To adjust the minute events of literary history is tedious. and troublesome; it requires indeed no great force of understanding, but often depends upon enquiries which there is no opportunity of making, or is to be fetched from books and pamphlets not always at hand.

The 'Rehearsal' was played in 1671, and yet is represented as ridiculing passages in the 'Conquest of Granada' and 'Assignation,' which were not published till 1678, in 'Marriage-à-la-Mode,' published in 1673, and in 'Tyrannic Love' of 1677. These contradictions shew how rashly satire 10 is applied.

It is said that this farce was originally intended against Davenant, who in the first draft was characterised by the name of Bilboa. Davenant had been a soldier and an adventurer.

There is one passage in the 'Rehearsal' still remaining, which seems to have related originally to Davenant. Bayes hurts his nose, and comes in with brown paper applied to the bruise; how this affected Dryden does not appear. Davenant's nose had suffered such diminution by mishaps, 20 that a patch upon that part evidently denoted him.

It is said likewise that Sir Robert Howard was once meant. The design was probably to ridicule the reigning poet whoever he might be.

Much of the personal satire, to which it might owe its first reception, is now lost or obscured. Bayes probably imitated the dress and mimicked the manner of Dryden; the cant words which are so often in his mouth may be supposed to have been Dryden's habitual phrases or customary exclamations. Bayes, when he is to write, is blooded and purged; 30 this, as Lamotte relates himself to have heard, was the real practice of the poet.

There were other strokes in the 'Rehearsal' by which malice was gratified; the debate between Love and Honour,

which keeps Prince Volscius in a single boot, is said to have alluded to the misconduct of the Duke of Ormond, who lost Dublin to the rebels while he was toying with a mistress.

The Earl of Rochester, to suppress the reputation of Dryden, took Settle into his protection, and endeavoured to persuade the public that its approbation had been to that time misplaced. Settle was awhile in high reputation: his 'Empress of Morocco',' having first delighted the town, Io was carried in triumph to Whitehall, and played by the ladies of the Court. Now was the poetical meteor at the highest; the next moment began its fall. Rochester withdrew his patronage, seeming resolved, says one of his biographers, 'to have a judgment contrary to that of the town.' Perhaps being unable to endure any reputation beyond a certain height, even when he had himself contributed to raise it.

Neither critics nor rivals did Dryden much mischief, unless they gained from his own temper the power of vexing him, 20 which his frequent bursts of resentment give reason to suspect. He is always angry at some past, or afraid of some future censure; but he lessens the smart of his wounds by the balm of his own approbation, and endeavours to repel the shafts of criticism by opposing a shield of adamantine confidence.

The perpetual accusation produced against him was that of plagiarism, against which he never attempted any vigorous defence; for, though he was perhaps sometimes injuriously censured, he would by denying part of the charge have con30 fessed the rest; and as his adversaries had the proof in their own hands, he who knew that wit had little power against facts, wisely left in that perplexity which generality produces, a question which it was his interest to suppress, and which,

1 1673.

unless provoked by vindication, few were likely to examine.

Though the life of a writer from about thirty-five to sixtythree may be supposed to have been sufficiently busied by the composition of eight-and-twenty pieces for the stage, Dryden found room in the same space for many other undertakings.

But, how much soever he wrote, he was at least once suspected of writing more, for in 1679 a paper of verses called 'An Essay on Satire' was shewn about in manuscript, by 10 which the Earl of Rochester, the Duchess of Portsmouth, and others were so much provoked, that, as was supposed, for the actors were never discovered, they procured Dryden, whom they suspected as the author, to be waylaid and beaten. This incident is mentioned by the Duke of Buckinghamshire, the true writer, in his 'Art of Poetry 1,' where he says of Dryden,

Though prais'd and beaten for another's rhymes,

. His own deserves as great applause sometimes.'

His reputation in time was such, that his name was thought 20 necessary to the success of every poetical or literary performance, and therefore he was engaged to contribute something, whatever it might be, to many publications. He prefixed the 'Life of Polybius' to the translation of Sir Henry Sheers, and those of Lucian and Plutarch to versions of their works by different hands. Of the English Tacitus' he translated the first book, and if Gordon be credited, translated it from the French. Such a charge can hardly be mentioned without some degree of indignation, but it is not, I suppose, so much to be inferred that Dryden wanted the literature neces- 30 sary to the perusal of Tacitus, as that, considering himself as hidden in a crowd, he had no awe of the public, and writing merely for money, was contented to get it by the nearest way.

1 1679.

D

In 1680, the 'Epistles' of Ovid being translated by the poets of the time, among which one was the work of Dryden, and another of Dryden and Lord Mulgrave, it was necessary to introduce them by a preface; and Dryden, who on such occasions was regularly summoned, prefixed a discourse upon translation, which was then struggling for the liberty that it now enjoys. Why it should find any difficulty in breaking the shackles of verbal interpretation, which must for ever debar it from elegance, it would be difficult to conjecture, to were not the power of prejudice every day observed. The authority of Jonson, Sandys, and Holyday had fixed the judgment of the nation, and it was not easily believed that a better way could be found than they had taken, though Fanshaw, Denham, Waller, and Cowley had tried to give examples of a different practice.

In 1681 Dryden became yet more conspicuous by uniting politics with poetry in the memorable satire called 'Absalom and Achitophel,' written against the faction which, by Lord Shaftesbury's incitement, set the Duke of Monmouth at its 20 head.

Of this poem, in which personal satire was applied to the support of public principles, and in which therefore every mind was interested, the reception was eager, and the sale so large, that my father, an old bookseller, told me he had not known it equalled but by Sacheverell's trial.

The reason of this general perusal Addison has attempted to derive from the delight which the mind feels in the investigation of secrets, and thinks that curiosity to decipher the names procured readers to the poem. There is no need to 30 enquire why those verses were read, which to all the attractions of wit, elegance, and harmony, added the co-operation of all the factious passions, and filled every mind with triumph or resentment.

It could not be supposed that all the provocation given by

Dryden would be endured without resistance or reply. Both his person and his party were exposed in their turns to the shafts of satire, which though neither so well pointed nor perhaps so well aimed, undoubtedly drew blood.

One of these poems is called 'Dryden's Satire on his Muse,' ascribed, though, as Pope says, falsely, to Somers, who was afterwards Chancellor. The poem, whosesoever it was, has much virulence, and some spriteliness. The writer tells all the ill that he can collect both of Dryden and his friends.

The poem of 'Absalom and Achitophel' had two answers, now both forgotten; one called 'Azaria and Hushai,' the other Absalom Senior.' Of these hostile compositions, Dryden apparently imputes Absalom Senior' to Settle, by quoting in his verses against him the second line. 'Azaria and Hushai' was, as Wood says, imputed to him, though it is somewhat unlikely that he should write twice on the same occasion. This is a difficulty which I cannot remove for want of a minuter knowledge of poetical transactions.

The same year1 he published the 'Medal,' of which the 201 subject is a medal struck on Lord Shaftesbury's escape from a prosecution by the ignoramus of a grand jury of Londoners.

In both poems he maintains the same principles, and saw them both attacked by the same antagonist. Elkanah Settle, who had answered Absalom,' appeared with equal courage in opposition to the 'Medal,' and published an answer called 'The Medal Reversed,' with so much success in both encounters that he left the palm doubtful, and divided the suffrages of the nation. Such are the revolutions of fame, or such is the prevalence of fashion, that the man whose works 30 have not yet been thought to deserve the care of collecting them, who died forgotten in an hospital, and whose latter years were spent in contriving shows for fairs, and carrying

1 1681.