"ode is esteemed the best of all my poetry, by all "the town: I thought fo myself when I writ it; but "being old, I diftrufted my own judgment. I hope "it has done you fervice, and will do you more." Befides what we have here enumerated, our author publifhed a vast variety of other poems both tranflations and originals, all which will be found in this edition of his works. He also wrote in profe a preface to Walfh's dialogue concerning women, and the Lives of Plutarch and Lucian, prefixed to the tranflation of their respective works by several hands; and also that of Polybius, before a tranflation of that hiftorian by Sir Harry Sheers. The fame gentleman. published a Tacitus, the first book of whith was done by our author; and other things were paffed upon the world for his which really belonged to one John Davies, a writer of those days, who encouraged the mistake, in which to be fure he found his advantage, by printing in the title-page only the initial letters of his name, which might be equally applied to Dryden and Davies. Our author married the lady Elizabeth Howard, a daughter of the earl of Berkshire, and fifter to Sir Robert Howard, the honorable colonel Philip Howard, and to Edward Howard Efq; author of the British Princes. She furvived him feveral years; and by her he left three fons; Charles, who was drowned fwimming across the Thames at Windfor, in his twentyeighth year; John, who wrote a play called the Hufband his own Cuckold, and who died in the pope's houfhold, being one of his guard; Henry Erafmus, who was in prieft's orders, and lived to inherit the family title. There was fomething fuperftitious in Dryden's character; for he calculated the nativity of his fon Charles, who was his favorite; and found that he fhould be in danger of death every leventh year. The event verified the prediction. He had three very narrow escapes at the æras foretold; the fourth accident was fatal. 6 This great poet died of a mortification in his foot, at his house in Gerrard's street, Soho, on the first of May, 1701, aged feventy: and when he firft felt the pain, pronounced it to be the ftroke of death. Dr. Sprat bishop of Rochester requested that his lady would order the body to be interred in Weftminster-abbey, and he would remit the fees for opening the ground, &c. which came to upwards of forty pounds. Lord Hallifax alfo undertook the expence of his funeral, and ordered a velvet hearfe with eighteen mourning coaches to attend for that purpose. 7 The proceffion was now beginning to move forward, when Lord Jeffries, fon to the famous chancellor, chancing to pass by with fome revelling companions, fwore that fo great a poet fhould not be thus privately buried; but that he would undertake it in a manner much more fplendid, and more worthy of fuch a celebrated character. He even intruded with this declaration upon the privacy of lady Elizabeth; but she rejected the offer, and actually fwooned at his extraordinary procedure. He then went down stairs; and, pretending that her ladyfhip had confented, ordered the body to one Ruffel's, an undertaker in Cheapfide, where it lay for fome time, without his taking any further notice of it; and when folicited about it, he pleaded ignorance and a drunken frolic. Thus the body lay above-ground near three weeks; when, with her ladyfhip's leave, Dr. Garth had it removed to the College of Phyficians, where a subscription being made to defray the burial-expences, the Dr. pronounced a fine Latin oration in praife of the deceased. His remains were then conveyed to the abbey, with a long train of coaches, and interred in a confused disorderly manner: for the bishop, disgufted at the affront put upon him, as he fuppofed, by my lady before, when he attended with the choir, the abbey being lighted up, declined affifting; and it has been confidently afferted, that fo little was decorum attended to, a Westminster scholar fung an ode of Horace over the grave. Mr. Charles Dryden challenged the lord who had deported himself thus meanly; but he, to avoid worse confequences, left town thereupon, and afterwards the kingdom. The Earl of Hallifax, influenced by the fame reason that prevented Dr. Sprat from attending the funeral, no longer thought of laying out five hundred pounds, as he had at firft intended, in a monument to the memory of our poet; but Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, at length set up his buft in the Abbey with this infcription: J. DRY DEN Mortuus Maii 1. 1701. Johannes Sheffield Dux Buckinghamienfis fecit. He took the hint of fo doing from this line, relating to Dryden, in Pope's epitaph on Rowe. Beneath a rude and nameless ftone he lies. And his grace originally intended for the monumental infcription, these two lines: This Sheffield rais'd: the facred duft below Tom Brown, in a pamphlet, entituled, "The late "Converts expofed, or, the Reasons of Mr. Bayes' "changing his Religion," infinuates, that Dryden follicited to be ordained in the Proteftant church, but was refused; and that he also miscarried in attempting to be appointed to the provoftship of Eton-College, near Windfor. Langbaine alfo bears testimony to this; but I dare fay the reputation of these witneffes will have but little weight with the judicious reader, who cannot but fee that this great man's enemies fpared no opportunities of ftriving to make him ridiculous; and if truth failed, they feldom fcrupled having recourfe to invention. Envy is a vice peculiar to little minds, and falfity its best fupport. In his perfonal character Dryden was perfectly amiable; he was modeft even to diffidence; in friendship and generofity he was exceeded by none: no man had stronger feelings for the diftreffes of human nature, or greater propenfity to alleviate them; and to this noble turn of mind, the difficulties which he had to ftruggle with in life, and of which we often find him complaining, were probably moftly owing. His temper was mild, open, unfufpecting, and forgiving. He was very eafy of accefs, and perfectly pleafing in his carriage. As his knowledge was great, and his memory ftrongly retentive; fo were his defires of communicating inftruction, to fuch young writers as thought fit to confult him, extenfive; yet in his manner there was fomething fo peculiarly agreeable that it doubled the obligation. He was himself always open to a conviction of error, and thankful for the remonftrance. Among the many enemies who attacked his morals, bishop Burnet calls him a monster of impurities of all forts; in anfwer to which lord Lanfdown affures us, "That he was the very reverse of all this, and that "all his acquaintance could vouch his being a man "of regular life and unfpotted conversation.' No body will be doubtful whether to fide with the peer spiritual or temporal, who remembers the difpute between the former and our author, which we have difcuffed in our notes. He has been accufed as a time-ferver and an hypocrite in religion, because it was his fortune at a particular season to conform to one partronifed at court; but this charge must fall to the ground on recollecting that he always continued therein firm and unfhaken, though he might have gained confiderably by recanting after the revolution, and his writings on that head carry with them the strongest marks of fincerity. Perhaps before he declared himself a Roman Catholic, he had no fettled form of religion; and his Religio Religio Laici is not a defence of any particular fect of Christianity, so much as of Christianity in general. What a prodigious field for admiration opens upon us in contemplating our author as a poet! Here, in whatever light we view him, he is fure always to excel; and if univerfality of genius gives a title to preeminence, perhaps we fhall be scarcely excufed for admitting any to rank above him. In elegy he was plaintive and tender'; in panegyric he had the art of throwing a luftre round a character that funk all its imperfections. In fatire he was ftrong, bold, penetrating, and fevere; in didactic or controverfial writng, concife, clear, and perfuafive. His epiftles are familiar, eafy, and entertaining. His prologues and epilogues abound with wit, pleafantry, and often excellent traces of criticism. In his fongs the thoughts appear new, the phrafeology unconstrained; and the conclufions pointed. His odes are ftrong, forceful, foaring, and fublime; the numbers are happily varied, the harmony is inimitable, and the whole feem to breathe the spirit of inspiration. Lastly, in his dramatic writings, which are many, there is a great variety; his characters are often finely marked, and the paffions well wrought up; yet he deals more in the fublime than the pathos; and his tragedies are rather written from the head than the heart. In comedy, however, he is facetious and full of humour. Father Dominic is one of the beft characters on our ftage. In this fpecies of writing, he certainly failed moft: but his failings are eafily pardoned when we confider, that he wrote his plays in a hurry; that he was for fome time obliged to furnish the ftage with a certain number yearly; and that he never had leifure fufficient to polish and correct up to the standard of his genius. It was not his fortune at any time to be able to use the Nonum prematur in annum. Yet his imperfections, like spots in the fun, can never diminish his luftre; and had he never written more VOL. I. |