tive labour; if we may believe Pope, for his Virgil alone Dryden received £1200. During these years, too, Dryden did a vast amount of occasional writing for money: he supplied prologues and epilogues to other people's plays; he composed funeral

poems (for that on the Countess of Abingdon he received £500); he translated prose books on popular subjects of the day; he contributed prefaces and complimentary verses to the publishers; in short, this great poet became the most active professional man of letters of the time, and earned what may have been a handsome, but was certainly a fluctuating income by miscellaneous labour with the pen. His noble ode called Alexander's Feast was thus written to order for the feast of St. Cecilia's Day, 1697. In November of 1699 was published the latest of Dryden's works, the folio of Fables (1700), in which were gathered together, with the narrative paraphrases from Chaucer and Boccaccio, several miscellany translations, and all the original poems of Dryden's later years, some 12,000 verses in all. This volume contains several of the most characteristic and best known of all the poet's productions, and in particular Theodore and Honoria and Cymon and Iphigenia, which criticism, for a century at least, was to place at the very summit of English narrative poetry. Although Dryden's imaginative power and technical skill had never been in a more brilliant condition, his physical health was now failing. He suffered from the gout in his feet, and having neglected it, one of his toes became inflamed and mortified. After a short but distressing illness, his admirers were informed on the 30th of April 1700 that "John Dryden, Esq., the famous poet, lies a-dying," and on the 1st of May he died in the house in Gerrard Street, Soho, where he had lived since 1686. A fortnight afterwards, his body having been meantime embalmed, Dryden was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, by the side of Chaucer, but under "a rude and nameless stone." Not very much is recorded about the personal appearance and habits of Dryden, except that he had "a down look," pensive or melancholy, and that he was too pink and plump, for dignity. He was something of a sportsman, loved good company, had not a ready tongue in conversation, and was inclined in later years to drink more than suited his state of health. The rest must be sought for in his massive and solid treasury of conscientious literary work.

(Now demolished)

· [ October 1699] 1

These berres had waited on you, with the former; but they then wanted that Correction, which I have since given them, that they the b.Htr endur" the Light of so great a dinar & Port I am now in frare that I have jourgs them out of their Spirit; as our Master Busby, and to whip a Boy So long, till he made him a Confirm Block head. My Cousin Drive saw them in the Country; If the greatest Exception He made to them, way a a Satist against the Dutch valour in the Late War. He desin me to omit it (to use has Qwn words / out of the respect H. Rad to his operaign. I obeyd his Commands; & faft only the prains, which I think are due to the gallantry of my own Countrymen. In the discription which I have made of a Parliament Man, I think I have not only drawn the feature of my worthy Kinsman, but have also given my own opinion, of what an Englishman in Parliament oughto b ; & deliver it as a Mimonial of my own principly to all Porterity. I have consulted the Jugment of my Unsyah friends, who have Some of them thi honour to b: known to you; & they think there is nothing which can justly give offence, in that part of the Poin I say not this, to cast a Blind on your Gingmint (which I could not do if I indow ourd it, but to assurt you, that nothing rilatring to the publique shall stand, without your resowe to dis oblige you. And and will not hazard my hope of your by rifaving to obey you in any thing, which I can por form with my thing, which I can fir form my Ronour; So I am very confid but you will never impard any other My thoughts at mitent and find on Honer. And by my translation of the first I had; I find him a Port mon according to my Genicy than (Birge; and Convoguint Kop. I may do Ain mor justice, in his fiery way of writing, which as it is hable 6. Virgil. Since fit is my country's honour or wilt or for my our that Jare faulty, so it is capable of mor; be caties, than the reactris, & sobnity willing to undisture this tork; I It pain not of bring encouring in it, by your favour who am Kr Your most Obedient Servant

permission. For it wire to want Common since, to deliver your protection

John Dryden.

FROM "ANNUS MIRABILIS."

The mighty ghosts of our great Harrys rose,
And armed Edwards looked with anxious eyes,

To see this fleet among unequal foes,

By which fate promised them their Charles should rise.

Meantime the Belgians tack upon our rear,

And raking chase-guns through our sterns they send; Close by, their fire-ships like jackals appear,

Who on their lions for the prey attend.

Silent in smoke of cannon they come on:
Such vapours once did fiery Cacus hide :
In these the height of pleased revenge is shown,
Who burn contented by another's side.

Sometimes from fighting squadrons of each fleet,
Deceived themselves, or to preserve some friend,

Two grappling Etnas on the ocean meet,

And English fires with Belgian flames contend.

Now at each tack our little fleet grows less;

And, like maimed fowl, swim lagging on the main ; Their greater loss their numbers scarce confess, While they lose cheaper than the English gain. Have you not seen, when, whistled from the fist, Some falcon stoops at what her eye designed, And, with her eagerness the quarry missed,

Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind? The dastard crow that to the wood made wing, And sees the groves no shelter can afford, With her loud caws her craven kind does bring, Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird. Among the Dutch thus Albemarle did fare: He could not conquer, and disdained to fly: Past hope of safety, 'twas his latest care, Like falling Cæsar, decently to die.

WILSON: ORRERY: SHADWELL

109 Of John Wilson (1622?-1696?) very little is known. He was the son of the Minor Dramatists Rev. Aaron Wilson, of Plymouth, was born perhaps at Caermarthen, was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, became a student of Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Bar about 1649. He became secretary to the Duke of York, by whose recommendation he was admitted to the service of the Duke of Ormonde, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. It is probable that he wrote his plays soon after the Restoration, and took advantage of a visit to London, when the theatres were fully resuscitated, to bring them before the public. At all events, his three best pieces, The Cheats and The Projectors and the tragedy of Andronicus Commenius, were all published in 1664-65. Wilson was appointed Recorder of Londonderry in 1681, and held that post until the siege in 1689. It is believed that he joined James II. in Dublin, and later found his way to London, where he died, near Leicester Fields, in or about 1696. He was the author of some legal and historical works, and is spoken of by a contemporary libeller as "little Wilson."

Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery (1621-1679), was the younger brother of Richard, Earl of Burlington and Cork, and fifth son of the great Earl of Cork. He was born on the 25th of April 1621, and in 1628 became Lord Broghill. He was educated in Dublin, and at a very early age discovered extraordinary talents. When he was fourteen, an older brother, Lord Kynalmeaky, took him to France and Italy for the Grand Tour; they returned to find the Civil War just breaking out. At the age of twenty, Lord Broghill married Lady Margaret Howard, and set out for Ireland, where war had now broken out, and where the young people were presently besieged in Lismore Castle. During the Civil War and the Commonwealth, Broghill behaved with unfailing energy and tact, conquering the goodwill of Cromwell without ever failing in his loyalty to Charles II., who, on the 5th of September 1660, created him Earl of Orrery, and placed him at the head of public affairs in Ireland. The plays of Lord Orrery were written to divert the leisure of his Court in Dublin, but were afterwards brought out, with great magnificence of costume, at the Duke of York's Theatre in London. They were collected as Four New Plays in 1670, having appeared in separate folio pamphlets during the preceding year. Mustapha, a romantic tragedy of Turkish conquest, appears to be the earliest of these heroic plays in rhyme, and is the most readable. After the death of Lord Orrery, which took place on the 16th of October 1679, two more tragedies and two so-called comedies of his were published, and his complete dramatic works in 1739.

Thomas Shadwell (1640-1692) was born of good family at Lawton Hall in Norfolk, and was bred to the law, but left Caius College, Cambridge, without taking a degree, in 1656, and neglected his studies for poetry and the society of the wits. His first play, The Sullen Lovers, 1668, a comedy in the manner of Ben Jonson, succeeded at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Shadwell became a regular writer for the stage. He threw in his lot with the Whigs, who as early as 1675 set him up as a rival to Dryden, and when the latter went over to Rome in 1688, Shadwell was appointed poet laureate and historiographer-royal in his place. He died suddenly at Chelsea on the 19th of November 1692, in consequence of an overdose of opium. His figure was coarse, unwieldy, and obese, and his conversation, which was profane and indelicate, was remarkable for its ungentlemanlike vulgarity of dialect. Shadwell had a certain

physical likeness to Ben Jonson, and this he delighted in emphasising. With all his faults he was not unamiable, and, whatever Dryden may have protested, he was certainly not dull. His seventeen plays, the greater number of which are comedies of manners, have both humour and invention. Perhaps the best of Shadwell's dramas is The Virtuoso, 1676, the most entertaining work of its class between Ben Jonson and Congreve.

John Crowne (1645?-1705?) is said to have been the son of an Independent minister in Nova Scotia, who is also styled "Colonel" Crowne. He hated the rough life in America, and in order to escape from it he accepted "the formal and disgusting situation of being gentleman-usher to an old independent lady" in England. He soon grew tired of this drudgery, and having brought out with some success a tragi-comedy of Juliana in 1671, he took to the stage as a profession. Crowne was patronised by Lord Rochester from 1675 to 1677, but incurred the malignity of that nobleman, who endeavoured to ruin him. Crowne, however, was protected by the king, and for the next eight years was prosperous. The death of Charles II., who had his fatal apoplectic fit on the day when Crowne's best play, Sir Courtly Nice, was being finally rehearsed, was fatal to his fortunes; and, though he produced plays until 1698, Crowne disappears from sight after 1701. He was living in 1703, but probably died not long after; he was buried in St. Giles-in-the-Fields. He was called "Little Starch Johnny Crowne," from the "stiff, unalterable primness of his long cravat."

Thomas Shadwell

Elkanah Settle (1648-1724) was the son of Josias Settle, of Dunstable, where he was born on the 1st of February 1648. He was entered a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, but left the university without taking a degree, and came to London to try and live by poetry. He was originally a Whig in politics. His first play, Cambyses, enjoyed considerable success in 1666, although not printed until 1671, and Settle was used by Rochester as a cat's-paw to annoy Dryden. In 1673, Settle " was a formidable rival to Mr. Dryden, and not only the town, but the university of Cambridge, was much divided in their opinions, and in both places the younger fry inclined to Elkanah," who published his Empress of Morocco, the earliest English play decorated with plates. In Absalom and Achitophel Dryden had his revenge, immortalising the fluent poetaster as Doeg, who

"fagotted his notions as they fell,

And, if they rhymed and rattled, all was well."

After the Revolution, Settle fell into disfavour at court, and at one time he had to enlist as a trooper. It is not known how he contrived to live. In 1691, however, he was appointed city poet, and returned to the stage, publishing a considerable number of