can more strongly display the genius of Pope, than under such great disadvantages, that he has done so well. Possessing a very slight and superficial knowledge of Greek, and never have ing studied the peculiar language of his author, he undertook a translation of the most ancient and most difficult poet; educated in a very refined and polished age of literature, more distinguished for wit than force of genius, and most dissimilar in feeling and character to the genius of Homer, he has given a translation which has pleased many and pleased long.

In 1698 he began to remodel some of the fables of Chaucer, and translate some of Boccacio's tales; the selection which he made from the Decameron (for he was on dangerous ground) did honour to the soundness and manliness of his taste. Having proceeded in his undertaking, he agreed, in 1699, to furnish his bookseller with ten thousand verses for the sum of 500l. of which 250l. was to be paid down. An Epistle to his cousin, John Dryden, of Chesterton,* was inserted in the volume, for which, it is believed, a handsome pecuniary present was returned. The volume had a double dedication; one in prose to the Duke of Ormond, and another in verse to Mary, the second Dutchess; she is reported to have rewarded the writer as became a person of rank and opulence. It is singular that a second edition of this work was not called for till thirteen years after the death of the author, though now the most popular of all his works; for the thoughts are natural and beautiful; the imagery richly carved with something of Arabesque magnificence; the narrative interesting and picturesque, and the stream of verse is poured along warbling in fine musical intonation, and with long melodious flow. The fables of Pope, compared to these, have a paler and fainter colour, possessing neither Dryden's vigour of imagination, nor his rich and brilliant plumage of poetical expression.t

About this time Vanburgh revived Fletcher's Comedy, entitled 'The Pilgrim,' for the actors at Drury Lane, and stipulated that Dryden should have the benefit of the third night's per

• Malone is inclined to believe that Dryden received from his cousin, not five hundred pounds, but one; and a sum of the same amount from the Dutchess of Ormond. Life, p. 327.

The faults in these fables are pointed out by an acute and ingenious critic,-'no false wit from the school of Cowley turns a baron bold into an epigrammatist; no Sigismunda delivers a lecture on republicanism, on being caught with her lover; no legend of a knight of Arthur is degraded, as in the Wife of Bath's tale, into a vehicle of modern satire; no action unsuitable to the times in which it is placed, like that of Palamon and Arcite.' See Taylor's Sury, of German Poetry, ii. 327.

formance, in return for this prologue and epilogue, and a secular mask introduced at the end of the piece. These small poems were written but three weeks before our author's death; and the play which they accompanied was the first in which that beautiful and accom plished actress, Mrs. Oldfield, displayed the extent of her dramatic powers. It is singular that Dryden's muse accompanied her earliest en◄ trance into fame; and that the pencil of Pope drew the last features of her fading portrait, as she departed from life.

The days of our poet's existence were now fast drawing to a close. He had been for some years harassed by attacks of gravel and gout. In December, 1699, the erysipelas appeared in his legs. In the April following, in consequence of neglecting an inflammation of his feet, a mortification ensued, of which he died after a short illness, at three o'clock, on Wednesday, the 1st of May, 1700, at his house in Gerard Street. He behaved during his last

• Dryden possessed an undisputed superiority over all his contemporaries as a writer of prologues and epilogues; his assistance was accordingly sought by the authors of new plays, and by the players on remarkable occasions. There is in most of them much variety of fancy, pleasantry of satire, keenness of observation, and harmony and elegance of verse. The tone of superiority in which they are written has been remarked; and he rather lays down laws to his audience, than supplicates their favour, and throws the defects of his play, not on the want of genius in the writer, but on the imperfect taste of the audience; indeed, Granville, Lord Lansdowne, in his Essay on Unnatural Flights in Poetry, apologizes for Dryden

having suffered his judgment to be swayed by a

wild audience. In his Oxford Prologues a becom

ing deference and respect is shown to the taste and

learning of the University. It must, however, be deplored, that in these productions his liveliness too often descends into coarse and licentious allusion; though it stops far short of the gross inde

cency that is to be found in Shadwell. The original editions, printed on single leaves, and sold at the door of the theatre, are very rare; they are coarser and more licentious than those which Dryden finally adopted. He appears to have set but little value on them; for he often transferred the same prologue from one play to another, or took an epilogue out of a former poem. The satire against the Dutch furnishes the greater part of the prologue and epilogue to Amboyna. The epilogue to Mithridates, King of Pontus, 1681, the first play acted at the Theatre Royal, is printed for the first time by Scott among Dryden's Poems, vol. x. 354. When Southerne offered Dryden for a prologue to his first play, The Loyal Brother,' the sum of five guineas, he refused it, saying, 'Not that I do so out of disrespect to you, young man but the players have had my goods too cheap, in future I must have ten.' Malone thinks that the sum of three guineas and five should be substituted for five and ten.

Mr. Hobbes, an emincat surgeon, proposed to amputate the limb, but Dryden refused, saying, be was an old man, and had not long to live by the course of nature, and therefore did not care to part with one limb, to preserve an uncomfortable life upon the rest. Ward's London Spy, part xviii.

moments with composure and resignation to the Divine will. He expressed, at his advanced period of life, no anxious wish to have exist ence prolonged; he took a tender and affectionale farewell of his afflicted friends; and he died in the profession of the Roman Catholic faith.

About thirty years af er Dryden's death, in some memoirs of Congreve, published by a person under the fictitious name of Wilson (and who might have been Oldmixon,) a most erroneous account of our poet's funeral was given, and generally received as true. The original fabricator of the falsehood was Mrs. Thomas, well known under the name of Corinna, which Dryden had bestowed on her. She gave this story to the world, with a perfect consciousness that the whole narr .tive was false. She was in the Fleet prison at the time, and it is supposed, supplied Curll with this singular imposition for some slight remuneration. This is the same person who surreptitiously procured Pope's letters to Cromwell, and sold them to Curll, without consent of either of the parties. The whole narrative must have been founded on the slight foundation of a letter from Farquhar, and a description of the funeral by T. Brown. As, however, the real circumstances attending the burial of our poet are not without some singularity, I shall give them as they are faithfully recorded by Malone.

Dryden expired on Wednesday morning at three o'clock, the first of May. As he died of a gangrene, it was necessary that he should be buried without delay. Accordingly, two days after, his corpse, at the expense of Mr. Montagu (af erwards Lord Halifax,) was carried from his house in a private manner, to be in terred probably in the churchyard of the neighbouring parish. The Earl of Dorset, Lord Jeffries, and others, either hearing of the circumstances, or perhaps meeting the funeral procession as it passed, thinking that so celebrated a poet should be buried with some greater marks of respect and admiration, prevailed on the friends of the deceased to consent that the body should be carried for embalmment to the house of Mr. Russell, the undertaker: at the same time, they applied, through Dr. Garth, to the Censors of the college of physicians, to permit it to be deposited there, till it was conveyed

• Pope's bitter lines on Montagu are known to all.

Dryden alone, what wonder, came not nigh, Dryden alone escap'o is judging eye; Yet still the great have kindness in reserve, He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve. But the accusation is not quite correct. See Malone's Dryden, ii. 90.

to Westminster Abbey for interment. A subscription was raised to defray the expense.* The body having laid in sate for ten days, on the 13th of May the funeral obsequies were performed. A Latin oration was recited by Gartht in the theatre of the college, then the last ode of the third book of Horace was sung. The procession, consisting of nearly fifty coaches, and attended with music, moved on to the abbey. The body of Dryden was deposited in the grave of Chaucer ; one of the prebendaries reading the service, and the choir of the cathe dral attending.

Soon after the death of Dryden, H. Playford, (the well known publisher of music) printed a collection of Latin and English verses, under the title of Luctus Britannicus,' or the tears of the British Muses for the death of Mr. Dryden. Another collection, in a small volume, called, The Nine Muses, or Poems, written by nine several Ladies,' lamented Dryden's memory. It was generally expected that Mr. Montagu would have erected a monument in the abbey; but, seventeen years after the poet's death, Garth complained that he who had the power of conferring immortality by his pen, should himself want a monument to his fame.

In 1717, Congreve complimented Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, on his munificence in having given orders for erecting a splendid monument to one who was an honour to his country. His grace received the praise, and reserved the money. At length. Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghainshire, roused, it is said, by some lines of Pope's intended to be inscribed on Rowe's tomb,§ gave Kent an order to form a plain unexpensive design, and the bust of the poet was sculptured by Scheemaker. The

The undertaker's (Mr. Russell) bill for the funeral amounted to 45%. 178. See Scott's edit. vol. xviii. p. 194.

In a satirical poem called the Apparition, 1710, Garth's funeral eloquence is described.

John Dryden with his brethren of the bays, His love to Garth, blaspheming Garth conveys And thanks him for his pagan funeral praise. In Garth's Essay on Ovid's Metamorphoses is a eulogy on Dryden, p. 281. When Boileau heard of the honours paid to Dryden's remains, he pretended ignorance even of his name.

1 In Cibber's (Shiel's) Life of Dryden (Lives, iit. P. 93.) there is a copy of very indifferent Latin verses, signed John Phillips, 1700, æt. 14, which be says were thrown into the grave of Dryden, and which he printed for the first time.

Thy relica, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust,
And sacred place by Dryden's useful dust.
Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies,
To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes,
&c.

It appears from an entry in the chapter books at Westminster, that a bust of inferior workmanship kept its place on our author's tomb, for tom

whole cost not much more than one hundred pounds, and was erected twenty years after the poet's decease.

Dryden had three sons by Lady Elizabeth,— Charles, John, and Erasmus Henry, who are described by a lady to whom they were personally known, as fine, ingenious, and accomplished gentlemen. Charles was bred at Westminster school, chosen king's scholar in 1680, and elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he was admitted a member in 1683. He published some Latin verses on different subjects: one called the Horti Arlingtoniani, may be found in the third volume of the Miscellanies. He translated the seventh satire of Juvenal, which appeared in his father's version in 1692. Afterwards he went to Italy as nuncio to Pope Innocent XII. and was appointed chamberlain to his household. He appears to have been a person of accomplishments, a musician, a poet, and tolerable scholar. He was a great favour ite with his father, who, indeed, to all his children was a tender and affectionate parent. He returned to England in 1698, and after his father's death administered to his effects. He was drowned, while attempting to swim across the Thames, near Datchet, and buried at Windsor, August, 1704. Concerning this son, there are some curious astrological predictions by Dryden, published by Mrs. Thomas in Cougreve's life, the incongruities of which Malone, as usual, has detected.

John, the second son, was born in 1667-8, was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster, where he continued till 1685, when he was elected to Oxford. He was not matriculated a member of the university, having adopted, it is supposed, the religious opinions of his father, but placed under the private tuition of the famous Obadiah Walker, master of university, who was a papist; probably he went to Rome with his elder brother in 1692, when twentyfour years old. He became an officer in the pope's household, officiating as his brother's deputy. Previous to his leaving England he translated the fourteenth satire of Juvenal, and while at Rome wrote a comedy, entitled, 'The Husband his own Cuckold,' which was acted in Lincoln's Inn Fields 1696, to which his father contributed a prologue, and Congreve an epilogue. He made a tour through Sicily and

years, previous to Scheemaker being employed, who probably received for his bust twenty-five guineas. At a chapter held the 20th Nov 1731, ordered, that her grace the Dutchess of Buckinghamshire have leave to change the present bust of Mr. Dryden tor a better.' In Hacker's Epitaphs is an epigram on putting up this monument. See vol, L. p. 110.

Malta, which was published: and after hi return to Rome in January, 1701, he died of a fever.

Erasmus Henry, the third son, was born May, 1669, admitted a scholar of the charter house, on the nomination of Charles II. in 1682. He was elected to the university, but on account of his religious opinions did not become a member of either. He also went to Rome, was a captain in the Pope's guards, and probably remained there till after the death of his elder brother. By the death of Sir John Dryden, in 1720, the title of baronet, but without the estate, devolved on him.

He resided with his kinsman, Edward, in Canons-Ashby, for the greater part of the time; it is supposed, in a state of mental imbecility; a discase perhaps derived from his mother. He enjoyed the title only six weeks, and died in the forty-second year of his age, at the family mansion, and was buried at Canons-Ashby, 4th December, 1710; by his death the title was transferred to his uncle Erasmus.

Of the Lady Elizabeth, for so she was always called, little that is pleasant or satisfactory remains to be told. In the latter part of Dryden's life, during his various excursions in the country, she never accompanied him: nor was she ever visited by his relations, except in a formal and ceremonious manner. No authentic ac count has been transmitted of her person,* nor has any portrait of her been discovered. I am afraid that her personal attractions were not superior to her mental endowments; that her temper was wayward, and that the purity of her character was sullied by some early indiscretions.

Soon after Dryden's death she became insane, and was confined under the care of a female attendant, to whom her dower from his paternal estates of Blakesley was regularly paid for her use. In this condition, she continued for several years, and died in June or July, 1714, probably in the seventy-ninth year of her age. Though we have no original whole length portrait of Dryden,† yet Malone considers that there are

A letter from Lady Elizabeth to her son at Rome is preserved, as remarkable for the elegance of the style, as the correctness of the orthography. She says, your father is much at woon as to his health, and his defnese is not wosce but much as

he was when he was heare; give me a true account how my deare sonn Charlles is head dus 'Can this be the lady who had formerly held captive in her chains the gallant Earl of Chesterfield

In the preface to the Reasons for Mr. Bayes changing his Religion,' considered in a dialogue between Crites, Eugenius, and Mr. Bayes, 1688, 4to., is a passage designed to be a portrait of Dryden. I can make a pretty shift to read without spectacles, wear my own hair, which is somewhat

few English poets of whose external appearance more particulars are recorded. He was certainly a short, fat, florid man, corpore quadrato,' as Lord Hailes observed: a description which Æn. Sylvius applied to James I. of Scotland. He wore his hair in large quantities, and it inclined to gray even before his misfortunes, a circumstance which Lord Hailes said he learned from a portrait of Dryden, painted by Kneller. In Riley's portrait, 1683, he wears a very large wig, so also in that done by Closterman, at a later period. By Tom Brown he is called Little Bayes,' and by Lord Rochester he was nicknamed Poet Squab.' Of his appearance I have nothing more to remark, than in an epigram of Elsum's, he is described as having a sleepy eye,' and not a countenance of sweet favour; and that a large mole on his right cheek is conspicuous in all his portraits.† Malone thinks that his pecuniary difficulties and distress have been overrated; he considers that his income was more than 500l. a year, for a considerable period, a sum he says equal to 18001. at this day; but that in August, 1689, his distress truly began :§ for being deprived of

*

sua.

both his places, his certain revenue was duced to 120. a year, with such contingent accessions as might arise from his literary exertions, or the affectionate contribution of his friends.

The account which I have now given of Dryden would be left imperfect, were I not to conclude with inserting the delightful character of him that has been so minutely sketched by the affectionate and grateful hand of Congreve, who, during the last ten years of his life, had lived in close habits of intunacy with him.*

-Mr. Dryden had personal qualities to challenge both love and esteem for all who were truly acquainted with him. He was of a nature exceedingly humane and compassionate, easily forgiving injuries, and capable of a prompt and sincere reconciliation with those who had offended him. Such a temperament is the only solid foundation of all moral virtues and sociable endowments. His friendship, when he professed it, went much beyond his professions, though his hereditary income was little more than a bare competency. As his reading bad been extensive, so was he very happy in a memory

without other support than the constancy and pa tience of a Christian.' In the letters of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield, is one from Dryden, offering the dedication of the Georgics to his pa tronage, and saying, From the first hour since I have had the happiness of being known to your lordship, I have always preferred you in my poor esteem to any other nobleman, and that in all respects, and you may please to believe me as an honest man, that I have not the least consideration of profit in this address' A second letter follows, in which he thanks the earl, for the noble present which he received, he says, by the largeness of your present, I must conclude, that you considered who gave, not who was to receive. See Lord Chesterfield's Letters, p. 378. 381.

⚫ See Congreve's Dedication of Dryden's Dramatic Works to the Duke of Newcastle. Congreve says In some very elegant, though very partial verses, which Dryden did me the honour to write to me, he recommended it to me-to be kind to his remains. I was then, and have been ever since, most sensibly touched with that expression; and the more so, because I could not find in myself the means of satisfying the passion which I felt in me to do something answerable to an injunction laid upon me in so pathetic and so amiable a manner. The lines are

Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage,
Unprofitably kept at heaven's expense,

I live a rent charge on his providence.
But you, whom every muse and grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Be kind to my remains; and O! defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend.
Let not th' insulting foe my fame pursue,
But shade those laurels which descend to you;
And take for tribute what these lines express,
You merit more, nor could my love do less.

Ep. to Mr. Congreve

tenacious of every thing that he read. He was not more possessed of knowledge than communicative of it, but then his communication of it was by no means pedantic, or imposed upon the conversation: but just such, and went so far, as by the natural turn of the discourse in which he was engaged, it was necessarily promoted or required. He was extremely ready and gentle in his correction of the errors of any writer, who thought fit to consult him,* and felt 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, but somewhat slow, and as it were diffident in his advances to others. He had something in his nature that abhorred intrusion into any society whatever: indeed, it is to be regretted that he was rather blameable in the other extreme; for by that means he was personally less known, and consequently his character will become liable to misapprehension and misrepresentation. To the best of my knowledge and observation, he was, of all 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.

'As to Mr. Dryden's writings, I shall not take upon me to speak of them; for to say little of them, would not be to do them right, and to say all that I ought to say, would be to be very voluminous. But I may venture to say in general terms, that no man hath written in our language so much and so various matter, and in so various manners, so well. Another thing, I may say, was very peculiar to him, which is, that his parts did not decline with his years, but that he was an improving writer to his last, even to near seventy years of age; improving even in fire and imagination as well as in judgment; witness his Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, and his Fables, his last performances. He was equally excellent in verse and prose. His prose had

When Addison was a student at Oxford, he sent up his play to his friend Dryden, as a proper person to recommend it to the theatre, who returned it with very great commendations; but with his opinion, that on the stage it could not meet with its deserved success! but though the perform. ance was denied the theatre, it brought its author on the public stage of life.-Young on Orig. composition, p. 130.

The English tongue, as it stands at present, is greatly his (Dryden's) debtor. He first gave it regular harmony, and discovered its latent powers. It was his pen that formed the Congreves, the Priors, and the Addisons, who succeeded him; and had it not been for Dryden we never should have known a Pope, at least in the meridian lustre he now displays. But Dryden's excellencies as a writer were not confined to poetry alone. There is in his prose writings an ease and elegance that

all the clearness imaginable, together with all the nobleness of expression, all the graces and ornaments proper and peculiar to it, without deviating into the language or diction of poetry. I make this observation only to distinguish his style from that of many poetical writers, who meaning to write harmoniously in prose, do in truth often write mere blank verse.

'His versification and his numbers he could learn of nobody; for he first possessed those talents in perfection in our tongue, and they who have best succeeded in them, since his time, have been indebted to his example; and the more they have been able to imitate him, the better they have succeeded.

As his style in prose is always specifically different from his style in poetry; so on the other hand, in his poems, his diction is, whenever his subject requires it, so sublime and so truly poetical, that its essence, like that of pure gold, cannot be destroyed. Take his verses and divest them of their rhymes, disjoint them in their numbers, transpose their expressions, make what arrangement and disposition you please of his words, yet shall there eternally be poetry, and something which will be found incapable of being resolved into absolute prose, an incontestible characteristic of a truly poetical genius.

'I will say but one word more in general of his wri ings, which is, that what he has done in any one species, or distinct kind, would have been sufficient to have acquired him a great name. If he had written nothing but his prefaces, or nothing but his songs, or his prologues, each of them would have entitled him to the preference and distinction of excelling in his kind.'

To this interesting eulogy of Congreve, in which the partiality of friendship may have a little heightened the opinion he has delivered, I shall add the judgment of a writer himself pos sessing very considerable powers, and an original manner of thinking and expression.

'Dryden,' says Young, 'destitute of Shak speare's genius, had almost as much learning as Jonson,* and for the buskin quite as little taste, have never yet been so well united in works of taste or criticism.-Goldsmith's Bee, p. 288. Dryden's versification (says Armstrong, Essays, p. 162) I take to be the most musical that has yet appeared in rhyme: round, sweet, pompous, spirited, and various, it flows with such a happy volubility, such an animated and masterly negligence, as am afraid will not soon be excelled. From the fineness of his ear his prose, too, is perhaps the sweetest, the most mellow and sonorous, that the English language has yet produced.

This is certainly an incorrect assertion; Jcatha's Puning was profound and extensive : Dry