were not on the stage; and I know not whether Mrs Percival, who

is a comedian, will do well for Benzayda.

I came hither for health, and had a kind of hectique feavour for a

fortnight of the time: I am now much better. Poore Jack[91] is not yet

recovered of an intermitting feavour, of which this is the twelfth day;

but he mends, and now begins to eat flesh: to add to this, my man,

with over care of him, is fallen ill too, of the same distemper; so

that I am deep in doctors, ’pothecaries, and nurses: but though many

in this country fall sick of feavours, few or none dye. Your friend,

Charles,[92] continues well. If you have any extraordinary newes, I

should be glad to heare it. I will answer Mr Butler’s letter next week;

for it requires no hast.

I am yours,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER VIII.

FROM JACOB TONSON TO JOHN DRYDEN, ESQ.

SIR, [Probably written in Jan. or Feb. 1692-3.][93]

I have here returned y^e Ovid, w^{ch} I read w^th a great deal of

pleasure, and think nothing can be more entertaining; but by this

letter you find I am not soe well satisfied as perhaps you might think.

I hope at y^e same time the matter of fact I lay down in this letter

will appear grounds for it, and w^{ch} I beg you wou’d concider of; and

then I believe I shall at least bee excused.

You may please, S^r, to remember, that upon my first proposal about y^e

3^d Miscellany, I offer’d fifty pounds, and talk’d of several authours,

without naming Ovid. You ask’d if it shou’d not be guynneas, and said

I shou’d not repent it; upon w^{ch} I imediately comply’d, and left

it wholy to you what, and for y^e quantity too: and I declare it was

the farthest in y^e world from my thoughts that by leaving it to you

I shou’d have the less. Thus the case stood when you went into Essex.

After I came out of Northamptonshire I wrote to you, and reseived a

letter dated Monday Oct. 3^d, 92, from w^{ch} letter I now write word

for word what followes:

“I am translating about six hundred lines, or somewhat less, of y^e

first book of the Metamorphoses. If I cannot get my price, w^{ch} shall

be twenty guynneas, I will translate the whole book; w^{ch} coming out

before the whole translation, will spoyl Tate’s undertakings. ’Tis one

of the best I have ever made, and very pleasant. This, w^{th} Heroe and

Leander, and the piece of Homer, (or, if it be not enough, I will add

more,) will make a good part of a Miscellany.”

Those, S^r, are y^e very words, and y^e onely ones in that letter

relating to that affair; and y^e Monday following you came to

town.--After your arrivall you shew’d Mr Motteaux what you had done,

(w^{ch} he told me was to y^e end of y^e story of Daphnis,) [Daphne,]

and demanded, as you mention’d in your letter, twenty guyneas, w^{ch}

that bookseller refus’d. Now, S^r, I the rather believe there was

just soe much done, by reason y^e number of lines you mention in yo^r

letter agrees w^{th} y^e quantity of lines that soe much of y^e first

book makes; w^{ch} upon counting y^e Ovid, I find to be in y^e Lattin

566, in y^e English 759; and y^e bookseller told me there was noe more

demanded of him for it.--Now, S^r, what I entreat you wou’d please to

consider of is this: that it is reasonable for me to expect at least

as much favour from you as a strange bookseller; and I will never

believe y^t it can be in yo^r nature to use one y^e worse for leaveing

it to you; and if the matter of fact as I state it be true, (and upon

my word what I mention I can shew you in yo^r letter,) then pray,

S^r, consider how much dearer I pay then you offered it to y^e other

bookseller; for he might have had to y^e end of y^e story of Daphnis

for 20 guynneas, w^{ch} is in yo^r translation

759 lines;

And then suppose 20 guyneas more for the same number 759 lines,

---------

that makes for 40 guyneas 1518 lines;

and all that I have for fifty guyneas are but 1446; soe that, if I have

noe more, I pay 10 guyneas above 40, and have 72 lines less for fifty,

in proportion, than the other bookseller shou’d have had for 40, at

y^e rate you offered him y^e first part. This is, Sir, what I shall

take as a great favour if you please to think of. I had intentions of

letting you know this before; but till I had paid y^e money, I would

not ask to see the book, nor count the lines, least it shou’d look like

a design of not keeping my word. When you have looked over y^e rest of

what you have already translated, I desire you would send it; and I own

y^t if you don’t think fit to add something more, I must submit: ’tis

wholly at yo^r choice, for I left it intirely to you; but I believe you

cannot imagine I expected soe little; for you were pleased to use me

much kindlyer in Juvenall, w^{ch} is not reckon’d soe easy to translate

as Ovid. S^r, I humbly beg yo^r pardon for this long letter, and upon

my word I had rather have yo^r good will than any man’s alive; and,

whatever you are pleased to doe, will alway acknowledge my self, S^r,

Yo^r most obliged humble Serv^t,

J. TONSON.

LETTER IX.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.[94]

MR TONSON, August 30. [1693.]

I am much asham’d of my self, that I am so much behind-hand with you

in kindness. Above all things I am sensible of your good nature, in

bearing me company to this place, wherein, besides the cost, you must

needs neglect your own business; but I will endeavour to make you some

amends; and therefore I desire you to command me something for your

service. I am sure you thought my Lord Radclyffe[95] wou’d have done

something: I ghess’d more truly, that he cou’d not; but I was too far

ingag’d to desist, though I was tempted to it by the melancholique

prospect I had of it. I have translated six hundred lines of Ovid; but

I believe I shall not compasse his 772 lines under nine hundred or

more of mine.--This time I cannot write to my wife, because he who is

to carry my letter to Oundle, will not stay till I can write another.

Pray, Sir, let her know that I am well; and for feare the few damsins

shou’d be all gone, desire her to buy me a sieve-full, to preserve

whole, and not in mash.[96]

I intend to come up at least a week before Michaelmass; for Sir

Matthew[97] is gone abroad, I suspect a wooeing, and his caleche is

gone with him: so that I have been but thrice at Tichmarsh, of which

you were with me once. This disappointment makes the place wearysome to

me, which otherwise wou’d be pleasant.

About a fortnight ago I had an intimation from a friend by letter,

that one of the secretaryes, I suppose Trenchard,[98] had informed the

queen, that I had abus’d her government (those were the words) in my

Epistle to my Lord Radcliffe; and that thereupon she had commanded her

historiographer, Rymer, to fall upon my playes; which he assures me is

now doeing. I doubt not his malice, from a former hint you gave me; and

if he be employ’d, I am confident ’tis of his own seeking; who, you

know, has spoken slightly of me in his last critique:[99] and that gave

me occasion to snarl againe.[100] In your next, let me know what you

can learn of this matter. I am Mr Congreve’s true lover, and desire

you to tell him, how kindly I take his often remembrances of me: I wish

him all prosperity, and hope I shall never loose his affection; nor

yours, Sir, as being

Your most faithfull,

And much obliged Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

I had all your letters.

Sir Matthew had your book when he came home last; and desir’d me to

give you his acknowledgements.

LETTER X.

MR JOHN DENNIS[101] TO MR DRYDEN.

DEAR SIR,

You may see already by this presumptuous greeting, that encouragement

gives as much assurance to friendship, as it imparts to love. You may

see too, that a friend may sometimes proceed to acknowledge affection,

by the very same degrees by which a lover declares his passion. This

last at first confesses esteem, yet owns no passion but admiration.

But as soon as he is animated by one kind expression, his look, his

style, and his very soul are altered. But as sovereign beauties know

very well, that he who confesses he esteems and admires them, implies

that he loves them, or is inclined to love them: a person of Mr

Dryden’s exalted genius, can discern very well, that when we esteem

him highly, ’tis respect restrains us, if we say no more. For where

great esteem is without affection, ’tis often attended with envy, if

not with hate; which passions detract even when they commend, and

silence is their highest panegyrick. ’Tis indeed impossible, that I

should refuse to love a man, who has so often given me all the pleasure

that the most insatiable mind can desire: when at any time I have

been dejected by disappointments, or tormented by cruel passions, the

recourse to your verses has calm’d my soul, or raised it to transports

which made it contemn tranquillity. But though you have so often given

me all the pleasure I was able to bear, I have reason to complain of

you on this account, that you have confined my delight to a narrower

compass. Suckling, Cowley, and Denham, who formerly ravished me in

every part of them, now appear tasteless to me in most; and Waller

himself, with all his gallantry, and all that admirable art of his

turns, appears three quarters prose to me. Thus ’tis plain, that your

Muse has done me an injury; but she has made me amends for it. For

she is like those extraordinary women, who, besides the regularity

of their charming features, besides their engaging wit, have secret,

unaccountable, enchanting graces; which though they have been long and

often enjoyed, make them always new and always desirable.--I return

you my hearty thanks for your most obliging letter. I had been very

unreasonable, if I had repined that the favour arrived no sooner. ’Tis

allowable to grumble at the delaying a payment; but to murmur at the

deferring a benefit, is to be impudently ungrateful beforehand. The

commendations which you give me, exceedingly sooth my vanity. For you

with a breath can bestow or confirm reputation; a whole numberless

people proclaims the praise which you give, and the judgments of three

mighty kingdoms appear to depend upon yours. The people gave me some

little applause before; but to whom, when they are in the humour,

will they not give it? and to whom, when they are froward, will they

not refuse it? Reputation with them depends upon chance, unless they

are guided by those above them. They are but the keepers, as it were,

of the lottery which Fortune sets up for renown; upon which Fame is

bound to attend with her trumpet, and sound when men draw the prizes.

Thus I had rather have your approbation than the applause of Fame.

Her commendation argues good luck, but Mr Dryden’s implies desert.

Whatever low opinion I have hitherto had of myself, I have so great a

value for your judgment, that, for the sake of that, I shall be willing

henceforward to believe that I am not wholly desertless; but that you

may find me still more supportable, I shall endeavour to compensate

whatever I want in those glittering qualities, by which the world is

dazzled, with truth, with faith, and with zeal to serve you; qualities

which for their rarity, might be objects of wonder, but that men dare

not appear to admire them, because their admiration would manifestly

declare their want of them. Thus, Sir, let me assure you, that though

you are acquainted with several gentlemen, whose eloquence and wit may

capacitate them to offer their service with more address to you, yet

no one can declare himself, with greater chearfulness, or with greater

fidelity, or with more profound respect than myself,

Sir,

_March_ 3, [1693-4] Your most, &c.

JOHN DENNIS.

LETTER. XI.

TO MR JOHN DENNIS. [In answer to the foregoing.]

MY DEAR MR DENNIS, [Probably March 1693-4.]

When I read a letter so full of my commendations as your last, I cannot

but consider you as the master of a vast treasure, who having more than

enough for yourself, are forced to ebb out upon your friends. You have

indeed the best right to give them, since you have them in propriety;

but they are no more mine when I receive them than the light of the

moon can be allowed to be her own, who shines but by the reflexion of

her brother. Your own poetry is a more powerful example, to prove that

the modern writers may enter into comparison with the ancients, than

any which Perrault could produce in France: yet neither he, nor you,

who are a better critick, can persuade me, that there is any room left

for a solid commendation at this time of day, at least for me.

If I undertake the translation of Virgil, the little which I can

perform will shew at least, that no man is fit to write after him, in

a barbarous modern tongue. Neither will his machines be of any service

to a Christian poet. We see how ineffectually they have been tryed by

Tasso, and by Ariosto. It is using them too dully, if we only make

devils of his gods: as if, for example, I would raise a storm, and

make use of Æolus, with this only difference of calling him Prince of

the Air; what invention of mine would there be in this? or who would

not see Virgil thorough me; only the same trick played over again by

a bungling juggler? Boileau has well observed, that it is an easy

matter in a Christian poem, for God to bring the Devil to reason. I

think I have given a better hint for new machines in my preface to

Juvenal; where I have particularly recommended two subjects, one of

King Arthur’s conquest of the Saxons, and the other of the Black Prince

in his conquest of Spain. But the guardian angels of monarchys and

kingdoms are not to be touched by every hand: a man must be deeply

conversant in the Platonic philosophy, to deal with them; and therefore

I may reasonably expect, that no poet of our age will presume to handle

those machines, for fear of discovering his own ignorance; or if he

should, he might perhaps be ingrateful enough not to own me for his

benefactour.[102]

After I have confessed thus much of our modern heroic poetry, I cannot

but conclude with Mr Rymer, that our English comedy is far beyond any

thing of the ancients: and notwithstanding our irregularities, so is

our tragedy. Shakspeare had a genius for it; and we know, in spite

of Mr Rymer, that genius alone is a greater virtue (if I may so call

it) than all other qualifications put together. You see what success

this learned critick has found in the world, after his blaspheming

Shakspeare.[103] Almost all the faults which he has discovered are

truly there; yet who will read Mr Rymer, or not read Shakspeare? For my

own part I reverence Mr Rymer’s learning, but I detest his ill-nature

and his arrogance. I indeed, and such as I, have reason to be afraid

of him, but Shakspeare has not.[104]

There is another part of poetry, in which the English stand almost

upon an equal foot with the ancients; and it is that which we call

Pindarique; introduced, but not perfected, by our famous Mr Cowley: and

of this, Sir, you are certainly one of the greatest masters. You have

the sublimity of sense as well as sound, and know how far the boldness

of a poet may lawfully extend. I could wish you would cultivate this

kind of Ode; and reduce it either to the same measures which Pindar

used, or give new measures of your own. For, as it is, it looks like a

vast tract of land newly discovered: the soil is wonderfully fruitful,

but unmanured; overstocked with inhabitants, but almost all savages,

without laws, arts, arms, or policy.

I remember, poor Nat. Lee, who was then upon the verge of madness, yet

made a sober and a witty answer to a bad poet, who told him, “It was

an easie thing to write like a madman:” “No,” said he, “it is very

difficult to write like a madman, but it is a very easie matter to

write like a fool.” Otway and he are safe by death from all attacks,

but we poor poets militant (to use Mr Cowley’s expression) are at

the mercy of wretched scribblers: and when they cannot fasten upon

our verses, they fall upon our morals, our principles of state, and

religion. For my principles of religion, I will not justifie them to

you: I know yours are far different. For the same reason, I shall say

nothing of my principles of state. I believe you and yours follow the

dictates of your reason, as I in mine do those of my conscience. If

I thought myself in an errour, I would retract it. I am sure that I

suffer for them; and Milton makes even the Devil say, that no creature

is in love with pain. For my morals betwixt man and man, I am not to be

my own judge. I appeal to the world, if I have deceived or defrauded

any man: and for my private conversation, they who see me every day can

be the best witnesses, whether or no it be blameless and inoffensive.

Hitherto I have no reason to complain that men of either party shun

my company. I have never been an impudent beggar at the doors of

noblemen: my visits have indeed been too rare to be unacceptable; and

but just enough to testifie my gratitude for their bounty, which I have

frequently received, but always unasked, as themselves will witness.

I have written more than I needed to you on this subject; for I dare

say you justifie me to yourself. As for that which I first intended

for the principal subject of this letter, which is my friend’s passion

and his design of marriage, on better consideration I have changed my

mind; for having had the honour to see my dear friend Wycherly’s letter

to him on that occasion, I find nothing to be added or amended. But

as well as I love Mr Wycherly, I confess I love myself so well, that

I will not shew how much I am inferiour to him in wit and judgment,

by undertaking any thing after him. There is Moses and the Prophets

in his council. Jupiter and Juno, as the poets tell us, made Tiresias

their umpire in a certain merry dispute, which fell out in heaven

betwixt them. Tiresias, you know, had been of both sexes, and therefore

was a proper judge; our friend Mr Wycherly is full as competent an

arbitrator; he has been a bachelor, and marryed man, and is now a

widower. Virgil says of Ceneus,

----_Nunc vir, nunc fœmina, Ceneus,

Rursus et in veterem fato revoluta figuram._

Yet I suppose he will not give any large commendations to his middle

state: nor, as the sailer said, will be fond after a shipwrack to put

to sea again.[105] If my friend will adventure after this, I can but

wish him a good wind, as being his, and,

My dear Mr Dennis,

Your most affectionate

and most faithful Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XII.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

_The copy money for translating the Æneid was fifty pounds for each

Book. The rising of the second subscription seems, to allude to the

practice of fixing a day, after which no subscriptions were to be

received except on payment of an advanced price. The first subscribers

to Dryden’s Virgil paid five guineas; a plate was dedicated to each of

them, and ornamented with his arms. A second class paid two guineas

only, and were not so honoured. In the subsequent letters there occur

several allusions to these arrangements, and to the transference of

names from the higher to the lower class._

Wednesday morning.

MR TONSON, [Probably written in April 1695.]

It is now three dayes since I have ended the fourth Eneid; and I am

this morning beginning to transcribe it, as you may do afterwards; for

I am willing some few of my friends may see it, and shall give leave to

you, to shew your transcription to some others, whose names I will tell

you. The paying Ned Sheldon the fifty pounds put me upon this speed;

but I intend not so much to overtoil myself, after the sixth book is

ended. If the second subscriptions rise, I will take so much the more

time, because the profit will incourage me the more; if not, I must

make the more haste; yet always with as much care as I am able. But

however, I will not fail in my paines of translating the sixth Eneid

with the same exactness as I have performed the fourth: because that

book is my greatest favourite. You know money is now very scrupulously

receiv’d: in the last which you did me the favour to change for my

wife, besides the clip’d money, there were at least forty shillings

brass. You may, if you please, come to me at the Coffee-house this

afternoon, or at farthest to-morrow, that we may take care together,

where and when I may receive the fifty pounds and the guinneys; which

must be some time this week.

I am your Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

I have written to my Lord Lawderdail, for his decorations.[106]

LETTER XIII.

TO MR JACOB TONSON,

MR TONSON. Saturday, June the 8th. [f. 1695.]

’Tis now high time for me to think of my second subscriptions; for the

more time I have for collecting them, the larger they are like to

be. I have now been idle just a fortnight; and therefore might have

called sooner on you, for the remainder of the first subscriptions. And

besides, Mr Aston will be goeing into Cheshire a week hence, who is my

onely help, and to whom you are onely beholding for makeing the bargain

betwixt us, which is so much to my loss; but I repent nothing of it

that is passed, but that I do not find myself capable of translating

so great an author, and therefore feare to lose my own credit, and to

hazard your profit, which it wou’d grieve me if you should loose, by

your too good opinion of my abilities. I expected to have heard of you

this week, according to the intimation you gave me of it; but that

failing, I must defer it no longer than till the ensueing week, because

Mr Aston will afterwards be gone, if not sooner.

Be pleased to send me word what day will be most convenient to you; and

be ready with the price of paper, and of the books. No matter for any

dinner; for that is a charge to you, and I care not for it.[107] Mr

Congreve may be with us, as a common friend; for as you know him for

yours, I make not the least doubt, but he is much more mine; send an

immediate answer, and you shall find me ready to do all things w^{ch}

become

Your Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XIV.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

MY GOOD FRIEND, [Wednesday the 13th of 7 ber f. 1695.]

This is onely to acquaint you, that I have taken my place in the Oundel

coach for Tuesday next; and hope to be at London on Wednesday night.

I had not confidence enough to hope Mr Southern and Mr Congreve woud

have given me the favour of their company for the last foure miles;

but since they will be so kind to a friend of theirs, who so truely

loves both them and you, I will please myself with expecting it, if the

weather be not so bad as to hinder them.

I assure you I lay up your last kindnesses to me in my heart; and the

less I say of them, I charge them to account so much the more; being

very sensible that I have not hitherto deserved them. Haveing been

obliged to sit up all last night almost out of civility to strangers,

who were benighted, and to resign my bed to them, I am sleepy all this

day; and if I had not taken a very lusty pike that day, they must have

gone supperless to bed, foure ladyes and two gentlemen; for Mr Dudley

and I were alone, with but one man and no mayd in the house.--This time

I cannot write to my wife; do me the favour to let her know I received

her letter, am well, and hope to be with her on Wednesday next, at

night. No more but that

I am very much

Your Friend and Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XV.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

MR TONSON, October the 29h. [f. 1695.]

Some kind of intercourse must be carryed on betwixt us, while I am

translating Virgil. Therefore I give you notice, that I have done the

seaventh Eneid in the country;[108] and intend some few days hence,

to go upon the eight: when that is finished, I expect fifty pounds

in good silver; not such as I have had formerly. I am not obliged to

take gold,[109] neither will I; nor stay for it beyond four-and-twenty

houres after it is due. I thank you for the civility of your last

letter in the country; but the thirty shillings upon every book

remains with me. You always intended I should get nothing by the

second subscriptions, as I found from first to last. And your promise

to Mr Congreve, that you had found a way for my benefit, which was an

encouragement to my paines, came at last, for me to desire Sir Godfrey

Kneller and Mr Closterman to gather for me. I then told Mr Congreve,

that I knew you too well to believe you meant me any kindness: and he

promised me to believe accordingly of you, if you did not. But this is

past; and you shall have your bargain, if I live and have my health.

You may send me word what you have done in my business with the Earl of

Derby: and I must have a place for the Duke of Devonshyre. Some of your

friends will be glad to take back their three guinneys. The Countess

of Macclesfield gave her money to Will Plowden before Christmas; but

he remembered it not, and payd it not in. Mr Aston tells me, my Lord

Derby expects but one book. I find, my Lord Chesterfield and my Lord

Petre are both left out; but my Lady Macclesfield must have a place, if

I can possibly: and Will Plowden shall pay you in three guinneys, if I

can obtain so much favour from you.[110] I desire neither excuses nor

reasons from you: for I am but too well satisfyed already. The Notes

and Prefaces shall be short; because you shall get the more by saving

paper.[111]

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XVI.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

MR TONSON, Friday night. [f. Dec. 1695.]

Meeting Sir Robert Howard at the playhouse this morning, and asking him

how he lik’d my seaventh Eneid, he told me you had not brought it. He

goes out of town to-morrow, being Satturday, after dinner. I desire you

not to fail of carrying my manuscript for him to read in the country;

and desire him to bring it up with him, when he comes next to town. I

doubt you have not yet been with my Lord Chesterfield, and am in pain

about it.

Yours,

JOHN DRYDEN.

When you have leysure, I shou’d be glad to see how Mr Congreve and you

have worded my propositions for Virgil.[112] When my sonne’s play[113]

is acted, I intend to translate again, if my health continue. Some time

next week let me heare from you concerning the propositions.

LETTER XVII.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

SIR, Friday forenoon, [f. Feb, 1695-6.]

I receiv’d your letter very kindly,[114] because indeed I expected

none; but thought you as very a tradesman as Bentley,[115] who has

cursed our Virgil so heartily. I shall loose enough by your bill upon

Mr Knight;[116] for after having taking it all in silver, and not in

half-crowns neither, but shillings and sixpences, none of the money

will go; for which reason I have sent it all back again, and as the

less loss will receive it in guinneys at 29 shillings each. ’Tis

troublesome to be a looser, but it was my own fault to accept it this

way, which I did to avoyd more trouble.

I am not sorry that you will not allow any thing towards the notes;

for to make them good, would have cost me half a yeare’s time at

least. Those I write shall be only marginall, to help the unlearned,

who understand not the poeticall fables. The prefaces, as I intend

them, will be somewhat more learned. It wou’d require seaven yeares

to translate Virgil exactly. But I promise you once more to do my

best in the four remaining books, as I have hitherto done in the

foregoing.--Upon triall I find all of your trade are sharpers, and

you not more than others; therefore I have not wholly left you. Mr

Aston does not blame you for getting as good a bargain as you cou’d,

though I cou’d have gott an hundred pounds more; and you might have

spared almost all your trouble if you had thought fit to publish the

proposalls for the first subscriptions; for I have guynneas offered

me every day, if there had been room; I believe, modestly speaking, I

have refused already 25. I mislike nothing in your letter therefore,

but onely your upbraiding me with the publique encouragement, and my

own reputation concerned in the notes; when I assure you I cou’d not

make them to my mind in less than half a year’s time. Get the first

half of Virgil transcribed as soon as possibly you can, that I may put

the notes to it; and you may have the other four books which lye ready

for you when you bring the former; that the press may stay as little

as possibly it can. My Lord Chesterfield has been to visite me, but

I durst say nothing of Virgil to him, for feare there should be no

void place for him; if there be, let me know; and tell me whether you

have made room for the Duke of Devonshire. Haveing no silver by me, I

desire my Lord Derby’s money, deducting your own. And let it be good,

if you desire to oblige me, who am not your enemy, and may be your

friend,

JOHN DRYDEN.

Let me heare from you as speedily as you can.

LETTER XVIII.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

May 26th, [1696.]

Send word, if you please, Sir, what is the most you will give for my

sonn’s play, that I may take the fairest chapman, as I am bound to do

for his benefit; and if you have any silver which will go, my wife will

be glad of it. I lost thirty shillings or more by the last payment of

fifty pounds, w^ch you made at Mr Knights.

Yours,

JOHN DRYDEN.

Sir Ro: Howard[117] writt me word, that if I cou’d make any advantage

by being paid in clipp’d money, he woud change it in the Exchequer.

LETTER XIX.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

MR TONSON, Thursday Morning, [f. Aug. 1696.]

I had yesterday morning two watches sent me by Mr Tompion,[118] which I

am to send my sonnes this week.[119] I cou’d not persuade him to take

gold at any rate: but he will take a goldsmiths bill for two and twenty

pounds, which is their price. I desire you wou’d give him such a bill,

and abate it out of the next fifty pounds which you are to pay me when

Virgil is finish’d. Ten Eneids are finish’d, and the ninth and tenth

written out in my own hand. You may have them with the eight, which is

in a foul copy, when you please to call for them, and to bring those

which are transcrib’d. Mr Tompion’s man will be with me at four o’clock

in the afternoon, and bring the watches, and must be payd at sight. I

desire you therefore to procure a goldsmiths bill, and let me have it

before that houre, and send an answer by my boy.

Yours,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XX.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

Wednesday afternoon.

MR TONSON, From the Coffee-house. Nov. 25th.

I have the remainder of my Northamptonshyre rents come up this weeke,

and desire the favour of you to receive them for me, from the carrier

of Tocester, who lodges at the Castle in Smithfield. I suppose it is

the same man from whom you lately receiv’d them for my wife. Any time

before ten o’clock to-morrow morning will serve the turne. If I were

not deeply ingaged in my studyes, which will be finish’d in a day or

two, I would not put you to this trouble. I have inclos’d my tenant’s

letter to me, for you to shew the carrier, and to testify the sum,

which is sixteen pounds and about tenn shillings; which the letter sets

down. Pray, Sir, give in an acquittance for so much receiv’d, as I

suppose you did last time.

I am,

Your very faithful Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XXI.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

SIR, [f. Jan. 1696-7.]

According to my promise, I have sent you all that is properly yours

of my translation. I desire, as you offer’d, that it should be

transcrib’d in a legible hand, and then sent back to me for the last

review. As for some notes on the margins, they are not every where, and

when they are, are imperfect; so that you ought not to transcribe them,

till I make them compleat. I feare you can scarcely make any thing

of my foul copy; but it is the best I have. You see, my hand fails

me, and therefore I write so short a letter. What I wrote yesterday

was too sharp; but I doubt it is all true. Your boy’s coming upon so

unseasonable a visit, as if you were frighted for yourself, discomposed

me.

Transcribe on very large paper, and leave a very large margin.

Send your boy for the foul copies, and he shall have them; for it will

not satisfy me to send them by my own servant.

I cannot yet find the first sheet of the first Eneid. If it be lost, I

will translate it over againe: but perhaps it may be amongst the loose

papers. The fourth and ninth Eclogues, which I have sent, are corrected

in my wife’s printed Miscellany.[120]

LETTER XXII.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

MR TONSON, Tuesday Morning, July the 6th, 1697.

I desire you wou’d let Mr Pate[121] know, I can print no more names of

his subscribers than I have money for, before I print their names. He

has my acknowledgment of ten guineas receiv’d from him; and, as I told

you, I owe him for above three yards of fine cloath: let him reckon for

it; and then there will remain the rest for me, out of the ten more

names w^{ch} he has given in. If he has not money by him, let him blott

out as many of his names as he thinks good; and print onely those for

which he pays or strikes off, in adjusting the accounts betwixt me and

him. This is so reasonable on both sides, that he cannot refuse it; but

I wou’d have things ended now, because I am to deal with a draper, who

is of my own perswasion,[122] and to whom I have promis’d my custome.

Yours,

JOHN DRYDEN.

I have sent to my tailour, and he sends me word, that I had three yards

and half elle of cloath from Mr Pate: I desire he would make his price,

and deduct so much as it comes to, and make even for the rest with

ready money; as also, that he would send word what the name was, for

whom Sam Atkins left him to make account for.

LETTER XXIII.

TO HIS SONS AT ROME.

DEAR SONS, Sept. the 3d. our Style, [1697.]

Being now at Sir William Bowyer’s,[123] in the country, I cannot write

at large, because I find my self somewhat indisposed with a cold, and

am thick of hearing, rather worse than I was in town. I am glad to

find, by your letter of July 26th, your style, that you are both in

health; but wonder you should think me so negligent as to forget to

give you an account of the ship in which your parcel is to come. I have

written to you two or three letters concerning it, which I have sent

by safe hands, as I told you; and doubt not but you have them before

this can arrive to you. Being out of town, I have forgotten the ship’s

name, which your mother will enquire, and put it into her letter, which

is joined with mine. But the master’s name I remember; he is called Mr

Ralph Thorp; the ship is bound to Leghorn, consigned to Mr Peter and Mr

Tho. Ball, merchants. I am of your opinion, that, by Tonson’s means,

almost all our letters have miscarried for this last year.[124] But,

however, he has missed of his design in the dedication, though he had

prepared the book for it;[125] for, in every figure of Æneas, he has

caused him to be drawn like King William, with a hooked nose.[126]

After my return to town, I intend to alter a play of Sir Robert

Howard’s, written long since, and lately put by him into my hands: ’tis

called the “Conquest of China by the Tartars.”[127] It will cost me six

weeks study, with the probable benefit of an hundred pounds. In the

mean time, I am writing a song for St Cecilia’s Feast, who, you know,

is the patroness of music. This is troublesome, and no way beneficial;

but I could not deny the stewards of the feast, who came in a body

to me to desire that kindness, one of them being Mr Bridgman, whose

parents are your mother’s friends. I hope to send you thirty guineas

between Michaelmass and Christmass, of which I will give you an account

when I come to town. I remember the counsel you give me in your letter;

but dissembling, though lawful in some cases, is not my talent; yet,

for your sake, I will struggle with the plain openness of my nature,

and keep in my just resentments against that degenerate order.[128] In

the mean time, I flatter not myself with any manner of hopes, but do

my duty, and suffer for God’s sake; being assured, beforehand, never

to be rewarded, though the times should alter. Towards the latter end

of this month, September, Charles will begin to recover his perfect

health, according to his nativity, which, casting it my self, I am sure

is true; and all things hitherto have happened accordingly to the very

time that I predicted them. I hope, at the same time, to recover more

health, according to my age. Remember me to poor Harry, whose prayers I

earnestly desire. My Virgil succeeds in the world beyond its desert,

or my expectation. You know, the profits might have been more; but

neither my conscience nor my honour would suffer me to take them;[129]

but I never can repent of my constancy, since I am thoroughly persuaded

of the justice of the cause for which I suffer. It has pleased God to

raise up many friends to me amongst my enemies, though they, who ought

to have been my friends, are negligent of me. I am called to dinner,

and cannot go on with this letter, which I desire you to excuse; and am

Your most affectionate father,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_Superscribed_,

Al illustrissimo Sig^{re}.

Carlo Dryden,

Camariere d’Honore A. S. S.

Franca per Mantoua. In Roma.

_To this Letter, Lady Elizabeth Dryden subjoined, on the same paper,

the following Postscript:--_

My dear sons, I sent your letter emediately to your father, after I

had read it, as you will find by his. I have not room to say much,

having writ former letters to you, datted the 27 of August, your father

being then out of town; he writes me word--he is much at woon as to

his health, and his defnese is not wosce, but much as he was when he

was heare. He expresses a great desire to see my dear Charlles; and

trully I see noe reason why you should not both come together, to be a

comfort to woon another, and to us both, if the King of France includ

Ingland in the peace;[130] for you doe but gust make shift to live

wheare you are, and soe I hope you may doe heare; for I will leaf noe

ston unturn’d to help my belov’d sonns. If I cane, I will send this

letter by the same way it came;[131] that is, it was brought me from

woon Mr Galowway, who corresponds with Rozie; I payd woon and sixpence

for it, and do offer to pay him what he demandes, so that he would

take ceare the [packet] might come safe to your handes. I long tell I

heare my deare Charlles is better. I have only room to tell you the

names of the merchantes your parcell went in; you are to demmand them

of Mr Robert Ball and Thommas Ball in Lindovino in Livorno. You are

not to pay any charges for the box, for the port of London. If the

have demanded any of you, send word to me what it is; for otherwayes

wee shall pay twice for them; and this Mr Walkeson telles me, with his

service to you both. Farwell, my deare children: God Almighty keep you

in his protection, for that is the wishes and prayers of your most

affec: mother, that sends her blessinge to you all; not forgetting my

sonn Harry, whose prayers I desire for a comfortable meetinge. I hope I

may have some better thinges against you come, than what is sent you in

that box; there being nothing considurabell but my deare Jackes play,

who I desire in his next to me to give me a true account how my deare

sonn Charlles is head dus; for I cane be at noe rest tell I heare he is

better, or rather thourely well, which I dally pray for.[132]

LETTER XXIV.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

MR TONSON, [f. Dec. 1697.]

I thank you heartily for the sherry; it was, as you sayd, the best

of the kind I ever dranke. I have found the catalogue you desire, of

the subscribers’ names you left with me; and have sent them to you

inclosed. Remember, in the copy of verses for St Cecilia, to alter the

name of _Lais_, which is twice there, for _Thais_; those two ladyes

were contemporaryes, which causd that small mistake. I wish you coud

tell me how to send my sonns our Virgil, which you gave me; and should

be glad if you coud put me in a way of remitting thirty guineas to

Rome, which I woud pay heer, for my sonns to have the vallue there,

according as the exchange goes. Any time this fortnight will be soon

enough to send the money: the book, I know, will require a longer

space, because ships go not for Italy every day.

I am

Your humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

I hear Tom Brown is comeing out upon me.[133]

LETTER XXV.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

MR TONSON, Wednesday, [f. Dec. 1697.]

I have broken off my studies from the “Conquest of China,”[134] to

review Virgil, and bestowed nine entire days upon him. You may have

the printed copy you sent me to-morrow morning, if you will come for

it yourself; for the printer is a beast, and understands nothing I can

say to him of correcting the press. Dr Chetwood[135] claims my promise

of the Ode on St Cecilia’s Day, which I desire you to send to him

(according to the Parliament phrase) forthwith. My wife says you have

broken your promise about the picture, and desires it speedily; the

rest I will tell you when you come.

Yours,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XXVI.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

MR TONSON, [f. Dec. 1697.]

You were no sooner gone, but I felt in my pocket, and found my Lady

Chudleigh’s[136] verses; which this afternoon I gave Mr Walsh to read

in the coffee-house. His opinion is the same with mine, that they are

better than any which are printed before the book: so thinks also Mr

Wycherly. I have them by me; but do not send them till I heare from

my Lord Clifford, whether my lady will put her name to them or not:

therefore I desire they may be printed last of all the copyes, and

of all the book. I have also written this day to Mr Chetwood, and let

him know, that the book is immediately goeing to the press again. My

opinion is, that the printer shou’d begin with the first Pastoral, and

print on to the end of the Georgiques; or farther, if occasion be,

till Dr Chetwood corrects his preface,[137] which he writes me word is

printed very false. You cannot take too great care of the printing this

edition exactly after my amendments; for a fault of that nature will

disoblige me eternally.

I am glad to heare from all hands, that my Ode[138] is esteem’d the

best of all my poetry, by all the town: I thought so myself when I writ

it; but, being old, I mistrusted my own judgment. I hope it has done

you service, and will do more. You told me not, but the town says you

are printing Ovid _de Arte Amandi_. I know my translation[139] is very

uncorrect; but at the same time I know, nobody else can do it better,

with all their paines. If there be any loose papers left in the Virgil

I gave you this morning, look for them, and send them back by my man:

I miss not any yet; but ’tis possible some may be left, because I gave

you the book in a hurry. I vow to God, if Everingham takes not care of

this impression, he shall never print any thing of mine heerafter: for

I will write on, since I find I can.

I desire you to make sure of the three pounds of snuff, the same

of which I had one pound from you. When you send it any morning,

I will pay for it all together. But this is not the business of

this letter.--When you were heer, I intended to have sent an answer

to poor Charles his letter; but I had not then the letter which my

chirurgeon promis’d me, of his advice, to prevent a rupture, which he

fears.[140] Now I have the surgeon’s answer, which I have inclosed in

my letter to my sonn. This is a business of the greatest consequence

in the world; for you know how I love Charles: and therefore I write

to you with all the earnestness of a father, that you will procure Mr

Francia[141] to inclose it in his packet this week: for a week lost

may be my sonn’s ruine; whom I intend to send for next summer, without

his brother, as I have written him word: and if it please God that I

must dye of over-study, I cannot spend my life better, than in saving

his. I vallue not any price for a double letter; let me know it, and

it shall be payd; for I dare not trust it by the post: being satisfy’d

by experience, that Ferrand will do by this, as he did by two letters

which I sent my sonns, about my dedicating to the king;[142] of which

they received neither. If you cannot go yourself, then send a note to

Signior Francia, as earnestly as you can write it, to beg that it may

go this day, I meane Friday. I need not tell you, how much herein you

will oblige

Your friend and servant,

J. D.

LETTER XXVII.

TO MRS STEWARD.[143]

MADAM, Saturday, Octob. 1st--98.

You have done me the honour to invite so often, that it would look

like want of respect to refuse it any longer. How can you be so good

to an old decrepid man, who can entertain you with no discours which

is worthy of your good sense, and who can onely be a trouble to you in

all the time he stays at Cotterstock. Yet I will obey your commands

as far as possibly I can, and give you the inconvenience you are

pleas’d to desire; at least for the few days which I can spare from

other necessary business, which requires me at Tichmarsh. Therefore,

if you please to send your coach on Tuesday next by eleven o’clock

in the morning, I hope to wait on you before dinner. There is onely

one more trouble, which I am almost ashamed to name. I am obliged to

visit my cousin, Dryden of Chesterton,[144] some time next week, who

is nine miles from hence, and only five from you. If it be with your

convenience to spare me your coach thether for a day, the rest of my

time till Monday is at your service; and I am sorry for my own sake it

cannot be any longer this year, because I have some visits after my

return hether, which I cannot avoyd. But if it please God to give me

life and health, I may give you occasion another time to repent of your

kindness, by makeing you weary of my company. My sonn kisses your hand.

Be pleas’d to give his humble service to my cousin Steward, and mine,

who am,

Madam,

Your most obedient oblig’d servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For my Honour’d Cousine,_

_Mrs Steward, att Cotterstock,_

_These_.

LETTER XXVIII.

TO ELMES STEWARD, ESQ.

MY HONOUR’D COUSIN, [Probably, Nov. 20. 1698.]

I shou’d have received your letter with too much satisfaction, if

it had not been allay’d with the bad news of my cousin your wife’s

indisposition; which yet I hope will not continue. I am sure, if care

and love will contribute to her health, she will want neither from so

tender a husband as you are: and indeed you are both worthy of each

other. You have been pleased, each of you, to be kind to my sonn[145]

and me, your poor relations, without any merit on our side, unless you

will let our gratitude pass for our desert. And now you are pleas’d

to invite another trouble on your self, which our bad company may

possibly draw upon you next year, if I have life and health to come

into Northamptonshire; and that you will please not to make so much a

stranger of me another time.--I intend my wife shall tast the plover

you did me the favour to send me. If either your lady or you shall at

any time honour me with a letter, my house is in Gerard-street, the

fifth door on the left hand, comeing from Newport-street. I pray God

I may hear better news of both your healths, and of my good cousin

Creed’s,[146] and my cousin Dorothy,[147] than I have had while I was

in this country. I shall languish till you send me word; and I assure

you I write this without poetry, who am, from the bottome of my heart,

My honour’d cousin’s most obliged

Humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

My sonn and I kiss my cousin Steward’s hand; and give our service to

your sister, and pretty Miss Betty.

_For my Honour’d Cousin,_

_Elmes Steward, Esq. Att Cotterstock._

LETTER XXIX.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Nov. 23d, 1698.

To take acknowledgments of favours for favours done you, is onely

yours. I am always on the receiving hand; and you, who have been

pleas’d to be troubled so long with my bad company, in stead of

forgiveing, which is all I could expect, will turn it to a kindness on

my side. If your house be often so molested, you will have reason to

be weary of it, before the ending of the year: and wish Cotterstock

were planted in a desart, an hundred miles off from any poet.--After I

had lost the happiness of your company, I could expect no other than

the loss of my health, which followed, according to the proverb, that

misfortunes seldome come alone. I had no woman to visite[148] but

the parson’s wife; and she, who was intended by nature as a help meet

for a deaf husband, was somewhat of the loudest for my conversation;

and for other things, I will say no more then that she is just your

contrary, and an epitome of her own country. My journey to London was

yet more unpleasant than my abode at Tichmarsh; for the coach was

crowded up with an old woman fatter than any of my hostesses on the

rode. Her weight made the horses travel very heavily; but, to give them

a breathing time, she would often stop us, and plead some necessity of

nature, and tell us, we were all flesh and blood: but she did this so

frequently, that at last we conspir’d against her; and that she might

not be inconvenienc’d by staying in the coach, turn’d her out in a very

dirty place, where she was to wade up to the ankles, before she cou’d

reach the next hedge. When I was ridd of her, I came sick home, and

kept my house for three weeks together; but, by advice of my doctour,

takeing twice the bitter draught, with sena in it, and looseing at

least twelve ounces of blood, by cupping on my neck, I am just well

enough to go abroad in the afternoon; but am much afflicted that I have

you a companion of my sickness: though I ’scap’d with one cold fit of

an ague, and yours, I feare, is an intermitting feavour. Since I heard

nothing of your father, whom I left ill, I hope he is recover’d of his

reall sickness, and that your sister is well of hers, which was onely

in imagination. My wife and sonn return you their most humble service,

and I give mine to my cousin Steward.--Madam,

Your most obliged and

most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

[_The superscription has not been preserved._]

LETTER XXX.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Dec. 12th, --98.

All my letters being nothing but acknowledgements of your favours to

me, ’tis no wonder if they are all alike: for they can but express

the same thing, I being eternally the receiver, and you the giver. I

wish it were in my power to turn the skale on the other hand, that I

might see how you, who have so excellent a wit, cou’d thank on your

side. Not to name my self or my wife, my sonn Charles is the great

commender of your last receiv’d present; who being of late somewhat

indispos’d, uses to send for some of the same sort, which we call heer

marrow-puddings, for his suppers; but the tast of yours has so spoyl’d

his markets heer, that there is not the least comparison betwixt

them. You are not of an age to be a Sybill, and yet I think you are

a prophetess; for the direction on your basket was for him; and he

is likely to enjoy the greatest part of them: for I always think the

young are more worthy than the old; especially since you are one of the

former sort, and that he mends upon your medicine.--I am very glad to

hear my cousin, your father, is comeing or come to town; perhaps this

ayr may be as beneficiall to him as it has been to me: but you tell me

nothing of your own health, and I fear Cotterstock is too agueish for

this season.--My wife and sonn give you their most humble thanks and

service; as I do mine to my cousin Steward; and am, Madam,

Your most oblig’d obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Steward_,

_Att Cotterstock, near Oundle,_

_in the county of Northampton, These._

_To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle._

LETTER XXXI.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Candlemas-Day, 1698[-9.]

Old men are not so insensible of beauty, as it may be, you young

ladies think. For my own part, I must needs acknowledge, that your

fair eyes had made me your slave before I received your fine presents.

Your letter puts me out of doubt that they have lost nothing of their

luster, because it was written with your own hand; and not heareing

of a feavour or an ague, I will please my self with the thoughts that

they have wholly left you. I wou’d also flatter my self with the hopes

of waiting on you at Cotterstock some time next summer; but my want of

health may perhaps hinder me. But if I am well enough to travell as

farr northward as Northamptonshyre, you are sure of a guest, who has

been too well us’d not to trouble you again.

My sonn, of whom you have done me the favour to enquire, mends of his

indisposition very slowly; the ayr of England not agreeing with him

hetherto so well as that of Italy. The Bath is propos’d by the doctors,

both to him and me: but we have not yet resolved absolutely on that

journey; for that city is so close and so ill situated, that perhaps

the ayr may do us more harm than the waters can do us good: for which

reason we intend to try them heer first; and if we find not the good

effect which is promis’d of them, we will save our selves the pains of

goeing thether. In the mean time, betwixt my intervals of physique, and

other remedies which I am using for my gravel, I am still drudgeing

on: always a poet, and never a good one. I pass my time sometimes with

Ovid, and sometimes with our old English poet Chaucer; translating

such stories as best please my fancy; and intend, besides them, to add

somewhat of my own; so that it is not impossible, but ere the summer

be pass’d, I may come down to you with a volume in my hand, like a dog

out of the water, with a duck in his mouth. As for the rarities you

promise, if beggars might be choosers, a part of a chine of honest

bacon wou’d please my appetite more than all the marrow puddings; for I

like them better plain; having a very vulgar stomach. My wife, and your

cousin, Charles, give you their most humble service, and thanks for

your remembrance of them. I present my own to my worthy cousin, your

husband, and am, with all respect,

Madam,

Your most obliged servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For_

_Mrs Stewart, att Cotterstock_

_near Oundle, in Northamptonshyre,_

_These._

_To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle._

LETTER XXXII.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Thursday, Feb. 9th.--98[-9.]

For this time I must follow a bad example, and send you a shorter

letter than your short one: you were hinder’d by dancers, and I am

forc’d to dance attendance all this afternoon after a troublesome

business, so soon as I have written this, and seal’d it. Onely I can

assure you, that your father and mother, and all your relations, are

in health, or were yesterday, when I sent to enquire of their welfare.

On Tuesday night we had a violent wind, which blew down three of my

chimneys, and dismantled all one side of my house, by throwing down

the tiles. My neighbours, and indeed all the town, suffer’d more or

less; and some were kill’d. The great trees in St James’s Park are many

of them torn up from the roots; as they were before Oliver Cromwell’s

death,[149] and the late queen’s: but your father had no damage. I sent

my man for the present you designed me; but he return’d empty-handed;

for there was no such man as _Carter_ a carrier, inning at the Bear

and Ragged Staff in Smithfield, nor any one there ever heard of such

a person; by which I guess that some body has deceived you with a

counterfeited name. Yet my, obligations are the same; and the favour

shall be always own’d by,

Madam,

Your most humble servant,

and kinsman,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Stewart_,

_Att Cotterstock neare Oundle_, &c.

LETTER XXXIII.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, March the 4th, 1698[-9.]

I have reason to be pleas’d with writeing to you, because you are

daily giveing me occasions to be pleas’d. The present which you made

me this week, I have receiv’d; and it will be part of the treat I am

to make to three of my friends about Tuesday next: my cousin Driden,

of Chesterton, having been also pleas’d to add to it a turkey hen with

eggs, and a good young goose; besides a very kind letter, and the news

of his own good health, which I vallue more than all the rest; he

being so noble a benefactor to a poor and so undeserving a kinsman,

and one of another persuasion in matters of religion. Your enquiry of

his welfare, and sending also mine, have at once oblig’d both him and

me. I hope my good cousin Stewart will often visite him, especially

before hunting goes out,[150] to be a comfort to him in his sorrow

for the loss of his deare brother,[151] who was a most extraordinary

well-natur’d man, and much my friend. Exercise, I know, is my cousin

Driden’s life, and the oftner he goes out will be the better for his

health. We poor Catholics daily expect a most severe proclamation to

come out against us;[152] and at the same time are satisfyed that the

king is very unwilling to persecute us, considering us to be but an

handfull, and those disarmed; but the archbishop of Canterbury is our

heavy enemy, and heavy indeed he is in all respects.[153]

This day was played a revived comedy of Mr Congreve’s, called “The

Double Dealer,” which was never very takeing. In the play-bill was

printed--“Written by Mr Congreve; with severall expressions omitted.”

What kind of expressions those were, you may easily ghess, if you

have seen the Monday’s Gazette, wherein is the king’s order for the

reformation of the stage:[154] but the printing an author’s name in a

play-bill is a new manner of proceeding, at least in England. When

any papers of verses in manuscript, which are worth your reading,

come abroad, you shall be sure of them; because, being a poetess

yourself, you like those entertainments. I am still drudging at a book

of Miscellanyes,[155] which I hope will be well enough; if otherwise,

threescore and seven may be pardon’d.--Charles is not yet so well

recover’d as I wish him; but I may say, without vanity, that his

virtue and sobriety have made him much belov’d in all companies. Both

he and his mother give you their most humble acknowledgments of your

rememb’ring them. Be pleas’d to give mine to my cousin Stewart, who am

both his and your

Most obliged obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

You may see I was in hast, by writing on the wrong side of the paper.

_For Mrs Steward, etc. ut supra._

LETTER XXXIV.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Tuesday, July the 11th, [1699.]

As I cannot accuse myself to have receiv’d any letters from you without

answer, so, on the other side, I am oblig’d to believe it, because

you say it. ’Tis true, I have had so many fitts of sickness, and so

much other unpleasant business, that I may possibly have receiv’d

those favours, and deferr’d my acknowledgment till I forgot to thank

you for them. However it be, I cannot but confess, that never was any

unanswering man so civilly reproach’d by a fair lady. I presum’d to

send you word by your sisters[156] of the trouble I intended you this

summer; and added a petition, that you would please to order some small

beer to be brew’d for me without hops, or with a very inconsiderable

quantity; because I lost my health last year by drinking bitter beer

at Tichmarsh. It may perhaps be sour, but I like it not the worse, if

it be small enough. What els I have to request, is onely the favour of

your coach, to meet me at Oundle, and to convey me to you: of which I

shall not fail to give you timely notice. My humble service attends my

cousin Stewart and your relations at Oundle. My wife and sonn desire

the same favour; and I am particularly,

Madam,

Your most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Stewart, etc._

LETTER XXXV.

TO SAMUEL PEPYS, ESQ.[157]

PADRON MIO, July the 14th, 1699.

I remember, last year, when I had the honour of dineing with you, you

were pleased to recommend to me the character of Chaucer’s “Good

Parson.” Any desire of yours is a command to me; and accordingly I

have put it into my English, with such additions and alterations as

I thought fit. Having translated as many Fables from Ovid, and as

many Novills from Boccace and Tales from Chaucer, as will make an

indifferent large volume in folio, I intend them for the press in

Michaelmas term next. In the mean time, my Parson desires the favour

of being known to you, and promises, if you find any fault in his

character, he will reform it. Whenever you please, he shall wait on

you, and for the safer conveyance, I will carry him in my pocket; who am

My _Padrons_ most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Samuel Pepys, Esq.

Att his house in York-street, These._

LETTER XXXVI.

ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING BY MR PEPYS.

SIR, Friday, July 14, 1699.

You truly have obliged mee; and possibly, in saying so, I am more in

earnest then you can readily think; as verily hopeing, from this your

copy of one “Good Parson,” to fancy some amends made mee for the hourly

offence I beare with from the sight of so many lewd originalls.

I shall with great pleasure attend you on this occasion, when ere you’l

permit it; unless you would have the kindness to double it to mee, by

suffering my coach to wayte on you (and who you can gayne mee y^e same

favour from) hither, to a cold chicken and a sallade, any noone after

Sunday, as being just stepping into the ayre for 2 days.

I am, most respectfully,

Your hono^{rd} and obed^{nt} servant,

S. P.

LETTER XXXVII.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Saturday, Aug. 5th, 1699.

This is only a word, to threaten you with a troublesome guest, next

week: I have taken places for my self and my sonn in the Oundle coach,

which sets out on Thursday next the tenth of this present August; and

hope to wait on a fair lady at Cotterstock on Friday the eleventh. If

you please to let your coach come to Oundle, I shall save my cousin

Creed the trouble of hers. All heer are your most humble servants, and

particularly an old cripple, who calls him self

Your most obliged kinsman,

And admirer,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Stewart, Att_

_Cotterstock, near Oundle,_

_in Northamptonshire. These._

_To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle._

LETTER XXXVIII.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Sept. 28th, 1699.

Your goodness to me will make you sollicitous of my welfare since I

left Cotterstock. My journey has in general been as happy as it cou’d

be, without the satisfaction and honour of your company. ’Tis true,

the master of the stage-coach has not been over civill to me: for he

turned us out of the road at the first step, and made us go to Pilton;

there we took in a fair young lady of eighteen, and her brother, a

young gentleman; they are related to the Treshams, but not of that

name: thence we drove to Higham, where we had an old serving-woman,

and a young fine mayd: we din’d at Bletso, and lay at Silso, six

miles beyond Bedford. There we put out the old woman, and took in

Councellour Jennings his daughter; her father goeing along in the

Kittering coach, or rideing by it, with other company. We all din’d

at Hatfield together, and came to town safe at seaven in the evening.

We had a young doctour, who rode by our coach, and seem’d to have a

smickering[158] to our youg lady of Pilton, and ever rode before to get

dinner in a readiness. My sonn, Charles, knew him formerly a Jacobite;

and now going over to Antigoo, with Colonel Codrington,[159] haveing

been formerly in the West Indies.--Which of our two young ladies was

the handsomer, I know not. My sonn liked the Councellour’s daughter

best: I thought they were both equal. But not goeing to Tichmarsh

Grove, and afterwards by Catworth, I missed my two couple of rabbets,

which my cousin, your father, had given me to carry with me, and cou’d

not see my sister by the way: I was likewise disappointed of Mr Cole’s

Ribadavia wine: but I am almost resolved to sue the stage coach, for

putting me six or seaven miles out of the way, which he cannot justify.

Be pleased to accept my acknowledgment of all your favours, and my

Cousin Stuart’s; and by employing my sonn and me in any thing you

desire to have done, give us occasion to take our revenge on our kind

relations both at Oundle and Cotterstock. Be pleas’d, your father,

your mother, your two fair sisters, and your brother,[160] may find my

sonn’s service and mine made acceptable to them by your delivery; and

believe me to be with all manner of gratitude, give me leave to add,

all manner of adoration,

Madam,

Your most obliged obedient Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Stuart, Att_

_Cotterstock near Oundle,_

_In Northamptonshire,_

_These._

_To be left with the Postmaster

of Oundle._

LETTER XXXIX.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES MONTAGUE.[161]

SIR, [Octob. 1699.]

These verses[162] had waited on you with the former, but that they

wanted that correction which I have given them, that they may the

better endure the sight of so great a judge and poet. I am now in feare

that I purged them out of their spirit; as our Master Busby us’d to

whip a boy so long, till he made him a confirm’d blockhead. My Cousin

Driden saw them in the country; and the greatest exception he made to

them Avas a satire against the Dutch valour in the last war. He desir’d

me to omit it, (to use his own words) “out of the respect he had to his

Sovereign.” I obeyed his commands, and left onely the praises, which I

think are due to the gallantry of my own countrymen. In the description

which I have made of a Parliament-man,[163] I think I have not only

drawn the features of my worthy kinsman, but have also given my own

opinion of what an Englishman in Parliament ought to be; and deliver it

as a memorial of my own principles to all posterity. I have consulted

the judgment of my unbyass’d friends, who have some of them the honour

to be known to you: and they think there is nothing which can justly

give offence in that part of the poem. I say not this to cast a blind

on your judgment, (which I could not do, if I endeavoured it,) but

to assure you, that nothing relateing to the publique shall stand

without your permission; for it were to want common sence to desire

your patronage, and resolve to disoblige you. And as I will not hazard

my hopes of your protection, by refusing to obey you in any thing which

I can perform with my conscience or my honour, so I am very confident

you will never impose any other terms on me. My thoughts at present are

fix’d on Homer; and by my translation of the first Iliad, I find him

a poet more according to my genius than Virgil, and consequently hope

I may do him more justice in his fiery way of writeing; which, as it

is liable to more faults, so it is capable of more beauties, than the

exactness and sobriety of Virgil. Since ’tis for my country’s honour,

as well as for my own, that I am willing to undertake this task, I

despair not of being encourag’d in it by your favour, who am

Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XL.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Nov. 7th, [1699.]

Even your expostulations are pleasing to me; for though they shew you

angry, yet they are not without many expressions of your kindness; and

therefore I am proud to be so chidden. Yet I cannot so farr abandon my

own defence, as to confess any idleness or forgetfulness on my part.

What has hind’red me from writeing to you, was neither ill health,

nor, a worse thing, ingratitude; but a flood of little businesses,

which yet are necessary to my subsistance, and of which I hop’d to

have given you a good account before this time: but the court rather

speaks kindly of me, than does any thing for me, though they promise

largely; and perhaps they think I will advance as they go backward, in

which they will be much deceiv’d; for I can never go an inch beyond my

conscience and my honour.[164] If they will consider me as a man who

has done my best to improve the language, and especially the poetry,

and will be content with my acquiescence under the present government,

and forbearing satire on it, that I can promise, because I can perform

it; but I can neither take the oaths, nor forsake my religion; because

I know not what church to go to, if I leave the Catholique; they are

all so divided amongst them selves in matters of faith necessary to

salvation, and, yet all assumeing the name of Protestants. May God be

pleas’d to open your eyes, as he has open’d mine! Truth is but one; and

they who have once heard of it, can plead no excuse, if they do not

embrace it. But these are things too serious for a trifling letter.

If you desire to hear any thing more of my affairs, the Earl of

Dorsett, and your cousin Montague, have both seen the two poems, to the

Duchess of Ormond, and my worthy cousin Driden; and are of opinion,

that I never writt better. My other friends are divided in their

judgments, which to preferr; but the greater part are for those to my

dear kinsman; which I have corrected with so much care, that they will

now be worthy of his sight, and do neither of us any dishonour after

our death.

There is this day to be acted a new tragedy, made by Mr Hopkins,[165]

and, as I believe, in rhime. He has formerly written a play in verse,

call’d “Boadicea,” which you fair ladyes lik’d; and is a poet who

writes good verses without knowing how or why; I mean, he writes

naturally well, without art, or learning, or good sence. Congreve is

ill of the gout at Barnet Wells. I have had the honour of a visite from

the Earl of Dorsett, and din’d with him.--Matters in Scotland are in a

high ferment,[166] and next door to a breach betwixt the two nations;

but they say from court, that France and we are hand and glove. ’Tis

thought, the king will endeavour to keep up a standing army, and make

the stirr in Scotland his pretence for it; my cousin Driden,[167] and

the country party, I suppose, will be against it; for when a spirit is

rais’d, ’tis hard conjuring him down again.--You see I am dull by my

writeing news; but it may be my cousin Creed[168] may be glad to hear

what I believe is true, though not very pleasing. I hope he recovers

health in the country, by his staying so long in it. My service to my

cousin Stuart, and all at Oundle. I am, faire Cousine,

Your most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Stuart, Att_

_Cotterstock, near Oundle,_

_In Northamptonshyre,_

_These._

_To be left at the Posthouse

in Oundle._

LETTER XLI

TO MRS ELIZABETH THOMAS, JUN.[169]

MADAM, Nov. 12, 1699.

The letter you were pleas’d to direct for me, to be left at the

coffee-house last summer, was a great honour; and your verses[170]

were, I thought, too good to be a woman’s; some of my friends, to whom

I read them, were of the same opinion. ’Tis not over-gallant, I must

confess, to say this of the fair sex; but most certain it is, that they

generally write with more softness than strength. On the contrary, you

want neither vigour in your thoughts, nor force in your expressions,

nor harmony in your numbers; and methinks I find much of Orinda[171]

in your manner; to whom I had the honour to be related, and also to

be known. But I continued not a day in the ignorance of the person to

whom I was oblig’d; for, if you remember, you brought the verses to a

bookseller’s shop, and enquir’d there, how they might be sent to me.

There happen’d to be in the same shop a gentleman, who heareing you

speak of me, and seeing a paper in your hand, imagin’d it was a libel

against me, and had you watch’d by his servant, till he knew both your

name, and where you liv’d, of which he sent me word immediately. Though

I have lost his letter, yet I remember you live some where about St

Giles’s,[172] and are an only daughter. You must have pass’d your time

in reading much better books than mine; or otherwise you cou’d not have

arriv’d to so much knowledge as I find you have. But whether Sylph or

Nymph, I know not: those fine creatures, as your author, Count Gabalis,

assures us,[173] have a mind to be christen’d, and since you do me the

favour to desire a name from me, take that of Corinna, if you please;

I mean not the lady with whom Ovid was in love, but the famous Theban

poetess, who overcame Pindar five times, as historians tell us. I

would have call’d you Sapho, but that I hear you are handsomer. Since

you find I am not altogether a stranger to you, be pleas’d to make me

happier by a better knowledge of you; and in stead of so many unjust

praises which you give me, think me only worthy of being,

Madam,

Your most humble servant,

and admirer,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XLII.

TO MRS ELIZABETH THOMAS, JUN.[174]

MADAM, [Nov. 1699.]

The great desire which I observe in you to write well, and those

good parts which God Almighty and nature have bestow’d on you, make

me not to doubt, that, by application to study, and the reading of

the best authors, you may be absolute mistress of poetry. ’Tis an

unprofitable art to those who profess it; but you, who write only for

your diversion, may pass your hours with pleasure in it, and without

prejudice; always avoiding (as I know you will,) the licence which

Mrs Behn[175] allow’d her self, of writeing loosely, and giveing, if

I may have leave to say so, some scandall to the modesty of her sex.

I confess, I am the last man who ought, in justice, to arraign her,

who have been my self too much a libertine in most of my poems; which

I shou’d be well contented I had time either to purge, or to see them

fairly burn’d. But this I need not say to you, who are too well born,

and too well principled, to fall into that mire.

In the mean time, I would advise you not to trust too much to Virgil’s

Pastorals; for as excellent as they are, yet Theocritus is far before

him, both in softness of thought, and simplicity of expression. Mr

Creech has translated that Greek poet, which I have not read in

English. If you have any considerable faults, they consist chiefly in

the choice of words, and the placeing them so as to make the verse run

smoothly; but I am at present so taken up with my own studies, that I

have not leisure to descend to particulars; being, in the mean time,

the fair Corinna’s

Most humble and most

faithful Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

P.S. I keep your two copies[176] till you want them, and are pleas’d to

send for them.

LETTER XLIII.

TO MRS STEWARD.

Saturday, Nov. 26, [1699.]

After a long expectation, Madam, at length your happy letter came

to your servant, who almost despair’d of it. The onely comfort I

had, was, my hopes of seeing you, and that you defer’d writeing,

because you wou’d surprise me with your presence, and beare your

relations company to town.--Your neighbour, Mr Price, has given me an

apprehension, that my cousin, your father, is in some danger of being

made sheriff the following yeare; but I hope ’tis a jealousy without

ground, and that the warm season only keeps him in the country.--If

you come up next week, you will be entertain’d with a new tragedy,

which the author of it, one Mr Dennis, cries up at an excessive rate;

and Colonel Codrington, who has seen it, prepares the world to give it

loud applauses. ’Tis called “Iphigenia,” and imitated from Euripides,

an old Greek poet.[177] This is to be acted at Betterton’s house; and

another play of the same name is very shortly to come on the stage

in Drury-Lane.--I was lately to visite the Duchess of Norfolk;[178]

and she speaks of you with much affection and respect. Your cousin

Montague,[179] after the present session of parliament, will be created

Earl of Bristoll.[180] and I hope is much my friend: but I doubt I am

in no condition of having a kindness done, having the Chancellour[181]

my enemy; and not being capable of renounceing the cause for which I

have so long suffer’d,--My cousin Driden of Chesterton is in town, and

lodges with my brother in Westminster.[182] My sonn has seen him, and

was very kindly received by him.--Let this letter stand for nothing,

because it has nothing but news in it, and has so little of the main

business, which is to assure my fair cousine how much I am her admirer,

and her

Most devoted Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

I write no recommendations of service to our friends at Oundle, because

I suppose they are leaveing that place; but I wish my Cousin Stuart a

boy, as like Miss Jem:[183] as he and you can make him. My wife and

sonn are never forgetfull of their acknowledgments to you both.

_For Mrs Stuart, Att_

_Cotterstock near Oundle,_

_in the County of Northampton, These._

_To be left at the Posthouse

in Oundle_.

LETTER XLIV.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Thursday, Dec. the 14, 1699.

When I have either too much business or want of health, to write to

you, I count my time is lost, or at least my conscience accuses me

that I spend it ill. At this time my head is full of cares, and my

body ill at ease. My book is printing,[184] and my bookseller makes

no hast. I had last night at bed-time an unwelcome fit of vomiting;

and my sonn, Charles, lyes sick upon his bed with the colique, which

has been violent upon him for almost a week. With all this, I cannot

but remember that you accus’d me of barbarity, I hope in jeast onely,

for mistaking one sheriff for another, which proceeded from my want of

heareing well. I am heartily sorry that a chargeable office is fallen

on my cousin Stuart.[185] But my Cousin Driden comforts me, that

it must have come one time or other, like the small-pox; and better

have it young than old. I hope it will leave no great marks behind

it, and that your fortune will no more feel it than your beauty, by

the addition of a year’s wearing. My cousine, your mother, was heer

yesterday, to see my wife, though I had not the happiness to be at

home.--Both the “Iphigenias” have been play’d with bad success;[186]

and being both acted one against the other in the same week, clash’d

together, like two rotten ships which could not endure the shock, and

sunk to rights. The King’s proclamation against vice and profaneness is

issued out in print;[187] but a deep disease is not to be cur’d with

a slight medicine. The parsons, who must read it, will find as little

effect from it, as from their dull sermons: ’tis a scare-crow, which

will not fright many birds from preying on the fields and orchards. The

best news I heare is, that the land will not be charg’d very deep this

yeare: let that comfort you for your shrievalty, and continue me in

your good graces, who am, fair cousin,

Your most faithfull oblig’d servant,

JO. DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Stuart,_

_Att Cotterstock, near Oundle,_

_in Northamptonshyre, These._

_To be left with the Postmaster

of Oundle._

LETTER XLV.

TO MRS ELIZABETH THOMAS, JUN.

MADAM, Friday, Dec. 29, 1699.

I have sent your poems back again, after having kept them so long from

you; by which you see I am like the rest of the world, an impudent

borrower, and a bad pay-master. You take more care of my health than

it deserves; that of an old man is always crazy, and, at present, mine

is worse than usual, by a St Anthony’s fire in one of my legs; though

the swelling is much abated, yet the pain is not wholly gone, and I am

too weak to stand upon it. If I recover, it is possible I may attempt

Homer’s Iliad. A specimen of it (the first book) is now in the press,

among other poems of mine, which will make a volume in folio, of twelve

shillings’ price; and will be published within this month. I desire,

fair author, that you will be pleas’d to continue me in your good

graces, who am, with all sincerity and gratitude,

Your most humble servant,

and admirer,

JOHN DRYDEN.

LETTER XLVI.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Feb. 23d. [1699-1700.]

Though I have not leisure to thank you for the last trouble I gave

you, yet haveing by me two lampoons lately made, I know not but they

may be worth your reading; and therefore have presum’d to send them. I

know not the authours; but the town will be ghessing. The “Ballad of

the Pews,” which are lately rais’d higher at St James’s church,[188]

is by some sayd to be Mr Manwareing, or my Lord Peterborough. The

poem of the “Confederates” some think to be Mr Walsh: the copies

are both lik’d.[189] And there are really two factions of ladyes,

for the two playhouses. If you do not understand the names of some

persons mention’d, I can help you to the knowledge of them. You know

Sir Tho: Skipwith is master of the playhouse in Drury-Lane; and my

Lord Scarsdale is the patron of Betterton’s house, being in love with

somebody there. The Lord Scott is second sonn to the Duchess of

Monmouth. I need not tell you who my Lady Darentwater is; but it may

be you know not her Lord is a poet,and none of the best. Forgive this

hasty billet from

Your most obliged servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Stewart_,

_Att Cotterstock, near Oundle_,

_in Northamptonshyre, These._

_To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle_.

LETTER XLVII.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Tuesday, March 12th, 1699 [-1700.]

’Tis a week since I received the favour of a letter, which I have not

yet, acknowledg’d to you. About that time my new poems were publish’d,

which are not come till this day into my hands. They are a debt to

you, I must confess; and I am glad, because they are so unworthy to

be made a present. Your sisters, I hope, will be so kind to have them

convey’d to you; that my writeings may have the honour of waiting on

you, which is deny’d to me. The town encourages them with more applause

than any thing of mine deserves; and particularly, my cousin Driden

accepted one from me so very indulgently, that it makes me more and

more in love with him. But all our hopes of the House of Commons are

wholly dash’d. Our proprieties are destroy’d; and rather than we shou’d

not perish, they have made a breach in the Magna Charta;[203] for which

God forgive them! Congreve’s new play has had but moderate success,

though it deserves much better.[204] I am neither in health, nor do I

want afflictions of any kind; but am, in all conditions,

Madam,

Your most oblig’d obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Stuart, att Cotterstock,_

_near Oundle, These._

_By the Oundle Carrier, with_

_a book directed to her, These._

_Northamptonshyre._

LETTER XLVIII.

TO MRS STEWARD.

MADAM, Thursday, April the 11th, 1700.

The ladies of the town have infected you at a distance; they are all

of your opinion, and, like my last book of Poems,[205] better than any

thing they have formerly seen of mine. I always thought my verses to my

cousin Driden were the best of the whole; and to my comfort, the town

thinks them so; and he, which pleases me most, is of the same judgment,

as appears by a noble present he has sent me, which surprised me,

because I did not in the least expect it. I doubt not, but he receiv’d

what you were pleas’d to send him; because he sent me the letter, which

you did me the favour to write me. At this very instant, I heare the

guns, which, going off, give me to understand, that the King is goeing

to the Parliament to pass acts, and consequently to prorogue them; for

yesterday I heard, that both he and the Lords have given up the cause,

and the House of Commons have gained an entire victory.[206] Though

under the rose, I am of opinion, that much of the confidence is abated

on either side, and that whensoever they meet next, it will give that

House a farther occasion of encroaching on the prerogative and the

Lords; for they, who beare the purse, will rule. The Parliament being

risen, my cousin Driden will immediately be with you, and, I believe,

return his thanks in person. All this while I am lame at home, and have

not stirr’d abroad this moneth at least. Neither my wife nor Charles

are well, but have intrusted their service in my hand. I humbly add my

own to the unwilling High Sheriff,[207] and wish him fairly at an end

of his trouble.

The latter end of last week, I had the honour of a visite from my

cousine, your mother, and my cousine Dorothy, with which I was much

comforted. Within this moneth there will be play’d, for my profit, an

old play of Fletcher’s, call’d the “Pilgrim,” corrected by my good

friend Mr Vanbrook;[208] to which I have added a new masque; and am

to write a new prologue and epilogue. Southern’s tragedy, call’d the

“Revolt of Capua,” will be play’d at Betterton’s house within this

fortnight. I am out with that Company, and therefore, if I can help it,

will not read it before ’tis acted, though the authour much desires I

shou’d. Do not think I will refuse a present from fair hands; for I am

resolv’d to save my bacon. I beg your pardon for this slovenly letter;

but I have not health to transcribe it.[209] My service to my cousin,

your brother, who, I heare, is happy in your company, which he is not

who most desires it, and who is, Madam,

Your most obliged obedient

Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

_For Mrs Stuart,_

_Att Cotterstock, near Oundle,_

_in Northamptonshyre, These._

_To be left with the_

_Postmaster of Oundle._

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

DRYDEN’S _Degree as Master of Arts, granted by the Archbishop

of Canterbury, preserved in the Faculty Book_, (Book 6. p. 236.

b.)

“Dispensatio JOANNI DRYDEN, pro gradu Artium Magistri.

“GILBERTUS providentiâ divinâ Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus, &c. dilecto

nobis in Christo JOANNI DRYDEN, in Artibus Baccalaureo, perantiquâ

Dreydenorum familiâ in agro Northamptoniensi oriundo, salutem et

gratiam. QUUM in scholis rite constitutis mos laudabilis et consuetudo

invaluerit, approbatione tam ecclesiarum bene reformatarum, quam

hominum doctissimorum, à multis retrò annis, ut quicunque in aliqua

artium liberalium scientia cum laude desudaverint, insigni aliquo

dignitatis gradu decorarentur. Quum etiam, publicâ legum auctoritate

muniti, Cantuarienses Archiepiscopi gradus prædictos et honoris titulos

in homines bene merentes conferendi potestate gaudeant et jamdudum

gavisi sint, prout ex libro authentico de Facultatibus taxandis

Parlamenti auctoritate confirmato pleniùs apparet; Nos igitur prædictà

auctoritate freti, et antecessorum nostrorum exemplum imitati, te

Joannem prædictum, cujus vitæ probitas, bonarum literarum scientiá,

morumque integritas, vel ipsius domini Regis testimonio, perspectæ

sunt, MAGISTRI IN ARTIBUS titulo et gradu insigniri decrevimus, et

tenore presentium in Artibus Magistrum actualem creamus, pariterque

in numerum Magistrorum in Artibus hujusce regni aggregamus; juramento

infra scripto priùs per nos de te exacto, et a te jurato:--_Ego

Joannes Dryden, ad gradum et titulum Magistri in Artibus, per

Reverendissimum in Christo patron ac dominum, Gilbertum divinâ

providentiâ Cantuariensem Archiepiscopum, totius Angliæ Primatem

et Metropolitanum, admittendus, teste mihi conscientiâ testificor

serenissimum nostrum regem Carolum Secundum esse unicum et supremum

gubernatorem hujusce regni Angliæ, &c. sicut me Deus adjuvet, per sacra

Dei evangelia._--Proviso semper quod hæ literæ tibi non proficiant,

nisi registrentur et subscribantur per Clericum Regiæ Majestatis ad

Facultates in Cancellaria.

“Dat. sub sigillo de Facultatibus, decimo septimo die mensis Junii,

Anno Domini 1668, et nostræ translationis anno quinto.”

No. II.

DRYDEN’S PATENT.

_Pat. 22. Car. II. p. 6. n. 6._

CHARLES THE SECOND, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland,

France, and Ireland, king, defender of the faith, &c. to the lords

commissioners of our treasury, treasurer, chancellor, under-treasurer,

chamberlaines, and barons of the exchequer, of us, our heires and

successors, now being, and that hereafter shall bee, and to all other

the officers and ministers of our said court and of the receipt there,

now being and that hereafter shall bee; and to all others to whom these

presents shall come, greeting.

Know yee, that wee, for and in consideration of the many good and

acceptable services by John Dryden, Master of Arts, and eldest sonne of

Erasmus Dryden, of Tichmarsh, in the county of Northampton, esquire,

to us heretofore done and performed, and taking notice of the learning

and eminent abilities of him the said John Dryden, and of his great

skill and elegant style both in verse and prose, and for diverse

other good causes and considerations us thereunto especially moving,

have nominated, constituted, declared, and appointed, and by these

presents do nominate, constitute, declare, and appoint him, the said

John Dryden, our POET LAUREAT and HISTORIOGRAPHER ROYAL; giving and

granting unto him, the said John Dryden, all and singular the rights,

privileges, benefits, and advantages thereunto belonging, as fully and

amply as Sir Geoffery Chaucer, knight, Sir John Gower, knight, John

Leland, esquire, William Camden, esquire, Benjamin Johnson, esquire,

James Howell, esquire, Sir William D’Avenant, knight, or any other

person or persons having or exercising the place or employment of Poet

Laureat or Historiographer, or either of them, in the time of any of

our royal progenitors, had or received, or might lawfully claim or

demand, as incident or belonging unto the said places or employments,

or either of them. And for the further and better encouragement of

him, the said John Dryden, diligently to attend the said employment,

we are graciously pleased to give and grant, and by these presents,

for us, our heirs and successors, do give and grant, unto the said

John Dryden, one annuity or yearly pension of two hundred pounds of

lawful money of England, during our pleasure, to have and to hold, and

yearly to receive the said annuity or pension of two hundred pounds

of lawful money of England by the yeare, unto the said John Dryden

and his assigns, from the death of the said Sir William D’Avenant

lately deceased, for and during our pleasure, at the receipt of the

exchequer, of us, our heirs and successors, out of the treasure of

us, our heirs and successors, from time to time there remaining, by

the hands of the treasurer or treasurers and chamberlains of us, our

heirs and successors, there for the time being, at the four usual

terms of the year, that is to say, at the feast of the nativity of

St John the Baptist, St Michael the Archangel, the birth of our Lord

God, and the annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by even and

equal portions to be paid, the first payment thereof to begin at the

feast of the nativity of St John the Baptist next and immediately

after the death of the said Sir William D’Avenant, deceased. Wherefore

our will and pleasure is, and we do by these presents, for us, our

heirs and successors, require, command, and authorize the said lords

commissioners of our treasury, treasurer, chancellor, under-treasurer,

chamberlains, and barons, and other officers and ministers of the said

exchequer now and for the time being, not only to pay, or cause to

be paid, unto the said John Dryden and his assigns, the said annuity

or yearly pension of two hundred pounds of lawful money of England,

according to our will and pleasure herein before expressed, but also

from time to time to give full allowance of the same, according

to the true meaning of these presents. And these presents, or the

inrolment thereof, shall be unto all men whom it shall concern a

sufficient warrant and discharge for the paying and allowing of the

same accordingly, without any further or other warrant procured or

obtained. And further, know ye, that we, of our especial grace,

certain knowledge, and mere motion, have given and granted, and by

these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, do give and grant,

unto the said John Dryden and his assigns, one butt or pipe of the

best canary wine, to have, hold, receive, perceive, and take the said

butt or pipe of canary wine unto the said John Dryden and his assigns,

during our pleasure, out of our store of wines yearly and from time to

time remaining at or in our cellars within or belonging to our palace

of Whitehall. And for the better effecting of our will and pleasure

herein, we do hereby require and command all and singular our officers,

and ministers whom it shall or may concern, or who shall have the care

or charge of our said wines, that they, or some of them, do deliver, or

cause to be delivered, the said butt or pipe of wine yearly, and once

in every year, unto the said John Dryden or his assigns, during our

pleasure, at such time and times as he or they shall demand or desire

the same. And these presents, or the inrolment thereof, shall be unto

all men whom it shall concern, a sufficient warrant and discharge in

that behalf, although express mention, &c. In witness, &c.

Witness the King at Westminster, the eighteenth day of August. [1670.]

_Per breve de privato sigillo._

No. III.

THE AGREEMENT CONCERNING THE FABLES

I doe hereby promise to pay John Dryden, Esquire, or order, on the

25th of March, 1699, the sume of two hundred and fifty guineas, in

consideration of ten thousand verses, which the said John Dryden,

Esquire, is to deliver to me Jacob Tonson, when finished, whereof

seaven thousand five hundred verses, more or lesse, are already in

the said Jacob Tonson’s possession. And I do hereby further promise

and engage my selfe to make up the said sume of two hundred and fifty

guineas, three hundred pounds sterling, to the said John Dryden,

Esquire, his executors, administrators, or assigns, att the beginning

of the second impression of the said ten thousand verses. In witnesse

whereof, I have hereunto sett my hand and seal this twentieth day of

March, 1698-9.

JACOB TONSON.

Sealed and delivered, being first

stampt pursuant to the acts of

Parliament for that purpose,

in the presence of

Benj. Portlock,

Will Congreve.

March the twenty-fourth, 1698.

Received then of Mr Jacob Tonson the sum of two hundred sixty-eight

pounds fifteen shillings, in pursuance of an agreement for ten thousand

verses to be delivered by me to the said Jacob Tonson, whereof I have

already delivered to him about seven thousand five hundred, more or

less: he the sayd Jacob Tonson being obliged to make up the foresayd

sum of two hundred sixty-eight pounds fifteen shillings, three hundred

pounds, at the beginning of the second impression or the foresayd ten

thousand verses.

I say, received by me,

JOHN DRYDEN.

Witness, Charles Dryden.

_The following receipt is written on the back of_ JACOB TONSON’S

_Agreement, dated March_ 20, 1698-9.

June 11, 1713. Received of the within-named Jacob Tonson, thirty-one

pounds five shillings, which, with two hundred sixty-eight pounds

fifteen shillings paid Mr John Dryden the 24th of March 1698, is in

full for the copy of a book intituled “Dryden’s FABLES,” consisting of

ten thousand verses, more or lesse: I say received as administratrix to

the said John Dryden, of such effects as were not administered to by

Charles Dryden.

ANN SYLVIUS.

Witnesses, Eliz. Jones.

Jacob Tonson, Jun^r.

Paid Mr Dryden, March the 23d, 1698.

L. s. d.

In a bag in silver 100 0 0

In silver besides 21 15 6

66 Lewis d’ores at 17s. 6d. 57 15 0

83 Guyneas at [1] 1 6 89 4 6

-------------

268 15 0

=============

250 Guyneas at L. 1 1s. 6d. are 268 15 0

L. s. d.

268 15 0

31 5 0

===========

300 0 0

No. IV.

MR RUSSEL’s BILL FOR MR DRYDEN’S FUNERALLS.

For the funerall of Esq^{re} Dryden.

L. s. d.

A double coffin covered with cloath, and

sett of [off] with work gilt with gold 5 0 0

A herse with six white Flanders horses 1 10 0

Covering the herse with velvet, and

velvet housings for the horses 1 0 0

17 plumes of feathers for herse and horses 3 0 0

Hanging the Hall[210] with a border of bays 5 0 0

6 dozen of paper escucheons for the Hall 3 12 0

A large pall of velvet 0 10 0

10 silk escucheons for the pall 2 10 0

24 buck: escucheons for herse and horses 2 8 0

12 shields and six shaffroones for ditto 2 8 0

3 mourning coaches with six horses 2 5 0

Silver dish and rosemary 0 5 0

8 scarves for musicioners 2 0 0

8 hatbands for ditto 1 0 0

17 yds of crape to cover their instruments 1 14 0

4 mourning cloakes 0 10 0

Pd 6 men moveing the corps to the Hall 0 6 0

8 horsemen in long cloakes to ride before

the herse 4 0 0

-----------

Carried over 38 18 0

L. S. d.

Brought over 38 18 0

13 footmen in velvet capps, to walk on

each side the herse 1 19 0

6 porters that attended at the doores, and

walked before the herse to the Abby,

in mourning gowns and staves 1 10 0

An atchievement for the house 3 10 0

-----------

45 17 0

-----------

We may add to these accounts the Description of the Funeral

itself, extracted from the London Spy of WARD, who was

doubtless a spectator.

“A deeper concern hath scarce been known to affect in general the

minds of grateful and ingenious men, than the melancholy surprise

of the worthy Mr Dryden’s death hath occasioned through the whole

town, as well as in all other parts of the kingdom, where any persons

either of wit or learning have taken up their residence. Wheresoever

his incomparable writings have been scattered by the hands of the

travellers into foreign nations, the loss of so great a man must needs

be lamented amongst their bards and rabbies; and ’tis reasonable

to believe the commendable industry of translations has been such,

to render several of his most accurate performances into their own

language, that their native country might receive the benefit, and

themselves the reputation of so laudable an undertaking: and how far

the wings of merit have conveyed the pleasing fruits of his exuberant

fancy, is a difficult conjecture, considering what a continual

correspondence our nation has with most parts of the universe. For

it is reasonable to believe all Christian kingdoms and colonies at

least, have been as much the better for his labours, as the world is

the worse for the loss of him. Those who were his enemies while he

was living, (for no man lives without,) his death has now made such

friends to his memory, that they acknowledge they cannot but in justice

give him this character, that he was one of the greatest scholars, the

most correct dramatic poet, and the best writer of heroic verse, that

any age has produced in England. And yet, to verify the old proverb,

that poets, like prophets, have little honour in their own countries,

notwithstanding his merits had justly entitled his corpse to the most

magnificent and solemn interment the beneficence of the greatest

spirits could have bestowed on him; yet, ’tis credibly reported, the

ingratitude of the age is such, that they had like to have let him

pass in private to his grave, without those funeral obsequies suitable

to his greatness, had it not been for that true British worthy, who,

meeting with the venerable remains of the neglected bard passing

silently in a coach, unregarded to his last home, ordered the corpse,

by the consent of his few friends that attended him, to be respited

from so obscure an interment, and most generously undertook, at his

own expence, to revive his worth in the minds of a forgetful people,

by bestowing on his peaceful dust a solemn funeral answerable to his

merit; which memorable action alone will eternalize his fame with the

greatest heroes, and add that lustre to his nobility, which time can

never tarnish, but will shine with equal glory in all ages, and in

the very teeth of envy bid defiance to oblivion. The management of

the funeral was left to Mr Russel, pursuant to the directions of that

honourable great man the lord Jefferies, concerned chiefly in the pious

undertaking.

“The first honour done to his deserving relics, was lodging them in

Physicians College, from whence they were appointed to take their

last remove. The constituted day for the celebration of that office,

which living heroes perform in respect to a dead worthy, was Monday

the 13th of May, in the afternoon; at which time, according to the

notice given, most of the nobility and gentry now in town assembled

themselves together at the noble edifice aforesaid, in order to honour

the corpse with their personal attendance. When the company were met,

a performance of grave music, adapted to the solemn occasion, was

communicated to the ears of the company, by the hands of the best

masters in England, whose artful touches on their soft instruments

diffused such harmonious influence amongst the attentive auditory, that

the most heroic spirits in the whole assembly were unable to resist

the passionate force of each dissolving strain, but melted into tears

for the loss of so elegant and sweet a ravisher of human minds; and,

notwithstanding their undaunted bravery, which had oft scorned death

in the field, yet now, by music’s enchantment at the funeral of so

great a poet, were softened beneath their own natures, into a serious

reflection on mortality.

“When this part of the solemnity was ended, the famous Doctor G----th

ascended the pulpit where the physicians make their lectures, and

delivered, according to the Roman custom, a funeral oration in Latin

on his deceased friend, which he performed with great approbation and

applause of all such gentlemen that heard him, and were true judges of

the matter; most rhetorically setting forth those elegies and encomiums

which no poet hitherto, but the great Dryden, could ever truly deserve.

When these rites were over in the College, the corpse, by bearers for

that purpose, was handed into the hearse, being adorned with plumes

of black feathers, and the sides hung round with the escutcheons of

his ancestors, mixed with that of his lady’s; the hearse drawn by six

stately Flanders horses; every thing being set off with the most useful

ornaments to move regard, and affect the memories of the numberless

spectators, as a means to encourage every sprightly genius to attempt

something in their lives that may once render their dust worthy of

so public a veneration. All things being put in due order for their

movement, they began their solemn procession towards Westminster Abbey,

after the following manner:

“The two beadles of the College marched first, in mourning cloaks and

hat-bands, with the heads of their staffs wrapt in black crape scarfs,

being followed by several other servile mourners, whose business

was to prepare the way, that the hearse might pass less liable to

interruption; next to these moved a concert of hautboys and trumpets,

playing and sounding together a melancholy funeral-march, undoubtedly

composed upon that particular occasion; (after these, the undertaker

with his hat off, dancing through the dirt like a bear after a bagpipe.

I beg the reader’s pardon for foisting in a jest in so improper a

place, but as he walked by himself within a parenthesis, so I have here

placed him, and hope none will be offended;) then came the hearse, as

before described, most honourably attended with abundance of quality

in their coaches and six horses; that it may be justly reported to

posterity, no ambassador from the greatest emperor in all the universe,

sent over with the welcome embassy to the throne of England, ever made

his public entry to the court with half that honour as the corpse of

the great Dryden did its last exit to the grave. In this order the

nobility and gentry attended the hearse to Westminster Abbey, where the

quire, assisted with the best masters in England, sung an Epicedium;

and the last funeral rites being performed by one of the prebends, he

was honourably interred between Chaucer and Cowley; where, according to

report, will be erected a very stately monument, at the expence of some

of the nobility, in order to recommend his worth, and to preserve his

memory to all succeeding ages.”

No. V.

MRS THOMAS’S LETTERS CONCERNING DRYDEN’S DEATH AND FUNERAL;

_Extracted from Wilson’s Life of Congreve, 1730._

[As tales of wonder are generally acceptable to the public, I

insert these memorable Epistles, with the necessary caveat,

that they are full of every kind of blunder and inconsistency.]

“These Memoirs were communicated to me by a lady, now living, with whom

Mr Dryden corresponded under the name of Corinna, and which name he

himself gave her.

’SIR,

’Mr Dryden was son of -------- Dryden, of an ancient and good family

in Northamptonshire, by a sister of Sir Gilbert Pickering, Bart. of

the same county; who has a handsome monument at Tichmarsh, erected

in 1721, by the late widow Creed of Oundle, the daughter of another

sister of Sir Gilbert’s, and niece to the famous Earl of Sandwich,

who was killed in the Dutch war, 1667, being then admiral. He married

Lady Elizabeth Howard, (a celebrated beauty) daughter to the old Earl

of Berkshire, sister to Sir Robert Howard, Colonel Philip Howard, and

Mr Edward Howard: (who wrote “The British Prince,” &c.;) she bore him

three sons, Charles, John, and Harry. He lived many years in a very

good house in Gerrard street, the 5th or 6th door on the left-hand from

Newport-market. On the 19th of April, 1700, he said he had been very

bad with the gout, and an erysipelas in one leg; but he was then very

well, and designed to go soon abroad: but on the Friday following, he

had eat a partridge for his supper; and going to take a turn in the

little garden behind his house, was seized with a violent pain under

the ball of the great-toe of his right-foot, that, unable to stand,

he cried out for help, and was carried in by his servants; when, upon

sending for surgeons, they found a small black spot in the place

affected: He submitted to their present applications; and when gone,

called his son Charles to him, using these words, “I know,” says he,

“this black spot is a mortification; I know also, that it will seize

my head, and that they will cut off my leg: but I command you, my son,

by your filial duty, that you do not suffer me to be dismembered.” As

he, too truly, foretold, the event proved; and his son was too dutiful

to disobey his father’s commands. On the Wednesday morning following,

being May-day, 1700, under the most excruciating dolours, he died.

Dr Sprat, then bishop of Rochester, sent, on the Thursday, to Lady

Elizabeth, that he would make a present of the ground, which was 40l.

with all the other abbey-fees, &c. to his deceased friend. Lord Halifax

sent also to my lady and Mr Charles, that if they would give him leave

to bury Mr Dryden, he would inter him with a gentleman’s private

funeral, and afterwards bestow 500l. on a monument in the Abbey;

which, as they had no reason to refuse, they accepted. On the Saturday

following the company came, the corpse was put into a velvet hearse,

and eighteen mourning coaches, filled with company, attending. When,

just before they began to move, Lord Jefferies, with some of his rakish

companions, coming by, in wine, asked, whose funeral? and being told,

“What!” cries he, “shall Dryden, the greatest honour and ornament of

the nation, be buried after this private manner? No, gentlemen; let

all that loved Mr Dryden, and honour his memory, alight, and join

with me in gaining my lady’s consent, to let me have the honour of

his interment, which shall be after another manner than this, and I

will bestow 1000l. on a monument in the Abbey for him.” The gentlemen

in the coaches not knowing of the bishop of Rochester’s favour, nor

of Lord Halifax’s generous design, (these two noble spirits having,

out of respect to the family, enjoined Lady Elizabeth and her son to

keep their favour concealed to the world, and let it pass for her own

expence, &c.), readily came out of the coaches, and attended Lord

Jefferies up to the lady’s bed-side, who was then sick, He repeated the

purport of what he had before said; but she absolutely refusing, he

fell on his knees, vowing never to rise till his request was granted.

The rest of the company, by his desire, kneeled also; she being

naturally of a timorous disposition, and then under a sudden surprise,

fainted away. As soon as she recovered her speech, she cried, no, no.

Enough, gentlemen, replied he, (rising briskly,) my lady is very good;

she says, go, go. She repeated her former words with all her strength,

but, alas! in vain, her feeble voice was lost in their acclamations of

joy; and Lord Jefferies ordered the hearsemen to carry the corpse to

Russell’s, the undertaker, in Cheapside, and leave it there, till he

sent orders for the embalment, which, he added, should be after the

royal manner. His directions were obeyed, the company dispersed, and

Lady Elizabeth and Mr Charles remained inconsolable. Next morning Mr

Charles waited on Lord Halifax, &c. to excuse his mother and self, by

relating the real truth: but neither his lordship, nor the bishop,

would admit of any plea; especially the latter, who had the Abbey

lighted, the ground opened, the choir attending, an anthem ready set,

and himself waiting, for some hours, without any corpse to bury,

Russel, after three days expectance of orders for embalment, without

receiving any, waits on Lord Jefferies, who, pretending ignorance of

the matter, turned it off with an ill-natured jest, saying, “Those who

observed the orders of a drunken frolic, deserved no better; that he

remembered nothing at all of it, and he might do what he pleased with

the corpse.” On this Mr Russell waits on Lady Elizabeth and Mr Dryden;

but, alas! it was not in their power to answer. The season was very

hot, the deceased had lived high and fast; and being corpulent, and

abounding with gross humours, grew very offensive. The undertaker, in

short, threatened to bring home the corpse, and set it before their

door. It cannot be easily imagined, what grief, shame, and confusion,

seized this unhappy family. They begged a day’s respite, which was

granted. Mr Charles wrote a very handsome letter to Lord Jefferies, who

returned it, with this cool answer, “He knew nothing of the matter,

and would be troubled no more about it.” He then addressed the Lord

Halifax and bishop of Rochester, who were both too justly, though

unhappily, incensed, to do any thing in it. In this extreme distress,

Dr Garth, a man who entirely loved Mr Dryden, and was withal a man of

generosity and great humanity, sends for the corpse to the College of

Physicians in Warwicklane, and proposed a funeral by subscription,

to which himself set a most noble example; Mr Wycherley, and several

others, among whom must not be forgotten, Henry Cromwell, Esq. Captain

Gibbons, and Mr Christopher Metcalfe, Mr Dryden’s apothecary and

intimate friend, (since a collegiate physician,) who, with many others,

contributed most largely to the subscription; and at last a day, about

three weeks after his decease, was appointed for the interment at

the Abbey. Dr Garth pronounced a fine Latin oration over the corpse

at the College; but the audience being numerous, and the room large,

it was requisite the orator should be elevated, that he might be

heard; but, as it unluckily happened, there was nothing at hand but

an old beer-barrel, which the doctor, with much good-nature, mounted;

and, in the midst of his oration, beating time to the accent with

his foot, the head broke in, and his feet sunk to the bottom, which

occasioned the malicious report of his enemies, that he was turned a

tub-preacher: However, he finished the oration with a superior grace

and genius, to the loud acclamations of mirth, which inspired the

mixed or rather mob-auditors. The procession began to move, a numerous

train of coaches attended the hearse; but, good God! in what disorder,

can only be expressed by a sixpenny pamphlet, soon after published,

entitled, “Dryden’s Funeral.” At last the corpse arrived at the Abbey,

which was all unlighted. No organ played, no anthem sung; only two of

the singing boys preceded the corpse, who sung an ode of Horace, with

each a small candle in their hand. The butchers and other mob broke

in like a deluge, so that only about eight or ten gentlemen could get

admission, and those forced to cut the way with their drawn swords.

The coffin, in this disorder, was let down into Chaucer’s grave, with

as much confusion, and as little ceremony, as was possible; every one

glad to save themselves from the gentlemen’s swords, or the clubs of

the mob. When the funeral was over, Mr Charles sent a challenge to Lord

Jefferies, who refusing to answer it, he sent several others, and went

often himself, but could neither get a letter delivered, nor admittance

to speak to him; which so justly incensed him, that he resolved, since

his lordship refused to answer him like a gentleman, he would watch an

opportunity to meet him, and fight off hand, though with all the rules

of honour; which his lordship hearing, left the town; and Mr Charles

could never have the satisfaction to meet him, though he sought it till

his death with the utmost application. This is the true state of the

case, and surely no reflection to the manes of this great man.

“Thus it is very plain, that his being buried by contribution, was

owing to a vile drunken frolic of the Lord Jefferies, as I have

related. Mr Dryden enjoyed himself in plenty, while he lived, and the

surplusage of his goods paid all his debts. After his decease, the

Lady Elizabeth, his widow, took a lesser house in Sherrard-street,

Golden-square, and had wherewithal to live frugally genteel, and keep

two servants, to the day of her death, by the means of a small part of

her fortune, which her relations had obliged Mr Dryden to secure to

her on marriage. This was 80l. per annum, and duly paid at 20l. per

quarter; so that, I can assure you, there was no want to her dying-day.

He had only three sons, and all provided for like gentlemen. Mr Charles

had served the Pontiff of Rome above nine years, in an honourable

and profitable post, as usher to the palace, out of which he had an

handsome stipend remitted by his brother John, whom, by the pope’s

favour, he left to officiate, while he came to visit his father, who

dying soon after his arrival, he returned no more to Italy, but was

unhappily drowned at Windsor in swimming cross the river. Mr John died

in his post at Rome, and Harry the youngest was a religious; he had

30l. a year allowed by his college in Flanders, besides a generous

salary from his near relation the too well-known Duchess of Norfolk,

to whom he was domestic chaplain. Behold the great wants of this

deplorable family!

I am, Sir,

Your’s, &c.

CORINNA.

_May_ 15, 1729.

P. S. ‘Mr Dryden was educated at Westminster school, under the great Dr

Bushby, being one of the king’s scholars upon the royal foundation.’

* * * * *

’SIR,

’Upon recollection, I think it must have been that remarkably fine

gentleman, Pope Clement XI., to whom Mr Charles Dryden was usher of the

palace. His brother John died of a fever at Rome, not many months after

his father, and was buried there; whether before the pope or after

I cannot say; but the difference was not much. Mr Charles, who was

drowned at Windsor, 1704, was doubtless buried there. Lady Elizabeth

lived about eight years after her spouse, and for five years of the

time, without any memory, which she lost by a fever in 1703; she was a

melancholy object, and was, by her son Harry, as I was told, carried

into the country, where she died. What country I never heard. I cannot

certainly say where Mr Harry died, or whether before his mother or

after.

’Mr Dryden never had any wife but Lady Elizabeth, whatever may have

been reported.

’As he was a man of a versatile genius, he took great delight in

judicial astrology; though only by himself. There were some incidents

which proved his great skill, that were related to Lady Chudleigh at

the Bath, and which she desired me to ask Lady Elizabeth about, as I

after did; which she not only confirmed, by telling me the exact matter

of fact, but added another, which had never been told to any; and which

I can solemnly aver was some years before it came to pass. I purposely

omitted these Narratives in the Memoirs of Mr Dryden, lest that this

over-witty age, which so much ridicules prescience, should think the

worse of all the rest; but, if you desire particulars, they shall be

freely at your service.

I am, Sir,

Your’s, &c.

CORINNA.

_16th June_, 1729.

* * * * *

_The Narratives referred to in the foregoing Letter, viz._

’Notwithstanding Mr Dryden was a great master of that branch of

astronomy, called judicial astrology, there were very few, scarce any,

the most intimate of his friends, who knew of his amusements that way,

except his own family. In the year 1707, that deservedly celebrated

Lady Chudleigh being at the Bath, was told by the Lady Elizabeth of a

very surprising instance of this judgement on his eldest son Charles’s

horoscope. Lady Chudleigh, whose superior genius rendered her as

little credulous on the topic of prescience, as she was on that of

apparitions; yet withal was of so candid and curious a disposition,

that she neither credited an attested tale on the quality or character

of the relater, nor did she altogether despise it, though told by the

most ignorant: Her steady zeal for truth always led her to search

to the foundation, of it; and on that principle, at her return to

London, she spoke to a gentlewoman of her acquaintance, that was well

acquainted in Mr Dryden’s family, to ask his widow about it; which she

accordingly did. It is true, report has added many incidents to matter

of fact; but the real truth, taken from Lady Elizabeth’s own mouth, is

in these words:

‘When I was in labour of Charles, Mr Dryden being told it was decent

to withdraw, laid his watch on the table, begging one of the ladies,

then present, in a most solemn manner, to take an exact notice of the

very minute when the child was born: which she did, and acquainted

him therewith. This passed without any singular notice; many fathers

having had such a fancy, without any farther thought. But about a week

after, when I was pretty hearty, he comes into my room; ‘My dear,’

says he, ‘you little think what I have been doing this morning;’ “nor

ever shall,” said I, “unless you will be so good to inform me.” ‘Why,

then,’ cried he, ‘I have been calculating this child’s nativity, and

in grief I speak it, he was born in an evil hour; Jupiter, Venus,

and the Sun, were all under the earth, and the lord of his ascendant

afflicted by a hateful square of Mars and Saturn. If he lives to arrive

at his eighth year, he will go near to die a violent death on his very

birth-day; but if he should escape, as I see but small hopes, he will,

in his twenty-third year, be under the very same evil direction: and

if he should, which seems almost impossible, escape that also, the

thirty-third or thirty-fourth year is, I fear’----I interrupted him

here, “O, Mr Dryden, what is this you tell me? my blood runs cold at

your fatal speech; recal it, I beseech you. Shall my little angel, my

Dryden boy, be doomed to so hard a fate? Poor innocent, what hast thou

done? No: I will fold thee in my arms, and if thou must fall, we will

both perish together.” A flood of tears put a stop to my speech; and

through Mr Dryden’s comfortable persuasions, and the distance of time,

I began to be a little appeased, but always kept the fatal period in

my mind. At last the summer arrived, August was the inauspicious month

in which my dear son was to enter on his eighth year. The court being

in progress, and Mr Dryden at leisure, he was invited to my brother

Berkshire’s to keep the long vacation with him at Charleton in Wilts;

I was also invited to my uncle Mordaunt’s, to pass the remainder of

the summer at his country-seat. All this was well enough; but when we

came to dividing the children, I would have had him took John, and let

me have the care of Charles; because, as I told him, a man might be

engaged in company, but a woman could have no pretence for not guarding

of the evil hour. Poor Mr Dryden was in this too absolute, and I as

positive. In fine, we parted in anger; and, as a husband always will

be master, he took Charles, and I was forced to be content with my son

John. But when the fatal day approached, such anguish of heart seized

me, as none but a fond mother can form any idea of. I watched the post;

that failed: I wrote and wrote, but no answer. Oh, my friend! judge

what I endured, terrified with dreams, tormented by my apprehensions. I

abandoned myself to despair, and remained inconsolable.

’The anxiety of my spirits occasioned such an effervescence of my

blood, as threw me into so violent a fever, that my life was despaired

of, when a letter came from my spouse, reproving my womanish credulity,

and assured me all was well, and the child in perfect health; on

which I mended daily, and recovered my wonted state of ease, till

about six weeks after the fatal day, I received an _eclaircissement_

from Mr Dryden, with a full account of the whole truth, which belike

he feared to acquaint me with till the danger was over. It was this:

In the month of August, being Charles’s anniversary, it happened, that

Lord Berkshire had made a general hunting-match, to which were invited

all the adjacent gentlemen; Mr Dryden being at his house, and his

brother-in-law, could not be dispensed with from appearing.

’I have told you, that Mr Dryden, either through fear of being

thought superstitious, or thinking it a science beneath his study,

was extremely cautious in letting any one know that he was a dabbler

in astrology, therefore could not excuse his absence from the sport;

but he took care to set the boy a double exercise in the Latin tongue,

(which he taught his children himself,) with a strict charge not to

stir out of the room till his return, well knowing the task he had

set him would take up longer time. Poor Charles was all obedience,

and sat close to his duty, when, as ill fate ordained, the stag made

towards the house. The noise of the dogs, horns, &c. alarmed the family

to partake of the sport; and one of the servants coming down stairs,

the door being open, saw the child hard at his exercise without being

moved. ‘Master,’ cried the fellow, ‘why do you sit there? come down,

come down, and see the sport.’ ‘No,’ replied Charles, ’my papa has

forbid me, and I dare not.’ ‘Pish!’ quoth the clown, ‘vather shall

never know it;’ so takes the child by the hand, and leads him away;

when, just as they came to the gate, the stag, being at bay with the

dogs, cut a bold stroke, and leaped over the court-wall, which was

very low and very old, and the dogs following, threw down at once a

part of the wall ten yards in length, under which my dear child lay

buried. He was as soon as possible dug out; but, alas, how mangled! his

poor little head being crushed to a perfect mash. In this miserable

condition he continued above six weeks, without the least hope of life.

Through the Divine Providence he recovered, and in process of time,

having a most advantageous invitation to Rome, from my uncle, Cardinal

Howard, we sent over our two sons Charles and John; (having, through

the grace of God, been ourselves admitted into the true Catholic

faith;) they were received suitable to the grandeur and generosity of

his eminence, and Charles immediately planted in a post of honour,

as gentleman-usher to his Holiness, in which he continued about nine

years. But what occasions me to mention this, is an allusion to my

dear Mr Dryden’s too fatal prediction. In his twenty-third year,

being in perfect health, he had attended some ladies of the palace,

his Holiness’s nieces, as it was his place, on a party of pleasure.

His brother John and he lodged together, at the top of an old round

tower belonging to the Vatican, (with a well staircase, much like the

Monument,) when he knew his brother Charles was returned, went up,

thinking to find him there, and to go to bed. But, alas! no brother

was there: on which he made a strict enquiry at all the places he used

to frequent, but no news, more than that he was seen by the centinel

to go up the staircase. On which he got an order for the door of

the foundation of the tower to be opened, where they found my poor

unfortunate son Charles mashed to a mummy, and weltering in his own

blood. How this happened, he gave no farther account, when he could

speak, than, that the heat of the day had been most excessive, and

as he came to the top of the tower, he found himself seized with a

megrim, or swimming in his head, and leaning against the iron rails, it

is to be supposed, tipped over, five stories deep. Under this grievous

mischance, his Holiness (God bless him!) omitted nothing that might

conduce to his recovery; but as he lay many months without hopes of

life, so when he did recover his health, it was always very imperfect,

and he continues still to be of a hectic disposition.

’You see here (continued Lady Elizabeth) the too true fulfilling of two

of my dear husband’s fatal predictions. But, alas! my friend, there is

a third to come, which is, that in his thirty-third or thirty-fourth

year, he or I shall die a violent death; but he could not say which

would go first. I heartily pray it may be myself: But as I have ten

thousand fears, the daily challenges Charles sends to Lord Jefferies,

on his ungenerous treatment of my dear Mr Dryden’s corpse; and as

he has some value for you, I beg, my dearest friend, that you would

dissuade him as much as you can from taking that sort of justice on

Lord Jefferies, lest it should fulfil his dear father’s prediction.’

* * * * *

“Thus far Lady Elizabeth’s own words.

“This, if required, I can solemnly attest was long before Mr Charles

died; to the best of my remembrance it was in 1701 or 1702, I will

not be positive which. But in 1703, Lady Elizabeth was seized with a

nervous fever, which deprived her of her memory and understanding,

(which surely may be termed a moral death,) though she lived some

years after. But Mr Charles, in August 1704, was unhappily drowned at

Windsor, as before recited. He had, with another gentleman, swam twice

over the Thames; but venturing a third time, it was supposed he was

taken with the cramp, because he called out for help, though too late.

I am, Sir, &c.

CORINNA.”

_June_ 18, 1729.

_Mr_ CHARLES DRYDEN’S _Letter to_ CORINNA.

’_Madam_,

’Notwithstanding I have been seized with a fever ever since I saw you

last, I have this afternoon endeavoured to do myself the honour of

obeying my Lady Chudleigh’s commands. My fever is still increasing, and

I beg you to peruse the following verses, according to your own sense

and discretion, which far surpasses mine in all respects. In a small

time of intermission from my illness, I write these following:

MADAM,

How happy is our British isle, to bear

Such crops of wit and beauty to the fair?

A female muse each vying age has blest,

And the last Phoenix still excels the rest:

But you such solid learning add to rhymes,

Your sense looks fatal to succeeding times;

Which, raised to such a pitch, o’erflows like Nile,

And with an after-dearth must seize our isle.

Alone of all your sex, without the rules

Of formal pedants, or the noisy schools,

(What nature has bestowed will art supply?)

Have traced the various tracts of dark philosophy.

What happy days had wise Aurelius seen,

If, for Faustina, you his wife had been!

No jarring nonsense had his soul oppressed,

For he with all he wished for had been blessed.

’Be pleased to tell me what you find amiss, or correct it yourself, and

excuse this trouble from

Your most humble and most obedient servant,

CHAR. DRYDEN.’

_Easter-Eve._

“I have searched all our ecclesiastical offices for the will of Mr

Dryden, but I find he did not make any; administration was granted to

his son Charles (his wife, the Lady Elizabeth Howard, being a lunatic

for some time before her death) in June 1700.”

No. VI.

MONUMENT IN THE CHURCH AT TICHMARSH.

“In the middle of the north wall of the chapel within the parish church

of Tichmarsh, in Northamptonshire, is a wooden monument, having the

bust of a person at top, wreathed, crowned with laurel. Underneath, THE

POET; and below, this inscription:

“Here lie the honoured remains

of Erasmus Dryden, Esq., and Mary Pickering

his wife.

He was the third son of Sir Erasmus Dryden, an

ancient Baronet, who lived with great honour in

this county, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Mr Dryden was a very ingenious worthy gentleman,

and Justice of the Peace in this county.

He married Mrs Mary Pickering, daughter of the

reverend Doc^r Pickering,[211] of Aldwinckle, and

grand-daughter to Sir Gilbert Pickering:

Of her it may truly be said,

She was a crown to her husband:

Her whole conversation was as becometh

the Gospel of Christ.

They had 14 children; the eldest of whom was

John Dryden, Esq.,

the celebrated Poet and Laureat of his time.

His bright parts and learning are best seen in his

own excellent writings on various subjects.

We boast, that he was bred and had

his first learning here;

where he has often made us happie

by his kind visits and most delightful conversation.

He married the Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter to

Henry[212] Earl of Berkshire; by whom he had three

sons, Charles, John, and Erasmus-Henry;

and, after 70 odd years, when nature could be no

longer supported, he received the notice of

his approaching dissolution

with sweet submission and entire resignation

to the Divine will;

and he took so tender and obliging a farewell of

his friends, as none but he himself could have

expressed; of which sorrowful number

I was one.

His body was honourably interred in Westminster

Abby, among the greatest wits of divers ages.

His sons were all fine, ingenious, accomplished

gentlemen: they died in their youth, unmarried:

Sir Erasmus-Henry, the youngest, lived

till the ancient honour of the family

descended on him.

After his death, it came to his good uncle,

Sir Erasmus Dryden;

whose grandson is the present Sir John Dryden,

of Canons-Ashby, the ancient seat of the Family.

Sir Erasmus Dryden, the first named, married his

daughters into very honourable familyes; the

eldest to Sir John Philipps;[213] the second to

Sir John Hartop;[214] the youngest[215] was married

to Sir John Pickering, great grand-father to

the present Sir Gilbert Pickering, Bart.;

and to the same persons I have the honour to be

a grand-daughter:

And it is with delight and humble thankfullness

that I reflect on the character of

my pious ancestors; and that I am

now, with my owne hand, paying my duty to

Sir Erasmus Dryden,

my great grand-father, and to

Erasmus Dryden, Esq.,

my honoured uncle,[216] in the 80th year of my age.

ELIZA. CREED, 1722.”

No. VII.

EXTRACT FROM AN EPISTOLARY POEM, TO JOHN DRYDEN, ESQ.

OCCASIONED BY THE MUCH-LAMENTED DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. JAMES EARL OF

ABINGDON;

BY WILLIAM PITTIS, LATE FELLOW OF NEW-COLLEGE, IN OXON.

_Quanto rectius hoc, quam tristi lœdere versu

Pantolabum scurram, Nomentanumq. Nepotem?_ HOR.

_----Cadet et Repheus justissimus unus

Qui fuit in Teucris, et servantissimus æqui._ ÆN. Lib. ii.

THE PREFACE.

_1699. 13. June._

... And though I am not an author confirmed enough to carry my copies

about to gentlemen’s chambers, in order to pick up amendments and

corrections, as the practice is now of our most received writers; yet

I must, in justice to myself, and the gentleman who has favoured me

with its perusal, tell the world, it had been much worse had not Mr

Dryden acquainted me with its faults. Nothing indeed was so displeasing

to him, as what was pleasing to myself, viz. his own commendations:

and if it pleases the world, the reader has no one to thank but so

distinguishing a judgment who occasioned it.

I might here lay hold of the opportunity of returning the obliging

compliments he sent me by the person who brought the papers to him

before they were printed; but I may chance to call his judgement in

question by it, which I always accounted infallible, but in his kind

thoughts of me; and therefore refer the reader to the poem, in order to

see whether he’ll be so good natured as to join his opinion with the

compliment the gentleman aforesaid has honoured me with.

POEM.

But thou, great bard, whose hoary merits claim

The laureat’s place, without the laureat’s name;

Whose learned brows, encircled by the bays,

Bespeak their owner’s, and their giver’s praise;

Thou, Dryden, should’st our loss alone relate,

And heroes mourn, who heroes canst create.

Amidst thy verse the wife already shines,

And owes her virtues, what she owes thy lines.

Down from above the saint our sorrows views,

And feels a second heaven in thy muse;

Whose verse as lasting as her fame shall be,

While thou shall live by her, and she by thee.

Oh! let the same immortal numbers tell,

How just the husband lived, and how he fell;

What vows, when living, for his life were made;

What floods of tears at his decease were paid;

And since their deathless virtues were the same,

Equal in worth, alike should be their fame.

But thou, withdrawn from us, and public cares,

Flatter’st thy age, and feed’st thy growing years;

Supine, unmoved, regardless of our cries,

Thou mind’st not where thy noble patron lies:

Wrapt in death’s icy arms, within his urn,

Behold him sleeping, and, beholding, mourn:

Speechless that tongue for wholesome counsels famed,

And without sight those eyes for lust unblamed;

Bereaved of motion are those hands which gave

Alms to the needy, did the needy crave.

Ah! such a sight, and such a man divine,

Does only call for such a hand as thine!

Great is the task, and worthy is thy pen;

The best of bards should sing the best of men.

Awake, arise from thy lethargic state,

Mourn Britain’s loss, though Britain be ingrate;

Nor let the sacred Mantuan’s labours be

A _ne plus ultra_ to thy fame and thee.

Thy Abingdon, if once thy glorious theme,

Shall vie with his Marcellus for esteem;

Tears in his eyes, and sorrow in his heart,

Shall speak the reader’s grief, and writer’s art;

And, though this barren age does not produce

A great Augustus, to reward thy muse;

Though in this isle no good Octavia reigns,

And gives thee Virgil’s premium for his strains:

Yet, Dryden, for a while forsake thy ease,

And quit thy pleasures, that thou more may’st please.

Apollo calls, and every muse attends,

With every grace, who every beauty lends.

Sweet is thy voice, as was thy subject’s mind,

And, like his soul, thy numbers unconfined;

Thy language easy, and thy flowing song,

Soft as a vale, but like a mountain strong.

Such verse as thine, and such alone, should dare

To charge the muses with their present care.

Thine, and the cause of wit, with speed maintain,

Lest some rude hand the sacred work profane,

And the dull, mercenary, rhyming crew,

Rob the deceased and thee, of what’s your due.

Such fears as these, (if duty cannot move,

And make thy labours equal to thy love,)

Should hasten forth thy verse, and make it show

What thou, mankind, and every muse does owe.

As Abingdon’s high worth exalted shines,

And gives and takes a lustre from thy lines;

As Eleonora’s pious deeds revive

In him who shared her praises when alive:

So the stern Greek, whom nothing could persuade

To quit the rash engagements which he made,

With sullen looks, and helmet laid aside,

He soothed his anger, and indulged his pride;

Careless of fate, neglectful of the call

Of chiefs entreating, till Patroclus’ fall.

Roused by his death, his martial soul could bend,

And lose his whole resentments in his friend;

As to the dusky field he winged his course,

With eyes impatient, and redoubled force,

And weeped him dead, in thousands of the slain,

Whom living, Greece had beg’d his sword in vain.

O Dryden! quick the sacred pencil take,

And rise in virtue’s cause for virtue’s sake;

Of heaven’s the song, and heaven-born is thy muse,

Fitting to follow bliss, which mine will lose:

Bold are thy thoughts, and soaring is thy flight;

Thy fancy tempting, thy expressions bright;

Moving thy grief, and powerful is thy praise,

Or to command our tears, or joys to raise.

So shall his worth, from age to age conveyed,

Shew what the hero did, and poet paid;

And future times shall practice what they see

Performed so well by him, and praised by thee,

While I confess the weakness of my lays,

And give my wonder where thou giv’st thy praise:

As I from every muse but thine retire,

And him in thee, and thee in him, admire.

No. VIII.

EXTRACTS FROM POEMS ATTACKING DRYDEN, FOR HIS SILENCE UPON THE DEATH OF

QUEEN MARY.

The author of one of these Mourning Odes inscribes it to Dryden with

the following letter:

SIR,

Though I have little acquaintance with you, nor desire to have more, I

take upon me, with the assurance of a poet, to make this dedication to

you, which I hope you will the more easily excuse, since you have often

used the same freedom to others; and since I protest sincerely, that I

expect no money from you.

I could not forbear mentioning your admired Lewis, whom you compare to

Augustus, as justly as one may compare you to Virgil. Augustus (though

not the most exact pattern of a prince) yet, on some occasions, shewed

personal valour, and was not a league-breaker, a poisoner, a pirate:

Virgil was a good man and a clean poet; all his excellent writings may

be carried by a child in one hand more easily, than all your almonzors

can be by a porter upon both shoulders.

When I saw your prodigious epistle to the translation of Juvenal, I

feared you were wheeling to the government; I confess too, I long

expected something from you on the late sad occasion, that has employed

so many pens; but it is well that you have kept silence. I hope you

will always be on the other side; did even popery ever get any honour

by you? You may wonder that I subscribe not my name at length, but

I defer that to another time. I hear you are translating again; let

English Virgil be better than English Juvenal, or it is odds you will

hear of me more at large. In the mean time, hoping that you and your

covey will dislike what I _have written_, I remain, Sir, your very

humble servant,

A. B.

There is also an attack upon our author, as presiding in the Wits

Coffee-house, which gives us a curious view into the interior of that

celebrated place of rendezvous. It is entitled, “Urania’s Temple; or, a

Satire upon the Silent Poets,” and is as follows:--

URANIA’S TEMPLE; OR, A SATIRE UPON THE SILENT POETS.

_Carmina, nulla canam._----VIRG.

_1694-5. 2. March._

A house there stands where once a convent stood,

A nursery still to the old convent brood:

This ever hospitable roof of yore

The famous sign of the old Osiris bore,

A fair red Io, hieroglyphic-fair,

For all the suckling wits o’ the town milcht there.

This long old emblematic, that had past

Full many a bleak winter’s shaking blast,

At last with age fell down, some say, confusion,

Shamed and quite dasht at the new Revolution;

Dropt out of modesty, (as most suppose,)

Not daring face the new bright Royal Rose.

Here in supiner state, ’twixt reaking tiff,

And fumigating clouds of funk and whiff,

Snug in a nook, his dusky tripos, sits

A senior Delphic ’mongst the minor wits;

Feared like an Indian god, a god indeed

True Indian, smoked with his own native weed.

From this oped mouth, soft eloquence rich mint

Steals now and then a keen well-hammered hint,

Some sharp state raillery, or politic squint,

Hard midwived wit, births by slow labours stopt,

Sense not profusely shower’d, but only dropt.

Sometimes for oracles yet more profound,

A titillating sonnet’s handed round,

Some Abdication-Damon madrigal,

His own sour pen’s too overflowing gall.

I must confess in pure poetic rage,

Bowed down to the old Moloch of that age,

His strange bigotted muse our wonder saw,

Tuned to the late great court tarantula.

What though worn out in pleasures old and stale,

The reverend Outly sculkt within the pale;

It was enough, like the old Mahomet’s pigeon,

He lured to bread, and masked into religion.

Had that, now silent, muse been but so kind

As to this funeral-dirge her numbers joined,

On that great theme what wonders had he told!

For though the bard, the quill is not grown old,

Writes young Apollo still, with his whole rays

Encircled and enriched, though not his bays.

Thus when the wreath, so long, so justly due,

The great Mecænas from those brows withdrew,

With pain he saw such merit sunk so far,

Shamed that the dragon’s tail swept down the star.

Not that the conscience-shackle tied so hard,

But had he been the prophet, as the bard,

Prognostick’d the diminutive slender birth

His seven-hill’d mountain-labour has brought forth,

His foreseen precipice; that thought alone

Had stopt his fall, secured him all our own;

Free from his hypochondriac dreams he had slept,

And still his unsold Esau’s birthright kept.

’Tis thus we see him lost, thus mourn his fall;

That single teint alone has sullied all.

So have I in the Muses garden seen

The spreading rose, or blooming jessamine;

Once from whose bosom the whole Hybla train

The industrious treasurers of the rich plain,

Those winged foragers for their fragrant prey,

On loaded thighs bore thousand sweets away:

Now shaded by a sullen venomed guest

Cankered and sooted o’er to a spider’s nest.

His sweets thus soured, what melancholy change,

What an ill-natur’d lour, a face so strange!

His life one whole long scene of all unrest,

And airy hopes his thin cameleon-feast;

Pleased only with the pride of being preferred,

The echoed voice to his own listning herd,

A magisterial Belweather tape,

The lordly leader of his bleating troop.

These doctrines our young Sullenists preach round,

The texts which their poetic silence found.

But why the doctor of their chair, why thou,

Their great rabbinic voice, thus silent too?

Could Noll’s once meteor glories blaze so fair,

To make thee that all-prostrate zealot there?

Strange, that that fiery nose could boast that charm

Thy muse with those seraphic raptures warm!

And our fair Albion star to shine so bleak,

Her radiant influence so chill, so weak!

Gorged with his riotous festival of fame,

Could thy weak stomach pule at Mary’s name!

Or was thy junior palate more canine,

And now in years grows squeamish, and more fine!

Fie, peevish-niggard, with thy flowing store

To play the churl,--excuse thy shame no more.

No. IX.

VERSES OCCASIONED BY READING MR DRYDEN’S FABLES. INSCRIBED TO HIS GRACE

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

BY MR JABEZ HUGHES.

_Musæum ante omnes, medium nam plurima turba

Hunc habet, atque humeris extantem suspicit altis._--VIRG.

TO THE READER.

_1720-1, March._

It is now almost fourteen years since these lines were first written;

and as I had no thought of making them public, I laid them aside among

other papers; where they had still continued private, if it had not, in

a manner, become my duty to print them, by the noble regard which is

paid to Mr Dryden’s memory, by his grace the Duke of Buckingham, who,

to his high quality, has added the liberal distinction of having long

been at once both an eminent patron of elegant literature, and the most

accomplished judge and pattern of it.

It might indeed seem an adventurous presumption to offer so trivial

a poem to his Grace’s view; but he who is able to instruct the

most skilful writer, will have benevolence enough to forgive the

imperfections of the weakest, and to consider the inscribing these

slight verses to his Grace, merely as a respectful acknowledgment of

the common obligation he has laid upon all who have a true value for

English poetry, by thus honouring the remains of a man who advanced it

so highly, and is so justly celebrated for beauty of imagination, and

force and delicacy of expression and numbers.

I must also observe, that I have had the happiness to see one part of

these verses abundantly disproved by Mr Pope, and accordingly I retract

it with pleasure; for that admirable author, who evidently inherits the

bright invention, and the harmonious versification of Mr Dryden, has

increased the reputation his other ingenious writings had obtained him,

by the permanent fame of having finished a translation of the Iliad of

Homer, with surprising genius and merit.

UPON READING MR DRYDEN’S FABLES.

Our great forefathers, in poetic song,

Were rude in diction, though their sense was strong;

Well-measured verse they knew not how to frame,

Their words ungraceful, and the cadence lame.

Too far they wildly ranged to start the prey,

And did too much of Fairy-land display;

And in their rugged dissonance of lines,

True manly thought debased with trifles shines.

Each gaudy flower that wantons on the mead,

Must not appear within the curious bed;

But nature’s chosen birth should flourish there,

And with their beauties crown the sweet parterre.

Such was the scene, when Dryden came to found

More perfect lays, with harmony of sound:

What lively colours glow on every draught!

How bright his images, how raised his thought!

The parts proportioned to their proper place,

With strength supported, and adorned with grace.

With what perfection did his artful hand

The various kinds of poesy command!

And the whole choir of Muses at his call,

In his rich song, which was inspired of all,

Spoke from the chords of his enchanting lyre,

And gave his breast the fulness of their fire.

As while the sun displays his lordly light,

The host of stars are humbly veiled from sight,

Till when he falls, they kindle all on high,

And smartly sparkle in the nightly sky:

His fellow bards suspended thus their ray,

Drowned in the strong effulgence of his day;

But glowing to their rise, at his decline,

Each cast his beams, and each began to shine.

As years advance, the abated soul, in most,

Sinks to low ebb, in second childhood lost;

And spoiling age, dishonouring our kind,

Robs all the treasures of the wasted mind;

With hovering clouds obscures the muffled sight,

And dim suffusion of enduring night:

But the rich fervour of his rising rage,

Prevailed o’er all the infirmities of age;

And, unimpaired by injuries of time,

Enjoyed the bloom of a perpetual prime.

His fire not less, he more correctly writ,

With ripened judgment, and digested wit;

When the luxuriant ardour of his youth,

Succeeding years had tamed to better growth,

And seemed to break the body’s crust away,

To give the expanded mind more room to play;

Which, in its evening, opened on the sight,

Surprising beams of full meridian light;

As thrifty of its splendour it had been,

And all its lustre had reserved till then.

So the descending sun, which hid his ray

In mists before, diminishing the day,

Breaks radiant out upon the dazzled eye,

And in a blaze of glory leaves the sky.

Revolving time had injured Chaucer’s name,

And dimmed the brilliant lustre of his fame;

Deformed his language, and his wit depressed,

His serious sense oft sinking to a jest;

Almost a stranger even to British eyes,

We scarcely knew him in the rude disguise:

But, clothed by thee, the burnished bard appears

In all his glory, and new honours wears.

Thus Ennius was by Virgil changed of old;

He found him rubbish, and he left him gold.

Who but thyself could Homer’s weight sustain,

And match the voice of his majestic strain;

When Phœbus’ wrath the sovereign poet sings,

And the big passion of contending kings!

No tender pinions of a gentle muse,

Who little points in epigram pursues,

And, with a short excursion, meekly plays

Its fluttering wings in mean enervate lays,

Could make a flight like this; to reach the skies,

An eagle’s vigour can alone suffice.

In every part the courtly Ovid’s style,

Thy various versions beautifully foil.

Here smoothly turned melodious measures move,

And feed the flame, and multiply the love:

So sweet they flow, so touch the heaving heart,

They teach the doctor[217] in his boasted art.

But when the theme demands a manly tone,

Sublime he speaks in accents not his own.

The bristly boar, and the tremendous rage,

When the fell Centaurs in the fight engage;

The cruel storm where Ceyx lost his life,

And the deep sorrows of his widowed wife;

The covered cavern, and the still abode

Of empty visions, and the Sleepy God;

The powers of nature, in her wonderous reign,

Old forms subverting, to produce again,

And mould the mass anew, the important verse

Does with such dignity of words rehearse,

That Virgil, proud of unexampled fame,

Looks with concern, and fears a rival name.

What vaunting Grecians, of their knowledge vain,

In lying legends insolently feign

Of magic verses, whose persuasive charm

Appeased the soul with glowing passion warm;

Then discomposed the calm, and changed the scene,

And with the height of madness vexed again,--

Thou hast accomplished in thy wondrous song,[218]

With utmost energy of numbers strong.

A flow of rage comes hurrying on amain,

And now the refluent tide ebbs out again;

A quiet pause succeeds; when unconfined

It rushes back, and swells upon the mind.

The inimitable lay, through all the maze

Of harmony’s sweet labyrinth, displays

The power of music, and Cecilia’s praise.

At first it lifts the flattered monarch high,

With boasted lineage, to his kindred sky;

Then to the pleasures of the flowing bowl,

And mellow mirth, unbends his easy soul;

And humbles now, and saddens all the feast,

With sense of human miseries expressed;

Relenting pity in each face appears,

And heavy sorrow ripens into tears.

Grief is forbid; and see! in every eye

The gaiety of love, and wanton joy!

Soft smiles and airs, which tenderly inspire

Delightful hope, and languishing desire.

But lo! the pealing verse provokes around

The frown of rage, and kindles with the sound;

Behold the low’ring storm at once arise,

And ardent vengeance sparkling in their eyes;

Fury boils high, and zeal of fell debate,

Demanding ruin, and denouncing fate.

Ye British beauties, in whose finished face

Smile the gay honours of each bloomy grace;

Whose forms, inimitably fair, invite

The sighing heart, and cheer the ravished sight,

Say, what sweet transports, and complacent joy,

Rise in your bosoms, and your soul employ,

When royal Emily, the tuneful bard

Paints in his song, and makes the rich reward

Of knightly arms, in costly lists arrayed,

The world at once contending for the maid.

How nobly great does Sigismonda shine,

With constant faith, and courage masculine!

No menaces could bend her mind to fear,

But for her love she dies without a tear.

There Iphigenia, with her radiant eyes,

As the bright sun, illuminates the skies;

In clouded Cymon chearful day began,

Awaked the sleeping soul, and charmed him into man.

The pleasing legends, to your honour, prove

The power of beauty, and the force of love.

Who, after him, can equally rehearse

Such various subjects, in such various verse?

And with the raptures of his strain controul,

At will, each passion, and command the soul?

Not ancient Orpheus, whose surprising lyre

Did beasts, and rocks, and rooted woods, inspire,

More sweetly sung, nor with superior art

Soothed the sad shades, and softened Pluto’s heart.

All owned, at distance, his distinguished name,

Nor vainly vied to share his awful fame;

Unrivalled, living, he enlarged his praise,

And, dying, left without an heir his bays.

So Philip’s son his universal reign

Extended amply over earth and main;

Through conquered climes with ready triumph rode,

And ruled the nations with his powerful nod;

But when fate called the mighty chief away,

None could succeed to his imperial sway,

And his wide empire languished to decay.

No. IX.

AN ODE BY WAY OF ELEGY, ON THE UNIVERSALLY LAMENTED DEATH OF THE

INCOMPARABLE MR DRYDEN.

_Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus

Tam chari capitis? Precipe lugubres

Cantus Melpomene----

Quando ullam inveniam parem!

Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit._

HORAT. Lib. i. Ode 25.

By ALEXANDER OLDYS.

TO MY WORTHY FRIEND MR JAMES DIXON.

SIR,

_1700, 22d June._

The many and great obligations which you have been pleased to lay

on me, give me the greatest confusion imaginable at present, when I

consider that I am suing for a greater favour than all, in having the

liberty to prefix your name to these lines; which though I am sensible

they will be condemned by the great, yet the shame of that can no way

affect you, when I do you the justice to assure the town, that it is

contrary to your knowledge that you are become my patron: so your

nicer sense cannot be accountable in the least; for you had no hand in

it, and you may plead

_----Quæ non fecimus ipsi

Vix ea nostra voco._

Nay, you were not guilty of so much as of the knowledge of this my

_wicked intentions_; wicked. I mean, if it should offend you and my

other friends, who need not blush for me, since I have already such

a terror upon my conscience for this aggression, as is, I think, a

punishment in some measure equal to any crime; and all that I can urge

in my defence is, that it was pure respect to the dear memory of this

great man, to whom I had the honour to be known, that provoked, or, let

me rather say, obliged me to expose myself on this occasion. I never

attempted any thing in this measure for the public before; and I doubt

not that I shall do yet severer penance for it, in the censures of our

_awful wits_, which I already fear; but your judgment is still more

dreadful than all, by

Worthy Sir,

Your most obliged

obedient and humble servant,

ALEXANDER OLDYS.

AN ODE ON THE DEATH OF MR DRYDEN.

I.

On a soft bank of camomel I sate,

O’ershaded by two mournful yews;

(Doubtless it was the will of fate

I this retreat should chuse.)

Where on delicious poetry I fed,

Amazing thoughts chilled all my blood,

And almost stopt the vital flood,

As Dryden’s sacred verse I read.

Whilst killing raptures seized my head,

I shook, as if I had foreknown

What all-commanding fate had done;

What for our sovereign Dryden had designed,

Till sleep o’erwhelmed my brain, as sorrow had my mind;

To think that all the great, even he, must die,

And here, in fame alone, have immortality.

When in my dream the fatal muse,

With hair dishevell’d, and in tears,

Melpomene appears;

Upon my throbbing heart her hand she laid,

Her hand as cold as death, and thus she said,--

“Least of my care, be calmed! No more just heaven accuse!

II.

“Eternal fate has said,--He must remove;

The bards triumphant wait for him above.

To everlasting day and blest abodes

(The seats of poets and of gods)

He’s gone, to fill the throne

Which none could fill but he alone;

The glorious throne for him prepared;

Of glorious acts the glorious, just reward.

See, see, as he ascends on high,

The sacred bards attending in the sky!

So low do they descend

To meet their now immortal friend!

Immortal there above, and here below,

As long as men shall wit and English know,

The unequalled Dryden must be so,

Immortal in his verse, in verse unequalled too.”--

She said,--then disappear’d; when I

Could plainly see all that was done on high.

III.

I saw above an universal joy,

Perfect without alloy;

(So great as ne’er till then had been

Since the sweet Waller entered in,)

When all that sacred company

Brought the triumphant bard from ours to heaven’s great jubilee;

That was the occasion of his happiness,

And of our sorrows, surely that the cause,

Called hence heaven’s monarch’s praise to help to express,

And to receive for that his own deserved applause.

There wanted still one in the heavenly quire,

Dryden alone was their desire,

Whom for the sacred song th’ Almighty did inspire

’Twas pity to us that so long delayed

His blest translation to eternal light;

Or, otherwise may we not be afraid,

’Twas for the sins of some who durst presume to write;

Who durst in verse, in sacred poetry,

Even heaven’s own design bely,

And damn themselves with utmost industry!

For this may we not dread

The mighty prophet’s taken from our head?

And though the fate of these I fear,

I in respect must venture here.

A long and racking war was sent,

Of common sins, a common punishment;

To the unthinking crowd the only curse,

Who feel no loss but in their purse:

But ah! what loss can now be worse?

The mighty Pan has left our mournful shore;

The mighty Pan is gone, Dryden is here no more.

IV.

When to the blest bright region he was come,

The vulgar angels gazed, and made him room:

Each laureat monarch welcomes him on high,

And to embrace him altogether fly:

Then strait the happy guest is shown

To his bright and lofty throne,

Inferior there to none.

A crown beset with little suns, whose rays

Shoot forth in foliages resembling bays,

Now on his head they place:

Then round him all the sacred band

Loudly congratulating stand:

When after silence made,

Thus the sweetest Waller said:--

“Well hast thou merited, triumphant bard!

For, once I knew thee militant below,

When I myself was so;

Dangerous thy post, the combat fierce and hard,

Ignorance and rebellion still thy foe;

But for those little pains see now the great reward!

Mack-Flecknoe and Achitophel

Can now no more disturb thy peace,

Thy labours past, thy endless joys increase;

The more thou hast endured, the more thou dost excel;

And for the laurels snatched from thee below,

Thou wear’st an everlasting crown upon thy hallowed brow.”

V.

The bard, who next the new-born saint addrest,

Was Milton, for his wonderous poem blest;

Who strangely found, in his Lost Paradise, rest.

“Great bard,” said he, “’twas verse alone

Did for my hideous crime atone,

Defending once the worst rebellion.

A double share of bliss belongs to thee,

For thy rich verse and thy firm loyalty;

Some of my harsh and uncouth points do owe

To thee a tuneful cadence still below.

Thine was indeed the state of innocence,

Mine of offence,

With studied treason and self-interest stained,

Till Paradise Lost wrought Paradise Regained.”

He said:--when thus our English Abraham,

(In heaven the second of that name,

Cowley, as glorious there as sacred here in fame,)

“Welcome, Aleides, to this happy place!

Our wish, and our long expectation here,

Makes thee to us more dear;

Thou great destroyer of that monstrous race,

Which our sad former seat did harass and disgrace,

Be blest and welcomed with our praise!

Thy great Herculean labours done,

And all the courses of thy zodiac run,

Shine here to us, a more illustrious sun!

But see! thy brethren gods in poetry,

The whole great race divine,

Ready in thy applause to join,

Who will supply what is defect in me.”

VI.

Rochester, once on earth a prodigy,

A happy convert now on high,

Here begins his wonderous lays,

In the sainted poet’s praise.

Fathomless Buckingham, smooth Orrery,

The witty D’Avenant, Denham, Suckling too,

Shakespeare, nature’s Kneller, who

Nature’s picture likest drew,

Each in their turn his praise pursue.

His song elaborate Jonson next does try,

On earth unused to eulogy;

Beaumont and Fletcher sing together still,

And with their tuneful notes the arched palace fill.

The noble patron poet now does try,

His wondrous Spenser to outvy.

Drayton did next our sacred bard address,

And sung above with wonderful success.

Our English Ennius, he who gave

To the great bard kind welcome to his grave,

Chaucer, the mightiest bard of yore,

Whose verse could mirth to saddest souls restore,

Caressed him next, whilst his delighted eye

Expressed his love, and thus his tongue his joy:--

“Was I, when erst below,” said he,

“In hopes so great a bard to see,

As thou, my son, adopted unto me,

And all this godlike race, some equal even to thee!

O! ’tis enough.”--Here soft Orinda[219] came

And sprightly Afra,[220] muses both on earth,

Both burned here with a bright poetic flame,

Which to their happiness above gave birth;

Their charming songs his entertainment close,

The mighty bard then, smiling, bowed, and rose.

VII.

Strait from his head each takes his laurel’d crown,

And on the golden pavement casts it down:

All prostrate fall before heaven’s high imperial throne,

When the new saint begins his song alone;

Wond’rous even there it was confest,

Scarce to be equalled by the rest;

Herbert nor Crashaw, though on earth divine,

So sweetly could their numbers join!

When, lo! the light of twenty thousand suns,

All in one body, shining all at once,

Darts from the imperial to this lower court;

A light which they but hardly could support!

Then the great anthem was begun,

Which all the hallowed bards together sung;

And by no choir of angels is outdone,

But by the great seraphic choir alone,

That day and night surround the awful throne of heaven’s eternal King;

Even they themselves did the great chorus fill,

And brought the grateful sounds to heaven’s high holiest hill.

VIII.

My soul shook with the sacred harmony, which soon alarmed my heart;

I fancied I was falling from on high, and wakened with a start:

“Waked,” said I, “surely no; I did not sleep;

Can they be dreams which such impressions make?

My soul does still the blest ideas keep;

And still, methinks, I see them, though awake!

The other thrones too, which, though vacant, shone

With greater glory than the sun,

Come fresh into my mind;

Which once will lose their lustre by their bards outdone,

When filled with those for whom they are designed.

Upon their fronts I saw the glittering names,

All written in celestial flames.

For Dorset what a palace did I see!

For Montague! And what for Normandy!

What glories wait for Wycherly!

For Congreve, Southerne, Tate, Garth, Addison?

For Stephney, Prior, and for Dennis too?

What thrones are void, what joys prepared and due?

The pleasant dear companion Cheek,

Whom all the great although at midnight seek,

This glorious wreath must wear, and endless joys pursue.

And for Motteux, my Gallic friend,

The like triumphant laurels wait;

Though heaven, I hope, will send it very late,

Ere they or he to their blest seats ascend.

’Tis in their verse, next his, that he must live,

Next his their lines eternal fame can give;

Then all the happiness on earth I know

Is, that such godlike men as they are with us still below.”

No. X.

TO THE MEMORY OF MR DRYDEN, A POEM.

_Huic versatile ingenium sic pariter ad omnia fuit,

Ut ad id unum natum diceres quodcunque ageret._

_1700, 17th June._

When mortals formed of common clay expire,

These vulgar souls an elegy require;

But some hero of more heavenly frame,

Exerts his valour, and extends his fame;

Below the spheres impatient to abide,

With universal joy is deified.

Thus our triumphant Bard from hence is fled.

But let us never, never say he’s dead;

Let poetasters make the Muses mourn,

And common-place it o’er his sacred urn;

The public voice exalts him to the sky,

And fate decrees him immortality;

Ordains, instead of tears or mournful hearse,

His apotheosis be sung in verse.

Great poets sure are formed of heavenly race,

And with great heroes justly claim a place.

As Cæsar’s pen did Cæsar best commend,

And all the elegies of Rome transcend;

So Dryden’s muse alone, like Phœbus bright,

Outshines all human praise, or borrowed light;

To form his image, and to make it true,

There must be art, and inspiration too.

Auspicious stars had doomed him to the trade,

By nature framed, by art a poet made:

Thus Maro’s words and sense in him we see,

And Ovid’s teeming vein of poesy.

In his vast miscellaneous works we find,

What charms at once, and edifies the mind:

His pregnant muse has in the offspring shown

What’s rare for use, or beauty to be known:

In monumental everlasting verse

Epitomised, he grasped the universe.

No power but his could tune a British lyre

To sweeter notes than any Tuscan quire,

Teutonic words to animate and raise,

Strong, shining, musical, as attic lays;

Rude matter indisposed he formed polite,

His muse seemed rather to create than write.

His nervous eloquence is brighter far

Than florid pulpit, or the noisy bar.

His periods shine harmonious in the close,

As if a muse presided in his prose;

Yet unaffected plain, but strong his style,

It overflows to fructify, like Nile.

The God of wit conspires with all the Nine,

To make the orator and poet join.

We’re charmed when he the lady or the friend,

Pleased in majestic numbers to commend.

The panegyric flows in streams profuse,

When worth or beauty sublimates the muse.

His notes are moving, powerful, and strong,

As Orpheus’ lyre, or as a Syren’s song;

Sweet as the happy Idumean fields,

And fragrant as the flowers that Tempe yields.

Thrice happy she to whom such tribute’s paid,

And has such incense at her altar laid;

A sacrifice that might with envy move

Jove’s consort, or the charming Queen of Love.

His lasting lines will give a sacred name,

(Eternal records in the book of fame,)

His favourites are doom’d by Jove’s decree,

To share with him in immortality.

The wealthy muse on innate mines could live,

Though no Mecenas any smile would give;

His light not borrowed, but was all his own;

His rays were bright and warm without the sun.

Pictures (weak images of him) are sold,

The French are proud to have the head for gold:

The echo of his verse has charmed their ear,--

O could they comprehend the sound they hear!

Who hug the cloud, caress an airy face,

What would they give the goddess to embrace?

The characters his steady muse could frame,

Are more than like, they are so much the same;

The pencil and the mirror faintly live,

’Tis but the shadow of a life they give;

Like resurrection from the silent grave,

He the numeric soul and body gave.

No art, no hand but his could e’er bring home

The noblest choicest flowers of Greece and Rome;

Transplant them with sublimest art and toil,

And make them flourish in a British soil.

Whatever ore he cast into his mould }

He did the dark philosophy unfold, }

And by a touch converted all to gold. }

With epic feet who ere can steady run,

May drive the fiery chariot of the sun,

Must neither soar too high, nor fall too low;

Must neither burn like fire, nor freeze like snow.

All ages mighty conquerors have known,

Who courage and their power in arms have shown:

Greece knew but one, and Rome the Mantuan swain,

Who durst engage in lofty epic strain;

Heroics here were lands unknown before,

Our great Columbus first descried the shore.

No prophet moved the passions of the mind,

With sovereign power and force so unconfined:

We sympathised with his poetic rage,

In lofty buskins when he ruled the stage;

He roused our love, our hope, despairs, and fears,

Dissolved in joy we were, or drowned in tears.

When juster indignation roused his hate,

Insipid rhymes to lash, or knaves of state;

Each line’s a sting, and ev’ry sting a death,

As if their fate depended on his breath.

Like sun-beams swift, his fiery shafts were sent,

Or lightning darted from the firmament.

No warmer clime, no age or muse divine,

In pointed satire could our bard outshine.

His unexhausted force knew no decay;

In spite of years, his muse grew young and gay,

And vigorous, like the patriarch of old,

His last-born Joseph cast in finest mould;

This son of sixty-nine, surpassing fair,

With any elder offspring may compare,

Has charms in courts of monarchs to be seen,

Caressed and cherished by a longing queen.

Great prophets oft extend their just command,

Receive the tribute of a foreign land;

When in their own ungrateful native ground

Few just admiring votaries they found.

But when these god-like men their clay resign,

Pale Envy’s laid a victim at their shrine;

United mortals do their worth proclaim,

And altars raise to their eternal fame.

Wealth, beauty, force of wit, without allay,

In Dryden’s heavenly muse profusely lay;

Which mighty charms did never yet combine,

In any single deity to shine,

But were dispensed, more thriftily, between

Jove’s wife, his daughter, and the Cyprian queen.

The nymphs recorded in his artful lays,

Produce the grateful homage of their praise;

Assisted in their vows by powers divine,

Offer their sacred incense at his shrine.

The spheres exalt their music, to commend

The poet’s master and the muse’s friend;

In concert form seraphic notes to sing,

Of numbers, and of harmony the king.

In this triumphant scene to act her part,

Nature’s attended by her hand-maid, Art:

Resounding Echo, with her mimic voice,

Concurs to make the universe rejoice.

Let ev’ry tongue and pen the poet sing,

Who mounts Parnassus top with lofty wing;

Whose splendid muse has crowns of laurel won,

That brave the shining beauties of the sun.

His lines (those sacred reliques of the mind)

Not by the laws of fate or war confined,

In spite of flames will everlasting prove,

Devouring rust of time, or angry Jove.

No. XI.

EXTRACT FROM POETÆ BRITANNICI.

A POEM, SATIRICAL AND PANEGYRICAL.

_1700. 9. January._

L--gh aim’d to rise above great Dr---n’s height,

But lofty Dryden kept a steady flight.

Like Dædalus, he times with prudent care

His well-waxed wings, and waves in middle air.

Crowned with the sacred snow of reverend years,

Dryden above the ignobler crowd appears,

Raises his laurelled head, and, as he goes,

O’er-shoulders all, and like Apollo shows.

The native spark, which first advanced his name,

By industry he kindled to a flame.

Then to a different coast his judgment flew,

He left the old world behind, and found a new.

On the strong columns of his lasting wit,

Instructive Dryden built, and peopled it.

In every page delight and profit shines;

Immortal sense flows in his mighty lines.

His images so strong and lively be,

I hear not words alone, but substance see,

The proper phrase of our exalted tongue

To such perfection from his numbers sprung;

His tropes continued, and his figures fine,

All of a piece throughout, and all divine.

Adapted words and sweet expressions move

Our various passions, pity, rage, and love.

I weep to hear fond Antony complain

In Shakespeare’s fancy, but in Virgil’s strain.

Though for the comic, others we prefer,

Himself the judge; nor does his judgment err.

But comedy, ’tis thought, can never claim

The sounding title of a poem’s name.

For raillery, and what creates a smile,

Betrays no lofty genius, nor a style.

That heavenly heat refuses to be seen

In a town character, and comic mien.

If we would do him right, we must produce

The Sophoclean buskin; when his muse

With her loud accents filled the listning ear,

And peals applauding shook the theatre.

They fondly seek, great name, to blast thy praise,

Who think that foreign banks produced thy bays.

Is he obliged to France, who draws from thence,

By English energy, their captive sense?

Though Edward and famed Henry warred in vain,

Subduing what they could not long retain,

Yet now, beyond our arms, the muse prevails,

And poets conquer, when the hero fails.

This does superior excellence betray:

O could I write in thy immortal way!

If Art be Nature’s scholar, and can make

Such great improvements, Nature must forsake

Her ancient style; and in some grand design, }

She must her own originals decline, }

And for the noblest copies follow thine. }

This all the world must offer to thy praise,

And this Thalia sang in rural lays.

As sleep to weary drovers on the plain,

As a sweet river to a thirsty swain,

Such divine Dryden’s charming verses show,

Please like the river, like the river flow.

When his first years in mighty order ran,

And cradled infancy bespoke the man,

Around his lips the waxen artists hung,

And breathed ambrosial odours as they sung.

In yellow clusters from their hives they flew,

And on his tongue distilled eternal dew:

Thence from his mouth harmonious numbers broke,

More sweet than honey from the knotted oak;

More smooth than streams, that from a mountain glide,

Yet lofty as the top from whence they slide.

Long he possest the hereditary plains,

Beloved by all the herdsmen, and the swains,

Till he resigned his flock, opprest with years,

And olden’d in his woe, as well as fears.

Yet still, like Etna’s mount, he kept his fire,

And look’d, like beauteous roses on a brier:

He smiled, like Phœbus in a stormy morn,

And sung, like Philomel against a thorn.

No. XII.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NINE MUSES;

_Or, Poems written by nine several Ladies, upon the death of the late

famous_ JOHN DRYDEN, _Esq._

As earth thy body keeps, thy soul the sky,

So shall this verse preserve thy memory;

For thou shalt make it live, because it sings of thee.

_London: printed for Richard Basset, at the Mitre, in Fleet Street,

1700._

* * * * *

The work is dedicated to the Right Hon. Charles Montague, (Lord

Halifax,) by the publisher Basset, who thus apologizes for the

intrusion:

“The ladies indeed themselves might have had a better plea for your

reception; but since the modesty which is natural to the sex they are

of, will not suffer them to do that violence to their tempers, I think

myself obliged to make a present of what is written in honour of the

most consummate poet among our English dead, to the most distinguished

among the living. You have been pleased already to shew your respect to

his memory, in contributing so largely to his burial, notwithstanding

he had that unhappiness of conduct, when alive, to give you cause to

disclaim the protection of him.”

The dedication is followed by a commendatory copy of verses, addressed

to the publisher, and signed Philomusus; of which most readers will

think the following lines a sufficient specimen:

Hence issues forth a most delightful song,

Fair as their sex, and as their judgment strong;

Moving its force, and tempting in its ease;

Secured of fame, unknowing to displease;

Its every word like Aganippe, clear,

And close its meaning, and its sense severe:

As virtuous thoughts with chaste expression join,

And make them truly, what they feign, divine.

The poems of these divine ladies, as their eulogist phrases them,

appear in the following order:

_Melpomene_, the Tragic Muse, personated by Mrs Manley, refers to his

elegies and tragedies. Melpomene sorrows for him:

Who sorrowed Killigrew’s untimely fall,

And more than Roman made her funeral;

Inspired by me, for me he could command,

Bright Abingdon’s rich monument shall stand

For evermore the wonder of the land;

Oldham he snatched from an ignoble fate,

Changed his cross star for one more fortunate;

For who would not with pride resign his breath,

To be so loved, to be so blest in death?

The eulogiums on Cromwell and Charles then praised. Of the last it is

said,

For this alone he did deserve the prize,

As Ranelagh, for her victorious eyes.

Cleopatra and St Catharine are mentioned; then

----Dorax and Sebastian both contend

To shew the generous enemy and friend.

_Urania_, the Divine Muse, by the Honourable the Lady Peirce. This

lady, after much tragic dole, is wonderfully comforted by recollecting

that Garth survives, though Dryden is dead:

More I’ll not urge, but know, our wishes can

No higher soar, since Garth’s the glorious man;

Him let us constitute in Dryden’s stead,

Let laurels ever flourish on his head.

Urania, after mentioning Virgil, exclaims,

O give us Homer yet, thou glorious bard!

_Erato_, the Amorous Muse, by Mrs S. Field. She claims the merit of

Dryden’s love poems, on the following grounds:

Oft I for ink did radiant nectar bring,

And gave him quills from infant Cupid’s wing.

_Euterpe_, the Lyric Muse, by Mrs J. E. Euterpe, of course, pours forth

her sorrow in a scrambling Pindaric ode:

But, oh! they could not stand the rage

Of an ill-natured and lethargic age,

Who, spite of wit, would stupidly be wise;

All noble raptures, extasies despise,

And only plodders after sense will prize.

Euterpe eulogizeth

Garth, whom the god of wisdom did foredoom,

And stock with eloquence, to pay thy tomb

The most triumphant rites of ancient Rome.

Euterpe is true to her own character; for one may plod in vain after

sense through her lyric effusion.

_Thalia_, the Comic Muse, by Mrs Manley. A pastoral dialogue betwixt

Alexis, Daphne, Aminta, and Thalia. After the usual questions

concerning the cause of sorrow, Thalia, invoked by the nymphs and

swains, sings a ditty, bearing the following burden:

Bring here the spring, and throw fresh garlands on,

With all the flowers that wait the rising sun;

These ever-greens, true emblems of his soul,

Take, Daphne, these, and scatter through the whole,

While the eternal Dryden’s worth I tell,

My lovely bard, that so lamented fell.

_Clio_, or the Historic Muse, by Mrs Pix, the authoress of a tragedy

called “Queen Catharine, or the Ruins of Love.”

Stop here, my muse, no more thy office boast,

This drop of praise is in an ocean lost;

His works alone are trumpets of his fame,

And every line will chronicle his name.

_Calliope_, the Heroic Muse, by Mrs C. Trotter. This is the best of

these pieces. Calliope complains, that she is more unhappy than her

sisters of the sock and buskin, still worshipped successfully by

Vanburgh and Granville, in the epic province:

----------------------Blackmore, in spite

Of me and nature, still presumes to write;

Heavy and dozed, crawls out the tedious length;

Unfit to soar, drags on with peasant strength

The weight he cannot raise.

The poem concludes,

--------------------------Now you who aim,

With fading power, at bright immortal fame;

Ambitious monarchs, all whom glory warms,

Cease your vain toil, throw down your conquering arms;

Your active souls confine, since you must die

Like vulgar men, your names and actions lie

Where Trojan heroes, had not Homer lived,

Had lain forgot, nor ruined Troy survived;

No more their glories I can e’er retrieve,

For nature can no second Dryden give.

_Terpsichore_, a Lyric Muse, by Mrs L. D. _ex tempore_. Albeit a lyric

muse, Terpsichore laments in hexameters:

Just as the gods were listening to my strains,

And thousand loves danced o’er the etherial plains,

With my own radiant hair my harp I strung,

And in glad concert all my sisters sung:

An universal harmony above

Inspired us all with gaiety and love;

A horrid sound dashed our immortal mirth,

Wafted by sighs from the unlucky earth,

_Et cætera, et cætera._

_Polyhymnia_, the Muse of Rhetoric, by Mrs D. E. This lady concludes

the volume thus:

Incessant groans be all my rhetoric now!

My immortality I would forego,

Rather than drag this chain of endless woe.

O mighty Father, hear a daughter’s prayer,

Cure me by death from deathless sad despair!

These extracts are taken from the presentation copy of this rare book,

in the library of Mr Bindley, of Somerset-House, whose liberality I

have had already repeated occasion to acknowledge.

No. XIII.

VERSES IN PRAISE OF MR DRYDEN.

_To Mr_ DRYDEN, _by_ JO. ADDISON, _Esq._

How long, great poet, shall thy sacred lays

Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise!

Can neither injuries of time, or age,

Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?

Not so thy Ovid in his exile wrote;

Grief chilled his breast, and checked his rising thought;

Pensive and sad, his drooping muse betrays

The Roman genius in its last decays.

Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possest,

And second youth is kindled in thy breast.

Thou mak’st the beauties of the Romans known,

And England boasts of riches not her own:

Thy lines have heightened Virgil’s majesty,

And Horace wonders at himself in thee.

Thou teachest Persius to inform our isle

In smoother numbers, and a clearer style:

And Juvenal, instructed in thy page,

Edges his satire, and improves his rage.

Thy copy casts a fairer light on all,

And still outshines the bright original.

Now Ovid boasts the advantage of thy song,

And tells his story in the British tongue;

Thy charming verse, and fair translations show

How thy own laurel first began to grow;

How wild Lycaon, changed by angry Gods,

And frighted at himself, ran howling through the woods.

O may’st thou still the noble tale prolong,

Nor age, nor sickness interrupt thy song!

Then may we wond’ring read, how human limbs

Have watered kingdoms, and dissolved in streams,

Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mould

Turned yellow by degrees, and ripened into gold:

How some in feathers, or a ragged hide,

Have lived a second life, and different natures tried

Then will thy Ovid, thus transformed, reveal

A nobler change than he himself can tell.

Mag. Coll. Oxon. June 2, 1693.

INDEX.

A.

Abingdon, Earl of, dedication to, Vol. xi, 121

Countess of, account of, xi, 119

Absalom and Achitophel, Part I. ix, 195

remarks on, ib. 197

recommendatory verses to, ib. 213, 216

notes on, ib. 249

Part I. character of, i, 243

answers to, ib. 253

Part II. ix, 313

remarks on, ib. 315

notes on, ib. 354

character of, i, 268

extracts from Buckingham’s answer to, ix, 272-4

Absalom’s Conspiracy, or the Tragedy of Treason, ix, 199, 205

Abuse of personal satires, xiii, 81

Accession of James I., state of learning in England on, i, 5

James II., poems on, x, 59

Account of Gibbon’s conversion to the catholic faith, by himself, i, 316

Montague and Prior’s parody on the Hind and the Panther, ib. 330

Luke Milbourne, ib. 394

ludicrous, Dryden’s funeral, ib. 441

Dryden’s funeral, by Mrs Thomas, false, ib. 442

Dryden’s funeral, by Tom Brown, ib. 443

Dryden’s family, ib. 462

of Cleveland, i, 43

Sir Robert Howard, i, 54

defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy, ii, 263

the representation of the Spanish Friar, vi, 371

Annus Mirabilis, in a letter to Sir Robert Howard, ix, 92

contest at the election of Sheriffs for London, ix, 404

the last period of the life of the Earl of Shaftesbury, ix, 415

the reception of the Lancashire Witches, vii, 15

Protestant flail, ib. 19

the Associating Club, ib. 154

the Hind and Panther, by Swift, x, 106

the rise of the Quakers, ib. 141

the noble house-keeping of the Duke of Beaufort, ix, 391

the sect of Anabaptists, x, 145

the rise of Presbyterianism, ib. 148

the birth of the son of James II., by Smollet, x, 305

Pope-burning, x, 370

John Lilburn, vi, 363

William Fuller, viii, 329

Lodovico Sforza, ix, 46

Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, ib. 73

Sir John Lawson, ib. 161

gallant actions of Prince Rupert, ix, 167, 174

gallant actions of the Duke of Albemarle, ib. 168, 171

Sir Edward Spragge, ib. 178

Sir Freschville Hollis, ib. 180

Michael Adrien de Ruyter, ib. 182

Sir William Jones, ib. 279

Slingsby Bethel, ib. 280

Titus Oates, ib. 282

Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, ib. 285

the Duke of Ormond, ib. 294

the Earl of Ossory, ib. 299

Archbishop Sancroft, ib. 301

Bishop Compton, ib. 302

Bishop Dolben, ib. 303

the Marquis of Halifax, ib. 305

of the Earl of Rochester, ix. 307

Sir Edward Seymour, ib. 308

Nahum Tate, ib. 315

Sir Robert Playton, ib. 359

Sir Thomas Player, ib. 361

Robert Ferguson, ib. 363

James Forbes, ib. 368

Samuel Johnson, ib. 369

Samuel Pordage, ib. 372

Elkanah Settle, ib. 373

King’s Head Club, ib. 380

Sir William Waller, ib. 381

the Earl of Dartmouth, ib. 386

Edward Sackville, ib. 387

the Duke of Beaufort, ib. 390

the Duke of Albemarle, ib. 394

the Earl of Arlington, ib. 395

the Duke of Grafton, ib. 396

the Earl of Feversham, ix, 397

Nottingham, ib. 400

Sir Roger L’Estrange, ib, 400

Sir John Moor, ib. 402

Whip and Key, ib. 425

Thomas Hunt, vii, 127

Richard Rumbold, ib. 261

Edward Coleman, x, 18

Hugh Paulin Cressy, ib. 21

Edmund Campian, ib. 20

Robert Parsons, ib. 20

William Tyndal, ib. 24

Richard Hooker, ib. 26

George Cranmer, ib. 26

John Penry, or Martin Mar-prelate, ib. 27

Eleanor James, ib. 116

Zuinglius, ib. 150

Calvin, ib. 155

John White, ib. 257

Gilbert Burnet, ib. 267

Hart, the tragedian, ib. 328

Ralph Bathurst, ib. 330

Dr Charles Davenant, ib. 333

Lady H. M. Wentworth, ib. 337

Lodowick Carlell, x, 404

of John Bancroft, x, 412

Richard Flecknoe, ib. 441

Thomas Shadwell, ib. 443

Thomas Heywood, ib. 446

James Shirley, ib. 446

Ogleby, ib. 452

Sir George Etherege, ib. 454, xi, 38

Dr Walter Charleton, xi, 12

Dr William Gilbert, ib. 15

William Harvey, ib. 15

Dr George Ent, ib. 16

Lady Castlemaine, ib. 18

the death of Nat. Lee, ib. 22

John Northleigh, ib. 35

Southerne, ib. 48

Henry Higden, ib. 52

Lord Lansdowne, ib. 63

Peter Anthony Motteux, ib. 67

John Driden of Chesterton, ib. 71

Sir Godfrey Kneller, ib. 84

John Oldham, ib. 98

Mrs Anne Killigrew, ib. 102

Dr Henry Killigrew, ib. 106

Mrs Katharine Philips, xi, 111

the Countess of Abingdon, ib. 119

Henry Purcell, ib. 145

the Marquis of Winchester, ib. 152

the death of Sir Palmes Fairborne, ib. 156

St Cecilia, ib. 165

the festival of St Cecilia, ib. 166

the Duke of Ormond, ib. 195

Ovid, xii, 4

the causes of Ovid’s banishment, ib. 5, 7

Cowley’s mode of translation, ib. 15

Lord Radcliffe, ib. 47

Sir Peter Lely, ib. 267

Thomas Creech, ib. 277

the Earl of Roscommon, ib. 341

Livius Andronicus, xiii, 54

Barten Holyday, ib. 93

Sir Robert Stapylton, ib. 93

Owen Swan, ib. 97

Sir George Mackenzie, ib. 111

of William Walsh, ib. 297

the person, manners, and fortune, of Virgil, ib. 323

the Earl of Chesterfield, xiv, 3

the Earl of Peterborough, xv, 189

Sir William Trumball, ib. 190

Gilbert Dolben, ib. 190

the Duke of Shrewsbury, ib. 192

Sir Thomas Armstrong, ib. 204

Aston, ib. 204

the Earl of Aylesbury, ib. 207

the Earl of Essex, ib. 208

John Taylor, the water poet, ib. 378

Thomas Rhymer, ib. 383

the Brachmans, xvi, 91

Malacca, ib. 150

Amboyna, ib. 158

P. V. P. Cayet, xvii, 94

Archbishop Spottiswoode, ib. 159

Robert Bellarmine, ib. 160

Louis Maimbourg, ib. 182

Dr Peter Heylin, ib. 190

Bishop Stillingfleet, ib. 194

Dr George Morley, ib. 196

Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, ib. 281

M. St Evremont, xviii, 9

Polybius the historian, ib. 26

the translation of Polybius, by Sir Henry Shere, ib. 19

the murder of Lucian, ib. 57

Charles Blount, ib. 77

Henry Brouncker, ib. 92

William Pate, ib. 130

Mrs Elizabeth Steward, ib. 141

Samuel Pepys, ib. 154

Acis, Polyphemus, and Galatea, story of, xii, 199

Acquittal of the Earl of Shaftesbury, ix, 409

Act of Oblivion, ix, 50

Action, unity of, what xv, 307

Actions of the Duke of Albemarle, ix, 168-171

Addison’s Essay on the Georgics of Virgil, xiv, 14

Address of the Atheists, x, 144

Addresses on the accession of James II. character of, x, 110

poetical, to James II. on the birth of a son, ib. 286-7

Advertisement to the Duke of Guise, vii, 133

regarding poems ascribed to Dryden, xv, 199

Essay on Dramatic Poesy, xv, 292

translation of Plutarchs’ Lives, xvii, 3

the first edition of the translation of Virgil’s works, xiii, 281

Advice to a young painter, xvii, 377-468

Æneas, Epistle to, xii, 35

Æneid, moral of, xiv, 150

disputed by Heyne, ib. 150

four first lines of, not Virgil’s, ib. 225

Æneis, time of action of, xiv, 189

machinery of, ib. 193

of Virgil, xiv, 125, xv, 1-186

dedication of, xiv, 127

Book I. xiv, 231, notes on, ib. 262

II. ib. 264

III. ib. 296, note on, ib. 322

IV. ib. 324 ib. 353

V. ib. 355

VI. ib. 388, notes on, ib. 424

VII. ib. 429 ib. 461

VIII. xv, 1 xv, 29

IX. ib. 30 ib. 62

X. ib. 64 ib. 102

XI. ib. 105

XII. ib. 143, notes on, ib. 183

Postscript to, xv, 187

Agathias, epigram of, xvii, 76

Age of Queen Elizabeth, false wit one character of, i, 7

share of John Lillie in determining the taste of, ib. 7

James I. prevalence of false taste in, i, 9

play of words in, ib. 10

Age, golden, xii, 66

silver, ib. 67

brazen, ib. 68

iron, ib. 68

Agreement of Dryden with Jacob Tonson concerning the Fables, xviii, 191

Ajax and Ulysses, speeches of, xii, 181

death of, ib. 198

Albemarle, Duke of, gallant actions of, ix, 168-171

account of, ib. 394

Albion and Albanus, an opera, vii, 209

remarks on, ib. 211

verses in ridicule of, ib. 213

preface to, ib. 216

prologue to, ib. 228

frontispiece to, ib. 231

epilogue to, ib. 268

Albumazar, character of, x, 416

prologue to, ib. 416

Alexander’s Feast, or the Power of Music, an ode, xi, 183

Alexandrine, uncommon one of Tom Brown, ix, 415

Alexis, a pastoral, xiii, 374

All for Love, or, the World Well Lost, a tragedy, v, 285

remarks on, ib. 287

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 296

preface to, ib. 306

prologue to, ib. 321

epilogue to, ib. 411

original performers in, ib. 294

character of, i, 238

Allen, Sir Thomas, enterprise of, ix, 177

Almanzor and Almahide, a tragedy, Part I. iv, 1

Amaryllis, or third idyllium of Theocritus, xii, 287

Amboyna, or the cruelties of the Dutch to the English merchants, a

tragedy, v, 1

Dryden’s worst play, ib. 4

remarks on, ib. 3

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 5

prologue to, ib. 10

epilogue to, ib. 87

American colonies, a refuge for the disaffected, x, 394

Amours (Ovid’s) translations from, xii, 257

Amphitryon, or the two Sosias, a comedy, viii, 1

remarks on, ib. 3

letter and verses on, ib. 5

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 7

prologue to, ib. 12

epilogue to, ib. 106

Amyntas, a pastoral elegy, xi, 139

Anabaptists, account of, x, 145

Anachronism of Virgil defended, xiv, 176

Ancient political satire of Reynard the fox, x, 155

Ancient armour, rivetted after put on, xi, 363

British custom, xviii, 120

Ancients, excelled by the English in dramatic writing, xv, 396

ceremonies observed by, on escape from shipwreck, ix, 34, 44

Andronicus, Livius, first author of a play in Roman republic, xiii, 54

account of, ib. 54

Anecdote traditionary of Ben Jonson, i, 13

James I. ib. 13

Anecdote of Robert Keies, i, 23

Dryden’s brothers and sisters, ib. 25

Southerne, ib. 237

Jacob Tonson, ib. 389

Dryden, ib. 390

Dryden and Jacob Tonson, ib. 391

Heliodorus, vi. 126

Andrew Naugeria, ib. 370

a Scottish judge, ix, 20

the Earl of Shaftesbury, ib. 265

Gilbert Burnet, ib. 371

Charles II., ib. 413

Nell Gwynn, ib. 426

Peter Fabel, vii, 10

Friar Bacon, ib. 10

the Loyal Brother, x, 370

John Hales, xv, 351

Angelo, Michael, character of, ib. 489

Animadversions, Dryden’s, on Melbourne, i, 403

Animosity to Dryden of Elkanah Settle, rise of, xv, 398

Annals or commentaries, what, xvii, 56

Annus Mirabilis, the year of wonders, 1666, an historical poem, ix, 81

Dryden’s first poem of consequence, ib. 83

remarks on, ib. 83

dedication of, ib. 89

notes on, ib. 158

account of, in a letter to Sir Robert Howard, ib. 92

character of, i, 61

Answer of Samuel Pepys to a letter of Dryden’s, xviii, 156

to the preface of the Great Favourite, or the Duke of Lenna, ii, 265

Dryden’s Medal, extracts from, ix, 452

Rymer’s remarks, heads of, xv, 385

the Duchess of York’s paper, xvii, 194

Absalom and Achitophel, i, 253

the Medal, ib. 255

Apology for heroic poetry, and poetic licence, v, 105

Apostle of the Indies, St Francis Xavier, life of, xvi, 1

Appeal to honour and justice, extract from, x, 387

Appendix to the Fables, containing the original tales of Chaucer,

modernized by Dryden, xii, i-xci.

to Dryden’s works, xviii, 183

No. I. Dryden’s degree of master of arts, ib. 185

No. II. Dryden’s patent as poet-laureat, and historiographer-royal,

ib. 187

No. III. Dryden’s agreement with Jacob Tonson concerning the Fables,

ib. 191

No. IV. Mr Russel’s bill for Dryden’s funerals, ib. 194

Description of Dryden’s funeral, ib. 195

No. V. Mrs Thomas’s letters concerning Dryden’s death and funeral,

ib. 200

No. VI. Monument in the church at Tichmarsh, ib. 215

No. VII. Extract from an epistolary poem to Dryden, occasioned by

the death of the Earl of Abingdon, by William Pitts, ib. 218

No. VIII. Extracts from poems attacking Dryden for his silence upon

the death of Queen Mary, ib. 222

No. IX. Verses occasioned by reading Dryden’s Fables, by Mr Hughes,

ib. 227

No. X. Ode on the death of Dryden, by Alexander Oldys, ib. 234

Application of the Hind and the Panther censured, x, 90

defended, ib. 91

justified, ib. 197, 240

the fable of the Swallows, ib. 253

Appointment of Dryden to the office or poet-laureat, and

historiographer-royal, i, 115

fasts and thanksgivings belongs only to the king, ix, 388

Apprentices duty in ancient times, vi, 382

loyal, dinner, ix, 396

Archbishop Sancroft, account of, ix, 301

Spottiswoode, account of, xvii, 159

Argument of the fable of the Flower and the Leaf, xi, 354

Arius, doctrine of, x, 146

and Athanasius, controversy between, ib. 15

Aristotle’s division of the integral parts of a play, xv, 312

Arlington, Earl of, account of, ix, 395

Armour, ancient, rivetted after put on, xi, 363

Armstrong, Sir Thomas, account of, xv, 204

stabs Mr Scroop, x, 327

Art of Love, Ovid’s, translations from, xii, 229

Painting, by C. A. Du Fresnoy, translation of xvii, 279, 339

remarks on, ib. 281

observations on, ib. 392

when translated, i, 405

Poetry, xv. 227

remarks on, ib. 229

Canto II. pastoral, ib. 238

elegy, ib. 240

ode, ib. 240

epigram, ib. 241

satire, ib. 243

III. tragedy, ib. 245

IV. ib. 258

Arthur, or the British Worthy, viii, 107

Arts, Dryden’s degree of master of, xviii, 185

Arviragus and Philiciæ, prologue to, x, 404

Assassination of the Duke of Guise, xvii, 148

Assault upon Dryden, in Rose-street, i, 204

upon Sir John Coventry, ix, 258

Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery, a comedy, iv, 343

remarks on, ib. 345

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 348

prologue to, ib. 356

epilogue to, ib. 447

Associating club, account of, vii, 154

Association for the defence of Queen Elizabeth ix, 422

Aston, account of, xv, 204

Astrea Redux, a poem, ix, 25

remarks on, ib. 27

notes on, ix. 41

Astrological observations of John Silvester, extract from, x, 421.

Astrology, Dryden’s belief in, xviii, 207

Athanasius and Arius, controversy between, x, 15

Atheists, address of, ib. 144

Attack on Dryden, xi, 237

Shakespeare, by Ben Jonson, xv, 344

upon Blackmore and Collier, in the prologue and epilogue to the

Pilgrim, i, 436

Attacks, poetical, against Dryden, specimen of, ib. 350

by Swift on Dryden, ib. 374-393

Attempt, Shaftesbury’s, to alter the succession, ix, 268

Aureng-Zebe, a tragedy, v, 167

remarks on, ib. 169

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 174

prologue to, ib. 188

epilogue to, ib. 282

Authority of Dryden in Will’s Coffee-house, i, 371

Authors of the Rehearsal, ib. 136

Author’s apology for heroic poetry, and poetic licence, v, 105

Aylesbury, Earl of, account of, xv, 207

B.

Bacon, Friar, anecdote of, vol. vii, 10

Ballad of College, the Protestant joiner, vii, 5

The Brawny Bishop’s Complaint, x, 270

Bancroft, John, account of, ib. 412

Banishment of Ovid, causes of, xii, 5-7

Bathurst, Ralph, account of, x, 330

Character of Latin compositions of, x, 332

Battle, a poem, extract from, ix, 398

of four days, ix, 168-174

of Landen, behaviour of the Duke of Ormond at, xi, 202

of Senneph, ib. 233

Baucis and Philemon, xii, 109

Beaufort, Duke of, account of, ix, 390

noble house-keeping of, ib. 391

Beaumont and Fletcher, character of, xv, 352

Beautiful in painting, xvii, 343

Behaviour of the Duke of Ormond at the battle of Landen, xi, 202

Belief of Dryden in judicial astrology, xviii, 207

Bellarmine, Robert, account of, xvii, 160

Bellino, George, character of, xvii, 492

Beneficence of Polybius the historian, xviii, 33

Benefit of Dryden, the Pilgrim brought forward for, i, 434

Bennet, Sir Henry, vide Arlington, Earl of

Bethel, Slingsby, account of, ix, 280

Bevil, Sir Robert, imprisoned, xi, 82

Bible, what occasioned by Tyndal’s translation of, x, 23

Biography, what, xvii, 58

Birth of Charles II. star visible at, ix, 51

children, custom at, xiii, 389

Dryden, i, 26

St Francis Xavier, xvi, 15

the Prince, poem on, x, 283

the son of James II. said to be spurious, x, 286

believed by the Papists miraculous, ib. 285-302

account of by Smollet, ib. 305

Bishop of Munster’s irruption into the United States, ix, 165

Compton, account of, ib. 302

Dolben, ib. 303

Blackmore, Sir Richard, Dryden’s dispute with, i, 420

extract of preface to Prince Arthur by, ib. 421

ridiculed, viii, 442

Blackmore and Collier, Dryden’s attack upon, in the Prologue and

Epilogue to the Pilgrim, i, 436

Blount, Charles, account of, xviii, 77

Blount, Charles, Religio Laici of, x, 8

Boccace and Chaucer, parallel between, xi, 233

translations from, ib. 401

Bologna, singular event at the siege of, ix, 18

Booksellers, niggardliness of, xv, 194

Bower’s medal of Earl of Shaftesbury, ix, 412

Boyle, Lord Broghill, vide Orrery, Earl of,

Brachmans, account of the, xvi, 91

Brady’s character of Shadwell, x, 445

Bravery of the Duke of York, ix, 161

Brawny Bishop’s complaint, a ballad, x, 270

Brazen age, from Ovid, xii, 68

Britannia Rediviva, x, 283

remarks on, ib. 285

notes on, ib. 302

British Worthy, or King Arthur, viii, 107

Brouncker, Henry, account of, xviii, 92

Brown, (Tom,) uncommon Alexandrine of, ix, 415

extract from works of, x, 51

letter on Hind and Panther of, ib. 102

extract of Preface to The New Converts Exposed, ib. 103

account of Dryden’s funeral by, i, 443

religio medici of, x, 7

Bruce, Robert, vide Aylesbury, Earl of

Brutus Marcus, employed writing an epitome of Polybius, xviii, 30

Buckingham, Duke of, account of, v, 174

epistle dedicatory to, v, 174

intrepidity of, ib. 175

character of, v, 175, ix, 270, 304

answer of, to Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, extracts from, ib. 272

Battle, by extract from, ix, 398

author of the Essay on Satire, xv, 201

gallantry of, ib. 211

satire on gallantry of, ib. 212

Buffoon, or Gracioso, what, i, 77

Burlesque inscription by Swift, to be placed under Blackmore’s picture,

viii, 442

Burnet, Gilbert, anecdote of, ix, 371

account of, x, 267

personal appearance of, ib. 270

account of the relief given by James II. to the French exiled

Protestants, ib. 264

remarks on some part of conduct and writings of, ib. 271

examination of, by the House of Commons, ib. 274

why named Captain of the Test, ib. 276

Burning a Pope, what, vi, 222

Busby, Rev. Dr, Dryden’s letters to, xviii, 96-98

Bussy, D’Ambois, a tragedy, extracts from, vi, 376

Butler, James, vide Ormond, Duke of

Butler, the author of Hudibras, unrewarded by the Court, x, 250

C.

Cæsar Borgia, prologue to, x, 347

Calisto, a masque, dramatis personæ of, x, 337

Calvin, account of, x, 150

Calvinism, history of, by Lewis Maimbourg, x, 30

Cambridge, Dryden admitted to Trinity College of, i, 28

Campian, Edmund, account of, x, 20

Canace to Macareus, epistle of, xii, 21

Candour of Polybius, instance of, xviii, 40

Captain of the Test, Bishop Burnet, why named, x, 276

Carbery, Earl of, vide Vaughan, Lord

Carlell, Lodovick, account of, x, 404

Carrache, character of Ludivico, Hannibal, and Augustine, xvii, 496

Castlemaine treated with contempt by the Pope, x, 305

Castlemain, Lady, poetical epistle to, xi, 20

remarks on, ib. 18

account of, ib. 18

Catholic missionaries, diligence of in the conversion of the Heathen,

x, 192

Catholic faith, Dryden becomes a convert to, i, 303

Dryden firm in his attachment to, ib. 322

Gibbon’s account of his conversion to, ib. 316

Caulfield’s history of the gunpowder plot, extract from, i, 24

Causabon’s commentary on Persius, xiii, 72

Causes of enmity between Dryden and Shadwell, x, 427

Ovid’s banishment, xii, 5-7

Cavendish, William, vide Newcastle, Duke of,

Cayet, P. V. P. account of, xvii, 94

Cecil, John, vide Exeter, Earl of,

Cecilia’s, St, day, song for, xi, 167

remarks on, ib. 165

account of, ib. 165

festival of, ib. 166

day, Ode in honour of, ib. 183

circumstances attending the composition of,i, 408

set to music by Handel, ib. 310

Ceremonies observed by the ancients on escape from shipwreck, ix, 34,

44

Ceyx and Alcyone, fable of, xii, 139

Chancellor Hyde, verses to, ix, 65

Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, xi, 87.

Chapman, George, extracts from tragedy of Bussy D’Ambois of, vi, 376

Character of Dryden, i, 444

by Congreve, ii, 9

Sir Gilbert Pickering, i, 34

Sir John Driden, ib. 37

Annus Mirabilis, ib. 61

Dryden’s Tempest, ib. 106

Heroic plays, ib. 118

Marriage a-la-mode, ib. 143

Massacre of Amboyna, ib. 164

the Empress of Morocco, ib. 187

All for Love, ib. 218

Ben Jonson, iii, 222

Mrs Montfort, by Cibber, iv, 233

the Œdipe of Corneille, vi, 119

the Troilus and Cressida of Shakespeare, vi, 239

the Troilus and Cressida of Dryden, i, 223

of the Spanish Friar, i, 227

Absalom and Achitophel, Part I. ib. 243

II. ib. 268

Mac-Flecknoe, a satire, ib. 266

Dryden as a satirist, ib. 279

Jeremy Collier, ib. 424

Southerne, i, 372

Congreve, ib. 372

Life of St Francis Xavier, ib. 337

Dryden’s translations by Garth, ib. 340

of Otho, ix, 43

the Earl of Clarendon, ib. 63

Duke of Buckingham, ib. 270, 304

Pere Richard Simon, x, 31

the addresses on the accession of Jarnes II. x, 110

James II. x, 226, 265

The Man of Mode, x, 339

Mountfort the comedian, x, 412

Albumazar, ib. 416

of Thomas Shadwell, ib. 445

Decker, ib. 451

Thomas Shadwell’s Virtuoso, ib. 454

Sir Godfrey Kneller, xi, 89

Donne, as a love-poet, ib. 123

Homer and Virgil, ib. 211

Chaucer, ib. 225

a good Parson, xi, 395

remarks on, ib. 394

Ovid’s works, xii, 8, 11

Homer’s poetry, xii, 49

a translator, ib. 266

Lucretius, ib. 272

Theocritus, ib. 278

Horace, ib. 280

the Earl of Dorset, xiii, 7

Spenser, xiii, 18

Milton, ib. 19

Pacurius, the satirist, ib. 58

Lucilius the satirist, ib. 58

Persius, ib. 72

the father of Horace, ib. 77

the Satires of Horace, ib. 99

Mæcenas, ib. 307

Virgil’s Pastorals, ib. 339

French poetry, ib. 366

Virgil’s Georgics, xiv, 25

Lauderdale’s translation of Virgil, xiv, 223

the Earl of Exeter, xv, 191

the Duke of Shrewsbury, xv, 192

French plays, ib. 337

William Shakespeare, ib. 350

Beaumont and Fletcher, ib. 352

Ben Jonson, ib. 353

Dryden’s colleagues in notes and observations on Empress of Morocco,

xv, 399

Plutarch’s Lives, xvii, 62

Michael Angelo, as a painter, xvii, 489

Raphael Santio, ib. 490

Julio Romano, ib. 491

Polydore, ib. 492

Gio Bellino, ib. 492

Georgione, as a painter, ib. 492

Titian, ib. 493

of Paul Veronese, xvii, 494

Tintoret, ib. 494

Corregio, ib. 494

Parmegiano, ib. 495

Ludivico, Hannibal, and Augustine Carrache, ib. 496

Guido, ib. 496

Domenichino, ib. 497

Lanfranc, ib. 497

Gio. Viola, ib. ib.

Rubens, ib. 498

M. St Evremont, xviii, 9

Polybius and his writings, ib. 17

Pope Nicholas V. ib. 24

Lucian, ib. 70

Booksellers, ib. 80.

Charles I., Dryden accused of approving of the execution of, ix, 16

Shaftesbury offers his services to, ib. 444

Charles II., restoration of, led the way for the revival of letters,

i, 42

star visible at the birth of, ix, 51

panegyric on the coronation of, ib. 54

mechanical genius of, ib. 60

skill of, in maritime affairs, ib. 160

conduct of, at the fire of London, ib. 187

illegitimate children of, ib. 250

receives a pension from France, ib. 385

anecdote of, ib. 413

North’s opinion of Shaftesbury’s designs upon the person and

authority of, ib. 450

titles of some odes on death of, x, 55

concern of the people for death of, ib. 79

Physicians who attended, ib. 79

circumstances regarding the death of, ib. 80

extract of papers found in strong box of, ib. 188, 190

Charleton, Dr Walter, account of, xi, 12

poetical epistle to, ib. 14

remarks on, ib. 12

Chaucer, Tales from, xi, 193-399

and Ovid, parallel between, ib. 214

Chaucer’s Pilgrims, Stothard’s painting of, ib. 217

Chaucer’s rhyme, supposed inequalities of, xi. 221

character of, xi, 225

and Boccace, parallel between, ib. 233

first patroness, ib. 246

original tales, modernized by Dryden, xii, i-xci

Knightes Tale, ib. iii

Nonnes Priestes Tale, ib. liii

Floure and the Leafe, ib. lxviii

Wif of Bathes Tale, ib. lxxxii

Chesterfield, Earl of, account of, xiv, 3

dedication to, ib. 3

Chevalier de St George, birth of, x, 305

false report of the death of, ib. 307

Children, illegitimate, of Charles II., ix, 250

Christian religion, machinery of, more feeble than the Heathen, in

poetry, xiii, 23

Church of England, declaration of James VI. concerning the, x, 262

loyalty of, ib. 154

tradition of no weight in, ib. 156

Tichmarsh, monument in, xviii, 215

Cibber’s character of Mrs Montfort, iv, 233

Cinyras and Myrrha, fable of, xii, 127

Circe, original prologue to, x, 333

prologue to, as corrected by Dryden, ib. 335

Circumstances which influenced the Earl of Shaftesbury in his change of

politics, ix, 448

regarding the death of Charles II., x, 80

Civil wars, state of poetry in England before, i, 4

metaphysical poetry favoured till the beginning of, i, 12

interrupt the study of poetry, i, 20

Clare, Marquis of. Vide Haughton, Lord

Clarendon, Earl of, character of, ix, 63

Clayton, Sir Robert, account of, ib. 359

Cleomenes, a tragedy, viii, 181

preface to, ib. 196

verses to Dryden on, ib. 205

representation of, suspended, i. 363, viii, 199

Life of, ib. 207

Prologue to, ib. 246

Epilogue to, ib. 329

character of, i, 362

Clergy, Dryden’s resentment against, ib. 428

Cleveland, account of, ib. 43

Clifford, Lord, epistle dedicatory to, v, 5

account of, ib. 5

Hugh, dedication to, xiii, 337

Matthew, Dryden’s controversy with, i, 154

Club, King’s Head, account of, ix, 380

Cock and the Fox, or the Tale of the Nun’s Priest, xi, 327

remarks on, ib. 326

Coffeehouse, (Will’s,) Dryden’s authority in, i, 371

Coleman, Edward, account of, x, 18

Colleagues of Dryden, in Notes and Observations on the Empress of

Morocco, xv, 399

characterized, ib. 399

College, Trinity, Cambridge, Dryden admitted to, i, 28

College’s (the protestant joiner) Ballad, vii, 5

Collier and Blackmore, attack upon, in the prologue and epilogue to the

Pilgrim, i. 436

Colouring, the third part of painting, xvii, 361, 450

Combat, curious, xi, 283

Combination of the lute and sword ridiculed, x, 450

Comedy of the Wild Gallant, ii, 13

Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen, ib. 379

Sir Martin Mar-all, iii, 1

the Tempest, iii, 95

an Evening’s Love, or the Mock Astrologer, ib. 207

Marriage A-la-mode, iv, 231

the Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery, ib. 343

the Kind Keeper, or Mr Limberham, vi, 1

Amphitryon, viii, 1

distinguished by acts not known to the early Greeks, xv, 311

and Tragedy, not wrote by the same authors among the ancients, ib. 317

Comedies of intrigue introduced to the English stage, i, 76

Comets, two remarkable, ix, 160

Comic scenes in tragedy, propriety of, i, 230

Commencement of Dryden’s dramatic career, ib. 80

friendship with Southerne, ib. 294

Commentaries, or annals, what, xvii, 56

Commines, Philip de, account of, xviii, 36

Comparison between the poems of Sprat and Dryden, ix, 6

Persius and Horace, xiii, 78

Horace and Juvenal, ib. 78

Tacitus and Polybius, xviii, 50

Complaint of the Brawny Bishop, a ballad, x, 270

Compton, Bishop, account of, ix, 302

Concern of the people for the death of Charles II., x, 79

Condemnation, King’s power of granting pardon after, questioned, ix, 310

Conduct of Charles II. on the fire of London, ib. 187

pusillanimous, of Lord Grey, ib. 276

infamous of Lord Howard, ib. 278

of Bishop Burnet, remarks on some parts of, x, 271

of the Earl of Shaftesbury at the Restoration, ix, 447

Confederates, a poem, xviii, 175

Confuting arguments used by the King, and disrespect of his person, x, 252

Congreve, Wm., extracts from Wilson’s Life of, xviii, 200

Dryden’s friendship with, i, 372

poetical epistle to, xi, 59

remarks on, ib. 57

verses addressed to, ib. 61

Congreve’s dedication of Dryden’s Dramatic Works, ii, 5

character of, i, 372

character of Dryden, ib. 9

Connection of Dryden in society, after the Revolution, i, 369

of the Indian Emperor to the Indian Queen, ii, 293

Conquest of Granada, a tragedy, Part I. iv, 1

remarks on, ib. 3

Epistle Dedicatory to, ib. 9

complimentary verses on, ib. 29

Prologue to, ib. 30

Epilogue to, ib. 110

a tragedy, Part II. ib.

Prologue to, ib. 113

Epilogue to, ib. 210

Conquest of Mexico, a tragedy, ii. 257

Conscience, declaration for liberty of, x, 279

Consequences of the Revolution to Dryden, i, 347

Constantine the Great, epilogue to, x, 386

Contest at the election of Sheriffs for London, ix, 404

Contract, Dryden’s, with the King’s company of players, i, 102

Controversy between Athanasius and Arius, x, 15

concerning the comparative merits of the ancients and moderns, xii, 45

between Dryden and Stillingfleet, concerning the Duchess of York’s

paper, xvii, 185

remarks on, ib. 187

between Dryden and Sir Robert Howard, i, 94

Matthew Clifford, ib. 154

Richard Leigh, ib. 157

Edward Ravenscroft, ib. 160

Earl of Rochester, ib. 195

Shadwell, ib. 259

Elkanah Settle, ib. 259

Rymer, ib. 379

Milbourne, ib. 394

Contumacy, Dryden punished at College for, ib. 28

Copy of a paper written by the late Duchess of York, xvii, 189

Corinna, Charles Dryden’s letter to, xviii, 213

Corneille, character of Œdipe of, vi, 119

Coronation of Charles II. panegyric on, ix, 54

Corregio, character of, as a painter, xvii, 494

Correspondence of Dryden with Madam Honor Dryden,xviii, 86

with the Earl of Rochester, ib. 89, 101

with the Rev. Dr Busby, ib. 96, 98

with Jacob Tonson, ib. 103, 106, 109, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124,

126, 127, 128, 130, 136, 137, 138

with Mr Dennis, ib. 111, 114

with Mrs Steward, ib. 141, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 153, 156, 157,

161, 169, 171, 174, 178, 180

with his sons, at Rome, ib. 131

with Elmes Steward, Esq. ib. 143

with Samuel Pepys, ib. 154, 156

with the Right Hon. Charles Montague, ib. 159

with Mrs Elizabeth Thomas, junior, xviii, 164, 167, 173

Court of Requests, a scene of political intrigue, x, 348

Covenant in England, and League in France, parallel between, i, 281

Coventry, Sir John, assault on, ix, 258

Cowardice of the Earl of Rochester, xv, 215

Cowley, the most ingenious poet of the metaphysical class, i, 15

character of Cromwell by, ix, 4

imitation of, ib. 191

and Denham’s manner of Prose translation, xii, 14

translation of Pindar by, ib. 15

Cranmer, George, account of, x, 26

Creech, Thomas, account of, xii, 277

Dryden’s conduct with regard to, censured, viii, 200

justified, ib. 202

Dedication of to Horace, extract from, ib. 220

Life of Cleomenes by, ib. 207

Verses by on Religio Laici, x, 36

Note and Letter on a passage in Translation of Lucretius by, xviii, 94

Cressy, Hugh Paulin, account of, x, 21

Critical history of the Old Testament, translator of, x, 32

Criticism, in tragedy, grounds of, vi, 243

specimen of Milbourne’s on Dryden’s Virgil, i, 397

Critics censured by Dryden, xii, 49

French better than the English, xiv, 159

Cromwell, Oliver, character of by Cowley, ix, 4

heroic stanzas to the memory of, ib. 8

Sprat’s verses to the memory of, ib. 5

dissolution of the Parliament by, ib. 45

conduct of to Scotland, ib. 19

storm at the death of, ib. 23

Shaftesbury’s situation during the usurpation of, ib. 445

death of, Dryden’s first theme, i, 38

Cruel doctrine of English lawyers, xv, 297

Cruelties of the Dutch to the English merchants, or Amboyna, a tragedy,

v, 1

Curious combat, xi, 283

Custom at the birth of children, xiii, 389

Cymon and Iphigenia, xi, 454

remarks on, ib. 452

idea of borrowed from Theocritus, ib. 452

D.

Dacier’s character of the Satires of Horace, vol. xiii, p. 77

Danby, Earl of, epistle dedicatory to, v, 296

account of, ib. 296

Daphnis and Chloris, from Theocritus, xii, 300

Daphnis, a pastoral, xiii, 391

Dartmouth, Earl of, account of, ix, 386

Davenant, Sir William, account of, iii, 97

share of, in the alteration of the Tempest, ib. 98

first introduced regular scenery on the English stage, x, 323

introduced moveable scenes on the stage, i, 79

a restorer of taste in poetry, i, 48

style of, imitated by Dryden, i, 59

Davenant, Dr Charles, account of, x, 333

Davies’s Dramatic Miscellanies, extract from, v, 172

Death of Lodislaus, king of Hungary, vii, 184

Charles II. titles of odes on, x, 55

concern of the people for, ib. 79

circumstances regarding, ib. 80

Oliver Cromwell, storm at, ix, 23

Dryden’s first theme, i, 38

Ajax, xii, 198

Death, scenes of, improper on the stage, xv, 332

Decameron of Boccacio, the tale of Sigismund and Guiscardo originally

from, xi, 443

Theodore and Honoria from, ib. 448

Symon and Iphigenia from, ib. 473

Decker, character of, x, 451

Declaration of James II. concerning the church of England, ib. 262

for liberty of conscience, ib. 279

Decree of the University of Oxford, concerning non-resistance, ib. 241

Decrees of fate, Jupiter cannot alter, xv, 103

Decrepitude, premature, of the Earl of Shaftesbury, ix, 454

Dedication to the King, xvii, 81

Queen, xvi, 3

Duke of Newcastle, ii, 5, iii, 209

Earl of Orrery, ii, 113

Duchess of Monmouth and Buccleuch, ib. 259

Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch, iii, 346

Duke of York, iv, 9

Earl of Rochester, ib. 235

Sir Charles Sedley, ib. 348

Lord Clifford, v, 5, xiii, 337

the Duchess of York, v, 95

Earl of Mulgrave, ib. 174

Earl of Danby, ib. 296

Lord Vaughan, vi, 6

the Earl of Sunderland, ib. 231

Lord Haughton, ib. 373

the Earl of Rochester, vii, 13

the Earl of Leicester, vii, 283

Sir William Leveson Gower, viii, 7

the Marquis of Halifax, ib. 113

Earl of Salisbury, ib. 337

Metropolis of Great Britain, ix, 89

Earl of Abingdon, xi, 121

Duke of Ormond, ib. 195

Duchess of Ormond, ib. 245

Lord Radcliffe, xii, 47

the Earl of Chesterfield, xiv, 3

Marquis of Normanby, ib. 127

Earl of Dorset, xv, 286

Duke of Ormond, xvii, 5

Congreve’s edition of Dryden’s Dramatic Works, ii, 5

Orpheus Britannicus, xi, 146

Creech’s Horace, extract from, viii, 202

(Author’s) of the History of the League, to the French King, xvii, 89

the Empress of Morocco, extract from, xv, 398

Defeat of the Mahometans at Malacca, xvi, 211

Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy, ii, 265

the epilogue to the Conquest of Granada, iv, 211

the Immunities of the city of London, vii, 127

the use of the triplet in poetry, xiv, 216

rhyme in serious plays, xv, 367

the paper written by the Duchess of York, xvii, 208

Virgil against the reflections of M. Fontenelle, xiii, 345

Definition of satire, ib. 103

modern, ib. 105

a Georgic, xiv, 16

a play, xv, 302

Defoe’s Appeal to Honour and Justice, extract from, x, 387

Denham and Cowley’s manner of translation, xii, 14

Sir John, opinion of, on verbal translation, ib. 14

and Waller, improvers of English versification, i, 18

Dennis, John, letter of, to Dryden, xviii, 111

Dryden to, ib. 114

Dennis’s account of Dryden’s controversy with Settle, i, 183

Description of Titus Oates, by North, ix, 355

the Independents, x, 140

the personal appearance of Bishop Burnet, x, 270

Richard Flecknoe, ib. 441

Nokes the comedian, xi, 50

Love, xiv, 173

Mozambique, xvi, 63

the city of St. Thomas, ib. 138

the island of Ternato, ib. 166

Japan, ib. 290

an accomplished historian, xviii, 48

Design, the second part of painting, xvii, 349-420

Despairing Lover, from Theocritus, xii, 296

Device of the partizans of Monmouth, x, 364

Dialogue concerning women, preface to, xviii, 1

Dickinson, Henry, translator of Pere Simon’s critical history of the Old

Testament, x, 32

Dido to Æneas, epistle of, xii, 35

Difference between the taste of Dryden and Milton, i, 168

Dillon, Wentworth, vide Roscommon, Earl of,

Dimock or Dymock, hereditary champion of England, ii, 266

Dinner of loyal apprentices, ix, 396

Disaffected, American colonies a refuge for the, x, 394

Disappointment, epilogue to, ib. 390

Dispute of Dryden with Milbourne, i, 394

Blackmore, ib. 420

Disputes, political, in 1680 and 1681, parallel between, x, 353

Dissolution of Parliament by Cromwell, ix, 45

Distinction between the Greek satirical drama, and the satirical poetry

of the Romans, xiii, 47

of comedy into acts, not known to the early Greeks, xv, 311

Distressed circumstances of Wycherly, xiii, 77

Divination, rod of, what, ix, 20

Divines, moderate, what, x, 242

Division of the integral parts of a play, xv, 312

Divisions of history, xvii, 56

commentaries or annals, ib. 2

history proper, ib. 57

biography, ib. 58

Doctrine of Socinius, x, 46

Arius, ib. 146

Dolben, Bishop, account of, ix, 303

Gilbert, account of, xv, 190

Domenichino, character of, as a painter, xvii, 497

Don Sebastian, a tragedy, vii, 271

remarks on, ib. 273

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 283

preface to, ib. 291

prologue to, ib. 302

epilogue to, ib. 444

Donne, character of, as a love-poet, xi, 123

Dorset, Earl of character of, xiii, 7

Essay on Satire, addressed to the, ib. 3

Dryden’s exaggerated praise of, ib. 15

dedication to, xv, 286

song of, written the evening before battle, xv, 284

Double Discovery, or the Spanish Friar, xi, 365

Drama of the Greeks, plot of, xv, 313

Romans, ib. 314

revival of, at the Restoration, i, 65

Dramatic career of Dryden, commencement of, i, 80

termination of, i, 364

poesy, defence of, an essay of, ii, 265

notes concerning, ib. 263

poetry of the last age, essay on, iv, 211

miscellanies, extract from, v, 172

performances among the Romans, origin of, xiii, 51

Dramatic poesy, essay on, xv, 293

writing, English excel the ancients in, xv, 396

Dramatis personæ of Calisto, x, 337

The True Widow, ib. 343

The Humorists, ib. 452

Driden, Sir John, character of, i, 37

Driden, John, of Chesterton, account of, xi, 71

Poetical Epistle to, ib. 75

remarks on, ib. 71

Drury-lane theatre burnt, x, 319

Dryden, John, Life of, i, 1

descent and parentage of, ib. 21

anecdotes of the brothers and sisters of, ib. 25

birth of, i, 27

education of, ib. 27

first poems of, ib. 28

is admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, ib. 28

punished for contumacy, ib. 29

long residence of at the university, ib. 31

degree of Master of Arts of, xviii, 185

Sir Gilbert Pickering’s clerk, i. 36

death of Cromwell, the first theme of, ib. 38

first poem of consequence of, ix, 83

poems of on the Restoration, i, 50

changes the spelling of his name, ib. 53

is chosen a member of the Royal Society, ib. 56

imitates the style of Davenant, ib. 59

commencement of dramatic career of, ib. 80

first appearance of the Wild Gallant, ib. 80

Rival Ladies, ib. 81

Indian Queen, ib. 83

Indian Emperor, ib. 84

intrigue of with Mrs Reeves, ib. 87

marriage of, ib. 88

Essay of Dramatic Poesy, appearance of, ib. 92

controversy of with Sir Robert Howard, ib. 94

contract of with the King’s Company of Players, ib. 101

appearance of the Maiden Queen of, ib. 104

Tempest, ib. 105

Sir Martin Mar-all, ib. 107

the Mock Astrologer, ib. 109

Royal Martyr, ib. 110

Conquest of Granada, ib. 112

promoted to the offices of poet-laureat and historiographer-royal,

ib. 115

patent of, as poet-laureat and historiographer-royal, xviii, 187

appearance of Marriage A-la-mode, i, 143

the Assignation, ib. 146

controversy with Matthew Clifford, ib. 154

Richard Leigh, ib. 157

Edward Ravenscroft, ib. 160

Elkanah Settle, ib. 259

Rochester, ib. 195

appearance of Massacre of Amboyna, ib. 163

State of Innocence, ib. 166

Aurenge-Zebe, i, 209

is assaulted in Rose-street, ib. 204

meditates an epic poem, ib. 215

appearance of All for Love, ib. 218

Limberham, ib. 221

Œdipus, ib. 222

Troilus and Cressida, ib. 223

the Spanish Friar of, ib. 227

relations of when he composed the Spanish Friar, ib. 233

anecdote of with Southerne, ib. 237

engages in politics, ib. 239

appearance of Absalom and Achitophel, Part I. ib. 243

the Medal, ib. 250

extracts from answer to, ix, 452

controversy of with Shadwell, i, 259, 286

causes of enmity between Shadwell and, x, 472

appearance of Mac-Flecknoe, a satire, i, 266

Absalom and Achitophel, Part II. ib. 268

assisted by Nahum Tate in, ix, 315

effect of the satirical poetry of on English poetry, i, 275

character of, as a satirist, ib. 279

share of in the composition of the Duke of Guise, ib. 281

furnishes a Preface to the translation of Plutarch’s Lives, ib. 289

translates the History of the League, ib. 290

appearance of the First Miscellany of, ib. 294

commencement of Southerne’s friendship with, ib. 294

Memorial of to the Earl of Rochester, ib. 296

appearance of Threnodia Augustales of, ib. 299

Albion and Albanius, ib. 299

becomes a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, ib. 303

reasons which might influence him in his change of religious opinions,

ib. 303

sincere in his attachment to the Catholic faith, ib. 322

controversy of with Stillingfleet, ib. 323, xviii, 187

illiberality of Dryden and Stillingfleet, x, 251

appearance of the Hind and the Panther, i, 325

libels occasioned by publication of, x, 104

Hind and Panther, where composed, i, 325

projects a translation of the History of Heresies, ib. 334

appearance of the Life of St Francis Xavier, ib. 336

second volume of Miscellanies, ib. 340

character of translations of by Garth, ib. 340

translation of Te Deum, ib. 343

hymn for St John’s eve, ib. 344

consequences of the Revolution to, ib. 347

poetical attacks against, ib. 350

loses the offices of poet-laureat and historiographer-royal, ib. 354

appearance of Don Sebastian, i, 357

King Arthur, ib. 360

Cleomenes, ib. 362

Love Triumphant, ib. 364

last dramatic work of, viii, 333.

list of plays of, with the respective dates of their being acted and

published, i, 367

connections in society of, after the Revolution, ib. 369

indebted to Dorset’s bounty, ib. 370

exaggerated praise of Dorset by, xiii, 15

authority of in Will’s Coffee-house, i, 371

friendship of with Southerne and Congreve, ib. 372

literary friends of, ib. 373

attacked by Swift, ib. 374

appearance of translation of Juvenal and Persius, ib. 375

smaller pieces, ib. 376

Eleonora, ib. 376

Third Miscellany, ib. 378

controversy of with Rymer, ib. 379

correspondence of with Jacob Tonson, ib. 381

appearance of the translation of Virgil by, ib. 382

Fourth Miscellany, ib. 382

quarrel of with Tonson, ib. 387

anecdote of, ib. 390

and Tonson, ib. 391

dispute of with Milbourne, ib. 394, xi, 237

animadversions of on Milbourne, ib. 403

Ode to St Cecilia, appearance of, ib. 407

set to music by Handel, ib. 410

attacked for his silence on the death of Queen Mary, xviii, 222

translation of Homer meditated by, i, 414

projected works of, xiii, 31

dispute of with Blackmore, i, 420

appearance of Fables, ib. 427

agreement of with Jacob Tonson concerning the Fables, xviii, 191

resentment of against the clergy, i, 428

the Pilgrim brought forward for the benefit of, ib. 434

attack upon Blackmore and Collier, in the Prologue and Epilogue to the

Pilgrim, i, 436

last period of the life of, ib. 439

death and funeral of, ib. 440

Mr Russell’s bill for funeral of, xviii, 194

description of funeral of, ib. 195

ludicrous account of the funeral of by Farquhar, i, 441

Mrs Thomas’s letters concerning the death and funeral of, xviii, 200

account of funeral of by Mrs Thomas, false, i, 442

account of funeral of by Tom Brown, ib. 443

character of, ib. 444

character of by Congreve, ii, 9

notices of family of, i, 462

Ode on the death of by Alexander Oldys, xviii, 234

and Shakspeare, parallel between, v, 287

conduct of with regard to Creech, censured, viii, 200

justified, ib. 202

comparison between the poems of Sprat and, ix, 6

accused of approving of the execution of Charles I, ib. 16

versification of the King’s Speech to the Oxford Parliament by, ib. 309

satire on Shadwell by, ib. 379

use of the Alexandrine by, ridiculed, ib. 413

Epode to, vii, 133

Prologues of ridiculed in the Rehearsal, x, 313

acknowledgment of to Dr William Gibbons, xi, 77

mistake of regarding the inequalities of Chaucer’s rhyme, xi, 221

critics censured by, xii, 49

inaccuracy of with regard to Sir Philip Sidney, xiii, 18

his translation of Virgil the best, xiv, 209

Poems ascribed to, xv, 197

Original Prose Works of, ib. 281

colleagues of in the Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco,

ib. 399

characterised, ib. 399

Life of Plutarch by, xvii, 1

extract from Epistolary Poem to, xviii, 218

Letters of, ib. 83

to Madam Honor Dryden, ib. 86

to the Earl of Rochester, ib. 89, 101

to the Rev. Dr. Busby, ib. 96, 98

to Jacob Tonson, ib. 103, 106, 109, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124,

126, 127, 128, 130, 136, 137, 138

with Mr Dennis, ib. 111, 114

with Mrs Steward, ib. 141, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 153, 156, 157,

161, 169, 171, 174, 178, 180

with his sons at Rome, ib. 131

with Elmes Stewart, Esq., ib. 143

with Samuel Pepys, ib. 154, 156

with the Right Hon. Charles Montague, ib. 159

with Mrs Elizabeth Thomas, junior, ib. 164, 167, 173

Dryden, Charles, letter of to Corinna, xviii, 213

Duchess of York, account of the, v, 95, ix, 73

Epistle Dedicatory to, v, 95

Verses to, ix, 76

Poetical Epistle to, xi, 33

paper of, xvii, 189

controversy between Dryden and Stillingfleet concerning paper of,

ib. 185

Stillingfleet’s answer to, ib. 194

Dryden’s defence of, ib. 208

Stillingfleet’s answer to defence of, ib. 252

Newcastle, account of, iii, 210

Buccleugh and Monmouth, account of, ix, 256

Ormond, Dedication to, ib. 245

Portsmouth’s picture, epigram on, xv, 280

Duke of Guise, a tragedy, vii, 1

remarks on, ib. 3

Parallel between, and affairs in England, ib. 4

Epistle Dedicatory to, ib. 18

Prologue to, ib. 19

Epilogue to, ib. 122

a tragedy, Vindication of, vii, 125

remarks on Vindication of, ib. 127

Advertisement to, ib. 133

and Monmouth, no parallel intended between, ib. 144

Massacre of Paris transposed for, ib. 188

attacked by Shadwell, i, 286

share of Dryden in, ib. 281

assassination of, xvii, 148

Duke of Newcastle, Congreve’s Dedication to, ii, 5

account of, iii, 209

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 209

Lerma, answer to the Preface of the, ii, 265

York, Dedication to, iv, 9

personal bravery of, ib. 10, ix, 161

attempt to counteract the influence of in the city, ix, 388

shipwreck of upon the Lemman Ore, ib. 401

picture of, at Guildhall, defaced, vii, 51

Prologue to, x, 366

requested by Charles II. to retire to the continent, ix, 384

presence of acceptable to the Scots, ib. 385

Albemarle, account of, ix, 394

gallant actions of, ix, 250-6

Monmouth, account of, ix, 250

Buckingham, account of, v, 174

intrepidity of, v, 175

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 174

Answer of to Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, extracts from, ix, 272

Battle of, extract from, ib. 398

author of the Essay on Satire, xv, 201

gallantry of, ib. 211

satire on gallantry of, ib. 212

Ormond, account of, ix, 294-8, xi, 195

dedication to, xi, 195, xvii, 5

behaviour of at the battle of Landen, xi, 202

Beaufort, account of, ix, 390

noble house-keeping of, ib. 391

Grafton, account of, ix, 396

examination of Bishop Burnet concerning, x, 274

Shrewsbury, account of, xv, 192

Du Bartas, poem of, extract from, xv, 233

Dumfounding, what, x, 408

Dundee, Viscount, account of, xi, 113

Epitaph on the death of, ib. 115

remarks on, ib. 113

Pitcairn’s Epitaph upon, ib. 114

Du Fresnoy, Chas. Alphonse, account of, xvii, 281

Du Fresnoy’s Art of Painting, ib. 279

remarks on, ib. 281

observations on, ib. 392

judgment of the works of the principal painters of the two last ages,

ib. 489

Duras, Lewis, vide Earl of Feversham

Dutch, satire on, ix, 71

Dutch insolence, ib. 162

Duty of apprentices in ancient times, vi, 382

E.

Eagre or Higre, what, x, 65

Earl of Orrery, account of the, ii, 113

dedication to, ib. 113

of Mulgrave, account of the, v, 174

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 174

character of, ib. 175

vide Duke of Buckingham,

of Danby, account of the, v, 296

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 296

of Lindsay, account of the, ib. 304

of Carbery, vide Vaughan, Lord

of Sunderland, account of, vi, 231

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 231

of Rochester, account of, vii, 13, ix, 607

character of, iv, 235

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 235, vii, 13

banished the Court, ib. 238

assaults Dryden in Rose-street, i, 204

Dryden’s memorial to, ib. 296

account of, vii, 283

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 283

of Salisbury, epistle dedicatory to, viii, 337

of Clarendon, character of the, ix, 63

of Ossory, account of the, ib. 299

of Feversham, account of, ix, 397

of Nottingham, account of, ix, 400

of Shaftesbury, imprisonment and acquittal of, ib. 409

last period of the life of, ib. 415

ridiculed as aspiring to the crown of Poland, ix, 441

offers his services to Charles I., ib. 444

character of, during usurpation of Cromwell, ib. 445

conduct of, at the Restoration, ib. 447

circumstances which influenced him in his change of politics, ib. 448

North’s opinion of the designs of, upon the person and authority of

Charles II., ib. 451

premature decrepitude of, ib. 454

of Roscommon, account of the, xii, 341

poetical epistle to, xi, 28

of Dorset, Dryden indebted to the bounty of, i, 370

Essay on Satire, addressed to the, xiii, 3

character of, ib. 7

Dryden’s exaggerated praise of, ib. 15

epistle dedicatory to, xv, 286

song of, written the evening before the battle, ib. 284

of Peterborough, account of the, ib. 189

of Exeter, character of the, ib. 191

epitaph of the, ib. 191

of Aylesbury, account of the, ib. 207

of Essex, account of the, ib. 207

prologue to, x, 368

Ecclesiastical policy, Hooker’s treatise upon, ib. 26

Effect of Dryden’s satirical poems on English poetry, i, 275

Effects of the Revolution upon literary pursuits, ib. 385

Elegies and epitaphs, xi, 91, 160

Elegy upon the death of Lord Hastings, ib. 94

to the memory of Mr Oldham, xi, 99

Mrs Anne Killigrew, ib. 105

on the death of Amyntas, ib. 139

on a very young gentleman, ib. 142

Election of Sheriffs for London, contest at, ix, 404

Eleonora, a panegyrical poem, to the memory of the Countess of Abingdon,

xi, 117

remarks on, ib. 119

dedication of, ib. 121

Elizabeth, Queen, age of, abundant in false wit, i, 7

John Lillie’s share in determining the taste of, ib. 7

association for the defence of the person of, ix, 422

Empress of Morocco, character of, i, 187

notes and observations on, xv, 405

postscript to, ib. 409

parody on part of, ib. 407

preface to notes, and observations on, ib. 401

England, poetry of, before the civil wars, i, 4

state of learning in, on the accession of James I., ib. 5

milled money not struck in, before 1663, ix, 451

loyalty of church of, x, 154

tradition of no weight with the church of, ib. 156

establishment of the Jesuits in, ib. 255

English poetry, effect of Dryden’s satirical poems on, i, 275

versification improved by Denham and Waller, ib. 18

fleet, names of changed, ix, 63

verse, Virgil translated into, xiii, 279

lawyers, cruel doctrine of, xv, 297

plays, superiority of, ib. 349

excel the ancients in dramatic writing, ib. 3

Enchanted Island, or the Tempest, a comedy, iii, 95

Ennius, first author of Roman satire, xiii, 58

Ent, Dr George, account of, xi, 16

Enterprize of Sir Thomas Allen, ix, 177

Sir Robert Holmes, ib. 178, 184

Epic poem meditated by Dryden, i, 215

Epilogues and Prologues, x, 309, 424

to the Wild Gallant, a comedy, ii, 106-7

the Indian Queen, ib. 255

the Indian Emperor, ib. 377

Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen, ib. 469

Sir Martin Mar-all, iii, 93

the Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, ib. 205

An Evening’s Love, ib. 340

Tyrannic Love, iii, 435

the Conquest of Granada, iv, 110, 210

Defence of the, ib. 211

remarks on, ib. 229

to Marriage a-la-Mode, ib. 342

the Assignation, ib. 447

Amboyna, v, 87

Aureng-Zebe, ib. 282

All for Love, ib. 411

the Spanish Friar, vi, 485

Limberham, ib. 114

Œdipus, ib. 222

Troilus and Cressida, ib. 363

the Duke of Guise, vii, 122

Albion and Albanus, ib. 268

Don Sebastian, ib. 444

Amphitryon, viii, 106

Cleomenes, ib. 329

Love Triumphant, ib. 435

the Pilgrim, ib. 462

remarks on, ib. 459

attack upon Jeremy Collier in, i, 436

spoken at the opening of the New House, x, 326

Oxford, ib. 330

intended to have been spoken by Lady H. M. Wentworth, ib. 337

to the Man of Mode, ib. 339

Mithridates, ib. 341, 354

Tamerlane, ib. 356

the University of Oxford, ib. 360, 381

for the King’s House, ib. 362

to the Loyal Brother, ib. 377

Constantine the Great, ib. 386

the Disappointment, ib. 390

upon the union of the two companies, x, 398

to the Princess of Cleves, ib. 402

Henry II., ib. 412, 420

the Husband his own Cuckold, ib. 423

the Humourists, from, ib. 456

Epistle dedicatory to the King, xvii, 81

Queen, xvi, 3

Duke of Newcastle, ii, 5, iii, 209

Earl of Orrery, ii, 113

Duchess of Monmouth and Buccleuch, ii, 259

Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch, iii, 346

Duke of York, iv, 9

Earl of Rochester, ib. 235

Sir Charles Sedley, ib. 348

Lord Clifford, v, 5, xiii, 337

the Duchess of York, v, 95

Earl of Mulgrave, ib. 174

Earl of Danby, ib. 296

Lord Vaughan, vi, 6

the Earl of Sunderland, ib. 231

Lord Haughton, ib. 373

the Earl of Rochester, vii, 13

Earl of Leicester, ib. 283

Sir William Leveson Gower, viii, 7

the Marquis of Halifax, ib. 113

Earl of Salisbury, ib. 337

Metropolis of Great Britain, ix, 89

Earl of Abingdon, xi, 121

Duke of Ormond, ib. 195

Duchess of Ormond, ib. 245

Lord Radcliffe, xii, 47

the Earl of Chesterfield, xiv, 3

Marquis of Normandy, ib. 127

Earl of Dorset, xv, 286

Duke of Ormond, xvii, 5

Mr Congreve’s edition of Dryden’s Dramatic Works, ii, 5

Orpheus Britannicus, xi, 146

Creech’s Horace, extract from, viii, 202

of the History of the League, to the French King, xvii, 89

to the Empress of Morocco, extract from, xv, 398

to the Whigs, ix, 417

by Sir George Etherege, to the Earl of Middleton, xi, 40

poetical, from Pope to Jervas, xvii, 282

Mason to Sir Joshua Reynolds, ib. 284

Epistles of John Dryden, xviii, 83

remarks on, ib. 85

of Dryden to Madam Honor Dryden, ib. 86

to the Earl of Rochester, ib. 89, 101

to the Rev. Dr Bushby, ib. 96, 98

to Jacob Tonson, ib. 103, 106, 109, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124,

126, 127, 128, 130, 136, 137, 138

to Mr Dennis, ib. 111, 114

to Mrs Steward, ib. 131, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 153, 156, 157,

161, 169, 171, 174, 178, 180

to his sons, at Rome, ib. 131

to Elmes Steward, Esq., ib. 143

to Samuel Pepys, ib. 154, 156

to the Right Hon. Charles Montague, ib. 159

to Mrs Elizabeth Thomas, junior, ib. 164, 167, 173

Epistles poetical, xi, 1-90

to John Hoddeson, ib. 4

to Robert Howard, ib. 7

to Dr Charleton, ib. 14

to Lady Castlemain, ib. 20

to Mr Lee, ib. 23

to the Earl of Roscommon, ib. 28

to the Duchess of York, ib. 33

to Mr J. Northleigh, ib. 37

to Sir George Etherege, ib. 42

to Mr Southerne, ib. 50

to Henry Higden, ib. 55

to Mr Congreve, xi. 59

to Mr Granville, ib. 64

to Mr Motteux, ib. 69

to John Driden, ib. 75

to Sir Godfrey Kneller, ib.

Ovid’s, translations from, xii, 1-41

preface to, ib. 3

character of, ib. 11

Canace to Macareus, ib. 21

Helen to Paris, ib. 26

Dido to Æneas, ib. 35

Epitaph on the Earl of Rochester’s being dismissed from the treasury,

xv, 279

Epithalamium of Helen and Menelaus, xii, 292

Epitome of Polybius, engaged in by Marcus Brutus, xviii, 30

Epode to Dryden, vii, 133

second of Horace, xii, 351

Essay of Dramatic Poesy, defence of, ii, 265

on Heroic Plays, iv, 16

on the dramatic poetry of the last age, iv, 211

on translated verse, xi, 28

Poetical Epistle on, ib. 28

on Virgil’s Georgic’s, xiv, 14

upon Satire, xv, 203

remarks on, ib. 201

upon Satire, Duke of Buckingham, author of, xv, 201

of Dramatic Poesy, xv, 293

remarks on, ib. 283

dedication to, ib. 286

advertisement to, ib. 292

Essex, Earl of, prologue to, x, 368

Establishment of the Jesuits in England, ib. 255

Etherege, Sir George, account of, ib. 454

epistle of, to the Earl of Middleton, xi, 40

Evremont, M. St, account of, xviii, 11

character of, ib. 9

Examination of Bishop Burnet by the House of Commons, x, 274

Evening’s Love, or the Mock Astrologer, a comedy, iii, 207

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 209

remarks on, iii, 217

preface to, ib. 218

prologue to, ib. 233

epilogue to, ib. 340

Extract from preface to the Sullen Lovers, i, 260

Journal of Capt. Christopher Gunman, ib. 301

Preface to Blackmore’s Prince Arthur, ib. 422

Epistle to Sir Richard Blackmore, ib. 437

from epilogue to the Humourists, x, 456

letter to Jacob Tonson, xv, 194

Wilson’s life of Congreve, xviii, 200

an epistolary poem to Dryden, occasioned by the death of the Earl of

Abingdon, ib. 218

Extracts from poems attacking Dryden for his silence upon the death of

Queen Mary, ib. 222

Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers, x, 246, 249

Roscius Anglicanus, x, 325

Appeal to Honour and Justice, x, 387

Love’s Kingdom, ib. 453

epilogue to the Humourist, ib. 456

Malone’s History of the English Stage, xi, 58

Spanheim’s Dissertation, xiii, 47

poem of Du Bartas, xv, 233

epilogue upon reviewing Every Man in his Humour, xv, 310

dedication to the Empress of Morocco, xv, 398

Caulfield’s History of the Gunpowder Plot, i, 24

one of Dryden’s first poems, i, 33

Creech’s dedication to Horace, viii, 202

poem of John James, ix, 164

Naboth’s Vineyard, ib. 198

Judah Betrayed, a poem, ib. 266

the Duke of Buckingham’s answer to Absalom and Achitophel, ib. 272

Settle’s Absalom senior, ib. 375

poem of Loyal Feast Defeated, ib. 390

The Battle, ib. 398

Loyal Medal vindicated, ib. 423

Hickeringill’s answer to Dryden’s Medal, ix, 452

Lenten Prologue, vii, 131

the Religio Laici of J. R., x, 9

Revolter, a tragi-comedy, x, ib.

Lord Herbert’s history, ib. 23

Tom Brown’s works, ib. 51

preface to the New Converts Exposed, ib. 103

Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion, ib. 103, 313, 315

papers found in the strong-box of King Charles II. ib. 188-190

F.

Fabel, Peter, anecdote of, vol. vii, 10

Fable of the Swallows, application of, x, 253

Cock and Fox, xi, 327

Flower and Leaf, or the Lady in the Arbour, ib. 356

remarks on, ib. 354

argument of, ib. 354

Fables, tales from Chaucer, xi, 193, 399

translations from Boccace, ib. 401, 480

Dedication of, ib. 195

Preface prefixed to, ib. 205

Dryden’s agreement with Jacob Tonson, concerning, xviii, 191

verses occasioned by reading, xviii, 227

Appendix to, containing the original tales of Chaucer, modernized by

Dryden, xii, i-xci

of Iphis and Ianthe, xii, 116

Pygmalion and the Statue, ib. 123

Cinyras and Myrrha, ib. 127

Ceyx and Alcyone, ib. 139

Fair Stranger, a song, xi, 163

Fairborne, Sir Palmes, epitaph on tomb of, xi, 155

account of the death of, xi, 156

Fairfax, Edward, translator of Tasso’s Jerusalem, xi, 207

Falkland, Anthony, Lord Viscount, account of, v, 307

Fall of Man, an opera, v, 89

False wit, one character of the poetry of Queen Elizabeth, i, 7

taste, prevalence of in the age of James I. ib. 9

Familiar epistle to Mr Julian, xv, 222

remarks on, ib. 218

Familiarity of Augustus with Virgil and Horace, xiii, 313

Farquhar’s ludicrous account of the Funeral of Dryden, i, 441

Fasts and thanksgivings, appointment of, belongs only to the king, ix,

388

Fate of Titus Oates, ib. 356

Fates, Jupiter cannot alter the decrees of the, xv, 103

Feigned Innocence, or Sir Martin Mar-all, a comedy, iii, 1

Female Prelate, and Lancashire Witches, account of, vii, 142

performers first introduced on the stage after the Restoration, x, 321

Ferrex and Perrex, a tragedy, mistake of Dryden concerning, ii, 118

Ferguson, Robert, account of, ix, 363

Fescennine and Saturnine verses, what, xiii, 51

Festival, St Cecilia’s, account of, xi, 166

Feversham, Earl of, account of, ix, 397

Finch, Sir Keneage, vide Nottingham, Earl of

Fire of London, conduct of Charles II. on, ix, 187

its dreadful effects, ib. 189

First Miscellany, appearance of, i, 294

First poems of Dryden, i, 28

Fitzharris’s Plot, Waller’s Discovery of, ib. 382

Flail, account of Protestant, vii, 19

Flecknoe, Richard, account of, vi, 7, x, 441

Marvell’s description of, ib. 441

plays of, ib. 442

Fleet, English, names of changed, ix, 48

Flower and the Leaf, a fable, xi, 356

Floure and the Leafe, by Chaucer, xii, lxviii

Fontenelle’s Reflections, defence of Virgil from, xiii, 345

Forbes, James, account of, ix, 368

Fourth Miscellany, appearance of, i, 382

Four days battle, account of, ib. 168, 174

Frampton, Mary, epitaph on monument of, xi, 158

France, Charles II. receives a pension from, ix, 385

France set the pattern of rhiming or heroic plays, i, 69

League in, and Covenant in England, parallel between, i, 281

Freethinkers, their opinions, x, 143

Free translation, Cowley’s mode of, xii, 15

French stage, punctilios of, v, 307

exiled Protestants, relief given by King James II. to, x, 264

poetry, character of, xiii, 366

better critics than the English, xiv, 159

authors, scrupulous observers of the unities of time and action,

xv, 325

observe the laws of the stage, and decorum more exactly than the

English, xv, 336

plays, character of, ib. 337

servility of the, in attention to the unities, ib. 346

Friar Bacon, anecdote of, vii, 10

Friends, literary, of Dryden, i, 373

Friendship of Dryden with Southerne and Congreve, i, 372

Frontispiece to Albion and Albanus, vii, 231

Fuller, William, account of, viii, 329

Fuller’s anecdote of Robert Keies, i, 23

Funeral Pindaric poem, x, 53

of Dryden, i, 440

Farquhar’s ludicrous account of, ib. 441

Tom Brown’s account of, ib. 443

Mr Russel’s bill for, xviii, 194

Mrs Thomas’s letters concerning, ib. 200

description of, ib. 195

procession at the death of St Francis Xavier, description of, xvi, 465

G.

Gallant, Wild, a comedy, vol. ii, 13

actions of Prince Rupert, ix, 167-174

the Duke of Albemarle, ix, 168, 171

action of Edward Spragge, xi, 24

Gallantry of the Duke of Buckingham, xv, 211

Gallus, a pastoral, xiii, 417

Garth’s character of Dryden’s Translations, i, 340

Georgic, definition of, xiv, 16

Georgics of Virgil, translation of, xiv, 1-122

dedication of, ib. 3

essay on, ib. 14

character of, ib. 25

notes on, ib. 123

Book I. ib. 27

II. ib. 49

III. ib. 73

IV. ib. 98

Georgione, character of, xvii, 492

German jollity, xi, 44

Giants’ war, xii, 69

Gibbon’s account of his conversion to the Catholic faith, i, 316

character of Pope Nicholas V. xviii, 24

account of the murder of Lucian, ib. 57

Gilbert, Dr William, account of, xi, 15

Goa, description of, xvi, 71

Godfrey, Sir Edmondbury, account of, ix, 285

Golden age, from Ovid, xii, 66

Government of Japan, xvi, 291

Gracioso, or buffoon, what, i, 77

Grafton, Duke of, account of, ix, 396

Graham, James, vide Dundee, Viscount

Granville, George, poetical epistle to, xi, 64

remarks on, xi, 63

Great Favourite, answer to the preface of the, ii, 265

Grecian dramas, plot of, xv, 313

Greek satirical drama, and the satirical poetry of the Romans,

distinction between, xiii, 47

Greeks, comedy distinguished by acts not known to the early, xv, 311

Grey, Lord, pusillanimous conduct of, ix, 276

Griselda, story of, not invented by Petrarch, xi, 215

Grounds of criticism in tragedy, vi, 243

Growth of Popery, by Andrew Marvel, ix, 420

Guardian angels, machinery of, xiii,

Guibbons, Dr William, Dryden’s acknowledgment to, xi, 77

Guido, character of as a painter, xvii, 496

Guise, Duke of, a tragedy, vii, 1

assassination of, xvii, 148

Gunman, Captain Christopher, extract from journal of, i, 301

Gunpowder Plot, extract from Caulfield’s history of, i, 24

Gwynn, Nell, anecdote of, ix, 426

H.

Hacket, Coppinger, and Arthington, enthusiasm of, vol. x, 28

Hale, Sir Matthew, prejudices of, xiii, 67

Hales, John, anecdote of, xv, 351

Halifax, Marquis of, epistle dedicatory to, viii, 113

account of, ib. 113, ix, 305

Handel, Ode to St Cecilia set to music by, i, 410

Harman, Sir John, exploit of, ix, 179

Harmony of numbers, neglected by the metaphysical poets, i, 17

Hart, the tragedian, account of, x, 328

Harte’s vindication of Statius, xiv, 130

Harvey, William, account of, xi, 15

Hastings, Lord, elegy upon the death of, xi, 94

remarks on, ib. 93

Haughton, Lord, account of, vi, 373

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 373

Hawkers, prodigies of, x, 348

Heads of an answer to Rymer’s remarks, xv, 385

remarks on, ib. 383

Healing Parliament, what, x, 71

Heathen, diligence of Catholic missionaries in converting the, x, 192

Hector and Andromache, last parting of, xii, 382

Heinsius’s definition of satire, xiii, 103

Helen and Paris, epistle of, xii, 26

to Menelaus, epithalamium of, from Theocritus, ib. 292

Heliodorus, anecdote of, vi, 126

Henry II., epilogue to, x, 412

Herbert’s, Lord, History of Henry VIII., extracts from, x, 23

Heresies, History of, Dryden projects a translation of, i, 334

Hero, piety the first quality of, xiv, 161

Heroic plays, character of, i, 118

an essay on, iv, 16

poetry, apology for, v, 105

stanzas to the memory of Oliver Cromwell, ix, 8

remarks on, ib. 3

notes on, ib. 15

or rhyming plays imitated from the French, i, 69

Heylin, Dr Peter, account of, xvii, 190

Heywood, Thomas, account of, x, 446

Hickeringill’s, Edmund, answer to the Medal of Dryden, ix, 452

Higden, Henry, poetical epistle to, xi, 55

remarks on, ib. 52

account of, ib. 52

Higgons’s verses to Congreve, ib. 61

Higre or Eagre, what, x, 65

Hind and Panther, Part I. x, 85

remarks on, ib. 87

parabolical signification of, ib. 90

criticised, ib. 90

application of censured, ib. 90

defended, ib. 91

transversed, extracts from, ib. 91

where composed, i, 325

parody on by Prior and Montague, ib. 330

parody on, x, 91

letters on, ib. 102

libels occasioned by publication of, ib. 104

Swift’s account of, ib. 106

preface to, ib. 109

notes on, ib. 139-157

Part II. ib. 159

notes on, ib. 185-194

Part III. ib. 195

application of justified, ib. 197

notes on, ib. 240-282

Historiographer-royal, Dryden appointed to the office of, i, 115

loses the office of, i, 354

Historical and Political Poems, ix, 1

History of Calvinism by Lewis Maimbourg, x, 30

Satire among the Romans, xiii, 56

divisions of, xvii, 56

proper, what, ib. 57

of the League, specimen of translation of, xvii, 77

appearance of, i, 290

author’s dedication to, ib. 89

advertisement to the reader, ib. 98

Book III. translation of, ib. 101

translator’s postscript to, ib. 150

of Heresies, Dryden projects a translation of i, 334

Hoddeson, John, poetical epistle to, xi, 4

remarks on, ib. 3

Hollis, Sir Freschville, account of, ix, 180

Holmes, Sir Robert, enterprise of, ix, 178, 184

Holyday, Barten, account of, xiii, 93

Homer, character of, xi, 211

Homer’s poetry, character of, xii, 59

translations from, ib. 355-388

Virgil’s imitation of, xiv, 182

Dryden meditates a translation of, i, 414

Hooker, Richard, account of, x, 26

treatise of upon Ecclesiastical Policy, ib. 26

Hoped and unhoped, ancient meaning of, xi, 336

Hopkins, Charles, account of, xviii, 163

Horace, character of, xii, 280

translations from, ib. 339-354

Ode 3. of Book I. inscribed to the Earl of Roscommon, ib. 341

Ode 9. of Book I. inscribed to the Earl of Rochester, ib. 344

Second Epode of, ib. 351

character of his father, xiii, 77

and Persius, comparison between, ib. 78

Juvenal, comparison between, ib. 78

Satires of, Dacier’s character of, ib. 99

Housekeeping, noble of the Duke of Beaufort, ix, 391

Howard, Sir Robert, joint author with Dryden of the Indian Queen, ii, 203

note concerning, ib. 263

letter to, ix, 92

poetical epistle to, xi, 7

remarks on, ib. 5

account of, i, 54

Dryden’s controversy with, ib. 94

Lord, infamous conduct of, ix, 278

Hudibras, author of, unrewarded by the court, x, 250

at court, ib. 250

Hughes’s verses, occasioned by reading Dryden’s Fables, xviii, 227

Huguenot refugee clergy, not all of the same communion, x. 203, 244

Human body, measures of, xvii, 424

Hume’s account of the rise of the Quakers, x, 141

Humours, Shadwell’s, what meant by, x, 396, i, 261

Humourists, dramatis personæ of, x, 452

extract from epilogue to, ib. 456

Hungary, breach of treaty, and death of Ladislaus, king of, vii, 184

Hunt, Thomas, account of, ib. 127

Husband his own Cuckold, epilogue to, x, 423

Hyde, Lord Chancellor, verses to, ix, 65

Anne, vide York, Duchess of

Laurence, vide Rochester, Earl of

Hymn for St John’s Eve, translation of by Dryden, i, 344

I.

James I. state of learning in England on the accession of, i, 5

false taste in age of, ib. 9

play of words in age of, ib. 10

traditionary anecdote of, ib. 13

attached to the sports of the chace, viii, 451

account of one of the revels of, ib. 452

II. titles of poems on accession of, x, 59

character of addresses on accession of, ib. 110

professions of at accession of, ib. 262

declaration of concerning the church of England, ib. 262

relief given by to the French exiled Protestants, x, 264

character of, ib. 226, 265

poetical addresses to on the birth of a son of, ib. 286

birth of son of said to be spurious, ib. 286

believed by the Papists miraculous, ib. 285, 302

pregnancy of queen of ridiculed, ib. 303

account of the birth of son of by Smollet, ib. 305

vide York, Duke of

Eleanor, account of, x, 116

author of a Vindication of the Church of England, ib. 116

John, extract from poem of, ix, 164

Japan, island of, description of, xvi, 290

government of, ib. 291

religion of, ib. 292

language of, ib. 295

Idylliums of Theocritus, translations from, xii, 285-307

Jervas, poetical epistle to, xvii, 282

Jesuits, establishment of in England, x, 255

Iliad of Homer, Book I. translations from, xii, 357

moral not intended in, xiv, 134

Tasso’s imitation of, xiii, 17

Illegitimate children of Charles II. ix, 250

Illiberality of Stillingfleet and Dryden, x, 251

Imitation of Cowley, ix, 191

in translation, what, xii, 12

of Homer by Virgil, xiv, 182

Immunities of the city of London defended, vii, 127

Impossible to translate verbally, xii, 12

Imprisonment and acquittal of the Earl of Shaftesbury, ix, 409

Indelicacy of the stage in the age of Dryden, i, 417

Independents, description of, x, 140

Infallibility, not in the Pope alone, ib. 164-187

Indian Queen, a tragedy, ii. 201

remarks on, ib. 203

prologue to, ib. 205

epilogue to, ib. 255

Indian Emperor, a tragedy, ii, 257

dedication to, ib. 259

remarks on, ib. 290

prologue to, ib. 295

epilogue to, ib. 377

connection of to the Indian Queen, ib. 293

Inaccuracy of Dryden with regard to Sir Philip Sydney, xiii, 18

Indelicacy of Lucretius, xii, 276

Infamous conduct of Lord Howard, ix, 278

Innocent Traitor, extract from, ix, 198

Inscription, burlesque, to be placed under Sir Richard Blackmore’s

picture, viii, 445

Inscription under Milton’s picture, xi, 160

Insolence of the Dutch, ix, 162

Instruction, the end of all poetry, vi, 246

Instructions of St Francis Xavier to missionaries, xvi, 228

Insurrection of Count Teckeli, x, 387

Integral parts of a play, Aristotle’s distinction of, xv, 312

Interment of St Francis Xavier, xvi, 456

Intrigue, comedies of, introduced, i, 76

of Dryden with Mrs Reeves, ib. 87

Invention, necessary both to painting and poetry, xvii, 318

the first part of painting, xvii, 347, 410

John’s (St) Eve, hymn for, i, 344

Johnson, Samuel, account of, ix, 369

Jones, Sir William, account of, ib. 278

Jonson, Ben, character of by Dryden, iii, 222

Shadwell an imitator of, x, 456

a metaphysical poet, i, 11

traditionary anecdote of, ib. 13

attack of on Shakespeare, xv, 344

Journal of Captain Christopher Gunman, extract from, i, 301

Iphis and Ianthe, fable of, xii, 116

Iron Age, from Ovid, xii, 68

Irreligion of Polybius, xviii, 46

Irruption of the Bishop of Munster into the United States, ix, 165

Iter Boreale of Dr Robert Wild, xv, 296

Judah Betrayed, a poem, extract from, ix, 266

Judgment of Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy on the works of the principal

painters of the two last ages, xvii, 489

Judicial astrology, Dryden’s belief in, xviii, 207

Jupiter cannot alter the decrees of the fates, xv, 103

Juvenal, translations from, xiii, 1-202

and Horace, comparison between, xiii, 78

First Satire of translated, ib. 119

Third, ib. 130

Sixth, ib. 148

Tenth, ib. 178

Sixteenth, ib. 198

K.

Keis, Robert, anecdote of, vol. i. 23

Ket’s insurrection defeated, v, 181

Killigrew, Dr Henry, account of, xi, 106

Mrs Anne, account of, ib. 102

Elegy to the memory of, ib. 105

remarks on, ib. 102

Kind Keeper, a comedy, vi, 1

King Arthur, or the British Worthy, a Dramatic Opera, viii, 107

remarks on, ib. 109

prologue to, ib. 122

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 113

epilogue to, ib. 178

King James I. attached to the sports of the chace, viii, 451

account of one of the revels of, ib. 452

II., vide Duke of York, and James II.

King William, Titus Oates pensioned by, viii, 464

King, confuting arguments used by, disrespect of his person, x, 252

King and Queen, Epilogue to, ib. 393

dedication to the, xvii, 81

of France, dedication to, ib. 89

King’s speech to Oxford Parliament versified, ix, 309

power of granting pardon after condemnation questioned, ix, 310

Head clubs, account of, ib. 380

House, epilogue for, x, 362

and Duke’s players united, ib. 393

company of players, Dryden’s contract with, i, 162

right of the Pope over, x, 19

Kneller, Sir Godfrey, poetical epistle to, xi, 85

account of, ib. 84

character of, ib. 89

Knight’s Tale, or Palamon and Arcite, xi, 241

by Chaucer, xii, iii

L.

Ladislaus, King of Hungary, breach of treaty, and death of, vol. vii, 184

Lady in the Arbour, a fable, xi, 356

Lancashire Witches, reception of, vii, 15

account of, ib. 142

machinery of, x, 382

Landen, behaviour of the Duke of Ormond at, xi, 202

Lanfranc, character of, xvii, 497

Langbaine’s account of Lodowick Carlell, x, 404

Language of Spenser obsolete, xiii, 19

of Japan, xvi, 295

Lansdowne, Lord, account of, xi, 63

Last period of the life of Dryden, i, 439

Settle, ib. 273

Lauderdale, Duke of, examination of Bishop Burnet concerning, x, 274

Earl of, character of, translation of Virgil by, xiv, 223

Laureat, a poem, x, 104

Dryden appointed to the office of, i, 115

Laws of the stage observed more exactly by the French than the English,

xv, 336

Lawson, Sir John, account of, ix, 161

Lawyers, cruel doctrine of, xv, 297

Layman’s faith, or Religio Laici, an epistle, x, 1

League in France, and Covenant in England, parallel between, i, 281

specimen of translation of history of, xvii, 77

history of, author’s dedication to, ib. 89

Learning in England, on the accession of James I. i, 5

Lee, Nat. verses to Mr Dryden by, v. 103

share of in the tragedy of Œdipus, vi, 117

poetical epistle to on his tragedy of the Rival Queens, xi, 23

remarks on, ib. 22

account of the death of, ib. 22

Lee, Eleonora, vide Abingdon, Countess of

Leeds, Duke of, vide Danby, Earl of

Leicester, Earl of, epistle dedicatory to, vii, 283

account of, ib. 283

Leigh, Richard, Dryden’s controversy with, i, 157

Lely, Sir Peter, account of, xii, 267

Letter of Lady Elizabath Dryden to Dr Busby, xviii. 97

Mr John Dennis to Dryden, ib. 111

Jacob Tonson to Dryden, ib. 106

Samuel Pepys to Dryden, ib. 156

Charles Dryden to Corinna, i. 213

and verses of Milbourne to Jacob Tonson, viii, 5

and note on a passage in Creech’s Lucretius, xviii, 94

Letters of Dryden, xviii, 83

remarks on, ib. 85

to Madam Honor Dryden, xviii, 86

to the Earl of Rochester, ib. 89, 101

to the Reverend Dr Busby, ib. 96, 98

to Mr Jacob Tonson, ib. 103, 109, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126,

127, 128, 130, 136, 137, 138

to Mr Dennis, ib. 114

to his sons at Rome, ib. 131

to Mrs Steward, ib. 141, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 153, 156, 157, 161,

169, 171, 174, 178, 180

to Elmes Steward, Esq. xviii, 143

to Samuel Pepys, Esq. ib. 154

to the Right Hon. Charles Montague, ib. 159

to Mrs Elizabath Thomas, junior, ib. 164, 167, 173

Leveson Gower, Sir William, account of, viii, 7

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 7

Libels against Dryden, occasioned by the publication of the Hind and

Panther, x, 104

Liberty of conscience, declaration for, x, 279

Licence in personal satire, xv, 218

Life of John Dryden, i, 1

descent and parentage of, ib. 21

anecdotes of the brothers and sisters of, ib. 25

birth of, i, 27

education of, ib. 27

first poems of, ib. 28

is admitted of Trinity College, Cambridge, ib. 28

punished for contumacy, ib. 29

long residence of at the university, ib. 31

degree of Master of Arts of, xviii, 185

Sir Gilbert Pickering’s clerk, i, 36

death of Cromwell, the first theme of, ib. 38

first poem of consequence of, ix, 83

poems of on the Restoration, i, 50

changes the spelling of his name, ib. 53

is chosen a member of the Royal Society, ib. 56

imitates the style of Davenant, ib. 59

commencement of dramatic career of, ib. 80

first appearance of the Wild Gallant, ib. 80

Rival Ladies, ib. 81

Indian Queen, ib. 83

Indian Emperor, ib. 84

intrigue of with Mrs Reeves, ib. 87

marriage of, ib. 88

Essay of Dramatic Poesy, appearance of, ib. 92

controversy of with Sir Robert Howard, ib. 94

contract of with the King’s Company of Players, ib. 101

appearance of the Maiden Queen of, ib. 104

Tempest, ib. 105

Sir Martin Mar-all, ib. 107

the Mock Astrologer, ib. 109

Royal Martyr, ib. 110

Conquest of Granada, ib. 112

promoted to the offices of poet-laureat and historiographer-royal,

ib. 115

patent of, as poet-laureat and historiographer-royal, xviii, 187

appearance of Marriage A-la-mode, i, 143

the Assignation, ib. 146

--controversy with Matthew Clifford, i, 154

Richard Leigh, ib. 157

Edward Ravenscroft, ib. 160

Elkanah Settle, ib. 259

Rochester, ib. 195

appearance of Massacre of Amboyna, ib. 163

State of Innocence, ib. 166

Aurenge-Zebe, i, 209

is assaulted in Rose-street, ib. 204

meditates an epic poem, ib. 215

appearance of All for Love, ib. 218

Limberham, ib, 221

Œdipus, ib. 222

Troilus and Cressida, ib. 223

the Spanish Friar of, ib. 227

relations of when he composed the Spanish Friar, ib. 233

anecdote of with Southerne, ib. 237

engages in politics, ib. 239

appearance of Absalom and Achitophel, Part I. ib. 243

the Medal, ib. 250

extracts from answer to, ix, 452

controversy of with Shadwell, i, 259, 286

causes of enmity between Shadwell and, x, 472

appearance of Mac-Flecknoe, a satire, i, 266

Absalom and Achitophel, Part II. ib. 268

assisted by Nahum Tate in, ix, 315

effect of the satirical poetry of on English poetry, i, 275

character of, as a satirist, ib. 279

share of in the composition of the Duke of Guise, ib. 281

furnishes a Preface to the translation of Plutarch’s Lives, ib. 289

translates the History of the League, ib. 290

appearance of the First Miscellany of, ib. 294

commencement of Southerne’s friendship with, ib. 294

Memorial of to the Earl of Rochester, ib. 296

appearance of Threnodia Augustales of, ib. 299

--appearance of Albion and Albanius, i, 299

becomes a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, ib. 303

reasons which might influence him in his change of religious opinions,

ib. 303

sincere in his attachment to the Catholic faith, ib. 322

controversy of with Stillingfleet, ib. 323, xviii, 187

illiberality of Dryden and Stillingfleet, x, 251

appearance of the Hind and the Panther, i, 325

libels occasioned by publication of, x, 104

Hind and Panther, where composed, i, 325

projects a translation of the History of Heresies, ib. 334

appearance of the Life of St Francis Xavier, ib. 336

second volume of Miscellanies, ib. 340

character of translations of by Garth, ib. 340

translation of Te Deum, ib. 343

hymn for St John’s eve, ib. 344

consequences of the Revolution to, ib. 347

poetical attacks against, ib. 350

loses the offices of poet-laureat and historiographer-royal, ib. 354

appearance of Don Sebastian, i. 357

King Arthur, ib. 360

Cleomenes, ib. 362

Love Triumphant, ib. 364

last dramatic work of, viii, 333.

list of plays of, with the respective dates of their being acted and

published, i, 367

connections in society of, after the Revolution, ib. 369

indebted to Dorset’s bounty, ib. 370

exaggerated praise of Dorset by, xiii, 15

authority of in Will’s Coffee-house, i, 371

friendship of with Southerne and Congreve, ib. 372

literary friends of, ib. 373

--Dryden attacked by Swift, i, 374

appearance of translation of Juvenal and Persius, ib. 375

smaller pieces, ib. 376

Eleonora, ib. 376

Third Miscellany, ib. 378

controversy of with Rymer, ib. 379

correspondence of with Jacob Tonson, ib. 381

appearance of the translation of Virgil by, ib. 382

Fourth Miscellany, ib. 382

quarrel of with Tonson, ib. 387

anecdote of, ib. 390

and Tonson, ib. 391

dispute of with Milbourne, ib. 394, xi, 237

animadversions of on Milbourne, ib. 403

Ode to St Cecilia, appearance of, ib. 407

set to music by Handel, ib. 410

attacked for his silence on the death of Queen Mary, xviii, 222

translation of Homer meditated by, i, 414

projected works of, xiii, 31

dispute of with Blackmore, i, 420

appearance of Fables, ib. 427

agreement of with Jacob Tonson concerning the Fables, xviii, 191

resentment of against the clergy, i, 428

the Pilgrim brought forward for the benefit of, ib. 434

attack upon Blackmore and Collier, in the Prologue and Epilogue to the

Pilgrim, i, 436

last period of the life of, ib. 439

death and funeral of, ib. 440

Mr Russell’s bill for funeral of, xviii, 194

description of funeral of, ib. 195

ludicrous account of the funeral of by Farquhar, i, 441

Mrs Thomas’s letters concerning the death and funeral of, xviii, 200

account of funeral of by Mrs Thomas, false, i, 442

account of funeral of by Tom Brown, ib. 443

character of, ib. 444

Life of John Dryden,--character of by Congreve, ii, 9

notices of family of, i, 462

Ode on the death of by Alexander Oldys, xviii, 234

Life of St Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, xvi, 1

dedication of, ib. 3

writers of, ib. 9

address to the reader by the author of, ib. 8.

his birth, ib. 15

education, ib. 16

teaches philosophy, ib. 19

conversion, ib. 24

arrives at Rome, ib. 29

at Lisbon, ib. 46

departs for the Indies ib. 58.

arrives at Mozambique, ib. 63

at Goa, ib. 71

visits Cape Comorin, ib. 82

miracles of, ib. 83, 89, 91, 99, 111, 113, 131, 155, 163--to 466

converts the Paravas, ib. 101

returns to Goa, ib. 101

visits Comorin, ib. 107

goes to Cochin, ib. 124

Negapatam, ib. 133

Meliapor, ib. 138

Malacca, ib. 150

Amboyna, ib. 158

Isle del Moro, ib. 176

returns to Amboyna, ib. 186

Malacca, ib. 190

arrives at Cochin, ib. 219

visits the Paravas, ib. 226

his instructions to missionaries, ib. 228

visits Ceylon, ib. 233

Goa, ib. 234

baptises a Japonese, ib. 238

visits the Coast of Fishery, ib. 248

returns to Goa, ib. 249

resolves to go to Japan, ib. 249

his instructions to Gasper Barzeus, ib. 254

--sails for Japan, xvi, 276

visits Cochin, ib. 276

Malacca, ib. 276

his instructions to Juan Bravo, ib. 279

arrives at Japan, ib. 287

waits on the king of Saxuma, ib. 297

is treated with honour, ib. 297

receives permission to teach the Christian religion, ib. 297

visits the Bonzas, ib. 299

Bonzas oppose the Christian faith, ib. 301

miracle, ib. 302

arrives at Firando, ib. 312

Amanguchi, ib. 313

Macao, ib. 319

returns to Amanguchi, ib. 321

visits Fugheo, and reception by the king, ib. 343

disputes with a Bonza, ib. 362, 369

leaves Japan, ib. 379

arrives at Cochin, ib. 395

at Goa, ib. 396

affairs of Goa in his absence, ib. 403

engages in a voyage to China, ib. 410

departs from Goa, ib. 421

arrives at Malacca, ib. 422

miracles at Malacca, ib. 423

arrives at the isle of Sancian, ib. 437

means fail him for his passage into China, ib. 451

his sickness, ib. 452

death, ib. 455

interment, ib. 456

disinterred, ib. 457

and carried to Goa, ib. 465

funeral procession, ib. 465

miracles wrought by the dead body, ib. 466.

qualifications, ib. 471

beatification and canonization, ib. 531

Life of St Francis Xavier, an authentic testimony of the truth of the

Gospel, ib. 535

Life of Virgil, xiii. 297

his birth, ib. 298

education, ib. 300

visits Rome, ib. 301

is introduced to Octavius, ib. 302

visits Athens, ib. 306

loses his patrimony, ib. 307

recovers his patrimony, ib. 309

in favour with Augustus, ib, 313

Pastorals, ib. 310

Georgics, ib. 311

Æneis, ib. 316

sickness and death of, ib. 321

Life of Cleomenes, viii. 207

Plutarch, xvii, 1

remarks on, ib. 3

birth, ib. 19

education, ib. 23

travels, ib. 27

religion ib. 31

marriage, ib. 39

children, ib. 39

visits Rome, ib. 45

letter to Trojan, ib. 49

his Lives, ib. 51

chosen Archon of Chæronea, ib. 51

other works, ib. 52

Life of Lucian, xviii, 53

remarks on, ib. 55

Congreve, by Wilson, Extract from, ib. 200

Lilburn, John, account of, vi. 363

Lillie, John, share of in determining the taste of the age of Queen

Elizabeth, i. 7

Lilly, the astrologer, x. 263

Limberham, or the Kind Keeper, a comedy, vi. 1

remarks on, ib. 3

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 6

prologue to, ib. 13

epilogue to, ib. 114

Lindsay, Earl of, account of, v. 304

List of Dryden’s Plays, with the respective dates of their being acted

and published, i, 367

List of the Nine Worthies, xi, 372

Literary friends of Dryden, i, 373

pursuits, effect of the Revolution upon, i, 385

London, immunities of city of defended, vii, 127

plague in city of, in 1665, ix, 189

city of, dedication to, ix, 89

fire of, conduct of Charles II. on, ix. 187

dreadful effects of, ib. 189

Love in a Nunnery, a comedy, iv, 343

Love Triumphant, or Nature will Prevail, a tragic comedy, viii. 331

remarks on, ib. 333

Dryden’s last Dramatic work, ib. 333

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 337

prologue to, ib. 344

epilogue to, ib. 435

Love’s Kingdom, a pastoral tragi-comedy, extract from, x, 453

Love, description of, xiv. 173

Loyal Feast defeated, extracts from poem of, ix, 390

apprentices dinner, ib. 396

Medal vindicated, extracts from, ib. 423

cause, military chiefs of the city attached to, ib. 451

Brother, prologue to, x, 374

anecdote of, ib. 370

epilogue to, ib. 377

Loyalty of the church of England, x, 154

Lucian, life of, xviii, 53

remarks on, ib. 55

first profession of, ib. 60

teaches rhetoric, and studies law, ib. 61

death of, ib. 61

religion of, ib. 63

character of, ib. 70

murder of, by Rufinus, ib. 57

Lucilius, the satirist, character of, xiii, 58

Lucretius, character of, xii, 272

indelicacy of, ib. 276

translations from, xii, 307-337

beginning of 1st book, xii, 311

2d, ib. 314

3d, ib. 317

4th, ib. 326

5th, ib. 337

Lucretius of Creech, note and letter concerning, xviii, 94

Lute and Sword, combination of, ridiculed, x, 450

Lycidas and Mæris, a pastoral, xiii, 413

Lyrical Pieces, Odes, Songs, xi, 63

M.

Macareus, epistle to, xii, 21

Mac-Flecknoe, a satire against Thomas Shadwell, x, 425

remarks on, ib. 427

character of, i, 266

one of the keenest satires in the English language, ib. 429

its object misconstrued by Dryden’s editors, ib. 432

notes on, ib. 441

Machinery of the Christian religion more feeble than that of the Heathen,

in poetry, xiii, 23

Guardian Angels, ib. 26

the Æneis, xiv, 193

in the Lancashire Witches, x, 382

Mackenzie, Sir George, account of, xiii, 111

Mæcenas, character of, xiii, 307

Maiden Queen, or Secret Love, a comedy, ii, 379

lady, epitaph on, xi, 158

Maimbourg, Lewis, account of, xvii, 182

history of Calvinism of, x, 30

Malacca, account of, xvi, 150

defeat of the Mahometans at, ib. 211

Malone’s account of the Whip and Key, ix, 425

History of the English Stage, extract from, xi, 58

Man of Mode, character of, x, 339

Epilogue to, ib. 339

Mar-all, Sir Martin, a comedy, iii, 1

Maritime affairs, skill of Charles II. in, ix, 160

Mar-prelate, Martin, account of, x, 27

Marriage of Dryden, i, 88

Marriage A-la-mode, a comedy, iv, 231

remarks on, ib. 233

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 235

prologue to, ib. 241

epilogue to, ib. 342

character of, i, 143

Marquis of Clare, vide Haughton, Lord

Halifax, account of, viii, 113, ix, 305

epistle dedicatory to, viii, 113

Worcester, vide Beaufort, Duke of

Winchester, epitaph on, xi, 154

account of, ib. 152

Normanby, dedication to, xiv, 127

vide Buckingham, Duke of

Marvel’s Growth of Popery, ix, 420

description of Richard Flecknoe, x, 441

Massacre of Pans, transposed for the Duke of Guise, vii, 188

Amboyna, character of, i, 164

Mason, Mr, poetical epistle of, xvii, 284

Master of Arts, Dryden’s degree of, xviii, 185

Masque of Calisto, dramatis personæ of, x, 337

Meal-tub Plot, Waller’s discovery of, ix, 382

Measures of the human body, xvii, 424

Mechanical genius of Charles II. ix. 60

The Medal, or a satire against Sedition, ix, 407

remarks on, ib. 409

publications in opposition to, ib. 415

character of, i, 250

reply to, i, 255

Medal, Bower’s, of the Earl of Shaftesbury, ix, 412

Meleager and Atalante, xii, 96

Melibæus, a pastoral, xiii, 402

Memorial of Dryden to the Earl of Rochester, i,296

Metamorphoses, Ovid’s, translations from, xii, 43-227

Book I. ib. 63

the Golden Age, ib. 66

the Silver Age, ib. 67

the Brazen Age, ib. 68

the Iron Age, ib. 68

Giants’ War, ib. 69

of Daphne into a laurel, xii, 81

Io into an heifer, ib. 85

the eyes of Argus into a peacock’s train, ib. 90

Syrinx into reeds, ib, 91

of Æacus into a cormorant, xii, 154

Metamorphoses, Book XII. ib. 156

Metaphrase translation, what, ib. 11

Metaphysical poet, what, i, 10

poetry favoured by the public till the beginning of the civil wars,

i, 12

poets, Cowley the most ingenious of, i, 16

neglected harmony of numbers, ib. 17

Mexico, Conquest of, a tragedy, ii, 257

Middleton, Earl of, Etherege’s Epistle to, xi, 40

Milbourne, Luke, account of, i, 394

letter of, and verses to Mr Tonson on Amphitryon, viii, 5

attack on Dryden, xi, 158

dispute of with Dryden, i, 394

an admirer of Dryden, i, 395

translation of Virgil by, character of, i, 397

criticism by, of Dryden’s Virgil, specimen of, i, 397

Military chiefs of the city, attached to the loyal cause, ix, 451

Milled money, not struck in England before 1663, ib. 451

Milton, John, character of, xiii, 19

difference between the taste of Dryden and, i, 168

not swayed by the conceits of his time, i, 16

inscription under picture of, xi, 160

Miracles of St Francis Xavier, xvi, 83, 89, 91, 99, 111, 113, 131, 155,

163, &c.

Miscellany, first, of Dryden, appearance of, i, 294

second, ib. 340

third, ib. 378

fourth, ib. 382

Missionaries, Catholic, diligence of, in converting the Heathen, x, 192

St Francis Xavier’s instructions to, xvi, 228

Mistake of Dryden concerning the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, ii, 118

The Mistakes, prologue to, x, 408

Mistake concerning the dedication of Orpheus Britannicus, xi, 146

Mithridates, epilogue to, x, 341, 354

Mock Astrologer, a comedy, iii, 207

Moderate divines, what, x, 242

Modern satire, definition of, xiii, 105

Moliere, Psyche, an opera, imitated from, x, 448

Money, milled, not struck in England before 1663, ix, 451

Monmouth and Buccleuch, Duchess of, account of, ii, 250, ix, 256

dedication to, ii, 259

Monmouth, Duke of, account of, ix, 250

epistle dedicatory to, in, 346

reception of, in an excursion through England, ix, 288

partizans of, designs of, x, 364

and Duke of Guise, no parallel intended between, vii, 144

Montague, Hon. Charles, letter of Dryden to, xviii, 159

Montague and Prior, parody of the Hind and Panther of, x, 91

Montfort, Mrs, character of, iv, 233

Monument in the church at Tichmarsh, xviii, 215

Moor, Sir John, account of, ix, 402

Moral not intended by Homer in the Iliad, xiv, 134

of the Æneid, ib. 150

disputed by Heyne, ib. 150

Mordaunt, Charles, vide Earl of Peterborough

Morley, Dr George, account of, xvii, 182

Motteux, Peter Anthony, poetical epistle to, xi, 69

remarks on, ib. 67

account of, ib. 67

Motteux’s account of St Cecilia’s Festival, xi, 166

Mountfort the comedian, character of, x, 412

Moveable scenes introduced on the stage, i, 79

Moyle, Walter, account of, xviii, 76

Mozambique, description of, xvi, 63

Mulgrave, Earl of, account of, v, 174

character of, ib. 175

epistle dedicatory to, ib. 174

vide Buckingham, Duke of

Munster, irruption of the Bishop of, into the United States, ix, 165

Murder of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, ix, 285

Thomas Thynne, Esq. ib. 292

Lucian by Rufinus, xviii, 57

Music, Shadwell’s proficiency in, x, 448

Ode to St Cecilia set to, by Handel, i, 410

Mysteries or religious plays, origin of, xv, 247

N.

Naboth’s Vineyard, or the Innocent Traitor, extracts from, ix, 198

Names of the English fleet changed, ib. 48

Nature will Prevail, a tragi-comedy, viii, 331

of satire, xiii, 37

Naugeria, Andrew, anecdote of, vi, 370

Neander, Dryden’s feigned appellation, xv, 283

Neptune, pilots’ prayer to, vii, 17

New House, epilogue spoken at opening of the, x, 326

Newcastle, Duke of, account of, iii, 209

Congreve’s dedication to, ii, 5

epistle dedicatory to, iii, 209

Duchess of, account of, iii, 210

Nicholas V. Pope, character of, xviii, 24

panegyric on, ib. 25

Niggardliness of booksellers, xv, 194

Nine Worthies, life of the, xi, 372

Nokes, the comedian, description of, xi, 50

Nonnes Priestes Tale, by Chaucer, xii, liii

Non-resistance, decree of the University of Oxford concerning, x, 241

Normanby, Marquis of, dedication to, xiv, 127

vide Mulgrave, Earl of, and Buckingham, Duke of

North’s description of Titus Oates, ix, 355

opinion of Shaftesbury’s designs upon the person and authority of

Charles II. ix, 451

Northleigh, John, poetical epistle to, xi, 37

remarks on, ib. 85

account of, ib. 35

Note concerning Polybius, xviii, 19

Notes on Heroic Stanzas to the Memory of Oliver Cromwell, ix, 15

on Astrea Redux, ix, 41

Panegyric on the Coronation of Charles II. ib. 59

Verses to the Duchess of York, ib. 79

Absalom and Achitophel, Part I. ib. 249

Part II. ib. 354

Threnodia Augustalis, x, 79

the Hind and Panther, Part I. ib. 139

II. ib. 185

III. ib. 240

Britannia Rediviva, ib. 302

Mac-Flecknoe, a satire, ib. 441

the satires of Persius, xiii, 217, 227, 239, 248, 262, 274

Æneis of Virgil, xiv, 262, 322, 353, 424, 461, xv, 29, 62, 102, 183

and observations on Empress of Morocco, preface to, xv, 401, 405

postscript to, ib. 409

upon Dryden’s poems, extract of, i, 154

Notices of Dryden’s family, ib. 462

Nottingham, Earl of, account of, ix, 400

O.

Oates, Titus, account of, vol. ix, 282

pensioned by King William, viii, 464

North’s description of, ix, 355

fate of, ib. 356

Obscurity of Persius, xiii, 72

Observations on Du Fresnoy’s Art of Painting, xvii, 392

Obsolete language of Spenser, xiii, 19

Oblivion, act of, ix, 50

Odes, Songs, and Lyrical Pieces, xi, 161-191

on the death of Charles II., titles of some of, x, 59

Ode on the death of Mr Purcell, xi, 148

remarks on, ib. 145

in honour of St Cecilia’s day, ib. 183

set to music by Handel, i, 410

circumstances concerning composition of, i, 408

on the death of Dryden, xviii, 234

Œdipe of Corneille, character of, vi, 119

Œdipus, a tragedy, ib. 115

remarks on, ib. 117

preface to, ib. 124

prologue to, ib. 128

epilogue to, ib. 222

Tyrannus, of Sophocles, character of, ib. 117

Coloneus, character of, ib. 117

Ogleby, account of, x, 452

Old Testament, critical history of, x, 32

Oldham, John, account of, xi, 98

extract from the works of, ib. 100

elegy to the memory of, ib. 99

Oldys, Alexander, ode of, on the death of Dryden, xviii, 234

Opera of the State of Innocence, v, 89

Albion and Albanius, vii, 209

King Arthur, viii, 107

Opinion of Sir John Denham on verbal translation, xii, 14

Opinions of Freethinkers, x, 143

Order for the reformation of the stage, xviii, 152

Origin and nature of satire, xiii, 37

of dramatic performances among the Romans, xiii, 51

of mysteries or religious plays, xv, 247

Original prologue to Circe, x, 333

Tales of Chaucer, modernized by Dryden, xii, i-xci

prose works of Dryden, xv, 281

Originality of Shadwell, x, 418

Ormond, Duke of, account of, ix, 294, xi, 195

dedication to, ib. 195, xvii, 5

behaviour of, at the battle of Landen, xi, 202

Duchess of, dedication to, xi, 245

Orpheus Britannicus, dedication of, ib. 146

Orrery, Earl of, account of, ii, 113

dedication to, ib. 113

Osburne, Sir Thomas, vide Danby, Earl of

Ossory, Earl of, account of, ix, 299

Otho, character of, ib. 43

Ovid, account of, xii, 4

causes of the banishment of, ib. 5, 7

character of works of, ib. 8

epistles of, ib. 11

Ovid and Chaucer, parallel between, xi, 214

Ovid’s epistles, translations from, xii, 1-41

preface to, ib. 3

Epistle xi. Canace to Macareus, ib. 21

xvii. Helen to Paris, ib. 26

vii. Dido to Æneas, ib. 35

Metamorphoses, translations from, xii, 43-227

dedication to, ib. 47

remarks on, ib. 45

first book of, xii, 63

Golden Age, ib. 66

Silver Age, ib. 67

Brazen Age, ib. 68

Iron Age, ib. 68

Giant’s war, ib. 69

twelfth book of, ib. 156

Art of Love, translations from, xii, 229

Amours, translations from, ib. 257, 259

Oxford, University of, decree of, concerning non-resistance, x, 241

prologues spoken to, ib. 328, 358, 378, 385

epilogues spoken to, ib. 330, 360, 381

Parliament, King’s speech to versified, ix, 309

P.

Pacurius, the satirist, character of, xiii, 58

Pages, the sons of gentlemen, viii, 338

Painter, advice to a young, xvii, 377, 468

Painters of the two last ages, judgment of C.A. Du Fresnoy on, xvii, 489

Painting, Art of, xvii, 279, 339

and poetry, parallel of, ib. 286

invention necessary to, ib. 313

what is beautiful in, ib. 343

invention the first part of, ib. 347, 410

design the second part of, xvii, 349, 420

colouring the third part of, ib. 361, 450

passions to be expressed in, ib. 359

Palæmon, a pastoral, xiii, 378

Palæmon and Arcite, or the Knight’s tale, xi, 241

remarks on, ib. 243

Book I. ib. 252

II. ib. 271

III. ib. 291

dedication to, ib. 245

Panegyric on the coronation of Charles II. ix, 54

remarks on, ib. 53

notes on, ib. 59

on Pope Nicholas V. xviii, 25

Papers found in King Charles II’s strong-box, extract from x, 188

Papist plot, ix, 259

Parabolical signification of the Hind and the Panther, x, 90

criticised, ib. 90

Parallel between Shakespeare and Dryden, v, 287

the story of the Duke of Guise and affairs in England, vii, 4

the Duke of Guise and Monmouth, not intended, ib. 144

political disputes in 1680 and 1681, x, 353

Ovid and Chaucer, xi, 214

Chaucer and Boccace, ib. 233

poetry and painting, xvii, 286

the League in France and the Covenant in England, i, 281

Paraphrase, in translation, what, xii, 12

of the Third Idyllium of Theocritus, xii, 287

of Veni Creator Spiritus, xi, 190

Paris, Epistle to, xii, 26

Pardon, the king’s power of granting, after condemnation questioned,

ix, 310

Parliament, dissolution of by Cromwell, ix, 45

Oxford, king’s speech to versified, ib. 309

Healing, what, x, 71

Parmegiano, character of as a painter, xvii, 495

Parody on part of the Empress of Morocco, xv, 407

the Hind and the Panther, x, 91, i, 330

Parson, character of a good one, xi, 395

Parsons, Robert, account of, x, 20

Particulars regarding the test-act, x, 260

Parting of Hector and Andromache, xii, 382

Parts of a poem, tragedy, or comedy, xv, 386

Party-names, Stillingfleet’s opinion of, x, 243

Paston, Mrs Margaret, epitaph on, xi, 151

Pastorals of Virgil, translated, xiii, 335, 421

dedication of, ib. 337

character of, ib. 339

Tityrus and Melibœus, xiii, 369

Alexis, ib. 374

Palæmon, ib. 378

Pollio, ib. 386

Daphnis, ib. 391

Silenus, ib. 397

Melibœus, ib. 402

Pharmaceutria, ib. 407

Lycidas and Mœris, ib. 413

Gallus, ib. 417

rules to be observed in writing, ib. 355

Pate, William, account of, xviii, 130

Patent of Dryden as poet-laureat and historiographer royal, xviii, 187

Pelham, Thomas, vide Newcastle, Duke of

Penny, John, or Martin Mar-prelate, account of, x, 27

Pension from France received by Charles II. ix, 385

People, concern of for the death of Charles II. x, 79

Pepys, Samuel, account of, xviii, 154

letter of Dryden to, ib. 154

to Dryden, ib. 156

Performers, female, first introduced after the Restoration, x, 321

Personal resemblance of Shadwell to Ben Jonson, i, 265

Personal appearance of Gilbert Burnet, x, 270

Perspective, when known in England, xi, 86

Petrarch, not the inventor of the story of Griselda, xi, 215

Persius, not equal as a satirist to Juvenal and Horace, xiii, 68

obscurity of, ib. 72

Causabon’s commentary on, ib. 72

character of, ib. 75

and Horace, comparison between, ib. 78

translations from, ib. 203-247

First Satire of, ib. 207

notes on, ib. 217

Second Satire of, xiii, 221

notes on, ib. 227

Third Satire of, ib. 230

notes on, ib. 239

Fourth Satire of, ib. 242

notes on, ib. 248

Fifth Satire of, ib. 251

notes on, ib. 262

Sixth Satire of, ib. 267

notes on, ib. 274