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 these a troop of busy spirits prefs, To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee. The fame year he published his Medal, a Satire againft 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 Abfalem and Acbitophel, 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 suffrages of the nation. In 1681, he brought on the stage his Spanife 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 Guise, 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 succession was then oppofed. In 1684, he published a translation 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 Thrensdia 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-Bex, in "Answer to fome Papers lately printed," &c. Dr. Stillingfleet opposition to Dr. Stillingfleet's published "A Vindication," in 1687, in which he treats Dryden with some severity. Having probably felt his own inferiority in theological controversy, 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 Mouse," 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 Xeviet,” and was supposed to have been engaged in tranflating " Varillas's Hiftory of Herefies;" but to have dropped the defign. At the Revolution, having disqualified himself for holding any place under the Government, by turning Papift, he was difmiffed from the office of Poet-Laureat, which he enjoyed with fo much pride and praife; 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 Dorset, when, as Chamberlain, he was constrained to remove him from his office, gave him from his own purfe an allowance equal to the salary. Being no longer the Court Poet, and confidering himself as discountenanced by the public, he refamed, for support, his former employment of writing for the stage, and produced in 1690, Don Schafian, a tragedy, which is commonly esteemed either the first or the second of his dramatic performances. 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. Hawkesworth 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 allufively mentioned by Dryden in his preface. In 1693, appeared a new version of Juvenal and Perfius, in which the first, third, fixth, tenth, and fixteenth satires 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 ís said, like his first dramatic effay, to have been unsuccessful. 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 set penury at defiance; for his profits were not great, as a play feldom 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 Fresney'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 version 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 out with ftudy, and oppressed by fortune, without other fupport than the constancy and patience of a Chriftian." It was cenfured by Milbourne, a clergyman, ftyled by Pope, "the fairest of critics," because he exhibited his own verfion to be compared with that which he condemned. His occafional poems and tranflations, fuch as Prologues, Epilogues, Epifiles, Epitaphs, Elegies, Songs, &c. and versions from Greek and Latin poets, published in the fix volumes of Miscellanies, by Tonfon, are too numerous to be specified here. Befides his controversial and critical writings in profe, already enumerated, he wrote the Lives of Plutarch and Lucian, prefixed to the translations of those authors by several hands, the Life of Polybiur, before the translation of that historian by Sir Henry Sheers, and a Preface to the " Dialogue Concerning Women," by Walsh. His laft work was his Fables, ancient and modern, published in 1699, together with some 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 fchemes 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 houfe in Gerard Street, of a mortifi fation in his leg, on the 1ft of May 1701, in the 70th year of his age, and was buried in Weftminfter 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 expance of the funeral was defrayed by Halifax; He the great Bard at bis own charge inters¿ but makes no mention of the regularity of the proceffion having been interrupted by the outrages of Lord Jeffries and his " rakish companions;" as related at great length in Wilfon's "Life of Congreve." Had fuch a circumstance happened, he hardly would have omitted it, In the Register of the College of Phyficians, is the following entry: "May 3. 1701, Comitiis Cenforiis Ordinariis. At the request of several 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 fubscription. Ward, in his " London Spy," 1706, relates, that on the occasion there was a performance of folemn mufic at the College, and that at the proceffion, which he himself saw, there was a concert of hautboys and trumpets. The day of his interment he says was Monday the 13th of May, twelve days after his decease. Wilson 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, Mortuus Maii 1701, Jobannes Sheffield, Dux Buckinghamienfis, pofuit. He married Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, who furvived him eight years. By her he had three fons, 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 tranflated the Seventh Satire of Juvenal. John was author of a comedy, called The Husband his orʊn Cuckold, acted in 1696, and translated the Fourteenth Satire of Juwenal. He is faid to have died at Rome. Henry entered into some religious order. A collection of his Original Poems and Tranflations, 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 Tranflations, 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 suppose that he was graceful in his perfon; but Kneller was a great mender of nature. From the "State Poems," we learn that he was a fhort, thick nan. The nick-name given him by his enemies was Poet Squab. "I remember plain John Dryden" (says 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"]. Pofterity is abfolutely mistaken as to that great man. Though forced to be a satirist, he was the mildest creature breathing, and the readieft 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 modeftelt man that ever converfed." Of his private character, he himself thus speaks 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 fhall fay nothing of my principles of state; I believe you in your's follow the dictates ♦f your reason, as I, in mine, do thofe of my confcience: If I thought myself 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 conversation, they who fee me every day, can be the best witnesses, whether or not it be blameless and inoffenfive." Dr. Johníon 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 dispute was made to him; and the other related, that his armed chair, which, in the winter, had a fettled and prefcriptive 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 prognostications of judicial aftrology. In the preface to his Fables, he has endeavoured obliquely to justify his superstition, by attributing the fame to fome of the ancients. The letter to his fons in Italy, preserved in the Library at Lambeth, and imparted to the public by Dr. Johnson, leaves no doubt of his notions or practice. It contains, alfo, an indubitable proof of his religious fincerity. From fome parts of his history he appears unsteady, and to have too readily temporised with the feveral revolutions in church and state. This, however, might in some measure have been owing to his natural timidity and diffidence. Congreve, whose authority cannot be questioned, has given us fuch an account of him, as makes him appear no less 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 deficieneics; eafy of accefs himself, but flow and diffident in his advances to others; and of all men the most modest and the most casy to be discountenanced in his approaches either to his inferiors or his equals. To the testimony 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 unneceffary 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 faturnine and referved, and that he was none of those who endeavour to break jests in company, and make repartees." But whatever was his character as a companion, it appears, that he lived in familiarity with the highest perfons of his time. He has been reproached with boasting of his familiarity with the great, but he has never been accufed 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, such abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation. indignant view, Yet pity Dryden-hark! whene'er he fings, On titled rhymers and inglorious kings. MASON. Of dramatic immorality he did not want examples among his contemporaries; but in the meanness and fervility of hyperbolical adulation, he poffeffed an unrivalled fuperiority. Of this kind of meanness he never feems to decline the practice or iament the neceffity. He appears to have been more delighted with the fertility of his invention than mortified by the prostitution of his judgment, which was probably, like his immorality and his merriment, artificial and conftrained, the effect of fiudy 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 vaalty 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 as as a dramatif, a critic, a scholar, a writer of profe, and a general poet. His plays have perhaps the leaft merit of all his writings. He has himself confeffed his unfitness for the writing of comedy. "I want," fays he, "that gaiety of humour that is required in it; fo that those who decry my comedies, do me no injury except in point of profit. Reputation in them is the last thing to which I fhall pretend." But even in this branch of poetry he has written enough to perpetuate his fame; as his All for Love, Spanish Friar, Don Sebaftian, and Conqueft of Granada, can never be forgotten. It should, be remembered that he deferves a much feverer cenfure for the immorality of his plays, than for any defects in their compofition. His character as a critic and a poet, has been illustrated by writers of distinguished ability; but it is most happily illuftrated by the claffical pen of Dr. Johnson, who has written his life with candor, analyfed his character with much ingenuity, and dismissed him with a just eulogium. Dryden may be properly confidered as the father of English criticism. His Effay an Dramatic Poetry was the firft regular and valuable treatise on the Art of Writing. It will not be easy to find, in all the opulence of our language, a treatise so artfully variegated with fucceffive reprefentations of oppofite probabilities, fo enlivened with imagery, fo brightened with illustrations. His fcholaftic acquifitions, though great, feem not proportionate to his opportunities and abilities He could not, in Dr. Johnson's opinion, like Milton or Cowley, have made his name illuftrious merely by his learning. Yet it cannot be faid that his genius is ever unprovided of matter, or that his fancy languishes in penury of ideas. His works abound with knowledge, and fparkle with illuftrations. Criticism either didactic or defenfive, occupies almost all his profe, except thofe pages which he has devoted to his patrons; but none of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They have not as Dr. Johnson obferves, the formality of a fettled ftyle, in which the first half of the fentence be trays the other. The claufes are never balanced, nor the periods modelled: every word feems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid; the whole is airy animated, and vigorous: what is little, is gay; what is great, is splendid. He may be thought to mention himself too frequently; but while he forces himself upon our esteem, we cannot refuf him to ftand high in his own. Every thing is executed by the play of images, and the sprightline! of expreflion. Though all is easy, nothing is feeble; though all seems careless, there is nothing harfh; and though, fince his earlier works, more than a century has paffed, they have nothing y uncouth or obfolete. From his profe, however, he deferves only his fecondary praife; the veneration with which h name is pronounced, by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the lam guage, improved the fentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry. Dryden is the most universal of all peets. This univerfality has been objected to him as a faul but it was the unhappy effect of penury and dependence. His feveral productions were fo man fucceffive expedients for his fupport; his plays were therefore often borrowed, and his poems wer almoft all occafional. His Heroic Stanzas on the death of Cromwell, were among the earliest of h occafional compofitions. They have beauties and defects; the thoughts are vigorous, and thoug not always proper, fhew a mind replete with ideas; the numbers are smooth, and the diction, not altogether correct, is elegant and eafy. His Area fhows that he had not yet learned to reje forced conceits, or to forbear the improper ufe of mythology. Into his Verfes to the Lord Chancellor, feems to have collected all his powers. They afford his first attempt at those penetrating remar on human nature, for which he feems to have been peculiarly formed. The Annus Mirabilis is wr ten with great diligence, yet does not fully anfwer the expectation raised by fuch fubjects and fu a writer. With the ftanza of Davenant, he has fometimes his vein of parenthesis and inciden difquifition. He affords more fentiment than defcription, and does not fo much impress scenes up the fancy, as deduce confequences, and make comparisons. His Abfalom ard Achitopkel comprises the excellencies of which a poem political and controve, fial is fufceptible; acrimony of cenfure, c |