Part 15

Previous to 1678, Lord Mulgrave, our author's constant and probably effectual patron, had given him an opportunity of discoursing over his plan of an epic poem to the king and Duke of York; and in the preface to "Aureng-Zebe" in that year, the poet intimates an indirect complaint that the royal brothers had neglected his plan.[37] About two years afterwards, Mulgrave seems himself to have fallen into disgrace, and was considered as in opposition to the court.[38] Dryden was deprived of his intercession, and seems in some degree to have shared his disgrace. The "Essay on Satire" became public in November 1679, and being generally imputed to Dryden, it is said distinctly by one libeller, that his pension was for a time interrupted.[39] This does not seem likely; it is more probable, that Dryden shared the general fate of the household of Charles II., whose appointments were but irregularly paid; but perhaps his supposed delinquency made it more difficult for him than others to obtain redress. At this period broke out the pretended discovery of the Popish Plot, in which Dryden, even in "Absalom and Achitophel," evinces a partial belief.[40] Not encouraged, if not actually discountenanced, at court; sharing in some degree the discontent of his patron Mulgrave; above all, obliged by his situation to please the age in which he lived, Dryden did not probably hold the reverence of the Duke of York so sacred, as to prevent his making the ridicule of the Catholic religion the means of recommending his play to the passions of the audience. Neither was his situation at court in any danger from his closing on this occasion with the popular tide. Charles, during the heat of the Popish plot, was so far from being in a situation to incur odium by dismissing a laureate for having written a _Protestant play_, that he was obliged for a time to throw the reins of government into the hands of those very persons to whom the Papists were most obnoxious. The inference drawn from Dryden's performance was that he had deserted the court; and the Duke of York was so much displeased with the tenor of the play, that it was the only one of which, on acceding to the crown, he prohibited the representation. The "Spanish Friar" was often objected to the author by his opponents, after he had embraced the religion there satirised. Nor was the idea of his apostasy from the court an invention of his enemies after his conversion, for it prevailed at the commencement of the party-disputes; and the name of Dryden is, by a partisan of royalty, ranked with that of his bitter foe Shadwell, as followers of Shaftesbury in 1680.[41] But whatever cause of coolness or disgust our author had received from Charles or his brother, was removed, as usual, so soon as his services became necessary; and thus the supposed author of a libel on the king became the ablest defender of the cause of monarchy, and the author of the "Spanish Friar" the advocate and convert of the Catholic religion.

In his private circumstances Dryden must have been even worse situated than at the close of the last Section. His contract with the King's Company was now ended, and long before seems to have produced him little profit. If Southerne's biographer can be trusted, Dryden never made by a single play more than one hundred pounds; so that, with all his fertility, he could not, at his utmost exertion, make more than two hundred a year by his theatrical labours.[42] At the same time, they so totally engrossed his leisure, that he produced no other work of consequence after the "_Annus Mirabilis._"[43] If, therefore, the payment of his pension was withheld, whether from the resentment of the court, or the poverty of the exchequer, he might well complain of the "unsettled state" which doomed him to continue these irksome and ill-paid labours.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Malone, vol. i. p. 124.

[2] Dennis's account of these feuds, though not strictly accurate is lively, and too curious to be suppressed. "Nothing," says Dennis, "is more certain, than that Mr. Settle, who is now (1717) the city poet, was formerly a poet of the court. And at what time was he so? Why, in the reign of King Charles the Second, when that court was more gallant and more polite than ever the English court perhaps had been before; when there was at court the present and the late Duke of Buckingham, the late Earl of Dorset, Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, famous for his wit and poetry, Sir Charles Sedley, Mr. Saville, Mr. Buckley, and several others.

"Mr. Settle's first tragedy, 'Cambyses, King of Persia,' was acted for three weeks together. The second, which was 'The Empress of Morocco,' was acted for a month together; and was in such high esteem both with the court and town that it was acted at Whitehall before the king by the gentlemen and ladies of the court; and the prologue, which was spoken by the Lady Betty Howard, was writ by the famous Lord Rochester. The bookseller who printed it, depending upon the prepossession of the town, ventured to distinguish it from all the plays that had been ever published before; for it was the first play that ever was sold in England for two shillings, and the first that ever was printed with cuts. The booksellers at that time of day had not discovered so much of the weakness of their gentle readers as they have done since, nor so plainly discovered that fools, like children, are to be drawn in by gewgaws.--Well; but what was the event of this great success? Mr. Settle began to grow insolent, as any one may see, who reads the epistle dedicatory to 'The Empress of Morocco.' Mr. Dryden, Mr. Shadwell, and Mr. Crowne, began to grow jealous; and they three in confederacy wrote 'Remarks on the Empress of Morocco.' Mr. Settle answered them; and, according to the opinion which the town then had of the matter (for I have utterly forgot the controversy), had by much the better of them all. In short, Mr. Settle was then a formidable rival to Mr. Dryden; and I remember very well, that not only the town, but the university of Cambridge, was very much divided in their opinions about the preference that ought to be given to them; and in both places the younger fry inclined to Elkanah."

[3] Lord Mulgrave wrote the prologue when Settle's play was first acted at court; Lord Rochester's was written for the second occasion; both were spoken by the beautiful Lady Elizabeth Howard.

[4] See this offensive dedication in the account of Settle's controversy with Dryden.

[5] A copy of this rare edition (the gift of my learned friend, the Rev. Henry White of Lichfield) is now before me. The engravings are sufficiently paltry; and had the play been published even in the present day, it would have been accounted dear at two shillings. The name of the publisher is William Cademan, the date 1673. [See H. Morley, "English Plays," pp. 351, 352.--ED.]

[6] This title is omitted in subsequent editions.

[7] Of whom it was said, that he spoke "to the tune of a good speech."

[8] As, for example, this stage-direction: "Here a company of villains in ambush from behind the scenes discharge their guns at Muly-Hamet; at which Muly-Hamet starting and turning, Hametalhaz from under his priest's habit draws a sword and passes at Muly-H., which pass is intercepted by Abdeleader. They engage in a very fierce fight with the villains, who also draw and assist Hametalhaz, and go off several ways fighting; after the discharge of other guns heard from within, and the clashing of swords, enter again Muly-Hamet, driving in some of the former villains, which he kills."

[9] In the fifth act the scene draws and discovers Crimalhaz cast down on the _guanches_, i.e. hung on a wall set with spikes, scythe-blades, and hooks of iron; which scene (to judge from the engraving) exhibited the mangled limbs and wasted bones of former sufferers, suspended in agreeable confusion. With this pleasing display the piece concluded.

[10] Settle's pamphlet was contumaciously entitled, "Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco revised, with some few erratas; to be printed instead of the Postscript with the next Edition of the Conquest of Granada, 1674." See some quotations from this piece, vol. xv.

[11] His comedy of "Sir Courtly Nice" exhibits marks of comic power. [The condemnation of his other work is a little too sweeping.--ED.]

[12] See vol. x.

[13] [As is the case with many other circumstances of the life of Dryden, this business of _Calisto_ has been much exaggerated. The amount of positive evidence of Rochester's interference is exceedingly small, and of his ill offices in regard to the epilogue there is no proof whatever.--ED.]

[14] So called, according to the communicative old correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine in 1745, from the unalterable stiffness of his long cravat.

[15] "I am well satisfied I had the greatest party of men of wit and sense on my side: amongst which I can never enough acknowledge the unspeakable obligations I received from the Earl of R., who, far above what I am ever able to deserve from him, seemed almost to make it his business to establish it in the good opinion of the king and his royal highness; from both of which I have since received confirmations of their good-liking of it, and encouragement to proceed. And it is to him, I must, in all gratitude, confess, I owe the greatest part of my good success in this and on whose indulgency I extremely build my hopes of a next." Accordingly, next year, Otway's play of "Titus and Berenice" is inscribed to Rochester, "his good and generous patron."

[16] "Tom Otway came next, Tom Shailwell's dear zany, And swears for heroics he writes best of any; 'Don Carlos' his pockets so amply had filled, That his mange was quite cured, and his lice were all killed. But Apollo had seen his face on the stage, And prudently did not think fit to engage The scum of a playhouse for the prop of an age."

[17] "Though a certain writer, that shall be nameless (but you may guess at him by what follows), being ask'd his opinion of this play, very gravely cock't, and cry'd, _I'gad_ he knew not a line in it he would be authour of. But he is a fine facetious witty person, as my friend Sir Formal has it; and to be even with him, I know a comedy of his, that has not so much as a quibble in it which I would be authour of. And so, reader, I bid him and thee farewell." The use of Dryden's interjection, well known through Bayes's employing it, ascertains him to be the poet meant.

[18] "Well, sir, 'tis granted; I said Dryden's rhymes Were stolen, unequal, nay dull many times; What foolish patron is there found of his, So blindly partial to deny me this? But that his plays, embroidered up and down With learning, justly pleased the town, In the same paper I as freely own. Yet, having this allowed, the heavy mass, That stuffs up his loose volumes, must not pass; For by that rule I might as well admit Crowne's tedious scenes for poetry and wit. 'Tis therefore not enough when your false sense Hits the false judgment of an audience Of clapping fools assembling, a vast crowd, Till the thronged playhouse cracked with the dull load; Though even that talent merits, in some sort, That can divert the rabble and the court; Which blundering Settle never could obtain, And puzzling Otway labours at in vain."

He afterwards mentions Etherege's seductive poetry, and adds:

"Dryden in vain tried this nice way of wit; For he, to be a tearing blade, thought fit To give the ladies a dry bawdy bob; And thus he got the name of _Poet Squab_. But to be just, 'twill to his praise be found, His excellencies more than faults abound; Nor dare I from his sacred temples tear The laurel, which he best deserves to wear. But does not Dryden find even Jonson dull? Beaumont and Fletcher uncorrect, and full Of lewd lines, as he calls them? Shakespeare's style Stiff and affected? To his own the while Allowing all the justice that his pride So arrogantly had to these denied? And may not I have leave impartially To search and censure Dryden's works, and try If those gross faults his choice pen doth commit, Proceed from want of judgment, or of wit? Or if his lumpish fancy does refuse Spirit and grace, to his loose slattern muse? Five hundred verses every morning writ, Prove him no more a poet than a wit."

[19] "Rochester I despise for's mere want of wit, Though thought to have a tail and cloven feet; For while he mischief means to all mankind, Himself alone the ill effects does find; And so, like witches, justly suffers shame, Whose harmless malice is so much the same. False are his words, affected is his wit, So often does he aim, so seldom hit. To every face he cringes while he speaks, But when the back is turned, the head he breaks. Mean in each action, lewd in every limb, Manners themselves are mischievous in him; A proof that chance alone makes every creature,-- A very Killigrew, without good-nature. For what a [Transcriber's note: "Bessus?" Print unclear] has he always lived, And his own kickings notably contrived; For (there's the folly that's still mixed with fear) Cowards more blows than any hero bear. Of fighting sparks Fame may her pleasure say, But 'tis a bolder thing to run away. The world may well forgive him all his ill, For every fault does prove his penance still. Falsely he lulls into some dangerous noose, And then as meanly labours to get loose. A life so infamous is better quitting; Spent in base injury and low submitting.-- I'd like to have left out his poetry, Forgot by all almost as well as me. Sometimes he has some humour, never wit, And if it rarely, very rarely hit, 'Tis under such a nasty rubbish laid, To find it out's the cinder-woman's trade; Who for the wretched remnants of a fire, Must toil all day in ashes and in mire. So lewdly dull his idle works appear, The wretched text deserves no comments here; Where one poor thought sometime's left all alone, For a whole page of dulness to atone: 'Mongst forty bad, one tolerable line, Without expression, fancy, or design."

[20] "Whereas John Dryden, Esq., was on Monday the 18th instant, at night, barbarously assaulted, and wounded in Rose-street, in Covent-garden, by divers men unknown; if any person shall make discovery of the said offenders to the said Mr. Dryden, or to any justice of the peace, he shall not only receive fifty pounds, which is deposited in the hands of Mr. Blanchard, goldsmith, next door to Temple-bar, for the said purpose; but if he be a principal, or an accessory, in the said fact, his Majesty is graciously pleased to promise him his pardon for the same."--_London Gazette_, from December 18th to December 22d, 1679. Mr. Malone mentions the same advertisement in a newspaper, entitled, "Domestic Intelligence or News from City and Country."

[21] I might also mention the sentiment of Count Conigsmarck, who allowed, that the barbarous assassination of Mr. Thynne by his bravoes was a slain on his blood, but such a one as a good action in the wars, or a lodging on a counterscarp, would easily wash out. See his Trial, "State Trials," vol. iv. But Conigsmarck was a foreigner.

[22] For example, a rare broadside in ridicule of Benjamin Harris the Whig publisher, entitled, "The Saint turned Courtezan, or a new Plot discovered by a precious Zealot of an Assault and Battery designed upon the Body of a sanctified Sister,

"Who, in her husband's absence, with a brother Did often use to comfort one another, Till wide-mouthed Crop, who is an old Italian, Took his mare nappy, and surprised her stallion, Who, steal of entertainment from his mistress, Did meet a cudgelling not matched in histories."

"Who's there?" quoth watchful Argus. "Tis I, in longing passion, Give me a kiss." Quoth Ben, "Take this, _A Dryden salutation_."

"Help Care, Vile, Smith, and Curtes, Each zealous covenanter! What wonder the atheist L'Estrange should turn papist, When a zealot turns a ranter."

[23] Vol. xiii.

[24] Cibber's Apology, 4to, p. 74.

[25] Vol. xv.

[26] Vol. v.

[27] Vol. v.

[28] This distinction our author himself points out in the Prologue. The poet there says,

"His hero, whom you wits his bully call, Bates of his mettle, and scarce rants at all; He's somewhat lewd, but a well-meaning mind, Weeps much, fights little, but is wondrous kind."--Vol. v.

[29] See Footnote 26, Section II, this volume.

[30] Mr. Malone has seen a MS. copy of "Limberham" in its original state, found by Bolingbroke in the sweepings of Pope's study. It contained several exceptionable passages, afterwards erased or altered.

[31] Vol. vi.

[32] By allusion to the act for burying in woollen.

[33] [Transcriber's note: "See their Petition, page 88" in original. This is to be found in Footnote 26, Section II.]

[34] Vol. vi.

[35] This is ridiculed in "Chrononhotonthologos."

[36] Parallel of Poetry and Painting, vol. xvii.

[37] [Transcriber's note: "See page 181" in original. This approximates to paragraphs preceding reference [26] in text, Section IV.]

[38] He is said to have cast the eyes of ambitious affection on the Lady Anne (afterwards queen), daughter of the Duke of York; at which presumption Charles was so much offended, that when Mulgrave went to relieve Tangier in 1680, he is said to have been appointed to a leaky and frail vessel, in hopes that he might perish; an injury which he resented so highly, as not to permit the king's health to be drunk at his table till the voyage was over. On his return from Tangier he was refused the regiment of the Earl of Plymouth; and, considering his services as neglected, for a time joined those who were discontented with the government. He was probably reclaimed by receiving the government of Hull and lieutenancy of Yorkshire. See vol. ix.

[39] In a poem called "The Laureat," the satirist is so ill informed, as still to make Dryden the author of the "Essay on Satire." Surely it is unlikely to suppose, that he should have submitted to the loss of a pension, which he so much needed, rather than justify himself, where justification was so easy. Yet his resentment is said to have been

"For Pension lost, and justly, without doubt: When servants snarl we ought to kick them out. * * * * * That lost, the visor changed, you turn about, And straight a true-blue Protestant crept out. The _Friar_ now was wrote; and some will say, They smell a malcontent through all the play."

See the whole passage, vol. vi.

[40] See, for this point also, the volume last quoted.

[41] In "A Modest Vindication of Antony, Earl of Shaftesbury, in a Letter to a Friend concerning his having been elected King of Poland," Dryden is named poet-laureate to the supposed king-elect, and Shadwell his deputy. See vol. ix.

[42] "Dryden being very desirous of knowing how much Southerne had made by the profits of one of his plays, the other, conscious of the little success Dryden had met with in theatrical compositions, declined the question, and answered, he was really ashamed to acquaint him. Dryden continuing to be solicitous to be informed, Southerne owned he had cleared by his last play £700; which appeared astonishing to Dryden, who was perhaps ashamed to confess, that he had never been able to acquire, by any of his most successful pieces, more than £100."--_Life of Southerne_ prefixed to his Plays.

[43] There was published, 1679, a translation of Appian, printed for John Amery at the Peacock, against St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet-street. It is inscribed by the translator, J.D., to the Earl of Ossory; and seems to have been undertaken by his command. This work is usually termed in catalogues, Dryden's Appian. I presume it may be the work of that Jonathan Dryden who is mentioned in p 26.

SECTION V.

_Dryden engages in Politics--Absalom and Achitophel, Part First--The Medal--MacFlecknoe--Absalom and Achitophel, Part Second--The Duke of Guise._