j*'*^' ^MEMOIRS JOHN DRYDEN. BY SIR WALTER SCOTT. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. IL PARIS: PUBLISHED BY A. AND W. GALIGNANI, AT TIIF, ENGLISH, FRENCH, ITALIAN, GERMAN, AND SPANISH LIBRARY, N°. 1 8, RUE VIVIENNE. MDCCCXXVI. CONTENTS OF VOL. II. SECTION VI. Page*. Threnodia Augustalis— Albion and Albanius — Dry- den becomes a Catholic — The Controversy of Dry- den with StillingQeet — The Hind and Panther — Life of St Frctncis Xavier — Consequences of the Revolution to Dryden — Don Sebastian — King Ar- thur — Cleomenes — Love Triumphant i SECTION VII. State of Dryden's Connexions in Society after the Revolution — Juvenal and Persius — Smaller Pieces — Eleanora — Third Miscellany — Virgil — Ode to St Cecilia — Dispute with Milbourne — With Black- more — Fables — The Avithor's Death and Funeral — His private Character — Notices of his Family. 64 SECTION VIII. The State of Dryden's Reputation at his Death, and afterwards — The general Character of his Mind — His Merit as a Dramatist^As a Lyrical Poet — As a Satirist — As a Narrative Poet — As a Philoso- phical and Miscellaneous Poet — As a Translator — As a Prose Author — As a Critic iSg LIFE JOHN DRYDEN. SECTION VI. Thienodia Augustalis — Albion and Albanius — Dryden be- comes a Catholic — The Controversy of Dryden with Stillingfleet — ^The Hind and Panther — Life of St Francis Xavier — Consequences of the Revolution to Dryden — Don Sebastian — King Arthur — Cleomenes — Love Tri- umphant. The accession of James II. to the British throne excited new hopes in all orders of men. On the accession of a new prince, the loyal looked to rewards, the rebellious to amnesty. The catholics exulted in beholding one of their persuasion attain the crown after an interval of two centuries ; the church of England ex- pected the fruits of her unlimited devotion to the royal line ; even the sectaries might hope VOL. II. I 2 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. indulgence from a prince, whose religion de- viated from that established by law as widely as their own. All, therefore, hastened, in sugared addresses, to lament the sun which had set, and hail the beams of that which had arisen. Dryden, among other expectants, chose the more honourable of these themes; and in the « Threnodia Augustalis^n at once paid a tribute to the memory of the deceased monarch, and decently solicited the attention of his successor. But although he had enjoyed personal marks of the favour of Charles, they were of a nature too unsubstantial to demand a deep tone of sorrow. « Little was the muses' hire, and light their gain;" and «the pension of a prince's praise » is stated to have been all their encouragement. Dryden, therefore, by no means sorrowed as if he had no hope; but, having said all that was decently mournful over the bier of Charles, tuned his lyrics to a sounding close in praise of James. About the same time Dryden resumed, with new courage, the opera of « Albion and Alba- nius,» which had been nearly finished before the death of Charles. This was originally de- signed as a masque, or emblematical prelude to the play of « King Arthur ;» for Dryden, wearied with the inefficient patronage of Charles, from whom he only « received fair words," had renounced in despair the task of an epic poem, and had converted one of his LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 3 themes, that of the tale of Arthur, into the subject of a romantic drama. As the epic was to have been adapted to the honour and praise of Charles and his brother, the opera had ori- ginally the same political tendency. « Albion and Albanius" was a sort of introductory masque, in which, under a very thin veil of allegory, first, the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne, and, secondly, their escape from the Rye-house plot, and the recent conquest over their Whig opponents, were successively re- presented. The death of Charles made little alteration in this piece : it cost but the addition of an apotheosis; and the opera concluded with the succession of James to the throne, from which he had been so nearly excluded. These topics were however temporary ; and, probably from the necessity of producing it while the allusions were fresh and obvious, "Albion and Albanius» was detached from « King Arthur," which was not in such a state of forwardness. Great expense was bestowed in bringing forward this piece, and the scenery seems to have been unusually perfect ; particu- larly, the representation of a celestial phenome- non, actually seen by Captain Gunman of the navy, whose evidence is quoted in the printed copies of the play.' The music of « Albion ' It formed the machine on which Iris appeared. I have been favoured by Sir Egerton Brydges witli the following "Extract from the Journal of Captain Christopher Gun- 4 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN, and AlbaniiiS" was arranged by Grabut, a Frenchman., whose name does not stand high as a composer. Yet Di yden pays him some compliments in the preface of the piece, which were considered as derogatory to Purcell and the Enghsh school, and gave great offence to a class of persons at least as irritable as their brethren the poets. This, among other causes, seems to have injured the success of the piece. But its death-blow was the news of the Duke of Monmouth's invasion, which reached Lon- don on Saturday r3th June, i685, Avhile "Al- bion and Albaniusw was performing for the sixth time : the audience broke up in consterna- raan, commander of his Royal Highness's yacht the Mary, lying in Calais pier, Tuesday, i8th March : «i683— 4, « March i8th. It was variable cloudy weather: this morning about seven o'clock saw in the firmament three suns, with two demi-rainbows ; and all within one whole rainbow. The sun towards the left hand bore east, and that on the right hand bore south-east of me. I did sit and draw it as well as the time and place would j^ermit me ; for it was seen in its full form about the space of half an hour ; but part of the rainbow did see above two hours. It appeared first at three quarters past six, and was overclouded at a quarter past seven. The wind north-by-west. « Mr Gunman, the descendant of the captain, has lately had a picture on the subject painted by Serres, the marine painter ; which makes an interesting history-piece. It re- presents the phenomenon in the heavens — the harbour of Calais — and the yacht lying off it, etc. etc. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. tion, and the piece Avas never again repeated.' This opera was prejudicial to the company, who were involved Jjy the expense in a consi- derahle debt, and never recovered half the monev laid out. Neither was it of service to ' This tradition is thus critically examined and proved by Mr Malone : «From a letter written by King James to the Prince ot" Orange, June i5, i685, it appears, that though the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, on Thurs- day evening, June i ith, an account of his landing did not reach the Ring at Whitehall till Saturday morning the i3th. The House of Commons, having met on that day at the usual hour, between nine and ten o'clocli, the news was soon afterwards communicated to them by a Message from the King, delivered by the Earl of Middleton (to whom Etheredge afterwards wrote two poetical Epistles from Ralisbon). — Having voted and drawn up an Address to his Majesty, desiring him to take care of his royal per- son, they adjourned to four o'clock ; in which interval they went to Whitehall, presented their Address, and then met again. — Com. Jour. vol. IX. p. ^35. About this time, therefore, it may be presumed, the news transpired, and in an hour afterwards probably reached the theatre, where an audience was assembled at the representation of the opera of "Albion and Albanius ;n for plays at that time began at four o'clock. It seems from Mr Luttrell's MS. note, that the first representation of this opera was on Saturday the 6th of June; and Downes [Rose. Ang. p. 4o.) says, that in consequence of Monmouth's invasion, it was only performed six times ; so that the sixth repre- sentation was, without doubt, on Saturday, the i3th of June. An examination of dates is generally fatal to tales of this kind : here, however, they certainly support the tra- dition mentioned in the text.» — Life of Drjden,yo\.\l.^. \. 6 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. our poet's reputation, who had, on this occa- sion, to undergo the gihes of angry musicians, as well as the reproaches of disappointed actors and hostile poets. One went so far as to suggest, with some humour, that probahly the laureat and Grabut had mistaken theii trade ; the former writing the music, and the latter the verse. We have now reached a remarkable inci- dent in our author's life, namely, his conver- sion to the Catholic faith, which took place shortly after the accession of James II. to the British throne. The biographer of Dryden must feel considerable difficulty in discussing the probable causes of this change. Although this essay be intended to contain the life, not the apology of the poet, it is the duty of the writer to place such circumstances in view, as may qualify the strong prepossession at first excited by a change of faith against the indi- vidual who makes it. This prepossession, powerful in every case, becomes doubly so, if the step be taken at a time when the religion adopted seems more readily to pave the way for the temporal prosperity of the proselyte. Even where the grounds of conviction are ample and undeniable, we have a respect for those who suffer, rather than renounce a mis- taken faith, when it is discountenanced or persecuted. A brave man will least of all withdraw himself from his ancient standard LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 7 Avhen the tide of battle beats a(jainst it. On the other hand, those Avho at such a period admit conviction to th» better and predomi- nant doctrine, are viewed with hatred by the members of the deserted creed, and with doubt by their new brethren in faith. Many who adopted Christianity in the reign of Con- stantino were doubtless sincere proselytes, but we do not find that any of them have been ca- nonized. These feelings must be allowed powerfully to affect the mind, when we re- flect that Dryden, a servant of the court, and zealously attached to the person of James, to whom he looked for the reward of long and faithful service, did not receive any mark of roval favour until he professed himself a member of the religion for which that king was all but an actual martyr. There are other considerations, however, greatly qua- lifying the conclusions which might be drawn from these suspicious circumstances, and tend- ing to show, that Dryden's conversion was at least in a great measure effected by sincere con- viction. The principal clue to the progress of his religious principles is to be found in the poet's own lines in « The Hind and the Pan- ther;" and may, by a very simple commentary, be applied to the state of his religious opinions at different periods of his life : « My thoujjhtless youth was wing'd with vain desires; . My manhood, long misled by wandering fires, LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. Follow'd false lights ; and, when their glimpse was gone, My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. Such was I, such by natjire still I am; Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame ! » The « vain desires » of Dryden's « thoughtless youth" require no explanation: they ohviously mean, that inattention to religious duties which the amusements of youth too frequently occasion. The « false lights »> which bewilder- ed the poet's manhood were, I doubt not, the puritanical tenets, which, coming into the world under the auspices of his fanatical rela- tions. Sir Gilbert Pickering and Sir John Dri- den, he must have at least professed, but pro- bably seriously entertained. It must be re- membered, that the poet was thirty years of age at the Restoration ; so that a considerable space of his full-grown manhood had passed while the rigid doctrines of the fanatics were still the order of the day. But the third state of his opinions, those « sparkles which his pride struck out," after the delusions of puritanism had vanished; in other words, those senti- ments which he imbibed after the Restoration, and which immediately preceded his adoption of the Catholic faith, cannot be ascertained without more minute investigation. We may at the outset be easily permitted to assume, that the adoption of a fixed creed of religious principles was not the first business of our au- thor, when that merry period set him free from LIFE OF JOHN DIIYDEN. 9 the rigorous tetters of fanaticism. Unless he differed more than we can readily helieve from the public feeling at that time, Dryden was satisfied to give to Caesar the things that Avere Caesar's, without being in a hurry to fulfil the counterpart of the precept. Foremost in the race of pleasure, engaged in labours alien from serious reflection, the favourite of the most live- ly and dissolute nobility whom England ever saw, religious thoughts were not, at this period, likely to intrude frequently upon his mind, or to be encouraged when they did so. The time, therefore, when Dryden began seriously to compare the doctrines of the contending sects of Christianity, was probably several years after the Restoration, when reiterated disappointment, and satiety of pleasure, prompted his mind to retire within itself, and think upon hereafter. The « Religio Laici^n published in 1682, evinces, that, previous to composing that poem, the author had bestow- ed serious consideration upon the important subjects of which it treats; and I have post- poned the analysis of it to this place, in order that the reader may be able to form his own conjecture from what faith Dryden changed when he became a Catholic. The « Religio Laici» has indeed a political tendency, being written to defend the church of England against the sectaries : it is not, therefore, so much from the conclusions of the LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. piece, as from the mode of the authors deduc- ing these conchisions, that Dryden's real opi- nions may be gathered ; — as we*learn nothing of the bowFs bias from its having reached its mark, though something may be conjectured by observing the course which it described in attaining it. From many minute particu- lars, I think it almost decisive that Dryden, when he wrote the « Religio Laici,^> was scep- tical concerning revealed religion. I do not mean, that his doubts were of that fixed, and permanent nature, which have at different times induced men, of whom better might have been hoped, to pronounce themselves free- thinkers on principle. On the contrary, Dry- den seems to have doubted with such a strong wish to believe, as, accompanied with circum- stances of extrinsic influence, led him finally into the opposite extreme of credulity. His view of the doctrines of Christianity, and of its evidence, were such as could not legitimately found him in the conclusions he draws in fa- vour of the Church of England; and accord- ingly, in adopting them, he evidently stretches his complaisance towards the national religion, while perhaps in his heart he was even then disposed to think there was no middle course between natural religion and the church of Rome. The first creed which he examines is that of Deism; which he rejects, because the worship of one sole deity was not known to LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 11 the philosophers of antiquity, and is therefore obviously to be ascribed to revelation. Reve- lation thus proved, the puzzling doubt occurs, whether the scripture, as contended by Calvin- ists, was to be the sole rule of faith, or whether the rules and traditions of the church are to be admitted in explanation of the holy text. Here Dryden does not hesitate to point out the inconveniences ensuing from making the sacred page the subject of the dubious and contradictory commentary of the laity at large : when (I The common rule was made the common prey. And at the mercy of the rabble lay; The tender page with horny 6sts was gall'd, And he was gifted most that loudest bawl'd; The spirit gave the doctoral degree, And every member of a company Was of his trade and of the Bible free. » This was the rule of the sectaries, — of those whose innovations seemed, in the eyes of the Tories, to be again bursting in upon monarchy and episcopacy with the strength of a land- flood. Dryden, therefore, at once, and heart- ily, reprobates it. But the opposite extreme of admitting the authority of the church as omnipotent in deciding all matters of faith, he does not give up with the same readiness. The extreme convenience, nay, almost neces- sity, for such authority, is admitted in these remarkable lines : 12 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. II Such an omniscient church we wisfi indeed ; 'Twere worth both Testaments., cast in the Creed." A wish, so forcibly expressed, shows a strong desire on the part of the poet to be convinced of the existence of that authority to which he so ardently desired to submit himself. And the argument which Dryden considers as con- clusive against the existence of such an omni- scient church, is precisely that which a subtle Catholic would find little trouble in repelling. If there be such a church, says Dryden, why does it not point out the corruption of the ca- non, and restore it where lost? The answer is obvious, providing that the infallibility of the church be previously assumed; for where can be the necessity of restoring or explaining scripture, if God has given to Pope and coun- cil the inspiration necessary to settle all doubts in matters of faith? Dryden must have per- ceived where this argument led him, and he rather compounds with the difficulty than faces it. The scripture, he admits, must be the rule on the one hand ; but, on the other, it was to be qualified by the traditions of the ear- lier ages, and the exposition of learned men. And he concludes, boldly enough : « vShall I speak plain, and, in a nation free, Assume an honest layman's liberty ? I think, according to my little skill, ^ To my own mother-church submitting still, LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 1 3 That many have been saved, and many may, Who never heard tliis question brought in play. The unletter'd Christian, who beHeves in gross, Plods on to heaven, and ne'er is at a loss ; For the strait gate would be made straiter yet, Were none admitted there but men of wit. » This seems to be a plain admission, that the author was involved in a question from which he saw no very decided mode of ex- tricating himself; and that the best way was to think as little as possible upon the subject. But this was a sorry conclusion for affording firm foundation in religious faith. Another doubt appears to have puzzled Dry- den so much, as to lead him finally to the Ca- tholic faith for its solution. This was the fu- ture fate of those who never heard the gospel preached, supposing belief in it essential to salvation : « Because a general law is that alone, Which must to all, and every where, be known » Dryden, it is true, founds upon the mercy of the Deity a hope, that the benefit of the pro- pitiatory sacrifice of our Mediator may be ex- tended to those who knew not of its power. But the creed of St Athanasius stands in the poet's road; and though he disposes of it with less rcA'erence to the patriarch than is quite seemly, there is an indecision, if not in his conclusion, at least in his mode of deducing it^ t4 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. that shows an apt inclination to cut the knot, and solve the objection of the Deist, by alleg- ing, that belief in the Christian religion is an essential requisite to salvation. If I am right in these remarks, it will fol- low, that Dryden never could be a firm or steady believer in the Church of England's doctrines. The arguments, by which he proved them, carried him too far; and when he com- menced a teacher of faith, or when, as he ex- presses it, « his pride struck out new sparkles of its own,» at that very time, while in words he maintained the doctrines of his mother- church, his conviction really hovered between natural religion and the faith of Rome. It is remarkable, that his friends do not seem to have considered the « Religio Laich) as ex- pressive of his decided sentiments; for Charles Blount, a noted free-thinker, in consequence of that very work, wrote a deistical treatise in prose, bearing the same title, and ascribed it with great testimony of respect to « his much - honoured friend, John Dryden, Es- quire." ' Mr Blount, living in close habits ' The expressions in the dedication are such as to preclude all idea but of profound respect : « Sir, The value I have ever had for your writings makes me im- patient to peruse all treatises that are crowned with your name : whereof, the last that fell into my hands was your '■Religio Laid;' which expresses as well your great judgment in, as value for, religion : a thing too rarely LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEX. ID with Dryden, must have kno^vn perfectly well how to understand his polemical poem; and, had he supposed it was written under a deep belief of the truth of the English creed, can it be thought he would have inscribed to the author a tract against all revelation?' The inference is, therefore, sufficiently plain, that the dedicator knew that Dryden was sceptical on the subject, on which he had, out of com- pliment to church and state, affected a con- viction ; and that his « Religio Laicin no more inferred a belief in the doctrines of Christian- ity, than the sacrifice of a cock to Esculapins proved the heathen philosopher s faith in the existence of that divine leech. Thus far Dry- den had certainly proceeded. His disposition to believe in Christianity was obvious, but be w as bewildered in the maze of doubt in which he was involved; and it was already plain, that the church, whose promises to illuminate him were most confident, was likely to have the found in this age among gentlemen of your parts ; and, I am confident (with the blessing of God upon your en- deavours), not unlikely to prove of great advantage to the public ; since, as Mr Herbert well observes, II A verse may find him who a sermon flies, And turn delight into a sacrifice, a ' Blount preserves, indeed, that affectation of respect for the doctrines of the established church which de- cency imposes ; but the tendency of his work is to decry all revelation. It is founded on the noted work of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, <■ De Vcrhate. » 1 6 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. honour of this distinguished proselyte. Dry- den did not, therefore, except in outward pro- fession, abandon the Church of England for that of Rome, but was converted to the Ca,- thoHc faith from a state of infidehty, or rather of Pyrrhonism. This is made more clear by his own words, from which it appears that, having once admitted the mysterious doctrines of the Trinity and of redemption, so incom- prehensible to human reason, Dryden felt no right to make any further appeal to that fal- lible guide : « Good life Le now my task; my doubts are done; What more could fright my faith than three in one? Can I believe Eternal God could lie Disguised in mortal mould, and infancy? That the great Maker of the world could die ? And after that trust my imperfect sense, Which calls in question his omnipotence? » From these lines it may be safely inferred, that Dryden's sincere acquiescence in the more abstruse points of Christianity did not long precede his adoption of the Roman faith. In some preceding verses it appears how eagerly he received the conviction of the church's in- fallibility, as affording that guide, the want of whom he had in some degree lamented in the « Religio Laid :» •I What weight of ancient witness can prevail. If private reason hold the public scale? LIFE OF JOIIiX DKYDEN. If But, gracious God, how well dost thou provide For erring judgments an unerring" guide ! Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. O teach ine to believe thee, thus conceal'd. And search no farther than thyself reveal'd; But her alone for my director take, Whom thoa hast promised never to forsake! » We find, therefore, that Dryden's conver- sion was not of that sordid kind which is the consequence of a strong temporal interest; for he had expressed intelligibly the imagined desiderata which the church of Rome alone pretends to supply, long before that temporal interest had an existence. Neither have we to reproach him, that, grounded and rooted in a pure Protestant creed, he was foolish enough to abandon it for the more corrupted doctrines of Rome. He did not unloose from the secure haven to moor in the perilous road ; but, being tossed on the billows of uncertain- ty, he dropped his anchor in the first moorings to which the winds, waves, and perhaps an artful pilot, chanced to convey his bark. We may indeed regret that, having to chuse be- tween two religions, he should have adopted that which our education, reason, and even prepossessions, combine to point out as foully corrupted fiom the primitive simplicity of the Christian church. But neither the Protestant Christian, nor the sceptic philosopher, can I. 1 8 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. claim a right to despise the sophistry which hewildered the judgment of Chilhngworth, or the toils which enveloped the active and sus- picious minds of Bayle and of Gibhon. The latter, in his account of his own conversion to the Catholic faith, fixes upon the very argu- ments pleaded by Dryden, as those which ap- peared to him irresistible. The early tradi- tions of the church, the express words of the text, are referred to by both as the grounds of their conversion; and the works of Bossuet, so frequently referred to by the poet, Avere the means of influencing the determination of the philosopher. ' The victorious argument to ' <. 1 was unable to resist the weight of historical evi- dence, tliat within the same period most of the leading doctrines of popery were already introduced in theory and practice; nor was ray conclusion absurd, that miracles are the test of truth, and that the church must be ortho- dox and pure, which was so often approved by the visible interposition of the Deity. The marvellous tales which are so boldly attested by the Basils and Chrysostoms, the Atistins and Jeroms, compelled me to embrace the su- perior merits of celibacy, the institution of the monastic life, the use of the sign of the Cross, of holy oil, and even of images, the invocation of saints, the worship of reliques, the rudiments of purgatory in prayers for the dead, and the tremendous mystery of the sacrifice of the body and jjlood of Christ, which insensibly swelled into the prodigy of transubstantiation. In these dispositions, and already more than half a convert, I formed an un- lucky intimacy with a young gentleman of our college, whose name I shall spare. With a character less reso- LIFE OF JOHN DKYDEN. ig which Chillingworth hinisell' yielded, was, « that there must ho somewhere an infallible judge, and the Church ot Rome is the onlv Christian society, which either does or can pretend to that character. » It is also to be observed, that towards the end of Charles II. 's reign, the High-Churchmen and the Catholics regarded themselves as on lute, JMr **** had imbibed the same religious ojjinions ; and some Popish books, I know not through what chan- nel, were conveyed into his possession. I read, I ap- plauded, I believed; the English translations of tuo famous works of Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, the ' Expo- sition of the Catholic Doctrine,' and the 'History of the Protestant Variations,' achieved my conversion ; and I surely fell by a noble hand. I have since examined the originals with a more discerning eye, and shall not hesi- tate to pronounce, that Bossuet is indeed a master of all the weapons of controversy. In the 'Exposition,' a spe- cious apology, the orator assumes, with consummate art, the tone of candour and simplicity; and the ten-horned monster is transformed, at his magic touch, into the milk-white hind, who must be loved as soon as she is seen. In the 'History,' a bold and well-aimed attack, he displays, with a happy mixture of narrative and argu- ment, the faults and follies, the changes and contradic- tions of our first reformers; whose variations (as he dexterously contends) are the mark of historical error, while the perpetual unity of tlie Catholic church is the sign and test of infallible truth. To my present feelings, it seems incredible, that I should ever believe that I believed in transubstantiation. But my conqueror op- pressed me with the sacramental words, '■Hoc est corpus: ineum,' and dashed against each other the figurative half-meanings of the Protestant sects ; every objection was 20 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. the same side in political questions, and not greatly divided in their temporal interests. Both were sufferers in the Plot; both were enemies of the sectaries; both were adherents of the Stuarts. Alternate conversion had been common between them, so early as since Milton made a reproach to the English univer- sities of the converts to the Roman faith daily made within their colleges; of those sheep, "Whom the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace and nothing said.» In approaching Dryden, therefore, a Catholic priest had to combat few of those personal prejudices Avhich, in other cases, have been impediments to their making converts. The poet had, besides, before him the example of many persons both of rank and talent, who had adopted the Catholic religion. Such being the disposition of Dryden's mind, and such the peculiar facilities of the Roman churchmen in making proselytes, it is by no means to be denied, that circumstances resolved into omnipotence; and, after i-epeating at St Mary's the Athanasian creed, I humbly acquiesced in the mystery of the real presence. « To take uj) halF on trust, and half to try, Name it not faith, but bungling Jjigotry. Both knave and fool, the merchant vee may call. To pay great sums, and to compound the small ; For who would break with heaven j and would not break for all?» GiBBois's Memoirs of Ins own Life. LIFK OF JOHN DRYDEN. 2 1 in the poet's family and situation strongly forwarded his taking such a step. His wife, Lady Elizabeth, had for some time been a Catholic; and though she may be acquitted of any share in influencing his detexmination, yet her new faith necessarily brought into his family persons both able and disposed to do so. His eldest and best beloved son, Charles, is also said, though upon uncertain authority, to have been a Catholic before his father, and to have contributed to his change.' Above all, James, his master, to whose fortunes he had so closely attached himself, had now become as parsimonious of his favour as his church is of salvation, and restricted it to those of his own sect. It is more than pro- bable, though only a conjecture, that Dry den might be made the subject of those private exhortations, which in that reign were called closetmg ; and, predisposed as he was, he could hardly be supposed capable of resisting the royal eloquence. For, while pointing out circumstances of proof, that Dryden's con- version was not made by manner of bargain and sale, but proceeded upon a sincere though erroneous conviction, it cannot be de- ' In a libel in the «State Poems," Dryden is made to say, « One son lurn'd me, I turn'd the other two, But had not an indulgence, sir, like you." Xl MFF, OF JOHN I)r>Yf>r,N, iiicd, that his situation as poet-laureat, and his expectations from the kin{j, must liavc; con- duced to his taking his final rcsohition. All I mean to infer from the ahove statement is, that liis interest and internal conviction led him to the same conclusion. If we are to judge of Dryden's sincerity in his new faith, hy the determined firmness with which he retained it through good report and bad report, we must allow him to have been a martyr, or at least a confessor, in the Catholic cause. If, after the Revolution, like many greater men, he had changed his prin- ciples with the times, he was not a person of such mark as to be selected from all the nation, and punished for former tenets. Sup- ported by the friendship of Rochester, and most of the Tory nobles who were active in the Revolution, of Leicester, and many Whigs, and especially of the Lord - Chamberlain Dorset, there would probably have been lit- tle difficulty in permitting so eminent an author to remain poet-laureat, if he had recanted the errors of popery. But the Ca- tholic religion, and the consequent disquali- fications, were an insurmountable obstacle to his holding that or any other office under {{overnment; and Dryden's adherence to it, with all the poverty, reproach, and even persecution which followed the profession, argued a deep and substantial conviction of LIFE OF JOHN DliVDEN. 23 the truth of the doctrines it inculcated. So late as iCxjg, when a union, in opposition to Kinf; Wilham, had led the Tories and Whigs to look on each other with some kindness, Dryden thus expresses himself in a letter to his cousin, Mrs Steward: « The court rather speaks kindly of me, than does any thin(5 for me, though they promise largely; and per- haps they think I will advance as they go hackward, in which they will be much de- ceived : for I can nevei go an inch beyond my conscience and my honour. 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 acquies- cence under the present government, and forbearing satire on it, that I can promise, because I can perform it: hut I can neither take the oaths, nor forsake my religion; be- cause I know not what church to go to, if I leave the Catholic; they are all so divided amongst themselves in matters of faith, neces- sary to salvation, and yet all assuming the name of Protestants. May God be pleased to open your eyes, as he has opened 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, therefore, adherence to tiie communion of a falling sect, loaded too at the time with heavy disqualifications. 24 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. and liable to yet more dangerous suspicions, can be allowed as a proof of sincerity, we can hardly question that Dryden was, fi-om the date of his conviction, a serious and sincere Roman Catholic. The conversion of Dryden did not long re- main unrewarded, nor was his pen suffered to be idle in the cause which he had adopted. On the 4th of March 1 685-6, an hundred pounds a-year, payable quarterly, was added to his pension;' and probably he found him- self more at ease under the regular and eco- nomical government of James, than when his support depended on the exhausted exche- quer of Charles. Soon after the granting of this boon, he was employed to defend the reasons of conversion to tlie Catholic faith, alleged by Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, which, together with two papers on a similar subject, said to have been found in Charles II. s strong box, James had with great rash- ness given to the public. Stillingfleet, now at the head of the champions of the Pro- testant faith, published some sharp remarks ' The grant bears this honourable consideration, which I extract from Mr Malone's work : «Pat. 2. Jac. p. 4. n. i. Know ye, that we, for and in consideration of the many good and acceptable services done by John Dryden, Master of Arts, to our late dearest brother King Charles the Se- cond, as also to us done and performed, and taking notice of the learning and eminent abilities of the said J. D.» etc. LIFE OF J0II5J DRYDEN. 9.5 on these papers. Another hand, probably that of a Jesuit, was employed to vindicate against him the royal grounds of conversa- tion; while to Drydcn was committed the charge of defending those alleged by the Du- chess. The tone of Dryden's apology was, to sav the least, Inghly injudicious, and adapt- ed to irritate the feelings of the clergy of the established church, already sufficiently exas- perated to see the sacrifices wdiich they had made to the royal cause utterly forgotten, the moment that they paused in the extremity of their devotion towards the monarch. The name of "Legion, » which the apologist be- stows on his adversaries, intimates the com- mittee of the clergy by whom the Protestant cause was then defended ; and the tone of b.is arguments is harsh, contemptuous, and in- sulting. A raker-up of the ashes of princes, an hypocrite, a juggler, a latitudinarian, are the best terms which he affords the advocate of the church of England, in defence of wdiich he had so lately been himself a dis- tinguished champion. Stillingfleet returned to the charge ; and when he came to the part of the Defence written by Dryden, he did not spare the personal invective, to which the acrimonious style of the poet-laureat had in- deed given an opening. « Zeal,» says Stilling- fleet, « in a new convert, is a terrible thing, for it not only burns, but rages like the erup- VOL. II. 2 26 LIFE OF JOHN DIIYDEN. tions of Mount JElna.) it fills the air with noise and smoke, and throws out such a torrent of living fire, that there is no standing before it." In another passage, Stillingfieet talks of the "temptation of changing religion for bread j » in another, our author's words, that « Priests of al! religions are the saine,» ' are quoted to infer, that he who has no re- ligion may declare for any. Drydeu took his revenge both on Stfllingfleet the author, and on Burnet, whom he seems to have regarded as the reviser of this answer, in his polemical poem of "The Hind and the Panther." If we can believe an ancient tradition, this poem was chiefly composed in a country re- tirement at Rushton, near his birth-place in Huntingdon. There was an embowered walk at this place, which, from the pleasure which the poet took in it, retained the name of Dryden's Walk; and here was erected, about the ntiddle of last century, an urn, with the following inscription : «In memory of Dryden, who freq-uented these shades, and is here said to have composed his poem of 'The Hind and the Panther,')) 2 «The Hind and the Panther)) was written ' "Absalom and Achitophel.n '■ I am indebted for this anecdote to Mr Octavius Gil- christ, the editor of the poems of tlie witty Bishop Corbett. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 27 Avith a view to obviate the objections of the English clergy and people to the power oC dispensing with the test laws, usurped by James II. A change of political measures, which took place ^vhile the poem was com- posing, has greatly injured its unity and consistence. In the earlier part of his reign, James endeavoured to gain the Church of England, by fair means and flattery, to submit to the remission which he claimed the liberty of granting to the Catholics. The first part of Dryden's poem is written upon this sooth- ing plan; the Panther, or Church of England, is sure the noblest next tlie liind, And fairest ofFspring of the spotted kind. Oh could her iii-born stains he vvash'd away. She were too good to he a Least of prey. The sects, on the other hand, are character- ized, wolves, bears, boars, foxes, — all that is odious and horrible in tiie brute creation. But ere the poem was published, the king had assumed a different tone with the Established Church. Relying upon the popularity which the suspension of the penal laws was calcu- lated to procure among the Dissenters, he endeavoured to strengthen his party by mak- ing common cause between them and the Catholics, and bidding open defiance to the Church of England. For a short time, and with the most ignorant of the sectaries, this 28 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. plan seemed to succeed ; the pleasure of a triumph over their ancient enemies render- ing them blind to the danger of tlie common Protestant cause. During this interval the poein was concluded ; and the last l;)ook seems to consider the cause of the Hiud and Panther as gone to a final issue, and incapable of any amicable adjustment. The Panther is fairly resigned to her fale. (iller hour of grace was pass' J," and tlie downfall of the English hierarchy is foretold in that of the doves, who, in a subaltern allegory, represent the clergy of the Established Church: ii'T is said, the doves repented, though too late, Become the smiths of th^ir o'.vn foolish fate : Nor did their owner liasten their ill hour, But, sunk in credit, they decreased in po'.ver ; Like snows in vvarmth that mikliy pass away. Dissolving in the silence of decay." In the preface, as well as in the course of tlie poem, Dryden frequently alludes to his dispute with Stillingfleet; and perhaps none of his poems contain finer lines than those in which he takes credit for the painful exertion of Christian forbearance, when called by in- jured feeling to resent personal accusation : iilf joys hereafter must be purchased here \Vith loss of all that mortals hold so dear, Then welcome infamy and public shame. And last, a long firewcU to worldly fame ! LIFE OF JOHN DUYDEN. 29 'T is said with ease ; but, oli, l:o\v liaidly tried By haufjlity souls to lunnaii honour lied ! O sharp convulsive pangs oF ajjonizinjT pride ! Down then, thou rebel, never nioie to rise I And what thou didst, and dost, so dearly prize, That fame, that darlin<^ fame, make that thy sacrifice. 'T is nothing- thou hast given ; (hen add thy tears For a long race of unrepenting years : 'T is nothing yet, yet all thou hast to give ; Then add those may-be years tliou hast to live : Yet nothing still ! then poor and naked coirie, Thy father will receive his unthrift home, And thy blestSaviour's blood discharge the mighty sum. " Stilllngfleet is, however, left personally undistinguished; bat Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, receives chastisement in his stead. The character of this prelate, however un- justly exaggerated, preserves many striking and curious traits of resemblance to the original; and, as was natural, gave deep offence to the party for whom it was drawn. For not only did Burnet at the time express himself with great asperity of Dryden, but long afterwards, when writing his historv, he pronounced a severe censure on the immorality of his plays, so inaccurately expressed as to be applicable, by common construction, to the authors pri- vate character. From this coarse and inex- plicit accusation, the memory of Dryden was indignantly vindicated by his friend Lord Lansdowne. It is also worth remarking, that in the alle- gory of the swallows, introduced in the Third 3o LIFE OF JOHN DP.YDEN. Part of ! was under the im- pulse of the same conviction whicli, further prosecuted, led him to acquiesce in the faith of Rome. The king appears to have been hardly less anxious to promote the dispersion of «The Hind and the Panther, w than the Protestant party to ridicule the piece and its author. U 34 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDE^f. Avas printed about tbe same time at London and in Edinburgh, where a printing-press was maintained in Holyrood-Ilouse, for the dis- persion of tracts favouring the Cathohc reli- gion. The poem went rapidly through two or three editions; a circumstance rather to be imputed to the celebrity of the author, and to the anxiety which foes, as well as friends, entertained to learn his sentiments, than to any disposition to acquiesce in his argu- ments. But Dryden's efforts in favour of the Ca- tholic cause were not limited to this con- troversial poem. He is said to have been at first employed by the court, in translating Varillas's « History of Heresies," a work held in considerable estimation by the Catholic divines. Accordingly, an entry to that pur- pose was made by Tonson in the Stationers' books, of such a translation made by Drydcn at his majesty's command. This circumstance is also mentioned by Burnet, who adds, in very coarse and abusive terms, that the suc- cess of his own remarks having destroyed the character of Varillas as a historian, the disap- pointed translator revenged himself by the severe character of the Buzzard, under whicli the future Bishop of Sarum is depicted in "The Hind and the Panther. »' The cre- ' The passnge, as quoted at length by Mr Malone, re- moves an obscurity which puzzled former biographers, at LIFE OF JOHN DRYOEN. 35 dulity of Burnet, especially wliere liis vanity was concerned, was unbounded; and there seems room to trace Dryden's attack upon least as far as any thing can be made clear, which must ultimately depend upon such clumsy diction as the follow- ing: "It (the answer of Iiunict) will perhaps be a little longer a digesting toMons. Varillas, than it was a preparing to me. One proof will quickly appear, whether the world is so satisfied with his Answer, as upon that to return to any thoughts of his history ; for I have been informed from England, that a gentleman, who is known both for poetry and other things, had spent three months in trans- lating M. Varillas's History; but that, as soon as my Re- flections appeared, he discontinued his labour, finding the credit of his author was gone. Now, if lie thinks it is re- covered by his answer, he wil! perhaps go on with his translation ; and this may be, for aught I know, as good ail entertainment for him as the conversation that he had set on between the Hinds and Pantheis, and all the rest of the animals, for whom INI. Varillas may serve well enough for an author : and this history and that poem are such extraordinary things of (heir kind, that it will be but suit- able to see the author of the worst poem become likewise the translator of the worst history, that the age has pro- duced. If his grace and his wit improve both propor- tionably, he will hardly find that he has gained much by the change he has made, from having no religion to choose one of the worst. It is true, he had something to sink from, in matter of wit; but as for his morals, it is scarce possible for him to grow a worse man than he was. He has lately wreaked his malice on me for spoiling his three months' labour; but in it he has done me all the honour that any man can receive from him, which is to be railed at by him. If I had ill-nature enough to prompt me to wish a very bad wish for him, it should be, that he \vould go ou and finish liis translation. By tliat it will appear. 36 LIFE OF JOHN DP.YDEN. him, rather to some real or supposed concern in the controversy ahout the Duchess of York's papers, so often alluded to in tlie poem, than to the commentary on Varillas, Avliich is not once mentioned. Yet it seems certain that Dryden entertained thoughts of translating «The History of Hcresies;» and, for whatever reason, laid the task aside. lie soon after was engaged in a task, of a kind as unpromising as remote from his poetical studies, and connected, in the same close de- gree, with tlie religious views of the unfor- tunate James IF. This was no other than the translation of « The Life of St Francis Xavier, » one of the last adopted saints of the Catholic church, at least whose merits and supposed miracles were those of a missionary. Xavier is perhaps among the latest also, whose renown for sanctity, and the powers attending it, appears to have been exten- sive, even while he was yet alive. '^ Above all, he was of the order of Jesuits, and the whether the EngHsh nation, -wliich is the most competent judge in this matter, has, upon tlie seeing our dehate, pronounceil in M. Varillas's favour, or in mine. It is true, Mr D. will suffer a little by it ; but at least it will serve to keep him in from other extravagancies ; and if he gains little honour by this work, yet he cannot lose so much by it, as he has done by his last employment." ' In the «Staple of Nevvs,» act iii. scene 2. Jonson talks of the miracles done by the Jesuits in Japan and China, as current articles of intelligence. LIFE OF JOHN DI'.YIJEX. 87 very saint to Avhom Mary of Este had address- ed her vows, in hopes to secure a Catholic successor to the throne of England.' It was, therefore, natural enough, thatDryden should have employed himself in translating the life of a saint, whose virtues must at that time have apj^eared so peculiarly meritorious, whose praises were so acceptahle to his patroness, and whose miracles were wrought for the credit of the Catholic church, within so late a period. Besides, the work had heen composed by Hartoli, in Portuguese, and by Bouhours, in Erench. ^Yith the merits of the latter Ave are well acquainted ; of the former, Dryden speaks highly in the dedication. It may perhaps he ' In the Dedication to the Queen, this is stated with a (gravity suitable to the occasion. «The reverend author of this Life, in his dedication to his most Christian Ma- jesty, affirms, that France was owing for him to the inter- cession of St Francis Xavier. Tliat Anne of Austria, !iis mother, after twenty years of barrenness, liad recourse to lieaven, Ijy lier fervent prayers, to draw down that bless- ing, and addressed her devotions, in a particular manner, to this holy apostle of the Indies. I know not, madam, whether I may presume to tdl the world, that your ma- jesty has chosen this great saint for one of your celestial patrons, though I am sure you will never be ashamed of owning so glorious an intercessor; not even in a country where the doctrine of the holy church is questioned, and those religious addresses ridiculed. Your majesty, I doubt not, has the inward satisfaction of knowing, that such pious prayers have not been unprofitable to you ; and the nation may one day come to understand, how happy it will be for them to have a son of prayers ruling over tlicm." 38 LIFE OF JOHlN DRYDEN. more surprising, that the present writer should have retained this translation, than that Dry- den should have undertaken it. IJut surely the only work of this very particular and en- thusiastic nature, which the modern English language has to exhihit, was worthy of pre- servation, were it hut as a curiosity. The creed and the character of Catholic faith are now so much forgotten among us (popularly speaking), that, in reading the «Life of Xa- vier,» the Protestant finds himself in a new and enchanted land. The motives, and the incidents, and the doctrines, are alike new to him, and, indeed, occasionally form a strange contrast among themselves. There are few who can read, without a sentiment of admi- ration, the heroic devotion with which, from the highest principle of duty, Xavier exposes himself to hardship, to danger, to death itself, that he may win souls to the Christian faith. The most rigid Protestant, and the most in- different philosopher, cannot deny to him the courage and patience of a martyr, with the good sense, resolution, ready wit, and address, of the best negociator that ever went upon a temporal embassy. It is well that our ad- miration is qualified by narrations so mon- strous, as his actually lestoring the dead to life; so profane, as the inference concerning the sweating crucifix; so trivial and absurd, as a crab's fishing up Xavier's cross, which had LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 3g fallen into the sea; and, to conclude, so shock- ing to humanity, as tlie account of the saint passing by the house of his ancestors, the abode of his aged mother, on his road to leave Europe for ever, and conceiving he did God good service in denying himself the melan- choly consolation of a last farewell. Altogether it forms a curious picture of the human mind, strung to a pitch of enthusiasm, which we can onlv learn from such narratives : and those to whom this affords no amusement, may glean some curious particulars from the « Life of Xavier, » concerning the state of India and Japan, at the time of his mission, as well as of the internal regulations and siugular policy adopted by the society, of which the saint was a member. Besides the nLife of Xavier, » Dryden is said to have translated Bossuet's "Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine ;» but for tliis we have but slight authority.' Dryden's political and polemic discussions naturally interfered at this period with his more general poetical studies. About the period of James's accession, Tonson had in- deed published a second Volume of Miscel- lanies, to which our poet contributed a critical ' » In the Bodleian Catalogue another work is attri- buted to our author, on very slight grounds: '■An Ex- position of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church,' trans- lated from Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, and published at London in i685. The only authority for attributing this 4o LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. ^ preface, whh various translations from Virgil, Lucretius, and Theocritus, and four Odes of Horace; of which the third of the First Book is happily applied to Lord Roscommon, and the twenty-ninth to Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester. Lpon these and his other trans- lations Garth h.as the following striking and forcihle observations, though expressed in language somewhat rpiaint. « I cannot pass by that admirable English |)oet, without en- deavouring to make his country sensible of the obligations they have to his Muse. Whe- ther they consider the flowing grace of his versification, the vigorous sallies of his fancy, or the peculiar delicacy of his periods, they all discover excellencies never to be enough admired. If they trace him from tlie first productions of iiis youth to the last perform- ances of his age, they will find, that as the tyranny of rhyme never imposed on the per- spicuity of sense, so a languid sense never wanted to be set off by the harmony of rhyme. And, as his earlier works wanted Iranslation to Dryden, should seem to have been tlie fol- lowing note in Bishop liailovv's hand-writing, at the bot- tom of the title-page of the copy belonging to the Bod- leian Library : 'By Mr Dryden, then only a poet, now a papist too : may be, he was a papist before, but not known till of iate. ' «This book had belonged to Bishop Badow, who died in 1691.W — Maloml. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. '/[' no maturity, so his latter wanted no force or spirit. The faUing off of his hair had no other consequence than to maiie his laurels be seen the more. «As a translator, he was just; as an inventor, he was rich. His versions of some parts of Lucretius, Horace, Homer, and Virgil, throughout, gave him a just pretence to that compliment which was made to Monsieur d'Ablancourt, a celebrated French translator. It is uncertain ivho have the greatest ohligalion to him, the dead or the living. "With all these wondrous talents he was libelled, in his lifetime, by the very men who had no other excellencies but as they were his imitators. Where he was allowed to have sentiments superior to all others, they charged him with theft. But how did he steal? no otherwise than like those who steal beggars' children, only to clothe them the better. » In tins reign Dryden wrote the first Ode to St Cecilia, for her festival, in 1687. This and the Ode to the Memory of Mrs Anne Kil- ligrew, a performance much in the manner of Cowley, and w hich has been admired per- haps fully as much as it merits, were the only pieces of genei-al poetry which he produced between the accession of James and the Revo- lution. It was, however, about this time, that the poet became acquainted with the simple and beautiful hymns of the Catholic 2, 'il LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. . . . . m ritual, the only pieces of uninspired sacred poetry v. hicli are worthy of the purpose to which they are dedicated. It is impossible to hear the nDies irce^» or the «Stabat Mater dolorosa, » without feehng, that tlie stately simplicity of the language, differing almost as widely from classical poetry as from that ""of modern nations, awes the congregation, like the architecture of the Gothic cathedrals in which they are chaunted. The ornaments which are wanting to these striking effusions of devotion are precisely such as would diminish their grand and solemn effect; and nothing hut the cogent and irresistible pro- priety of addressing the Divinity in a lan- •guage understood by the whole worsliipping assembly, could have justified the discarding these magnificent hymns from the reformed worship. We must suppose that Dryden, as a poet, was interested in the poetical part of the religion which he had chosen ; and his translation o( '(f'eni, Creator Spiritus,v which was probably recommended to him as being the favourite hymn of St Francis Xavier, ' shows that they did so. But it is less gene- ' « Before the beginnirifv of every canonical houi', lie always said the hymn of 'A^e«i", Creator Spiritus ;' and it was observed, that while he said it, his countenance was enlightened, as if the Holy Ghost, whom he invoked, was visibly descended on hiin.» LIFE OF JOHN Dr.YDEX. 43 rally kno^^n, tbat tlie Enjjlish Catholics have preserved two other translations ascribed to Dryden; one of the «7'e Deii>n,» the other ot the Hymn for St John's Eve: which are in- serted in the poet's works. A characteristic of James's administration was rif^id economy, not only in ordinary mat- ters, hut towards his own partisans ; — jf wretched quality in a prince, who Avas at- tempting a great and unpopular revolution both in religion and politics, and ought, by his liberality, and even profusion, to have at- tached the hearts and excited the hopes of those fiery and unsettled spirits, who are ever foremost in times of national tumult. Dryden, one of his most efficient and zealous sup- porters, and who had taken the step which of all others was calculated to please James, received only, as we have seen, after the in- terval of nearly a year from th.at prince's ac- cession, an addition of lool. to his yearly pension. There may, however, on occasion of « The Hind and the Panther, » the Con- troversy with Stillingfleet, and other works undertaken with an express view to the royal interest, have been private connnunications of James's favour. But Dryden, always ready to supply with hope the deficiency of present possession, went on his literary course re- joicing. A lively epistle to his friend Etherege, 44 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEX. then envoy for James at Ratisbon, shows tlie lightness and buoyancy of his spitits at this supposed auspicious period. An event, deemed of the utmost and most beneficial importance to the family of Stuart, but which, according to their usual ill for- tune, helped to precipitate their ruin, next called forth the public gratulation of the poet- iaureat. This was the birth of that « son of prayers » prophesied in the dedication to Xa- vier, whom the English, with obstinate in- credulity, long chose to consider as an im- postor, grafted upon the royal line to the pre- judice of the Protestant succession. Dryden's « Britannia Redivivau hailed, with the enthu- siasm of a Catholic and a poet, the very event, which, removing all hope of succession in the course of nature, precipitated the measures of tbe Prince of Orange, exhausted the patience of the exasperated people, and led them vio- lently to extirpate a hated dynasty, which seemed likely to be protracted by a nev»' reign. The merits of the poem have been considered in the introductory remarks prefixed in this edition. Whatever hopes Dryden may have con- ceived in consequence of « The Hind and the Panther,)) « Britannia Piediviva,)) and other works favourable to the cause of James and of his religion, they were suddenly ans for ever blighted bv the Revolution. It cannot be LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 4^ supposed that the poet viewed without anxiety the crisis while yet at a distance; and perhaps his ow n tale of the Swallows may have hegun to bear, even to the author, the air of a pro- phecy. He is said, in an obscure libel, to have been among those courtiers who encou- raged, by frequent visits, the camp on Iloun- slow Heath, ' upon which the king had ground- ed his hopes of subduing the contumacy of his subjects, and repelling the invasion of the Prince of Orange. If so, he must there have learned how unwilling the troops were to se- ' Here daiiy swarm prodigious wiglils, And strange variety of sights, As ladies lewd, and foppish knights. Priests, poets, pimps, and parasites ; Which now we '11 spare, and only mention The hungry hard that writes for pension : Old Squah (who 's sometimes here, I 'm told), That oft has with his prince made hold, Call'd the late king a sant'ring cully, To magnify the Gallic hully ; Who lately put a senseless hanter Upon the world, with Hind and Panther ; Making the heasts and birds o' the wood Debate, what he ne'er understood. Deep secrets in philosophy. And mysteries in theology. All sung in wretchetl poetry ; Which rambling piece is as much farce all. As his true mirror, the "Rehearsal ;» For which he has been soundly bang'd, But ha'n 't his just reward till hang'd. Poem on the Camp at Houmlow, 46 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. cond their monarclx in his unpopular and un- constitutional attempts; and must have sadly anticipated the event of a stru^jgle between a king and his \\hole people. When this me- morable catastrophe had taken place, our au- thor found himself at once exposed to all the insult, calumny, and sarcasm, with which a successful party in politics never fail to over- whelm their discomfited adversaries. But, Avhat he must have felt yet more severely, the unpopularity of his religion and principles rendered it not merely unsafe, but absolutely impossible, for him to make retaliation. His powers of satire, at such a period, were of no more use to Dryden than a sword to a man who cannot draw it; only serving to render the pleasure of insulting him more poignant to his enemies, and the necessity of passive submis- sion more bitter to himself. Of the numerous satires, libels, songs, parodies, and pasqui- nades, which solemnized the downfall of Popery and of James, Dryden had not only some exclusively dedicated to his case, but engaged a portion, more or less, of almost every one which appeared. Scarce Father Petre, or the Papal envoy Dada, themselves, were more distinguished, by these lampoons, than the poet-laureat; the unsparing exertion of whose satirical powers, as well as his unri- valled literary pre-eminence, had excited a strong party against him among the inferior LIFE OF JOHN DIIYDEN. 4? Avits, ^^Lose political antipathy was aj^gravated by ancient resentment and literary envy. An extract fioni one of each kind may sei^ve to show, how very little ^vit was judged neces- sary by Dryden's contemporaries to a suc- cessful attack upon him. ' ' Extracts from «Tlie AtWress of John Dryden, Lait- reat, to his Highness the Prince of Orange :» 111 all llie liosannas our uliole workl's applause, lUustrioui chamjHou of our cliurch and laws! Accpptj great Nassau ! from unworthy me, Amongst the adorioj'; crowd, a bended knee; Nor scruple, sir, to hear my echoing lyre, Strung, tuned, and join'd to the univcisal choir; From my suspected nioutli thy glories told, A known out-Iyer from the Euglish fold. After renewing the old reproach about Cromwell : If thus all this I could unlilushing write^ Fear not that pen that sliall thy praise indite. When high-Jioru blood my adoration draws, Exalted glory and uiib!cmish'd cause ; A thcine so all divine my muse shall wing. What is 't for thee, great prince, I will not s!ng? No bounds shall stop my Pegasian flight, I 11 spot my Hind, and make my Panther white. But if, great prince, my feeble strength shall fail, Thy theme I 'il to n)y successors entail; My heirs the unfuiish'd sul)ject shall complete: 1 have a sou, and he, by all that 's great. That very son (and trust my oaths, I swore As much to my great master James before) Shall, by his sire's exan)ple, Rome renounce. For he, young stripling, yet has lurn'd but once ^ That Oxford nursling, that sweet hopeful boy, liis father's and that once Iguatian joy, 48 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. Nor was the « pelting of this pitiless storm)) of abusive raillery the worst evil to wliich our author was subjected. The religion which he Designed for a new Bcllannin Goliah, Under the great Gamaliel, Obadiah; This youth, great sir, shall your fame's trumpets blow, And soar when uiy didl wings shall flag below. Why should I blush to turn, when my defence And plea 's so jilain? — for if Omnipotence Be the highest attribute that heaven can boast, That's the truest church that heaven resembles most. The tables then are lurn'd : and 't is confest, The strongest and the mightiest is the best : In all my changes I'm on the right side, And by the same great season jutified. When the bold Crescent late attack'd the Cross, Resolved the empire of the world to engross, Had tottering Vienna's walls but fail'd. And Turkey over Christendom prevail'd, Long ere this I had cross'd the Dardanello, And reign'd the mighty Mahomet's hail fellow ; Quitting my duller Jiopes, the poor renown Of Eton College, or a Dublin gown, And commenced graduate in the grand divan, Had reign'd a more immortal Mussulman. The lines which follon are taken from nThe DeHver- ance,» a poem to the Prince of Orange, by a Person of QuaHty. gth February, iGSS-g. Alas ! how cruel is a poet's fate ! Or who indeed would be a laureat. That nmst or fall or turn with every change of stale? Poor bard ! if thy hot zeal for loyal Wem ' Forbids thy tacking, sing his requiem; Sing something, pi ithee, to enure thy thumb ; Nothing but conscience strikes a poet dumb. ' Lord Jefferies, Baron of Wem. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 49 professed, rendered him incapable of holding any office under the new government, even if he could have bended his political principles to take the oaths to William and Mary. We may easily believe, that Dryden's old friend Dorset, now lord high-chamberlain, felt re- pugnance to render vacant the places of poet- laureat and royal historiographer, by remov- ing the man in England most capable of filling them ; but the sacrifice was inevitable. Dry- den's own feelings, on losing the situation of poet-laureat, must have been greatly aggra- vated by the selection of his despised opponent Shadwell as his successor ; a scribbler whom, in « Mac-Flecknoe,» he had himself placed pre-eminent in the regions of dulness, but who Conscience, that dull chimera of the schools, A learned imposition upon fools, Thou, Dryden, art not silenced with such stuff. Egad thy conscience has been larf^e enough. But here are loyal subjects still, and foes. Many to mourn, for many to oppose. Shall thy great master, tljy almighty Jove, Whom thou to place above the gods hast strove. Shall he from David's throne so early fall. And laureat Dryden not one tear let fall; Nor sings the bard his exit in one poor pastoral? Thee fear confines, thee, Dryden, fear confines. And grief, nor shame, stops thy recanting lines. Our Uamon is as generous as great, And -well coidd pardon tears that love create, Shouldst thou, in justice lo thy vexed soul, Not sing to him, but thy lost lord condole. But silence is a damning error, John; I 'd or my master or myself bemoan. VOL. II. 3 5o LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. now, SO far as royal mandate can arrange such precedence, was raised in his stead as chief among Enghsh poets. This very remarkable coincidence has led several of Dryden's bio- graphers, and Dr Johnson among others, to suppose that the satire was actually written to ridicule ShadwelFs elevation to the honours of the laurel ; though nothing is more certain than that it was published while Dryden was himself laureat, and could be hardly supposed to anticipate the object of his satire becoming his successor. Shadwell, however, possessed merits with King William, which were pro- bably deemed by that prince of more import- ance than all the genius of Shakspeare, Mil- ton, and Dryden, if it could have been com- bined in one individual. He was a staunch Whig, and had suffered under the former government, being « silenced as a non-con- forming poet;» the doors of the theatre closed against his plays; and, if he may himself be believed, even his life endangered, not only by the slow process of starving, but some more active proceeding of his powerful ene- mies. ' Shadwell, moreover, had not failed to hail the dawn of the Revolution by a congra- tulatory poem to the Prince of Orange, and to ' In the dedication of « Bury- Fair « to his patron the Earl of Dorset, he claims the merit due to his political constancy and sufferings : vith rendering into English the antiquarian dissertations of Dacier and other foreign commentators, with now and then an explanatory paraphrase of an obscure passage. The parodies of Martin Scriblerus had not yet consigned to ridicule the verbal criticism, and solemn trifling, w ith ^\hich the ancient schoolmen pretended to illustrate the classics. But beside the dispnte abont the notes in particular^ and the various selfish advantages which Dryden suspected Tonson of attempting to secure in the course of the transaction, he seems to have been particularly affronted at a presumptuous plan of that publisher (a keen Whig, and secretary of the Kit-cat club), to drive him into in- scribing the translation of Virgil to King~~ ^Yillianl. \Yith this view, Tonson had an especial care to make the engraver aggravate the nose of iEneas in the plates into a suf- ficient resemblance of the hooked promon- tory of the Deliverer's countenance;' and, ' This gave rise to a good epigram : « Old Jacob, by deej) ju^ljjmeiu sway'd, To please tlie wise J)eholdcrs, Has placed old Nassau's liook-nosed head On poor .'Eneas' sliouUcrs, 8^4 LIFli Of JOHN DRYDfi!^. foreseeing I)ryden's repugnance to his fa- Yourite pian, lie had recourse, it would seem, to more unjustifiable means to further it; for the poet expresses himself, as convinced that, through Tonson's means, his correspondence with his sons, then at Rome, was intercepted.' 1 suppose Jacob, hjiving fairly laid siege to bis authors conscience, had no scruple to intercept all foreign supplies, which might have confirmed him in his pertinacity. But Dryden, although thus closely beleaguered, held fast his integrity; and no prospect of personal advantage, or importunity on the part of Tonson, could induce him to take a step inconsistent with his religious and poli- tical sentiments. It was probably during the « To make the parallel hold tack, Melhiiiks there 's little lacking-j One took his father pick-a-jiack, And t' other sent his packing." ' «I ain of your opinion, » says the poet to his son Charles, «that, by Tonson's means, ahnost all our letters have miscarried tor this last year. But, however, he has missed of his design in the dedication, though he had prepared the book for it; for, in every figure of ^Eneas^ he has caused him to be drawn, like King William, with a hooked nose.» — Dryden hints to Tonson himself his suspicion of this unworthy device, desiring him to forward a letter to his son Charles, but not by post. "Being sa- tisfied, that Ferrand will do by this as he ilid by two letters which I sent my sons, about my dedicating to the king, of which they received neither.* LIFE OF JOHN DnYDIN. 85 course of these bickerinj^s witli his pul)hslier, that Dryden, incensed at some refusal of ac- commodation on the part of Tonson, sent him three \\ell - known coarse and forcible satirical lines, descriptive of his personal appearance : • With leering looks, buU-facerl, gnd freckled fe^ir, ^yitll two left legs, and Judas-colour'd hair. And frowzy pores, that taint the ambient air.» « Tell the dog.» said the poet to the mes- senger, « that he who wrote these can write more. » But Tonson, perfectly satisfied with this single triplet, hastened to comply with the author's request, without requiring any further specimen of his poetical powers. It would seem, on the other hand, that when Dryden neglected his stipulated labour, Ton- son possessed powei's of animadversion, which, though exercised in plain prose, were not a little dreaded by the jioet. Lord Bo- lingbroke, already a votary of the muses, and admitted to visit their high priest, was wont to relate, that one day he heard another per- son enter the house. «This,» said Dryden, « is Tonson : you will take care not to depart before he goes away; for I have not completed the sheet which I promised him; and, if you leave me unprotected, I shall suffer all the 0"6 LIFE OF JOHN URii>i..N. rudeness to which his resentment can prompt his tongue.))' But M'hatevcr occasional subjects of dissen- tion arose between Dryden and his bookseller, mutual interest, the strongest of ties, appears always to have brought them together, after the first ebullition of displeasure had subsided. There might, on such occasions, be room for acknowledging faults on both sides; for, if we admit that the bookseller was penurious and churlish, we cannot deny that Dryden seems often to have been abundantly captious, and irascible. Indeed, as the poet placed, and justly, more than a mercantile value upon what he sold, the trader, on his part, was ne- cessarily cautious not to afford a price which his returns could not pay; so that while, in one point of view, the author sold at an in- adequate price, the purchaser, in another, really got no more than value for his money. That literature is ill recompensed, is usually rather the fault of the public than the book- seller, whose trade can only exist by buying that which can be sold to advantage. Tlie trader who purchased the "Paradise Lost» for ten pounds had probably no very good bar- gain. However fretted by these teazing and al- most humiliating discussions, Dryden conti- ' Jol nsoii's "Life of Dryden.* LIFE OF JOILN DRYDEN. Sj nued steadily advancing in li is great labour; and about three years after it had been under- taken, the translation of Yirpil, « the most noble and spirited,') said Pope, « Avhich f know in any language, » was given to the pub- lic in July 1697. So eager was the general expectation, that the first edition was ex- hausted in a few months, and a second pub- lished early in the next year. « It satisfied," says Johnson, « his friends, and, for the most part, silenced his enemies. » But, although this was generally the case, there wanted not some to exercise the invidious task of criti- jcism, or rather of malevolent detraction. Among those, the highest name is that of Swift; the most distinguished for venomous and persevering malignity, that of INlilbourne. In his Epistle to Pi'ince Posterity, prefixed to the «Tale of a Tub," Swift, in the character of the dedicator, declare.'', « upon the word of a sincere man, that there is now actually in being a certain poet called John Dryden, whose translation of Virgil was lately printed in a large folio, well bound, and, if diligent search were made, for aught I know, is yet to be seen.)) In his « Battle of the Books,)) he tells us, « that Dryden, who encountered Virgil, soothed the good ancient by the en- dearing title of ((father,)) and, by a large de- duction of genealogies, made it appear, that thev were nearly related, and humbly pro- 88 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. posed an exchange of armour: as a mark of hospitality, Virgil consented, though his was of gold, and cost an hundred beeves, the ©thers ^but of rusty iron. However, this glittering armour became the modern still worse than his own. Then they agreed to exchange horses; but, when it came to the trial, Dryden was afraid, and utterly unable to mount. » A yet more bitter reproach is levelled by the wit against the poet, for his triple dedication of the Pastorals, Georgics, and J^neid, to three several patrons, Clifford, Chesterfield, and Mulgrave.' But, though the ' «I confess to have beeq somewliat liberal in the busi- ness of titles, having observed the humour of multiplying ihem to bear great vogue among certain writers, whom I exceedingly reverence. And indeed it seems not un- reasonable, that books, the children of the brain, should have the honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants of quality. Our famous Dryden has ventured to proceed a point farther, endeavouring to introduce also a multiplicity of god-fathers; which is an improvement of much more advantage, upon a very ob- vious account. It is a pity this admirable invention has not been better cultivated, so as to grow by this time into general imitation, when such an authority serves it for a j>recedent. Nor have my endeavours been wanting to second so useful an example : but, it seems, there is an unhappy expense usually annexed to the calling .of a god- father, which was clearly out of my head, as it is very reasonahle to believe. Where the pinch lay, I cannot certainly affirm ; but, having employed a world of thoughts and pains to split my treatise into forty sections, and LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. Hc) recollection ol" the contemned Odes, like the sprelce injuria J vrmce of Juno, still continued to prompt these overflowings of Swift's satire, he had too much taste and perception of poetry to attempt, gravely, to undermine, by a formal criticism, the merits of Dryden's Yirgi!. This was reserved for Luke Milbourne, a clergyman, who, by that assurance, has con- signed his name to no very honourable im- Hnortality. This person appears to have had a living at Great Yarmouth,' which, Dryden hints, he forfeited by writing libels on his parishioners; and from another testimony, he seems to have been a person of no very strict morals.^ Milbourne was once an admirer of our poet, as appears from his letter concern- liaviii" entreated forty lords of my acquaintance, lliat they would do me the honour to stand, they all made it a matter of conscience, and sent me their excuses." ' Resides the notes on Virgil, he wrote many single ser- mons, and a metrical version of the psalms, and died in I'jiQ. ^ He is described as a rake, in "The Pacificator, « a poem bought by Mr Lullrel, i5lh February 1699-1700, which gives an account of a supposed battle between ihe men of wit and men of sense, as the poet calls them : M n, a renegade from wit, came on, And made a false attack, and next to none ; The hypocrite, in sense, could not conceal What pride, and want of brains, oblijjcd him to rcvea!. In him, the critic 's ruin 'd by the poet, And Virgil gives his icsiiuiony to it. 4. 90 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEI*. ing ((Amphitryon.)? But either poetical ri- valry, for he had also thought of translating Virgil himself,' or political animosity, for he seems to have held revolution principles, or deep resentment forDryden's sarcasms against the clergy, or, most prohahly, all these united, impelled Milbourne to publish a most furious criticism, entitled, « Notes on Dryden's Virgil, in a Letter to a Friend. » «And here,» said he, (( in the first place, I must needs own Jacob Tonson's ingenuity to be greater than the The troops of wit were so enraged to see This priest invade his own f'raieruily, They sent a party out, by silence led, And, without answer, shot the turn-coat dead. The priest, the rake, the wit, strove all iu vain, For there, alas ! he lies among the slain. Memento morl — see the consequence, When rakes and wits set up for men of sense. ' This Mr Maione lias proved by the following extract from Motteux's «Gentlemaii's Journal. » « That best of poets (says Motteiix) having so long continued a stranger to tolerable English, Mr Milbourne pitied his hard fate ; and seeing that several great men had undertaken some episodes of his iEneis, without any design of Englishing the w hole, he gave us the first book of it some years ago, with a design to go through the poem. It was the mis- fortune of that first attempt to appear jvist about the time of the late Revolution, when few had leisure to mind such books ; yet, though by reason of his absence, it was printed with a world of faults, those that are sufficient judges have done it the justice to esteem it a very successful at. tempt, and cannot but wish ihat he would complete the entire translation. » — Gent. Jvurn. for August, 1653. LIFE OF JOIIX DRYDEN. gt translatoi^'s, who, in the inscription of his fine f;ay (title) in the front of the book, calls it very lionestly Dryden's Vir^jil, to let the reader know, that this is not that Virgil so much ad- mired in the Augustxan aj^e, an author whom Mr Dryden once thought untranslatable, but a Virgil of another stamp, of a coarser alloy; a silly, impertinent, nonsensical writer, of a various and uncertain style, a mere Alexander Ross, or somebody inferior to him; who could never have been known again in the trans- lation, if the name of Virgil had not been bestowed upon him in large characters in the frontispiece, and in the running title. Indeed, there is scarce the magni nominis umbra to be met with in this translation, which being fairly intimated by Jacob, he needs add no more, hut si popiilus vult decipi, decipiatur.'i With an assurance which induced Pope to call him the fairest of critics, not content with criticising the produciion of Dryden, Mil- bourne was so ill advised as to produce, and place in opposition to it, a ricketty translation of his own, probably the fragments of that which had been suppressed by Dryden's ver- sion. A short specimen, both of his criticism and poetry, will convince the reader, that the powers of the former were, as has been often the case, neutralized by the insipidity of the latter; for who can rely on the judgment of a critic so ill qualified to illustrate his own pre- ^^ LIIE OF JOHN DIIYDEN". cepts? I take the remarks on the tenth Eclogue, as a specimen, at hazard. «This eclogue is transiated in a strain too hiscious and effeminate for Virgil, who miglit bemoan his friend, hut does it in a noble and a manly style, which Mr Ogilby answers better than Mr D., whose paraphrase looks like one of Mrs .Behn's, when somebody had turned the original into English prose before. « Where Virgil says, Lauri el myricw Jleveic, the figure \s beautiful ; where Mr D. says, the laurel stands in tears, And hung with humid pearls, the lowly shrub appears, the figure is lost, and a foolish and impertinent representation comes in its place; an ordinary dewy morning might fill the laurels and shrubs with Mr D.'s tears, though Gall us had not been concerned in it. And yet the queen of beauty blest his bed — « Here Mr D. comes with his ugly patch upon a beautiful face : what had the queen of beauty to do here? Lycoris did not despise her lover for his meanness, but because she liad a mind to be a Catholic whore. Callus was of quality, but her spark a poor inferior fellow. And yet the queen of beauty, etc. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. gS ^^ouId have followed there very well, hut not Avliere ■wanton MrD. has iixt her. Flush'd were his clieeks, and glowing were his eyes. « This character is fitter for one that is drunk than one in an amazement, and is a thought unbecoming Virgil. And for thy rival, tempts the raging sea, The forms of horrid war, and heaven's inclemency. « Lycoris, doubtless, Avas a jilting baggage,, but why should Mr D. belie her? Virgil talks nothing of her going to sea, and perhaps she had a mind to be only a camp laundress, Avhich office she might be advanced to with- out going to sea : the fo)ms of horrid war, for liorrida costra, is incomparable. tiis brows, a country crown Of fennel and of nodding lilies drown, IS a very odd figure: Sylvanus had swinging brows to drown such a crow n as that, i. e. to make it invisible, to swallow it up; if it be a country crown, drown his brows, it is false English. The meads are sooner drunk with morning dews. « Bivi signifies no such thing; but then, that bees should be drunk with flowery shrubs, or goats be drunk with bronze, for drunk 's the verb, is a very quaint thought. » §4 LIFE OF JOHN DIIYDEN, After much more to the same purpose, Mil- bourne thus introduces his own version of the first Eclogue, with a confidence worthy of a better cause : — « That Mr Dryden might be satisfied that i VI offer no foul play, nor find faults in him, without giving him an oppor- tunity of retaliation, I have subjoined another metaphrase or translation of the First and Fourth Pastoral, which I desire may be read vrith his by the original. TITYRUS. ECLOGUE I. uMel. Beneath a spreading beech you, Tityrus, lie, And country songs to humble reeds apply ; We our sweet Fields, our native country fly, We leave our country ; you in shades may lie, And Amaryllis fair and blythe proclaim, And make the woods repeat her buxom name. Tit. O Meiibaeus ! 't was a bounteous God, These peaceful play-days on our muse bestow'd ; At least, he 'st aluay be a God to me ; My lambs shall oft his grateful offerings be. Thou seest, he lets my herds securely stray, And me at pleasure on my pipe to play. <*Mel. Your peace I don't with looks of envy view, But I admire your happy state, and you. In all our farms severe distraction reigns, No ancient owner there in peace remains. Sick, I, with much ado, my goats can drive. This, Tityrus, I scarce can lead alive ; On the bare stones, among yon hazels past, Just now, alas ! her hopeful twins she cast. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. qS Yet had not all on 's dull and senseless been, We'd long af[on this coming stroke foreseen. Oft did the blasted oaks our fate unfuki, And boding choughs from hollow trees foretold. But say, good Tityrus ! tell me who 's the God, Who peace, so lost to us, on you bestowdpn Some critics there ^vere, tbougli but few, who joined Milbourne in his abortive attempt to de^jrade our poet's translation. Oldmixon, celebrated for his share in the games of the Dunciad, ' and Samuel Par- ' See the Preface to «A Funeral Idyll, sacred to the glorious Memory of King William I1I.» by Mr Oldmixon. «In the Idyll on the peace, I made the first essay to throw off rhymes, and the kind reception that poem met with has encouraged me to attempt it again. I have not been persuaded by my friends to change the title of Idyll into Idy Ilium ; for having an English word set me by Mr Dryden, which he uses indifferently with the Greek, I thought it might be as proper in an English poem. I shall not be solicitous to justify myself to those who except against his authority, till they produce mo a better: I have heard him blamed for his innovations and coining of words, even by persons who have already been sufK- ciently guilty of the fault they lay to his charge ; and shown us what we are to expect from them, were their names as well settled as his. If I had qualifications enough to do it successfully, I should advise them to write more naturally, delicately, and reasonably themselves, before they attack Mr Uryden's reputation : and to think there is something more necessary to make a man wiite well, than the favour of the great, or the success of a faction. We have every year seen how fickle Fortune has been to her declared favourites ; and men of merit, as well as he 9© LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. ker,' a yet more obscure name, have in- formed us of this, by volunteering in Dry- wlio has none, have suffered by her inconstancy, as much as they {jot by her smiles. This should alarm such as are eminently indebted to her, and may be of use to them in their future reflections on others' productions, not to as- sume too much to themselves from her partiality lo them, lest, \vlien they are left like their predecessor, it should only serve to render them the more ridiculous.)) ' "Homer in a Kutshell," (i6 Feb.) 1700-9, by Samuel Parker, Gent. uPfcface. — Ever since I cauglit some termngant ones in a club, undervaluing our new translation of Viryil, I 've known both what opinion I ouyht to harbour, and what use to make of them ; and since the opportunity of a di- gression so luckily presents itself, I shall make bold lo ask the gentlemen tVieir sentiments of two or three lines (to pass over a thousand other instances) which they may meet with in that work. The fourth iEneid says of Dido, after certain effects of her taking shelter with jEneas in the cave appear, Conjucjium vocat, hoc prcetexit nomine culpam, V. 172.^ which Mr Dryden renders thus : She call'd it marriage, by that specious name To veil the crime, and sanctify the shame. Nor had he before less happily rendered the Sgth vei'se of the second ^Eneid : Scinditur wcerlum sliidia in contraria vulqus. The giddy vulgar, as iheir fancies guide, With noise, say nothing, aud in pans divide. <'If these are tlie lines which they call flat and spiritless, I wish mine could be flat and spiritless too ! And, there- LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 97 den's defence. But Dryden needed not their assistance. The real excellencies of his version ^\ere hefore the public, and it was rather to clear himself from the ma- lignant charges against his moral principles, which Milhourne had mingled with his criticism, than for any other purpose, that the poet deemed his antagonist worthy of the following animadversion :^« Milhourne, who IS in orders, pretends amongst the rest this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on priesthood : if 1 have, I am only to ask pardon fore, to make short work, I shall only beg Mr Dryden's leave to congratulate him upon his admirable flatness, and dulness, in a rapture of poetical indignation : Then dares the poring critic sn.irl ? And dare The *puny brats ' of Monitis tlireaten war? And can't the proud perverse Arnchnc's fate Deter the * mongrels ere it prove too late? In vain, alas! we warn the *harden'd brood ; In vain expect they'll ever come to good; No : they'd conceive more venom if they could. But let each * viper at his peril bite. While you defy the most ingenious spite. So Parian columns, rjised witli costly care, * Vile snails and worms may daub, yet not impair. While the tough titles, and obdurate rhyme. Fatigue the busy grinders of old Time. Not but your Maro justly may complain, Since your translation ends his ancient reign, And but by your officious muse outvied. That vast immortal name had never died. ' I desire these appellations may not seem to affect the parties concerned, any otherwise than as to their character of critic.i. vol.. II. 5 98 HFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him be satisfied, that he shall not be able to force himsel'f upon me for an adversary. I con- temn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own translations of Virgil have answered his criticisms on mine. If (as they say, he has declared in print) he prefers the version of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment; for it is agreed on all hands, that he writes even below Ogilby. That, you will say, is not easily to be done; but what cannot Milbourne bring about? I am satisfied, however, that while he and I live together, 1 shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desired him underhand to write 90 ill against me; but, upon my honest word, 1 have not bribed him to do me this service, and ami wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. It is true, I should be glad if I could persuade him to continue his good offices, and write such another critique on any thing of mine ; for I find, by experience, he has a great stroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a better opinion of them. He has taken some pains with my poetry; but nobody will be per- suaded to take the same with his. If I had taken to the church (as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts), I should have had LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 99 more sense, if not more grace, than to have turned myself out of my benefice, by writing Hbels on my parishioners. But his account of my manners, and my principles, are of a piece with his cavils and his poetry; and so I have done with him for ever. »' While Dryden was engaged with his great translation, he found two months leisure to execute a prose version of « Fresnoy's Art of Painting,)) to which he added an ingenious Preface, the work of twelve mornings, con- taining a parallel between that art and poetry; of which Mason has said, that though too superficial to stand the test of strict criticism, yet it Avill always give pleasure to readers of taste, even when it fails to convince their judgment. This version appeared in i6gS. Mr Malone conjectures, that our author was engaged in this task by his friends Closterman and Sir Godfrey Kneller, artists, who had been active in procuring subscriptions for his Vir- gil. He also wrote a « Life of Lucian,)) for a translation of his works, by Mr Walter Moyle, Sir Henry Shere, and other gentlemen of pre- tension to learning. This version, although it did not appear till after his death, and al- though he executed no part of the translation, still retains the title of « Dryden's Lucian.» There was one event of political importance ' Preface to the Fables. roO LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. which occurred in December 1695, and which the pubHc seem to have expected should have employed the pen of Dryden ; — this was the death of Mary, wife of William the Third. It is difficult to conceive in what manner the poet-laureat of the unfortunate James could have treated the memory of his daughter. vSatire was dangerous, and had indeed heen renounced by the poet; and panegyric was contrary to the principles for which he was suffering. Yet, among the swarm of rhymers who thrust themselves upon the nation on that mournful occasion, there are few who do not call, with friendly or unfriendly voice, upon our poet to break silence. But the voice of praise and censure was heard in vain, and Dryden's only interference was, in character of the first judge of his time, to award the prize to the Duke of Devonshire, as author of the best poem composed on the occasion of the Queen's death. ' ' Thisi I learn fi om Honor! Sacellum^ a Funeral Poem, lo the Memory of William, Duke of Devonshire, 1707 : "r was so, when the destroyer's dreadful dart Once pierced ihrougJi ours, to fair Maria's heart. From liis slate-helm then some short hours he stole, 'T indulge his melting eyes, and bleeding soul: Whilst his bent knees, ip those remains divine, Paid their last offering to that royal shrine. On which lines occurs this explanatory note : — « An 0ject of kinjj Arthur. He bore, however, the attack, without resent- ing it, until he was again assailed by Sir Rich- ard in his « Satire upon Wit," written express- ly to correct the dissolute and immoral per- tators, all men of wit and sense, agree that this is the end of poetry. But they say, it is their profession to write for the stage, and that poets must starve if they will not in this way humour the audience: the theatre will he as unfrequented as the churches, and the poet and the par- son equally neglected. Let the poet then abandon his profession, and take up some honest lawful calling, where, joining industry to his great wit, he may soon get above the complaints of poverty, so common among these in- genious men, and lie under no necessity of .prostituting his wit to any such vile purposes as are here censured. This will be a course of life more profitable and honour- able to himself, and more useful to others. And there are among these writers some who think they micjht have risen to the highest dignities in other professions, had they employed their wit in those ways. It is a mighty disho- nour and reproach to any man that is capable of being useful to the world in any liberal and virtuous profession, to lavish out his life and ivil in propagating vice and cor. ruplion of manners, and in battering from the stage the strongest entrenchments and best works of religion and virtue. Whoever makes this his choice, when the other was in his power, may he go off the stage unpitied, complain- ing of neglect and poverty, the just punishments of his. irreligion and folly I « 5. Il4 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. formances of the writeis of liis time. With a ponderous attempt at humour, the good knight proposes, that a hank for wit shoukl he estabhshed, and that all which had hitherto passed as current, should he called in, purified in the mint, recoined, and issued forth ^anew, freed from alloy. This satire was published in 1700, as the title-page hears; but Mr Luttrel marks his copy 23d November, 1699.' It contains more than one attack upon our author. Thus, we are told (wit being previously described as a malady), Vanine, that look'd on all the danger past, Because he 'scaped so long, is seized at last; By p — , by hunger, and by Dryden bit, He grins and snarls, and, in his dogged fit, Froths at the mouth, a certain sign of wit. Elsewhere the poet complains that the uni- versities, . debauch'd by Dryden and his crew, Turn bawds to vice, and wicked aims pursue. Again, p. i4, Dryden condemn, who taught men how to malie, Of dunces wits, an angel of a rake. ' Mr Malone conceives, that the Fables were published before the « Satire upon Wit;» but he had not this evidence of the contrary before him. It is therefore clear, that Dryden endured a second attack from Blackmore, before making any reply. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. IID But the main offence lies in the followiii}; passage: Set forth your edict; let it be enjoiu'd. That all defective species be recoin'd ; St E — in — t and R — r both are fit ' ^ To oversee the coining' of our wit. Let tliese be made the masters of essay, They '11 every piece of metal touch and weigh, And tell which is too light, which has too much allay. 'T is true, that when the coarse and worthless dross • Is purged away, there will be mighty loss. E'en Congreve, Southerne, manly Wycherly, When thus refined, will grievous sufferers be. Into the melting pot when Dryden comes, What horrid stench will rise, what noisome fumes! How will he shrink, when all his lewd allay, And wicked mixture, shall be purged away? When once his boasted heaps are melted down, A chest-full scarce will yield one sterling crown. Those who will D — n's melt, and think ttj find A goodly mass of bullion left behind, Do, as the Hibernian wit, who, as 't is told. Burnt his gilt feather, to collect the gold. But what remains will be so pure, 't will bear The examination of the most severe ; ' T will S — r's scales and Talbot's test abide. And with their mark please all the world beside. These repeated attacks at length called down the vengeance of Dryden, who thus re- torted upon him in the preface to the Fables . « As for the City Bard, or Knight Physician I hear his quarrel to me is, that 1 was the au thor of 'Absalom and Achitophel,' which, he t l6 LIFE OF JOHN DfiYDEN. thinks, is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London. « But 1 will deal the more civilly with his two poeins, hecause nothing ill is to bespoken of the dead ; and, therefore, peace be to the manes of his ' Arthurs.' I will only say, that it was not for this noble knight that I drew the plan of an epic poem on King Arthur, in my preface to the translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage, and there- fore he rejected them, as Dares did the whirl- bats of Eryx, when they were thrown before him by. Entellus : yet from that preface he plainly took his hint; for he began imme- diately upon the story, though he had the baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor, but, instead of it, to traduce me in a libel, w Blackmore, who had perhaps thought the praise contained in his two last couplets ought to have allayed Dryden's resentment, finding that they failed in producing this effect, very unhandsomely omitted them in his next edi- tion, and received, as will presently be no- ticed, another flagellation, in the last verses Dryden ever wrote. But a more formidable champion than Blackmore had arisen, to scourge the profli- gacy of the theatre. This was no other than the celebrated Jeremy Collier, a nonjuring clergyman, who published, in 1698, « A Short LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. II7 View of the limiiorality and Profaneness of the Stage." His qualities as a reformer are described by Dr Johnson in lanf;uage never to be amended. « He was formed for a con- trovertist; with sufficient learning; with dic- tion vehement and pointed, though often vnil- gar and incorrect; with unconquerable per- tinacy; with wit in the highest degree keen and sarcastic; and with all those powers exalted and invigorated by the just confidence in his cause. « Thus qualified, and thus incited, he walked out to battle, and assailed at once most of the living writers, from Dryden to Durfey. His onset was violent: those passages, which while they stood single had passed with little notice, when they were accumu- lated and exposed together, excited horror; the wise and the pious caught the alarm, and the nation wondered why it had so long suf- fered irreligion and licentiousness to be open- ly taught at the public charge. » Notwithstanding the justice of this descrip- tion, there is a strange mixture of sense and nonsense in Collier's celebrated treatise. Not contented with resting his objections to dra- matic immorality upon the substantial grounds of virtue and religion, Jeremy labours to con- fute the poets of the 17th century, by drawing them into comparison with Plautus and Aris- tophanes, which is certainly judging of one no LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. crooked line by another. Neither does he omit, like his predecessor Prynne, to marshal against the British stage those fuhninations directed by the fathers of the church against the Pagan theatres; although Collier could not but know, that it was the performance of the heathen ritual, and not merely the scenic action of the drama, which rendered it sinful for the early Christians to attend the theatre. The book was, however, of great service to dramatic poetry, Avhich, from that time, was less degraded by licence and indelicacy. Dryden, it may be believed, had, as his comedies well deserved, a liberal share of the general censure; but, however he might have felt the smart of Collier's severity, he had the magnanimity to acknowledge its justice. In the preface to the Fables, he makes the amende honorable. « I shall say the less of Mr Collier, because in many things he has taxed me just- ly, and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immo- rality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be other- wise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the de- fence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one.» To this manly and liberal admission, he has indeed tacked a LIFE OF JOUN DRYDEN. Iiy complaint, that Collier had sometimes, by a strained interpretation, made the evil sense of which he complained; that he had too much « horse-play in his raillery, » and that, « if the zeal for God's house had not eaten him up, it had at least devoured some part of his good manners and civility. » Collier seems to have been some\vhat pacified by this qua- lified acknowledgment, and, during the rest of the controversy, turned his arms chiefly against Congreve, who resisted, and spared, comparatively at least, the sullen submission of Dryden. While these controversies were raging, Drvden's time was occupied with the trans- lations or imitations of Chaucer and Boccacio. Among these, the « Character of the Good Parson » is introduced, probably to confute Milbourne, Blackmore, and Collier, who had severally charged our author with the wilful and premeditated contumely thrown upon the clergy in many passages of his satirical writ- ings. This too seems to have inflamed the hatred of Swift, who, with all his levities, was strictly attached to his order, and keenly jea- lous of its honours.' Dryden himself seems ' In his apology for « The Tale of a Tub,» he points out to the resentment of the clergy, « those heavy illiterate scribblers, prostitute in their reputations, vicious in their lives, and ruined in their fortunes, who, to the shame of good sense, as well as piety, are greedily read, merely upon I20 LIFE OF JCaiN DRYDEN. to have been conscious of his propensity to assail churchmen. « I remember," he writes to his sons, « the counsel you gave nie in your letter; but dissembling, although 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 f/e^^'nerafe order. i)^ Milboui^ne, the strength of bold, false, impious assertions, mixed with' unmannerly reflections on the priesthood. » And, after no great interval, he mentions the passage quoted, p. S^S, win which Dryden, L'Estrange, and some others I shall not name, are levelled at; who, having spent their lives ia faction, and apostacies, and all manner of vice, pretended to be sufferers for loyalty and religion. So Dryden tells us, in one of his prefaces, of his merits and sufferings, and thanks God that he possesses his soul in patience. Ia other places he talks at the same rate.» ' Tlius, in a lampoon already quoted : Quitting my duller hopes, tlie poor renown Of Eaton College, or a Dublin {jown, Tom Brown makes the charge more directly. « But, prithee, why so severe always on the priesthood, Mr Bayes? What have they merited to pull down your indignation? I thought the ridiculing men of that character upon the stage was, by this time, a topic as much worn out with you, as love and honour in the play, or good fulsome flattery in the dedication. But you, I find, still continue your old liumour, to date from the year of Hegira, the loss of Eaton, or since orders were refused you. What- ever hangs out either black or green colours is presently your prize : and you would, by your good will, be as mor- tifying a vexation to the whole tribe, as an unbegetting year, a concatenation of briefs, or a voracious visitor ; so- LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEX. 12 1 and other enemies of our author, imputed this resentment njjainst the clergy to liis being refused orders Avhen he wished to take them, in the reign of Charles, with a view to the provostship of Eaton, or some Irish prefer- ment.' But Dryden assures us, that he never had any thoughts of entering the church. In- deed, his original offences of this kind mfjy be safely ascribed to the fashionable practice after the Restoration, of laughing at all that was accounted serious before that period. And when Dryden became a convert to the Catholic faith, he was, we have seen, involved in an immediate and fuiious controversy with the clergy of the Church of England. Thus, an unbeseeming strain of raillery, adopted in wantonness, became aggravated, by contro- versy, into real dislike and animosity. But Di'yden, in the "Character of a Good Parson, » seems determined to show, that he could es- timate the virtue of the clerical order. He undertook the task at the instigation of Mr Pepys, the founder of the library in Magdalen College, which bears his name, and has ac- complished it with equal spirit and elegance; not forgetting, however, to make his pattern that lam of opinion, you had much hettei have vviitten in vour title-page, « Manet alta mente reposium Judicium Clcri, sj)reta'que injm-ia Miisce.n Tlie same reproach is urged hy Seitle. VOL. II, 6 122 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. of clerical merit of his own jacobitical prin- ciples. Another very pleasing performance, which entered the miscellany called « The Fables, is the epistle of John Driden of Chesterton, the poet's cousin. The letters to Mrs Stewart show the friendly intimacy in which the rela- tions had lived, since the opposition of the Whigs to King William's government in some degree nnited that party in conduct, though not in motive, with the favourers of King James. Yet our author's strain of po- htics, as at fust expressed in the epistle, was too severe for his cousin's digestion. Some reflections upon the Dutch allies, and their behaviour in the war, were omitted, as tend- ing to reflect upon King William, and the whole piece, to avoid the least chance of giv- ing offence, was subjected to the revision of Montague, with a deprecation of his displea- sure, an entreaty of his patronage, and the humiliating offer, that, although repeated correction had already purged the spirit out of the poem, nothing should stand in it re- lating to public affairs, without Mr Montague's permission. What answer « full-blown Bufo» returned to Dryden's petition, does not ap- pear; but the author's opposition principles were so deeply woven in with the piece, that they could not be obliterated without tearing it to pieces. His model of an English member LIFE OF JOIIX DRYDEN. 15.3 of parliament votes in opposition, as his Good Parson is a nonjuror; and the Fox in the fable of Old Chaucer is translated into a puritan.' The epistle was hi.j^hly acceptable to Mr Dri- den of Chesterton, who acknowledged the immortality conferred on him, by « a noble present," which family tradition states to have amounted to 5oolr Neither did Dryden ne- glect so fair an opportunity to avenge himself ' There was, to be sure, in the provoking scruples of that rigid sect, something peculiarly tempting to a satirist. How is it possible to foigive Ba.xter, for the affectation with which he records the enormities of his childhood? « Though my conscience," says he, « would trouble me when I sinned, yet divers sins I was addicted to, and oft committed against my conscience, which, for the warning of others, I will here confess to my shame. I was much addicted to the excessive gluttonous eating of apples mid pears, which I thinlt laid the foundation of the iinbeciliiv and flatulency of my stomach, which caused the bodily calamities of my life. To this end, and to concur with naughty boys that gloried in evil, I have oft gone into other men's orchards, and stolen the fruit, when I Jiad enough at home.» Theie are six other retractations of similar enormities, when he concludes : — ' These were my sins in my childhood, as to which, conscience troubled me for a great while before they were overcome.' Easter was a pious and worthy man ; but can any one read this confession vvilhout thiiddng of Tartuffe, who subjected himself to penance for killing a ilea, with too much an^er? ' Mr Malone thinks tradition has confounded a present made to the poet himself, probably of lOoL, with a lepacv bequeathed to his son Charles, which last did amount to 5oo/., but which Charles lived not to receive. 124 l-'F fCF JOHN DRYDEN. on bis personal, as Avell as his political adver- saries. Milbourne and Blackmore receive in the epistle severe chastisement for their as- saults upon his poetry and private character: What help from art's eHcIeayours can we have? Guibbons but guesses, nor is sure to save; But Maurus sweeps whole parishes, and peoples every grave; And no more mercy to mankind will use, Than when he robb'd and murder'd Maro's muse. Woidd'st thou be soon despatch'd, atid perish whole, Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourne with thy soul. Referring to another place, what occurs upon the style and execution of the Fables, 1 have only to add, that they were published early in spring 1 700, in a large folio, and with the « Ode to Saint Cecilia." The epistle to Driden of Chesterton, and a translation of the lirst Iliad, must have more than satisfied the mercantile calculation of Tonson, since they contained seventeen hundred verses above the quantity which Dryden had contracted to deliver. In the preface, the author vindicates himself with great spirit against his literary adversaries; makes his usual strong and forc- ible remarks on the genius of the authors whom he had imitated; and, in this his last critical work, shows all the acumen which had so long distinguished his powers. The Fables were dedicated to the last Duke of Ormond, the grandson of the Barzillai of ,« Absalom and Achitophel,» and the son of lift; of JOHN DIIYDEN. 123 the heroic Eai4 of Ossory; friends hoth, and patrons of Dryden's earlier essays. There is something affecting in a connexion so ho- nourahly maintained; and the sentiment, as touched by Dryden, is simply pathetic. « I am not vain enough to hoast, that I have deserved the value of so illustrious a line; but my for- tune is the greater, that for three descents they have been pleased to distinguish my poems from those of other men; and have ac- cordingly made me their peculiar care. May it be permitted me to say, that as your grand- father and father were cherished and adorned with honours by two successive monarchs, so I have been esteemed and patronized by the grandfather, the father, and the son. descended from one of the most ancient, most conspi- cuous, and most deserving families in Europe." There were also prefixed to the > was surprisingly slow : even the death of the author, which has often sped away a lingering impression, does not seem to have increased the demand; and the second edition was not printed till 1 7 1 3, when Dryden and all his im- mediate descendants being no more, the sum stipulated upon that event was paid by Ton- son to Lady Sylvius, daughter of one of Lady Elizabeth Dryden's brothers, for the benefit of his widow, then in a state of lunacy. The end of Dryden's labours was now fast approaching, and as his career began upon the stage, it was in some degree doomed to terminate there. It is true, he never recalled his resolution to write no more plays: but Vanburgh having about this time revised and altered for the Drury-lane theatre Fletcher's lively comedy of "The Pilgrim," it was agreed that Dryden, or, as one account says, his son Charles,' should have the profits of a third night, on condition of adding to the piece a Secular Masque, adapted to the supposed ter- ' Gildon, in his « Comparison between the Stages.* — "Nay then,» says the whole party atDrury-hine, « we '11 even put 'The Pilgrim' upon him.)) « Ay, 'faith, so we will,)) says Dryden: « and if you '11 let my son have the profits of the third night. I 'II give you a Secular Masque.* « Done,)) says the House ; « and so the bargain was struck.)* LIFE OF JOHN Dr.YDEN. I27 mination of tlie seventeenth century;' a Dia- logue in the Madhouse between two Distract- ed Lovers, and a Prologue and Epilogue. The Secular Masque contains a beautiful and spirited delineation of the reigns of James I. Charles I. and Charles l\., in Avhich the in- fluence of Diana, Mars, and Venus, are sup- posed to have respectively predominated. Our author did not venture to assign a patron to the last years of the century, though the expulsion of Saturn might have given a hint for it. The music of the Masque is said to have been good; at least it is admired by the eccentric author of John Buncle.^ The Pro- logue and Epilogue to « The Pilgrim » were written within twenty days of Dryden's death ;^ and their spirit equals that of any of his sati- rical compositions. They afford us the less pleasing conviction, that even the last foit- night of Dryden's life was occupied in repel- ling or retorting the venomed attacks of his literary foes. In the Prologue he gives Black- more a drubbing which would have annihi- ' i. e. Upon the 25th March, 1700; it being supposed, (as by many in our own time) that the century was con- chided so soon as the hundredth year commenced ; — as if a play was ended at the beginning of the fifth act. ^ It was again set by Dr Eoyce, and in 1 749 perform- ed in the Drury-lane theatre, with great success. * By a letter to Mrs Stuart, dated the 11th April, 1700, it appears they were then only in his contemplation, and the poet died upon the first of the succeeduig month. 128 LIFE OF JOHN DRYIJEN. lated any author of ordinary modesty; but the knight' was as remarkable for his powers of endurance as some modern piigihsts ai^e said ' Quack Maurus, though he never took degrees In either of our universities, Yet to be shown by some kind wit he looks,' Because he play'd the fool, and writ three books. But if he would be worth a poet's pen. He must be more a fool, and write again : For all the former fustian stuff he wrote Was dead-born doggrel, oris quite forgot; His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe. Is just the proverb, and*« As poor as Job.» One would have thouglit he could no longer jog; But Arthur was a level, Job 's a bog. There though he crept, yet still he kept in sight; But here he flounders in, and sinks downright. Had he prepared us, and been dull by rule, Tobit had first been turned to ridicule; But our bold Briton, without fear or awe, O'erleaps at once the whole Apocrypha ; Invades the Psalms with rhymes, and leaves no roon» For any Vandal Hopkins yet to come. But when, if, after all, this godly gear Is not so senseless as it would appear, Our mountebank has laid a deeper train ; His cant, like Merry Andrew's noble vein, Cat-calls the sects to draw them in again. At leisure hours in epic song he deals, Writes to the rumbling of his coach's wheels ;^ Prescribes in haste, and seldom kills by rule, But rides triumphant between stool and stool. Well, let him go, — 't is yet too early day To get himself a place in farce or play; We know not by what name we should arraign hini, For no one category can contain him. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 1 29 to be for the quality technically called bottom. After having been « brayed in a mortar, » as Solomon expresses it, by every wit of bis time, Sir Uichard not only survived to commit new offences against ink and paper, but had his faction, his admirers, and his panegyrists, among that numerous and sober class of read- ers, who think that genius consists in good intention.' In the Epilogue, Dryden attacks A- pedant, — canting preacliei-, — and a quack, Are load enough to break an ass's back. At last, grown wanton, he presumed to write, Traduced two kings, their kindness to requite; One made the doctor, and ©ne dubb'd the knight. ' One of these well-meaning persons insulted the ashes^ of Dryden while they vr^rp still warm, in « An Epistle to Sir Richard Blackmore, occasioned by the New Session of the Poets.:) Marked by iMr Lultrell, 1st November, 1700. His raighly Drytlcn to the sliades is gone, And Coiigreve leaves successor of his throne : Though long before liis final exit hence. He vas himself an abdicated Prince; Disrobed of all regalities of state, Drawn by a Hind and Panther from his seat. Heir to his plays, his fahli;s, and his tales, CoDgreve is the poetic prince of Wales ; Nor at St Germaiiis, hut at Will's, his court. Whither the subjects of his dad resort ; Where plots are hatch'd, and councils yet unknown, Ho-w young Ascanius may ascend the throne, That in despite of all the muses' laws. He may revenge his injured father's cause. Go, nauseous rhymers, into darkness go. And view your monarch in the shades below. Who takes not now from Helicon his driak. But sips from Stys a liqitor black as ink; l3o LIFI' OF JOHN DRYDEN. Collier, but Avith more courteous Aveapons : it is rather a palliation than a defence of dra- matic immorality, and contains nothinj^ per- sonally offensive to Collier. — Thus so dearly was Dryden's pre-eminent reputation pur- chased, that even his last hours Avere embit- tered Avith controversy; and nature, over- watched and worn out, was, like a besieged garrison, forced to obey the call to arms, and defend reputation even with the verv last exertion of the vital spirit. The approach of death was not, however, Like Sisypljus, a restless stone he turns, And in a pile ol his own labours burns; Whose curlinjj (laiucs most ghastly fiends do raise, Su|i))licd with fuel from his impious plays; Andwhen he fain woisld puff away the flame. One stops his mouth with bawdy Limberham; There, to augment the terrors of the place, His Hind and Panther stare him in the face ; They grin like devils at the cursed toad, Who made him draw on earth so vile a load. Could some infernal jiainler draw the sight, And once transmit it to the realms of light. It might our jioets from their sins affright: Or could iliey hear, how there the sous of verse In dismal yells their tortures do express; How scorch'd with liali-ads on the Stygian shore, They horrors in a dismal chorus roar; Or see how the laureate does his grandeur bear, Crown'd with a wreath of flaming sulphur there : This, sir *s, your fate, cursed critics you oppose. The most tyrannical and cruel foes; Dryden, their huntsman dead, no more he wounds, Bui now you must engage his pack of hounds. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. j3r SO gradual as might have been expected from the poet's chronic diseases. He had long suf- fered Loth by the gout and gvavel, and more lately the erysipelas seized one of his legs. To a shattered frame and a corpulent habit, the most trifling accident is often fatal. A slight inflammation in one of his toes became, from neglect, a gangrene. Mr Hobbes, an eminent surgeon, to prevent mortification, proposed to amputate the limb; but Dryden, who had no reason to be in love with life, refused the chance of prolonging it by a doubtful and painful operation. ' After a short interval, the catastrophe expected by Mr Hobbes took plaoCy^ and Dryden, not long surviving the conse- quences, left life on Wednesday morning, ist May, lyoo, at three o'clock. He seems to Tiave been sensible till nearly his last moments, and died in the Roman Catholic faith, with submission and entire resignation to the di- vine will ; n taking of his friends," says Mrs Creed, one of the sorrowful number, « so tender and obliging a farewell, as none but he himself could have expressed.)) The death of a man like Dryden, especially ■ Accordiug to "Ward, his expressions were, • that he was an old man, and had not long to live by course of nature, and therefore did not care to part with one limb, at such an age, to preserve an uncomfortable life on the rest. 'I — London Spy^ Part XVIII. 1 32 LIFE OF JOHN DIIYDEN. in narrow and neglected circumstances, is usually an alarum-bell to the public. Unavail- ing and mutual reproacbes, for unthankful and pitiless negligence, waste themselves in news- paper paragraphs, elegies, and funeral pro- cessions; the debt to genius is then deemed discharged, and a new account of neglect and commemoration is opened between the pub- lic and the next who rises to supply his room. It was thus withDryden, His family were pre- paring to bury him Avith the decency becom- ing their limited circumstances, when Charles Montague, Lord Jefferies, and other men of quality, made a subscription for a public fu- neral. The body of the poet was then removed to the Physicians'Hall, where it was embalmed, and lay in state till the i3th day of May, twelve days after the decease. On that day, the celebrated Dr Garth pronounced a Latin oration over the remains of his departed friend ; which were then, with considerable state, preceded by a band of music, and at- tended by a numerous procession of carriages, tiansported to Westminster Abbey, and de- posited between the graves of Chaucer and Cowley. The malice of Dryden's contemporaries, which he had experienced through life, at- tempted to turn into burlesque these funeral honours. Farquhar, tlie comic dramatist, wrote a letter containing a ludicrous account of the LIFE OF JOHN IJRYnEN. 1 33 funeral; ' in which, as Mr Malone most justly remarks, he only sought to amuse his fair cor- respondent by an assemblage of ludicrous and antithetical expressions and ideas, which, when accurately examined, express little more than the bustle and confusion which attends every funeral procession of uncommon splendour. Upon this ground - work, Mrs Thomas (the Corfnna of Pope and Cromw ell) raised, at the distance of thirty years, the marvellous struc- ture of fable, which has been copied by all Dryden's biographers, till the industry of Mr Malone has sent it, with other figments of the same lady, to « the grave of all the Capu- lets.)'^ She appears to have been something ' <■ I come now from Mr Dryden's funeral, where we had an Ode in Horace sung, instead of David's Psahns ; whence you may find, that we don't think a poet worth Christian buriah The pomp of the ceremony was a kind of rhap- sody, and fitter, I tliiiik, for Hudibras, than him, because the cavalcade wps mostly burlesque: but he was an extra- ordinary man, and buried after an extraordinary fashion ; for I do believe there was never such another burial seen. The oration, indeed, was great and ingenious, worthy the subject, and like the author ; whose prescriptions can re- store the living, and his pen embalm the dead. And so much for Mr Dryden, whose burial was the same as his life, — variety, and not of a piece: — the quality and mob, farce and heroics ; the sublime and ridicule mixed in a piece; — great Cleopatra in a hackney coach." ' It was first published in "Wilson's Life of Congrevc, » 1 73o. Mr Malone has successfully shown that it is false in almost ail its parts: for, independently of the extreme !34 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. assisted by a burlesque account of the funeral, imputed by Mr Malone to Tom Brown, who certainly continued to insult Drydcn's memory whenever an opportunity offered.' Indeed, improbability of the whole story, it is clear, from Ward's account, written at the time, that Lord Jcfferies, who it is pretended interrupted the funeral, did, in fact, largely contribute to it. This also appears from a paragragh, in -1 letter from Doctor, afterwards Bishop Tanner, dated May 6th, 1700, and thus given by Mr Malone : — « Mr Dry- den died a papist, if at all a Christian. Mr Montague had given orders to bury him ; but some lords (my Lord Dorset, Jefferies, etc.) thinking it would not be splendid enough, ordered him to be carried to Russell's : there he was em- balmed, and now lies in state at the Physicians' College, and is to be buried with Chaucer, Cowley, etc. at West- minster Abbey, on Monday next.ii MSS. Ballard, in Bibl. Bodl. vol. IV. p. 29. ' The following lines are given by Mr Malone as a spe- cimen : « Before the hearse the mourning hautboys go, And screech a dismal sound of grief and woe : More dismal notes from bogtrotters may fail. More dismal plaints at Irish funeral; But no such floods of tears e'er stopp'd our tide, Since Charles, the martyr and the monarch, died. The decency and order first describe, Without regard to either sex or tribe. The sable coaches led the dismal van. But by their side, I think, few footmen ran; Nor needed these ; the rabble fill the streets, And mob with mob in great disorder meets. See next the coaches, how they are accouter'd, Both in the inside, eke and on the outward : One p — y spark, one sound as any roach, One poet and two fiddlers in a coach: LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 1 35 Mrs Thomas herself quotes this last respect- able authority. It iiuist be a well-conducted and uncommon public ceremony, where the philosopher can find nothing to condemn, nor the satirist to ridicule; yet, to our imagination, what can be more striking, than the proces- sion o.f talent and rank, which escorted the remains of Dryden to the tomb of Chaucer! The private character of the individual, his personal appearance, and rank in society, are the circumstances which generally interest the public most immediately upon his decease. We are enabled, from the various paintings and engravings of Dryden, as well as from the less flattering delineations of the satirists of his time, to form a tolerable idea of his face and person. In youth, he appears to have been handsome, ' and of a pleasing counte- nance; when his age was more advanced, he was corpulent and florid, which procured him the nick-name attached to him by Rochester. ^ In his latter days, distress and disappointment probably chilled the fire of his eye, and the advance of age destroyed the animation of his The playhouse drab, that beats the beggar's bush, By every body kiss'd, good troth, — but such is Now her good fate, to ride with mistress Duchess. Was e'er immortal poet thus buffoon'd ! In a long line of coaches thus lampoon'd!» ■ Page 78. =■ .Poet Squab.* P. i83. l36 LIFE Of" JOHN DRYDEN. countenance. ' Still, however, his portraits bespeak the look and features of genius; es- pecially that in which he is drawn with his waving grey hairs. In disposition and moral character, Dryden is represented as most amiable, by ail who had access to know him; and his works, as well as letters, bear evidence to the justice of their panegyric. Congreve's character of the poet was drawn doubtless favourably, yet it contains points which demonstrate its fidelity. a Whoever shall censure me, I dare be con- fident, you, my lord, will excuse me for any thing that I shall say with due regard to a gentleman, for whose person I had as just an affection as I have an admiration of his writ- ' From « Epigrams on the Paintings of the most emi- nent Masters," by J. E. (John Elsum), Esq. 8vo. 1700, Mr Malone gives the following lines : The Effigies of MrDRTnEN, by Closterman, Epirj. clxiv. « A sleepy eye he shows, and no sweet feature, Yet was indeed a favourite of nature : Endow'd and graced with an exalted mind, With store of wit, and that of every kind. Juvenal's tartness, Horace's sweet air, With Virgil's force, in him concenter'd were. But though the painter's art can never show it. That his examplar was so great a poet. Yet are the lines and tints so suhtly wrought, You may perceive he was a man of thought. Closterman, 't is confess'd, has drawn him well, But short of Ahsalom and Achitophel. " LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN, /.l" ings. And indeed Mr Dryden had personal qualities to challenge both love and esteem from alt ^vho \\ere tridy acquainted Avith him. « He was of a nature exceedingly humane and compassionate; easily forgiving injuries, and capable of a prompt and sincere reconci- liation with them who had offended him. « Such a temperament is the only solid foun- dation of all moral virtues and social endow- ments. His friendship, where he professed it, went much beyond his professions ; and I have been told of strong and generous instances of it by the persons themselves who received them, though his hereditary income was little more than a bare competency. « As his reading had been vexy extensive, so was he very happy in a memory tenacious of every thing that he had read. He was not more possessed of knowledge, than he was communicative of it. But then his communi- cation of it was by no means pedantic, or im- posed upon the conversation ; but just such, and went so far, as, by the natural turns of the discourse in which he was engaged, it was necessarily promoted or required. He was extreme ready and gentle in his correction of the errors of any writer who thought fit to consult him ; aud full as ready and patient to admit of the reprehension of others, in respect of his own oversight or mistakes. He was of very easy, I may say, of very pleasing access ; 6. l38 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. but something slow, and, as it were, diffident in his advances to others. He had something in his nature, that abhorred intrusion into any society whatsoever. Indeed, it is to be re- gretted, that he was rather blameable in the other extreme; for, by that means, he was personally less known, and, consequently, his character might become liable both to misap- prehensions and misrepresentations. « To the best of my knowledge and obser- vation, he was, of all the men that ever I knew, one of the most modest, and the most easily to be discountenanced in his approaches either to his superiors or his equals. » This portrait is from the pen of friendship; yet, if we consider all the circumstances of Dryden's life, we cannot deem it much exag- gerated. For about forty years, his character, personal and literary, was the object of assault by every subaltern scribbler, titled or untitled, laureated or pilloried. « My morals, » he him- self has said, «have been sufficiently aspersed; that only sort of reputation, which ought to be dear to every honest man, and is to me.» In such an assault, no weapon would remain un- handled, no charge, true or false, unpreferred, providing it was but plausible. Such qualities, therefore, as Ave do not, in such circumstances, find excepted against, must surely be admitted to pass to the credit of Dryden. His change of political opinion, from the time he entered LIFE OF JOHN nRYRKN. iSq life under the protection of a favourite of Cromwell, might have argued instahility, if he had changed a second time, when the current of power and popular opinion set against the doctrines of the Reformation. As it is, we must hold Dryden to have acted from con- viction, since personal interest, had that been the ruling motive of his political conduct, would have operated as strongly in 1688 as in 1660. The change of his religion we have elsewhere discussed ; and endeavoured to show, that, although Dryden was unfortunate in adopting the more corrupted form of our religion, yet considered relatively, it was a fortunate and laudable conviction which led him from tke mazes of scepticism to become a catholic of the communion of Rome. ^ It would be vain to maintain, that in his early career he was free from the follies and vices of a dissolute period; but the absence of every positive charge, and the silence of numerous accusers, may be a(hnitted to prove, that he partook in them more from general example than inclination, and with a moderate, rather than voracious or undistinguishing appetite. It nuist be admitted, that he sacrificed to the Belial or Asmodeus of the age, in his writings ; and that he formed his taste upon the licentious and gay society with which he mingled. Bus ' See vol. II. page 6. l4o LIFE OF JOHN nr.YDEN. we have the testimony of one who knew Iiini well, that, hov/ever loose his comedies, the temper of the author was modest ; ' his in- delicacy was like the forced impudence of a bashful man; and Rochester has accordingly iiphraided him, that his licentiousness was neither natural nor seductive. Dryden had unfortunately conformed enough to the taste of his age, to attempt that « nice mode of wit, » as it is termed by the said noble author, whose name has become inseparably connected with it; but it sate awkwardly upon his natural modesty, and in general sounds impertinent, as well as disgusting. The clumsy phraseology of Burnet, in passing censure on the immorality of the stage, after the Restoration, terms « Dry- den, the greatest master of dramatic poesy, a monster of immodesty and of impurity of all sorts. 'J The expression called forth the ani- mated defence of Granville, Lord Lansdowne, our author's noble friend. « All who knew hin^,>> said Lansdowne, « can testify this was not his character. He was so much a stranger ' A correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine, in 1745, already quoted, says ofliim as a personal acquaint- ance: « Posterity is absolutely mistaken as to that great man : though forced to be a satirist, he was the mildest creature breathing, and the readiest to help the young and deserving. Though his comedies are horribly full of double entendre^ yet 't was owing to a false complai- sance. He was, in company, the modestcst man that «vcr conversed.* LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. l^t to immodesty, tliat modesty in too great a degree ^\as his failing : he hurt his fortune by it, he complained of it, and never could over- come it. He was," adds he, « esteemed, courted, and admired, by all the great men of tlie age in which he lived, who would certain- ly not have received into friendship a monster, abandoned to all sorts of vice and impurity. His writings will do immortal honour to his name and country, and his poems last as long, if I may have leave to say it, as the Bishop's sermons, supposing them to be equally ex- cellent in their kind.» ' The Bishop's youngest son, Thomas Burnet, in replying to Lord Lansdowne, explained his father's last expressions as limited to Dryden's plays, and showed, by doing so, that there was no foundation for fixing this gross and dubious charge upon his private moral character. Dryden's conduct as a father, husband, and master of a family, seems to have been affec- tionate, faithful, and, so far as his cirumstances admitted, liberal and benevolent. The whole tenor of his correspondence bears witness to his paternal feelings ; and even when he was obliged to have recourse to Tonson's imme- diate assistance to pay for the presents he sent them, his affection vented itself in that manner. ' Leiter to the author of u Reflections Histurical and Political. » 4^o> 1732. l42 LIFE OF JOHN DIIYDEN. As a husband, if Lady Elizabeth's pecuharities of temper precluded the idea of a warm attach- ment, he is not upbraided with neglect or in- fidelity by any of his thousand assailants. As a landlord, Mr Malone has informed us, on the authority of Lady Dryden, that « his little estate at Blakesley is at this day occupied by one Harriots, grandson of the tenant who held it in Dryden's time ; and he relates, that his grandfather was used to take great pleasiu'c in talking of our poet. He was, he said, the easiest and the kindest landlord in the world, and never raised the rent during the whole time he possessed the estate » Some circumstances, however, may seem to degrade so amiable a private, so sublime a poetical character. The license of his comedy, as we have seen, had for it only the apology of universal example, and must be lamented, though not excused. Let us, however, re- member, that if in the hey-day of the merry monarch's reign, Dryden ventured to maintain, that, the prime end of poetry being pleasure, the muses ought not to be fettered by the chains of strict decorum ; yet in his more ad- vanced and sober mood he evinced sincere repentance for his trespass^ by patient and un- resisting submission to the coarse and rigorous chastisement of Collier. If it is alleged, that, in the fury of his loyal satire, he was not always solicitous concerning its justice, let us make LIFE OF JOHN DIIYDI-N. 1 43 allowance for the prejudice of party, and con- sider at what advantajje, after the lapse of more than a century, and throujjh the medium of impartial history, we now view characters, who Avere only known to their contemporaries as zealous partisans of an opposite and detested faction. The moderation of Dryden's repri- sals, when provoked hy the grossest calumny and personal insult, ought also to plead in his favour. Of the hundreds who thus assailed, not only his literary, hut his moral reputation, he has distinguished Settle and Shadwell alone hy an elaborate retort. Those who look into Mr Luttrel's collections will at once see the extent of Dryden's sufferance, and the limited degree of his retaliation. The extreme flattery of Dryden's dedications has been objected to him, as a fault of an op- posite description; and perhaps no writer has equalled him in the profusion and elegance of his adulation. « Of this kind of meanness," says Johnson, « he never seems to decline the practice, or lament the necessity. He con- siders the great as entitled to encomiastic homage, and brings praise rather as a tribute than a gift; more delighted with the fertility of his invention, than mortified by the prosti- tution of his judgment.)) It may be noticed, in palliation of this heavy charge, that the form of addi'ess to superiors must be judged of by the manners of the times ; and that the 1 44 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. adulation contained in dedications was then as much a matter of course, as the words of submissive style which still precede the sub- scription of an ordinary letter. It is pro- bable, that Dryden considered his panegyrics as merely conforminfj with th€ fashion of the day, and rendering unto Caesar the things which were Caesar's, — attended with no more degrada- tion than the payment of any other tribute to the forms of politeness and usage of the world. Of Dryden's general habits of life we can form a distinct idea, from the evidence assem- bled by Mr Malone. His mornings were spent in study ; he dined with his family, probably about two o'cloclc After dinner he went usually to Will's Coffee-house, the famous ren- dezvous of the wits of the time, where he had his established chair by the chimney in winter, and near the balcony in summer, whence he pronounced, ex cathedra, his opinion upon new publications, and, in general, upon all matters of dubious criticism.' Latterly, all ' From the poem in the passage last quoted, it seems that the original sign of "Will's Coffee-house had been a cow. It was changed, however, to a rose^ in Dryden's time. This wits' coffee-house was situated at the end of Bow-street, on the north side of Russell-street, and fre- quented by all who made any pretence to literature, or cjiticism. Their company, it would seem, was attended with more honour than proHt; for Dennis describes Wil- liam Erwin, or Urwin, who kept the house, as taking refuge in Wliitefriars, then a place of asylum, to escape LIFE OF JOHN DRYJ)EN. 14^ who had occasion to ridicule or attack him, re- present him as presiding in this little senate. His opinions, however, were not maintained with dogmatism ; and we have an instance, in a pleasing anecdote told by Dr Lockier,' that Dryden readily listened to criticism, provided it Avas just, from whatever unexpected and the clutches of his creditors. "For since the Iaw,» says the critic, « thought it just to put Will out of its protec- tion, "Will thought it but pruJent to put himself out of its power. » ' The Dean of Peterborough — «Iwas,» says he, « about seventeen when I first came to town; an odd-looking boy, with short rough hair, and that sort of awkwardness which one always brings out of the country with one : however, in spite of my bashfulness and appearance, I used now and then to thrust myself into Will's, to have the plea- sure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who used to resort thither. The second time that ever I was there, Mr Dryden was speaking of his own things, as he frequently did, especially of such as had been lately pub- lished. ' If any thing of mine is good,' says he, ' 't is my Mac-Flecknoe ; and I value myself the more on it, be- cause it is the first piece of ridicule written in heroics.' Lockier, overhearing this, plucked up his spirit so far as to say, in a voice just loud enough to be heard, that Mac-Flecknoe was a very fine poem, but that he had not imagined it to be the first that ever was wrote that way. On this Dryden turned short upon him, as surprised at his interposing ; asked him how long he had been a dealer in poetry, and added, with a smile, — 'But pray, sir, what is it, that you did imagine to have been writ so before?' Lockier named Boileau's Lutrin, and Tassoni's Secchia Rapita, which he had read, and knew Dryden had bor- rowed some strokes from each. ''T is true,' says Dryden ; VOL. n. 7 1^6 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. undignified quarter it happened to come. In general, however, it may he supposed, that few ventured to dispute his opinion, or place themselves in the gap between him and the object of his censure. He was most falsely accused of carrying literary jealousy to such a length, as feloniously to encourage Creech to venture on a translation of Horace, that he might lose the character he had gained by a version of Lucretius. But this is positively contradicted, upon the authority of Southerne.' We have so often stopped in our narrative of Dryden's life to notice the respectability of — ' I had forgot them.' A little after, Dryden went out, and in going spoke to Lockier again, and desired him to come to him the next day. Lockier was highly delighted with the invitation, and was well acquainted with him as long as he lived.)) — Maloke, vol. I. p. 481. ' « I have often heard, )> says Mr George Russell, « that Mr Dryden, dissatisfied and envious at the reputation Creech obtained by his translation of Lucretius, purposely advised him to undertake Horace, to which he knew him unequal, that he might by his ill performance lose the fame he had acquired. Mr Southerne, author of ' Oroonoko,' set me right as to the conduct of Mr Dryden in this affair ; af- firming, that being one evening at Mr Dryden's lodgings, in company with Mr Creech, and some other ingenious men, Mr Creech told the company of his design to trans- late Horace ; from w hich Mr Dryden, with many arguments, dissuaded him, as an attempt which his genius was not adapted to, and which would risk his losing the good opi- nion the world had of him, by his successful translation of Lucretius. I thought it proper to acquaint you with this circumstance, since it rescues the fame of one of our LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. l/fy his general society, that httle need here be said on the subject. A contemporary authority, the reference to ^vhich I have mislaid, says, that Dryden was shy and silent in society, till a moderate circulation of the bottle had remov- ed his natural reserve, and that he frequently justified this degree of conviviality by saying, "there was no deceit in a brimmer." But, although no enemy to conviviality, Dryden is pronounced by Pope to have been regular in his hours, in comparison with Addison, who, otherwise, lived the same coffee-house course of life. He has himself told us, that he was « saturnine and reserved, and not one of those who endeavour to entertain company by lively sallies of merriment and wit;" and an adver- sary has put into his mouth this couplet : Nor wine nor love could ever see me gay ; To writing bred, I knew not what to say. Dryden's Satire to his Muse. But the admission of the author, and the censure of the satirist, must be received with some limitation. Dryden was thirty years old before he was freed from the fetters of puritan- greatest poets from the imputation of envy and malevo- lence." Yet Jacob Tonson told Spence, "that Dryden would compliment Crowne when a play of his failed, but was cold to him if he met with success. He used sometimes to say, that Crowne had some genius ; but then he always added, that his father and Crowne's mother were very well acquainted." — Malone, vol. I. p. 5oo. l48 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. ism; and if the habits of lively expression in society are not acquired before that age, they are seldom gained afterward. But this applies only to the deficiency of repartee, in the sharp encounter of wit which was fashionable at the court of Charles, and cannot be understood to exclude Dryden's possessing the more solid qualities of agreeable conversation, arising from a memory profoundly stocked with knowledge, and a fancy which supplied modes of illus- tration faster than the author could use them.' Some few sayings of Dryden have been, how- ever, preserved ; which, if not witty, are at least jocose. He is said to have been the original author of the repartee to the Duke of Buck- ingham, who, in bowling, offered to lay « his soul to a turnip," or something still more vile. « Give me the odds,» said Dryden, « and I take the bet.» When his wife wished to be a ' His conversation is thus characterized by a contempo- rary writer : « O Sir, there 's a medium in all things. Silence and chat are distant enough, to have a convenient discourse come between them; and thus far I agree with you, that the company of the author of ' Absalom and Achitophel' is more valuable, though not so talkative, than that of the modern men of banter ; for what he says is like what he writes, much to the purpose, and full of mighty sense ; and if the town were for any thing desirable, it were for the conversation of him, and one or two more of the same character." — The Humours and Conversation of the Town exposed, in two Dialogues, iGgS, p. yS. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 1 49 book, that she might enjoy more of his com- pany, « Be an ahuanack then, my dear,» said the poet, n that I may change you once a-year.» Another time, a friend expressing his asto- nishment that even D'Urfey could write such stuff as a play they had just witnessed, "Ah, sir,w replied Dryden, «You do not know my friend Tom so well as I do; Til answer for him, he can wi?ite worse yet.» None of these anecdotes intimate great brilliancy of repartee; but that Dryden, possessed of such a fund of imagination, and acquired learning, should be dull in conversation, is impossible. He is known frequently to have regaled his friends, by communicating to them a part of his la- bours ; but his poetry suffered by his recita- tion. He read his productions very ill;' owing, perhaps, to the modest reserve of his temper, w hich prevented his showing an ani- mation in which he feared his audience might not participate. The same circumstance may have repressed the liveliness of his conversa- tion. I know not, however, whether we are, with Mr Malone, to impute to diffidence his ' "When Dryden, our First great master of verse and harmony, brought his play of ' Amphitryon' to the stage, I lieard him give it his first reading to the actors, in which, though it is true he delivered the plain sense of every pe- riod, yet the whole was in so cold, so flat, and unaffecting a manner, that I am afraid of not being believed, when I affirm it.u — Gibbers Apology^ ^to- I So LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. general habit of consultinjy his literary friends upon his poems, before they became pubHc, since it might as well arise from a wish to an- ticipate and soften criticism." Of Dryden's learning, his works form the best proof. He had read Polybius before he was ten years of age; and was doubtless well acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics. But from these studies he could descend to read romances ; and the present editor records with pride, that Dryden was a decided admi- rer of old ballads, and popular tales. ^ His researches sometimes extended into the vain province of judicial astrology, in which he was a firm believer; and there is reason to think that he also credited divination by dreams. In the country, he delighted in the pastime of fishing, and used, says Mr Malone, to spend some time with Mr Jones of Rams- den, in Wiltshire. D'Urfey was sometimes of this party ; but Dryden appears to have under- valued his skill in fishing, as much as his ' See page i3o. ^ « r find," says Gildon, « Mr Bayes, the younger [Rowe], has two quahlies, hke Mr Bayes, the elder; his admiration of some odd books, as ' Reynard the Fox,' and the old bal- lads of 'Jane Shore,' etc. — Remarks on Mr Rowe's Plays. 'Reynard the Fox', is also mentioned in 'The Town and Country Mouse', as a favourite book of Dryden's. And Addison, in the 85th number of the Spectator, informs us, that Dorset and Dryden delighted in perusing the collection of old ballads which the latter possessed. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. l5l attempts at poetry. Hence Fenton, in his epistle to Mr Lambard : « Bv lonp experience, D'Urfey may no doubt Ensnare a {judgeon, or sometimes a trout; Yet Dryden once exclaim'd, in partial spite, ' He Jisli !' — because the man attempts to write. » I may conclude this notice of Dryden's ha- bits, Avhich I have been enabled to give chiefly by the researches of Mr Malone, with two no- tices of a minute nature. Dryden was a great taker of snuff, which he prepared himself. Moreover, as a preparation to a course of study, he usually took medicine, and observeda cool- ing diet. Dryden's house, which he appears to have lesided in from the period of his marriage till his death, was in Gerard-street, the fifth on the left hand coming from Little Newport- street. The back windows k)oked upon the gardens of Leicester-House, of which circum- stance our poet availed himself to pay a hand- some compliment to the noble owner. His excursions to the country seem to have been frequent; perhaps the more so, as T^ady Eliza- beth always remained in town. In his latter davs the friendship of his relations, John Dri- den of Chesterton, and Mrs Steward of Cot- terstock, rendered their houses agreeable places of abode to the aged poet. They appear also to have had a kind solicitude about his little 1 52 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. comforts, of value intinitely beyond the con- tributions which they made towards aiding them. And thus concludes all that we have learned of the private life of Dryden. The fate of Dryden's family must necessa- rily interest the admirers of English literature. It consisted of his wife, Lady Elizabeth Dry- den, and three sons, John, Charles, and Erasmus-Henry. Upon the poet's death, it may be believed, they felt themselves slen- derly provided for, since all his efforts, while alive, were necessary to secure them from the gripe of penury. Yet their situation was not very distressing. John and Erasmus-Henry were abroad; and each had an office at Rome, by which he was able to support himself. Charles had for some time been entirely de- pendent on his father, and administered to his effects, as he died without a will. The libe- rality of the Duchess of Ormond, and of Dri- den of Chesterton, had been lately received, and probably was not expended. There was, besides, the poet's little patrimonial estate, and a small property in Wiltshire, which the Earl of Berkshire settled upon Lady Elizabeth at her marriage, and which yielded Sol. or 6ol. annually. There was therefore an in- come of about lool. a-year, to maintain the poet's widow and children; enough in those times to support them in decent frugality. Lady Elizabeth Dryden's temper had long LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 1 53 disturbed her husband's domestic happiness. « His invectives," says Mr Malone, « against the married state, are frequent and bitter, and were continued to the latest period of his hfe;» and he adds, from most respectable authority, that the family of the poet held no intimacy with his lady, confining their inter- course to mere visits of ceremony. A similar alienation seems to have taken place between her and her own relations. Sir Robert Howard, perhaps, being excepted; for her brother, the Honourable Edward Howard, talks of Dryden's being engaged in a translation of Virgil, as a thing he had learned merely by common re- port.' Her wayward disposition was, howe- ver, the effect of a disordered imagination, which, shortly after Dryden's death, degene- rated into absolute insanity, in which state she remained until her death ki summer 1714, probably, says Mr Malone, in the seventy-ninth year of her life. Dryden's three sons, says the inscription by Mrs Greed, were ingenious and accomplished gentlemen. Charles, the eldest, and favourite son of the poet, was born at Charlton, Wiltshire, in 1666. He received a classical education un- der Dr Busby, his father s preceptor, and was chosen King's Scholar in 1680. Being elected to Trinity College in Cambridge, he was ad- ■ P. 90. 1 54 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. mitted a member in i683. It would have been difficult for the son of Dryden to refrain from attempting poetry; but though Charles escaped the fate of Icarus, he was very, very far from emidating his father's soaring flight. Mr Malone has furnished a list of his composi- tions in Latin and English.' About 1692, he went to Italy, and through the interest of Car- dinal Howard, to whom he was related by the mother s side, he became Chamberlain of the Household ; not, as Corinna pretends, « to that remarkably Jine gentleman _, Pope Clement XI." but to Pope Innocent XII. His way to this preferment was smoothed by a pedigree drawn up in Latin by his father, of the families of Dryden and Howard, which is said to have been deposited in the Vatican. Dryden, whose turn for judicial astrology we have noticed, had calculated the nativity of his son Charles ; and it would seem, that a part of his predic- tions were fortuitously fulfdled. Charles, however, having suffered, while at Rome, by ' These are, r. Latin verses, prefixed to Lord Roscom- mon's Essay on Translated Verse. 2. Latin verses on the Death of Charles IL pubhshed in the Cambridge collection of Elegies on that occasion. 3. A poem in the same lan- guage, upon Lord Arlington's Gardens, published in the Second Miscellany. 4- A translation of the seventh Satire of Juvenal, mentioned in the text. 5. An English poem, on the Happiness of a Retired Life. 6. A pretty song, printed by Mr Malone, to which Charles Dryden also com- posed music. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. I 55 a fall, and his health, in consequence, heing much injured, hi& father prognosticated he would begin to recover in the month of Sep- tember 1697. The issue did no great credit to the prediction ; for young Dryden returned to England in 1698 in the same indifferent state of health, as is obvious from the anxious solicitude with which his father always men- tions Charles in his correspondence. Upon the poet's death, Charles, we have seen, admi- nistered to his effects on loth June, 1 700, Lady Elizabeth, his mother, renouncing the succes- sion. In the next year, Granville conferred on him the profits arising from the author's night of an alteration of Shakspeare's "Merchant of Venice ;» and his liberality to the son of one great bard may be admitted to balance his pre- sumption, in manufacturing a new drama out of the labours of another.' Upon the 20th ' Tlie piologue was spoken by the ghosts of Shakspeare and Dryden ; from which JNIr Malone selects the following curious quotation: — « Mr Bevil Higgons, the writer of it, ventured to make the representative of our great dramatic poet speak these lines ! 11 These sccQes in their rough native dress were mine ; But now, improved, with nobler lustre shine: The first rude sketches Shakspeare's pencil drew, But all the shining mnsler-strokcs are nrio. This play, ye critics, shall your fury staud, Adorned and rescued by a faultless hand.» To which our author replies, i< I long endeavour'd to support the stage, With the faint copies of thy nobler rage. But toil'd in vain for an ungenerous age. l56 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. August, I 704, Charles Dryden was drowned, in an attempt to swim across the Thames, at Datchet, near Windsor. I have degraded into the Appendix, the romantic narrative of Go- rinna, concerninghis father's prediction, alrea- dy mentioned. It contains, like her account of the funeral of the poet, much positive false- hood, and gross improbability, with some slight scantling of foundation in fact. John Dryden, the poet's second son, was born in 1667, or 1668, was admitted a King's Scholar in Westminster in 1682, and elected to Oxford in 1 685. Here he became a private pupil of the celebrated Obadiah Walker, Master of University College, a Roman Ca- tholic. It seems probable that young Dryden became a convert to that faith before his father. His religion making it impossible for him to succeed in England, he followed his brother Charles to Rome, where he officiated as his deputy in the Pope's household. John Dryden translated the fourteenth Satire of Juvenal, published in liis father's version, and wrote a comedy entitled. « The Husband his own Cuckold," acted in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields in 1696; Dryden, the father, furnishing a pro- logue, and Congreve an epilogue. In 1 700- J, They starved ine living ; nay, deuied me fame. And scarce, now dead, do justice to my name. Would you repent? Be to my ashes kind ; Indulge the pledges 1 have left behind. » Malo.ve. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. iSy he made a tour through Sicily and Malta, and his journal was published in 1 706. It seems odd, that in the whole course of his journal, he never mentions his father's name, nor makes the least allusion to his very recent death. John Dryden, the younger, died at Rome soon after this excursion. Erasmus -Henry, Dryden's third son, was born 2d May, 1669, and educated in the Charter-House, to which he was nominated by Charles H., shortly after the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel.»' He does not appear to have been at any university; pro- bably his religion was the obstacle. Like his brothers, he went to Rome; and as both his father and mother request his prayers, we are to suppose he was originally destined for the church. But he became a captain in the Pope's guards, and remained at Rome till John Dryden, his elder brother's death. After this event, he seems to have returned to Eng- land, and in 1708 succeeded to the title of Baronet, as representative of Sir P>asmus Driden, the author's grandfather. But the estate of Canons-Ashby, which should have accompanied and supported the title, had been devised by Sir Robert Driden, the poet's first cousin, to Edward Dryden, the eldest son of Erasmus, the younger brother of the poet, ' Page 229. i58 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. Thus, if the author had lived a few years longer, his pecuniary embarrassments would have been embittered by his succeeding to the honours of his family, without any means of sustaining the rank they gave him. With this Edward Di^yden, Sir Erasmus -Henry seems to have resided until his death, which took place at the family mansion of Canons-Ashby in 1710. Edward acted as a manager of his cousin's affairs; and Mr Malone sees reason to think, from their mode of accounting, that Sir Erasmus-Henry had, like his mother, been visited with mental derangement before his death, and had resigned into Edward's hands the whole management of his concerns. Thus ended the poet's family, none of his sons surviving him above ten years. The estate of Canons-Ashby became again united to the title, in the person of John Dryden, the sur- viving brother. ' ' Mr Malone says, « Edward Dryden, the eldest son of the last Sir Erasmus Dryden, left by his wife, Elizabeth Allen, who died in London in 1 76 1 , five sons ; the youngest of whom, Bevil, was father of the present Lady Dryden. Sir John, the eldest, survived all his brothers, and died without issue, at Canons-Ashby, March 20, i770.» SECTION VIII. The State of Dryden's Reputation at his Death, and af- terwards — Tlie general Character of his Mind — His Merit as a Dramatist — As a Lyrical Poet — As a Satirist — As a Narrative Poet — As a Philosophical and Miscellaneous Poet — As a Translator — As a Prose Author — As a Critic. If Dryden received but a slender share of the gifts of fortune, it was amply made up to him in reputation. Even while a poet militant upon earth, he received no ordinary portion of that applause, which is too often reserved for the "dull cold ear of death. « He com- bated, it is true, but he conquered; and, in despite of faction, civil and religious, of pe- nury, and the contempt which follows it, of degrading patronage, and rejected solicitation, from 1 666 to the year of his death, the name of Dryden was first in English literature. Nor was his fame limited to Britain. Of the French literati, although Boileau, ' with unworthy ' Life and Works of Arthur Maynwaring, 1 7 1 5, p. 17. l6o LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. affectation, when he heard of the honours paid to the poet's remains, pretended igno- rance even of his name, yet Rapin, the fa- mous critic, learned the English language on purpose to read the works of Dryden. • Sir John Shad well, the son of our author s ancient adversary, bore an honourable and manly testimony to the general regret among the men of letters at Paris for the death of Dry- den. «The men of letters here lament the loss of Mr Dryden very much. The honours paid to him have done our countrymen no small service ; for, next to having so consider- able a man of our own growth, 'tis a repu- tation to have known how to value him; as patrons very often pass for wits, by esteeming those that are so.» And from another au- thority we learn, that the engraved copies of Dryden's portrait were bought up with avidity on the Continent.^ But in England the loss of Dryden was as a national deprivation. It is seldom the ex- tent of such a loss is understood till it has taken place; as the size of an object is best estimated when we see the space void which ' So says Charles Blount, in the dedication to the Reli- gio Laid. He is contradicted by Tom Brown. - In a poem published on Dryden's death, by Brome, written, as Mr Malone conjectures, hy Captain Gibbon, son of the physician. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. l6l it has lon{5 occupied. The men of literature, starting as it were from a dream, began to heap commemorations, panegyrics, and ele- gies : the great were as much astonished at their own neglect of such an object of bounty, as if the same omission had never been prac- tised before; and expressed as much com- punction, as it were never to occur again. The poets were not silent; but their strains only evinced their woful degeneracy from him whom they mourned. Henry Playford, a publisher of music, collected their effusions into a compilation, entitled, «Luctus Britan- nici, or the Tears of the British Muses, for the death of John Dryden; » which he pub- lished about two months after Dryden's death.' Nine ladies, assuming each the cha- ' In "The Postboy," for Tuesday, May 7, 1700, Play- ford inserted the following advertisement : « The death of the famous John Dryden, Esq., Poet Lau- reat to their two late Majesties, Kmg Charles, and King James the Second, being a subjett capable of employing the best pens ; and several persons of quality, and others, having put a stop to his interment, which is designed to lie in Chaucer's grave, in Westminster-Abbey ; this is to desire the gentlemen of the two famous Universities, and others, who have a respect for the memory of the deceas- ed, and are inclinable to such performances, to send what copies they please, as Epigrams, etc. to Henry Playford, at his shop at theTemple'Change, in Fleet-street, and they shallbe inserted in a Collection, which is desinncd after i62 LIFE OF JOHN DfiYDEN. racter of a Muse, and clubbing a funeral ode, or elegy, produced «The ISine Muses. » The more costly, though equally unsub- stantial, honour of a monument, was projected by Montague; and loud were the acclamations of the poets on his generous forgiveness of past discords with Dryden, and the munifi- cence of this universal patron. But Montague never accomplished his purpose, if he se- riously entertained it. Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, announced the same intention ; received the panegyric of Congreve for hav- ing done so; and, having thus pocketed the applause, proceeded no further than Montague had done. At length Pope, in some lines Avhich were rather an epitaph on Dryden, who lay in the vicinity, than on Rowe, over whose tomb they were to be placed,' roused Dryden's original patron, Sheffield, formerly Earl of Mulgrave, and now Duke of Bucking- ham, to erect over the grave of his friend the the same nature, and in the same method (in what lan- guage they shall please), as is usual in the composures which are printed on solemn occasions, at the tw o Univer- sities aforesaid." This advertisement (with some alterations) was conti- nued for a month in the same paper. ' « Thy reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, And sacred place by Dryden's awful dust : Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes : LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. lb:) present simple monument Avhich distinguishes it. The inscription was comprised in the following words: — J. Dry den. Natus i632. Morluns i Mali 1 700. Joannes Sheffield Dux Buckincfhamiensis yosxiit, 1720.' In the school of reformed English poetry, of which Dryden must he acknowledged as Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest ! Blest in thy genius, in thy love too, blest ! One grateful woman to thy fame supplies, What a whole thankless land to his denies. » ' The epitaph at first intended by Pope for this monu- ment was, « Tills Sheffield raised; the sacred dust below Was Dryden once: — llie rest, who does not know?» Atterbury had thus written to him on this subject, in 1 720 ; « What I said to you in mine, about the monument, was intended only to quicken, not to alarm you. It is not worth your while to know what I meant by it ; but when I see you, you shall. I hope you may be at the Deanery to- wards the end of October, by which time I think of settling there for the winter. What do you think of some such short inscription as this in Latin, which may, in a few words, say all that is to be said of Dryden, and yet no- thing more than he deserves? KJOHANNl DRYDENO, cut POESIS ANGLICANA VIM SUAM Ad VENERES DEBET; ET SI QUA IN POSTERUM AUGEBITUR LAUDE, EST APHUC DEDITURA. HONORIS ERGO P. ETC. !• To show you that I am as much in earnest in the affair l64 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. the founder, there soon arose disciples not unwilhng to be considered as the rivals of their master. Addison had his partisans, who were desirous to hold him up in this point of view ; and he himself is said to have taken pleasure, with the assistance of Steele, to depreciate Dryden, whose fame was defended by Pope and Congreve. No serious invasion of Dryden's pre-eminence can be said, how- ever, to have taken place, till Pope himself, refining upon that structure of versification which our author had first introduced, and as you yourself, something I will send you of this kind in English. If your design holds, of fixing Dryden's name only helow, and his busto above, may not lines like these be graved just under the name? "This Sheffield raised, to Dryden's ashes just; Here Hx'd his name, and there his laurell'd bust : What else tlie Muse in marble might express Is known already : praise would make him less. « Or thus : « More needs not; when acknowledged merits reign, Praise is impertinent, and censure vain. >> The thought, as Mr Malone observes, is nearly the same as in following lines in « Luctus Britannici,» by William Marston, of Trinity College, Cambridge : it In JoANisEM Dryden, poetarum facile principem. Si quis in has aedes intret forlasse viator, Busta poetarum dum veneranda notet, Cernat et exuvias Drydeni, — plura referre Haud opus : ad laudes vox ca sola satis." LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. l65 attending with sedulous diligence to improve every passage to the highest pitch of point and harmony, exhibited a new style of com- position, and claimed at least to share with Dryden the sovereignty of Parnassus. I will not attempt to concentrate what Johnson has said upon this interesting comparison : « In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of inform- ation. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by compre- hensive speculation, and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope. "Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predeces- sor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement l66 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. and rapid ; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation ; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller. «0f genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality, without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy, which collects, combines, amplifies, and ani- mates; the superiority must, with some hesi- tation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred, that of this poetical vigour Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; for every other writer, since Milton, must give place to Pope : and even of Dryden it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dryden's perform- ances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by do- mestic necessity; he composed without con- sideration, and published Avithout correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce, or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher. Pope continues longer on the LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 167 Aving. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope Avith per- petual delight."' As the eighteenth century advanced, the difference between the styles of these cele- brated authors became yet more manifest. It was then obvious, that though Pope's felicity of expression, his beautiful polish of senti- ment, and the occasional brilliancy of his wit, were not easily imitated, yet many authors, by dint of a good ear, and a fluent expression, learned to command the unaltered sweetness of his melody, which, like a favourite tune, which has descended to hawkers and ballad- singers, became palling and even disgusting as it became common. The admirers of poe- try then reverted to the brave negligence of Dryden's versification, as, to use Johnson's simile, the eye, fatigued with the uniformity of a lawn, seeks variety in the uncultivated glade or swelling mountain. The preference for which Dennis, asserting the cause of Dry- den, had raved and thundered in vain, began, by degrees, to be assigned to the elder bard; and many a poet sheltered his harsh verses ' Life of Pope. 1 68 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. and inequalities under an assertion that he belonged to the school of Dryden. Chur- chill— Who, born for tlie universe, narrow'd. his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind, — Churchill was one of the fust to seek in the « Mac - Flecknoe, » the « Absalom » and the «Hind and Panther," authority for bitter and personal sarcasm, couched in masculine, though irregular versification, dashed from the pen without revision, and admitting oc- casional rude and flat passages, to afford the author a spring to comparative elevation. But imitation always approaches to caricature; and the powers of Churchill have been unable to protect him from the oblivion into which his poems are daily sinking, owing to the ephemeral interest of political subjects, and his indolent negligence of severe study and regularity. To imitate Dryden, it were well to study his merits, without venturing to adopt the negligencies and harshness, which the hurry of his composition, and the com- parative rudeness of his age, rendered in him excusable. At least, those who venture to sink as low, should be confident of the power of soaring as high; for surely it is a rash attempt to dive, unless in one conscious of ability to swim. While the beauties of Diyden may be fairly LIFE OF JOHN DUYUEN. 1 6() pointed out, as an object of emulation, it is the less pleasing, but not less necessary, duty of his biographer and editor, to notice those deficiencies, Avhich bis high and venerable name may excuse, but cannot render proper objects of applause or imitation. So much occasional criticism has been scat- tered in various places through these volumes, that, while attempting the consideration of one or two of his distinguishing and pre-emi- nent compositions, which have been inten- tionally reserved to illustrate a few pages of general criticism, I feel myself free from the difficult, and almost contradictory task, of drawing my maxims and examples from the extended course of his literary career. My present task is limited to deducing his poetic character from those works which he formed on his last and most approved model. The genenal tone of his genius, however, in- fluenced the whole course of his publications; and upon that, however modified and varied by the improvement of his taste, a few preli- minary notices may not be misplaced. The distinguishing chai'acteristic of Dry- den's genius seems to have been the power of reasoning, and of expressing the result in appropriate language. This may seem slender praise; yet these were the talents that led Bacon into the recesses of philosophy, and conducted Newton to the cabinet of natue. YOL. II. 8 lyo LIFE CI- JOHN DKYDKN. The prose works of Dryden bear repeated evidence to bis pbilosopbical powers. His philosophy was not indeed of a formed and systematic character; for be is often contented to leave the path of argument, which must have conducted him to the fountain of truth, and to resort with indolence or indifference to the leaky cisterns which had been hewn out by former critics. But where his pride or his taste are interested, he shows evidently that it was not deficiency in the power of systematizing, but want of the time and pa- tience necessary to form a system, which oc- casionad the discrepancy that we often notice in his critical and philological disquisitions. This power of ratiocination, of investigating, discovering, and appreciating that which is really excellent, if accompanied with the ne- cessary command of fanciful illustration, and elegant expression, is the most interesting quality which can be possessed by a poet. It must indeed have a share in the composition of every thing that is truly estimable in the line arts, as well as in philosophy. Nothinjj is so easily attained as the pow er of presenting the extrinsic qualities of fine painting, fine music, or fine poetry; the beauty of colour, and outline, the combination of notes, the melody of versification, may be imitated by artists of mediocrity; and many will view, heai', or peruse their performances, without LIFE OF .TOllN DliYDEN. 17I being able positively to discover ^vhy they should not, since composed according to all the rules, afford pleasure equal to those of Raphael, Handel, or Dryden. The deficiency lies in the vivifying spirit, which, like alcohol, may be reduced to the same principle in all the fine arts, though it assumes such varied qualities from the mode in Avhich it is exerted or combined. Of this power of intellect, Dryden seems to have possessed almost an exuberant share, combined, as usual, with the faculty of correcting his own conceptions, by observing human nature, the practical and ex- perimental philosophy as well of poetry as of ethics or physics. The early habits of Dry- den's education and poetical studies gave his researches somewhat too much of a metaphy- sical character ; and it was a consequence of his mental acuteness, that his dramatic per- sonages often philosophized or reasoned, when they ought only to have felt. The more lofty, the fiercer, the more ambitious feelings, seem also to have been his favourite studies. Perhaps the analytical mode in which he exercised his studies of human life tended to confine his observation to the more ener- getic feelings of pride, anger, ambition, and other high-toned passions. He that mixes in public life must see enough of these stormy convulsions ; but the finer and more imperceptible operations of love, in its sen- 172 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. limental modifications, if the heart of tlie au- thor does not supply an example from its own feelings, cannot easily he studied at the ex- pence of others. Dryden\s hosom, it must he owned, seems to have afforded him no such means of information; the licence of his age, and perhaps the advanced period at which he commenced his literary career, had probahly armed him against this more exalted strain of passion. The love of the senses he has in many places expressed, in as forcible and dig- nified colouring as the subject could admit; but of a mere moral and sentimental passion lie seems to have had little idea, since he fre- quently substitutes in its place the absurd, unnatural, and fictitious refinements of ro- mance. In short, his love is always in inde- corous nakedness, or sheathed in the stiff panoply of chivalry. The most pathetic verses which Dryden has composed are unquestion- ably contained in the epistle to Congreve, where he recommends his laurels, in such moving terms, to the care of his surviving friend. The quarrel and reconciliation of Sebastian and Dorax is also full of the noblest emotion. In both cases, however, the in- terest is excited by means of masculine and exalted passion, not of those which arise from the mere delicate sensibilities of our nature; and, to use a Scottish phrase, "bearded LIFE OF JOHN DRYDF.N. 178 men» \veep at them, rather tlian Horace's audience of youths and maidens. Butif Dryden fails in expressing the milder and more tender passions, not only did the stronger feelings of the heart, in all its dark or violent Avorldngs, but the face of natural objects, and their operation upon the human mind, pass promptly in review at his command. External pictures, and their cor- responding influence on the spectator, are equally ready at his summons; and though his poetry, from the nature of his subjects, is iu general rather ethic and didactic than nar- rative, yet no sooner does he adopt the latter style of composition, than his figures and his landscapes are presented to the mind with the same vivacity as the ilow of his reasoning, or the acute metaphysical discrimination of his characters. Still the powers of observation and of de- duction are not the only cpialities essential to the poetical character. The philosopher may indeed prosecute his experimental researches into the arcana of nature, and announce them to the public through the medium of a friend- ly redacteur, as the legislator of Israel obtained permission to speak to the people by the voice of Aaron; but the poet has no such privilege; nay, his doom is so far capricious, that, though he may be possessed of the primary quality 174 LIFK OF JOHN DRYDEN. of poetical conception to the highest possihje extent, it is but hke a hite without its strings, unless he has the subordinate, though equally essential, power of expressing what he feels and conceives, in appropriate and harmonious language. With this power Dryden's poetry was gifted, in a degree, surpassing in modu- lated harmony that of all who had preceded him, and inferior to none that has since writ- ten English vei^se. He first showed that the English language was capable of uniting smoothness and strength. Tiie hobbling verses of his predecessors were abandoned even by the lowest versifiers; and by the force of his precept and example, the meanest lampoon- ers of the year seventeen hundred wrote smoother lines than Donne and Cowley, the chief poets of the earlier half of the seven- teenth century. What was said of Rome adorned by Augustus has been, by Johnson, applied to English poetry improved by Dry- den; that he found it of brick, and left it of marble. This reformation was not merely the effect of an excellent ear, and a super- lative command of gratifying it by sounding language; it was, we have seen, the effect of close, accurate, and continued study of the power of the English tongue. Upon what principles he adopted and continued his sys- tem of versification, he long meditated to communicate in bis projected prosody of Eng- LIFE OF JOHN DllYDKN. 1^5 lisli poetry. Tlic work, liowcvor, niijjlit have Leen more curious than useful, as there uould have been some danger of its divcrtini^ the attention, and misguiding the efforts of poeti- cal adventurers; for as it is more easy to be masons than architects, avc may deprecate an art "which might teacli the Avorld to value those Avho can build rhymes, without attend- ing to the more essential qualities of poetry. Strict attention might no doubt discover the principle of Dryden's versification ; but it seems no more essential to the analysing his poetry, than the principles of mathematic:s to understanding music, although the art neces- sarily depends on them. Tlie extent in Avhich Dryden reformed our poetry, is most readily proved by an appeal to the ear; and Dr John- son has forcibly stated, that "he knew how to choose the flowing and the sonorous words; to vary the pauses and adjust the accents; to diversify the cadence, and yet preserve the smoothness of the metre, w To vary the Eng- lish hexameter, he established the use of the triplet and Alexandrine. Though ridiculed by Swift, who vainly thought lie had exploded them for ever, their force is still acknowledged in classical poetry. Of the various kinds of poetry which Dry- den occasionally practised, the drama was that which, until the last six years of lus life, he chiefly relied on for suj^port. His style of 176 LIFE OF JOHN DRtDEK. tragedy, we have seen, varied with his im- proving taste, perhaps with the change of manners. Although the heroic drama, as we have described it at length in the preceding pages, presented the strongest temptation to the exercise of argumentative poetry in sound- ing rhyme, Dryden was at length contented to abandon it for the more pure and chaste style of tragedy, which professes rather the representation of human beings, than the creation of ideal perfection, or fantastic and anomalous characters. The best of Dryden's performances in this latter style are unques- tionably "Don Sebastian," and "All for Love. » Of these, the former is in the poet's very best manner; exhibiting dramatic persons, con- sisting of such bold and impetuous characters as he delighted to draw^, well contrasted, for- cibly marked, and engaged in an interesting succession of events. To many tempers, the scene between Sebastian and Uorax, already noticed, must appear one of the most moving that ever adorned the British stage. Of «A11 for Love," we may say, that it is successful in a softer style of painting; and that so far as sweet and beautiful versification, elegant language, and occasional tenderness, can make amends for Dryden's deficiencies in describ- ing the delicacies of sentimental passion, they are to be found in abundance in that piece. But on these, and on the poet's other trage- LIFT OF JOHN t>IiYDE?r, I'J'J dies, ^ve have enlarf^ecl in our preliminary notices prclixcd to each piece. Dryden's comedies, besides being stained with the Hcense of the ape (a license which he seems to use as much from necessity as choice), have, generally speaking, a certain heaviness of character. There are many flaslies of wit; but the author has beaten his flint hard ere he struck them out. It is almost essential to the success of a jest, that it should at least seem to be extemporaneous. If we espy the joke at a distance, nay, if without seeing it we have the least reason to suspect we are travelling towards one, it is astonish- ing hoAV the perverse obstinacy of our nature delights to refuse its currency. \\'hen, there- fore, as is often the case in Dryden's come- dies, two persons remain on the stage for no obvious purpose but to say good things, it is no wonder they receive but little thanks front an ungrateful audience. The incidents, there- fore, and the characters, ought to be comic; but actual jests, or hoii mots, should be jarely introduced, and then naturally, easily, without an appearance of premeditation, and bearing a strict conformity to the character of the per- son who utters them. Comic situation Dry- den did not greatly study; indeed I hardly recollect any scene, unless the closing one of a The Spanish Friar,') which indicates any peculiar felicity of invention. For comic 178 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. character, he is usually contented to paint a generic representative of a certain class of men or women; a Father Dominic, for ex- ample, or a Melantha, Avith all the attributes of their calHng and manners, strongly and divertingly pourtrayed, hut without any in- dividuality of character. It is probable that, with these deficiencies, he felt the truth of his own acknowledgment, and that he was forced upon composing comedies to gratify the taste of the age, while the bent of his genius was otherwise directed. In lyrical poetry, Dryden must be allowed to have no equal. « Alexander's Feast" is suf- ficient to show his supremacy in that brilliant department. In this exquisite production, he flung from him all the trappings with which his contemporaries had embarrassed the ode. The language, lofty and striking as the ideas are, is equally simple and harmonious; with- out far-fetched allusions, or epithets, or me- taphors, the story is told as intelligibly as if it had been in the most humble prose. The change of tone in the harp of Timotheus, re- gulates the measure and the melody, and the language of every stanza. The hearer, while he is led on by the successive changes, expe- riences almost the feelings of the Macedonian and his peers; nor is the sj)lendid poem dis- graced by one word or line unworthy of it, unless we join in the severe criticism of Dr LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 1 79 Johnson, on the conduding stanzas. It is true, tliat the praise of St Cecilia is rather ahniptly introduced as a conclusion to the account of the Feast of Alexander, and it is also true, that the comparison, He raised a mortal to tlie sky, She drew an angel down, is inaccurate, since the fate of Timotheus was metaphorical, and that of Cecilia literal. But, while we stoop to such criticism, we seek for blots in the sun. Of Dryden's other pindarcis, some, as the celebrated « Ode to tlie Memory of Mrs Killi- grew,» are mixed with the leaven of Cowley; others, like the « Threnodia ^ngustalis,^ are occasionally flat and heavy. All contain pas- sages of brilliancy, and all are thrown into a versification, melodious amidst its irregula- rity. We listen for the completion of Dry- den's stanza, as for the explication of a dif- ficult passage in music, and wild and lost as the sound appears, the ear is proportionally gratified by the unexpected ease with which harmony is extracted from discord and con- fusion. The satirical pow ers of Dryden were of the highest order. He draws his arrow to the head, and dismisses it straight upon his object of aim. In this walk he wrought almost as great a reformation as upon versification in l8o LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. general, as \vill plainly appear, if we consider that tlie satire, before Dryden's time, bore the same reference to "Absalom and Achitophel,» which an ode of Cowley bears to "Alexander's Feast." Butler, and his imitators, had adopted a metaphysical satire, as the poets in the earlier part of the century had created a me- taphysical vein of serious poetry.' Both re- quired store of learning to supply the per- petual expenditure of extraordinary and far- fetched illustration; the object of both was to combine and hunt down the strangest and most fanciful analogies, and both held the attention of the reader perpetually on the stretch, to keep up with the meaning of the author. There can be no doubt, that this metaphysical vein was much better fitted for the burlesque than the sublime. Yet the per- petual scintillation of Butler's wit is too dazzling to be delightful, and we can seldom read far in «IIudibras» without feeling more fatigue than pleasure. His fancy is employed with the profusion of a spendthrift, by whose eternal round of banqueting his guests are at length rather wearied out than regaled. Dryden was destined to correct this among other errors of his age; to show the difference between burlesque and satire; and to teach his successors in that species of assault, rather ' Seed. p. 42 LIFE OF JOHN DRY DEN. l8l to thrust than to flourish Avith their weapon. For this jMirpose lie tivoided the unvaried and unrelieved style of fjrotcsque description and comhination, \vhich had been fashionable since the satires of Cleveland and Butler. To render the objects of his satire hateful and contemptible, he thought it necessary to pre- serve the lighter shades of character, if not for the purpose of softening the portrait, at least for that of preserving the likeness. While Dryden seized, and dwelt upon, and aggra- vated, all the evil features of his subject, he carefully retained just as much of its laudable traits as preserved hiui from the charge of want of candour, and fixed down the resem- blance upon the party. And thus, instead of unmeaning caricatures, he presents portraits ■which cannot be mistaken, however luifavour- able ideas they may convey of the originals. The character of Shaftesbury, both as Achi- tophel, and as drawn in « The Medal,)) bears peculiar witness to this assertion. While other court poets endeavour to turn the ob- noxious statesman into ridicule, on account of his personal infirmities and extravagancies, Dryden boldly confers upon him all the praise for talent and for genius that his friends could have claimed, and trusts to the force of his satirical expression for working up even these admirable attributes with such a mixture of evil propensities and dangerous qualities^ iSa LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. that the whole character shall appear dreadful, and even hateful, but not contemptible. But where a character of less note, a Shadwell or a Settle, crossed his path, the satirist did not Jay himself under these restraints, but wrote in the language of bitter irony and unmea- surable contempt: even then, however, we are less called on to admire the wit of the author tlian the force and energy of his poeti- cal philippic. These are the verses which are made by indignation, and, no more than theatrical scenes of real passion admit of re- fined and protracted turns of wit, or even the lighter sallies of humour. These last orna- ments are proper in that Horatian satire, which rather ridicules the follies of the age than stigmatizes the vices of individuals; but in this style Dryden has made few essays. He entered the field as champion of a political party, or as defender of his own reputation; discriminated his antagonists, and applied the scourge with all the vehemence of Juvenal. As he has himself said of that satirist, « his provocations were great, and he has revenged them tragically.)) This is the more worthy of notice, as, in the Essay on Satire, Dryden gives a decided preference to those nicer and more delicate touches of satire, which consist in fine raillery. But whatever was the opi- nion of his cooler moments, the poet's practice was dictated by the furious party-spirit of the LIFl' OF JOHN DIlYDKy. J 83 times, and tlie no less keen stinuilative of personal resentment. It is perhaps to be re- gretted, that so much ener{][y of thon[;hr, and so mnch force of expression, should have been wasted in anatomising such criminals as Siiadwell and Settle; yet we cannot account the amber less precious, because they are grubs and flies that are inclosed within it. The « Fables » of Dryden are the best exam- ples of his talents as a narrative [)oet; those powers of composition, description, and nar- ration, which must have been called into exercise by the Epic Muse, had his fate allowed him to enlist among her votaries. The « Knight's Tale," the longest and most la- boured of Chaucer's stories, possesses a de- gree of regularity which might satisfy the most severe critic. It is true, that the honour arising from thence must be assigned to the more ancient bard, who had himself drawn his subject from an Italian model; but the high and decided preference which Dryden has given to this story, although somewhat censured by Trapp, enables us to judge liow much the poet held an accurate combination of parts, and coherence of narrative, essentials of epic poetry.' That a classic scholar like ' « Novimus judicium DryJcnide poemate (juodnm Chati- ceri, pulchro sane illo, et ndmodum landmido, nimirum quod non modo vere epicum sit, sed Iliada etiam aUnie jEneada cvqiiet, imo superet. Sed noi'imus eodcm tempoic 104 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. Trapp slioiild tliink the plan of the « Knight's Talew equal to that of the Iliad, is a degree of candour not to be hoped for; hut surely to an unprejudiced reader, a story which ex- hausts in its conclusion all the interest which it has excited in its progress, which, when terminated, leaves no question to be asked, no personage undisposed of, and no curiosity unsatisfied, is, abstractedly considered, more gratifying than the history of a few weeks of a ten years' war, commencing long after the siege had begun, and ending long before the city was taken. Of the other tales, it can hardly be said that their texture is more in- genious or closely woven than that of ordinary novels or fables : but in each of them Dryden has displayed the superiority of his genius, in selecting for amplification and ornament those passages most susceptible of poetical descrip- tion. The account of the procession of the Fairy Chivalry in the « Flower and the Leaf ;» the splendid description of the champions who came to assist at the tournament in the « Knight's Tale-jH the account of the battle itself, its alternations and issue, — if they can- not be called improvements on Chaucer, are nevei'theless so spirited a transfusion of his viri illlus maxtmi non semper acciu-atlssirnas esse censiiras, nee ad severissimam crilices normani exactas: illo juclice id plenimque optimum est, quod nunc prce manibus habit, et in quo nunc occupatur.n LII'I': or JOHN DRYDEN. l85 ideas into modern verse, as almost to claim the merit of originality. INlany passages nii{;lit be shown in Nvbich this praise may he carried still higher, and the merit of invention added to that of imitation. Such is the description of the commencement of the tourney, Avhich is almost entirely original, and most of the ornaments in the translations from Boccacio, whose prose fictions demanded more addi- tions from the poet than the exuberant image- ry of Chaucer. To select instances would be endless; but every reader of poetry has bv heart the description of Iphigenia asleep, nor are the lines in « Theodore and Ilonoria,»' which describe the apj)roach of the apparition, and its effects upon animated and inanimated nature, even before it becomes visible, less eminent for beauties of the terrific order: "While listening to the murmuring leaves he stood, More than a mile immersed within the wood, At once the wind was laid: the whisperinf; sound Was dumh ; a rising earthquake rocked tlie ground ; With deeper brown the grove was overspread, A sudden hoiror seized his giddy head, And his ears tingled, and his colour fled. Nature was in alarm ; some danger nigh Seem'd threaten'd, though unseen to mortal eye.» ' Dryden was not the first who translated this tale of terror. 'I here is in the collection of the late John, Duke of lioxburghe, « A Notable History of Nasfagio and Tra- ve.sary, no less pitiful than pleasant; translated out of Italian iulo English verse, by C. T. London, i^Gg. .8 iSG LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN'. It may be doubted, liowever, whether the simpbcity of Boccacio's narrative has not sometimes suffered by the additional decora- tions of Dryden, The retort of Guiscard to Tancred's charge of ingratitude is more sub' lime in the Italian original' than as diluted by the English poet into five hexameters. A worse fault occurs in the whole colouring of Sigismonda's passion, to which Dryden has given a coarse and indelicate character, which he did not derive from Boccacio, though the Italian be apt enough to sin in that particular. In like manner, the plea used by Palamon in his prayer to Venus is more nakedly expressed by Dryden than by Chaucer. The former, indeed, would probably have sheltered him- self under the mantle of Lucretius; but he should have recollected, that Palamon speaks the language of chivahy, and ought not, to use an expression of Lord Herbert, to have spoken like a paillard, but cavalier. Indeed, we have before noticed it as the most obvious and most degrading imperfection of Dryden's poetical imagination, that he could not refine that passion, which, of all others, is suscep- tible either of the purest refinement, or of admitting the basest alloy. With Chaucer, ' a Am 01 piio troppo piu, die ne voi ne io poisiamo.v This sentiment loses its dignity amid the « levelling of monntaius and raising plains," with whicli I>ryden ha» chosen to illustrate it. LfFK OF JOHN DRY DEN. 187 Dryden's task Avas more easy than with Boc- cacio. Barrenness Avas not the fault of the Father of Enj^lish poetry ; and amid the pro- fusion of images which lie presented, his imitator had only the task of rejecting or se- lecting. In. the suhlime descrij)tion of the temple of Mars, painted around with all the misfortunes ascrihed to the influence of his planet, it would he difficult to point out a single idea, which is not found in the older poem. But Dryden has judiciously omitted or softened some degrading and some disgust- ing circumstances, as the « cook scalded in spite of his long ladle, » the « swine devouring tlie cradled infant," the « pick-purse," and other circumstances too grotesque or ludicrous to harmonize with the dreadfid group around them. Some points, also, of suhlimitv, have escaped the modei-n poet. Such is the ap- propriate and picturesque accompaniment of the statue of Mars : A wolf stood before him at his feet,. With even red, and of a man he cat. ' In the dialogue, or argumentative parts of the poem, Dryden has frequently improved on his original, while he falls something short of him in simple description, or in pathetic effect. Thus, the quarrel hetween Arcite and Palamou; ' An emblem of a similar kind (a tiger devouring a zaa^ was found in the palace of Tippoo Sultan, 1 88 'LIFE OF JOHN DriYDEN. is ^vrougllt up with greater energy by Dryden than Chaucer, particularly by the addition of the following lines, describing the enmity of the captives against each other : Now friends no more, nor walking hand in liand, r>at when they met, they made a surly stand, And glared like 'Tngry lions as they pass'd, And wisli'd that every look might be their last. But the modern must yield the palm, despite the beauty of his versification, to the descrip- tion of Emily by Chaucer; and may be justly accused of loading the dying speech of Arcite with conceits for which his original gave no authority. ' When the story is of a light and ludicrous kind, as the Fable of the Cock and Fox, and the Wife of Bath's Tale, Dryden displays all the humorous expression of his satirical poetry, without its personality. There is indeed a quaint Gervantic gravity in his mode of express- ing himself, that often glances forth, and en- livens what otherwise would be mere dry nar- ' As « Near bliss, and yet not blessed, « and this mer- ciless quibble, where Arcite complains of the llamcs he ei.- dures for Emily : Of such a {joddess no time leaves record, Who burnl the temple wliere slie was adored. Yet Dryden, in the preface, declaims against the ' Those who seek examples may find them in the jaw-breaking translations of Ben Jonson and Holyday. Cowley and Denham had indeed rebelled against this mode of translation, which conveys pretty much the same idea of an original, as an imitator would do of the gait of another, by studiously step- ping after him into every trace which his feet had left upon the sand. But they assumed a license equally faulty, and claimed the privi- lege of writing what might be more properly termed imitations, than versions of the clas- sics. It was reserved to Dryden manfully to LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. nj^ claim and vindicate the freedom of a just translation, more limited than paraphrase, but free from the metaphrastic severity exact- ed from his predecessors. With these free, yet unlicentious principles, Dryden brought to the task of translation a competent knowledge of the language of the originals, with an unbounded command of his o^vn. The latter is, however, by far the most marked characteristic of his transla- tions. Dryden was not indeed deficient in Gieek and Roman learning; but he paused not to weigh and sift those difficult and ob- scure passages, at which the most learned will doubt and hesitate for the correct meaning. The same rapidity, which marked his own poetry, seems to have attended his study of the classics. He seldom waited to analvse the sentence he was about to render, far less scrupulously to weigh the precise purport and value of every word it contained. If he caught the general spirit and meaning of the author, and could express it with equal force in English verse, he cared not if minute ele- gancies were lost, or the beauties of accurate proportion destroved, or a dul)ious interpre- tation hastily adopted on the credit of a scho- lium. He used abundantly the licence he has claimed for a translator, to be deficient rather in the language out of which he renders, than that into which he translates. If such be but 200 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. master of the sense of his author, Dryden ar- gues, he may express that sense with elo- quence in his own tongue, though he under- stand not the nice turns of the original. «But without the latter quality he can never arrive at the useful and the delightful, without which reading is a penance and fatigue."' With the same spirit of haste, Dryden is often content- ed to present to the English reader some mo- dern image, which he may at once fully com- prehend, instead of rendering precisely a classic expression, which might require ex- planation or paraphrase. Thus the pulchra Sicyonia, or buskins of Sicyon, are rendered, "Diamond-buckles sparkling in their shoes." By a yet more unfortunate adaptation of mo- dern technical phraseology, the simple direc- tion of Helenus, u- Lava tihi tellus, et longo Leva petantur JEquora circuitu: dextritm fuge littus et undas.)" is translated, « Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea, Veer starboard sea and land." A counsel which, I shrewdly suspect, would have been unintelligible, not only to Palinu- rus, but to the best pilot in the British navy. 'Life of Lucian. LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 20I In the same tone, but\vith more intelligibility, if not felicity, Dryden translates palatia cosli in Ovid, the Louvre of the sky; and, in the version of the First Book of Homer, talks of the court of Jupiter in the phrases used at that of Whitehall. These expressions, proper to modern manners, often produce an unfortu- nate confusion between the age in which the scene is laid, and the date of the translation. No judicious poet is willing to break the interest of tales of ancient times, by allusions peculiar to his own period; but when the translator, instead of identifying himself as closely as possible with the original author, pretends to such liberty, he removes us a third step from the time of action, and so con- founds the manners of no less than three dis- tinct eras, — that in which the scene is laid, that in which the poem was written, and that, finally, in which the translation was executed. There are passages in Dryden'siEneid, which, in the revolution of a few pages, transport our ideas from the time of Troy's siege to that of the court of Augustus, and thence downward to the reign of William the Third of Britain. It must be owned, at the same time, that when the translator places before you, not the exact words, but the image of the original, as the classic author would probably have himself expressed it in English, the licence, 202 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. when moderately employed, has an infinite charm for those readers for whose use trans- lations are properly written. Pope's Homer and Dryden's Virgil can never indeed give exquisite satisfaction to scholars accustomed to study the Greek and Latin originals. The n)inds of such readers have acquired a classic tone; and not merely the ideas and poetical imagery, but the manners and habits of the actors, have become intimately familiar to them. They will not, therefore, be satisfied with any translation in which these are vio- lated, whether for the sake of indolence in the translator, or ease to the unlettered reader: and perhaps they will be more pleased that a favourite bard should move with less ease and spirit in his new habiliments, than that his garments should be cut upon the model of the country to which the stranger is intro- duced. In the former case, they will readily make allowance for the imperfection of mo- dern language; in the latter, they will hardly pardon the sophistication of ancient manners. But the mere English reader, who finds rigid adherence to antique costume rather embar- rassing than pleasing, who is prepared to make no sacrifices in order to preserve the true inanners of antiquity, shocking perhaps to his feelings and prejudices, is satisfied that the Iliad and iEneid shall lose their antiquarian merit, provided they retain that vital spirit LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 2o3 and energy, ^vhicli is the soul of poetry in all languages, and countries, and ages whatsoever. He who sits down to Dryden's translation of Virgil, with the original text spread before him, will be at no loss to point out many pas- sages that are faulty, many indifferently un- derstood, many imperfectly translated, some in which dignity is lost, others in which bom- bast is substituted in its stead. But the un- abated vigour and spirit of the version more than overbalances these and all its other defi- ciencies. A sedulous scholar might often approach more nearly to the dead letter of Virgil, and give an exact, distinct, sober- minded idea of the meaning and scope of par- ticular passages. Trapp, Pitt, and others have done so. But the essential spirit of poetry is so volatile, that it escapes during such an ope- ration, like the life of the poor criminal, whom the ancient anatomist is said to have dissected alive, in order to ascertain the seat of the soul. The carcase indeed is presented to the Eng- lish reader, but the animating vigour is no more. It is in this art of communicating the ancient poet's ideas with force and energy equal to his own, that Dryden has so com- pletely exceeded all who have gone before, and all who have succeeded him. The beau- tiful and unequalled version of the Tale of Myrrha in the « Metamoiphoses,» the whole of the Sixth iEneid, and many other parts of 5to4 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. Dryden's translations, are sufficient, had he never written one hne of original poetry, to vindicate the well-known panegyric of Chur- chill : « Here let me bend, great Dryden, at thy shrine, Thou dearest name to all the tuneful Nine ! What if some dull lines in cold order creep, And with his theme the poet seems to sleep? Still, wlien his subject rises proud to view, With equal strength the poet rises too : With strong invention, noblest vigour fraught. Thought still springs up, and rises out of thought ; Numbers ennobling numbers in the course, In varied sweetness flow, in varied force ; The powers of genius and of judgment join. And the whole art of poetry is thine.n We are in this disquisition naturally tempt- ed to inquire, whether Dryden would have succeeded in his proposed design to translate Homer, as happily as his Virgil. And although he himself has declared the genius of the Gre- cian to be more fiery, and therefore better suited to his own than that of the Roman poet, there may be room to question, whether in this case, he rightly estimated his own ta- lents, or rather, whether, being fully conscious of their extent, he was aWare of labouring un- der certain deficiencies of taste, which must have been more apparent in a version of the Iliad than of the iEneid. If a translator has any characteristic and peculiar foible, it is surely unfortunate to choose an original ^vho LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 2o5 may give peculiar facilities to exhibit tliem. Thus, even Dryden's repeated disclamation of puns, points, and quibbles, and all the repent- ance of his more sober hours, was unable, so soon as he began to translate Ovid, to prevent his sliding back into the practice of that false wit with which his earlier productions are imbued. Hence he has been seduced, by the similarity of style, to add to the offences of*his original, and introduce, though it needed not, points of wit and antithetical prettinesses, for which he cannot plead Ovid's authority. For example, he makes Ajax say of Ulysses, when surrounded by the Trojans, « No wonder if he roar'cl that all might hear, His elocution was increased by fear. » The Latin only bears, conclamat socios. A little lower, « Opposui molem clypei, texique jacentem,» is amplified by a similar witticism, uMy broad buckler hid him from the foe. Even the shield trembled as he lay below. » If, in translating Ovid, Dryden was tempted by the manner of his original to relapse into a youthful fault, which he had solemnly repent- ed of and abjured, there is surely room to be^ lieve, that the simple and almost rude man- ners described by Homer, might have seduced 2o6 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. him into coarseness both of ideas and expres- sion, for which the studied, composed, and dignified style of the YEneid gave neither opening nor apology. That this was a fault which Dryden, with all his taste, never was able to discard, might easily be proved from various passages in his translations, where the transgression is on his own part altogether gratuitous. Such is the well-known version of — « Ut possessor agelli Diceret hose mea sunt, veteres migrate coloni, Nunc victi, rt etc. i< When the grim captain, with a surly tone, Ci'ies out. Pack up, ye rascals, and he gone! Kick'd out, we set the best face on't we could,)) etc. In translating the most indelicate passage of Lucretius, Dryden has rather enhanced than veiled its indecency. The story of Iphis in the Metamorphoses is much more bluntly told by the English poet than by Ovid. In short, where there was a latitude given for coarseness of description and expression, Drv- den has always too readily laid hold of it. The very specimen which he has given us of a version of Homer contains many passages in which the antique Grecian simplicity is vulgarly and inelegantly rendered. The Thunderer terms Juno II My household curse, my lawful plague, the spy Of Jove's designs, his other squinting eye.)) LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 207 The amiDrosial feast of Olyiiipus concludes like a tavern revel : « Drunken at last, and drowsy, they depart Each to his house, adorn'd with hibour'd art Of the lame architect. The thundering God, Even he, withdrew to rest, and had his load ; His swimming head to needful sleep applied. And Juno lay unheeded by his side.» There is reason indeed to think, that, after the Revolution, Dryden's taste ^vas improved in this, as in some other respects. In his translation of Juvenal, for example, the satire against women, coarse as it is, is considerably refined and softened from the grossness of the Latin poet, who has, however, been late- ly favoured by a still more elegant, and (excepting perhaps one or two passages) an equally spirited translation, by Mr Gifford of London. Yet, admitting this apology for Dryden as fully as we dare, from the nume- rous specimens of indelicacy even in his later translations, we are induced to judge it for- tunate that Homer was reserved for a poet who had not known the age of Charles IL, and whose inaccuracies and injudicious de- corations may be pardoned, even by the scho- lar, when he considers the probabilitv, that Dryden might have slipped into the opposite extreme, by converting rude simplicity into indecency and vulgarity. The iEneid, on the other hand, if it restrained Dryden's poetry 2o8 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. to a correct, steady, and even flight, if it damped bis energy by its regularity, and fet- tered his excursive imagination by the sobriety of its decorum, had the corresponding advan- tage of holding forth to the translator no temptation to licence, and no apology for ne- gligence. Where the fervency of genius is required, Dryden has usually equalled his original ; where peculiar elegance and exact propriety are demanded, his version may be sometimes found flat and inaccurate, but the mastering spirit of Virgil prevails, and it is never disgusting or indelicate. Of all the classical translations we can boast, none is so acceptable to the class of readers, to whom the learned languages are a clasped book and a sealed fountain. And surely it is no mo- derate praise to say, that a work is universally pleasing to those for whose use it is princi- pally intended, and to whom only it is abso- lutely indispensible. The prose of Dryden may rank with the best in the English language. It is no less of his own foimation than his versification, is equally spirited, and equally harmonious. Without the lengthened and pedantic sen- tences of Clarendon, it is dignified where dig- nity is becoming, and is lively without the accumulation of strained and absurd alhisions and metaphors, which were unfortunately mistaken for wit by many of the author s con- LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 209 temporaries. Dryden has been accused of unnecessai'ily larding liis style with Gallicisms. It must be o\vned that, to comply probably with the humour of Charles, or from an af- fectation of the fashionable court dialect, the poet-laureat employed such words, asfoiigiie, fraicheur, etc. instead of the correspondinjj expressions in English; an affectation which does not appear in our author's later writings. But even the learned and excellent Sir David Dalrymple was led to carry this idea greatly too far. « Nothing," says that admirable an- tiquary, <; distinguishes the genius of the Eng- lish language so much as its general naturali- zation of foreigners. Dryden, in the reign of Charles II., printed the following words as pure French newly imported : amour, billet- doux, caprice, chagrin, conversation, double- entendre, embarrassed, fatigue, Jigwe, foible, gallant, good graces, grimace, incendiary, levee, maltreated, rallied, repartee, ridicide, tender, tour; with several others which are now considered as natives. — ' Marriage a la Mode.'» ' But of these words many had been long naturalized in England, and, with the adjectives derived from them, are used by Shakspeare and the dramatists of his age.^ By their being printed 'Poems from the Bannatyne Manuscript, p. 228. * Shakspeare has capricious, conversation, fatigate (it not fatigue), figure, gallant, good graces ; incendiary is in Minshew's « Guide to the Tongues," ed. 1627. Tender of- 2IO LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. in italicks in the play of "Marriage a la Mode," Drvden only meant to mark, that Melantha, the affected coquette in whose mouth they are placed, was to use the French, not the vernacular pronunciation. It will admit of question, whether any single French word has been naturalized upon the sole authority of Dryden. Although Dryden's style has nothing obso- lete, we can occasionally trace a reluctance to abandon an old word or idiom; the conse- quence, doubtless, of his latter studies in an- cient poetry. In other respects, nothing can be more elegant than the diction of the praises heaped upon his patrons, for which he might himself plead the apology he uses for Maim- boui\g, « who, having enemies, made himself friends by panegyrics." Of these lively criti- cal prefaces, which, when we commence, we can never lay aside till we have finished, Dr Johnson has said, with equal force and beauty, — « They have not the formality of a settled style, in which the first half of the sentence be- trays the other. The clauses are never ba- lanced, nor the periods modelled ; every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid ; ten occurs in Shakspeare, both as a substantive and verb. And many other of the above words may be detected by those who have time and inclination to searcli for them, in authors prior to Dryden's time. LIFE OF JOIIJJ DRYDEN. aif the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous; Avhat is Httle is gay, what is great is splendid. He niay be thought to mention himself too frequently; but while he forces himself upon our esteem, we cannot refuse him to stand higli in his own. Every thing is excused by the play of images and the sprightliness of expres- sion. Though all is easy, nothing is feeble ; though all seems careless, there is nothing harsh ; and though, since his earlier works, more than a century has passed, they have nothing yet uncouth or obsolete." « He, who writes much, will not easily es- cape a manner, such a recurrence of particu- lar modes as may be easily noted. Dryden is always another and the same. He does not exhibit a second time the same elegancies in the same form, nor appears to have any art other than that of expressing with clearness what he thinks with vigour. His style could not easily be imitated, either seriously or lu- dicrously; for, being always equable and always varied, it has no prominent or discri- minative characters. The beauty, who is to- tally free from disproportion of parts and fea- tures, cannot be ridiculed by an overcharged resemblance.') The last paragraph is not to be understood too literally; for althougli Dryden never so far copied himself as to fall into what has been quaintly called mannerism; yet accurate obser- 212 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. vation may trace in his works the repetition of some sentiments and illustrations from prose to verse, and back again to prose.' In his preface to the iEneid, he has enlarged on the difficulty of varying phrases, when the same sense returned on the author; and surely we must allow full praise to his fluency and command of language, when, during so long a ' The remarkable phrase, « to possess the soul in pa- tience, » occurs in the « Hind and Panther ;» and in the Essay on Satire, we have nearly the same expression. The image of a bird's wing flagging in a damp atmo- sphere, occurs in Don Sebastian, and in prose elsewhere, thoup^h I have lost the reference. The same thought is found in the « Hind and Panther, » but is not there used metaphorically : Nor need tliey fear the dampness of the sky Should flag their wings and hinder them to fly. Dryden is ridiculed by an imitator of Rabelais, for the recurrence of the phrase by which he usually prefaces his own defensive criticis.m. « If it be allowed me to speak so much in tny own commendation; — see Dryden's pre- face to his Fables, or any other of his works that you please." The full title of this whimsical tract, from which Sterne borrowed several hints, is «An Essay towards the theory of the intelligible world intuitively considered. Designed for forty-nine parts. Part Third, consisting of a preface, a postscript, and a little something between, by Gabriel Johnson ; enriched by a faithful account of his ideal voyages, and illustrated with poems by several hands, as likewise with other strange things not insuffer- ably clever, nor furiously to the purpose ; printed in the year 17, etc. » LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 31 3 literary career, and in the course of such a va- riety of miscellaneous productions, we can detect in his style so few instances of repeti- tion, or self-imitation. The prose of Dryden, excepting his transla- tions, and one or t\vo controversial tracts, is entirely dedicated to criticism, either general and didactic, or defensive and exculpatory. There, as in other branches of polite learn- ing, it was his lot to be a light to his people. About the time of the Restoration, the cultiva- tion of letters was prosecuted in France with some energy. But the genius of that lively na- tion being more fitted for criticism than poe- try; for drawing rules from what others have done, than for wi'iting Avorks which might be themselves standards; they were sooner able to produce an accurate table of laws for those intending to write epic poems and tragedies, according to the best Greek and Roman authorities, than to exhibit distinguish- ed specimens of success in either department; just as they are said to possess the best possible rules for building ships of war, although not equally remarkable for their power of fight- ing them. When criticism becomes a pursuit separate from poetry, those who follow it are apt to forget, that the legitimate ends of the art for which they lay down rules, are instruc- tion or delight, and that these points being attained, by what road soever, entitles a poet 31 4 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. to claim the prize of successful merit. Neither did the learned authors of these disquisitions sufficiently attend to the general disposition of mankind, which cannot be contented even with the happiest imitations of former excel- lence, but demands novelty as a necessary ingredient for amusement. To insist that every epic poem shall have the plan of the Iliad and iEneid, and every tragedy be fettered by the rules of Aristotle, resembles the prin- ciple of an architect, who should build all his houses with the same number of windows, and of stories. It happened, too, inevitably, that the critics, in the plenipotential authority which they exercised, often assumed as indis- pensible requisites of the drama, or epopeia, circumstances, which, in the great authorities they quoted, were altogether accidental and indifferent. These they erected into laws, and handed down as essentials to be observed by all succeeding poets; although the forms prescribed have often as little to do with the merit and success of the originals from which they are taken, as the shape of the drinking- glass with the flavour of the wine which it contains. « To these encroachments," says Fielding, after some observations to the same purpose, « time and ignorance, the two great supporters of imposture, gave authority; and thus many rules for good writing have been established, which have not the least founda- LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 21 5 tion ill truth or nature; and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb and restrain genius, in the same manner as it would have restrained the dancing-master, had the many excellent treatises on that art laid it dow n as an essential rule, that every man must dance in chains. »' It is probable, that the tyranny of the French critics, fashionable as the litera- ture of that country was with Charles and his courtiers, w ould have extended itself over Eng- land at the Restoration, had not a champion so powerful as Dryden placed himself in the gap. We have mentioned in its place his « Essay on Dramatic Poetry, » the first system- atic piece of criticism which our literature has to exhibit. In this Essay, he was accused of entertaining private views, of defending some of his own pieces, at least of opening the door of the theatre wider, and rendering its access more easv, for his own selfish convenience. Allowing this to be true in whole, as it may be in part, we are as much obliged to Dryden for resisting the domination of Gallic criticism, as we are to the fanatics who repressed the despot- ism of the crown, although they buckled on their armour against white surplices, and the cross in baptism. The character which Dry- den has drawn of our English dramatists in the Essay, and the various prefaces connect- ■ Introduction to Book Fifth of oTom Jones. « 2l6 LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. ed Avith it, have unequalled spirit and pre- cision. The contrast of Ben Jonson with Shakspeare is peculiarly and strikingly felici- tous. Of the latter portrait, Dr Johnson has said, that the editors and admirers of Shak- speare, in all their emulation of reverence, cannot boast of much more than of having diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence, of having changed Dryden's gold for baser metal, of lower value, though of greater bulk. While Dryden examined, discussed, admitted, or rejected the rules pro- posed by others, he forbore, from prudence, indolence, or a. regard for the freedom of Par- nassus, to erect himself into a legislator. His doctrines, which chiefly respect the intrinsic qualities necessary in poetry, are scattered, without system or pretence to it, over the nu- merous pages of prefatory and didactic essays, with which he enriched his publications. It is impossible to read far in any of them, with- out finding some maxim for doing or forbear- ing, which every student of poetry will do well to engrave upon the tablets of his me- mory. But the author s mode of instruction is neither harsh, nor dictatorial. When his opinion changed, as in the case of rhyming tragedies, he avows the change with candour, and we are enabled the more courageously to follow his guidance, when we perceive the readiness with which he retraces his path, if LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. 21 7 he strays into error. The gleams of philoso- phical spirit A\hich so frequently illumine these pages of criticism; the lively and appro-> priate grace ofillustration;the true and correct expression of the general propositions ; the simple and unaffected passages, in Avhich, when led to allude to his personal labours and situation, he mingles the feelings of the man with the instructions of the critic, — unite to render Dryden's Essays the most delightful prose in the English language. The didactic criticism of Dryden is neces- sarily, at least naturally, mingled with that which he w as obliged to pour forth in his own defence; and this may be one main cause of its irregular and miscellaneous form. What might otherwise have resembled the extended and elevated front of a regular palace, is de- formed by barriers, ramparts, and bastions of defence; by cottages, mean additions, and of- fices necessary for personal accommodation. The poet, always most in earnest about bis immediate task, used, without ceremony, those arguments which suited his present pur- pose, and thereby sometimes supplied his foes with weapons to assail another quarter. It also happens frequently, if the same allusion may be continued, that Dryden defends with obstinate despair, against the assaults of his foemen, a post which, in his cooler moments, he has condemned as untenable. However VOL. II. 10 2l8 LIFE OF JOHN DBYDEN. easily he may yield to internal conviction, and to the progress of his own improving taste, even these concessions, he sedulously informs us, are not wrung from him by the assault of his enemies; and he often goes out of his road to show that, though conscious he was in the wrong, he did not stand legally convicted by their arguments. To the chequered and in- consistent appearance which these circum- stances have given to the criticism of Dry den, it is an additional objection, that through the same cause his studies were partial, tempo- rary, and irregular. His mind was amply stored with acquired knowledge, much of it perhaps the fruits of early reading and appli- cation. But, while engaged in the hurry of composition, or overcome by the lassitude of continued literary labour, he seems frequently to have trusted to the tenacity of his memory, and so drawn upon this fund with injudicious liberality, without being sufficiently anxious as to accuracy of quotation, or even of asser- tion. If, on. the other hand, he felt himself obliged to resort to more profound learning than his own, he was at liitle pains to arrange or digest it, or even to examine minutely the information he acquired from hasty perusal of the books he consulted; and thus but too often poured it forth in the crude form in which he had himself received it, from the French critic, or Dutch schoolman. The scho- LIFE 01< JOHJN DRYDEN. 219 larship, for example, displayed in the Essay on Satire, has this raw andillanangedappear- rance; and stuck, as it awkwardly is, among some of Dryden's own beautiful and original writing, gives, like a borrowed and unbecom- ing garment, a mean and inconsistent appear- ance to the whole disquisition. But these occasional imperfections and inaccuracies are marks of the haste with which Dryden was compelled to give his productions to the world, and cannot deprive him of the praise due to the earliest and most entertaining of English critics. I have thus detailed the life, and offered some remarks on the literary character, of John Dryden : who, educated in a pedantic taste, and a fanatical religion, was destined, if not to give laws to the stage of England, at least to defend its liberties; to improve bur- lesque into satire : to free translation from the fetters of verbal metaphrase, and exclude from it the licence of paraphrase; to teach posterity the powerful and varied poetical har- mony of which their language was capable; to give an example of the lyric odevfunapproach- ed excellence; and to leave to English litera- ture a name, second only to those of Milton and of Shakspeare. THE END. ^r 3foL3 I, . ... THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. iX 1 'V«t^' I °'^'^^'^^- '■■ -fe; a*. •*/ 5*^ -1 *tv.— - '-^-5" ■T- ^i^^yi^^ '^-^ *-«*' ,.^^«