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.1

With the return of the king, the fall of Dryden's political patrons was necessarily involved. Sir Gilbert Pickering, having been one of Charles' 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

[Sir Walter Scott has said elsewhere, "An Epic Poem, in elegiac stanzas, must always be tedious, because no structure of verse is more unfavourable to narration than that which peremptorily requires each sentence to be restricted, or protracted, to four lines. But the liveliness of Davenant's imagination, which Dryden has pointed out as his most striking attribute, has illuminated even the dull and dreary path which he has chosen; and perhaps few poems afford more instances of vigorous conceptions, and even felicity of expression, than the neglected Gondibert.""-Note to "The Tempest," vol. iii., p. 97.

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 this evil in its full extent. Sterne has said of a character, that a blessing which closed his mouth, 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 lamentation, 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 " Astræa 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. 1 The same description applies, in a yet stronger degree, to the verses addressed to Lord Chancellor Hyde (Lord Clarendon) on the NewYear'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 style. Clarendon was educated in the

1

1 [In his note (Dryden, vol. ix., p. 41) on the lines—

"An horrid stillness first invades the ear,

And in that silence we the tempest fear,"

Sir Walter Scott says "The small wits of the time made themselves very merry with the couplet; because stillness, being a mere absence of sound, could not, it was said, be personified, as an active agent, or invader. Captain Ratcliffe thus states the objection in his News from Hell:'

Laureat, who was both learn'd and florid,

Was damn'd long since, for silence horrid ;
Nor had there been such clatter made,
But that this silence did invade.

Invade! and so't might well, 'tis clear;
But what did it invade ?-An ear.'

"In the Dialogue in Bedlam,' between Oliver's porter, fiddler, and poet, the first of these persons thus addresses L'Estrange and Dryden, the scene being adorned with several of the poet's own flowers :'

"O glory, glory! who are these appear?
My fellow.servants, poet, fiddler here?
Old Hodge the constant, Johny the sincere!
Who sent you hither? and, pray tell me, why?

A horrid silence does invade my eye,

While not one sound of voice from you I spy.'

But, as Dr Johnson justly remarks, we hesitate not to say, the world is invaded by darkness, which is a privation of light, and why not by silence, which is a privation of sound ""]

court of Charles I., and Dryden may have thought it necessary, in addressing him, to imitate the 66 strong verses," which were then admired.

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 poets had not yet learned to think this mode of receiving assistance incompatible with the feelings of dignity or delicacy. Indeed, in the common transactions 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.1 We may therefore believe, that Dryden received

1 "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, be 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 endangered of being reimbursed with it."—ANDREW MARVELL'S Works, vol. i., p. 210. Letter to the Mayor of Hull.

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,1 seems to have been reduced to narrow and uncomfortable circumstances. Without believing, in its full extent, the exaggerated account given by Brown and Shadwell, we may discover from their reproaches, that, at the commencement of his literary career, Dryden was connected, and probably lodged, with Herringman the bookseller, in the New Exchange, for whom he wrote prefaces, and other occasional pieces. But having, as Mr Malone has observed, a patrimony, though a small one, of his

2

1 From Driden to Dryden.

2 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 persecution, took up with a lodging which had a window no bigger than a pocket-looking glass, dined at a three-penny ordinary enough to starve a vacation tailor, kept little company, went clad in homely drugget, and drunk wine as seldom as a rechabite, or the grand seignior's confessor." The old gentleman, who corresponded with the "Gentleman's Magazine," and remembered Dryden before the rise of his fortunes, mentions his suit of plain drugget, being, by the by, the same garb in which he himself has clothed Flecnoe, who "coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came."