fine time on't, you may imagine; they sat in a bodily fear, and looked as demurely as they could: for it was a hanging matter to laugh unseasonably; and the tyrants were suspicious, as they had reason, that their subjects had them in the wind; so every man in his own defence set as good a face upon the business as he could. It was known beforehand that the monarchs were to be crowned laureats; but when the shew was over, and an honest man was suffered to depart quietly, he took out his laughter which he had stifled, with a firm resolution never more to see an emperor's play, though he had been ten years á making it. In the mean time, the true poets were they who made the best markets, for they had wit enough to yield the prize with a good grace, and not contend with him who had thirty legions.' They were sure to be rewarded, if they confessed themselves bad writers; and that was somewhat better + This colloquial vulgarism, [on it, for of it,] which was common in the last age, is now seldom heard but from the mouths of the illiterate. 9 Pope perhaps had this passage in his thoughts when he wrote, "To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace, And to be grave, exceeds all power of face: "I sit with sad civility,—I read “With honest anguish and an aching head.” Our author appears to have had in his thoughts one of Bacon's APOPHTHEGMS, to which he has alluded in another place. (See vol. i. p. 157.) "There was a philosopher than to be martyrs for their reputation. Lucan's example was enough to teach them manners; and after he was put to death for overcoming Nero, the emperor carried it without dispute for the best poet in his dominions: no man was ambitious of that grinning honour; for if he heard the malicious trumpeter proclaiming his name before his betters, he knew there was but one way with him.” Mæcenas took another course, and we know he was more than a great man, for he was witty too; but finding himself far gone in poetry, which Seneca assures us was not his talent, he thought it his best way to be well with Virgil and with Horace, that at least he might be a poet at the second hand; and we see how happily it has succeeded with him; for his own bad poetry is forgotten, and their panegyricks of him still remain. But they who should be our patrons are for no such expensive ways to fame; they have much of the poetry of Mæcenas, but little of his liberality. They are for persecuting Horace and Virgil, in the persons of their successors; for such is every that disputed with Adrian, the emperor, and did it but weakly. One of his friends that had been by, afterwards said to him, "Methinks you were not like yourself, last day, in argument with the emperor : I could have answered better myself." "Why, (said the philosopher,) would you have me contend with him that commands thirty legions?” * That he must lose his life.-The phrase in the text is as old as Shakspeare's time. See Mrs. Quickly's account of Falstaff's death. man who has any part of their soul and fire, though in a less degree. Some of their little zanies' yet go farther, for they are persecutors even of Horace himself, as far as they are able, by their ignorant To the foregoing invective against great men, who "not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous," our author's quarrel with Rochester, I believe, gave rise. Previous to the publication of this Preface, and probably in the same year, (1678,) that nobleman's Imitation of the tenth Satire of the first Book of Horace had been printed anonymously; in which is no very favourable character of Dryden. He however, it appears, either did not know that it was written by Rochester, or chose to ascribe it to one of his zanies, whose name we must endeavour to discover by the aid of those lights which the literary history of the time affords. Shadwell he could not have had in contemplation; for he evidently considered the poet whose character as a dramatist is given in the performance alluded to, and the writer of the Imitation, as two distinct persons. See the next note.— Besides; Shadwell and our author were now on good terms, as appears by his furnishing Shadwell early in the following year with a Prologue to his TRUE WIDOW. I believe he supposed this Satire to have been the production "of starch'd Johnny Crown," as he is called in one of the lampoons of the time; who, as well as Settle, had been set up as a rival to Dryden, and whose masque of CALISTO having been acted at court in 1675, under the patronage of Lord Rochester, was a source of much uneasiness and discontent to our author. The "personators" in this piece were the Lady Mary and Lady Anne, daughters of the Duke of York, (each of whom afterwards sat on the English throne,) Lady Harriet Wentworth, Mrs. Jen and vile imitations of him; by making an unjust use of his authority, and turning his artillery against his friends. But how would he disdain to be copied by such hands! I dare answer for him, nings, then Maid of Honour to the Duchess, and afterwards herself Duchess of Marlborough, &c. The Duke of Monmouth and other noblemen danced. Mr. Hart, Mrs. Davis, and others, from the Theatre Royal, appeared in the Prologue. Langbaine tells us that this Masque, previous to its representation, was rehearsed thirty times. "It was neither to the favour of the court (says Dennis in one of his Letters) nor of Wilmot, Lord Rochester, one of the shining ornaments of it, that he was indebted for the nomination which the King made of him for the writing the Masque of CALYPSO, [CALISTO.] but to the malice of that noble Lord, who designed by that preference to mortify Mr. Dryden."-See also Memoirs of Lord Rochester, in a [pretended] Letter from St.Evremond to the Duchess of Mazarine, the author of which agrees with Dennis in this statement. He Crown was the son of an independent minister in Nova Scotia; and when he came first to England, became Gentleman-Usher to an old lady, of his father's sect. probably did not bring much literature with him, and he afterwards published some translations from the French; both which circumstances add probability to my conjecture that he was here in our author's contemplation. Mr. Spence, from the information of old Jacob Tonson, tells us, that " Dryden was very suspicious of rivals. He would compliment Crown, when a play of his failed, but was cold to him, if it met with success. He sometimes used to own that Crown had some genius, but then he always added, that his father and Crown's mother were very well acquainted: Spence's Anecdotes. he would be more uneasy in their company than he was with Crispinus, their forefather, in the Holy Way; and would no more have allowed them a place amongst the criticks, than he would Demetrius the mimick, and Tigellius the buffoon: Demetri, teque, Tigelli, Discipularum inter jubeo plorare cathedras. With what scorn would he look down on such miserable translators, who make doggrel of his Latin, mistake his meaning, misapply his censures, and often contradict their own? He is fixed as a landmark to set out the bounds of poetry: Saxum antiquum, ingens, Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis. But other arms than theirs, and other sinews are required, to raise the weight of such an author; and when they would toss him against their enemies, Genua labant, gelidus concrevit fregore sanguis. For my part, I would wish no other revenge, either for myself or the rest of the poets, from this rhyming judge of the twelve-penny gallery, this legitimate son of Sternhold, than that he would subscribe his name to his censure, or (not to tax him beyond his learning,) set his mark; for should he own himself publickly, and come from behind the lion's skin, they whom he condemns would be thankful to him, they whom he |