In the "Key to the Rehearsal," it is faid Sir Robert Howard was characterised by the name of Bilboa. The defign was probably to ridicule the reigning poet, whoever he might be. Rochester, to fupprefs the reputation of Dryden, took Settle and Crowne fucceffively into his protection, and promoted their interest on the stage so effectually, as to make him think his fupremacy of reputation in fome danger.

The fuccefs of "The Emprefs of Morocco," a tragedy written in rhyme by Settle, feems to have given him great disturbance, as he condescended to write an intemperate critique on the play and dedication, expreffive of rage and terror, indignation and jealoufy. Settle took his revenge on the appearance of the Conqueft of Granada. His anfwer is perhaps equal to the cenfure, which is no high commendation.

His Marriage a-la-Mode, a comedy, was exhibited, according to Langbaine, in 1673, and dedicated to Rochester, whom yet tradition always reprefents as his enemy, and who is mentioned by him with some difrespect in the preface to Juvenal.

The fame year he produced The Affignation, or Love in a Nunnery, a comedy, which was driven off | the stage; and Amboyna, a tragedy, intended to inflame the nation against the Dutch.

The next year he published The State of Innocence, or the Fall of Man, an opera, or rather a tragedy in heroic rhyme, founded on "Paradife Loft," which has undoubtedly very great beauties; but the characters are fuch as cannot decently be exhibited on the stage.

In 1675, he brought on the ftage The Miftaken Hufband, a comedy, founded on the Menachmi of Plautus, of which he only wrote one fcene. The real author is unknown.

It was followed, in 1676, by Aurengzebe, a tragedy, written in rhyme, which has the appearance of being the most elaborate of all his dramas. By writing tragedies in rhyme he continued to improve his diction and his nunchers, and feems to have fully formed his verfification, and settled his fyftem of propriety when he wrote this play.

In 1678, he produced All for Love, or the World well Loft, a tragedy, founded on Shakspeare's "Antony and Cleopatra," which is by univerfal confent accounted the most perfect of his dramas. It has certainly the fewest improprieties of ftyle or character, and, in point of regularity and poetic harmony, may be justly confidered as an invincible masterpiece of the power of English poetry. This, he tells us," is the only play which he wrote for himself;" the rest were given to the people. The next year he wrote, in conjunction with Lee. Oedipus, a tragedy, founded on the tragedies of Sophocles and Seneca, which was acted with great fuccefs, and acknowledged by Langbaine, "to be one of the best tragedies extant." The first and third acts were written by Dryden, who planned the fcenes; the remainder by Lee.

It was followed the fame year by Troilus and Creffida, or Truth found out too late, a tragedy altered from Shakspeare," to which," fays Langbaine," he added feveral new fcenes, and even cultivated and improved what he borrowed from the original. The laft fcene in the third act is a master- ¦ piece." It is introduced by a "Difcourfe on the grounds of Criticism in Tragedy.

The fame year came out An Essay on Satire, said to be written jointly by Dryden and the Earl of Mulgrave, containing fome very fevere reflections on the Duchess of Portsmouth, and Rochester, who took their revenge, by bafely hiring three ruffians to cudgel Dryden in a coffee-house. This incident is mentioned by Mulgrave, the true writer, in his " Art of Poctry.”

Though prais'd and beaten for another's rhymes,

His own deferves as great applause sometimes.

In 1680, he produced a comedy called Limberbam, or the Kind Keeper, which, after the third night, was prohibited as too indecent for the stage. He confeffes that its indecency was objected to; but Langbaine, who feldom favours him, reckons it his best comedy, and imputes its expulfion to refentment, because it "fo much expofed the keeping part of the town."

The fame year came out a " Translation of Ovid's Epifiles in English verfe," by feveral hands, twe of which, together with the preface, were by Dryden. The Epistle of Helon to Paris, is attributed to him and Lord Mulgrave.

In 1681, he published his Abfalom and Achitophel, a severe satire on the faction of the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Shaftesbury, which was eagerly received and univerfally read. The well known character of Zimri in this memorable fatire, is fevere enough to repay all the ridicule thrown en him by Buckingham, in the character of Bayes in "The Rehearsal.”

A Second Part of Abfalom and Achitophel was written by Tate, at the request and under the direction of Dryden, who wrote nearly two hundred lines of it himself, beginning with

And ending with

Next thefe a troop of busy spirits press,

To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee.

The fame year he published his Medal, a Satire against Sedition, which is a fevere invective against Shaftesbury and the Whig party. Settle, his old antagonist, wrote an answer to it, intituled the "Medal Reversed," 4to, 1681, and is also supposed to to have written two answers for his Abfalom and Achitopbel, the one intituled " Abfalom Senior," the other "Azariah and Hushai," 4to, 1682. In both rencounters Settle had so much success, that he left the palm doubtful, and divided the fuffrages of the nation.

In 1681, he brought on the stage his Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery, written against the Papists, and eminent for the happy coincidence and coalition of the two plots, and for the real power both of the serious and risible parts. The whole drama is natural, lively, entertaining, and highly finished, both with respect to plot, character, and language.

In 1682, came out his Religio Laici, which borrows its title from the Religio Medici of Dr. Browne, and is intended as a defence of revealed religion against Deifts, Papists, &c.

In 1683, he brought on the stage The Duke of Guife, a tragedy, written in conjunction with Lee. The first scene, the whole fourth act, and the first half, or somewhat more, of the fifth, was written by Dryden. It was professedly written for the party of the Duke of York, whose fucceffion was then opposed.

In 1684, he published a tranflation of Maimbourg's Hiftory of the League, with a large introduction, and dedication to the King, by whose command it was undertaken, on account of the parallel between the Leaguers of France, and the Covenanters of England.

On the death of Charles II., in the beginning of the year following, he wrote a funeral Pindaric Poem, facred to his memory, intituled Threnodia Auguftalis.

Soon after the acceffion of King James, when the profeffion of the Romish religion gave the only efficacious title to the favours of the Court, he declared himself a convert to Popery, and was appointed Hiftoriographer.

In 1685, he brought on the stage Albion and Albanius, an opera, written like the Duke of Guife, against the Whig Party. Downes fays, that, happening to be first performed the very day on which the Duke of Monmouth landed in the west, and the kingdom in a great confternation, it ran but fix nights.

In 1686, he wrote A Defence of the Papers written by the late King, and found in bis Strong-Box, in oppofition to Dr. Stillingfleet's" Answer to fome Papers lately printed," &c. Dr. Stillingfleet published "A Vindication," in 1687, in which he treats Dryden with some severity.

Having probably felt his own inferiority in theological controverfy, he tried to reason in verse, and published his celebrated Poem, intituled the Hind and Panther, in 1687, which was fuccessfully ridiculed in the "City Mouse and Country Moufe," a parody written by Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax, and Prior.

In 1688, he published his Britannia Rediviva, a poem on the birth of the Prince, filled with predictions of greatness and prosperity, which were not verified.

With hopes of promoting Popery, he was employed to tranflate" The Life of St. Francis Xavier,” and was supposed to have been engaged in translating " Varillas's History of Herefies;" but to have dropped the defign.

At the Revolution, having disqualified himself for holding any place under the Government, by turning Papist, he was difmiffed from the office of Poet-Laureat, which he enjoyed with fo much pride and praise; and which, to his great mortification, was conferred on Shadwell, an old enemy, whofe inauguration he celebrated in a Poem exquifitely fatirical, called Mac-Flecknoe.

It is related by Prior, that Lord Dorfet, when, as Chamberlain, he was constrained to remove him from his office, gave him from his own purfe an allowance equal to the falary.

7

Being no longer the Court Poet, and confidering himself as discountenanced by the public, he refumed, for fupport, his former employment of writing for the ftage, and produced in 1690, Don Sebaftian, a tragedy, which is commonly esteemed either the first or the second of his dramatic per

formances.

The next year he brought two plays on the stage, Ampbytrion, a comedy, founded on Plautus and Moliere, which fucceeded on its first appearance, and was revived by Dr. Hawkefworth in 1756; and King Arthur, an opera, the incidents of which are extravagant, and many of them very puerile. It has been lately revived, with alterations, as a musical drama. Dr. Johnson's account of its exhibition contains a fingular inftance of inadvertence; befides which he has mistaken what befel the Albion and Albanius as happening to King Arthur.

In 1692, he produced Cleomenes, a tragedy, which was acted with applause, and occafioned a wellknown incident related in the "Guardian," and allusively mentioned by Dryden in his preface. In 1693, appeared a new verfion of Juvenal and Perfius, in which the first, third, fixth, tenth, and fixteenth fatires of Juvenal, and Perfius entire, were tranflated by Dryden, who prefixed a very ample preface in the form of a dedication to Lord Dorfet. In this prefatory discourse, he mentions the defign he had once formed to write an Epic Poem on the actions either of Arthur, or the Black Prince, which it is much to be regretted, was not executed for want of a public stipend. He afterwards charged Blackmore with borrowing the plan of his "Arthur" from this preface, without acknowledging his benefactor."

His last drama, Love Triumphant, a tragedy, appeared in 1694, and is said, like his first dramatic effay, to have been unsuccessfu!.

From the exhibition of such a number of theatrical pieces, it does not appear that his fortune received, a proportionable improvement. He frequently complains that his diligence and abilities were infufficient to fatisfy the importunities of want, and to fet penury at defiance; for his profits were not great, as a play seldom produced him more than a hundred pounds, by the accumulated gain of the third night, the dedication, and the copy.

In 1695, he published a prose translation of Fresnoy's Art of Painting, with a preface, exhibiting a parallel between poetry and painting, which he boasts to have written in twelve mornings. In 1697, he published his excellent verfion of The Works of Virgil, which he completed in three years; "the wretched remainder," he says, in his dedication to Lord Clifford, "of a fickly age, worn cut with fudy, and oppreffed by fortune, without other fupport than the conftancy and patience of a Chriftian." It was cenfured by Milbourne, a clergyman, ftyled by Pope, "the fairest of critics," because he exhibited his own version to be compared with that which he condemned. His occafional poems and translations, fuch as Prologues, Epilogues, Epifiles, Epitaphs, Elegies, Sangi, &c. and versions from Greek and Latin poets, published in the fix volumes of Mifcellanies by Tonfon, are too numerous to be specified here.

Befides his controversial and critical writings in prose, already enumerated, he wrote the Lives of Plutarch and Lucian, prefixed to the translations of those authors by several hands, the Life of Polybius, before the translation of that hiftorian by Sir Henry Sheers, and a Preface to the " Dialogue Concerning Women," by Walsh.

His last work was his Fables, ancient and modern, published in 1699, together with fome original pieces, among which is the immortal Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, the production, according to Dr. Warton, of a morning; but, which Dr. Birch says, he spent a fortnight in compofing and correcting. Both accounts may be true, but the first seems the most probable.

The end of all the schemes and labours of this great poet was now at hand. Having heen for fome time, as he tells us, a cripple in his limbs, he died, at his house in Gerard Street, of a mortifi

cation in his leg, on the 1st of May 1701, in the 70th year of his age, and was buried in Westminfter Abbey.

The fplendor of his funeral was equal to the refpect paid to him while living. In a fatirical poem, intituled, " A Description of Mr. Dryden's Funeral," 1701, the writer afferts that the expence of the funeral was defrayed by Halifax;

He the great Bard at his own charge inters;

but makes no mention of the regularity of the proceffion having been interrupted by the oatrages of Lord Jeffries and his " rakish companions;" as related at great length in Wilfon's "Life of Congreve." Had fuch a circumftance happened, he hardly would have omitted it,

In the Register of the College of Physicians, is the following entry May 3. 1701, Comitiis Cenforiis Ordinariis. At the request of feveral perfons of quality, that Mr. Dryden might be carried from the College of Phyficians, to be interred at Westminster, it was unanimously granted by the Prefident and Cenfors." This entry is not calculated to afford any credit to the narrative concerning Lord Jeffries; but renders it probable that the expence of the funeral was defrayed by subfcription.

Ward, in his " London Spy," 1706, relates, that on the occafion there was a performance of folemn music at the College, and that at the proceffion, which he himself faw, there was a concert of hautboys and trumpets. The day of his interment he fays was Monday the 13th of May, twelve days after his decease. Wilfon fays, that "Garth pronounced a fine Latin oration at the College, over the corpfe, which was attended to the Abbey by a numerous train of coaches." Oldys mentions an epitaph on Dryden by Garth, which was in his poffeffion, but it is not now extant.

He was buried among the Poets in Westminster Abbey, where he lay long without distinction, till Sheffield Duke of Buckinghamshire gave him a tablet, for which was originally intended this epitaph:

This Sheffield rais'd.-The facred duft below

Was Dryden once; the reft who does not know?

Which was changed into the plain inscription now upon it,

J. DRYDEN,
Natus Aug 9 1631,
Mortuus Maii 1701,

Jobannes Sheffield, Dux Buckinghamienfes, pofuit.

He married Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, who survived him eight years. By her he had three fors, Charles, John, and Henry. Charles was Ufher of the Palace to Pope Clement the XI. and visiting England in 1704, was drowned in an attempt to swim across the Thames at Windfor. He translated the Seventh Satire of Juvenal. John was author of a comedy, called The Husband bis own Cuckold, acted in 1696, and translated the Fourteenth Satire of Juvenal. He is faid to have died at Rome. Henry entered into fome religious order.

A collection of his Original Poems and Translations, was printed in folio 1701, by the elder Tonfon, and reprinted, with additions, in 2 vols 12mo, 1743, by J. and R. Tonfon.

A complete collection of his Poetical Works, in 6 vols 8vo, with an account of his life by Mr. Derrick, was printed in 1766. The subsequent editions of his Plays, Poems, and Translations, require no particular enumeration.

Of the perfon, private life, and domestic manners of Dryden, very few particulars are known. His picture by Kneller would lead us to fuppofe that he was graceful in his person; but Kneller was a great mender of nature. From the "State Poems," we learn that he was a short, thick man. The nick-name given him by his enemies was Poet Squab.

"I remember plain John Dryden" (fays a writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for February 1745, who was then 87 years of age), " before he paid his court to the great, in one uniform clothing of Norwich drugget. I have eat tarts with him and Madam Reeve [the actress] at the Mulberry Garden, when our author advanced to a sword and Chedreux wig, [probably the wig that Swift has ridiculed in "the Battle of the Books"]. Fofterity is abfolutely mistaken as to that great man. Though forced to be a fatirift, he was the mildest creature breathing, and the readiest to help the young and deferving. Though his comedies are horribly full of double entendre, yet 'twas owing to a falfe compliance for a diffolute age; he was in company the modefteft man that ever conversed."

Of his private character, he himself thus fpeaks in a letter to Dennis, written in 1694. "For my principles of religion, I will not justify them to you, I know your's are far different. For the fame reason, I shall say nothing of my principles of state; I believe you in your's follow the dictates

of your reafon, as I, in mine, do t'ofe of my confcience: If I thought myfelf in an error I would retract it. For my morals, between man and man, I am not to be my own judge. I appeal to the world if I have deceived or defrauded any man; and for my private converfation, they who fee me every day, can be the best witneffes, whether or not it be blameless and inoffenfive."

Dr. Johnfon found two men to whom Dryden was perfonally known, one of whom said, that, at the house which he frequented, called Will's Coffee-Houfe, the appeal upon any literary difpute was made to him; and the other related, that bis armed chair, which, in the winter, had a fettled and preferiptive place by the fire, was in the fummer placed in the balcony. The two places were called by him his winter and his fummer feat.

One of his opinions, though prevalent in his time, will do him no honour in the prefent age. He put great confidence in the prognoftications of judicial aftrology. In the preface to his Fables, he has endeavoured obliquely to justify his fuperftition, by attributing the fame to fome of the ancients. The letter to his fons in Italy, preferved in the Library at Lambeth, and imparted to the public by Dr. Johnfon, leaves no doubt of his notions or practice. It contains, alfo, an indubitable proof of his religious fincerity.

From fome parts of his hiftory he appears unfteady, and to have too readily temporifed with the feveral revolutions in church and ftate. This, however, might in fome measure have been owing to his natural timidity and diffidence. Congreve, whofe authority cannot be queftioned, has given us fuch an account of him, as makes him appear no lefs amiable as a man, than he was illuftrious as a poet. He was humane, he tells us, compaffionate, forgiving, fincerely friendly; of extenfive reading, a tenacious memory, and a ready communication; gentle in the correction of the writings of others, and patient under the reprehenfion of his own deficieneies; eafy of accefs himself, but flow and diffident in his advances to others; and of all men the most modest and the oft eafy to be discountenanced in his approaches either to his inferiors or his equals.

To the teftimony of Congreve, who knew him familiarly, his cenfurers have nothing to object, but that his modefty, courtesy, and good-humour, were by no means inconfiftent with a high opinion of his own powers, an unnecessary jealoufy of the reputation of others, and a querulous oftentatiousness, in reminding the world of his merits.

From thofe notices which he has very liberally given us of himfelf, it appears, that " his converfation was flow and dull, his humour saturnine and referved, and that he was none of thofe who endeavour to break jefts in company, and make repartees." But whatever was his chara&er as a companion, it appears, that he lived in familiarity with the highest perfons of his time. He has been reproached with boafting of his familiarity with the great, but he has never been accuted of being an auxiliary of vice, or charged with any perfonal agency, unworthy of a good character. His works, indeed, afford too many examples of diffolute licentioufucfs and abject adulation. Such degradation of genius, fuch abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation.

indignant view,

Yet pity Dryden-hark! whene'er he fings,
How adulation drops her courtly dew

On titled rhymers and inglorious kings.

MASON.

Of dramatic immorality he did not want examples among his contemporaries; but in the meannefs and fervility of hyperbolical adulation, he poffeffed an unrivalled fuperiority. Of this kind of meannefs he never feems to decline the practice or lament the neceffity. He appears to have been more delighted with the fertility of his invention than mortified by the proftitution of his judg ment, which was probably, like his immorality and his merriment, artificial and constrained, the effect of fludy and meditation, and his trade rather than his pleasure. It is, indeed, not certain that his judgment much rebelled against his intereft; but it is certain that he abetted vice and va. nity only with his pen, of which he lived to repent, and to teftify his repentance.

Confidered in his intellectual and literary character, Dryden prefents himself to us as a dramatist, a critic, a scholar, a writer of profe, and a general poet.

VOL. VI.

H