of Hodnell, in Warwickshire, by whom he had three sons, first, Sir John Driden, his successor in the title and estate of Canons-Ashby; second, William Driden of Farndon, in Northamptonshire; third, Erasmus Driden of Tichmarsh, in the same county. The last of these was the father of the poet. Erasmus Driden married Mary, the daughter of the Reverend Henry Pickering, younger son of Sir Gilbert Pickering, a person who, though in considerable favour with James I., was a zealous puritan, and so noted for opposition to the Catholics, that the conspirators in the Gunpowder Treason, his own brother-in-law being one of the number, had resolved upon his individual murder, as an episode to the main plot, determining, at the same time, so to conduct it, as to throw the suspicion of the destruction of the Parliament upon the puritans.t These principles, we shall soon see, became hereditary in the family of Pickering. Mr. Malone's industry has collected little concerning our author's maternal grandfather, excepting, that he was born in 1584; named minister of Oldwinkle, All-Saints, in 1647; and died in 1657. From the time when he obtained this preferment, it is highly probable, that he had been recommended to it by the puritanical tenets which he doubtless held, in common with the rest of his family. Of the poet's father, Erasmus, we know even less than of his other relations. He acted as a justice of peace during the usurpation, and was the father of no less than fourteen children; four sons, and ten daughters. The sons were John, Erasmus, Henry, and James; the daughters, Agnes, Lucy, Mary, Martha, Elizabeth, Hester, Hannah, Abigail, Frances. Such anecdotes concerning them as my predecessors have recovered, may be found in the note.t *Robert Keies, executed 31st January, 1606, of whom Fuller, in his Church History, tells the following anecdote:-A few days before the fatal blow should have been given, Keies being at Tichmarsh, in Northamptonshire, at his brother-in-law's house, Mr. Gilbert Pickering, a Protestant, he suddenly whipped out his sword, and in merriment, made many offers therewith at the heads, necks, JOHN DRYDEN, the subject of this memoir, was born at the parsonage house of Oldwinkle, AllSaints, on or about the 9th day of August, 1631. The village then belonged to the family of Exeter, as we are informed by the poet himself, in the postscript to his Virgil. That his family were Puritans, may readily be admitted; but that they were Anabaptists, although confidently asserted by some of our author's political or poetical antagonists, appears altogether improbable. Notwithstanding, therefore, the sarcasm of the Duke of Buckingham, the register of Oldwinkle, All-Saints parish, had it been in existence, would probably have been found to contain the record of our poet's baptism.ll Dryden seems to have received the rudiments of his education at Tichmarsh,§ and was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster, under the tuition of the celebrated Dr. Bushby, for whom he ever after wards entertained the most sincere veneration One of his letters to his old master is addressed, "Honoured Sir," and couched in terms of respect, and even humility, fully sufficient for the occasion. Another written by Dryden, when his feelings were considerably irritated, by a supposed injustice done to his son, is nevertheless qualified by great personal deference to his old preceptor. It may be readily supposed, that such a scholar, under so able a teacher, must have made rapid progress in classical learning. The bent of the juvenile poet, even at this early period, distinguished itself. He translated the third satire of Perseus, as a Thursday night's task, and executed many other exercises of the same nature, in English verse, none of which are now in existence. During the last year of his residence at Westminster, the death of Henry, Lord Hastings, a young nobleman of great learning, and much beloved, called forth no less than ninety-eight elegies, one of which was written by our poet, then about eighteen years old. They were published in 1650, under the title of "Lachrymæ Musarum." Dryden, having obtained a Westminster scholar ship, was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, and sides, of several gentlemen and ladies then, in his company. on the 11th May, 1650, his tutor being the Reverend It was then taken for a mere frolic, and so passed accordingly; but John Templar, M.A., a man of some learning, who afterwards, when the treason was discovered, such as remembered wrote a Latin Treatise in confutation of Hobbes, his gestures, thought he practised what he intended to do when the plot should take eflect; that is, to hack and hew, kill and destroy, and a few theological tracts and single sermons. all eminent persons of a different religion from himself."-Caul While at college, our author's conduct seems not to feld's History of the Gunpowder Plot. have been uniformly regular. He was subjected to The following curious story is told to that effect, in Caulfield's slight punishment for contumacy to the vice-masHistory of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 67"There was a Mr. Pickering, of Tichmarsh Grove, in Northampter, ** and seems, according to the statement of an tonshire, who was in great esteem with King James. This Mr. Pickering had a horse of special note for swiftness, on which he used to hunt with the king. A little before the blow was to be given, Mr. Keies, one of the conspirators, and brother in law to Mr. Pick ering, borrowed this horse of him, and conveyed him to London upon a bloody design, which was thus contrived:-Fawkes, upon the day of the fatal blow was appointed to retire hoself into St. George's Fields, where this horse was to attend him, to further his escape (as they made him believe,) as soon as the Parliament should be blown up. It was likewise contrived, that Mr. Picker ing, who was noted for a Puritan, should that morning be murdered in his bed, and secretly conveyed away; and also that Fawkes, as soon as he came into George's Fields, should be there murdered, and so mangled, that he could not be known; upon which, it was to be spread abroad, that the Puritans had blown up the Parliamenthouse; and the better to make the world believe it, there was Mr. Pickering with his choice horse ready to escape, but that stirred up some, who seeing the heinousness of the fact, and him ready to escapa, in detestation of so horrible a deed, fell upon him, and hewed him to pieces; and to make it more clear, there was his horse, known to be of special speed and swiftness, ready to carry him away; and upon this rumour a massacre should have gone through the whole land upon the Puritans. "When the contrivance of this plot was discovered by some of the conspirators, and Fawkes, who was now a prisoner in the tower, made acquainted with it, whereas before he was made to believe by his companions, that he should be bountifully rewarded for that his good service to the Catholic cause, now perceiving, that, on the contrary, his death had been contrived by them, be thereupon freely confessed all that he knew concerning that horrid conspiracy, which before all the torments of the rack could not force him to do. "The truth of this was attested by Mr. William Perkins, who had it from Mr. Clement Cotton, to whom Mr. Pickering gave the above relation." Erasmus, the poet's immediate younger brother, was in trade, and resided in King-street, Westminster. He succeeded to the family title and estate upon the death of Sir John Dryden, and died at the seat of Canons-Ashby, 3d November, 1718, leaving one daughter and five grandsons. Henry, the poet's third brother, went to Jamaica, and died there, leaving a son Richard. James, the fourth of the sons, was a tobacconist in London, and died there, leaving two daughters. Of the daughters, Mr. Malone, after obscure libeller, to have been engaged in some pub- "And though no wit can royal blood infuse, That men and manners deals in without book; Poetical Reflections, &c. See vol. IX. p. 272. The Laureat, vol. X. p. 105. § Upon a monument, erected by Elizabeth Creed to the poet's memory, in the church at Tichmarsh, are these words: "We boast that he was bred and had his first learning here." TI remember.(says Dryden, in a postscript to the argument of the third satire of Perseus,) 1 translated this satire when I was & King's scholar at Westminster school, for Thursday night's exer cise: and believe, that it, and many other of my exercises of this nature in English verse, are still in the hands of my learned mas ter, the Rev. Dr. Bushby." **The following order is quoted, by Mr. Malone, from the Conclusion-book in the archives of Trinity College, p. 221. "July 19, 1652. Agreed, then, That Dryden be put out Commons, for a fortnight at least; and that he goe not out of the colledg, during the time aforesaid, excepting to sermons, without express leave from the master, or vice-master; and that, at the end of the fortnight, he read a confession of his crime in the hall, at dinner-time, at the three-fellowes table. "His crime was, his disobedience to the vice-master, and his contumacy in taking his punishment inflicted by him." 妻 probably on account of the indulgence of his turn "Oxford to him a dearer name shalt be Thebes did his green unknowing youth engage, A preference so uncommon, in one who had studied at Cambridge, probably originated in those slight disgraces, or perhaps in some other cause of disgust, which we may now search for in vain. In June 1654, the death of his father, Erasmus Dryden, proved a temporary interruption to our author's studies. He left the university, on this occasion, to take possession of his inheritance, consisting of two-thirds of a small estate near Blakesley, in Northamptonshire, worth, in all, about sixty pounds a year. The other third part of this small property was bequeathed to his mother during her life, and the property reverted to the poet after her death, in 1676. With this little patrimony our author returned to Cambridge, where he continued until the middle of the year 1657. Although Dryden's residence at the university was prolonged to the unusual space of nearly seven years, we do not find, that he distinguished himself, during that time, by any poetical prolusions, excepting a few lines prefixed to a work, entitled, "Sion and Parnassus; or Epigrams on several Texts of the Old and New Testaments," published in 1650, by John Hoddesden. Mr. Malone conjectures, that our poet would have contributed to the academic collection of verses, entitled, "Olivia Pacis," and published in 1654, on the peace between England and Holland, had not his father's death interfered at that period. It is probable, we lose but little by the disappearance of any occasional verses which may have been produced by Dryden at this time. The elegy on Lord Hastings, the lines prefixed to "Sion and Parnassus," and some complimentary stanzas which occur in a letter to his cousin Honor Driden, would have been enough to assure us, even without his own testimony, that Cowley was the darling of his youth; and that he imitated his points of wit, and quirks of epigram, with a similar contempt for the propriety of their application. From these poems, we learn enough to be grateful, that Dryden was born at a later period in his century; for had not the road to fame been altered in conse "Was there no milder way but the smallpox, To wail the faults its rising did commit, No comet need foretel his change drew on, This is exactly in the tone of Bishop Corbett's in- "Oh thou deform'd unwoman-like disease, Thon plough'st up flesh and blood, and there sow'st pease; And leav'st such prints on beauty that dost come, As clouted shoon do on a floor of loam. Thou that of faces honey combs dost make, And of two breasts two cullenders, forsake Thy deadly trade; now thou art rich, give o'er, And let our curses call thee forth no more."§ After leaving the university, our author entered the world, supported by friends, from whose character, principles, and situation, it might have been prophesied, with probability, that his success in life, and his literary reputation, would have been exactly the reverse of what they actually proved. Sir Gilbert Pickering was cousin-german to the poet, and also to his mother; thus standing related to Dryden in a double connexion. This gentleman was a staunch puritan, and having set out as a reformer, ended by being a regicide, and an abettor of the ty ranny of Cromwell. He was one of the judges of the unfortunate Charles; and though he did not sit in that bloody court upon the last and fatal day, yet he seems to have concurred in the most violent measures of the unconscientious men who did so. He had been one of the parliamentary counsellors of state, and hesitated not to be numbered among the godly and discreet persons who assisted Cromwell as a privy council. Moreover, he was lord chamberlain of the Protector's court, and received the honour of his mock peerage. The patronage of such a person was more likely sister of Erasmus Dryden, the poet's father. quence of the Restoration, his extensive information and acute ingenuity would probably have betrayed the author of the "Ode to St. Cecilia," and the father of English poetical harmony, into rivalling the **In one lampoon, he is called fiery Pickering." Walker, in metaphysical pindarics of Donne and Cowley. The his "Sufferings of the Clergy," prints Jeremiah Steeven's account of the Northamptonshire committee of sequestration, in which the verses, to which we allude, display their subtlety of character of Pickering, one o one of the members of that oppressive thought, their puerile extravagance of conceit, and body, is thus drawn: P had an uncle, whose that structure of verse, which, as the poet himself cars were cropt for a libel on Archbishop Whitgift: was first a says of Holyday's translations, has nothing of verse wards an anabaptist. He was a most furious, fiery, implacable presbyterian, then an independent, then a Brownist, and afterin it, except the worst part of it-the rhyme, and that man; was the principal agent in casting out most of the learned far from being unexceptionable. The following lines, clergy; a great oppressor of the country; got a good manor for his in which the poet describes the death of Lord Hast-booty of the E. of R., and a considerable purse of gold by a plunings by the small-pox, will be probably admitted as limb of the commonwealth, whose republican spirit was incensed der at Lynn in Norfolk." He is thus characterized by an angry a justification of this censure: by Cromwell creating a peerage:-"Sir Gilbert Pickering, knight of the old stamp, and of considerable revenue in Northamptonshire; one of the Long Parliament, and a great stickler in the change of the government from kingly to that of a commonwealth; helped to make those laws of treason against kingship; has also changed with all changes that have been since. He was one of the Little Parliament, and helped to break it, as also of all the parliaments since; is one of the Protector's council, (his salary L.1000 per annum, besides other places,) and as if he had been pinned to this sleeve, was never to seek; is become high steward of Westminster; and being so finical, spruce, and like an old courtier, is made lord-chamberlain of the Protector's household or court; so that he may well be counted fit and worthy to be taken out of the House to have a negative voice in the other House, though he helped to destroy it in the king and lords. There are more besides him, that make themselves transgressors by building again the things which they once destroyed." Quoted by Mr. Malone from a rare pamphlet in his collection, entitled, "A Socond Narrative of the late Parliament, 1658." * Shadwell, in the Medal of John Bayes, At Cambridge first your scurrilous vein began, Where saucily you traduced a nobleman; Who for that crime rebuked you on the head, And you had been expell'd, had you not fled." He received this degree by dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Prologue to the University of Oxford, vol. X. p. 385, Jonathan Dryden, elected a scholar from Westminster into Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1656, of which he became fellow in 1662, was author of some verses in the Cambridge Collections in 1661, on the death of the Duke of Gloucester, and the marriage of the Princess of Orange; and in 1662, on the marriage of Charles II., which have been imputed to our author. An order, quoted by Mr. Malone, for abatement of the commencement money, paid at taking the Bachelor's degree, on account of poverty, applies to Jonathan not to John Dryden.-MALONE, vol. 1. p.17. note. Dryden lived with his kinsman, or to what line of "The next step of advancement you began The Medal of John Bayes. But I cannot, with Mr. Malone, interpret the same passage, by supposing the third line of the triplet to apply to Dryden. Had he been actually a member of a committee of sequestration, that circumstance would never have remained in the dubious obscurity of Shadwell's poetry; it would have been as often echoed and re-echoed, as every other incident of the poet's life, which was capable of bearing an unfavourable interpretation. I incline therefore to believe, that the terms sequestrator and committeeman apply not to the poet, but to his patron Sir Gilbert, to whom their propriety cannot be doubted. Sir Gilbert Pickering was not our author's only relation at the court of Cromwell. The chief of his family, Sir John Driden, elder brother of the poet's father, was also a flaming and bigoted puritan, through whose gifts and merits his nephew might reasonably hope to attain preferment. In a youth, entering life under the protection of such relations, who could have anticipated the future dramatist and poet laureate, much less the advocate and martyr of prerogative and of the Stuart family, the convert and confessor of the Roman Catholic faith? In his after career, his early connexions with the puritans, and the principles of his kinsmen during the Civil Wars and usurpation, were often made subjects of reproach, to which he never seems to have deigned an answer.t attract much general attention. The first edition, in 1659, is extremely rare: it was reprinted, however along with those of Sprat and Waller, in the course of the same year. After the Restoration this piece fell into a state of oblivion, from which it may be believed that the author, who had seen a new light in politics, was by no means solicitous to recall it. His political antagonist did not, however, fail to awaken its memory, when Dryden became a decided advo cate for the royal prerogative, and the hereditary right of the Stuarts. During the controversies of Charles the Second's reign, in which Dryden took so decided a share, his eulogy on Cromwell was often objected to him, as a proof of inconsistence and apostacy. One passage, which plainly applies to the civil wars in general, was wrested to signify an explicit approbation of the murder of Charles I. ;+ and the whole piece was reprinted by an incensed antagonist, under the title of "An Elegy on the Usurper, O. C., by the author of Absalom and Achitophel, published (it is ironically added) to show the loyalty and integrity of the poet,"-an odd piece of vengeance, which has perhaps never been paralleled, except in the single case of "Love in a Hollow Tree."l The motives of the Duchess of Marlborough, in reprinting Lord Grimestone's memorable dramatic essay, did not here apply. The elegy on Cromwell, although doubtless sufficiently faulty, contained symptoms of a regenerating taste; and, politically considered, although a panegyric on a usurper, the topics of praise are selected with attention to truth, and are, generally speaking, such as Cromwell's worst enemies could not have denied to him. Neither had Dryden made the errors, or misfortunes, of the royal family, and their followers, the subject of censure or of contrast. With respect to them, it was hardly possible that a eulogy on such a theme could have less offence in it. This was perhaps, a fortunate circumstance for Dryden at the Restora tion; and it must be noticed to his honour, that as he spared the exiled monarch in his panegyric on the usurper, so, after the Restoration, in his numerous writings on the side of royalty, there is no instance of his recalling his former praise of Cromwell. The death of Cromwell was the first theme of our poet's muse. Averse as the puritans were to any poetry, save that of Hopkins, of Withers, or of Wisdom, they may be reasonably supposed to have had some sympathy with Dryden's sorrow upon the death of Oliver, even although it vented itself in the profane and unprofitable shape of an elegy. But After the frequent and rapid changes which the we have no means of estimating its reception with government of England underwent from the death the public, if, in truth, the public long interested of Cromwell, in the spring of 1660, Charles II. was themselves about the memory of Cromwell, while restored to the throne of his ancestors. It may be his relations and dependants presented to them the easily imagined, that this event, a subject in itself more animated and interesting spectacle of a strug-highly fit for poetry, and which promised the revival gle for his usurped power. Richard perhaps, and of poetical pursuits, was hailed with universal acthe immediate friends of the deceased Protector, clamation, by all whose turn for verse had been with such of Dryden's relations as were attached suppressed and stifled during the long reign of to his memory, may have thought, like the tinker in fanaticism. The Restoration led the way to the the Taming of the Shrew, that this same elegy was revival of letters, as well as that of legal governmarvellous good matter," but it did not probably ment. With Charles, as Dryden has expressed it, * Like Sir Gilbert Pickering, he was a member of the NorthampThe officious muses came along, tonshire committee of Sequestration, and his deeds are thus J commemorated in Walker's "Sufferings of the Clergy Sir a parritan by tenure, his house, (Canons-Ashby) being an ancient college, where he possessed the church, and abused most part of it to profane uses: the chance! he turned to a barn; the body of it to a corn-chamber and store-house, reserving one side aisle of it for the public service of prayers, &c. He was noted for weakness and simplicity, and never put on any business of moment, but was very furious against the clergy." D -n was never noted for ability or discretion; was In a satire called "The Protestant Poets," our author is thus contrasted with Sir Roger L'Estrange. In levelling his reproaches, the satirist was not probably very solicitous about genealogical acetracy; as, in the eighth line, I conceive Sir John Dryden to be aded to, although he is termed our poet's grandfather, when he was in fact his uncle. Sir Erasmus Dryden was indeed a fanatic, and so was Henry Pickering, Dryden's paternal and maternal grandfathers; but neither were men of mark or eminence: "But though he spares no waste of words or conscience, And is all over grandfather within: By day that ill-laid spirit checks,-o'nights And cramp his loose careers with intervals of wit: A gay, harmonious quire, like angels ever young. It was not, however, to be expected, that an alteration of the taste which had prevailed in the days of Charles I., was to be the immediate consequence of the new order of things. The muse awoke, ke the sleeping beauty of the fairy tale, in the same antiquated and absurd vestments in which she had will pardon another simile, the poets were like those fallen asleep twenty years before; or if the reader who, after a long mourning, resume for a time their ordinary dresses, of which the fashion has in the mean time passed away. Other causes contributed to a temporary revival of the metaphysical poetry. Almost all its professors, attached to the house of Stuart, had been martyrs, or confessors at least, in its cause. Cowley, their leader, was yet alive, and returned to claim the late reward of his loyalty and his sufferings. Cleveland had died a victim to the contempt, rather than the persecution, of the republicans; but this most ardent of cavalier poets was 1 See Vol. IX. p. 16. This piece was called in, and destroyed by the noble author; but Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, when opposing Lord Grimestone at an election, maliciously printed and dispersed a large impression of his smothered performance, with a frontispiece representing an elephant dancing on the slack rope. § He was one of the garrison of Newark, which held out so long Sprat, and a host of inferior imitators, marched for a time in the footsteps of Cowley; delighted, probably, to discover in Pindaric writing, as it was called, a species of poetry which required neither sound nor sense, provided only there was a sufficient stock of florid and extravagant thoughts, expressed in harsh and bombastic language. succeeded by Wild, whose "Iter Boreale," a poem ler, Suckling, and Denham, began to assert a preon Monk's march from Scotland, formed upon eminence over Cowley and Bonne; the ladies, Cleveland's model, obtained extensive popularity whose influence in the court of James and Charles among the citizens of London. Dryden's good I. was hardly felt, and who were then obliged to be sense and natural taste perceived the obvious defects contented with such pedantic worship as is conof these, the very coarsest of metaphysical poets; tained in the "Mistress" of Cowley, and the "Epiinsomuch, that, in his "Essay on Dramatic Poetry,' thilamian" of Donne, began now, when their voices he calls wresting and torturing one word into were listened to, and their taste consulted, to deteranother, a catachresis, or Clevelandism, and charges mine that their poetical lovers should address them in Wild with being in poetry what the French call un strains more musical, if not more intelligible. What maurais buffon. is most acceptable to the fair sex will always sway the mode of a gay court; and the character of a smooth and easy sonneteer was soon considered as an indispensable requisite to a man of wit and fashion, terms which were then usually synonymous. To those who still retained a partiality for that exercise of the fancy and memory, afforded by the metaphysical poetry, the style of satire, then převalent, afforded opportunities of applying it. The same depth of learning, the same extravagant ingenuity in combining the most remote images, and in driving casual associations to the verge of absurdity, almost all the remarkable features which characterized the poetry of Cowley, may be successfully traced in the satire of Hudibras. The subline itself borders closely on the ludicrous; but the bombast and extravagant cannot be divided from it. The turn of thought, and the peculiar kind of mental exertion, corresponds in both styles of writing; and although Butler pursued the ludicrous, and Cowley aimed at the surprising, the leading features of their poetry only differ like those of the same face convulsed with laughter, or arrested in astonishment. The district of metaphysical poetry was thus invaded by the satirists, who sought weapons there to avenge the misfortunes and oppression which they had so lately sustained from the Puritans; and as it is difficult in a laughing age to render serious what has been once applied to ludicrous purposes, Butler and his imitators retained quiet possession of the style which they had usurped from the grave bards of the earlier age. But this style of poetry, although it was for a time revived, and indeed continued to be occasionally employed even to the end of the eighteenth century, had too slight foundation in truth and nature to maintain the exclusive pre-eminence, which it had been exalted to during the reigns of the two first monarchs of the Stuart race. As Rochester profanely expressed it, Cowley's poetry was not of God, and therefore could not stand. An approaching change of public taste was hastened by the manners of the restored monarch and his courtiers. That pedantry which had dictated the excessive admiration of metaphysical conceits, was not the characteristic of the court of Charles II., as it had been of those of his grandfather and father, Lively and witty by nature, with all the acquired habits of an adventurer, whose wanderings, military and political, left him time neither for profound reflection, nor for deep study, the restored monarch's literary taste, which was by no means contemptible, was directed towards a lighter and more pleasing style of poetry than the harsh and scholastic productions of Donne and Cowley. The admirers, therefore, of this old school were confined to the ancient cavaliers, and the old courtiers of Charles I.; persons unlikely to lead the fashion in the court of a gay monarch, filled with such men as Buckingham, Rochester, Etherege, Sedley, and Mulgrave, whose time and habits confined their own essays to occasional verses, and satirical effusions, in which they often ridiculed the heights of poetry they were incapable of attaining. With such men the class of poets, which before the civil war held but a secondary rank, began to rise in estimation. Walfor Charles L., and has left a curious specimen of the wit of the time in his controversy with a parliamentary officer, whose servant had robbed him, and taken refuge in Newark. The following is the beginning of his answer to a demand that the fugitive should be surrendered: "Sixthly, Beloved, "Is it so then, that our brother and fellow-laborer in the Gospel is start aside? then this may serve for a use of instruction, not to trust in man, nor in the son of man. Did not Demas leave Paul? did not Onesimus run from his master Philemon? besides, this should teach us to employ our talent, and not lay it up in a napkin. Had it been done among the cavaliers, it had been just; then the Israelite had spoiled the Egyptian; but for Simeon to plunder Levi, that! that! You see, sir, what use I make of the doctrine you sent me; and indeed since you change style so far as to nibble at wit, you must pardon me, if, to quit scores, I pretend a little to the gift of preaching," &c. Such was the wit of Cleveland. After the complete subjugation of the royalists, he was apprehended, having in his possession a bundle of poems and satirical songs against the republicans. He appeared before the commonwealth general with the dignified air of one who is prepared to suffer for his principles. He was disappointed: for the military judge, after a contemptuous glance at the papers, exclaimed to Cleveland's accusers, "Is this all ye have against him? Go, let the poor knave sell his ballads " Such an acquittal was more severe than any punishment. The conscious virtue of the loyalist would have bore the latter; but the pride of the poet could not sustain his contemptuous dismissal; and Cleveland is said to have broken his heart in consequence.-Biographia Bri tannica voce Cleveland. He is the very Withers of the city," says Dryden of Wild; "They have bought more editions of his works than would serve to lay under all their pies at the lord mayor's Christmas. When his famous poem first came out in the year 1660, I have seen them reading it in the midst of Change time; nay, so vehement they were at it, that they lost their bargain by the candles' ends; but what will you say, if he has been received amongst great persons I can assure you he is this day the envy of one who is lord in the art of quibbling, and who does not take it well, that any man sintrusie so far into his province." Vol. XV. p. 296. A single poet, Sir William Davenant, made a meritorious, though a misguided and unsuccessful effort, to rescue poetry from becoming the mere handmaid of pleasure, or the partizan of political or personal disputes, and to restore her to her natural rank in society, as an auxiliary of religion, policy, law, and virtue. His heroic poem of "Gondibert has, no doubt, great imperfections; but it intimates every where a mind above those laborious triflers, who called that poetry which was only verse; and very often exhibits a majestic, dignified, and manly simplicity, equally superior to the metaphysical school, by the doctrines of which Davenant was occasionally misled. Yet, if that author too frequently imitated their quaint affectation of uncommon sentiment and associations, he had at least the merit of couching them in stately and harmonious verse; a quality of poetry totally neglected by the followers of Cowley. I mention Davenant here, and separate from the other poets, who were distinguished about the time of the Restoration, because I think that Dryden, to whom we are about to return, was, at that period, an admirer and imitator of "Gondibert," as we are certain that he was a personal and intimate friend of the author. With the return of the king, the fall of Dryden's political patrons was necessarily involved. Sir Gilbert Pickering, having been one of Charles's judges, was too happy to escape into obscurity, under an absolute disqualification for holding any office, political, civil or ecclesiastical. The influence of Sir John Dryden was ended at the same time; and thus both these relations, under whose protection Dryden entered life, and by whose influence he was probably to have been aided in some path to wealth or eminence, became at once incapable of assisting him; and even connexion with them was rendered, by the change of times, disgraceful, if not dangerous. Yet it may be doubted whether Dryden felt character, that a blessing which closed his mouth this evil in its full extent. Sterne has said of a or a misfortune which opened it with a good grace, were nearly equal to him; nay, that sometimes the misfortune, was the more acceptable of the two. It is possible, by a parity of reasoning, that Dryden may have felt himself rather relieved from, than deprived of his fanatical patrons, under whose guidance he could never hope to have indulged in that career of literary pursuit, which the new order of things presented to the ambition of the youthful poet; at least, he lost no time in useless lamenta tion, but now, in his thirtieth year, proceeded to exert that poetical talent, which had heretofore been repressed by his own, situation, and that of the country. Dryden, left to his own exertions, hastened to testify his joyful acquiescence in the restoration of monarchy, by publishing "Astrea Redux," a poem which was probably distinguished among the innumerable congratulations poured forth upon the Occasion; and he added to those which hailed the coronation, in 1661, the verses entitled, "A Panegyric to his Sacred Majesty." These pieces testify, that the author had already made some progress in harmonizing his versification. But they also contain many of those points of wit, and turns of epigram, which he condemned in his more advanced judgment. The same description applies, in a yet stronger degree, to the verses addressed to Lord Chancellor Hyde, (Lord Clarendon) on the new-year's day of 1662, in which Dryden has more closely imitated the metaphysical poetry than in any poem, except the juvenile elegy on Lord Hastings. I cannot but think, that the poet consulted the taste of his patron, rather than his own, in adopting this peculiar sty'e. Clarendon was educated in the court of Charles I., and Dryden may have thought it necessary, in addressing him, to imitate the strong "verses," which were then admired. discover from their reproaches, that, at the com According to the fashion of the times, such copies of occasional verses were rewarded by a gratuity from the person to whom they were addressed; and Thus patronized, our author seems to have adpoets had not yet learned to think this mode of receiving assistance incompatible with the feelings vanced in reputation, as he became more generally of dignity or delicacy. Indeed, in the common trans-known to the learned and ingenious of his time. actions of that age, one sees something resembling the eastern custom of accompanying with a present, and not always a splendid one, the usual forms of intercourse and civility. Thus we find the wealthy corporation of Hull, backing a polite address to the Duke of Monmouth, their governor, with a present of six broad pieces; and his grace deemed it a point of civility to press the acceptance of the same gratuity upon the member of parliament for the city, by whom it was delivered to him. We may there fore believe, that Dryden received some compliment from the king and chancellor; and I am afraid the same premises authorize us to conclude that it was but trifling. Meantime, our author having no settled means of support, except his small landed property, and having now no assistance to expect from his more wealthy kinsmen, to whom, probably, neither his literary pursuits, nor his commencing them by a panegyric on the Restoration, were very agreeable, and whom he had also offended by a slight change in spelling his name,t seems to have been reduced to narrow and uncomfortable circumstances. Without believing, in its full extent, the exaggerated aecount given by Brown and Shadwell, we may The Duke of Monmouth returned on Saturday from New Market To-day I waited on him, and first presented him with your letter, which he read all over very attentively; and then prayed me to assure you, that he would, upon all occasions, bo most ready to give you the marks of his affection, and assist you in any affairs you should recommend to him. I then delivered to him the six broad pieces, telling him, that I was deputed to blush on your behalf for the meanness of the present, &c.; but he took me off, and said he thanked you for it, and accepted it as a token of your kindness. He had, before I came in, as I was told, considered what to do with the gold; and but that I by all means prevented the offer, or I had been in danger of being reimbursed, with it. Andrew Marvell's Works, vol. I. p. 210. Letter to the Mayor of Hull Shadwell makes Dryden say, that after some years spent at the university, he came to London. At first I struggled with a great deal of persecation, took up with a lodging which had a window no bigger than a pocket looking-glass, dined at a threepenny ordinary, enough to starve a vacation tailor, kept little com Parry, went elad in homely drugget, and drunk wine as seldom as VOL. VIII. |