John Dryden, the poet's second son, was born in 1667, or 1668, was
admitted a King's Scholar in Westminster in 1682, and elected to Oxford
in 1685. Here he became a private pupil of the celebrated Obadiah
Walker, Master of University College, a Roman Catholic. It seems
probable that young Dryden became a convert to that faith before his
father. His religion making it impossible for him to succeed in England,
he followed his brother Charles to Rome, where he officiated as his
deputy in the Pope's household. John Dryden translated the fourteenth
Satire of Juvenal, published in his father's version, and wrote a comedy
entitled, "The Husband his own Cuckold," acted in Lincoln's Inn Fields
in 1696; Dryden, the father, furnishing a prologue, and Congreve an
epilogue. In 1700-1, he made a tour through Sicily and Malta, and his
journal was published in 1706. It seems odd, that in the whole course of
his journal, he never mentions his father's name, nor makes the least
allusion to his very recent death. John Dryden, the younger, died at
Rome soon after this excursion.
Erasmus Henry, Dryden's third son, was born 2d May 1669, and educated in
the Charterhouse, to which he was nominated by Charles II., shortly
after the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel."[77] He does not
appear to have been at any university; probably 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 England, and in 1708 succeeded to
the title of Baronet, as representative of Sir Erasmus Driden. the
author's grandfather. But the estate of Canons-Ashby, which should have
accompanied the title, had been devised by Sir Robert Driden, the poet's
first cousin, to Edward Dryden, the eldest son of Erasmus, the younger
brother of the poet. Thus, if the author had lived a few years longer,
his pecuniary embarrassments would have been embittered by his
succeeding to the honours of his family, without any means of sustaining
the rank they gave him. With this Edward Dryden, 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 surviving brother.[78]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Such, I understand, is the general purport of some letters of
Dryden's, in possession of the Dorset family, which contain certain
particulars rendering them unfit for publication. Our author himself
commemorates Dorset's generosity in the Essay on Satire, in the
following affecting passage: "Though I must ever acknowledge to the
honour of your lordship, and the eternal memory of your charity, that
since this Revolution, wherein I have patiently suffered the ruin of my
small fortune, and the loss of that poor subsistence which I had from
two kings, whom I had served more faithfully than profitably to myself--
then your lordship was pleased, out of no other motive but your own
nobleness, without any desert of mine, or the least solicitation from
me, to make me a most bountiful present, which at that time, when I was
most in want of it, came most seasonably and unexpectedly to my relief.
That favour, my lord, is of itself sufficient to bind any grateful man
to a perpetual acknowledgment, and to all the future service which one
of my mean condition can be ever able to perform. May the Almighty God
return it for me, both in blessing you here, and rewarding you
hereafter!"--_Essay on Satire_, vol. xiii.
[2] So says Ward, in the London Spy.
[3] "Dryden, though my near relation," says Swift, "is one whom I have
often blamed, as well as pitied." Mr. Malone traces their consanguinity
to Swift's grandmother, Elizabeth Dryden, being the daughter of a
brother of Sir Erasmus Driden, the poet's grandfather; so that the Dean
of St. Patrick's was the son of Dryden's second cousin, which, in
Scotland, would even yet be deemed a near relation. The passages in
prose and verse, in which Swift reflects on Dryden, are various. He
mentions, in his best poem, "The Rhapsody,"
"The prefaces of Dryden,
For these our cities much confide in,
Though merely writ at first for filling,
To raise the volume's price a shilling."
He introduces Dryden in "The Battle of the Books," with a most
irreverent description; and many of the brilliant touches in the
following assumed character of a hack author, are directed against our
poet. The malignant allusions to merits, to sufferings, to changes of
opinion, to political controversies, and a peaceful consciences, cannot
be mistaken. The piece was probably composed _flagrante odio_, for it
occurs in the Introduction to "The Tale of a Tub," which was written
about 1692. "These notices may serve to give the learned reader an idea,
as well as taste, of what the whole work is likely to produce, wherein I
have now altogether circumscribed my thoughts and my studies; and, if I
can bring it to a perfection before I die, I shall reckon I have well
employed the poor remains of an unfortunate life. This indeed is more
than I can justly expect, from a quill worn to the pith in the service
of the state, in _pros_ and _cons_ upon popish plots, and meal tubs, and
exclusion bills, and passive obedience, and addresses of lives and
fortunes, and prerogative, and property and liberty of conscience, and
letters to a friend: from an understanding and a conscience, threadbare
and ragged with perpetual turning; from a head broken in a hundred
places by the malignants of the opposite factions; and from a body spent
with poxes ill cured, by trusting to bawds and surgeons, who, as it
afterwards appeared, were professed enemies to me and the government,
and revenged their party's quarrel upon my nose and shins. Fourscore and
eleven pamphlets have I written under three reigns, and for the service
of six and thirty factions. But finding the state has no farther
occasion for me and my ink, I retire willingly to draw it out into
speculations more becoming a philosopher; having, to my unspeakable
comfort, passed a long life with a conscience void of offence." [See
Appendix, vol. xviii., art. "Dryden and Swift."--ED.]
[4] [The exact sentence seems to have been "a Pindaric poet." But as
Swift had tried nothing but Pindarics, it was nearly if not quite as
severe as the more usually quoted and more sweeping verdict.--ED.]
[5] Robert Gould, author of that scandalous lampoon against Dryden,
entitled "The Laureat," inscribes his collection of poems, printed
1688-9, to the Earl of Abingdon; and it contains some pieces addressed
to him and to his lady. He survived also to compose, on the Earl's
death, in 1700, "The Mourning Swan," an eclogue to his memory, in which
a shepherd gives the following account of the proximate cause of that
event:
"_Menaleus_. To tell you true (whoe'er it may displease),
He died of the _Physician_--a disease
That long has reigned, and eager of renown,
More than a plague depopulates the town.
Inflamed with wine, and blasting at a breath,
All its _prescriptions_ are receipts for death.
Millions of mischiefs by its rage are wrought,
Safe where 'tis fled, but barbarous where 'tis sought;
A cursed ingrateful ill, that called to aid,
Is still most fatal where it best is paid."
[6] How far this was necessary, the reader may judge from Mirana, a
funeral eclogue; sacred to the memory of that excellent lady, Eleonora,
late Countess of Abingdon, 1691, 4th Aug., which concludes with the
following singular _imprecation_:
"Hear, friend, my sacred imprecation hear,
And let both of us kneel, and both be bare.
Doom me (ye powers) to misery and shame,
Let mine be the most ignominious name,
Let me, each day, be with new griefs perplext,
Curst in this life, nor blessed in the next,
If I believe the like of her survives,
Or if I think her not the best of mothers, and of wives."
[7] 30th August 1693, Dryden writes to Tonson, "I am sure you thought my
Lord Radclyffe would have done something; I guessed more truly, that he
could not."--Vol. xviii. The expression perhaps applies rather to his
lordship's want of ability than inclination; and Dryden says indeed, in
the dedication, that it is in his nature to be an encourager of good
poets, though fortune has not yet put into his hands the power of
expressing it. In a letter to Mrs. Steward, Dryden speaks of Ratcliffe
as a poet, "and none of the best."--Vol. xviii.
[8] Vol. xviii.
[9] Copied from the Chandos picture. Kneller's copy is now at Wentworth
House, the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam.
[10] The antiquary may now search in vain for this frail memorial; for
the house of Chesterton was, 1807, pulled down for the sake of the
materials.
[11] The exact pecuniary arrangements for the Virgil are a matter of
much dispute, almost every biographer taking a different view. It seems
most probable that the payment was fifty pounds per two books, not fifty
for each. The point will be more fully discussed on the letters dealing
with the subject.--Ed.
[12] This gave rise to a good epigram:
"Old Jacob, by deep judgment swayed,
To please the wise beholders,
Has placed old Nassau's hook-nosed head
On poor Aeneas' shoulders.
To make the parallel hold tack,
Methinks there's little lacking;
One took his father pick-a-pack,
And t'other sent his packing."
[13] "I am of your opinion," says the poet to his son Charles, "that, by
Tonson's means, almost all our letters have miscarried for 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 Aeneas,
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 satisfied, that Ferrand will do by this as he did by two letters
which I sent my sons, about my dedicating to the king, of which they
received neither."--Vol. xviii.
[14] Johnson's "Life of Dryden."
[15] [Professor Masson calculates, apparently on good grounds, that
Simmons probably made about five or six times what he paid. This, in not
much more than a year, cannot be considered a bad trade return; but the
sale price of "Paradise Lost" seems to provoke unfounded commonplaces
from even the most unexpected sources.--ED.]
[16] "I confess to have been somewhat liberal in the business of titles,
having observed the humour of multiplying them, to bear great vogue
among certain writers, whom I exceedingly reverence. And indeed it seems
not unreasonable 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 godfathers; which is an
improvement of much more advantage, upon a very obvious 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 precedent. 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 godfather, which was clearly out of my head,
as it is very reasonable 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 having entreated forty lords
of my acquaintance, that they would do me the honour to stand, they all
made it a matter of conscience, and sent me their excuses."
[17] Besides the notes on Virgil, he wrote many single sermons, and a
metrical version of the psalms, and died in 1720.
[18] He is described as a rake in "The Pacificator," a poem bought by
Mr. Luttrell, 15th Feb. 1699-1700, which gives an account of a supposed
battle between the 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, obliged him to reveal.
In him, the critic's ruined by the poet,
And Virgil gives his testimony to it.
The troops of wit were so enraged to see
This priest invade his own fraternity,
They sent a party out, by silence led,
And, without answer, shot the turn-coat dead.
The priest, the rake, the wit, strove all in vain,
For there, alas! he lies among the slain.
_Memento mori_; see the consequence,
When rakes and wits set up for men of sense."
[19] This, Mr. Malone has proved by the following extract from Motteux's
"Gentleman's Journal." "That best of poets (says Motteux) 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 Aeneis, without any design of Englishing the whole, he gave us the
first book of it some years ago, with a design to go through the poem.
It was the misfortune of that first attempt to appear just 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 attempt, and cannot but wish that he would
complete the entire translation."--_Gent. Journ._ for August 1692.
[20] See the Preface to "A Funeral Idyll, sacred to the glorious Memory
of King William III.," 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 Idyll
into Idyllium; 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 me a better: I have
heard him blamed for his innovations and coining of words, even by
persons who have already been sufficiently 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. Dryden's reputation;
and to think there is something more necessary to make a man write 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 who has none, have suffered by her
inconstancy, as much as they got 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 assume too much to
themselves from her partiality to them, lest, when they are left like
their predecessor, it should only serve to render them the more
ridiculous."
[21] "Homer in a Nutshell," (16th Feb.) 1700-9, by Samuel Parker, Gent.
"_Preface_.--Ever since I caught some termagant ones in a club,
undervaluing our new translation of Virgil, I've known both what opinion
I ought to harbour, and what use to make of them; and since the
opportunity of a digression so luckily presents itself, I shall make
bold to ask the gentlemen their sentiments of two or three lines (to
pass over a thousand other instances) which they may meet with in that
work. The fourth Aeneid says of Dido, after certain effects of her
taking shelter with Aeneas in the cave appear,
_Conjuijium vocat, hoc proetexit lomine culpam,_ V. 172,
which Mr. Dryden renders thus:
She called it marriage, by that specious name
To veil the crime, and sanctify the shame.
Nor had he before less happily rendered the 39th verse of the second
Aeneid:
_Scinditur in certum studia in contraria vulgus._
The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,
With noise, say nothing, and in parts divide.
"If these are the lines which they call flat and spiritless, I wish mine
could be flat and spiritless too! And, therefore, 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 snarl? And dare
The[21a] puny brats of Momus threaten war?
And can't the proud perverse Arachne's fate
Deter the[21a] mongrels e'er it prove too late?
In vain, alas! we warn the[21a] hardened brood;
In vain expect they'll ever come to good.
No: they'd conceive more venom if they could.
But let each[21a] viper at his peril bite,
While you defy the most ingenious spite.
So Parian columns, raised with costly care,
[21a] 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.
"[21a] I desire these appellations may not seem to affect the parties
concerned, any otherwise than as to their character of critics."
[22] Preface to the Fables, vol. xi.
[23] See several extracts from these poems in the Appendix, vol. xviii.,
which I have thrown together to show how much Dryden was considered as
sovereign among the poets of the time.
[24] This I learn from _Honori Sacellum_, a Funeral Poem, to the Memory
of William, Duke of Devonshire, 1707:
"'Twas so, when the destroyer's dreadful dart
Once pierced through ours, to fair Maria's heart.
From his state-helm then some short hours he stole,
T'indulge his melting eyes, and bleeding soul:
Whilst his bent knees, to those remains divine,
Paid their last offering to that royal shrine."
On which lines occurs this explanatory note:--"An Ode, composed by His
Grace, on the death of the late Queen Mary, justly adjudged by the
ingenious Mr. Dryden to have exceeded all that had been written on that
occasion."
[25] Dr. Birch refers to the authority of Richard Graham, junior; but no
such letter has been recovered.
[26] The authority, however respectable, has a very long chain of links.
Warton heard it from A, who heard it from B, who heard it from Pope, who
heard it from Bolingbroke.--Ed.
[27] This discovery was made by the researches of Mr. Malone. Dr. Burney
describes Clarke as excelling in the tender and plaintive, to which he
was prompted by a temperament of natural melancholy. In the agonies
which arose from an unfortunate attachment, he committed suicide in July
1707. See a full account of the catastrophe in Malone's "Life of
Dryden," p. 299.
[28] It was first performed on February 19, 1735-6, at opera prices.
"The public expectations and the effects of this representation (says
Dr. Burney) seem to have been correspondent, for the next day we are
told in the public papers [London Daily Post, and General Advertiser,
Feb. 20,] that 'there never was, upon the like occasion, so numerous and
splendid an audience at any theatre in London, there being at least
thirteen hundred persons present; and it is judged that the receipts of
the house could not amount to less than ВЈ450. It met with general
applause, though attended with the inconvenience of having the
performers placed at too great a distance from the audience, which we
hear will be rectified the next time of performance."--_Hist. of Music_,
iv. 391.
[29] See vol. xviii.
[30] "Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age
Can best, if any can, support the stage,
Which to declines, that shortly we may see
Players and plays reduced to second infancy.
Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown,
They plot not on the stage, but on the town;
And in despair their empty pit to fill,
Set up some foreign monster in a bill:
Thus they jog on, still tricking, never thriving,
And murth'ring plays, which they miscall--reviving.
Our sense is nonsense, through their pipes conveyed;
Scarce can a poet know the play he made,
'Tis so disguised in death; nor thinks 'tis he
That suffers in the mangled tragedy:
Thus Itys first was killed, and after dressed
For his own sire, the chief invited guest."
This gave great offence to the players; one of whom (Powell) made a
petulant retort, which the reader will find in a note upon the Epistle
itself, vol. xi.
[31] Milbourne, in a note on that passage in the dedication to the
Aeneid--"_He who can write well in rhyme, may write better in blank
verse_," says,--"We shall know that, when we see how much better
Dryden's Homer will be than his Virgil."
[32] "Much the same character he gave of it (_i.e._ Paradise Lost) to
a north-country gentleman, to whom I mentioned the book, he being a
great reader, but not in a right train, coming to town seldom, and
keeping little company. Dryden amazed him with speaking so loftily of
it. 'Why, Mr. Dryden, says he (Sir W.L. told me the thing himself), 'tis
not in rhyme.' 'No, [replied Dryden;] _nor would I have done_ Virgil
_in rhyme, if I was to begin it again._'"--This conversation is supposed
by Mr. Malone to have been held with Sir Wilfrid Lawson, of Isell in
Cumberland.
[33] See a letter to Mrs. Thomas, vol. xviii.
[34] "Some of these poets, to excuse their guilt, allege for themselves,
that the degeneracy of the age makes their lewd way of writing
necessary: they pretend the auditors will not be pleased, unless they
are thus entertained from the stage; and to please, they say, is the
chief business of the poet. But this is by no means a just apology: it
is not true, as was said before, that the poet's chief business is to
please. His chief business is to instruct, to make mankind wiser and
better; and in order to this, his care should be to please and entertain
the audience with all the wit and art he is master of. Aristotle and
Horace, and all their critics and commentators 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 be as
unfrequented as the churches, and the poet and the parson 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
ingenious 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 honourable to himself, and more useful to others.
And there are among these writers _some, who think they might have risen
to the highest dignities in other professions, had they employed their
wit in those ways._ It is a mighty dishonour 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 wit in propagating
vice and corruption 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, _complaining of neglect and poverty, the just
punishments of his irreligion and folly!_"
[35] 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.
[36] Since Scott wrote, the Collier-Congreve controversy has been the
subject of well-known essays by Lamb, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, and Macaulay.
Very recently a fresh and excellent account of Collier's book has
appeared in M.A. Beljame's _Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en
Angleterre au xviiiГЁme siecle_ (Paris: Hachette, 1881), a remarkable
volume, to which, and to its author, I owe much.--Ed.
[37] 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 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. 375 "in
which Dryden, L'Estrange, and some others I shall not name, are levelled
at; who, having spent their lives in faction, and apostasies, 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. In other places
he talks at the same rate."
[38] Vol. xviii.
[39] Thus in a lampoon already quoted (footnote 29, Section VI)
"Quitting my duller hopes, the poor renown
Of Eton College, or a Dublin gown."
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 humour, to date from the year of
Hegira, the loss of Eton, or since orders were refused you. Whatever
hangs out, either black or green colours is presently your prize: and
you would, by your good will, be as mortifying a vexation to the whole
tribe, as an unbegetting year, a concatenation of briefs, or a voracious
visitor; so that I am of opinion, you had much better have written in
your title-page,
Manet alta mente repostum
Judicium _Cleri_, spretaeque injuria _Musoe_."
The same reproach is urged by Settle. See vol. ix.
[40] Vol. xviii. [The _Diary_ had not been deciphered when Scott wrote.
--ED.]
[41] There was, to be sure, in the provoking scruples of that rigid
sect, something peculiarly tempting to a satirist. How is it possible to
forgive Baxter, 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 and pears_,
which I think laid the foundation of the imbecility 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 had enough at home."
There are six other retractions 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." Baxter was a
pious and worthy man; but can any one read this confession without
thinking of Tartuffe, who subjected himself to penance for killing a
flea, with too much anger?
[42] See vol. xviii. Mr. Malone thinks tradition has confounded a
present made to the poet himself probably of ВЈ100, with a legacy
bequeathed to his son Charles, which last did amount to ВЈ500, but which
Charles lived not to receive.
[43] She is distinguished for beauty and virtue, by the author of "The
Court at Kensington." 1699-1700.
"So Ormond's graceful mien attracts all eyes,
And nature needs not ask from art supplies;
An heir of grandeur shines through every part,
And in her beauteous form is placed the noblest heart:
In vain mankind adore, unless she were
By Heaven made less virtuous, or less fair."
[44] Gildon, in his "Comparison between the Stages."--"Nay then," says
the whole party at Drury-lane, "we'll even put 'The Pilgrim' upon him."
"Ay, 'faith, so we will," says Dryden: "and if you'll let my son have
the profits of the third night, I'll give you a Secular Masque." "Done,"
says the House; and so the bargain was struck.
[45] _i.e._ Upon the 25th March 1700; it being supposed (as by many in
our own time) that the century was concluded so soon as the hundredth
year commenced; as if a play was ended at the _beginning of the fifth
act._
[46] It was again set by Dr. Boyce, and in 1749 performed in the
Drury-lane theatre, with great success.
[47] By a letter to Mrs. Steward, dated the 11th April 1700, it appears
they were then only in his contemplation, and the poet died upon the
first of the succeeding month. Vol. xviii.
[48]
"Quick Maurus, though he never took degrees
In either of our universities,
Yet to be shown by Rome kind wit he looks,
Because he played 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, or is quite forgot;
His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe,
Is just the proverb, and 'As poor as Job.'
One would have thought 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 founders 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 room
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,--'tis yet too early day
To get himself a place in farce or play;
We know not by what name we should arraign him,
For no one category can contain him.
A pedant,--canting preacher,--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 one dubbed the knight."
[49] One of these well-meaning persons insulted the ashes of Dryden
while they were still warm, in "An Epistle to Sir Richard Blackmore,
occasioned by the New Session of the Poets." Marked by Mr. Luttrell, 1st
November 1700.
"His mighty Dryden to the shades is gone,
And Congreve leaves successor of his throne:
Though long before his final exit hence,
He was himself an abdicated Prince;
Disrobed of all regalities of state,
Drawn by a hind and panther from his seat.
Heir to his plays, his fables, and his tales,
Congreve is the poetic prince of Wales;
Not at St. Germains, but at Will's, his court,
Whither the subjects of his dad resort;
Where plots are hatched, and councils yet unknown,
How 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 drink,
But sips from Styx a liquor black as ink;
Like Sisyphus a restless stone he turns,
And in a pile of his own labours burns;
Whose curling flames most ghastly fiends do raise,
Supplied with fuel from his impious plays;
And when he fain would 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 [them] draw on earth so vile a load.
Could some infernal painter draw the sight,
And once transmit it to the realms of light,
It might our poets from their sins affright;
Or could they hear, how there the sons of verse
In dismal yells their tortures do express;
How scorched with ballads on the Stygian shore,
They horrors in a dismal chorus roar;
Or see how the laureate does his grandeur bear,
Crowned 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,
But now you must engage his pack of hounds."
[50] According 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."--_London Spy_, Part xviii.
[51] "I come now from Mr. Dryden's funeral, where we had an Ode in
Horace sung, instead of David's Psalms; whence you may find, that we
don't think a poet worth Christian burial. The pomp of the ceremony was
a kind of rhapsody, and fitter, I think, for Hudibras, than him; because
the cavalcade was mostly burlesque: but he was an extraordinary 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 restore
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."
[52] Those who wish to peruse this memorable romance may find it in vol.
xviii. It was first published in Wilson's "Life of Congreve," 1730. Mr.
Malone has successfully shown that it is false in almost all its parts;
for, independently of the extreme improbability of the whole story, it
is clear, from Ward's account, written at the time, that Lord Jefferies,
who it is pretended interrupted the funeral, did, in fact, largely
contribute to it. This also appears from a paragraph, in a letter from
Doctor afterwards Bishop Tanner, dated May 6th, 1700, and thus given by
Mr. Malone:--"Mr. Dryden 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 Russel's: there he was embalmed; and now lies in state
at the Physicians' College, and is to be buried with Chaucer, Cowley,
etc., at Westminster Abbey, on Monday next."--_MSS. Ballard. in Bibl.
Bodl._ vol. iv. p. 29.
[53] The following lines are given by Mr. Malone as a specimen:--
"Before the hearse the mourning hautboys go,
And screech a dismal sound of grief and woe:
More dismal notes from bog-trotters may fall,
More dismal plaints at Irish funeral;
But no such floods of tears e'er stopped 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:
The playhouse drab, that beats the beggar's bush,
* * * * *
By everybody kissed, good truth,--but such is
Now her good fate, to ride with mistress Duchess.
Was e'er immortal poet thus buffooned!
In a long line of coaches thus lampooned!"
[54] [Transcriber's note: "Page 73" in original. See Footnote 14,
Section II.]
[55] [Transcriber's note: "'Poet Squab,' p. 215" in original. See
Footnote 14, Section V.]
[56] From "Epigrams on the Paintings of the most eminent Masters," by
J.E. (John Elsum), Esq., 8vo, 1700, Mr. Malone gives the following
lines:--
The Effigies of Mr. Dryden, by Closterman,
_Epig_. clxiv.
"A sleepy eye he shows, and no sweet feature,
Yet was indeed a favourite of nature:
Endowed 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 concentered were.
But though the painter's art can never show it,
That his exemplar was so great a poet,
Yet are the lines and tints so subtly wrought,
You may perceive he was a man of thought.
Closterman, 'tis confessed, has drawn him well,
But short of Absalom and Achitophel."
[57] [Transcriber's note: "See pages 258-261" in original. This
corresponds to the discussion on Dryden's conversion to Catholicism,
Section VI.]
[58] A correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine, in 1745, already
quoted, says of him as a personal acquaintance: "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 'twas owing to a false complaisance. He was, in company, the
modestest man that ever conversed."
[59] Letter to the author of "Reflections Historical and Political."
4to, 1732.
[60] See vol. xi.; vol. xviii. 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 wit's
coffeehouse was situated at the end of Bow-street, on the north side of
Russel-street, and frequented by all who made any pretence to
literature, or criticism. Their company, it would seem, was attended
with more honour than profit; for Dennis describes William Envin, or
Urwin, who kept the house, as taking refuge in White-friars, then a
place of asylum, to escape the clutches of his creditors. "For since the
law," says the critic, "thought it just to put Will out of its
protection, Will thought it but prudent to put himself out of its
power."
[61] See Appendix, vol. xviii.; vol. xi.
[62] The Dean of Peterborough. "I was," 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 pleasure of seeing the
most celebrated wits of that time, who used to resort thither. The
second time that ever I was there, Mr. Dryden was speaking of his own
things, as he frequently did, especially of such as had been lately
published. If anything of mine is good (says he), 'tis my Mac-Flecknoe;
and I value myself the more on it, because it is the first piece of
ridicule written in heroics.' Lockier overhearing this, plucked up his
spirit so far, as to say, in a voice just loud enough to be heard, that
Mac-Flecknoe was a very fine poem, but that he had not imagined it to be
the first that ever was wrote that way. On this Dryden turned short upon
him, as surprised at his interposing; asked him how long he had been a
dealer in poetry; and added, with a smile,--'But pray, sir, what is it,
that you did 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 borrowed some strokes from each. ''Tis true,' says
Dryden;--'I had forgot them.' A little after, Dryden went out, and in
going spoke to Lockier again, and desired him to come to him the next
day. Lockier was highly delighted with the invitation, and was well
acquainted with him as long as he lived."--MALONE, vol. i. p. 481.
[63] "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; affirming 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
translate Horace; from which Mr. Dryden, with many arguments, dissuaded
him, as an attempt which his genius was not adapted to, and which would
risk his losing the good opinion the world had of him, by his successful
translation of Lucretius. I thought it proper to acquaint you with this
circumstance, since it rescues the fame of one of our greatest poets
from the imputation of envy and malevolence." See also, upon this
subject, a note in vol. viii. Yet Jacob Tonson told Spence, "that Dryden
would compliment Crowne when a play of his failed, but was cold to him
if he met with success. He used sometimes to say, that Crowne had some
genius; but then he always added, that his father and Crowne's mother
were very well acquainted."--MALONE, vol. i. p. 500.
[64] His conversation is thus characterised by a contemporary 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 anything
desirable, it were for the conversation of him, and one or two more of
the same character."--_The Humours and Conversation of the Town exposed,
in two Dialogues_, 1693, p. 73
[65] [This story is probably as old as the first married pair of whom
the husband was studious. It certainly appears without names in the
_Historiettes_ of Tallemant des RГ©aux, most of which were written five
years before Dryden's marriage.--ED]
[66] "When Dryden, our first great master of verse and harmony, brought
his play of 'Amphitryon' to the stage, I heard him give it his first
reading to the actors; in which, though it is true he delivered the
plain sense of every period, yet the whole was in so cold, so flat, and
unaffecting a manner, that I am afraid of not being believed, when I
affirm it."--_Cibber's Apology_, 4to.
[67] [Transcriber's note: "See page 112" in original. This is to be
found in Section III.]
[68] Vol. xviii.
[69] "I find (says Gildon) Mr. Bayes, the younger [Rowe], has two
qualities, like Mr. Bayes, the elder; his admiration of some odd books,
as 'Reynard the Fox,' and the old ballads of 'Jane Shore,' etc."--
_Remarks on Mr. Rome's Plays_. "Reynard the Fox" is also mentioned in
"The Town and Country Mouse," as a favourite book of Dryden. 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.
[70] Vol. xviii.
[71] It is now No. 43.
[72] Vol. vii.
[73] [The unfavourable accounts of Lady Elizabeth's temper after
marriage are not much better founded than those of her maidenly or
unmaidenly conduct before it. Dryden's supposed to almost all his
contemporaries in _belles-lettres_. There is no sign in his letters of
any conjugal unhappiness, and Malone's "respectable authority" is family
gossip a century after date.--ED.]
[74] [Transcriber's note: "P. 85" in original. This is to be found in
Section II.]
[75] These are--1. Latin verses prefixed to Lord Roscommon's Essay on
Translated Verse. 2. Latin verses on the Death of Charles II., published
in the Cambridge collection of Elegies on that occasion. 3. A poem in
the same language, 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 composed music.
[76] The prologue was spoken by the ghosts of Shakespeare and Dryden;
from which Mr. Malone selects the following curious quotation:--"Mr.
Bevil Higgons, the writer of it, _ventured_ to make the representative
of our great dramatic poet speak these lines!--
"These scenes in their rough native dress were mine;
_But now, improved, with nobler lustre shine_
The first rude sketches Shakespeare's pencil drew,
_But all the shining master strokes are new._
This play, ye critics, shall your fury stand,
Adorned and rescued by a faultless hand."
To which our author replies,
"I long endeavoured to support the stage,
With the faint copies of thy nobler rage,
But toiled in vain for an ungenerous age.
They starved me living, nay, denied me fame,
And scarce, now dead, do justice to my name.
Would you repent? Be to my ashes kind;
Indulge the pledges I have left behind."--MALONE.
[77] [Transcriber's note: "Page 206, and vol. ix." in original. This is
to be found in Section V.]
[78] 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
1761, five sons; the youngest of whom, Bevil, was father of the present
Lady Dryden. Sir John, the eldest, survived all his brothers, and died
without issue, at Canons-Ashby, March 20, 1770." [The subsequent history
of the family is as follows:--Elizabeth Dryden, the "present Lady
Dryden" referred to by Scott, married Mr. John Turner, to whom she
carried the estates. Mr. Turner assumed the name and arms of Dryden in
1791, and was created a baronet four years later. The title and property
passed successively to his two sons, and then to the son of the younger,
the present Sir Henry Dryden, a distinguished archaeologist.--ED.]
SECTION VIII.
_The State of Dryden's Reputation at his Death, and afterwards--The
General Character of his Mind--His Merit as a Dramatist--As a Lyrical
Poet---As a Satirist--As a Narrative Poet--As a Philosophical and
Miscellaneous Poet--As a Translator--As a Prose Author--As a Critic._
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 combated, it is
true, but he conquered; and, in despite of faction, civil and religious,
of penury, and the contempt which follows it, of degrading patronage,
and rejected solicitation, from 1666 to the year of his death, the name
of Dryden was first in English literature. Nor was his fame limited to
Britain. Of the French literati, although Boileau,[1] with unworthy
affectation, when he heard of the honours paid to the poet's remains,
pretended ignorance even of his name, yet Rapin, the famous critic,
learned the English language on purpose to read the works of Dryden.[2]
Sir John Shadwell, the son of our author's ancient adversary, bore an
honourable and manly testimony to the general regret among the men of
letters at Paris for the death of Dryden. "The men of letters here
lament the loss of Mr. Dryden very much. The honours paid to him have
done our countrymen no small service; for, next to having so
considerable a man of our own growth, 'tis a reputation to have known
how to value him; as patrons very often pass for wits, by esteeming
those that are so." And from another authority we learn, that the
engraved copies of Dryden's portrait were bought up with avidity on the
Continent.[3]
But it was in England where the loss of Dryden was chiefly to be felt.
It is seldom the extent of such a deprivation is understood, till it has
taken place; as the size of an object is best estimated, when we see the
space void which it had long occupied. The men of literature, starting
as it were from a dream, began to heap commemorations, panegyrics, and
elegies: the great were as much astonished at their own neglect of such
an object of bounty, as if the same had never been practised before; and
expressed as much compunction, as it were never to occur again. The
poets were not silent; but their strains only evinced their woful
degeneracy from him whom they mourned. Henry Playford, a publisher of
music, collected their effusions into a compilation, entitled, "Luctus
Britannici, or the Tears of the British Muses, for the death of John
Dryden;" which he published about two months after Dryden's death.[4]
Nine ladies, assuming each the character of a Muse, and clubbing a
funeral ode, or elegy, produced "The Nine Muses;" of which very rare
(and very worthless) collection, I have given a short account in the
Appendix; where the reader will also find an ode on the same subject, by
Oldys, which may serve for ample specimen of the poetical lamentations
over Dryden.
The more costly, though equally unsubstantial, 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
munificence of this universal patron. But Montague never accomplished
his purpose, if he seriously entertained it. Pelham, Duke of Newcastle,
announced the same intention; received the panegyric of Congreve for
having done so; and having thus pocketed the applause, proceeded no
further than Montague had done. At length Pope, in some lines which were
rather an epitaph on Dryden, who lay in the vicinity, than on Rowe, over
whose tomb they were to be placed,[5] roused Dryden's original patron,
Sheffield, formerly Earl of Mulgrave, and now Duke of Buckingham, to
erect over the grave of his friend the present simple monument which
distinguishes it. The inscription was comprised in the following
words:--_J. Dryden. Natus 1632. Mortuus I Maii 1700. Joannes Sheffield,
Duxx Buckinghamiensis posuit, 1720_.[6]
