Being asked whether he had seen the Hind and Panther, Crites anfwers: "Seen it! Mr. Bayes, why I can ftir no "where but it pursues me: it haunts me worse than a pew"ter-buttoned ferjeant does a decayed cit. Sometimes I "meet it in a band-box, when my laundress brings home my "linen; fometimes, whether I will or no, it lights my pipe " at a coffee-house; fometimes it surprises me in a trunk"maker's fhop; and fometimes it refreshes my memory for "me on the backfide of a Chancery-lane parcel. For your "comfort too, Mr. Bayes, I have not only feen it, as you may perceive, but have read it too, and can quote it as "freely upon occafion as a frugal tradesman can quote that "noble treatise the Worth of a Penny to his extravagant "'prentice, that revels in stewed apples and penny custards."

The whole animation of these compofitions arifes from a profufion of ludicrous and affected comparisons. "To fe"cure one's chastity," fays Bayes, "little more is neceffary "than to leave off a correspondence with the other fex,which, ❝ to a wife man, is no greater a punishment than it would "be to a fanatick perfon to be forbid feeing The Cheats "and The Committee; or for my Lord Mayor and Alder. "men to be interdicted the fight of The London Cuckolds." This is the general strain, and therefore I fhall be easily excufed the labour of more transcription.

Brown does not wholly forget paft tranfactions: "You be "gan," fays Crites to Bayes, " a very different religion, and "have not mended the matter in your last choice. It was but "reason that your Mufe, which appeared first in a tyrant's " quarrel, fhould employ her last efforts to justify the ufurpa "tion of the Hind."

Next year the nation was fummoned to celebrate the birth of the Prince. Now was the time for Dryden to rouse his imagination, and strain his voice. Happy days were at hand, and he was willing to enjoy and diffuse the anticipated bleffings. He published a poem, filled with predictions c great

nefs and prosperity; predictions, of which it is not neceffary to tell how they have been verified.

A few months paffed after these joyful notes, and every bloffom of Popish Hope was blafted for ever by the Revolution. A Papift now could be no longer laureat. The revenue, which he had enjoyed with fo much pride and praise, was transferred to Shadwell, an old enemy, whom he had formerly ftigmatised by the name of Og. Dryden could not decently complain that he was depofed; but seemed very angry that Shadwell fucceeded him, and has therefore celebrated the intruder's inauguration in a poem exquifitely fatirical, called Mac Flecknoe*; of which the Dunciad, as Pope himself declares, is an imitation, though more extended in its plan, and more diverfified in its incidents.

It is related by Prior, that Lord Dorfet, when as chamberlain he was conftrained to eject Dryden from his office, gave him from his own purse an allowance equal to the falary. This is no romantick or incredible act of generosity; an hundred a year is often enough given to claims lefs cogent by men lefs famed for liberality. Yet Dryden always reprefented himself as fuffering under a public infliction; and once particularly demands refpect for the patience with which he endured the lofs of his little fortune. His patron might, indeed, enjoin him to fupprefs his bounty; but, if he suffered nothing, he should not have complained.

During the fhort reign of King James, he had written nothing for the staget, being, in his opinion, more profitably employed in controversy and flattery. Of praise he might perhaps have been lefs lavish without inconvenience, for James was never faid to have much regard for poetry: he was to be flattered only by adopting his religion.

Times were now changed: Dryden was no longer the

• All Dryden's biographers have mifdated this poem, which Mr. Malone's more accurate researches prove to have been published on the 4th of October, 1682. C.

↑ Albion and Albanius must however be excepted. R.

court-poet, and was to look back for fupport to his former trade; and having waited about two years, either confidering himfelf as difcountenanced by the publick, or perhaps expecting a second Revolution, he produced Don Sebaftian in 1690; and in the next four years four dramas more.

In 1693 appeared a new verfion of Juvenal and Perfius. Of Juvenal he tranflated the first, third, fixth, tenth, and fixteenth fatires; and of Perfius the whole work. On this occafion he introduced his two fons to the publick, as nurselings of the Muses. The fourteenth of Juvenal was the work of John, and the seventh of Charles Dryden. He prefixed a very ample preface, in the form of a dedication to Lord Dorfet; and there gives an account of the defign which he had once formed to write an epick poem on the actions either of Arthur or the Black Prince. He confidered the epick as neceffarily including some kind of supernatural agency, and had imagined a new kind of contest between the guardian angels of kingdoms, of whom he conceived that each might be represented zealous for his charge, without any intended oppofition to the purposes of the Supreme Being, of which all created minds muft in part be ignorant.

This is the most reasonable scheme of celeftial interpofition that ever was formed. The furprizes and terrors of enchantments, which have fucceeded to the intrigues and oppofitions of Pagan deities, afford very striking scenes, and open a vast extent to the imagination; but, as Boileau observes (and Boileau will be feldom found mistaken), with this incurable defect, that, in a contest between Heaven and Hell, we know at the beginning which is to prevail; for this reason we follow Rinaldo to the enchanted wood with more curiofity than

terror.

In the scheme of Dryden there is one great difficulty, which yet he would perhaps have had addrefs enough to furmount. In a war justice can be but on one fide; and, to entitle the hero to the protection of angels, he must fight in defence of indubitable right. Yet fome of the celestial beings, thus op

pofed to each other, must have been represented as defending guilt.

That this poem was never written, is reasonably to be lamented. It would doubtless have improved our numbers, and enlarged our language; and might perhaps have contributed by pleafing instructions to rectify our opinions, and purify

our manners.

What he required as the indifpenfable condition of fuch an undertaking, a publick ftipend, was not likely in thefe times. to be obtained. Riches were not become familiar to us; nor had the nation yet learned to be liberal.

This plan he charged Blackmore with stealing: "only,” fays he," the guardian angels of kingdoms were machines "too ponderous for him to manage."

In 1694, he began the most laborious and difficult of all his works, the tranflation of Virgil; from which he borrowed two months, that he might turn "Frefnoy's Art of Painting" into English profe. The preface, which he boasts to have written in twelve mornings, exhibits a parallel of poetry and painting, with a miscellaneous collection of critical remarks, fuch as coft a mind stored like his no labour to produce them.

In 1697, he published his version of the works of Virgil ; and, that no opportunity of profit might be loft, dedicated the Paftorals to the Lord Clifford, the Georgicks to the Earl of Chesterfield, and the Eneid to the Earl of Mulgrave. This œconomy of flattery, at once lavish and difcreet, did not pafs without obfervation.

This tranflation was cenfured by Milbourne, a clergyman, ftyled, by Pope, "the faireft of criticks," because he exhibited his own verfion to be compared with that which he condemned.

His laft work was his Fables, published in confequence, as is fuppofed, of a contract now in the hands of Mr. Tonfon: by which he obliged himself, in confideration of three hundred pounds, to finish for the prefs ten thoufand verses.

In this volume is comprised the well-known ode on St. Ce

cilia's day, which, as appeared by a letter communicated to Dr. Birch, he spent a fortnight in compofing and correcting. But what is this to the patience and diligence of Boileau, whofe Equivoque, a poem of only three hundred and fortyfix lines, took from his life eleven months to write it, and three years to revise it?

Part of his book of Fables is the firft Iliad in English, intended as a specimen of a verfion of the whole. Confidering into what hands Homer was to fall, the reader cannot but rejoice that this project went no further.

The time was now at hand which was to put an end to all his schemes and labours. On the firft of May, 1701, having been some time, as he tells us, a cripple in his limbs, he died, in Gerard-street, of a mortification in his leg.

There is extant a wild ftory relating to fome vexatious events that happened at his funeral, which, at the end of Congreve's Life, by a writer of I know not what credit, are thus related, as I find the account transferred to a biographical dictionary.

"Mr. Dryden dying on the Wednesday morning, Dr. "Thomas Sprat, then Bishop of Rochester and Dean of "Westminster, fent the next day to the Lady Elizabeth "Howard, Mr. Dryden's widow, that he would make a pre"fent of the ground, which was forty pounds, with all the "other Abbey-fees. The Lord Halifax likewife sent to the "Lady Elizabeth, and Mr. Charles Dryden her fon, that, "if they would give him leave to bury Mr. Dryden, he "would inter him with a gentleman's private funeral, and "afterwards bestow five hundred pounds on a monument in "the Abbey; which, as they had no reason to refuse, they "accepted. On the Saturday following the company came; "the corpfe was put into a velvet hearse; and eighteen "mourning coaches, filled with company, attended. When "they were juft ready to move, the Lord Jefferies, fon of "the Lord Chancellor Jefferies, with fome of his rakish companions, coming by, asked whose funeral it was: and