SIR PETER LELY was a portrait-painter of very great merit, but modest when estimating himself. "Sir Peter," said one of the frequenters of the court of Charles II., "how did you get your reputation? You know you are no great painter." "I know I am not," said Lely, calmly, "but I am the best you have."

B. 1621.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

D. 1683.

WHEN Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury (in the reign of Charles II.) went to sit to the painter Varelst, and was received by him with his hat on,-"Don't you know me?" said the peer. "Yes," replied the

painter, “you are my Lord Chancellor. And do you know me? I am Varelst. The king can make any man Chancellor, but he can make nobody a Varelst." Shaftesbury was disgusted, and employed another painter.

B. 1631.

JOHN DRYDEN.

D. 1700.

DRYDEN, beyond doubt a great and masculine poet, thought his twenty-eight plays superior to Shakspeare's, and that he could improve "The Tempest," as well as Milton's "Paradise Lost." The author of "Absalom and Achitophel" takes a higher seat than a numerous crowd of poets; but the public judgment still places him below those whose works he thought himself able to mend. He thought it better to acknowledge his vanity than to leave the world to do it for him, so he writes: "For what other reason have I spent my life in so unprofitable a study? Why am I grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame? The same parts and application which have made me a poet might have raised me to any honors of the gown."

He thought his merits greatly undervalued, and declared that he had "few thanks to pay his stars that he was born among Englishmen." In reference to one of his poems, "The Year of Wonders," he says: "I am satisfied that as the Prince and General [Rupert and Monk] are incomparably the best

subjects I have ever had, so what I have written on them is much better than what I have performed on any other. As I have endeavored to adorn my poem with noble thoughts, so much more to express those thoughts with elocution."

In the preface to the "Second Miscellany," Dryden says, "I have taken some pains to make it my masterpiece in English.'

Swift writes of Dryden: "He has often said to me in confidence, that the world would never have suspected him to be so great a poet, if he had not assured them so frequently in his prefaces, that it was impossible they could either doubt or forget it.",

Dryden's great-grandfather is reported to have made this self-confident statement in his will, that he was "assured by the Holy Ghost that he was the elect of God;" which would seem to indicate the heredity of the poet's self-appreciation.

Of one of his tragedies he wrote: "I dare promise for this play, that in the roughness of the numbers, which was so designed, you will see somewhat more masterly than any of my former tragedies.”

Of his "Ode to Saint Cecilia's Day" he said, almost justifiably, “A nobler ode never was produced nor ever will be."

RICHARD BRATHWAYTE.

"RI BRATHWAYTE, Esq.," as he styles himself, dedicated to the Earl of Worcester, in 1635, his translation of "The Arcadian Princesse: or the triumph of Justice Priscribing excellent rules of Physick, for a sick Justice, digested into fowre bookes and faithfully rendered to the originall Italian copy."

Some words from the dedication to the Earl may illustrate the style of early times, and also of the translator's estimate of himself:

"You shall here meet with an Author walking in an un-beat path. One who discurtains the vices of that time so smoothly, though smartly, as his continued Allegorie pleads his apologie. A right Italian wit shal your honor find him, quick and spritely, and of eminent race and ranke in his country. . . . Now if this new dresse doe not become him, all that I can say in mine owne defence is this, and no other; there is great difference betwixt Taylor and Translator: sure I am, that the loom is the same, if not the lustre; the stuffe the same, though not the colour."

B. 1648. SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

D. 1723.

SIR GODFREY KNELLER, who painted the female beauties at Hampton Court in the time of Charles II., to the great disgust of all those not included, was a good artist as well as a wit, but prodigiously vain.

He was greatly flattered by the poets; and Pope laid a wager there was no flattery so gross that his friend would not swallow. To prove it, Pope said to him one day as he was painting, "Sir Godfrey, I believe if God Almighty had had your assistance the world would have been formed more perfect." "Fore God, sir," replied Kneller, "I believe so." In the same impious strain he said to a low fellow whom he overheard cursing himself, "God damn you! God may damn the Duke of Marlborough, and perhaps Sir Godfrey Kneller; but do you think he will take the trouble of damning such a scoundrel as you?"

At another time Pope was with Sir Godfrey, both physically very inferior men, when Sir Godfrey's nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. "Nephew," said Sir Godfrey, "you have the honor of seeing the two greatest men in the world." "I don't know how great you may be," said the Guinea trader," but I don't like your looks: I have often bought a man much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas."

His vanity was perhaps equally conspicuous, though not without a basis of truth, when he refused to take the son of his tailor as an apprentice. "Dost thou think, man, I can make thy son a painter? No! God Almighty only makes painters.”

The French, however, furnish some parallel cases of conceit quite in keeping with that of Sir Godfrey. Madame de la Meilleraye, a cousin of Cardinal Richelieu, speaks of the Chevalier de Savoie, a man of