old accusation of plagiarism ;-an accusation, which Dryden did not pretend to deny; but would always affect to turn it off with a saying of the King: 'He only desired that they, who accuse me of thefts, would steal him plays like mine.' He is said to have contracted to write four* plays a year; and, though he never failed to tell his readers how much pains and trouble they cost him, what he actually performed renders it sufficiently evident, that, in making the bargain, he did not overrate his own fertility. The comedies of Marriagea-la-mode, and Love in a Nunnery, together with the two non-descript plays of Abayana and The Virgin Martyr, were all produced in 1673;—the State of Innocence and Fall of Man, a rhyming tragedy, in 1675;-Arung Zebe, a tragedy, in 1676;—All for Love, a tragedy, in 1678;-Oedipus, ditto, in 1679; Troilus and Cressida, altered from Shakspeare, in the same year:-1 he Hind Keeper, a comedy, hissed off the stage, in 1680;-The Spanish Fryer, a tragicomedy, in 1681 :-The Duke of Guise, a tragedy, in 1683;-Albion and Albanus, a musical drama, written, like the Duke of Guise, against the republicans, in 1685;-Don Sebastian, a tragi-comedy, in 1690;-Amphytrion, a comedy, in the same year;— King Arthur, an opera, in 1691;-Cleomines, a tragedy, in 1692;-and Love Triumphant, a tragi-comedy, in 1694.† These productions, though they increased the reputation of the author, neither augmented his * Mr. Malone, in his Life of Dryden, has produced an original memorial of the King's Company on the subject of one of his plays. The preamble is as follows:- Whereas, upon Mr. Dryden's binding himself to write three plays a yeare, he, the said Mr. Dryden, was admitted and continued as a sharer, in the King's Play-house for divers years, and received for his share and a quarter, three or four hundred pounds, communibus annis; but though he received the moneys, we received not the plays, not one in a yeare.' The me morial goes on to state, that he had a third day for his All for Love, + This arrangement is taken from Dr. Johnson. We have subjoined to this article the copy of a more correct schedule from Mr. Scott's Life, vol. i. p. 367, fortune, nor ensured his peace. His fame, indeed, had become so great, that it was deemed essential to the success of a new play, that it should be introduced by some lines from Mr. Dryden. The ordinary price of a prologue was two guineas; but he charged Southern three; 'not, young man,' said he, out of disrespect for you; but the players have had my goods too cheap.' It was true enough; for, it is conjectured, that, with the benefit of a night, and the price of the copy, together, he did not receive, for his plays, more than one hundred pounds a-piece.* The puritans eschewed the theatre, as an abomination; and, so licentious was it, at this time, that no man of reputation durst be seen in the house. The profits, therefore, were comparatively trifling; and, as an author had but one night for each play, he must, at least, produce one play a month, to think of growing rich by the business. This, Dryden, fertile as he was, could not pretend to do; and poverty, therefore, was a standing subject of his lamentations. But he considered his lot as hard, chiefly on account of the envious criticism, to which his superiority subjected him. His enemies soon obtained the secret of his testy sensibility; and they took special care to keep him plentifully supplied with topics of anxiety. He was assailed by high and by low; in verse, and in prose; in plays, prefaces, and separate essays. The duke of Buckingham, Butler, Martin Clifford, and Dr. Sprat, are all said to have participated in the composition of the Rehearsal; a farce, in which Bayes is supposed to take off the canting and fastidious pedantry of Dryden, and to ridicule his practice of being blooded and purged, just as he was going to write. We deemed it worth while to mention this anecdote, because the Rehearsal, though intended as a mere temporary performance, still takes its turn in the routine of the According to Mr. Malone, his winter and summer benefit plays did not, upon an average, yield nine pounds a piece. theatre. The other productions, in which Dryden was teazed, have long reposed in oblivion; and it could serve no good purpose to bring them again into light. Nor was it in his feelings alone, that our poet had to suffer. A poetical Essay on Satire was written by the duke of Buckinghamshire, in 1679. It appeared anonymously; and, as Dryden was suspected of being the author, the earl of Rochester, the dutchess of Portsmouth, and some others, who were the heroes and heroines of the poem, succeeded in hiring some desperadoes to waylay and beat him.* Such a man, however, was not to be suppressed, either by criticism or beating. His reputation increased in spite of opposition; and, at length, whenever an author had occasion to publish a book, he thought its only passport to celebrity would be an introduction by Dryden. Hitherto, his poetry had been chiefly confined to literary subjects. In 1681, he adventured into politics; and his Absalom and Achitophel, a satire against the duke of Monmouth's faction, was so eagerly called for, that, according to Dr. Johnson's father, an old bookseller,' its sale had not been equalled but by that of 'Sacheverell's Trial.' Mr. Addison has accounted for its popularity in one way; and Dr. Johnson, in another. We think Dryden has said something more pertinent than either. "There is a sweetness in good verse (says he) which tickles even while it hurts; and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleases him against his will.' The poem was *This treatment was thus threatened by Rochester. You write me word, that I am out of favour with a certain poet, whom I have admired for the disproportion of him and his attributes. He is a rarity which I cannot but be fond of, as one would be of a hog that could fiddle, or a singing awl. If he falls on me at the blunt, which is his very good weapon in wit, I will forgive him if you please; and leave the repartee to black Will with a cudgel.' A reward of fifty pounds was offered for the discovery of black Will,' and his associates; but they were never detected. Scott's Dryd. vol. i. 203. Wood denies this bastina doing.' answered by various authors; but the answers and the authors have been both forgotten. The Medal, written upon the medal struck on lord Shaftesbury's acquittal from a prosecution by the ignoramus of the grand jury, was published in the same year; contained the same principles; and was attacked by the same antagonists. The Medal Reversed, by that destroyer of Dryden's peace, Elkanah Settle, is said to have left the public opinion in equipoise, as to the merits of the two poems: and yet Elkanah Settle, after piecing out his thread of life, by contriving shows for fairs, and vending elegies and epithalamiums, from door to door, died, at last, forgotten, in a hospital! Dryden had shown himself a man of some consequence in the state; and no sooner had King James ascended the throne, than his Catholic myrmidons sought to enlist his powers on the side of the church. By what process of reasoning they contrived to bring over so impracticable a subject, it would be in vain to inquire. But popery was the religion of the court: Dryden had never been famed for bigotry in any religion; and perhaps he yielded rather to the fashion of the times, than to the artifices of the priests. At any rate, he became a Roman catholic; and, though he doubtless imagined, it was merely a harmless compliance with the humour of the strongest party, he soon found himself tost into the pit of theological controversy; and experienced, in due time, the futility of opposing his own poetry to the logic of Stillingfleet. In March, 1686, the king, in consideration of his many good and acceptable services,' granted him an addition of one hundred pounds a year to his pension. The Hind and Panther, or the church of Rome and the church of England, appeared about the year 1687;* and was parodied by Halifax and It is said to have been composed in a country retirement at Rushton, near his birth place, in Huntingdon; where, about the Prior, in the City Mouse and Country Mouse; and ridiculed by Thomas Brown, in three several dialogues, in 1688, 1689, and 1690. Well would it have been for Dryden, had he let popery alone; for, though, the next year, after the publication of the Hind and Panther, he had another occasion, in the birth of the prince, to strain his notes in the catholic cause, and to predict the blessings of a Catholic succession; yet a few little months dissipated the bright illusion; and it was, to him, by no means, the least calamitous event of the revolution, that he saw the laurel transferred from his own popish brow to that of his old protestant enemy, Shadwell. The exquisite satire of Mac Flecnoe shows how keenly he felt the mortification.* He could no longer expect to live by dedication and patronage; and, after waiting two years for the dissipation of his unpopularity, he re-appeared in the old line of dramatic composition. Some portion of his time was, also, devoted to a new version of Perseus and Juvenal;† which appeared, in 1693. middle of the last century, an urn, with the subjoined inscription, was erected in what is called Dryden's Walk: 'In memory of Dryden, who frequented these shades, and is here said to have com. posed his poem of the Hind and the Panther.' Scott's Dryd. vol. i. 325. *We have here followed Dr. Johnson; but Mr. Scott says, 'nothing is more certain than that Mac Flecnoe was published while Dryden was himself laureate.' Vol. i. p. 353. † A personal allusion is evidently contained in the following lines. Since noble arts in Rome have no support, A ragged virtue not a friend at court, Juv. sat. iii. In the original, there is nothing about the court, or the stage, or the government: -Quando artibus, inquit, honestis Nullus in Urbe locus, nulla emoluments laborum, Res hodie minor est, here quam fuit, atque eadem cras |