well 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 purfe an allowance equal to the falary. This is no romantick or incredible act of generofity; 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 infiiction; and once particufarly demands refpect for the patience with which hơ endured the lofs of his little fortune. His patron might, indeed, enjoin him to fupprefs his bounty; but if he fuffered nothing, he fhould not have complained.

During the fhort reign of king James he had written nothing for the stage, being, in his opinion, more profitably employed in controverfy 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 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 fecond 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,

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tenth, and fixteenth fatires; and of Perfius the whole work. On this occafion he introduced his two fons to the publick, as nurfelings of the Mufes. 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 Dorset and there gives an account of the defign which he had once formed to write an epic poem on the actions either of Arthur or the Black Prince. He confidered the epick as neceffarily including fome kind of fupernatural agency, and had imagined a new kind of contest between the guardian angels of kingdoms, of whom he conceived that each might be reprefented zealous for his charge, without any intended opposition 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 miftaken, with this incurable defect, that in a contest between heaven and hell we know at the beginning which is to prevail; for this reafon we follow Rinaldo to the enchanted wood with more curiofity than terror.

In the fcheme of Dryden there is one great difficulty, which yet he would perhaps have had addrefs enough to furmount. In a war juftice can be but on one fide; and to entitle the hero to the protection of angels, he muft fight in defence of indubitable right. Yet fome of the celestial beings, thus opposed to each other, must have been reprefented as defending guilt.

That

That this poem was never written, is reasonably to be lamented. It would doubtlefs have improved our numbers, and enlarged our language, and might perhaps have contributed by pleasing instruction to rectify our opinions, and purify our manners.

What he required as the indifpenfable condition of fuch an undertaking, a publick stipend, was not likely in those 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 translation of Virgil; from which he borrowed two months, that he might turn Frefnoy's Art of Painting into English profe. The preface, which he boafts 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 ftored like his no labour to produce them.

In 1697, he published his verfion of the works of Virgil; and that no opportunity of profit might be loft, dedicated the Paftorals to the lord Clifford, the Georgics to the earl of Chesterfield, and the Eneid to the earl of Mulgrave. This ceconomy of flattery, at. once lavish and discreet, did not pafs without obfervation.

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

His last work was his Fables, published in 1699, in confequence, as is fuppofed, of a contract now in the A a 3

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hands of Mr. Tonfon; by which he obliged himfelf, in confideration of three hundred pounds, to finish for the prefs ten thousand verses.

In this volume is comprifed the well-known ode on St. Cecilia'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 forty-fix lines, took from his life eleven months to write it, and three years to revife it!

Part of this book of Fables is the first Iliad in English, intended as a specimen of a version 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 fchemes and labours. On the firft of May 1701, having been fome time, as he tells us, a crip · ple in his limbs, he died in Gerard-ftreet, of a mortification in his leg.

There is extant a wild ftory relating to fome vexa, tious events that happened at his funeral, which, at

*It is one of the defiderata in mufical history, who it was that first fet this ode to mufic. It is faid that Purcell declined it, being deterred by the fublimity of the poetry; but the better opinion is, that it was not written till after his death. Certain it is, that it was not printed till after March 1698, and that Purcell died in November 1695. Clayton, who compofed the mufic to Mr. Addifon's Roiamond, fet alfo this ode of Dryden, and performed it in 1711 at the great room in York Buildings, which he and Sir Richard Steele had taken for the purpose of entertaining the town with concerts; but it met with fuch a reception as all Clayton's mufic deserved, and had never juftice done to it till Mr. Handel compofed and performed it under the name of Alexander's Feaft.

the

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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 prefent of the ground, which was

forty pounds, with all the other Abbey-fees. The "lord Halifax likewife fent 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 after"wards 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 hearfe, "and eighteen mourning coaches, filled with com66 pany, attended. When they were juft ready to

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move, the lord Jefferies, fon of the lord chan"cellor Jefferies, with fome of his rakifh compa"nions coming by, afked whofe funeral it was: and "being told Mr. Dryden's, he faid, What, shall "Dryden, the greatest honour and ornament of the "nation, be buried after this private manner! No,

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gentlemen, let all that loved Mr. Dryden, and ho"nour his memory, alight and join with me in gain"ing my lady's confent to let me have the honour of "his interment, which fhall be after another manner "than this; and I will bestow a thoufand pounds on a "monument in the Abbey for him.' The gentlemen "in the coaches, not knowing of the bishop of Ro"chefter's favour, nor of the lord Halifax's generous "defign

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