The correspondence of John Dryden 9781526136374

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The correspondence of John Dryden

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document To James immodicis brevis est aetas et rara senectus

and Mary quidquid ames, cupias non placuisse nimis

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The correspondence of John Dryden Edited by Stephen Bernard, with John McTague

Manchester University Press

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Introduction, critical apparatus, etc. © Stephen Bernard, with John McTague 2022

The right of Stephen Bernard and John McTague to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 3636 7 hardback First published 2022

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Cambria and Garamond by R. J. Footring Ltd, Derby, UK

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Contents

List of figures page vi Acknowledgementsviii Notes on the textxi List of abbreviationsxv Calendar of lettersxvi John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction The correspondence

1

15

Bibliography293 Index313

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Figures

 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14

Excerpt from William Walsh to John Dryden (September or October 1691), British Library, Add. MSS 10434, fol. 60v. © The British Library Board page ix John Michael Wright, John Dryden, oil on canvas (c. 1668), NPG 6854. © National Portrait Gallery, London xviii Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmond Malone, oil on canvas (1778 and c. 1788), NPG 709. © National Portrait Gallery, London 5 [Unknown artist after Sir Thomas Lawrence,] Sir Walter Scott, first Baronet, photogravure (1821), NPG D40601. © National Portrait Gallery, London 7 Dryden to Honor Dryden, [2]3 May [1653?]: bifolium showing repaired foldings, address, and wax seal. William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, D779L, 16[53?] May 23. © William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles 16 Detail of Figure 4 17 [Unknown artist,] Major Salwey [no date], in Thomas Salwey, Occasional Poems, with a Memoir of the Author, and a Selection of Old Family Letters (Oxford: Printed for private collection, 1882), 112. © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford 26 [Attributed to Jacob Huysmans,] Sir Robert Long, oil on canvas, feigned oval [no date], NPG 4637. © National Portrait Gallery, London 30 [Unknown artist,] John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, oil on canvas (c. 1665–70), NPG 804. © National Portrait Gallery, London 36 After Sir Godfrey Kneller, first Baronet, Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset, oil on canvas [based on a work of 1694], NPG 250. © National Portrait Gallery, London 50 John Clostermann, Edward Radclyffe, second Earl of Derwentwater, oil on canvas [no date]. © Christie’s, London 55 [Unknown artist,] Richard Busby, oil on canvas (after 1695), NPG 419. © National Portrait Gallery, London 61 Sir Godfrey Kneller, Lawrence Hyde, first Earl of Rochester, oil on canvas (1685), NPG 4033. © National Portrait Gallery, London 68 Sir Godfrey Kneller, Mr. Jacob Tonson, oil on canvas (1717), NPG 3230. © National Portrait Gallery, London 75 Sir Godfrey Kneller, William Walsh, oil on canvas (c. 1708), NPG 3232. © National Portrait Gallery, London 82

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List of figures vii

15 Sir Godfrey Kneller, John Dryden, oil on canvas (1693), NPG 2083. © National Portrait Gallery, London 133 16 John Vandergucht, John Dennis, line engraving (1734), NPG D27317. © National Portrait Gallery, London 162 17 Edward Scriven after Sir Peter Lely, Philip Stanhope, second Earl of Chesterfield, 1633–1713. Courtier [no date; reproduced in W. W. Craig, Life of Lord Chesterfield: An Account of the Ancestry, Personal Character & Public Services of the Fourth Earl of Chesterfield (London: John Lane the Bodley Head; New York: John Lane Company, 1907), 24]. © National Galleries of Scotland 191 18 George Vertue after Sir Godfrey Kneller, Sir William Trumbull, line engraving (1724), NPG D6987. © National Portrait Gallery, London 202 19 Sir Godfrey Kneller, John Dryden, oil on canvas (1697), TC Oils P 56. © The Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge 206 20 [Unknown artist,] John Caryll, Baron Durford, oil on canvas [no date], reproduced in Max de Trenqualéon, Etude historique et religieuse sur le comte de Sussex en Angleterre, two vols (Paris: Chez M. Torré; West Grinstead: Monseigneur Denis; London: Burns and Oates, [1893]), 2 [frontispiece]. © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford219 21 Michael Dahl, Portrait of a Lady, probably Mrs. Elizabeth Steward, oil on canvas [no date]. © Bonhams, London 224 22 John Smith after Sir Godfrey Kneller, Mary Butler (née Somerset), Duchess of Ormond, and Her Son Thomas, Earl of Ossory, mezzotint (c. 1693), NPG D31316. © National Portrait Gallery, London 234 23 [Attributed to John Riley,] Samuel Pepys, oil on canvas (c. 1690), NPG 2100. © National Portrait Gallery, London 253 24 Sir Godfrey Kneller, Charles Montagu, first Earl of Halifax, oil on canvas (c. 1690–5), NPG 800. © National Portrait Gallery, London 263 25 Giles King, Elizabeth Thomas, line engraving (c. 1730s), NPG D40745. © National Portrait Gallery, London 273 26 James Maubert, John Dryden, oil on canvas (after 1700), NPG 1133. © National Portrait Gallery, London  292

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Acknowledgements

My spur as an undergraduate student was the then atypical Oxford don Sos Eltis. For being the finest example I know of what a scholar and editor should be I thank James McLaverty. Neither seems to have time for Dryden, which is my great fortune. My work has been encouraged and assisted over the years by many others, including Stuart Gillespie, David Hopkins, Richard Morton, Adam Smyth, James Winn, and Steven Zwicker. For explaining Dryden’s understanding of Latin in his discussion of Lucretius, I thank Llewelyn Morgan, and for their assistance with French, Sheelagh Eltis and Genevieve Maitland Hudson. I thank Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden and the keepers and staff of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, especially Alan Brown, and the disability librarians there. Also the college librarians Elizabeth Adams, Catherine Hawley, Liz Kay, and Stewart Tiley. I also thank at Oxford: the Principal and Fellows of Brasenose College, and the Master, Baroness Amos, and quondam Master, Sir Ivor Crewe, and Fellows of University College, especially Andrew Bell, and those who enable those colleges to work, including Wendy Williams and Melanie James at BNC, and Jill, Lady Crewe, and Louise Watson at Univ. The Faculty of English Language and Literature and its quondam Chairs, Seamus Perry and Ros Ballaster, and current Chair Helen Small have been understanding and supportive. Rebecca Costello, Katie McCormack, Lindsay Rudge, and Sadie Slater at the Faculty and Caroline Moughton in the University Staff Disabilities Office helped me greatly over the years. My research has been supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. For the illustrations to this edition, I am grateful for the generosity of the Trustees of the British Museum, Poppy Harvey-Jones of Bonhams, London, Nicholas Bell of the Wren Library, and the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, Eugenio Donadoni of Christie’s, London, Laura Feliu Lloberas of the National Galleries of Scotland, Emma Butterfield and Lisa Olrich of the National Portrait Gallery, London, Helen Gilio and Samantha Sherbourne of Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, Scott Jacobs and the Regents of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, and Stephen Padlo of New Jersey. For information about Cotterstock Hall, I am grateful to Carole Bancroft-Turner at the Oundle Museum Trust. I am extremely indebted for the generous, critically astute, and textually acute assistance of John McTague, whose careful readings and corrections of the texts of the manuscript sources have been a substantial amount of work which has made this edition so much better, as also has his advice on some critical matters.

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Acknowledgements ix

Excerpt from William Walsh to John Dryden (September or October 1691), British Library, Add. MSS 10434, fol. 60v. © The British Library Board: after ye receipt of yor letter, it does not appear to mee so well as formerly, & I may ^\will/ tell you my reason, yt you may inform mee better if I am in ye Wrong. (Letter 21, pp. 114–20)

The editorial policy and structure of the edition are entirely my own, as are the conclusions which I have drawn in the introduction and annotations. Others might well and better have structured this edition differently. This is not a biographical account overlaid the surviving sources, but a contextual one, insofar as it is partly possible to reconstruct it and overlay it with further con­text. The happenstance survival of disparate letters – infrequently cor­respondences, and then such from which letters are missing, with their further contexts – Scott describes, but it is hoped that despite his edition of Dryden being superlative, and early so, much more has come to light in the two centuries since. Little of it is light that I shed, but I hope that I capture somewhat of the chiaroscuro of the letters and reflect that in the annotations. By that, of course, I mean that the best I could hope to do is to find shadows of shadows, and only incidentally discover some light. I thank Matthew Frost and Paul Clarke for the care they have taken over this edition, and also the anonymous readers for the Press for their knowledge, criticisms, and encouragement. I am grateful to Ralph Footring for his intelligent, dogged preparation of the text for the Press. I have more personal thanks: to Margaret and Helen, my loving, witty, and unfathomably upbeat mother and sister, I owe now some respite from the past and some repartee in the present, if I could but match them in their indifference to the first and incisiveness in the latter. I am fortunate too in the friendships of Sheelagh Bazen, David Bryceland, Richard Clay, Joanna Gray, Phoebe Griffith, Felicity James, Laurence Leaver, Arthur and Pauline Mayson, Michelle Millard, Verity Platt, Mary and Ken Skupski, Tiffany Stern, and Claudine van Hensbergen. Isadora Clay, my splendid goddaughter, is the last – but very far from the least – on this list. To be at the end of the rollcall of such an ancien régime is, I am sure, a challenge that she and her generation will all too readily take up. I find the process of editing letters one of klimmen en dalen, although one is able to stop on the staircase and try to take in the view of where one has been and where one is going. Virginia Woolf is frequently quoted in writing about:

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x Acknowledgements

clearing up the old confusion between the man who loves learning and the man who loves reading […] there is no connexion what-ever between the two. A learned man is a sedentary, concentrated, solitary enthusiast, who searches through books to discover some particular grain of truth upon which he has set his heart. If the passion for reading conquers him, his gains dwindle and vanish between his fingers. A reader, on the other hand, must check the desire for learning at the outset; if knowledge sticks to him well and good, but to go in pursuit of it, to read on a system, to become a specialist or an authority, is very apt to kill what it suits us to consider the more humane passion for pure and disinterested reading.1

An editor of letters is in the privileged position of occasionally experiencing both this ‘love’ and this ‘passion’. Woolf is correct to write of ‘what it suits us to consider the more humane’ of the two. Personally, I hope in my own small way to be suitable to both or at least it suits me not to consider one ‘more humane’ than the other, as the Penrose stairs in this edition between the texts and annotations discussing the nature of love and humane reading have been to me a pleasure both to climb and fall down. Stephen Bernard Oxford

Thanks to Stephen Bernard for bringing me on board with this project, and to Matthew Frost and Paul Clarke at Manchester University Press for their apparently inexhaustible patience. The edition is founded on the work of colleagues at the various archives and libraries holding the sources on which our transcriptions are based, and I am grateful to them all. Particular thanks are due to Victoria Oakman, Collections Officer at Northamptonshire Record Office, and John Boneham at the British Library for their assistance in the closing stages, at a time when access to archival material was drastically limited for everyone. No thanks at all to William Walsh, the scurviness of whose hand rivals that of Jacob Tonson. John McTague Bristol

1. Virginia Woolf, ‘Hours in a library’, Times Literary Supplement, 30 November 1916, 565–6 (565).

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Notes on the text

The ‘material text’ and the ‘material letter’ are things which have come under more scrutiny recently.1 Letter-writing is not only a means of communication but also an instantiation of the way in which people communicate. For this edition, where possible the ‘material letter’ has been consulted and this reveals something of the practice of the Restoration letter-writer. Letters were valuable objects, partly in that they were personal, but the paucity of surviving letters in Dryden’s correspondence does not necessarily mean that such were not valued. Letters were valued by their writers in the craft they used and expressed, and by their recipients as tokens of that expression. For example, Sir George Etherege writes: I was so pleas’d with reading your letter yt I was vexd at the last proof you gave me of your Laziness: the not finding it in your heart to turn over the paper.2

This is his response to Dryden’s having written, ‘while I am writing this, I have layd it down and almost concluded with an imperfect sentence […]’.3 This example shows how limited what is recorded – in what little we have – in such fugitive letters is, and also how this little is instructive of the spontaneity in their composition. The letters are by and large written on high-quality paper, which was in­tended as a compliment to the recipient and a token of the value placed on the relationship of which they were an instantiation. The form of the letters is sometimes formal but more often familiar and this is reflected in the ‘material letter’ which the diplomatic transcriptions in this edition try to reproduce from autograph or holograph letters. Some letters survive only in draft, some survive only in scribal copies, and some only in print. The source is given before each letter. The particular sheets, sides and pages on which the text is written are indicated within square brackets. Also given within square brackets are indications of the position of the text that immediately follows when it would not be practical to render it; for example ‘[Written in the left-hand margin of the page]’ describes the correspondent’s placement of the next line or lines. Square brackets can also contain notes on the text that follows, for example ‘[Written in another hand]’. It is important to note that contemporary copyists tended to take less care than this edition does to reproduce peculiar orthography in transcriptions from holograph – such as the irregular use of the emergent hyphen: ‘–’ or ‘=’. The short introductions to the letters seek to be as clear as possible about whose hand is

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xii Notes on the text

(or is not) being represented. Where there is a space within a word in the transcriptions, this represents either a word which clearly contains a space, or a word which runs over to the next line but is not hyphenated by the writer. Where there are instances of overwriting or the partial formation of words which it is not easy clearly to illustrate, this is indicated in a footnote, as occasionally it shows a direction of thought not taken or a discerning choice of words. Superscribed words are not normalized in the text. Original spelling is retained, but abbreviations – with the exceptions of ‘Mr.’, ‘Mrs.’, ‘Dr.’, and ‘Rev.’ – are silently expanded. Letters with a tilde (~) above them indicating a double letter are also silently expanded. Carets (^) have been inserted to mark interlineations (spanning ^\…/), although they are not always present in the manuscript. This is a necessary instrument to clarify what could be called wild and whirling words. Some readings seem to have been available to other editors, such as Malone, but the original has since deteriorated or is no longer available. In such cases, previous readings are noted in square brackets, as are (a very few) editorial conjectures. Syntactical absences remain, leaving the reading of the manuscripts in some places imperfectly possible. The use of upper- and lower-case letters obviously varies from hand to hand and there are many hands to be transcribed in this edition. The reading of majuscules and minuscules is subjective. For example, there seem to be in the correspondence five forms of the letter ‘S/s’, which can be rendered only as one or the other case in this edition. There is necessarily a levelling off by the expedient use of upper- and lower-case letters to render such letters. Dryden seems to have written his personal letters spontaneously, as he thought, and seldom to have sent a fair copy; this is shown in his idiosyncratic and erratic spelling and artless punctuation. Walsh’s letters are all taken from his letter book, which preserves almost illegible drafts of letters presumably sent later. It has not seemed useful to reproduce superscript letters which are random rather than idiosyncratic. Punctuation, too, is necessarily subjective. For example, one often comes across a comma where one might usually expect a full stop, or a semicolon where a full stop would now be common practice. This is not, however, normalized in this edition. Otiose strokes have not been recorded, as the use of them is inconsistent and they are not clearly formed or meaningful letters. Where they are clearly formed, letters at the end of words, such as ‘bee’ and ‘thee’, are retained. Textual ‘noise’,4 such as ‘pen rests’ and line-end fillers, is not reproduced in this edition. Poor handwriting more than poor control of the quill is the greatest impediment to understanding in this edition. There are idiosyncrasies in some hands which it is simply not reasonable to render in any edition. For example, Dryden uses a form of the letter ‘i’ for ‘e’. These forms are not reproduced or noted, as they are not possible to render in the edition without altering spelling, which is clearly not their intention. There are other forms that it is not reasonable to render: I mean by this the insertion

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Notes on the text xiii

of extra minims in a word. The word is clearly meant to be what it has been transcribed as but without the use of extra ‘i’s cannot accurately be reproduced; such an expedient would be misleading as it does not relate to spelling but to the writer’s careless hand. There are a few manuscripts which survive only in print. Where this is the case, any typographical peculiarities are noted, as these can indicate the importance accorded to the reproduction of the manuscript. There are no instances where a manuscript which survives only in print seems to record what the surviving holographs and other handwritten documents do, that is, imperfections of grammar and halting or confused expression. These documents and their provenance are explained as fully as possible so that readers may judge for themselves how representative the reproduced printed letter may be of the original.

Annotations With regard to the annotations: where matters have been accepted as a fact in the past and no contradictory information is available, these are conveyed as such. Unsupported speculation is exceptional in this edition and not engaged in by the editor. Annotations are taken from previous editors. However, it would be overwhelming to the comprehending of the edition and little to the purpose to note the sources of all such information. Where information has been well expressed by previous editors, I have by and large not attempted to improve upon this or to paraphrase. The use of their work is noted using abbreviations for the location of such information. The impracticality of listing each and every source of a biographical note is something more honoured in the breach than the observance, and this edition follows such a tradition. In short, the authors of the ODNB have invariably best and briefest expressed the facts about their subjects, and to avoid the vulgar and confusing proliferation of quotation marks, inner quotations, square brackets – indicating additions – and ellipses – I have invariably used the referent ‘see’ before a reference to the ODNB which may include some or all of these variations; this indicates that the greater part of original material and/or its expression is taken from the ODNB entry, without it being the exclusive source. Further significant sources are noted after the ODNB entry, but it is not possible to note multiple sources within a clause within a footnote. All sources are given in full in the bibliography. As to the locations of the manuscripts or sources of each letter in this edition, they can often usefully be supplemented by reference to the catalogue of Dryden’s letters found in CELM, an online adaptation and extension of the Index of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700, compiled by Peter Beal, four vols (London: Mansell, 1980–93), vol. 2 in two parts (1625–1700), part 1.5 However, DrJ 341 (Bodl. Mal E 61–3, which is said to be ‘copiously annotated by Malone in preparation for a second edition’), lacks vol. 1, part 2, and therefore all the letters Malone annotated in his own hand; James M. Osborn transcribed these into his own exempla (Yale Osborn pd 118 [and pd 119]).6

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xiv Notes on the text

Dates As is well known, until 1752, when the Julian calendar of the Continent was ­officially adopted as a result of the Act 24 Geo. II c.23 (1751), dates in Great Britain differed from those on the Continent by up to eleven days. This is im­ material to this edition, where few of the letters were written on the Continent, and to ‘update’ those letters dated Old Style (OS, that is, according to the Gregorian calendar) would serve little purpose. However, it is important to note the OS practice of beginning the year on 25 March. Dates are therefore given in either Old or New Style, depending upon their provenance. To make the dates uniform would take away from the immediacy of the text, where a date has been given in the original. In no case does this lead to disorder among the letters. Dates given in the letters are taken where possible from the original; where this has been unavailable the date taken is from the most recent edition, where available, and placed within square brackets. It is worth noting that catalogues have not always been found to be a reliable source with regard to dating, and the dates found in the texts of the originals have always been given precedence. 1. See, for example, James Daybell, The Material Letter in Early Modern England: Manuscript Letters and the Culture and Practices of Letter-Writing, 1512–1635 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 2. Letter 14. 3. Letter 13. 4. See David Gunby, David Carnegie, Anthony Hammond, Doreen Del Vecchio, and M. P. Jackson (eds), The Works of John Webster: An Old Spelling Critical Edition, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995–2007), 1.46–8. 5. See http://www.celm-ms.org.uk/authors/drydenjohn.html, DrJ 301–67 (accessed 23 April 2021). 6. Osborn’s transcriptions are discussed in the Introduction to the present volume. See also James M. Osborn, John Dryden: Some Biographical Facts and Problems (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1965), 133–59, and Stephen Bernard, ‘Edmond Malone and the letters of John Dryden: a newly discovered witness of his projected second edition of the Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works’, Notes & Queries, 63:4 (2016), 622–4.

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Abbreviations

The following short titles and abbreviations are used throughout this volume:

E. N. Hooker and H. T. Swedenberg, Jr, et al. (eds), The California Edition of the Works of John Dryden, twenty vols (Los Angeles: California University Press, 1956–2000) Malone, Prose Works Edmond Malone (ed.), The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, four vols (London: T. Cadell, Jun., and W. Davis, 1800) ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, sixty vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), cited as vol.page (e.g. 6.23) OED Oxford English Dictionary, specifically the online edition: OED Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), at https://www.oed.com/ Scott, Works Sir Walter Scott (ed.), The Works of John Dryden, eighteen vols (London: Printed for William Millar, by James Ballantyne and Co., Edinburgh, 1808) Ward, Letters Charles E. Ward (ed.), The Letters of John Dryden: With Letters Addressed to Him (Durham: Duke University Press, 1942)

California Edition

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Calendar of letters

No.  1  2  3  4  5  6  7

From Dryden Dryden Dryden and Lady Elizabeth Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden

To Honor Dryden Richard Salwey Sir Robert Long

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

William Walsh Dryden Sir George Etherege Dryden William Walsh Dryden William Walsh William Walsh William Walsh William Walsh

Dryden Sir George Etherege Dryden William Walsh Dryden William Walsh Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden

 8  9 10 11

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester Lord [Latimer] [Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset] [Edward Radcliffe, second Earl of Derwentwater] Dr Richard Busby Dr Richard Busby [Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester] Jacob Tonson

Dryden Jacob Tonson Richard Swan Dryden Charles Gildon Dryden Dryden

Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset Dryden Dryden William Walsh Dryden William Walsh Jacob Tonson

Dryden Dryden John Dennis John Dennis Dryden Dryden Dryden

Jacob Tonson William Walsh Dryden Dryden John Dennis Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson

Date [2]3 May [1653?] [6 June 1664] 14 August 1666

[Before 13 May 1673] [July 1677] [1678?] [1682?]

[1682?] [1682?] [17 March 1683/4] [c. August/September 1684] [Later than 1686] 16 February 1686/7 10/20 March 1686/7 [1690?] [1690?] [Early 1691] [Early 1691] [Early 1691] 13 August 1691 [September or October 1691] 7 October [1691] [November 1692] [1693] [9 May 1693] 10 May 1693 [17 August 1693] [Terminus ad quem 30 August 1693] 13 September [1693] [December 1693?] January 1693/4 3 March 1693[/4] [After 11 April 1695] [April or May 1695?] 26 May [1695]

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36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

Calendar of letters xvii Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield Dryden Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield Dryden Dryden Dryden and Lady Elizabeth Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Samuel Pepys Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden Dryden

Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield Dryden Jacob Tonson Dryden

8 June 1695 29 October [1695] [November 1695] [January 1695/6?] June 1696 25 November [1696] [January 1696/7?] 17 February 1696/7 18 February 169[6/]7 6 July 1697 10 August 1697

Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield 18 August 1697 Sir William Trumbull 18 August [1697?] Their sons 3 [September 1697] Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson John Caryll Elizabeth Steward Elmes Steward Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward Mary, Duchess of Ormond Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward Samuel Pepys Dryden Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward Charles Montagu Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Thomas Elizabeth Thomas Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Thomas Elizabeth Steward Elizabeth Steward

[Autumn 1697] [Autumn 1697] [Autumn 1697] 21 July 1698 1 October 1698 [October 1698?] 23 November 1698 12 December 1698 The first day of winter 1698 [2 February] 1698[/9] 9 February 1698[/9] [18 February 1698/9] 23 February [1698/9] 4 March 1698[/9] 11 July [1699] 14 July 1699 14 July 1699 5 August 1699 28 September 1699 [October 1699?] [October 1699] 7 November [1699?] [November 1699?] [November 1699?] 26 November [1699] 14 December 1699 29 December 1699 12 March 1699[/1700] 11 April 1700

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document Figure 1. John Michael Wright, John Dryden, oil on canvas (c. 1668), NPG 6854.

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction1

Dryden: a brief life2 Dryden was born on 9 August 1631 at Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, the eldest of fourteen children of Erasmus Dryden, son of Sir Erasmus Dryden, first Baronet, of Canons Ashby, and his wife, Mary, daughter of the Rev. Henry Pickering of Aldwincle. The family lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh. Both Dryden’s parents were from Puritan gentry families. It was probably about 1644 that Dryden was sent to Westminster School under the headmastership of Dr Richard Busby. Here he received a thorough grounding in classical culture which left its mark on his later work and informed his views of literature, politics, and society.3 From Westminster Dryden proceeded in 1650 to Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1654. The death of his father in June that year brought him new responsibilities and although he inherited the farm at Titchmarsh, it was not enough to make him financially comfortable. At some point in 1657 he entered the civil service of the new Protectorate. The record of Cromwell’s funeral procession in 1658 shows Dryden walking along with John Milton and Andrew Marvell as Secretaries of the French and Latin Tongues.4 His first published poem, Heroique Stanza’s, Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His Most Serene and Renowned Highnesse Oliver Late Lord Protector of this Common-wealth &c (London: William Wilson, 1659), dates from this period. Its celebration of Cromwell was to haunt Dryden in later life. At the Restoration Dryden sought new employment and set out on his literary career, being published by the bookseller Henry Herringman,5 celebrating political events with Astraea Redux (London: Henry Herringman, 1660) and To His Sacred Majesty, A Panegyrick on His Coronation (London: Henry Herringman, 1661), and seeking the patronage of Edward Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon, with the New Year verses To My Lord Chancellor, Presented on New-Years-Day (London: Henry Herringman, 1662). On 1 December 1663 Dryden married the sister of his landlord Sir Robert Howard, Lady Elizabeth (c. 1638–1714), who was possibly Roman Catholic.6 There were three sons: Charles (1666–1704), John (1668–1701), and Erasmus-Henry (1669–1710), later fifth baronet. Dryden later probably had one extra-marital relationship, an affair with the actress Anne Reeves in the 1670s. Though his literary career began with poetry, it was in the theatre that Dryden established his profession. His first play, The Wild Gallant (London: H. Herringman, 1669), was staged first at the Theatre Royal and then at court. A second play, the tragi-comedy The Rival Ladies, was performed in late 1663 or early 1664. The Indian Queen, written jointly with Howard although the text

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2 John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction

is attributed solely to Dryden,7 was the first of Dryden’s ventures into heroic drama, a form in which he was to gain success, though he eventually tired of its posturing and inflated rhetoric. Its first recorded performance was in the presence of the King. Its sequel, The Indian Emperour, Dryden’s unaided work, was performed early in 1665. From the country during an outbreak of the plague in 1665 Dryden wrote the essay Of Dramatick Poesie and the following year the poem Annus Mirabilis: the Year of Wonders, MDCLXVI (London: Henry Herringman, 1667). When he returned to London late in 1666 or early in 1667, these works marked him out as a major force in the new Restoration culture. Annus Mirabilis furthered Dryden’s association with the Stuart court and on 13 April 1668 Charles II appointed him Poet Laureate; he was additionally appointed Historiographer Royal on 18 August 1670. Dryden continued to write successful plays for the public, notably the comedy Marriage à-la-mode (London: Henry Herringman, 1673), Aureng-Zebe (London: Henry Herringman, 1676) – his final, and finest, rhymed play – and his adaptation from Shakespeare, All for Love; Or, The World Well Lost (London: Henry Herringman, 1678). This public profile attracted its detractors: the Duke of Buckingham mocked him as ‘Mr. Bayes’ in The Rehearsal and the Earl of Rochester satirized him in An Allusion to Horace [Satires, 10.1], which circulated in manuscript from the mid-1670s, while in 1676 Thomas Shadwell implicitly attacked Dryden in his play The Virtuoso, to which Dryden eventually responded publicly, with the verse lampoon Mac Flecknoe (London: D. Green, 1682). This marks Dryden’s turn to literary satire. It followed the publication of the political satire Absalom and Achitophel (London: Jacob Tonson, 1681), which inflated his fame and reputation and remains his most famous poem. A new departure for Dryden was marked with the publication of Religio Laici in 1682, which set out his then Anglican thoughts on religion. About this time Dryden, whom Jacob Tonson had begun to publish in 1679, turned to translating classical authors and editing collections of original poems and translations by ‘the Most Eminent Hands’: the ‘Dryden–Tonson miscellanies’.8 At some point in or just before 1685 Dryden converted to Roman Catholicism. This was before the accession of James II, the first and so far last Roman Catholic English monarch to succeed peacefully since Henry VIII. In 1687, in The Hind and the Panther, Dryden defended this conversion. This and his support of the Stuart cause meant that at the Glorious Revolution in 1688 he was alienated from the court and deprived of his public offices. Needing an income, Dryden continued to translate in collaboration with Tonson. His translations were to culminate in The Works of Virgil (London: Jacob Tonson, 1697) and his last published work, Fables Ancient and Modern (London: Jacob Tonson, 1700). This latter work he lived long enough to see praised by the town, but he died of gangrene on 1 May 1700. He was buried first in St Anne’s Church, Soho, but at the instigation of the Earl of Halifax was reburied in Chaucer’s grave in Westminster Abbey on 13 May.

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John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction 3 The survival of Dryden’s letters Few letters from John Dryden’s correspondence survive. This is both surprising – given the increasing success and fame he had from early in his career – and unfortunate, given that more cannot be said with certainty about Dryden’s life. Much can be deduced about his intellectual and literary interests and literary theories – which may have been commercially driven – from his translations of ancient Latin and Greek, contemporary French, and his modernization of Chaucer. Much can be deduced about his politics and religion from his original works and translations and his prefatory dedications to them.9 Those letters from his correspondence which have survived are happenstance clusters kept by him or particular correspondents: notably his bookseller, Jacob Tonson, and members of his own family, particularly Elizabeth Steward, a second cousin. Each sheds some light and some shade on Dryden’s life. None was published until the centenary of his death, which, given his fame, reflects somewhat on both their physical obscurity and the seeming lack of artistry in the intervening century in which letters – self-edited or edited, such as those of Alexander Pope10 – and the epistle as a mode of discourse or fictional narrative exponentially increased. The first of John Dryden’s letters contains his first recorded poem; the last refers to his final work, ‘The secular masque’ (1700). Although only seventy-eight letters to or from Dryden are now extant, there is a narrative arc to Dryden’s surviving letters which has often been obscured by their relative scarcity and the discontinuities in their patterns of survival and later publication. There are no letters to or from him until just before he leaves Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of twenty-two, when there is one surviving letter, dated 1653; two letters survive from the 1660s, the most dangerous and then burgeoning period of his life; three from the 1670s, when he was at the height of his fame as a playwright and ‘wit’; eight letters from the 1680s, the most religiously and politically fraught period of his life; and sixty-four conscientiously written and artistically and commercially astute letters from the beginning of 1690 until his death – just weeks after his last letter – in 1700. The majority of the letters therefore date from a period when Dryden was out of office and out of royal favour, a religious recusant and a politically marginalized figure. Nevertheless, what does survive represents Dryden in his many facets: wit, man of letters, bon vivant, patron, client, a politically and religiously conscientious family man – a man of his times, yet also, after his loss of office in 1688, increasingly out of his time. The last years, for which we have the most letters, were hard on Dryden,11 but in the grist of that mill he produced some of his greatest work in translation: The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis: Translated into English Verse […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus (London: Jacob Tonson, 1693) and The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. Translated into English Verse […] Adorn’d with a Hundred Sculptures (London: Jacob Tonson, 1697), and his notable final work of original poems and translations, Fables Ancient and Modern (London: Jacob Tonson, 1700).

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4 John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction

The poetry, plays, literary criticism, and translations of Dryden have always been a subject worthy of study. There have also been a number of lives of him, notably in Samuel Johnson’s Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets (1779–81), Edmond Malone’s four-volume edition of The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden (1800), Sir Walter Scott’s eighteen-volume edition of The Works of John Dryden (1808), and, recently, after a century and a half of belletristic lives and critiques,12 James Anderson Winn’s John Dryden and His World (1987). In John Aubrey’s Brief Lives with An Apparatus for the Lives of our English Mathematical Writers can be found the tantalizing heading ‘John Dryden, Esq. Poet Laureate’. In the margin Aubrey has written ‘He will write it for me him selfe’.13 ‘The remainder of the page is blank. Whatever the circumstances which deprived us of the autobiography of Dryden, the silence seems of a piece with his lifelong discretion in private matters’, writes Paul Hammond. ‘Dryden was a prolific writer of poetry and translation whose contribution to the culture of Restoration England was profound, and yet that copious writing eschewed autobiographical revelation’.14 Although there is no single collection of Dryden letters, modern biographers of Dryden can draw on many archival sources, the most important of which were discovered by Malone. These were unavailable to Johnson when he drew attention, in his preface to Dryden’s poetry, to the problems posed by the absence of a contemporary account of the life: Of the great poet whose life I am about to delineate, the curiosity which his reputation must excite, will require a display more ample than can now be given. His contemporaries, however they revered his genius, left his life unwritten; and nothing therefore can be known beyond what casual mention and uncertain tradition have supplied.15

Those sixty-five of Dryden’s letters that Malone discovered are the foundation for all later lives of Dryden. Charles E. Ward added thirteen letters in his edition, The Letters of John Dryden: With Letters Addressed to Him (1942), but there remain substantial chronological gaps in the correspondence and the additions add little breadth. Malone published sixty-five Dryden letters in 1800. He seems to have been unhappy with his edition of the Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, however, because soon afterwards he began to make notes and corrections to the text, intended to be the basis for a projected, but never published, second edition. A copy of Malone’s Prose Works known as the ‘Yale Exemplum’16 contains James M. Osborn’s transcriptions in red ink of Malone’s handwritten corrections and annotations of his Prose Works, adding in black ink some of his own comments and adversarial observations on Ward.17 Ward’s The Letters of John Dryden has understandably been overtaken by scholarship on the life of Dryden and extensive archival work by scholars such as Winn. Such scholarship enables some chronological restructuring of the correspondence, which is

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John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction 5

Figure 2. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmond Malone, oil on canvas (1778 and c. 1788), NPG 709. © National Portrait Gallery, London

reproduced in diplomatic transcriptions which Malone – unusually for his time – wanted very much to approximate. Why should these letters alone have survived? Surely, given that Dryden was one of the most prominent literary figures and public intellectuals in England – and indeed Europe18 – of the late seventeenth century, his letters deserved to be preserved? There is a little known about their survival: [b]y late summer 1798, [Malone] had found enough letters to make a prominent feature of them in the edition. ‘I mean to prefix to the collection of Dryden’s proseworks’, he informed [Dr Charles] Burney in August, ‘as many of his letters as I can find. I have collected about a dozen either in print or MS., beside a considerable parcel of those which passed between him and old Tonson, his bookseller, with which I have been favoured by Mr. [William] Baker, member for Hertfordshire,

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6 John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction

who is Tonson’s heir.’ Baker’s Dryden–Tonson letters were a windfall. There were seventeen, none of which had ever been published before; they comprised the largest single collection of the poet’s letters he would ever find.19

Other letters came from John Nichols (1745–1826), printer, writer, and literary and book trade historian.20 Another sixteen – the Steward letters – came circuitously from a Mrs Gwillam of Whitechurch, the great-niece of Elizabeth Steward who owned the sole box of letters to have survived the Dryden family’s removal from ‘the Old Mansion’.21 Like Scott after her, Ann Ord, in forwarding these letters ‘for the inspection of Mr. Malone’, feared that they ‘will not be so interesting as might have been expected’;22 however, James Osborn thought that ‘they reveal a side of Dryden’s personality to be observed nowhere else. If Malone had not run them to earth, it is quite possible that they would have been dispersed before ever reaching the hands of an editor.’23 Such a fate almost befell the letters to the Earl of Dorset, which Malone was never to see, and the four letters to William Walsh, which he secured only for the projected second edition.24 Scott never managed to secure these letters, having gone to Malone for the text of the letters he published and having discovered – following in Malone’s wake – only the single letter from Dryden to [Edward Radcliffe, second Earl of Derwentwater].25 In 1854 Robert Bell added six more letters in Poetical Works of John Dryden, including the full text of one of Dryden’s letters to Walsh.26 His account of his discoveries shows the chance involved in the discovery of Dryden’s correspondence and how near Malone was to discovering the letters which Bell printed for the first time in the mid-nineteenth century.27 George Saintsbury’s single addition towards the end of the nineteenth century is an appendix of a letter first published in the Illustrated London News (28 August 1858, 197), which he had ‘not chosen to add to the “Letters” proper (ante), because I do not know its authentification’.28 Finally, Ward’s additions depend more upon the assistance of the mid-twentieth-century American autograph collector as the archive.29 What frustrates most of all in editing Dryden’s correspondence is the very lack of correspondence. Missives are sent out into the world not to receive a reply and sometimes replies arrive to questions which remain unasked. Sir Walter Scott was perhaps the greatest commentator on Dryden’s life and work, but his opinion of the correspondence was slight: The Letters of Dryden, so far as hitherto given to the public, are, with a few exceptions, singularly uninteresting. To the publication of some, which are known to exist, there were found to occur still stronger objections. I have been only able to add one to those collected by Mr. Malone; and I was strongly tempted to omit several. There is, however, a satisfaction in seeing how such a man expressed himself, even upon the most trivial occasions; and I have therefore retained those complimentary acknowledgments of turkeys, marrow-puddings, and bacon, which have nothing but such a consideration to recommend them.30

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John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction 7

Figure 3. [Unknown artist after Sir Thomas Lawrence,] Sir Walter Scott, first Baronet, photogravure (1821), NPG D40601. © National Portrait Gallery, London

That Scott – Romantic as he was – found Dryden’s correspondence ‘singularly uninteresting’ is not a recommendation, but it is a challenge: Dryden’s letters tell us a great deal more about the man and his times than Scott perhaps appreci­ ated.31 The correspondence deals with matters relating to Dryden’s writing, both original compositions and translations. It also reveals his personal religious thinking: the most significant event of Dryden’s life happens four years before he writes his first extant letter and is something to which he never alludes in his letters: the killing of Charles I. Dryden was complicit in two consequences

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8 John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction

of this event: both the Interregnum and later the Roman Catholic government of James II. From being an insider, he became an outsider, both briefly at the Restoration and for the rest of his life after the Glorious Revolution. How Dryden did or did not change his principles is something that can be seen in his letters, read in both their mid-Stuart and later Jacobite contexts. Dryden was a convert to Roman Catholicism at a time when that religion was suspect in England, a recusant, that is, the member of a politically and religiously marginalized minority; because of his religion and his loyalty to James II he lost the posts of Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal after the Glorious Revolution.32 This is to state things baldly; Dryden’s letters to his cousin Elizabeth Steward about his religious position add nuance to his life. Dryden’s is an important and – because of his very prominence as a recusant – an unusual life. There is more to Dryden’s correspondence than this otherness, however. His letters show him corresponding with other poets, such as the Earl of Rochester, and politicians and patrons of letters, such as the Earl of Dorset; whilst sometimes taking on the figure of a rake, he also later writes some of his most telling and lengthy letters to women, such as Steward. Dryden was a writer of many dedicatory epistles, which are public – almost stately – occasions; these letters show him in his epistolary undress, writing not only about public matters but also his personal life, his family, his intellectual curiosity and authority, and his political and religious beliefs. Dryden lives in a muddle: personally, morally, politically, intellectually, historically, and religiously. His life was woven from various strands of argument and association – not only allegiance and benefits, or religion and ideology, but also friendship and affection, ties that enrich the fabric of social relations even as they complicate the category of politics….33

In his correspondence the ‘ties that enrich’ seem to impoverish Dryden’s reputation. There is little in what survives to suggest that, as a correspondent, he was more. But there is a great deal to suggest that what survives in the muddle shows there was much more to him than he committed to paper rather than to conversation, print, and the stage.

Dryden’s correspondents Dryden’s correspondents are all, it must be admitted, either aristocratic, such as the Earls of Dorset and Rochester, or from the emergent middle class. We have no examples of Dryden writing to a member of the working class, which is perhaps not surprising, given the survival of his letters, but letters to members of that class do exist in other contemporaneous correspondences. Dryden, then, moves in his letters in worlds of privilege and studied idleness, as exemplified in the letters to Rochester and Sir George Etherege,34 but also another world, of hard work. The latter is particularly important to emphasize. Many of these letters show Dryden at work.35 This is not just a personal but also a business

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John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction 9 correspondence; letters were, after all, the only means of conducting business at one remove. Dryden’s letters to the aristocracy reflect, in their language, the client in the client–patron relationship. Dryden is peripheral to the court and clearly knows this. His letters to other playwrights, such as Etherege, and poets, such as Walsh and Elizabeth Thomas, take a more familiar tone, demonstrating perhaps that Dryden felt that literature was in part a corporate effort; certainly he shows that there was a common body of literature and literary criticism – an emergent field in England in the late seventeenth century – on which to draw for conversation when conducted by letter.36 His letters to his family are more informal yet. These are indicative of Dryden’s sociability, to which books are central, not simply as commodities, but as a means of communicating and engaging with the literary culture of the late seventeenth century. Dryden’s patrons among his correspondents include Lord Latimer, and the Earls of Rochester, Dorset, and Chesterfield, to each of whom he is a client. However, he writes as an equal to a fellow poet such as Etherege, and another Dryden exists in the matrix of patronage in these letters in his patronage of younger poets. This seems to have come easily to him. In the surviving cor­ respondence he shows why he was so valued as a literary critical commentator at Will’s coffee house in Covent Garden. Here he encourages Walsh,37 John Dennis,38 and Thomas.39 Dryden’s letters show that, in the late seventeenth century, men and women of letters were conversant with literature to different degrees; there was not a common corpus of works with which both educated men and women were familiar. So, whereas Dryden can expect Walsh, for example, to understand his referents to classical and contemporary criticism, Thomas depends upon Dryden for guidance through the classics, although she seems to be familiar with contemporary vernacular verse.40 In one instance Dryden writes a letter to one of his client poets simply for the sake of writing a letter; there is nothing other than civility, humanity, and encouragement in it and no need for it to have been written.41

Dryden and Tory literary culture Abigail Williams writes about the ‘Tory critique of Whig literature’ which she locates in the eighteenth century. Its ‘inheritance’, though, she rightly finds in the ‘tradition of literary criticism which Tory writers inherited and perpetuated […] founded on Royalist attacks on Puritan culture’.42 Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, in attacking the Whigs and ‘Puritan culture’, is central to this inheritance. Dryden does not state in his letters that he is a Tory, but he does write of ‘We Jacobites’43 and describes himself as being of the Roman Catholic ‘perswasion’.44 These slight references are those of an outsider under the Williamite dispensation. Dryden’s sons, it must be remembered, had gone to study in Rome during a pan-European war against the Catholic Most Christian King Louis XIV of France. To the citizens of a country still feeling the fallout of the supposed plan to assassinate Charles II and his brother James in the Rye House

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10 John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction

Plot (1683), this would have been concerning. Dryden then identifies himself in the letters as parti pris and therefore part of the culture of, first, the King and court in poetry such as Absalom and Achitophel and The Medal, and then the King and the newly rediscovered Roman Catholic religion in the mid-1680s. This is at the core – for Dryden at least – of what might be called in broad strokes the as yet unidentified ‘Tory literary culture’.45 These letters would suggest that Williams is correct implicitly to identify a court, later the ‘Tory literary culture’ against which, following C. A. Moore,46 she posits the existence of and pits the ‘Whig literary culture’. That said, Dryden is not a typical Tory. Toryism was based in High Anglicanism and Dryden eschews such categorization, being later a Roman Catholic. His Jacobitism seems to be based on a deeply personal loyalty to the Stuart monarchy, which he had served since the Restoration. Personal loyalties also override party considerations in Dryden’s friendships: Walsh and Tonson were avowed Whigs. This is not to suggest that Dryden’s relationship with Tonson was not uncomplicated and tied to personal gain through Tonson’s promotion and publication of his works. Dryden’s politics were more complex than categorization allows; although part of a Tory literary culture, he was not typical of what it might be supposed to have been, something which complicates the categorization of political cultures as ‘Tory’ or ‘Whig’ in this period. Although partisan literary cultures can be identified, they are perhaps not as useful as one might hope and, much of this correspondence coming from later in his life, seemingly not so very pressing to him. Dryden, as is well known, at times gave his translations a momentary anti-Williamite inflection, although, as he notes, Tonson attempts to temper it.47 While Dryden was not a typical Tory, nor was he a typical Catholic either. His friends included Whigs, such as Walsh, as well as people of his own religious and political persuasion, and there are more Whig than Tory subscribers to his Virgil.48 Dryden was the most famous in Tonson’s list of authors but is atypical in his politics. However, Tonson was not solely or mainly concerned with party-political considerations in his literary publications. Indeed, at a time of perceived Jacobite threat, he posthumously published Dryden’s ‘A Lady’s Song’, a Jacobite call to arms.49 All this means that although political allusions can be seen in the poems, plays, and letters of Dryden, it is difficult to establish him within a distinct literary culture, except in these instances and the broadest terms. Partisan culture was at an early stage in Dryden’s life and more than binary. Opinions also shifted over time, and allegiances, such as to the monarchy, could be dynastic rather than institutional, as Dryden’s political position throughout the 1660s until his death makes clear.

Epistolarity in the late seventeenth century As noted above, Dryden’s correspondence was thought by Scott ‘singularly uninteresting’. Like us, he lived in a society in which communications were burgeoning. The Post Office was a creation of the Restoration and with it came an

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John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction 11

enhanced and facilitated means of communication.50 Perhaps because of this, the craft of letter-writing was something which was developing in Dryden’s lifetime. There is no evidence that Dryden resorted to conduct manuals which refer to letter-writing.51 The subject of letters and their role in the formation of identity and as cultural facilitators and means of communication in the period has gradually come to the fore in literary studies. ‘Masculinity’ as well as the idea of the ‘gentry’ – both groups of which Dryden was a member – have been examined.52 What these examinations tell us about the formation of identity and communication is that writing the self is central to it, as it must necessarily be. This is what Dryden does in all his correspondence, whether it be as a client in a client–patron relationship, as a patron in such a relationship, as a friend, or as a family member. Letters – possibly as much as literary works – are re­positories of identity and this correspondence is not the ‘singularly un­interesting’ corpus Scott suggests but rather, for being Dryden’s correspondence, singularly interesting. 1. All references to ‘Letters’ in this edition are to their number as found in this edition and not to the referent of the original. 2. This ‘brief life’ of Dryden is taken from Paul Hammond, ‘Dryden, John (1631–1700), poet, playwright, and critic’, ODNB, 16.1018–27, and James Anderson Winn, John Dryden and His World (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1987). 3. For a discussion of Westminster and the City of London and Dryden’s relationship with each, see Samuel James Burton, ‘“London, thou great emporium of our Isle”: Dryden writing the city’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leeds, 2019). 4. ‘A list of government employees with their allotments of mourning cloth for Cromwell’s funeral contains the name of “Mr Drayden,” […] dated 7 September 1658’ (see California Edition, 1.187–8, n3, for a summary of the evidence of Dryden’s position during the Protectorate). 5. See Stephen Bernard, ‘Henry Herringman, Jacob Tonson, and John Dryden: the creation of the first modern publisher’, Notes & Queries, 62:2 (June 2015), 274–7. 6. See Winn, John Dryden, 124–5. 7. See Letter 5, n1. 8. The California Edition contains annotated editions of Dryden’s contributions to these works (vols 2, 3, and 4), but the definitive, complete study is Stuart Gillespie and David Hopkins, The Dryden–Tonson Miscellanies, 1684–1709: With a New Introduction, Biographical Directory, and Reader’s Guides, six vols (London: Routledge, 2008). 9. See Steven N. Zwicker, ‘Imagining a literary life: Dryden dwells among the Moderns and the Ancients’, Cambridge Quarterly, 47:2 (2018), 99–115. 10. See Paul Baines and Pat Rogers, Edmund Curll, Bookseller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), 247–77. 11. See Winn, John Dryden, 454. 12. After Scott came: Joseph Warton and John Warton (eds), The Poetical Works of John Dryden, with Notes, by Joseph and John Warton, and Others, four vols (London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1811); John Mitford (ed.), The Poetical Works of John Dryden with a Life of Dryden, five vols (London: [s.n.], 1832); Robert Bell (ed.), Poetical Works of John Dryden, three vols (London: J. W. Parker and Son, 1854); George Gilfillan (ed.), The Poetical Works

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12 John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction

of John Dryden: With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes, two vols (Edinburgh: James Nichol; London: James Nisbet; Dublin: W. Robertson, 1855); Richard Hooper (ed.), The Poetical Works of John Dryden With ‘The Life of Dryden’, five vols (London: Bell and Daldy, 1866); and W. D. Christie (ed.), The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Edited with a Memoir, Revised Text and Notes (London: Macmillan and Co., 1870). The exception to this tradition is George Saintsbury’s later revisionary critique in the ‘English Men of Letters’ series: Dryden (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881). 13. Kate Bennett (ed.), John Aubrey’s Brief Lives with An Apparatus for the Lives of our English Mathematical Writers, two vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2015), 1.364. 14. Paul Hammond, John Dryden: A Literary Life (London: Routledge, 1991), ix. 15. Samuel Johnson, Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets, ten vols (London: John Nichols and thirty-six others, 1779–81), 3.1. 16. Edmond Malone (ed.), The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, four vols (London: T. Cadell, Jun., and W. Davis, 1800), vols 1.1, 2, and 3; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, pd 118. 17. See Stephen Bernard, ‘Edmond Malone and the letters of John Dryden: a newly discovered witness of his projected second edition of the Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works’, Notes & Queries, 63:4 (2016), 622–4. 18. See, for example, John Barnard, ‘Early expectations of Dryden’s translation of Virgil (1697) on the Continent’, Review of English Studies, 50:198 (1999), 196–203. 19. Peter Martin, Edmond Malone, Shakespearean Scholar: A Literary Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 224–5. For the survival of the Tonson letters, see Stephen Bernard (ed.), The Literary Correspondences of the Tonsons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 1–5. 20. See John Nichols to Malone, 13 February 1798, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Mal 39, fol. 144. For a life of Nichols, see Julian Pooley and Robin Myers, ‘Nichols family (per. c. 1760–1939), printers and publishers’, ODNB, 40.788–95 (788–91). 21. See Martin, Edmond Malone, 227–8. 22. Ann Ord to Malone, undated, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Mal 27, fol. 177. 23. Osborn, John Dryden, 48. Winn notes that ‘[t]hese letters, the largest surviving sequence of letters from Dryden to any correspondent, give us invaluable information about his daily life in London and his relations with his Northamptonshire relatives on both sides’. Winn, John Dryden, 500. 24. See Martin, Edmond Malone, 228–30. 25. See Letter 7. Scott also published Letter 66, but Malone did not publish letters to Dryden. 26. Letter 30. Bell upbraids Malone for having ‘incorrectly copied’ this text, but his transcription, although fuller, is no better (see Bell, Poetical Works, 1.75–77 and n; the letter is reproduced in Bell, Poetical Works, 1.68–70). Ward correctly states that ‘[w]hen one remembers the scarcity of Dryden letters, Bell’s contribution seems considerable’, but is incorrect to describe Bell as a ‘careful transcriber [whose] texts show little of the irregularity of Malone’s practices’. Charles E. Ward (ed.), The Letters of John Dryden: With Letters Addressed to Him (Durham: Duke University Press, 1942), xii. The letters Bell added were Letters 15, 17, 25, 27, 30, and 70. 27. See Bell, Poetical Works, 1.v–vi. 28. Letter 58. See George Saintsbury, ‘Additions and corrections’, in The Works of John Dryden, ed. Sir Walter Scott, expanded with a new introduction by Saintsbury, eighteen vols (Edinburgh: W. Paterson, 1882–93), 18.319–20 (319).

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John Dryden (1631–1700): an introduction 13

29. The letters Ward added were numbers 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, and 26 in the present volume. 30. Sir Walter Scott (ed.), The Works of John Dryden, eighteen vols (London: Printed for William Millar, by James Ballantyne and Co., Edinburgh, 1808), 18.85. 31. Contra others on other aspects of ‘Dryden’, whose work seems to reinforce Scott’s statement that there is ‘nothing but such a consideration to recommend them’. Hilton Kelliher exemplifies this explicitly and concisely. He attributes unsubstantiated, inconclusive couplets to Dryden, and writes that in doing so ‘fairly tedious groundwork is unavoidable’. Hilton Kelliher, ‘Dryden attributions and texts from Harley MS. 604’, British Library Journal, 25 (1999), 1–22 (3). 32. There is an intriguing possibility that William III’s new Lord Chamberlain – and Dryden’s correspondent (see Letters 6 and 22) – Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset, might have maintained Dryden in his royal appointments had he renounced his Roman Catholicism (see Winn, John Dryden, 434). For the multifarious reasons why William would not have found this expedient, and why Dryden would have found the position hypocritical and intolerable, see Winn, John Dryden, 433–47. For an account of the life and career of William III, see Tony Claydon, William III (Harlow: Longman, 2002), Wout Troost, William III, the Stadtholder King: A Political Biography, transl. J. C. Grayson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), and Jonathan Keates, William III and Mary II: Partners in Revolution (London: Allen Lane, 2015). 33. Steven N. Zwicker (ed.), John Dryden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 812. 34. See Letter 4, and Letters 13 and 14. 35. See Letters 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 49, 50, and 51. 36. See, for example, Letter 20, in which Walsh draws on this communal knowledge. 37. See Letters 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21. 38. See Letters 31, 32, and 33. 39. See Letters 72, 73, and 76. 40. See for example Thomas’s implicit relationship to Katherine Phillips in Letter 72, n4. 41. See Letter 15. 42. Abigail Williams, Poetry and the Creation of a Whig Literary Culture, 1681–1714 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 23. 43. See Letter 58. 44. See Letter 45. 45. For Dryden’s Toryism, see ‘The Tory satirist (1680–1683)’, in Winn, John Dryden, 330–80. 46. See C. A. Moore’s authoritative and introductory essay ‘Whig panegyric verse 1700–1760’, Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, 41:2 (1926), 362–401. 47. See Letter 49, ‘… in every figure of Eneas, he [Tonson] has causd him to be drawn like K. William…’. 48. See John Barnard, ‘Dryden, Tonson and the patrons of The Works of Virgil (1697)’, in John Dryden: Tercentenary Essays, ed. Paul Hammond and David Hopkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 174–239. 49. See Paul Hammond and David Hopkins (eds), The Poems of John Dryden, five vols (London: Longman, 1995–2005), 3.244–8, especially ‘context’. 50. For the history and rise of the Post Office, see Susan E. Whyman, The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers, 1660–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 48–53. 51. This is unlike Samuel Pepys. See Kate Loveman, Samuel Pepys and His Books: Reading, Newsgathering and Sociability, 1660–1703 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 61–3. 52. See, for example, Henry French and Mark Rothery, Man’s Estate: Landed Gentry Masculinities, 1660–1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

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The correspondence

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16 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 4. Dryden to Honor Dryden, [2]3 May [1653?]: bifolium showing repaired foldings, address, and wax seal; see Letter 1 headnote, n1. William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, D779L, 16[53?] May 23. © William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles

The correspondence of John Dryden 17

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Figure 5. Detail of Figure 4: Dryden to Honor Dryden, [2]3 May [1653?]. William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, D779L, 16[53?] May 23. © William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles

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Letter 11

This is the earliest extant letter by Dryden. The Rev. J. B. Blakeway of Shrewsbury, who sent it to Malone, was in all probability the correspondent who submitted it to the Gentleman’s Magazine, which published it (Gentleman’s Magazine, LV (1785), pt I, 337). Honor Pigott, whose father ‘was great-nephew to our author’s kinsman, John Driden, of Chesterton’, wrote to Malone that Blakeway had been a servant in her family and had ‘monopolised’ the manuscript.2 Honor Dryden (1637–1707),3 the addressee, was the daughter of Sir John Dryden, second baronet, uncle of the poet; and sister to John Driden of Chesterton, to whom Dryden addressed the epistle ‘To My Honour’d Kinsman, John Driden of Chesterton, In the County of Huntingdon, Esquire’, printed in his Fables Ancient and Modern (London: Jacob Tonson, 1700), 91–101. The siblings grew up in Canons Ashby, the farmhouse which came by marriage into the Dryden family in 1551 and which Dryden’s grandfather, Sir Erasmus, extended into what was ‘more than a manor house, but less than a grand mansion’, the family seat of the Drydens for four centuries.4 This letter has to be read in the context of Dryden’s departure from Cambridge. According to James Anderson Winn, Dryden left Trinity College, where he had been a student since 1650, ‘in the middle 1650s’.5 However, Paul Hammond is more precise, noting that although academically distinguished, graduating at the top of the list of Trinity men in February 1654, Dryden’s time at the college was marred by an incident in 1652 when he was punished for some unspecified disobedience to its vice-master. The college held his place open until April the following year, but Dryden did not stay in Cambridge; the death of his father a few months after his graduation brought new responsibilities, and although he inherited a farm there was insufficient income to make him financially comfortable.6 The letter and the poem contained within it are conventional for the time. The figure of the wax and seal was a commonplace and implies little about the relationship between Dryden and his cousin. There is no known surviving image of her. 1. For most of the information in this headnote, see California Edition, 1.185–6. The letter has a ‘seal under which runs a piece of blue ribband [… with] the crest of a demi-lion on a wreath, holding in his paws an armillary sphere at the end of a stand’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.3; see cover and Figures 4 and 5). 2. Malone, Prose Works, 1.1.250. 3. See Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.3.

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20 The correspondence of John Dryden

4. Oliver Garnett, Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire (Swindon: National Trust, 2001), 2. 5. Winn, John Dryden, 77. 6. Hammond, ‘Dryden’.

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Letter 1 ([2]3 May [1653?]) 21

Letter 11 Dryden to Honor Dryden

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, D779L, 16[53?] May 23 to Maddame Honor.2

[ar] Madame,

If you have received the lines I sent by the reverend Levite,3 I doubt not but they have exceedingly wrought upon you; for beeing so longe in a Clergy=mans pocket, assuredly they have acquired more Sanctity then theire Authour meant them. Alasse Madame for ought I know they may become a Sermon ere they could arrive at you; and believe it haveing you for the text it could scarcely proove bad, if it light upon one that could handle it indifferently. but I am so miserable a preacher that though I have so sweet and copious a subject, I still fall short in my expressions And in stead of an use of thanksgiveing I am allways makeing one of comfort, that I may one day againe have the happinesse to kisse your faire hand. but that is a message I would not so willingly do by letter as by word of mouth. This is a point I must confesse I could willingly dwell longer on, and in this case what ever I say you may confidently take for gospell. But I must hasten. And indeed Madame (Beloved I had almost sayd) hee had need hasten who treats of you; for to speake fully to every part of your excellencyes re=quires a longer houre then most persons have allotted them.4 But in a word your selfe hath been the best Expositor upon the text of your own worth, in that admirable Comment you wrote upon it, I meane your incompa=rable letter.5 By all thats good (and you Ma=dame are a great part of my Oath) it hath put me so farre besides my selfe that I [av] have scarce patience to write prose. and my pen is stealing into verse every time I kisse your Letter. I am sure the poore paper smarts for my Idolatry, which by wearing it continually neere my brest will at last bee burnt and Mar=tyrd in those flames of adoration it hath kindled in mee. But I forgett Madame, what rarityes your Letter came fraught with besides words; you are such a Deity that commands worship by provideing the Sacrifice: you are pleasd Ma=dame to force mee to write by sending me Ma=terialls, and compell mee to my greatest happinesse. Yet though I highly vallue your Magnificent presents, pardon mee if I must tell the world they are but imperfect Emblemes of your beauty; For the white and red of waxe and paper are but shaddowes of that vermillion and

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22 The correspondence of John Dryden

Snowe in your lips and forehead. And the Silver of the Inkhorne6 if it presume to vye whitenesse with your purer Skinne, must confesse it selfe blacker then the liquour it containes. What then do I more then retrieve7 your own guifts? and present you that paper adulterated with blotts which you gave spotlesse? For since t’was mine the white hath lost its hiew To show t’was n’ere it selfe but whilst in you; The Virgin Waxe hath blusht it selfe to red Since it with mee hath lost its Maydenhead. [br] You (fairest Nymph) are waxe; oh may you bee As well in softnesse so as purity; Till fate and your own happy choise reveale Whom you so farre shall blesse to make your Seale.8

Fairest Valentine the unfeigned wishe of yor humble Votary.

Jo: Dryden. Cambridge May the [2]3d [bv] To the faire hands   of Madame Honor Dryden   these crave    admittance

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter I; Scott, Works, Letter I; Ward, Letters, Letter 1. The sheet is bound unfolded in the volume at the William Andrews Clark Library. To render the layout of the text on the folded sheet clear [a] and [b] are used to indicate where on the bifolium each part is to be found. 2. This letter has been tentatively dated 1653 (see California Edition, 1.186). 3. The term ‘Levite’ was used, jocularly or contemptuously, for a clergyman or domestic chaplain. Ward suggests that this instance the reference may be to one of Dryden’s fellow students at Cambridge (Ward, Letters, 143).

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Letter 1 ([2]3 May [1653?]) 23

4. That is, most clergymen (‘Person quasi parson, which word was originally so spelled’ (Scott, Works, 18.87)) are strictly allotted an hour, measured by an hourglass placed at the side of a pulpit (see Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.4). Dryden is maintaining the fiction that he is a preacher, speaking on the text of his cousin’s excellencies. 5. Now lost. 6. OED, ‘Inkhorn n.’ ‘A small portable vessel (originally made of a horn) for holding writing-ink.’ 7. ‘To retrieve was sometimes formerly used in the sense of – to retribute, or pay back’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.1.25, n1). 8. An elaborate conceit which Dryden may have found in Edmund Spenser, The Fairie Queene (1590–6): ‘The Substance, whereof she the Body made, | Was purest Snow in massy Mould congeal’d, | Which she had gather’d in a shady Glade | Of the Riphoean Hills, to her reveal’d | By errant Sprights, but from all Men conceal’d: | The same she tempred with fine Mercury, | And Virgin Wax, that never yet was seal’d; | And mingled them with perfect Vermily, | That like a lively Sanguine it seem’d to the Eye’ (Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. A. C. Hamilton; rev. 2nd edn, ed. Hiroshi Yamashita and Toshiyuki Suzuki (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2007), III.viii.7.1–9). Dryden uses the same figure of wax and seal in Almanzor and Almahide, Or, The Conquest of Granada (London: Henry Herringman, 1672): ‘’Tis but the wax whose seals on Virgins stay’ (157; California Edition, 11.199), and The Spanish Fryar, Or, The Double Discovery (London: Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, 1681): ‘[…] when should I be weary of Sealing upon this Soft-wax?’ (32; California Edition, 14.143).

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Letter 2

Major Richard Salwey (1615–86), politician, was Dryden’s uncle through his aunt Dorothy Dryden. Evidently this letter was written to bridge an estrangement between Richard Salwey and the son of his eldest brother, Edward (Dryden’s second cousin), also called Edward Salwey. This letter could have been written at any time after Dryden left Cambridge – and after Dryden wrote Heroique Stanza’s, Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His Most Serene and Renowned Highnesse Oliver Late Lord Protector of this Common-wealth &c (London: William Wilson, 1659) – but probably after Richard Salwey was released from the Tower on 3 February 1663/4, as is indicated by Dryden’s writing that ‘my man shall carry it [Richard Salwey’s letter to his brother, Edward] to him’. It must be supposed, then, that this letter would have been sent within London, as the addressee was to be found ‘At Mr Warings house | In Gratias Street’ [i.e. Gracechurch Street, London]. James M. Osborn states that the date of this letter should be June 1664, due to Salwey’s addressing his letters from the same address after 3 February 1663/4 (Osborn, John Dryden, 273, n4) and cites a note made by Salwey in which he recorded the details of the incident on the outside of the letter: Recd this letter from mr Dryden by a messenger sent on munday night 6. June 64 at 10 oclock wch I returnd answer by lettr yt I would attend him at his lodging early on the morrow & did accordingly before 8. Of ye clock. but then understood my nephew was not in condition to be spoken wth about the contents therof. More over yt my nephew being in very good temp[er] & composure from 12. oclock ye p[r]eceding day till 10. at night. did that euening declare he would settle his estate. also that he nev[er] intended his sisters should haue his lands, but yt (as oftimes before he had told him in his health.) he resolued to settle it upon his uncle R.S. & his heires – yet charged wth such sumes of money as might make up his sisters portons to be 2000l a peice or better. & sd his uncle was most dear to him & one yt had neuer offended him & to wm hee always comitted the guidance of all his concerns.  Mr Dryden adding yt he thought it was reasonable ye effect of this resolutio[n] shuld stil be p[ro]secuted & would endeaur to dispose his [i.e. Robert Salwey’s] neece therto & dobted not of his accompt. Thurs    This in p[r]essence of mr Checkley1

In the event, Edward Salwey made no will and the estate passed to his sisters (see Ward, Letters, 144, n2). Dryden’s first tragicomedy, The Rival Ladies (London: Henry Herringman, 1664), was first recorded in the Stationers’ Register on 27 June 1664.2

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Letter 2 ([6 June 1664]) 25

1. See Osborn, John Dryden, 273–4. 2. See William van Lennep et al. (eds), The London Stage, 1660–1800, five vols in eleven pts (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–8), vol. 1, pt 1, 78.

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26 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 6. [Unknown artist,] Major Salwey [no date], in Thomas Salwey, Occasional Poems, with a Memoir of the Author, and a Selection of Old Family Letters (Oxford: Printed for private collection, 1882), 112. © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

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Letter 2 ([6 June 1664]) 27

Letter 21 Dryden to Richard Salwey2

Source: Facsimile in James M. Osborn, John Dryden: Some Biographical Facts and Problems (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1965), opposite 272.

[6 June 1664] Honourd Sr

I was this evening with my Deare cosen Salwey,3 whose feaver thanks be to god I find much abated, yet calling to mind those many sad differences sudden deaths occasion in families, I deemed it my duty out of that sincere affection I owe him and his relations, to be his remembra=cer4 as to ye settlement of his estate, to which I found him very inclinable to, to wch purpose he engaged mee hear=tily and humbly to beg your pardon for those unbeseeming expressions, the violence of his distempers forced him to vtter, allso he ernestly requests that you will favour him wth your company to morrow betwixt seven and eight of the clock in ye morning and that [MS deletion] there may be wth you Mr Leck=more5 and mr West,6 ye latter I have some acquaintance wth, but as to ye former if youl’ be pleased to write a word or two to him by this messenger, my man shall carry it to him, be pleased to write where he lodges. I shall send very e^\a/rly to morrow to enquire after my Cosens health, for [written down the left-hand side of the page] if he be not pretty well composed, I deeme it very incon=venient to disturbe him wth occasions of this nature. I hope Sr you will not putt any other construction on my intentions herin then my sincere desires to serve him your selfe and yr worthy relations, who shall ever be yr reddy friend and servant J Driden. [Taken from Ward, Letters, 6] These For ye much honourd Rich: Salwey Esqr At Mr Warings house In Gratias Street7

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28 The correspondence of John Dryden

1. Ward, Letters, Letter 2. 2. Richard Salwey was a former Parliamentarian soldier and Dryden’s uncle. Salwey had been nominated to the assembly by the civil government in 1653, but refused to sit in it. He remained on friendly terms with Oliver Cromwell. He was English Ambassador to Constantinople from 14 August 1654 until the fall of the Cromwellian Protectorate in April 1659. He took part in the negotiations between the army and the members of the Rump Parliament which led to the re-establishment of the Long Parliament (3 November 1640–16 March 1660), and was appointed a member of the Committee of Safety (7 May 1659) and the Council of State (14 May 1659). When army officers turned out the Long Parliament, again Salwey was nominated to a member of the Committee of Safety established by them, but refused to sit. Nevertheless, he complied with them much too far for his reputation among Parliamentary republicans, as he consented to take part in their discussions about the future constitution. Fear that the officers should attempt, left to their own devices, to restore Richard Cromwell seems to have been one of his motives. The restored Long Parliament regarded him as a traitor, and on 17 January 1660 ordered him to be sent to the Tower; but on the plea of ill health, he was on 21 January allowed to retire to the country instead. He was considered ‘fanatic’ enough to be excepted from the Act of Oblivion in 1660, but at the Restoration of Charles II on 29 May 1660 escaped unpunished despite ‘William Prynne ma[king] an effort to have him excluded from the Act of Indemnity [i.e. Oblivion]’ (see C. H. Firth, rev. Sean Kelsey, ‘Salwey, Richard (bap. 1615, d. 1686), poli­tician’, ODNB, 48.789–90). Note that Firth writes of his death being in ‘1685×8’. As Winn points out, in the terms Dryden had used in Astrea Redux: A Poem on the Happy Restoration & Return of His Sacred Majesty Charles the Second (London: Henry Herringman, 1660) (California Edition, 1.32–6), he was one of the ‘Helots’ whose function was to beget a ‘virtuous shame’ in their former associates. Yet Dryden’s letter shows no such shame, which must have included the fact that he walked in Cromwell’s cortège with [John] Milton and [Andrew] Marvell as ‘Secretarys of ye ffrench and Latin Tounges’ (see Winn, John Dryden, 80): he addresses the old soldier as ‘ye much honourd Rich: Salwey Esqr’ and protests his own ‘sincere desires to serve […] your selfe and yr worthy relations’ (Winn, John Dryden, 128). Between the Restoration and the date of this letter, Dryden published the Royalist poems To His Sacred Majesty, A Panegyrick on His Coronation (London: Henry Herringman, 1661) (California Edition, 1.32–6) and To My Lord Chancellor, Presented on New-Years-Day (London: Henry Herringman, 1662) (California Edition, 1.37–42). His first play, The Wild Gallant (London: Henry Herringman, 1663) (California Edition, 8.1–92), was not a success. 3. This is Edward Salwey, Dryden’s cousin by affinity, and son of Edward Salwey (b. 1603), a lawyer who sat in the House of Commons as MP for Droitwich in the Third Protectorate Parliament (27 January–22 April 1659), and Dorothy Dryden, Dryden’s aunt. He was called to the bar in 1658, and was Dryden’s companion in the 1650s, having been at the Inner Temple during Dryden’s Cambridge years (Winn, John Dryden, 81). 4. OED, ‘remembrancer, n. 1. b. an official of the Court of Exchequer, responsible for the collection of debts and other financial matters. i.e. an executor’. 5. Unidentified. 6. Unidentified. 7. That is, Gracechurch Street, London.

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Letter 3

This joint letter to Sir Robert Long by Dryden and Lady Elizabeth, his wife, was written in the year Dryden was appointed Poet Laureate (13 April 1668). Dryden was soon afterwards to be ‘committed [to] drama as his principal literary medium, and his main source of income’,1 and this letter shows the perilous nature of his personal financial affairs following his marriage on 1 December 1663. 1. Hammond, ‘Dryden’, 1020.

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30 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 7. [Attributed to Jacob Huysmans,] Sir Robert Long, oil on canvas, feigned oval [no date], NPG 4637. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Letter 3 (14 August 1666) 31

Letter 31 Dryden and Lady Elizabeth Dryden to Sir Robert Long2

Manuscript: Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature (RTC01); 1280s–1958 (mostly 1800s–1930s), Box 6, fol. 31r–v.

[31r]  Aug: 14th. 1666. Honourd Sir. Since you have been pleasd thus farr to give your self a trouble in our businesse, the whole profit of which we owe originally to you, when you wrought My Lord to Assign the patent,3 I we4 hope you will so much own your former kindnesse as to keep what money you receive for us in your hands till we come up. As for the unreasonable proposition5 my Lord Berk=shyre made, & writ me ^\us/ word that you approvd it, I we6 well know it was onely to be rid of his importu=nityes. I we7 have sent an Acquittance signd by my wife & my self ^ \us both/ with this inclos’d; & a letter which Sir Robert Howard8 has done us the favour to write to you, on purpose that the money might be receiv’d by no other then your self in whom we absolutely confide, as becomes, Honourd, Sir, Your most obliged, & most obedient Servants John Dryden.  Elizabeth Dryden [31v] For my honourd Friend Sir Robert Long. 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 3. This letter is found as Plate 67 in A. W. Thibaudeau (ed.), Catalogue of the Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Documents Formed between 1865 and 1882 by Alfred Morrison, six vols (London: [s.n.], 1883–92), 2.47. It has been reproduced in facsimile in Wolfgang Keller and Bernhard Fehr, Die Englische Literatur von der Renaissance bis zur Aufklärung (Wildpark–Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, c. 1928), 180. ‘It is undoubtedly written from the seat of the Earl of Berkshire at Charlton, Wiltshire, where Dryden had retired during the plague’ (Ward, Letters, 144, headnote). 2. Sir Robert Long, first baronet (c. 1602–73), politician and exchequer official, was a member, during the Interregnum, of the Louvre faction, which was dominant in Royalist councils under the direction of Queen Henrietta Maria and her favourite, Henry

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32 The correspondence of John Dryden

Jermyn. During this period he had duties as Secretary of State to the exiled government, a post transferred to Sir Edward Hyde, after which Long left the exiled court. After the Restoration, Long wrote from Rouen to beg Hyde’s forgiveness, urging compassion on his ‘destitute condition’ (F. J. Routledge (ed.), Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers Preserved in the Bodleian Library, five vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 4.676), from which he was to emerge, after thirteen years of office, as owner of ‘a very vast estate’ (W. D. Christie (ed.), Letters Addressed from London to Sir Joseph Williamson While Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Cologne in the Years 1673 and 1674 ([London]: Camden Society, 1874), 118). Giving his triumphant rival no further trouble, he regained his post as the Queen’s Surveyor-General, acquiring from her Worcester Park in Surrey and Higham Ferrars Park in Northamptonshire, and ultimately became Receiver-General of her revenues. It was on her interest that Long was elected for Boroughbridge in 1661, but in the first ten sessions of the Cavalier Parliament he was named to only forty-three committees, none of them of much political significance. When in 1662 he at last succeeded [Sir Robert] Pye as auditor of the lower exchequer, he was made a baronet. Much matured from the incompetent young secretary of 1626, Long now showed himself ‘exceptional among 17th century Exchequer officials in having a conscientious devotion to the personal performance of his duties’ (H. Roseveare, The Treasury, 1660–1870: The Foundations of Control (London: Allen and Unwin, 1673), 30). Long was a totally inactive Member of Parliament and none too reliable an administrator (see John Ferris, ‘Long, Sir Robert, first baronet (c. 1602–1673), politician and exchequer official’, ODNB, 34.370–1). Ward mistakenly states that he was at this time Chancellor of the Exchequer (Ward, Letters, 144, headnote). 3. The ‘patent’ is that of £3,000 which had been granted to Lady Elizabeth Howard (c. 1638–1714) in 1662, apparently on the assignment of her father, Charles Howard, second Earl of Berkshire (1615–79). It was to be paid out of the revenue of the Excise at the rate of £250 a quarter (see Ward, Letters, 144, n1). For a discussion of this grant and its payment, see Charles E. Ward, ‘A biographical note on John Dryden’, Modern Language Review, 27 (1932), 206–10. Ward suggests that it appears from Dryden’s words that Long had been the intermediary in the original assignment. Though the evidence is lacking, both Ward and Bell suggest that the patent for £3,000 made over to Lady Elizabeth in 1662 was in the nature of a dowry, which she was to bring to Dryden. They were married at St Swithin’s in the City of London on 1 December 1663 (see Bell, Poetical Works, 1.24; also Ward, Letters, 144, n1). The marriage between Dryden and Lady Elizabeth lasted until his death, but there is little evidence about how they lived as a couple. They had three sons (see Introduction, p. 1). It is possible that Elizabeth was a Roman Catholic, and likely that Dryden’s sons’ conversion preceded his own (see Hammond, ‘Dryden’, 1019). 4. ‘we’ is written over ‘I’. 5. None of the £3,000 ‘dowry’ had been paid up until June 1666 (two months before this letter). Ward cites a letter about an ‘acquittance signed by Mr Driden and his wife my sister; for seaven hundred sixty eight pounds fifteen shillings’ (Ward, Letters, 144, n3; Folger Shakespeare Library, ‘Autograph letter signed from Sir Robert Howard to Sir Robert Long [manuscript], 1666 August 13’, X.d.9). 6. ‘we’ is written over ‘I’. 7. ‘we’ is written over ‘I’. 8. Sir Robert Howard (1626–98), playwright and politician, was the brother of Lady Elizabeth Dryden. After the Restoration Sir Robert collected an impressive number of lucrative offices and profitable grants, which soon made him a wealthy man and a prominent figure in the government. In June 1660 he was appointed Serjeant-Painter to Charles II; in the same month Lord Chancellor Clarendon made him Clerk of the Patents in Chancery, an office worth £3,000 a year. The former position he surrendered on 28

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Letter 3 (14 August 1666) 33

February 1663; he sold the latter in 1664 or 1665 for almost £3,000. In October 1660 Howard was made a member of the Committee for the Recovery of Concealed Lands, and in November he was commissioned as colonel of a regiment of infantry in the Hampshire militia. First returned to Parliament for Stockbridge, Hampshire, in May 1661, Howard served as an influential MP almost uninterruptedly until his death. Despite his unfailing attempts to obtain supply for the King, he first made his mark opposing the royal prerogative in the debates on the Poll Bill in December 1666. One of the leaders of the country-based opposition, Howard introduced a famous ‘Proviso’ that empowered a parliamentary committee to examine the expenditure of the money raised for the naval war against the Dutch. In October 1667, in alliance with Buckingham’s anti-Clarendonian party, Howard vociferously agitated for the Chancellor’s impeachment. And in April 1668 he played a prominent part in the impeachment of Sir William Penn, charged with the embezzlement of goods ‘out of the East India Prizes’ (E. S. De Beer (ed.), The Diary of John Evelyn, six vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 3.508). Howard’s turbulent private life and his boastful manner, meanwhile, won him great notoriety. On 10 August 1665 he married Lady Honoria O’Brien, daughter of the Henry O’Brien, fifth Earl of Thomond and the wealthy widow of Sir Francis Englefield; she was more than ten years Sir Robert’s senior. The manor of Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, left to Honoria by her husband, became Howard’s new seat of residence (see J. P. Vander Motten, ‘Howard, Sir Robert (1626–1698), playwright and politician’, ODNB, 28.413–15 (414)). For a full biography of Howard, see H. J. Oliver, Sir Robert Howard, 1626–1698: A Critical Biography (Durham: Duke University Press, 1963).

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Letter 4

This letter shows Dryden’s intimate and literary relationship with a prominent courtier in Charles II’s court, of which he was a member. It demonstrates both Dryden’s knowledge of both high and low life at court, and his wide acquaintanceship; it also shows how intimately connected Charles II’s circle of courtiers was after the Restoration, often as a result of services rendered to him during his exile on the Continent during the Interregnum, a period when Dryden was working for the Cromwellian regime. The relationship between Dryden and Rochester began in earnest and publicly with Dryden’s dedication to him of Marriage à-la-mode in 1673 and has been discussed extensively, but is summarized by Steven N. Zwicker:1 Dryden twice addressed Lord Rochester: in a personal letter, and in the more formal terms of the printed Dedication of Marriage A-la-Mode. In the likely sequence of texts and events, Rochester read the play in manuscript and recommended it to the King […] the play was publicly performed by the King’s Company […] later, in anticipation of the print publication […] Dryden wrote the Dedication. Rochester likely read the Dedication in manuscript, responded to Dryden, flatteringly, in a letter now lost, and Dryden answered in the letter printed here.2

This relationship was later made a public matter by Rochester’s ambivalent and ‘temperate attack on the literary practices and attitudes of Dryden’:3 An Allusion to Horace (the allusion is to Satires, 10.1), which circulated in manuscript from the mid-1670s, and Dryden’s response to it – the first such – in his Preface to All for Love (1678). Rochester’s poem discusses the Laureate’s professionalism and his appeal to ‘an Audience | of clapping fools’ (ll. 13–14), while admitting that ‘even that Talent merits in some sort, | That can divert the Rabble and the Court’ (ll. 16–17).4 Rochester’s verse celebrates anonymous aristocratic amateurism, to which Dryden responds in the Preface: For my part, I would wish no other revenge, either for my self or the rest of Poets, from this Rhyming Judge of the Twelve-penny Gallery […] than that he would subscribe his Name to his censure, or (not to tax him beyond his learning) set his Mark: for shoul’d he own himself publickly, and come from behind the Lyons Skin, they whom he condemns wou’d be thankful to him, they whom he praises wou’d chuse to be condemned; and the Magistrates whom he has elected, wou’d modestly withdraw from their employment to avoid the scandal of his nomination. The sharpness of his Satyr, next to himself, falls most heavily on his Friends, and they ought never to forgive him for commending them perpetually the wrong way, and sometimes by contraries […].5

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Letter 4 ([Before 13 May 1673]) 35

Dryden’s relationship with Rochester – the man ‘behind the Lyons Skin’ – is an important one and Matthew C. Augustine captures its essence precisely:

To be sure, Rochester encourages us to view his relationship to Dryden in terms that both deprecate the older poet and distinguish his talents from Rochester’s own – celebrating sprezzatura wit at the expense of Dryden’s taciturnity [and public appeal … A]s writers they were keenly attuned to each other – Rochester to Dryden no less than Dryden to Rochester. Though we might well expect Rochester, as the court’s leading wit and lampoonist, to cast some scattered barbs at the most visible writer of the age, his concern with Dryden is studied rather than casual, persistent rather than occasional. Indeed, the only figures who seem to have commanded Rochester’s satiric attention with something like equal or greater concentration than did Dryden are the King and Rochester himself.6

This letter, then, is written early in a decade of complex personal and intertextual interactions.

1. For a summary of the relationship between Dryden and Rochester, see Matthew C. Augustine, ‘Trading places: Lord Rochester, the Laureate and the making of literary reputation’, in Lord Rochester in the Restoration World, ed. Matthew C. Augustine and Steven N. Zwicker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 58–78. 2. Zwicker, John Dryden, 712. Dryden is ‘a master of admiration and compliment, fashioning […] a wonderful performance of politesse, wrapping his please and embarrassment over Rochester’s attention in syntax that curls over itself with self-consciousness’. In short, he is ‘aware of the codes of patronage and clientage’. 3. Keith Walker and Nicholas Fisher (eds), John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: The Poems and Lucina’s Rape (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 102. 4. See Harold Love (ed.), The Works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 71–4. J. Harold Wilson persuasively suggests a date for composition during the winter of 1675–6, as none of the references to particular works relate to material composed after September 1675 (see Wilson, ‘Rochester, Dryden, and the RoseStreet affair’, Review of English Studies, 15:59 (1939), 294–301 (299)). 5. John Dryden, All for Love; Or, The World Well Lost (London: Henry Herringman, 1692), sig. b3r–b4r (California Edition, 13.14–16). 6. Augustine, ‘Trading places’, 58–9.

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36 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 8. [Unknown artist,] John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, oil on canvas (c. 1665–70), NPG 804. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Letter 4 ([Before 13 May 1673]) 37

Letter 41 Dryden to John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester2

Manuscript: British Library, Harl MSS 7003, fols 293–4.

[293r] My Lord

I have accusd my self this Moneth together for not writing to you; I have calld my self by the names I deservd of unmannerly and ungratefull: I have been uneasy, and taken up the resolutions of a Man who is betwixt Sinn and Repentance, convinc’d of what he ought to do, and yet unable to do better. At the last I deferrd it so long, that I almost grew hardend in the neglect; and thought I had sufferd so much in your good opinion, that it was in vain to hope I could redeem it. So dangerous a thing it is to be inclind to sloath, that I must confesse once for all, I was ready to quit all manner of obligations And to receive, as if it were my due, the most handsom Compliment, couchd in the best language I have read, and this too from my Lord of Rochester, without showing my self sensible of the favour.3 If your Lordship cou’d condescend so farr to say all those things to me, which I ought to have sayd to you, it might reasonably be concluded, that you had enchanted me to believe those praises, and that I ownd them in my silence. T’was this Consideration that mov’d me at last to put off my Idlenesse. And now the shame of seeing my self overpayd so much for an ill Dedication, has made me almost repent of my Addresse.4 I find it is not for me to contend any way with your Lordship, who can write better on the meanest Subject than I can on the best. I have onely ingag’d my selfe in a new debt, when I had hop’d to cancell a part of the old one: And shou’d either have chosen some other Patron, whom it was in my power to have oblig’d by speaking better of him than he deserv’d, or have made your Lordship onely a hearty Dedication of ^\the/ respect and Honour I had for you, without giveing the occasion I have done, to conquer me, as you have done, at my own Weapon. [293v] My onely relief is, that what I have written is publique, and I am so much my own friend, as to conceale your Lordships letter. for that which would have given Vanity to any other Poet, has onely given me confusion. You see, my Lord, how farr you have pushd me; I dare not own the honour you have done me, for feare of showing it to my own disadvantage. You are that Rerum Natura of your own Lucretius, Ipsa

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38 The correspondence of John Dryden

suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri:5 You are above any Incense I can give you; and have all the happinesse of an idle life, joind witho6 the good Nature of an Active.7 Your friends in town,8 are ready to envy the leysure you have given your self in the Country: though they know, you are onely their Steward, and that you treasure up but so much health, as you intend to spend on them in Winter. In the meane time you have withdrawn your selfe from attendance, the curse of Courts.9 You may thinke of what you please, and that as little as you please; (for in my opinion), thinking it selfe, is a kind of paine to a Witty man; he finds so much more in it to dis-quiet, than to please him. But I hope your Lord-ship will not omitt the occasion of laughing at the Great Duke of B – – – who is so uneasy to [him]self by pursueing the honour of Lieuetenant Generall which flyes him, that he can enjoy nothing he possesses.10 Though at the same time, he is so unfit to command an Army, that he is the onely Man in the three Nations11 who does not know it. Yet he still picques him self, like his father, to find another Isle of Rhe in Zealand:12 thinkes this dissappointment an injury to him which is indeed a favour; and will not be satisfyed but with his own ruine, and with ours. [294r] Tis a strange quality in a man to love idlenesse so well as to destroy his Estate by it; and yet at the same time to pursue so violently the most toilesome, and most unpleasant part of businesse. These observations would easily run into lampoon, if I had not forsworn that dangerous part of wit, not so much out of good nature, as ^\But least/ from the inborn Vanity of poets,13 I should show ^\it/ to others and betray my self to a worse mischief than what I do give my Enemy. This has been lately the case of Etherege,14 who translateing a Satyre of Boileau’s,15 and changing the French ^\names/ words for English,16 read it so often that it came to their eares who were concernd; and forc’d him to leave off the design e’re it was half finish’d. Two of the Verses I remember. I call a Spade a Spade; Eaton a Bully17 Frampton a pimp,18 and Brother John19 a Cully.20 But one of his friends, imagind those names not heroique enough for the dignity of a Satyre, and changd them thus: I call a Spade a Spade, Dunbar a Bully21 Brounckard a Pimp,22 and Aubrey Vere23 a Cu[lly.] Because I deale not in Satyre, I have sent Your Lo[rdship] a Prologue and Epilogue which I made for our pl[ayers] when they went down to Oxford.24 I heare, si[nce they] have succeeded; And by the Event

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Letter 4 ([Before 13 May 1673]) 39

your Lordship will judge how easy ’tis to passe any thing upon an University;25 and how grosse flattery the Learned will endure. If your Lordship had been in Town, and I in the Country, I durst not have entertain’d you, with three pages of a letter; but I know they are very ill things which can be tedious to a man ^\who is/ fourscore miles from Covent Garden.26 Tis upon this Confidence that I dare almost promise to enter-tain you with a thousand bagatelles27 every week; and not to be serious in any part of my letter, but that wherein I take leave to call my selfe Your Lordships most obedient Servant John Dryden. [Written in the left-hand margin of the page] Tuesday. [294v] For The Right Honourable The Earl of Rochester

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter II; Scott, Works, Letter II; Ward, Letters, Letter 4; Zwicker, John Dryden, 130–2. As Ward points out, this letter must have been composed before 13 May 1673, when Buckingham was appointed a lieutenant-general (see Ward, Letters, 145, headnote), and probably near 1 May, as Dryden mentions the dedication to Rochester of Marriage à-la-mode (California Edition, 11.219–316), which was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 18 March. 2. John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester (1647–80), courtier, was one of the foremost poets of the time. He died on 26 July 1680. Rochester’s selected poems, with the ‘vulgar’ ones excluded, were published in the octavo Poems, &c. On Several Occasions with Valentinian, A Tragedy (London: Jacob Tonson, 1691). 3. Now lost. 4. ‘The complexity of the Rochester–Dryden relationship harboured further piquancies. Marriage à-la-mode […] a play dedicated to Rochester at the time of their friendship […] in fact contain[ed] examples of the “mannerly obscene” as gracefully executed and as hard-edged as any libertine verses of any of the court wits, including the song “Whilst Alexis lay pressed”, wittiest of all puns on sexual dying. The play was, as Dryden’s dedication [sig. B2–7] says, corrected by Rochester [“It receiv’d amendement from your noble hands […]” (sig. B2)], who commended it to the King, and some of its polished repartee, as Winn and others have said, may owe something to Rochester.’ Claude Rawson, ‘Poet Squab’, London Review of Books, 10:5 (3 March 1988), 16–17. 5. ‘Lucretius, in his first BOOK | has these Lines. | Omnis enim per se Divum Natura necesse est | Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur | Semota ab nostris rebus, sejunctaquae longe. | Nam private dolore omni, private periclis, | Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri, | Nec bene pro meritis capitur, nec tangitur Ira | Thus Translated. | The Gods, by

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40 The correspondence of John Dryden

right of Nature, must possess | An everlasting Age, of perfect Peace: | Far off remov’d from us, and our Affairs; | Neither approach’d by Dangers, or by Cares: | Rich in themselves, to whom we cannot add: | Not pleas’d by Good Deeds; nor provok’d by Bad’ (Wilmot, Poems, &c., 109; Love, The Works of John Wilmot, 108). Titus Lucretius Carus (99–55 bc), Roman poet and philosopher, was a significant influence in seventeenth-century Europe: ‘[t]he reputation of Lucretius flowered as never before in English culture during this period’ (Paul Davis, ‘Didactic poetry’, in The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English: Volume III 1660–1790, ed. Stuart Gillespie and David Hopkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 191–203, esp. 195–8 (195)). Dryden cites this, referring to the fundamental concept of divine indifference. C. J. Rose, who supplied the notes to Thomas Creech’s translation, addresses this almost immediately: ‘Velleius in Tully, to confute Pythagoras, boldly inquires, Cur quidquam ignoraret Animus Hominis, si esset Deus? Easie and quiet is their life, and therefore unconcern’d with the affairs of the world; for being full of themselves, why should they look on others, or trouble their minds with the considerations of less perfection, when they expect no advantage nor addition to their happiness: yet these glorious Beings are to be reverenc’d for the excellency of their Nature. Our Piety and Religion must be Heroical, not forc’d by fear, or rais’d by hope: Interest must not bribe, nor Terror affright us to our Duty; but our Devotion must be free, and unbias’d by the solicitations of the One, or the impulse of the Other […]’ ((a2)). The passage from De Rerum Natura, I.44–9, is frequently omitted in critical editions as being a later interpolation, reappearing as it does in II.646–51. Lucretius writes in the next lines of humanity being ‘oppressa gravi sub religione’ (crushed beneath the weight of superstition) (see Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, transl. W. H. D. Rouse, rev. Martin Ferguson Smith (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 6–7), which Creech renders, ‘Long time men lay opprest with slavish Fear, | Religion’s Tyranny did domineer’ (Thomas Creech (transl.), T. Lucretius Carus the Epicurean Philosopher His Six Books De Natura Rerum Done into English Verse, With Notes, (Oxford: A. Lichfield for Anthony Stephens, 1682), sig. A2r). 6. Possibly Dryden abandons ‘without’ here. 7. ‘In this the only personal and private comment of the poet on Villiers, it is interesting to recognize the seeds of the famous character Zimri in Absalom and Achitophel, eight years later’ (Ward, Letters, 146, n4). 8. That is, London. 9. That is, the curse of the life of a courtier (in the court of Charles II). 10. George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham (1628–87), politician and wit, was brought up with Charles I’s children after the assassination of his father, George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628). After the Restoration, Buckingham was a leading figure in Charles II’s government and during the third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–4) he was commissioned lieutenant-general (13 May 1673), junior only to James, Duke of York (1633–1701; King of England 1685–8) and Prince Rupert, prince and count palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Cumberland (1619–82), Royalist army and naval officer. Scott notes: ‘In the year 1672, Monsieur Schomberg was invited into England to command the army raised for the Dutch war, then encamped at Blackheath. He was to be joined in this command with […] Buckingham, who held a commission of lieutenant-general only. But when Schomberg arrived, he refused to serve equally with Buckingham, and was made general; on which the other resigned his commission in disgust (see [John] Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham’s Memoirs, p. 5 [i.e. The Works of John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Marquis of Normanby, and Duke of Buckingham, two vols (The Hague [London]: John Barber [Thomas Johnson], 1726), 2.5)]). Dryden, still smarting under the “Rehearsal” [Buckingham’s play The Rehearsal (London: Thomas Dring, 1672) ridiculed Dryden as ‘Mr. Bayes’] just then come out, was probably not sorry to take this opportunity to turn the author’s pretensions to ridicule’ (Scott, Works, 18.91, n).

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Letter 4 ([Before 13 May 1673]) 41

11. That is, England, Scotland, and Ireland. 12. After Charles I’s aborted expedition to Cadiz in 1725, Buckingham’s father, George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham, became convinced that Cardinal Richelieu must be overthrown. He planned to accomplish this beginning with a combined naval and military expedition to the island of Ré, off La Rochelle, in July 1627, to weaken Richelieu’s reputation and his hold on power. However, the expedition was a disaster: Buckingham’s army numbered nearly 8,000 when it set out for Ré, but only 3,000 returned to Portsmouth in November 1627. Zealand (Dutch ‘Zeeland’) was the westernmost of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (the United Provinces), a former protectorate of England (1585–8) (see Roger Lockyer, ‘Villiers, George, first duke of Buckingham (1592–1628), royal favourite’, ODNB, 56.488–500 (497)). For a full study of Buckingham’s life, see Winifred Herbert Gardner, Baroness Burghclere, George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, 1628–1687: A Study in the History of the Restoration (London: John Murray, 1903). For a critical edition of Buckingham’s writings, see Harold Love and Robert D. Hume (eds), Plays, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings Associated with George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, two vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 13. ‘[L]east’ as in ‘lest’. That is, Dryden avoids lampoons; he makes jests not out of good nature but because he fears the ‘inborn Vanity of poets’ might induce him to circulate them, and get into trouble. ‘“That dangerous part of wit” Dryden may have indeed forsworn. At the time this letter was written, the satires, some of them on Dryden, known under the general title of [Richard Leigh (attrib.)], The Censure of the Rota. On Mr. Driden’s Conquest of Grenada (Oxford: H[enry] H[all], 1673)], were appearing. Dryden’s comment on satire may have been provoked by this series. For the list of the separate titles see Hugh MacDonald, John Dryden: A Bibliography of Early Editions of Dryden and of Drydeniana (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939)] pp. 201 ff.’ (Ward, Letters, 146, n5). 14. Sir George Etherege (1636–91/2), playwright and diplomat. Etherege’s A Collection of Poems, Written on Several Occasions by Several Eminent Persons: With Many Additions, Never Before in Print (London: Thomas Collins, John Ford, and William Cademan, 1673) appeared the year this letter was written. 15. Nicolas Boileau-Déspréaux (1636–1711), French poet and critic. His masterpieces, L’art poetique and the mock-heroic poem Le Lutrin, were to appear in French the following year in Œvres diverses du Sieur D*** avec le traité du sublime ou merveilleux dans le discours traduit du Grec de Longinus, two vols (Paris: Denys Thierry, 1674). ‘[T]he reference here is to Boileau’s Satire, I, 11. 51–4: [“]Je ne puis rien nommer, si ce n’est par son nom | J’appelle un chat un chat, et Rolet un fripon, | De server un Amant, je n’en pas l’adresse.[”] The verses of Etherege apparently died in manuscript, for they are not found amongst his extant work’ (Ward, Letters, 146, n6). 16. Interestingly, ‘[a]ccording to Jacob Tonson’s “Advertisement” prefixed to The Fourth Part of Miscellany Poems (1708) where the translation [of Boileau’s L’art poétique (1674)] was reprinted, Boileau’s work was originally translated by Sir William Soames, who was “very intimately acquainted with Mr. Dryden” and “desired his Revisal of it”; the Poet Laureate spent “above Six Months” revising “the Manuscript” to put into practice his principle of translation “that it would be better to apply the Poem to English Writers, than keep to the French Names”’ (Katsuhiro Engetsu, ‘Dryden and the modes of Restoration ­sociability’, in The Cambridge Companion to John Dryden, ed. Steven N. Zwicker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 181–96 (189)). 17. Sir John Eaton, a writer of songs (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.9). There is one of Eaton’s songs, followed by one of Rochester’s, in John Dryden [ed.], The Annual Miscellany for the Year 1694 Being the Fourth Part of Miscellany Poems: Containing Great Variety of New Translations and Original Copies (London: Jacob Tonson, 1694), 187–9. ‘He is perhaps

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42 The correspondence of John Dryden

the person mentioned by Anthony Hammond in some verses addressed to Walter Moyle in 1693: “Eyton, whom vice becomes, of vigour full, | “Foe to the godly, covetous, and dull”’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.9). 18. Tregonwell Frampton (1641–1727), a well-known gambler (Ward, Letters, 146, n8). 19. Unidentified. 20. This is an ambivalent epithet at this time, being slang or colloquial and soon rare (see OED, ‘cully, n. 1. One who is cheated or imposed upon (e.g. by a sharper, strumpet, etc.); a dupe, gull; one easily deceived or taken in; a silly fellow, simpleton. (Much in use in the 17th cent.) or 2. A man, fellow; a companion, mate’). 21. Malone conjectures that this was ‘[p]robably the grandson of Sir George Hume, created Earl of Dunbar by James the first, in 1605. The title became extinct in 1689, for want of issue male’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.10), but Ward writes that ‘probably [this refers to] Robert Constable, third Viscount of Dunbar. On May 3, 1671, he pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to a charge of murdering one Peter Varnell, by stabbing him in the head with a rapier. Before he came up for trial, he had obtained the King’s pardon’ (Ward, Letters, 146, n10). 22. ‘Henry Brounckard was a Gentleman of the Bed Chamber to the Duke of York, and a gambler of some reputation’ (Ward, Letters, 146, n11). Malone writes that he was the ‘younger brother of Viscount Brouncker [1620–84], first President of the Royal Society [and was] notorious for having carried false orders to the master of his Royal Highness’s [the Duke of York’s] ship, to slacken sail, after the engagement with the Dutch in 1665; “which the Duke did not hear of till some years after, when Brouncker’s ill course of life and abominable actions had rendered him so odious, that it was taken notice of in parliament; upon which he was expelled the House of Commons, whereof he was a member, as an infamous person; though his friend [George Coventry, third Baron] Coventry [1628–80] adhered to him, and used many indirect arts to have protected him, and after­ wards procured him to have more countenance from the King, than most men thought he deserved; being a person throughout his whole life never notorious for any thing but the highest degree of impudence, and stooping to the most infamous offices, and playing very well at chess, which preferred him more than the most virtuous qualities could have done.”–Continuation of the Life of Clarendon, p. 270. The words in Italicks seem to be a periphrasis for the epithet here applied to this person’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.10–11). 23. Aubrey de Vere, twentieth Earl of Oxford (1627–1703), nobleman, claimed during the Civil War to have led a ‘regiment of scholars’ from Oxford for Charles I, but there is no hard evidence to prove this. During the Interregnum he spent some time in the Tower for his work for the exiled Charles II. ‘[O]n 3 May 1660 he was one of the six peers nominated by the House to attend Charles II with an invitation to return to England. At the Restoration he was rewarded for his services. He was made a Knight of the Garter in May 1660 […] and bore the curtana at the King’s coronation in April 1661, as well as every subsequent coronation until his death. The King appointed him lord lieutenant of Essex, an office he held from August 1660 until February 1688 and again from October 1688 until 1703. As lord lieutenant he played a significant role in marshalling the militia of the home counties against the threat of Dutch invasion in 1667. In addition to his lieutenancy the King gave him command of the King’s Regiment of Horse, or as it was commonly known while he was its colonel, the Oxford Blues. In this role he participated in the suppression of Venner’s Rising in January 1661. Evidently Oxford did not use the profits of office to cultivate civility. He lived riotously on the Piazza at Covent Garden in the 1660s. One January morning in 1665 Samuel Pepys visited Oxford’s house on business, and wrote “his lordship was in bed past ten o’clock: and Lord help us, so rude a dirty family I never saw in my life” [Samuel

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Letter 4 ([Before 13 May 1673]) 43

Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A New and Complete Transcription, ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews, eleven vols (London: G. Bell, 1970–83) (4 January 1664/5), 6.3]. Some contemporaries were scandalized by Oxford’s sham marriage to the well-known actress Hester Davenport (1642–1717), who bore him a son, Aubrey (1664–1708), who later claimed, falsely, to be Earl of Oxford […]. Davenport acted in Dryden’s Secret Love in 1668, but her name is not found in any of the plays performed by the Duke of York’s servants after they moved to Dorset Garden in 1671. On 1 January 1673 Oxford contracted a genuine marriage with Diana Kirke (d. 1719), daughter of George Kirke, groom of the bedchamber. [Throughout] the 1660s and 1670s Oxford was a reliable supported of the court. The King named him to the Privy Council in January 1670’ (see Victor Slater, ‘Vere, Aubrey de, twentieth Earl of Oxford (1627–1703), nobleman’, ODNB, 56.281–3). 24. That is, the University of Oxford. For a discussion of the performance here alluded to, see the Times Literary Supplement, 21 February, 28 February, 14 March, 11 April, 25 April, 2 May 1929, and 16 January 1930. The Prologue and Epilogue were first printed in John Dryden (ed.), Miscellany Poems Containing a New Translation of Virgills Eclogues, Ovid’s Love Elegies, Odes of Horace, and Other Authors: With Several Original Poems, (London: Jacob Tonson, 1684) (for Dryden’s contribution to this volume, see California Edition, 2.157–71), ‘Prologue, To the University of Oxon. Spoken by Mr. Hart, at the Acting of the Silent Woman’ (263–5) and ‘Epilogue, Spoken to the same’ (265–7); in the latter Dryden mentions the ‘Heaven for our Sins this Summer has thought fit | To visit us with all the Plagues of Wit | A French Troop forst swept all things in its way, | But those Hot Monsieurs were too quick to stay; | Yet, to our Cost in that short time, we find | They left their Itch of Novelty behind. | Th’Italian Merry-Andrews took their place, | And quite Debauch’d the Stage with lewd Grimace; | Instead of Wit, and Humours, your Delight | was there to see two Hobby-horses Fight, | Stout Scaramoucha with Rush Lance rode in, | And ran a Tilt at Centaure Arlequin. | For Love you heard how amorous Asses bray’d, | And Cats in Gutters gave their Seranade. | Nature was out of Countenance, and each Day | Some new born Monster shewn you for a Play’ (ll. 5–20). ‘The French troupe came over in December, 1672, and were followed in April, 1673, by the Italian players’ (Ward, Letters, 147, n13). 25. There were only two universities in England in the seventeenth century: the University of Oxford and the more recently founded University of Cambridge. 26. Covent Garden, with its piazza, was a fashionable, if notorious, area of London. 27. OED, ‘bagatelle, n.’, ‘A trifle, a thing of no value or importance’.

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Letter 5

This letter concerns Dryden’s solicitations to dedicate one of his plays, the farce Mr. Limberham, Or, The Kind Keeper (London: Rich. Bentley and M. Magnes, 1680), to the Earl of Danby. It shows him in his best courtly manner, and it is exemplary of the formal prose which was required to secure such patronage. He approaches the uncle of the recipient, the Earl of Danby, through the agency of his nephew, the young Lord Latimer. By this time Dryden was an established playwright, being the author of the tragicomedy The Rival Ladies (London: Henry Herringman, 1664), the heroic drama The Indian Queen (London: Henry Herringman, 1665),1 its sequel The Indian Emperour, Or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards (London: Henry Herringman, 1667), the tragicomedy Secret Love, Or, The Maiden Queen (London: Henry Herringman, 1668), the comedy Sir Martin Mar-All, Or, The Feign’d Innocence (London: Henry Herringman, 1668), the tragedy Tyrannick Love, Or, The Royal Martyr (London: Henry Herringman, 1670), the prose comedy An Evening’s Love, Or, The Mock Astrologer (London: Henry Herringman, 1671), the two-part tragedy Almanzor and Almahide, Or, The Conquest of Granada (London: Henry Herringman, 1672), probably his best comedy, Marriage à-la-mode, the comedy The Assignation, Or, Love in a Nunnery (London: Henry Herringman, 1673) and the jingoistic play Amboyna, A Tragedy (London: Henry Herringman, 1673). However, Mr. Limberham, Or, The Kind Keeper was – for the political reasons set out below – not performed more than three nights at its first production, just enough to secure Dryden the traditional income of the benefit of the ‘third night’.2 1. Howard, once thought to have been Dryden’s collaborator on the rhymed heroic play The Indian Queen (California Edition, 8.181–231), is now considered to have been the originator of the drama (see David Wallace Spelman, ‘Sir Robert Howard, John Dryden, and the attribution of The Indian Queen’, The Library, 9:3 (2008), 334–48). 2. ‘Monday, 11 April 1678. The Duke’s Company. There is no indication as to whether this performance was the premiere, but it probably was part of its original run, which was limited to three days. Langbaine [An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (Oxford: George West and Henry Clements, 1691)]: In this Play (which I take to be the best comedy of his) he so much expos’d the keeping part of the Town, that the Play was stopt, when it had but thrice appear’d on the Stage (p. 164). [In the Dedication to the play, Dryden also refers to its being stopped.]’ Van Lennep et al., The London Stage, 1.269.

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Letter 5 ([July 1677]) 45

Letter 51 Dryden to Lord [Latimer]2

Manuscript: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Ferdinand J. Dreer Autograph Collection, 115:1, British Poets, Vol. II, pp. 9–10.

[9r] My Lord

I am so very bad a Sollicitor, that they who will give them selves the trouble of doeing me a kindnesse must almost do me good in spight of me: Your Uncle3 can beare me witness I make but little benefit of his Neighbourhood; for he is perpetually ^\commonly/ up and gone, an houre before I can be at his doore: and when I am there, he is allwayes in a crowd, and my modesty makes me commonly the last to assault him, if he do not call upon me him selfe; and then too I am so easily answerd; & so long before I come againe, that my little business cooles, in spight of his good will to befriend me. This is the first fit of boldnesse that ever seyzd me, when I take on me to write to your Lordship. But the Kings Comedy4 lyes in the Sudds5 till you please to send me into Northamptonshyre:6 it will be almost such another piece of businesse as the Fond Husband,7 for such the King will have it, who is Parcell Poet8 with me in the Plott; one of the designes being a Story he was pleasd formerly to tell me; and therefore I hope he will keep the jeast in countenance by laughing at it.9 I heare My Lord your Father10 will suddenly go out of Town; & I desire not to be long heere after him; if he please to give order for the producing that hunderd pounds, which is due on My Sallary from Christmasse to Midsummer last.11 Your Lordship will perhaps be troubled with some of the Scenes at your own house; and as farr as two bottles I dare venture to be a good fellow. The other part of my businesse depends upon the Kings memory, & your fathers kindnesse, who has Promisd My Lord Mulgrave,12 that I shall not fare the worse for Mr Mayes persecuting me.13 I have a farther honour to beg, that my Tragedy, which will be acted at Michaelmasse,14 & is already written,15 may [written down the left hand side of the sheet] have the honour to be addressd to My Lord Treasurer;16 & that your Lordship and My Lord Mulgrave will I hope beg together for me: for I must not presume to use so great a name as My Lord your fathers without his licence; nor do my self that

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46 The correspondence of John Dryden

honour with posterity to ^\be/ reckond his Servant except he will give me the same favourable per=mission, which you have granted me of being most humbly and most faithfully your Lordships creature. John Dryden. [9v] [Written in another hand] Mr Drayden to my Lord Latimer

1. Ward, Letters, Letter 5; Zwicker, John Dryden, 219. The dating of this letter is, based on internal evidence, likely to be July 1677. Ward first published it as ‘An unpublished Dryden letter’, Times Literary Supplement, 29 October 1938, 700. 2. Probably addressed to Edward Osborne, Lord Latimer (1655–89), eldest son and heir of Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby (later first Duke of Leeds) (1632–1712), who served Charles II after the fall of the Cabal ministry, which comprised Thomas Clifford, first Baron Clifford of Chudleigh (1630–73), Henry Bennet, first Earl of Arlington (1618–85), Buckingham, Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Baron Ashley (1621–83), and John Maitland, first Duke of Lauderdale (1616–82). Danby was leader of the Charles II’s government from 1674 to 1678 and is often credited with inventing ‘Parliamentary management’, the first conscious effort to produce an organized government lobby from amongst the body of backbench MPs (see Mark Knights, ‘Osborne, Thomas, first duke of Leeds, 1632–1712’, ODNB, 42.24–36). Lord Latimer was later styled Viscount Latimer. He predeceased his father and there is no known surviving image of him. 3. That is, Charles Bertie, younger brother of Robert Bertie, third Earl of Lindsey. In 1666 Lindsey was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society – like Dryden had been briefly in 1662 (see Ward, Letters, 147, n1, which claims that ‘Your Uncle’ refers to the third Earl of Lindsey). As Secretary to the Treasury, Charles Bertie signed documents relating to the payment of Dryden (see Winn, John Dryden, 303, n27). There is no known connection between Dryden and Lindsey, but the word ‘Neighbourhood’ just below suggests that ‘Your Uncle’ lived close to Dryden, who lived at 43 Gerrard Street, west of Covent Garden; nevertheless, the town house of the Earls of Lindsey was Lindsey House, 59 Lincoln’s Inn Fields (see H. B. Wheatley, London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, three vols (London: John Murray, 1891), 2.400. s.v. ‘Lindsey House’). Dryden later wrote Eleonora: A Panegyrical Poem: Dedicated to the Memory of the Late Countess of Abingdon (London: Jacob Tonson, 1692) (California Edition, 3.230–46) in memory of the late wife of James Bertie, Earl of Abingdon, with whom he admitted he was unacquainted: ‘One Disadvantage I have had, which is, never to have known, or seen my Lady: And to draw the Lineaments of her Mind, from the Description which I have receiv’d from others, is for a Painter to set himself at work without the living Original before him. Which the more beautiful it is, will be so much the more difficult for him to conceive; when he has only a relation given him, of such and such Features by an Acquaintance or a Friend; without the Nice Touches which give the best Resemblance, and make the Graces of the Picture. Every Artist is apt enough to flatter himself, (and I amongst the rest) that their own ocular Observations, would have discover’d more perfections, at least others, than have been deliver’d to them: Though I have receiv’d mine from the best hands, that is, from Persons who neither want a just Vnderstanding of my Lady’s Worth, nor a due Veneration for her Memory’ (Dryden, ‘To the Right Honourable the Earl of Abingdon, &c.’, in Eleonora (sig. †4)).

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Letter 5 ([July 1677]) 47

4. That is, Mr. Limberham (see note 9 below). 5. OED, ‘suds, n. 5. in suds (†in suds, in the sud): chiefly in to lie or be in the suds; to lay, leave in the suds. d. In an unfinished state or condition.’ 6. Dryden’s family estate was partly in Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire, for an extended discussion of which and his ancestry, see Winn, John Dryden, 1–35. 7. Thomas D’Urfey (1653–1723), A Fond Husband: Or, The Plotting Sisters. A Comedy: As it is Acted at His Royal Highness the Duke’s Theatre […] Licensed June 15. 1676 (London: James Magnes and Rich. Bentley, 1677). 8. In the OED, ‘parcel, n., adv., and adj. C. adj., †1. “That is partly – , partial; part-time, amateur”’, but it had referred to ‘A collaborator […] Jonson used the term in Bartholomew Fair, Staple of News, and Poetaster ’ (Zwicker, John Dryden, 729n). 9. That is, Mr. Limberham, Or, The Kind Keeper (California Edition, 14.1–95), which was finally acted in March 1677/8. ‘The King’s collaboration quite possibly amounted to nor more than furnishing an episode for one part of the comedy. In the event it was taken from the stage by the King’s command after just three nights’. Ward goes on to suggest ‘The acting version probably contained some cutting satire upon a powerful figure in the Court, who made representations and forced its early demise. For support of this suggestion see Dryden’s Preface to the printed play’ (Ward, Letters, 148, n2). Dryden wrote that he had ‘taken a becoming care, that those things which offended on the Stage, might be either alter’d or omitted in the Press’ (Dryden, Mr. Limberham, sig. A3v; California Edition, 14.5–6). ‘A play about vice featuring a fop and several knaves [… it] had failed to sell’ (Winn John Dryden, 311). 10. That is, Danby. 11. That is, Dryden’s salary as Poet Laureate and, from 1670, Historiographer Royal. ‘The request seems to have been successful; for on July 31 letters patent were issued, granting Dryden an additional pension of £100’ (Ward, Letters, 148, n3). See also L. I. Bredvold, ‘Notes on John Dryden’s pension’, Modern Philology, 30 (1933), 267–74, and Ward, ‘A biographical note’. 12. John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave (later first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby) (1648–1721), politician and author, became Dryden’s patron in 1673. The development of Mulgrave’s career at court was accompanied by the expansion of his literary interests. He wrote a prologue to a performance at court of Elkanah Settle’s The Empress of Morocco in July 1673, alongside another by his rival, Rochester. He established a friendly relationship with John Dryden, combining the roles of patron and collaborator. Dryden benefited from Mulgrave’s access to Charles II and the Duke of York, as well as from his financial support. Mulgrave had his attempts at verse corrected by Dryden. In 1676 Mulgrave was the dedicatee of Dryden’s Aureng-Zebe: A Tragedy (London: Henry Herringman, 1676), a play whose protagonist was a dispossessed prince; the dedication implicitly praised Mulgrave for his loyal partisanship of the Duke of York’s right to succeed Charles II. Subsequently, in March 1679, Mulgrave collaborated with Dryden on the translation of Ovid’s letter from Helen to Paris, the omission of which from Tonson’s folio edition of The Works of the Late Famous Mr. John Dryden: Containing All His Comedies, Tragedies, and Operas; With His Original Poems and Translations, four vols (London: Jacob Tonson, 1701) suggests that Mulgrave translated the work and Dryden advised him on it. Mulgrave was probably the author of the ‘Essay on satire’ which circulated in manuscript in 1679 and attacked prominent figures at court, including the King and Rochester; Dryden was blamed and physically assaulted, but the friendship between patron and poet survived (see Margaret D. Sankey, ‘Sheffield, John, first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647–1721), poli­ tician and author’, ODNB, 50.166–70 (167)).

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48 The correspondence of John Dryden

13. Baptist (‘Bab’) May (bap. 1628, d. 1697), courtier, Keeper of the Privy Purse to Charles II (from 28 July 1665; James II removed May from this office in 1685). May was not privy to the King’s personal finances (see Andrew Barclay, ‘May, Baptist [Bab] (bap. 1628, d. 1697), courtier, ODNB, 37.543–4; see also Winn, John Dryden, 248). 14. ‘Michaelmas’, the feast of St Michael (29 September) and the beginning of the legal (and publishing) term. 15. That is, All for Love, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, first staged in December 1677 (California Edition, 13.1–111). 16. All for Love was dedicated to Danby.

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Letter 6

This letter shows Dryden corresponding – it seems likely – with one of the foremost literary patrons of the age, the Earl of Dorset. He refers to current dramatic and literary criticism, Thomas Rymer’s Tragedies of the Last Age (London: Richard Tonson, 1678). It is apparent from this letter that Dryden is aware that his own work could be compared to that of his great predecessors, Shakespeare, Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher, and follows in their tradition of tragic, heroic writing. In 1693 Dryden replied privately to Rymer’s Tragedies with his ‘Heads of an answer to Rymer’, which was scribbled in his copy of that text and published after Dryden’s death in The Works of Mr. Francis Beaumont, and Mr. John Fletcher; In Seven Volumes. Adorn’d with Cuts. Revis’d and Corrected: With Some Account of the Life and Writings of the Authors, seven vols (London: Jacob Tonson, 1711).1 Rymer had replaced Dryden as Historiographer Royal and Dryden’s answer was obliquely given later in Examen Poeticum (London: Jacob Tonson, 1693).2 1. ‘The relations between Dryden and Thomas Rymer [(1692–1713) his successor as Historiographer Royal] involve considerable mutual respect, some borrowings, and a nervousness that finally led to rupture and a last cool respect. Rymer impressed Dryden by his rigor of Humanistic neoclassicism, and Dryden took some time to work out a response to Rymer’s rigor that did not concede too much. From Dryden, Rymer took the concept of a literary period that Dryden was the first to introduce into English criticism, a hope in literary progress in history, and a technique of analysing individual works. Rymer went beyond Dryden only in analysis, and then to demolish rather than appreciate. Relations between the two assisted in the definition of major critical issues inherited by the Restoration from English Humanism and France. Dryden’s position was consistently more liberal than that of earlier critics or Rymer, although he held humanistic views and Rymer’s learning in great respect. Rymer’s hopes for a new literature were so bound up in reforming zeal that, by the end of his career as a critic, he had all but abandoned faith in contemporary authors’ (Earl Miner, ‘Mr. Dryden and Mr. Rymer’, Philological Quarterly, 54 (1975), 137–51, headnote). 2. See Letter 28, n16.

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50 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 9. After Sir Godfrey Kneller, first Baronet, Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset, oil on canvas [based on a work of 1694], NPG 250. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Letter 6 ([1678?]) 51



Letter 61 Dryden to [Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset]2

Manuscript: Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Hyde 77 (3.222).

I am now settled in the Country;3 & haveing given two or three dayes to idlenesse, parsons, & my Cousin’s dis=course,4 which is the worsst of the three evills, am goeing to drudge for the winter. But Your Lordships ^\secret/ is no longer so to me: for, by this tattle which I have had heere, I am confirmd that there is a certaine Lady calld Mrs B: Tressham,5 who is yet at London, and who is expected down this weeke, without her Mother. The choice is not amisse; for she is held the flower of Northamptonshyre: One of the house=mayds heere has servd her formerly; & my wise cousin6 should formerly have married her: but that being broken off, I doubt, not very handsomely on his side, a breach is ^\has/ ensued; & I find by him, he is like to marry elswhere ere long. If your parson’s, be not private enough, heere you may be as unknown as you please, & much more conveniently then where you design; this house not being above a little halfe mile distant from the blessed abode; for I can easily see it from my windowe. and my Cousin is to be managd As I please; being sufficiently easy as well in all other things as in his understanding: he talkes nothing all day long to me in french & Italian to show his breeding:7 Mr Rymer sent me his booke, which has been my best entertainment hetherto: tis certainly very learned, & the best piece of Criticism in the English tongue; perhaps in any other of the modern. If I am not altogether of his opinion, I am so, in most of what he sayes: and thinke my selfe happy that he has not fallen upon me, as severely and as wittily as he has upon Shakespeare, and Fletcher.8 for he is the onely man I know capable [written down the left-hand side of the sheet] of finding out a poets blind sides: and if he can hold heere without exposeing his Edgar to be censurd by his Enemyes;9 I thinke there is no man will dare to answer him, or can.10 I am in paine to heare^\know/ how your Lordship has your health; though I must not beg to heare it from you; because I had rather see it confirmd by my own Eyes. I am My Lord

Your Lordship’s most Obedient humble



Servant.  J. Dryden.

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52 The correspondence of John Dryden

[Written upside down at the top of the sheet] By Bringis the Carrier, who lodges at the Bell in Smithfield: & goes out on Thursday morning: from Mr Elmes his house at Lilford. 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 6. The letter is undated and unaddressed. The mention of Thomas Rymer’s Tragedies of the Last Age Consider’d helps to set a reasonably accurate date, for the book had appeared in the late summer of 1677. Rymer was later the author of A Short View of Tragedy. In it there is a slighting reference to Dryden specifically, but the whole goes against Dryden’s view of the theatre (see Thomas Rymer, A Short View of Tragedy, It’s Original, Excellency and Corruption: With Some Reflections on Shakespear and Other Productions for the Stage (London: Richard Baldwin, 1693), 17). 2. Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset and first Earl of Middlesex (1643–1706), poet and politician, was a writer and critic of some considerable standing, appearing as Eugenius in Dryden’s Of Dramatick Poesie (London: Henry Herringman, 1668); he was also a considerable patron. See Osborn, John Dryden, 264, for a discussion of the case for Dorset being the recipient of this letter. For a biography of Dorset, see Harris Brice, Charles Sackville, Sixth Earl of Dorset: Patron and Poet of the Restoration (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1940). 3. In a letter to Mulgrave dated 20 August 1678, William Wycherley says that Dryden is in Northamptonshire – he owned an estate in Titchmarsh and had relatives in Oundle – and mentions Rymer’s book as recently published. Dorset owned estates in Northamptonshire. See Robert J. Allen, ‘Two Wycherley letters’, Times Literary Supplement, 18 April 1935, 257. 4. Perhaps either John Driden of Chesterton (c. 1641–1708) – Dryden’s first cousin – near whose estate Dryden’s own was, or Elmes Steward of Cotterstock Hall (1674–1754), or his wife, Elizabeth Steward (1672–1743), another of Dryden’s cousins, the then twentysix-year-old daughter of Dryden’s first cousin Elizabeth Creed. The Stewards were married in 1692 (see Ward, Letters, 180, headnote). 5. ‘[P]robably a daughter of the George Tresham who held the manor of Pilton in 1677, and who died in 1684. Dryden may have been staying at Lilford [Hall], for Pilton Manor would have been only half a mile distant’ (Ward, Letters, 149, n2). Percy Dryden Mundy records that in the grounds of Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, there is an urn ‘In Memory of | Dryden | Who frequented these shades | and is here said | to have composed his poem | of the | Hind & Panther’ (Mundy, ‘John Dryden in Northamptonshire’, in Memorials of Old Northamptonshire, ed. Alice Dryden (London: Bemrose and Sons; Derby, 1903), 155–63 (160)). Rushton Hall was the former seat of the Treshams, where the Elizabethan Catholic Sir Thomas Tresham built the Triangular Lodge (engraved in Alice Dryden, Memorials, 137), which is described by Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘No more or less than a profession of faith in stone’ (Pevsner, Northamptonshire (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961), 400). 6. Unidentified. ‘It may have been Elmes Steward, from whose house the carrier was to leave’ (Ward, Letters, 149, n3). 7. Dryden could speak and understand French and possibly Italian, having been one of Cromwell’s Secretaries of Foreign Tongues (see Letter 2, n2). 8. John Fletcher (1579–1625), playwright, most famous later for his collaboration with Francis Beaumont (1584/5–1616), playwright. The first major success for the team of Beaumont and Fletcher was (according to Dryden in Of Dramatick Poesie, 48; California Edition, 17.56) Philaster – subtitled Love Lyes a-Bleeding in reference to the protagonist’s

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Letter 6 ([1678?]) 53

hysterical habit of stabbing his lovers at crucial moments in the action. This was Fletcher’s third collaboration with Beaumont, an ironic, emotionally flamboyant play which seems to have initiated the fashion for what became the most significant dramatic genre of the century, romantic tragicomedy; it was entered in Stationers’ Register in 1610 and two markedly different quarto texts appeared in 1620 and 1622, the latter considered the more authoritative (see Gordon McMullan, ‘Fletcher, John (1579–1625), playwright’, ODNB, 20.107–13 (109)). Dryden’s later bookseller, Tonson, was to publish The Works of Mr. Francis Beaumont, and Mr. John Fletcher. 9. At the end of the ‘Contents’ of Rymer’s The Tragedies of the Last Age, there is an ‘Advertisement’: ‘There is also to be printed an Heroick Tragedy, call’d EDGAR By the same Hand.’ This refers to Rymer’s play Edgar, Or, The English Monarch (London: Richard Tonson, 1678). The play was published in the late autumn or winter. It was advertised in the London Gazette, 14–17 January 1677, issue no. 1269 (see Sybil Rosenfeld, ‘Dramatic advertisements in the Burney newspapers 1660–1700’, Publications of the Modern Language Association, 51 (1936), 123–52). 10. For a discussion of Dryden’s critical answer to the book, see Fred G. Walcott, ‘John Dryden’s answer to Thomas Rymer’s The Tragedies of the Last Age’, Philological Quarterly, 15 (1936), 194–214.

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Letter 7

Dryden here discusses with Edward Radcliffe, second Earl of Derwentwater, an English verse translation, by Thomas Creech, Fellow of Wadham College and Prize Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, I.225–6, where Creech has made a terrible grammatical error. Oxford University at this time had a strong Tory bias, as was evidenced in its role in the ‘Exclusion Crisis’ (1679–81); there is therefore an underlying concern with the classics and to which party they belonged that this question obliquely addresses and that Dryden explicitly addresses in his three major political satires of this period: Absalom and Achitophel (London: Jacob Tonson, 1681), The Medal (London: Jacob Tonson, 1682), and Mac Flecknoe, Or A Satyr upon the True-Blew-Protestant poet, T.S. [i.e. Thomas Shadwell] By the Author of Absalom & Achitophel (London: D. Green, 1682). This letter is essentially about a wager among upper-class men close to the court. A dispute about a couple of lines from Creech’s famous translation arises, and it is proposed to resolve it by asking the Poet Laureate, John Dryden, to adjudicate: hence Dryden’s reference to a ‘looser’ (of the wager) in the penultimate paragraph; and to his own impartiality in the difficult third paragraph; ‘company’ in the final paragraph simply means the gathering of people present when the wager was struck and – presumably – the now lost letter to Dryden was written. Creech’s The Odes, Satyrs, and Epistles of Horace (London: Jacob Tonson, 1684) was dedicated to ‘To the Very Much Esteemed John Dryden’ (sig. A3r–A4v). Dryden was predominantly a dramatist, for example writing Aureng-Zebe; The Tempest, Or, The Enchanted Island (London: Henry Herringman, 1676), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest; The State of Innocence, and the Fall of Man (London: Henry Herringman, 1677), a dramatic adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost; and, with Nathaniel Lee, Oedipus: A Tragedy (London: R. Bentley and M. Magnes, 1679). Dryden was a well established writer and innovator in the different genres, and a literary theorist and linguist, but this letter sheds further light on him as a renowned arbiter on both literary taste and practice.

Letter 7 ([1682?]) 55

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Figure 10. John Clostermann, Edward Radclyffe, second Earl of Derwentwater, oil on canvas [no date]. © Christie’s, London

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56 The correspondence of John Dryden

Letter 71 Dryden to [Edward Radcliffe, second Earl of Derwentwater]2

Manuscript: Beinecke Library, Yale University, James and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Osborn Manuscripts, File 17581.

[ar] The two verses concerning which the dispute is raisd, are these; Besides, if o’re whatever years prevaile Shou’d wholly perish, & its matter faile,3

The question ariseing from them is, whether any true grammaticall construction, can be made of them? [MS deletion] The Objection is, that there is no Nominative case appea=ring, to the word, Perish:4 or that can be understood to belong to it.5 I have considerd the verses, & find the Authour of them to have notoriously6 bungled: that he has plac’d the words as confus’dly, as if he had studied to do so.7 This nothingwith=standing, the very words without adding, or diminishing, in theire proper sence, (8or at least what the Authour meanes9 may run thus.– Besides, if what ever yeares prevaile over, shou’d wholly perish & its matter faile,– I pronounce therefore, as impartially as I can upon the whole, That there is a Nominative case; and that figu=rative, so as Terence & Virgil amongst others use it. that is; The whole clause ^\precedent/ is the Nominative case to perish.10 My reason is this; & I thinke it obvious; let the question be askd, what it is that shoud wholly perish? or that perishes? the answer will be, that which yeares prevaile over. If you will not admit a clause to be in construction a Nominative case; the word (thing) illud, or quodcunq, is to be understood; [MS deletion] either of which words, in the fem[in]ine gender, agree with (res),11 so that he meanes, what ever thing time prevails over [av] shou’d wholly perish & its matter faile. Lucretius his Latine runs this: Praetereà, quæ cunq vetustate amovet ætas, Si penitus perimit, consumens materiem omnem, Unde Animale genus, generatim in lumina vitæ Redducit Venus? &c.12 which ought to have been translated thus;

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Letter 7 ([1682?]) 57

Besides, what ever time removes from view, If he destroys the stock of matter too, From whence can kindly propagation spring Of every creature, & of every thing? I translated ^\it/ (whatever) purposely; to show that (thing) is to be understood;13 which as the words are heere plac’d, is so very perspicuous, that the Nominative case cannot be doubted. But The word, perish, usd by Mr Creech is a verb neuter; where Lucretius puts (perimit) which is active:14 a licence, which in trans=lating a philosophicall Poet, ought not to be taken, for some reasons, which I have not room to give. But, to comfort the looser, I am apt to believe, that the cross-graind, confusd verse put him so much out of patience, that he wou’d not take suspect it of any sence.15 Sir The company haveing done me so great an honour; as to make me their judge, I desire from you the favour, of presenting my acknowledgments to them; & shou’d be proud to heare from you, whether they rest satisfy’d in my opinion, who am, Sir Your most hum[br]ble Servant John Dryden 1. This letter does not appear in Malone but does in Scott, Works, Letter III; Ward, Letters, Letter 7. 2. The letter has been thought to be addressed to Anthony Stephens, the bookseller who published Thomas Creech’s translation of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura (1682) at the theatre in Oxford; Creech’s translation of the couplet in question in this letter changes between the first and third editions of this phenomenally successful publication in 1682 and 1683. Perhaps Stephens consulted Dryden about Creech’s version, and then Creech adapted his translation in response. However, although Creech’s translation changes, it does not change in a way that someone who has read Dryden’s critique would change it. The new version is, ‘If all things over which long years prevail, | Did wholly perish, and their matter fail’, which makes explicit the plural form in the Latin, which may or may not have been bothering Dryden, but continues to use the ‘neutral’ verb ‘perish’, ‘a licence, which in translating a philosophicall Poet, ought not to be taken’, as Dryden bluntly states. However, another letter survives alongside this, dated 7 May 1811 (Beinecke Library, Yale University, James and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Osborn Manuscripts, File 17581), and written by Malone, apparently to the husband of a Mrs Smith, who owned the Dryden letter as part of her ‘collection of autographs’. Malone had borrowed the letter as he was working on the projected second edition of Prose Works, and in return supplemented Mrs Smith’s collection with one of Alexander Pope’s receipts for his ‘translation of Homer’, although he expresses regret that he could not find any example of Shakespeare’s handwriting for her. Malone and Mrs Smith were kindred spirits: Malone’s enthusiasm for autographs was such that he even cut out examples from historical manuscripts. Malone’s

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58 The correspondence of John Dryden

letter also describes his conclusions about the addressee of Dryden’s letter. From what he had heard from the Smiths about where the letter originated, Malone has been able to ‘ascertain, almost without a chance of error’ [sic], that Dryden had addressed his letter to Francis Radcliffe, first Earl of Derwentwater, although it seems to have been addressed rather to Edward Radcliffe, second Earl of Derwentwater (1655–1705), a person from whom Dryden might reasonably have hoped for support and patronage (see Letter 28, note 4). Radcliffe was both a Catholic and a Jacobite; indeed, his son and heir, James Radcliffe, third Earl of Derwentwater (1689–1716), was executed after the Jacobite Rising of 1715, and his third son, Charles Radcliffe (1693–1746), was executed after the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Edward himself married Lady Mary Tudor, the illegitimate daughter of Charles II by Mary Davies, and all of this placed the Radcliffes very close to James II and the Jacobean court displaced by the Glorious Revolution. The letter is perhaps most likely to date to the family’s period of greatest influence during the reign of James II (1685–8), before which time Dryden converted to Catholicism. The key evidence on which Malone bases his identification is the provenance of the letter. The seat of the Radcliffes was at Dilston Hall in Northumberland, and Malone writes that it was at Dilston, ‘in a box containing papers of the Derwentwater family’ – or possibly he means in a box containing papers of the Derwentwater family from Dilston – that the letter had been found. Malone confuses Edward Radcliffe’s name with that of his father, Francis, but if the detail about the box at Dilston is to be believed, it is strong evidence of a connection with one of the Radcliffes, at least. Malone writes conclusively – ‘with certainty’ (Osborn Manuscripts, File 17581, c–d (cv)) – that the letter is addressed to Radcliffe. 3. Creech, T. Lucretius Carus, 9. Notably, by the third edition, these lines have been changed to ‘If all Things over which long Years prevail, | Did wholly perish, and their MATTER fail’ (Thomas Creech (transl.), Titus Lucretius Carus His Six Books of Epicurean Philosophy, Done into English Verse, With Notes (London: Printed for Anthony Stephens, bookseller near the Theatre in Oxford, 1683), 9, ll. 270–1), which answers some, but no means all, of Dryden’s objections. 4. That is, the verb ‘perish’ has no subject in the translation: what ‘shou’d wholly perish’? 5. ‘Appearing’ and ‘understood’ represent an important distinction in what follows, between words and concepts explicitly presented in the texts and words/concepts unstated but tacitly supplied. 6. OED, ‘notoriously, adv. †2. Manifestly, evidently, obviously. Obsolete.’ 7. That is, ‘could not have expressed himself less clearly if he had gone out of his way to do so’. 8. Dryden forgets to close this parenthesis. 9. Dryden disagrees with the translator’s interpretation of Lucretius’s Latin, and later in the letter construes the Latin differently (and correctly). 10. The whole clause ‘whatever years prevaile’ (which, demonstrating Dryden’s in­ consistent orthography, is later on the page written ‘what ever yearesprevaile’) is the subject of ‘perish’. 11. In broad terms, Dryden is saying that, if you cannot take the whole preceding clause as the subject of the singular verb ‘perimit’, then you have to assume that the translator understood Lucretius as leaving a singular subject of ‘perimit’ unstated, ‘illud’, ‘that thing’, or ‘quodcumque’, ‘whatever thing’, tacitly replacing ‘quaecumque’, ‘whatever things’. Dryden also contemplates feminine forms of the words (‘illa’, ‘quaecumque’), in each case qualifying the understood word ‘res’, ‘thing’, that is, fulfilling a similar role. He perhaps implies that the translator has confused ‘quaecumque’, a neuter plural, meaning ‘whatever things’, with ‘quaecumque (res)’, feminine singular, ‘whatever thing’, though the latter is a grammatically impossible form in Lucretius’s Latin.

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Letter 7 ([1682?]) 59

12. ‘Besides, if time consuming all the material there would be no supply of material for the creation and replenishment of things, utterly destroys whatever by lapse of years it removes, whence does Venus restore living creatures to the light of life each after its kind?’ (Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, 21). 13. That is, Dryden retains the translation ‘whatever’ to make it clear that ‘that thing’ is understood as the object of ‘perimit’; in the process he expresses Lucretius’s Latin in such a way that the true nominative of ‘perimit’ – time – is clear. 14. Creech translates the Latin ‘perimit’ as if it has the intransitive sense (in Dryden’s terms a ‘neuter’ sense, i.e. does not take an object) of ‘perishes’, when in fact it has the active sense ‘annihilates’, ‘destroys’; Dryden intimates that fidelity to such fine distinctions in the original language is essential when translating ‘philosophicall’ poetry, because that language is also expressing fine distinctions in argument. 15. It appears Dryden has been asked to adjudicate a gentleman’s wager on Creech’s two lines. Dryden rules that they are grammatical, but offers a spectrum of not necessarily compatible, or indeed in themselves persuasive, arguments in his support: namely, that Creech’s language is disordered – the subject of ‘shou’d […] perish’ is the whole preceding clause, that a subject for ‘shou’d […] perish’ is implied without being explicitly stated – and that Lucretius’s couplet is certainly grammatical if it is construed correctly (which Creech did not). Having judged that the passage makes grammatical sense, Dryden consoles the loser of the wager by insisting how perverse and confusing Creech’s translation is.

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Letters 8 and 9

Dryden attended Westminster School from 1644 to 1650: ‘[i]n deciding to send Dryden to Westminster, [the Rev. Thomas] Hill [Dryden’s local parson] and Dryden’s family in Titchmarsh reckoned that the quality of education to be had there outweighed the danger that the boy would be exposed to theological and political ideas unlike those in which they had reared him; by leaving [the school’s headmaster, Dr Richard] Busby in office, the Parliamentary committee made a similar judgment on a larger scale’.1 This was probably also in part because political business demanded the presence of his relatives, including his uncle Sir John Dryden and his cousin Sir Gilbert Pickering, in London, where his family already had rented residences. Both of these men were returned for the Long Parliament (3 November 1640–16 March 1660) and took an active part in its work for thirteen years. Possibly Dryden’s own personal safety was a consideration. ‘The influence of Westminster School in the intellectual life of the seventeenth century can scarcely be exaggerated’.2 Dryden sent his sons, Charles and John, to the School. These two letters attest to Dryden’s respect for Busby, but in the second also the influence he perceives – or at least projects – himself as having with members of Charles II’s court. 1. Winn, John Dryden, 39. 2. For a thorough account of Dryden’s time at Westminster and his relationship with the headmaster, Dr Richard Busby, evidenced here, see Winn, John Dryden, 36–57 (37).

Letters 8 and 9 61

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Figure 11. [Unknown artist,] Richard Busby, oil on canvas (after 1695), NPG 419. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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62 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 81 Dryden to Dr Richard Busby2

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, D779L, [1682?] to [Busby].

[recto] Honourd Sir

We have with much ado recoverd my younger Sonn,3 who came home extreamly sick of a violent cold, & as he thinkes him selfe, a chine=cough.4 The truth is his constitution is very tender; Yet his desire of learning, I hope, will inable him to brush through the College.5 He is allwayes gratefully acknow=ledging your fatherly kindnesse to him; & very willing to his poore power, to do all things which may continue it. I have no more to add, but onely to wish the Eldest6 may also deserve some part of your good opinion; for I believe him to be of vertuous & pious inclinations; & for both I dare assure you, that they can promise to them selves no farther share of my indulgence, then while they carry them selves with that reverence to you, & that honesty to all others as becomes them. I am Honourd Sir Your most Obedient Servant and Scholar John Dryden. Wednesday morning. [verso] For The Reverend Doctor Busby, This.7 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter III; Scott, Works, Letter IV; Ward, Letters, Letter 8. ‘John, our author’s second son, was admitted, a King’s Scholar, into the college of Westminster, in 1682. – Charles, the eldest, left the following year. On these grounds, I have added 1682, as the conjectural date of this letter’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.13, n3). 2. Dr Richard Busby (1606–95), schoolmaster, was elected from Westminster to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1624. He graduated BA on 21 October 1628 and proceeded MA on 18 June 1631. He remained as a tutor at the College until December 1640, when he was appointed headmaster of Westminster School at the instigation of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. On 19 October 1660 Oxford allowed him to

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Letter 8 ([1682?]) 63

proceed directly to the degree of DD. He bore the ampulla at Charles II’s coronation, as he would the orb at that of James II. He continued in office at Westminster until he was eightyfive; he died, unmarried, on 5 April 1695. He is buried in Westminster Abbey, beneath the marble pavement (itself his gift) of the choir. Busby’s reputation derives from more than simple longevity. It is based on solid classical learning, to which he added the magnetism of a great teacher, well attested by many of his pupils, who numbered among them Dryden, Robert Hooke, the scientist, John Locke, the philosopher, and Sir Christopher Wren, the architect. 3. That is, John. Although the record is unclear, John must have entered as a King’s Scholar at Westminster School in the summer of 1682, being elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1685 (see Joseph Welch, A List of Scholars of St. Peter’s College, Westminster, as They Were Elected to Christ Church College, Oxford, and Trinity College, Cambridge. From the Foundation by Queen Elizabeth, MDLXL to the Present Time (London: W. Ginger, J. Walter, J. Debrett, Messrs Rivington, Messrs Fletcher, Messrs Prince and Cooke, Messrs Merrill and J. Vowell, 1883), 66; and G. F. R. Barker and A. H. Stenning, The Record of Old Westminsters: A Biographical List of All Those who are Known to Have Been Educated at Westminster School from the Earliest Times to 1927, two vols (London: Chiswick Press, [after 1927]), 1.288–9). 4. OED, ‘chincough, n.’ ‘An epidemic distemper, especially of children, characterized by a violent and convulsive cough: now more commonly called hooping-cough.’ 5. That is, Westminster School. 6. That is, Charles Dryden, who had entered as a King’s Scholar at Westminster School in 1680, being elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1683 (Welch, A List, 64). 7. Malone reproduces a now lost letter to Busby from Dryden’s wife: ‘Ascension Day, [1682] |HONNORED SIR, | I Hope I need use noe other argument to you in excuse of my sonn for not coming to church in Westminster then this, that he now lies at home, and thearfore cannot easily goe soe far backwards and forwards. His father and I will take care that he shall duely goe to church heare, both on holydayes and Sundays, till he comes to be more nearly under your care in the college. In the mean time, will you pleas to give me leave to accuse you of forgetting your prommis conserning my eldest sonn; who, as you once assured me, was to have one night in a weeke alowed him to be at home, in considerasion both of his health and cleanliness. You know, Sir, that prommises mayd to women, and especially mothers, will never faill to be cald upon; and thearfore I will add noe more but that I am, at this time, your remembrancer, and allwayes, Honord Sir, | Your humble Servant, | E. Dryden’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.14, n4).

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64 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 91 Dryden to Dr Richard Busby

Manuscript: Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 64.

[64r] Sir, If I could have found in my selfe a fitting temper, to have waited on you, I had done it, the day you dismissd my Sonn from the College:2 for he did the message; and, by what I find ^\from/ by Mr Meredith,3 as it was deliverd by you to him: namely that you desird to see me; and had somewhat to say to me concerning him. I observ’d likewise somewhat of kindnesse in it, that you sent him away, that you might not have occasion to correct him. I examind the business; and found it concernd his haveing been Custos foure or five dayes together.4 But if he admonishd, and was not believd because other boyes combind to discredit him with false witnesseing, and to save them selves, perhaps his crime was not so great.5 Another fault it seemes he made which was goeing into one Hawkes6 his house with some others; which you hapning to see, sent your servant to know who they were; and he onely returnd you my Sonns name: so the rest escapd: I have no fault to find with my Sonns punishment; for that is and ought to be reserv’d to any Master, much more to you who have been his fathers. But your man was certainly to blame to name him onely; and tis onely my respect to you, that I do not take notice of it to him. My first rash resolutions were to have brought things past any composure, by immediately sending for my Sonns things out of the College:7 but upon recollection I find I have a double tye upon me not to do it. one my obligations to you for my Education: another my great tendernesse of doeing anything offensive to my Lord Bishop of Rochester, as chiefe Governour of the College.8 It does not consist with the honour I beare him and you, to go so precipitately to worke: no not so much as to have any difference with you, if it can possibly be avoided. ^\Yet/ As my Sonn stands now, I cannot see with what credit he can be elected:9 for being but sixth, and (as you are pleasd to judge,) not deserving that neither, I know not whether he may not go immediately to Cambridge, as well as one of his own Election went to Oxford this yeare by your consent.10 I will say nothing of my second Sonn,11 but [written down the left hand side of the sheet] that after you had been pleasd to advise me to waite on my Lord Bishop for his favour, I found he might have had the first place, if you had not

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Letter 9 ([1682?]) 65



opposd it: and I likewise found at the Election,12 that by the paines you had taken with him, he in some sort deservd it: I hope, Sir, when you have given your selfe the trouble to read thus farr, you, who are a prudent man, will consider, that none complaine, but they desire to be reconcild at the same time: there is no mild Expostulation at least, which does not intimate a kindnesse and respect in him who makes it. Be pleasd if there be no merit on my side. to make it your own act of grace to be what you were formerly to my Sonn. I have done something, so farr to conquer my own Spirit as to ask it: and, indeed, I know not with what face to go to My Lord Bishop and to tell him I am takeing away both my Sonns: for though I shall tell him no occasion; it will looke like a disrespect to my old Master; of which I will not be guilty if it be possible. I shall add no more, but hope I shall be so satisfyed with a favourable answer from you,13 which I promise to my selfe from your goodnesse and moderation, that I shall still have occasion to continue Sir Your most obligd humble Servant John Dryden. [64v] For The Reverend, Dr Busby. This. 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter IV; Scott, Works, Letter V; Ward, Letters, Letter 9. The circumstantial evidence of Charles Dryden’s and Robert Morgan’s elections to places at Oxford and Cambridge Universities ascertains when this letter was written, namely 1682 (see Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.17, n7; also Welch, A List, 64). 2. That is, Westminster School. Charles’s dismissal from Westminster School was apparently only a temporary suspension, for he was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted pensioner on 26 June 1683 (see Barker and Stenning, The Record, 1.288). 3. Unidentified. 4. The term ‘Custos’ relates to a position particular to Westminster School, and specific­ ally to punishments incurred for speaking English rather than Latin at the dinner table. ‘In the hall of the college of Westminster, when the boys are at dinner’, explains Malone, ‘it is ex officio the place of the second boy in the second election to keep order among the two under elections’. That is, the boy who ranked second in the competitive examinations undertaken for ‘election’ to the rank of ‘King’s Scholar’, and who is enjoying his third year in that position, acts as hall monitor to the King’s Scholars junior to him (‘juniors’ and the ‘first election’). Malone continues: ‘[I]f any word, after he has ordered silence, be spoken except in Latin, he says to the speaker, tu es CUSTOS [“you are GUARDIAN”]; and this term passes from the second speaker to the third or more, till dinner is over’. Boys deemed to be

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66 The correspondence of John Dryden

‘Custos’ were also given a token, mark, or tally: the thing of which they are now ‘guardian’, as it were. This boy could relieve himself of the token by detecting another boy committing the same offence, and passing it to him. There is a clear motivation for doing so: the boy left holding this token at the end of the dinner ‘has an imposition’, either a ‘A literary exercise or task imposed as a punishment at school or college’, or, as seems more likely in this period, a fine (see OED, ‘Imposition, n.’ 5. c; 5. a). Such fines are alluded to in the diary of Francis Lynn, who entered Westminster School in 1681, as ‘admonishing money’: hence Dryden’s use of the verb ‘admonishd’ in the next sentence. It is clearly unusual for the same boy to be named ‘Custos’ at the end of dinner for ‘foure or five dayes together’, and Dryden suggests foul play (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.16, n6; see also William Lucas Collins, The Public Schools: Winchester – Westminster – Shrewsbury – Harrow – Rugby; Notes of Their History and Traditions (Edinburgh; London: Blackwood and Sons, 1867), 116). 5. Dryden suggests that Charles, who, as ‘Custos’, could escape an ‘imposition’ only by accusing another pupil of speaking English out of turn before dinner ended, has been the victim of a conspiracy: though he ‘admonishd’ other boys, they chose not to believe or hear him, ‘to save them selves’. 6. Unidentified. 7. That is, Westminster School. 8. John Dolben (1625–86), Archbishop of York, was a King’s Scholar at Westminster from 1637 to 1640. He was first elected Bishop of Rochester in 1666, an office he held until his translation to the archbishopric of York in 1683. He was loyal to the court faction in Parliament. 9. That is, nominated to one of the School’s King’s Scholars’ places at Christ Church, Oxford, or Trinity College, Cambridge. 10. ‘The person meant was Robert Morgan, who was elected with Charles Dryden into the college of Westminster in 1680, and is the only one of those then admitted, who was elected to Oxford in 1682’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.17, n7). The ‘consent’ for which Dryden asks is Busby’s dispensation that his eldest son may ‘immediately’ be admitted to Cambridge, just as his son’s contemporary, Morgan – ‘one of his own Election’ – had been admitted to Oxford. 11. That is, John Dryden (son). 12. That is, of Dryden’s second son’s cohort of King’s Scholars. 13. If sent, it has not survived.

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Letter 10

This letter shows clearly Dryden’s mixing with members of the court on friendly terms – in this case probably Lawrence Hyde, first Earl of Rochester – the networks of patronage involved in the production of literature, his awareness of the mechanisms of government, and his solicitude for the reputation of other authors, in particular Abraham Cowley (with whom he shared a bookseller, Henry Herringman) and Samuel Butler, author of the phenomenally successful Hudibras: The First Part (London: Richard Marriot, 1663), Hudibras: The Second Part (London: John Martyn, 1664), and Hudibras: The Third and Last Part (London: Simon Miller, 1678), who yet died in straitened circumstance. Dryden’s court connections not only go to the very top of government but also to the royal family, to members of which he had dedicated works and at whose command – no less than the King’s – he wrote others, for example, The History of the League (1684), in the dedication of which he writes to Charles II of ‘HAVING receiv’d the Honour of Your Majesty’s Commands’.1 1. Dryden, The History of the League (London: Henry Herringman, 1684), A2r; California Edition, 18.3.

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68 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 12. Sir Godfrey Kneller, Lawrence Hyde, first Earl of Rochester, oil on canvas (1685), NPG 4033. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Letter 10 ([17 March 1683/4]) 69

Letter 101 Dryden to [Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester]2

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 17077, fol. 49.

[49r] My Lord

I know not whether my Lord Sunderland3 has interceded with your Lord=ship, for half a yeare of my salary:4 But I have two other Advocates, my extreame wants, even almost to arresting,5 & my ill health, which cannot be repaird without immediate retireing into the Country. A quarters allowance is but the Jesuites powder6 to my disease; the fitt will return a fortnight hence. If I durst I wou’d plead a little merit, & some hazards of my life from the Common Enemyes, my refuseing advantages offerd by them,7 & neglecting my beneficiall studyes8 for the Kings service:9 But I onely thinke I merite not to Sterve.10 I never applyd my selfe to any Interest contra=ry to your Lordships; and, on some occasions, perhaps not known to you, have not been unserviceable to the memory & reputation of My Lord your father.11 After this, My Lord, my conscience assures me I may write boldly, though I cannot speake to you. I have three Sonns growing to mans estate, I breed them all up to learning, beyond my fortune; but they are too hopefull to be neglected though I want. Be pleasd to looke on me with an eye of compassion; some small Employment wou’d render my condition easy. The King is not un=satisfyed of me, the Duke has often promisd me his assistance;12 & Your Lordship is the Conduit through which their favours passe. Either in the Customes, or the Appeales of the Excise, or some other way;13 meanes cannot be wanting if you please to have the will. Tis enough for one Age to have neglected Mr Cowley,14 and sterv’d Mr Buttler;15 but neither of them had the happiness to live till your Lordships Ministry. In the meane time be pleasd to give me a gracious and speedy answer to my present request of halfe a yeares pention for my necessityes. I am goeing to write somewhat by his Majestyes command,16 & cannot stir into the Country for my health and studies, till I secure my family from want. You have many petitions of this nature, & cannot satisfy all, but I

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70 The correspondence of John Dryden

hope from your goodness to be made an Exception to ^\your/ generall rules;17 because I am, with all sincerity, Your Lordships most obedient Humble Servant John Dryden. [49v] 17th March 1683/4 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter V; Scott, Works, Letter VI; Ward, Letters, Letter 10. Malone’s dating of this letter is ‘[Perhaps, August, 1683]’ (Prose Works, 1.2.19), although Ward, while inclined to agree with him, thinks it right for different reasons: ‘In the first sentence Dryden mentions Sunderland’s intercession on his behalf for a half-year’s salary. In this year Dryden seems to have been on friendly terms with Sunderland; for Evelyn records in his Diary under date of June 17, 1683: “I dined at the Earl of Sunderland’s with the Earls of Bath, Castlehaven, Lords Viscounts Falconberg, Falkland, Bishop of London, The Grand Master of Malta, brother of the Duke of Vendôme (a young wild spark), and Mr Dryden, the poet.” Furthermore, on August 22, 1683, Dryden was granted a payment of £75 on his pension – which may have been a partial answer to his plea.’ (See also Ward, ‘A biographical note’). 2. Lawrence Hyde, first Earl of Rochester (bap. 1642, d. 1711), politician, was the second son of Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon. He had been closely involved in the tortuous negotiations with the Dutch to make peace – alongside England – with Spain in the 1670s. He later became a courtier at Charles II’s court and on the fall of Danby, when the Treasury was put into commission, he was one of the commissioners appointed. As a lord of the Treasury, and later Lord Treasurer, he came to be identified with reforms which have earned for him a reputation for putting the royal finances on a more pro­fessional basis. During the debates on the Exclusion Bill (1680), Hyde came out in favour of ‘such limitations as may secure the Protestant religion’. He was raised to the peerage first as Viscount Hyde of Kenilworth in April 1681, and Earl of Rochester in November 1682. His favour with Charles led Dryden to praise him in Absalom and Achitophel as Hushai, ‘the friend of David in distress’, whose ‘frugal care supply’d the wanting throne’ (Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, 29; California Edition, 2.32 (l. 888)) (see W. A. Speck, ‘Hyde, Laurence, first Earl of Rochester (bap. 1642, d. 1711), politician’, ODNB, 29.146–52)). Dryden dedicated to Hyde The Duke of Guise (London: Jacob Tonson, 1683) (California Edition, 14.205–305) and Cleomenes, The Spartan Heroe (London: Jacob Tonson, 1692) (California Edition, 16.71–165). ‘Dryden’s unflagging loyalty to Clarendon, later transferred to his son Lawrence Hyde, may well reflect the poet’s recognition that Clarendon’s intercession with the King had made his marriage possible’ (Winn, John Dryden, 127). 3. Robert Spencer, second Earl of Sunderland (1641–1702), politician. The most political animal in late Stuart England, Robert Spencer was attracted into [the world of high politics] soon after his marriage [to Lady Ann Digby], when he attached himself to the earl of Arlington, a friend of his wife’s family. As long as the first Earl of Clarendon was in power Arlington’s influence was not an asset which could further his career, since the secretary of state led those who sought to remove the leading minister. After he succeeded in that task in 1667, however, his protégé could be advanced. In 1668 Arlington began to seek for Sunderland a diplomatic post, the usual appointment for an apprentice courtier.

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Letter 10 ([17 March 1683/4]) 71

In June 1670, following the conclusion of the secret treaty of Dover, Sunderland went to France to convey Charles II’s compliments to Louis XIV. Next year he went as envoy-­ extraordinary to Madrid, briefed with the task of preventing an alliance between the Dutch and the Spanish against the French. Although this was a useful experience of diplomacy it got nowhere, and Sunderland was relieved to be transferred to Paris from Madrid in May 1672. There he replaced Ralph Montagu as English ambassador. After spending time, and money, in Paris to little purpose Sunderland complained that the embassy was costing him too much. Although his complaints brought some financial relief from the Treasury, he was again relieved when, in March 1673, he received instructions to go as envoy to the Congress of Cologne. He never got there, however, being prevented by illness, which led him to ask to be discharged from his official duties, and to return to England in September. Shortly after his return Sunderland was made gentleman of the bedchamber with a salary of £1,000, though this was never paid in full. For an ambitious and spendthrift poli­tician neither the post nor the salary could be satisfactory. Now that his patron, Arlington, had fallen from favour Sunderland looked round for another, and found one in the King’s new mistress, Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth. ‘As I have always found your Lordship knew her better than any’, observed Danby in 1679, ‘so I found that nobody knew so well how to manage her’ (J. P. Kenyon, Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, 1641–1702 (London: Longman, Green & Co., 1958), 18n). His ability to manage her got him noticed not only by Danby but also by the King. Charles II used Sunderland as a go-between with the Duchess in 1675 when he recognized her son as his and ennobled the child as Duke of Richmond. In April 1677 and again in July 1678 Sunderland was employed as an envoy to Louis XIV. Though he failed to persuade the French King to renew his alliance with England, his diplomatic activities apparently impressed Charles II, for in February 1679 Sunderland became secretary of state (see W. A. Speck, ‘Spencer, Robert, second Earl of Sunderland (1641–1702), politician’, ODNB, 51.882–92 (883)). For a study of Sunderland’s life, see Kenyon, Robert Spencer. 4. As Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal. 5. See OED, ‘arrest’ v. 12, ‘To seize (property) by legal warrant’, that is, in settlement of debt. 6. That is, quinine. 7. ‘Dryden’s comment here suggests that after his satires in 1681 and 1682 the Whigs had attempted to bribe him for their support. There is, so far as I know, no corroboration for such suggestion’ (Ward, Letters, 152, n2). 8. Possibly his studies for his translation of Louis Maimbourg’s Histoire de la ligue (Paris: Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1683). 9. Dryden’s office as Historiographer Royal was no empty title, for his interest in historiography was wide-ranging. His version of Maimbourg’s Histoire as The History of the League (1684) (California Edition, 18) was translated at the command of Charles II (see Hammond, ‘Dryden’, 1023). 10. Here and later in the letter, Dryden uses a spelling of starve which was fading but not quite obsolete. It appears in the closing line of his recent The Vindication [of The Duke of Guise] (London: Jacob Tonson, 1683, 60; California Edition, 14.357) and in his translations that year of the first satires of both Juvenal and Persius (published in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis: Translated into English Verse […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus (London: Jacob Tonson, 1693), 7, 14; California Edition, 4.99, 274). His use of the rhyme and trope of deserve/sterve recurs in The Hind and the Panther: ‘Wrong conscience, or no conscience may deserve | To thrive, but ours alone is privileg’d to sterve’ (The Hind and the Panther: A Poem in Three Parts (London: Jacob Tonson, 1687), 115; California Edition, 3.183).

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72 The correspondence of John Dryden

11. That is, the Earl of Clarendon. Dryden possibly alludes here to his verses To My Lord Chancellor (California Edition, 1.32–42), although Ward conjectures a more recent work or tribute, now unknown (see Ward, Letters, 152, n3). 12. That is, the Duke of York, the future James II. Dryden had dedicated Annus Mirabilis (London: Henry Herringman, 1667) (California Edition, 1.47–105) to him. More recently, with his ‘Prologue to His Royal Highness upon His first appearance at the Duke’s Theatre since his Return from Scotland’, Dryden had welcomed the Duke of York back from his pseudo-exile in Scotland, where he had been keeping out of the way while the government dealt with the campaign to exclude him from the succession. This prologue was first read on 21 April 1682, before a performance of Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d; Or, The Plot Discoverd (London: Jos. Hindmarsh, 1682). This was the day after the Duke had been entertained with a lavish dinner put on by city Tories, and the same day that a ‘counter’ dinner was arranged by the Whigs but summarily cancelled by royal command (see California Edition, 2.193–4). Of course, in Absalom and Achitophel and The Medal Dryden had been active in countering the exclusion campaign and the Whig opposition more generally. 13. Dryden was not appointed to either of these positions (see Charles E. Ward, ‘Was John Dryden Collector of Customs?’, Modern Language Notes, 67 (1932), 246–9, and Bredvold, ‘Notes on John Dryden’s pension’). Malone points out that Joseph Addison held the position of Collector of Customs which Dryden here solicits – said to be worth ‘only £200 a year’ – which Addison used to call ‘that little thing given me by Lord Halifax’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.20, n2). 14. Abraham Cowley (1618–67), poet. Cowley was a Royalist, who published his Poems: viz. I. Miscellanies. II. The Mistress, Or, Love Verses. III. Pindarique Odes. And IV. Davideis, Or, A Sacred Poem of the Troubles of David (London: Humphrey Moseley, 1656) during the first Protectorate. Unfortunately, the Preface to Poems contains a passage which Cowley would have cause to regret. Speaking of the omission of the political poems and the unfinished Civil War, Cowley observes that it is now time for the conquered to set such things aside, to abandon the cause for which they have so long contended, to acquiesce in the mercy accorded by the victorious side. Thomas Sprat omits this in the reprinted Preface in the posthumous edition The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley (London: Henry Herringman, 1668) and defends it in his own prefatory ‘Account of the Life and Writings’. Nonetheless, Cowley’s appeasement was held against him after the Restoration. On 16 December 1661, Sir William Davenant produced a revised and retitled version of Cowley’s The Guardian: A Comedy (London: John Holden, 1650) under the new title Cutter of Coleman-Street (London: Henry Herringman, 1663) at the Duke’s Theatre, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Cowley’s preface states that on the opening night it received a hostile reception from part of the audience, who affected to see a satire upon the cavaliers. ‘The Complaint’, his verse appeal for patronage in Verses, Written Upon Several Occasions (London: Henry Herringman, 1663), had no effect upon Charles II, but he was supported by Henry Jermyn, by then Earl of St Albans, and George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. Cowley died on 28 July 1667. Learning of his death, Charles II observed that he had not left a better man behind him in England, and he was accorded the most lavish funeral which had ever been given to a man of letters in England, being buried on 3 August in Westminster Abbey, next to Chaucer and Spenser. His monument, erected by Buckingham, proclaims him ‘Anglorum Pindarus, Flaccus, Maro, Deliciae, Decus, Desiderium aevi sui’ (‘The Pindar, Horace, and Virgil of the English, the glory and favourite of his age’) (see Alexander Lindsay, ‘Cowley, Abraham (1618–67), poet’, ODNB, 13.788–91 (789, 790, 790–1)). For a study of Cowley’s life and works, see Arthur H. Nethercot, Abraham Cowley: The Muse’s Hannibal (London: Oxford University Press, 1931). 15. Samuel Butler (bap. 1613, d. 1680), poet. Author of Hudibras: The First Part, Hudibras: The Second Part, and Hudibras: The Third and Last Part. In later life he lived in

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Letter 10 ([17 March 1683/4]) 73

straitened circumstances: in 1680 he was lodging in Rose Street, Covent Garden, earlier described as ‘fitt for mechanicks only and persons of meane qualitie’. The King gave him £20 in 1680, the year of his death (see Hugh de Quehen, ‘Butler, Samuel (bap. 1613, d. 1680), poet’, ODNB, 9.209–12 (211)). For a critical edition of Butler’s most famous poem, see John Wilders and Hugh de Quehen (eds), Hudibras Parts I and II and Selected Other Writings (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973). 16. Dryden’s The History of the League was registered in the Stationers’ Register on 2 April 1684, advertised in the press on 16 April, in the Observator, II, no. 45, and published on 31 July (see the London Gazette, 28–31 July 1684, issue no. 1951). In dedicating the book to the King, Dryden mentions in the title the fact that Charles had commanded the translation; in the Stationers’ Register it is said to be ‘Englished by his Majesties express command’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.20, n3). 17. In his dedication of 1692’s Cleomenes to Rochester, Dryden would write, ‘Your goodness has not been wanting to me during the reign of my two masters: and even from a bare treasury, my success has been contrary to that of Mr. Cowley; and Gideon’s fleece has been moistened, when all the ground has been dry about it’ (sig. A3v; California Edition, 16.75).

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Letter 11

From 18 August 1670 Dryden held the appointment of Historiographer Royal and was for this reason chosen by Charles II to translate Louis Maimbourg’s Histoire de la ligue (1683). The background to this particular letter is that Miscellany Poems, the first of the so-called ‘Dryden–Tonson miscellanies’, for which Dryden was probably an ‘advisor’ (MacDonald, John Dryden, 42ai–ii, 67) rather than an ‘editor’ (although see Gillespie and Hopkins, The Dryden–Tonson Miscellanies, ‘Introduction’), had been published in February of this year (see Winn, John Dryden, 388). ‘To the Memory of Mr. Oldham’, one of Dryden’s finest elegies, was to be published in November this year, although not by Tonson (see John Oldham, Remains of Mr. John Oldham (London: Jo. Hindmarsh, 1684), [no sig.]). The letter was presumably sent from London to Tonson’s shop at Gray’s Inn Gate, London.1

1. One consequence of his successful association with Dryden and other popular poets and playwrights was that ‘Tonson was to move his premises a number of times during the course of his career: first, to a site near the Inner Temple Gate in Fleet Street, then, in 1698, to his brother’s former shop at Gray’s Inn Gate. In 1709, he changed his sign to that of the Shakespeare’s Head and moved to his final premises “over against Catherine Street in the Strand”. This shows an upward trajectory, placing him near the Royal Exchange and the more fashionable – and profitable – districts of early eighteenth century London’ (Bernard, The Literary Correspondences, 8).

Letter 11 ([c. August/September 1684]) 75

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Figure 13. Sir Godfrey Kneller, Mr. Jacob Tonson, oil on canvas (1717), NPG 3230. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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76 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 111 Dryden to Jacob Tonson2

Manuscript: British Library, Egerton MSS 2869, fols 1–2.

[c. August/September 1684]3 [1r] 

Monday Morn:

Mr Tonson The two Melons4 you sent I receivd before your letter, which came foure ^\houres/ after: I tasted one of them, which was too good to need an excuse; the other is yet untouchd. You have written diverse things which gave me great satisfaction; particularly that the History of the League is commended: & I hope the onely thing I feard in it, is not found out.5 take it all together, & I dare say without vanity ’tis the best translation of any History in English, though I cannot say ’tis the best History; but that is no fault of mine. I am glad My Lord Duke of Ormond6 has one: I did not forget him; but I thought his sorrows were too fresh upon him, to send ^\receive/ a present of that nature.7 For my Lord Roscomons Essay, I am of your opinion, that you shou’d reprint it, & that you may, safely venture on a thousand more.8 in my verses before it, pray let the printer mend his errour, & let the line stand thus, That heer his Conque’ring Ancestors were nursd:–9 Charles his copy is all true.10 The other faults my Lord Rosco=mon will mend in the booke, or Mr. Chetwood11 for him, if my Lord be gone for Ireland: of which, pray send me word.12 Your opinion of the Miscellanyes is likewise mine: I will for once lay by the Religio Laici, till another time.13 But I must also add, that since we are to have nothing but new, I am resolvd we will have nothing but good, whomsever we disoblige.14 You will have of mine four odes of Horace which I have already translated, another small translation of forty lines from Lucretius:15 the whole story of Nisus & Eurialus, both in the fifth, & the ninth of Virgils Eneids; & I care not who translates them beside me, for let him be friend or foe, I will please my self, & not give off in consideration of any man. there will be forty lines more of Virgil

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Letter 11 ([c. August/September 1684]) 77



in another place; to answer those of Lucretius; I meane those very lines which Montaign has compar’d in those two poets:16 & Homer shall sleep on for me: I will not now meddle with him.17 and for the Act wch remaines of the opera,18 I believe I [2v] [written down the page] shall have no leysure to mind it after I have done what I proposd: for my business heere is to unweary my selfe, after my studyes, not to drudge: I am very glad you have payd Mr. Jones, because he has carryed him selfe so gentlemanlike to me. & if ever it lyes in my power I will requite it.19 I [MS damaged] I desire to know whether the Dukes house20 are makeing cloaths & putting things in a readiness for the singing Opera, to be playd immediately after Michaelmasse:21 for the Actors in the two playes,22 which are to be acted of mine this winter, I had spoken with Mr. Betterton23 by chance at the Coffee house the afternoon before I came away: & I believe that the persons were all agreed on, to be just the same you mentiond: Only Octavia24 was to be Mrs. Buttler, in case Mrs. Cooke were not on the Stage. And I know not whether Mrs. Percivall, who is a Comedian, will do ^\so/ well for Benzayda.25 I came hether26 for health, & had a kind of Hectique feavour for a fortnight of the time: I am now much better. poore Jack27 is not yet recoverd of an intermitting feavour, of which this is the twelfth day: but he mends, & now begins to eat flesh: to add to this, my man with overcare of him, is fallen ill too, of the same distemper; so that I am deep in Doctors, ’p[ot]hecaryes, & Nurses: but though many in this Country fall sick of feavours, few or none dye. Your friend Charles continues well.28 if you have any extraordinary newes I shoud be glad to heare it. I will answer Mr. Buttlers letter next week; for it requires no hast.29 I am Yours

John Dryden.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter VI; Scott, Works, Letter VII; Ward, Letters, Letter 11. 2. Jacob Tonson the elder (1656–1736), bookseller, was one of the most significant booksellers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In 1678 he borrowed £20 from Abel Swalle to purchase the copyright to Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida, Or, Truth Found Too Late. A Tragedy (London: Jacob Tonson, 1679) (California Edition, 13.217–355) and thus began a relationship with the then Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal which was to last beyond the loss of Dryden’s royal appointments until his death: Tonson was almost exclusively Dryden’s publisher during this period, and the publisher of the first

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78 The correspondence of John Dryden

edition of his Works (1693). For an analysis of why Dryden changed his bookseller at this time, see Bernard, ‘Henry Herringman, Jacob Tonson, and John Dryden’, 274–7. Anybody could have come along and made the triumvirate of outstanding early modern poets – William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton – the core of the English literary canon: but it was Tonson who did it. He made writers like Dryden, Sir John Vanbrugh, Pope, and Addison household names. To be published by Tonson was to come with the imprimatur of literary excellence in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. What he did was nothing short of remarkable. The literary canon of the time – largely male – is the list of publications which came from Tonson’s press. He was a fervent Whig and the founder and secretary of the Whig Kit-Cat Club (c. 1698–1718). He counted literary and political giants among his friends and benefited from their patronage; for example, he was the printer of the government’s London Gazette from 1707 to 1715 (see Bernard, The Literary Correspondences, 42–3). He dined with the highest in the land and they treated him as an equal. The son of a barber-surgeon, he had an incredible career and, later, a happy retirement. It has been said of his publications and those of his predecessor in the publication of belles-lettres, Henry Herringman, that ‘[t]he lists of Henry Herringman and Jacob Tonson are in themselves almost a late seventeenth-century canon’ (Paul Hammond, ‘The Restoration poetic and dramatic canon’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume IV, ed. John Barnard and D. F. McKenzie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 388–409 (391)). He is credited with the creation of ‘Whig literary culture’. Abigail Williams writes that Tonson was central to the creation of ‘Whig literary culture’, arguing that his publication of the Cambridge uniform edition of the classics (1699–1702) and his ‘Elzevier’ editions (1713 onwards) were a part of his determining role at the centre of ‘Whig’ literary culture. These editions – of Addison’s Cato, The Campaign, and Rosamund (all 1713), and Thomas Tickell’s A Poem […] on the Prospect of Peace ([1712] 1713) – were, as David Foxon makes clear in writing of the ‘set’, ‘the English classics’, concluding that ‘[b]oth the Elzevier series and the Commentaries [C. Julii Caesaris Quae Extant] publication should be seen as part of the wider movement to forge a distinct cultural identity for Whiggism’ and that Tonson was used ‘to fund a post-Revolution rebirth of native artistic achievement’ (Williams, Poetry, 227). Although the subject of four biographies, the best account of Tonson’s life remains Kathleen M. Lynch, Jacob Tonson: Kit-Cat Publisher (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971). 3. This is the date given in Ward, Letters (152, headnote), presumably because The History of the League was published in July 1684 (see London Gazette, 28–31 July 1684, issue no. 1951). Peter Beal in his Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts, 1450–1700 gives the date as late as September, as did Malone (see http://www.celm-ms.org.uk/introductions/ DrydenJohn.html, accessed 23 April 2021). 4. In Britain, by the end of the seventeenth century, the cultivation of melons was – perhaps surprisingly – widespread in glasshouse hot beds made up with manure, which during fermentation provided the necessary heat. 5. The History of the League (1684) was an account of the events dramatized by Dryden in The Duke of Guise (1683); it is unknown what Dryden feared in it to have been found out. Malone (Prose Works, 1.1.186 and 2.427) chided Samuel Johnson (1709–84) for assuming that the Maimboug’s Histoire de la ligue was translated for ‘promoting popery’, but that is only one reading, as Alan Roper and Vinton A. Dearing point out (California Edition, 18.462). In fact, Dryden may simply be referring to being ‘found out’ for the central problem of ‘providential’ history: its manifold application. That said, the ‘War of the Reunions’ (1683–4) between France and Spain was concluded at about this time and there may have been some delicacy involved in translating the text for a British readership, as Charles II had recently adopted a policy of non-intervention in European affairs.

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Letter 11 ([c. August/September 1684]) 79

6. James Butler, Duke of Ormond (1610–88), was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for substantial periods between 1662 and Charles II’s death in February 1685. 7. As Malone suggests, Ormond’s wife – Elizabeth Butler, Duchess of Ormond and suo jure Lady Dingwall (1615–84) – died on 21 July (see also M. Perceval-Maxwell, ‘Butler [neé [sic] Preston], Elizabeth, duchess of Ormond and suo jure Lady Dingwall (1615–1684)’, ODNB, 9.130–1). For an account of the Duke and his Duchess, see Jane Fenlon, ‘Episodes of magnificence: the material worlds of the Dukes of Ormonde’, in The Dukes of Ormonde, 1610–1745, ed. T. C. Barnard and Jane Fenlon (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000), 137–59. For Dryden’s relationship with the Butlers of Ormond over four decades, see Jane Ohlmeyer and Steven N. Zwicker, ‘John Dryden, the house of Ormond, and the politics of Anglo-Irish patronage’, Historical Journal, 49:3 (2006), 677–706. 8. ‘The first edition of Lord Roscommon’s [sic] “Essay on Translated Verse” appeared in 1684, and a second edition was published by Jacob Tonson in 4to. probably about Christmas, in the same year, though it is dated 1685. This nobleman died in January, 1684–5’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.22, n5). 9. Originally, the line stood thus: ‘That here his conquering Ancestors was nurst;’ (John Dryden, ‘To the Earl of Roscomon, on his Excellent Essay on Translated Verse’, in Wentworth Dillon, fourth Earl of Roscomon, An Essay on Translated Verse (London: J. Tonson, 1684), sig. Ar). 10. Charles Dryden contributed a commendatory Latin verse to Roscomon’s An Essay on Translated Verse. 11. The Very Rev. Dr Knightly Chetwood (bap. 1650, d. 1720), (later) Dean of Gloucester. As Ward notes, he contributed a ‘Life’ of Virgil to Dryden’s The Works of Virgil (1697), 5–22 (Ward, Letters, 153, n4). Chetwood wrote a manuscript life of Roscomon (Cambridge University Library, MS Mm.1.47, 27–44) and a commendatory poem to his An Essay on Translated Verse. 12. Roscomon had duties both in England and Ireland. In 1684, he sought the post of Master of the Ordnance in Ireland. 13. Dryden’s Religio Laici could not be included in this volume of the ‘Dryden–Tonson miscellanies’ as it had already been printed. 14. Dryden refers to the second of the ‘Dryden–Tonson miscellanies’: Sylvæ: Or, The Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies (London: Jacob Tonson, 1685) (California Edition, 3.2–90); the first, Miscellany Poems, had been published a year earlier. 15. That is, from the beginning of Book 1 of Titus Lucretius Carus (99–55 bc), De Rerum Natura; this was clearly the portion translated first. 16. See Michel de Montaigne, ‘On some lines of Virgil’, in Michael de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, transl. and ed. with an introduction and notes by M. A. Screech (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991), 947–1016 (986–7); the lines being referred to are Venus to Vulcan (Aeneid VIII, which Montaigne had explicitly compared with Lucretius’s exordium (see California Edition, 3.42–3)). Two volumes of Charles Cotton’s translation of Montaigne (Michael de Montaigne, Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne: In Three Books. With Marginal Notes and Quotations of the Cited Authors. And an Account of the Author’s Life, three vols (London: Printed for T. Basset and M. Gilliflower and W. Hensman, 1685[–6])) appeared in the same year as Sylvæ and are possibly echoed in Dryden’s translations. 17. Dryden lists the poems he intends to contribute to Sylvæ, although, as Ward points out, this was less than his eventual contribution (Ward, Letters, 153n). Dryden did return to Homer in his Fables Ancient and Modern (1700) (California Edition, 7.15–532). 18. That is, Albion and Albanius: An Opera (London: Jacob Tonson, 1685) (California Edition, 15.1–55). Designed to celebrate Charles II’s triumph over the Whigs, this opera

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80 The correspondence of John Dryden

was rehearsed before him and praised by him, but he died while it was being prepared for the stage (Lynch, Jacob Tonson, 23–4). It was first performed at Dorset Garden in 1685: ‘Wednesday 3 June 1685. The United Company […] The King and Queene & a Box for ye Maydes of Honor at the Opera […]’. The opera was certainly given on 3 June, probably on 10 June, and probably on 13 June, the day that the news that the Duke of Monmouth’s landing reached London. Downes states that it was acted six times, and that there were three additional performances between 3 and 13 June 1685 (Downes [John Downes], Roscius Anglicanus ([London]: Messrs Egerton, Whitehall, Messrs Cox and Philipson, R. Ryan, H. D. Symonds, and W. Richardson, 1789), 40). Downes goes on: ‘In Anno 1695. The Opera of Albion and Albanius was perform’d; wrote by Mr Dryden, and Compos’d by Monsieur Grabue: This being perform’d on a very Unlucky Day, being the Day the Duke of Monmouth, Landed in the West: The Nation being in a great Consternation, it was perform’d but Six times, which not Answering half the Charge they were at, Involv’d the Company very much in Debt’ (van Lennep et al., The London Stage, 1.337, and Ward, Letters, 153, n7). 19. According to David Foxon, Edward Jones was one of the printers with whom Jacob Tonson worked. David F. Foxon, Pope and the Early Eighteenth Century Book Trade, rev. and ed. James McLaverty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 13n and 17. 20. That is, the Duke’s Theatre at Dorset Garden. 21. Dryden’s libretto for King Arthur (London: Jacob Tonson, 1691) (California Edition, 16.1–69), his collaboration with Henry Purcell (1659–95), organist and composer, was completed in the autumn of 1684, although it was not to be produced for another seven years. 22. All for Love and Almanzor and Almahide (see Ward, Letters, 154, n10). 23. Thomas Betterton (bap. 1635, d. 1710), actor and theatre manager, was the pre-eminent actor and manager of his age. In 1683 he had been dispatched to France by Charles II to procure the means to produce Dryden’s opera. It was eventually staged for James II, at a great loss to Betterton. 24. That is, Octavia from Dryden’s All for Love. 25. Charlotte Butler (fl. 1674–93), actress and singer; Sarah Cooke and Susanna Perceval were also actresses (Ward, Letters, 154n); Benzayda is one of the lovers in Almanzor and Almahide (California Edition, 11.1–218); in 1684 she was played by Mrs Bowtell (see van Lennep et al., The London Stage, 1.177). 26. Dryden went to Northamptonshire in the midsummer of 1684 (see Winn, John Dryden, 395). 27. John Dryden (son). 28. Dryden’s son Charles, demonstrating the extent to which Tonson was involved with Dryden’s family. 29. Unidentified. This letter does not survive. Mrs Butler was to act and sing the airy spirit Philidel in King Arthur. She appears to have spent five years (1684–9) off the stage (see Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson, ‘Butler, Charlotte (fl. 1674–93)’, ODNB, 9.122).

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Letter 12

This letter is the first extant letter from William Walsh to Dryden and obviously the first letter he ever sent to him, having ‘great occasions to make apologies yt trouble you in this kind, without having the honour of beeing known to you, or owning my Self’. Dryden was the leader of the ‘Wits’ at Will’s coffee house, Russell Street, Covent Garden, at this time and a renowned arbiter of taste and judgement in literary matters.1 Walsh was just embarking on his literary career and seeking the patronage of Dryden for his literary works. It is to be supposed that Dryden often received letters of this kind.2 Dryden operated in many circles of patronage: European, royal, aristocratic, trade, and literary. It is one of the great losses to our understanding of patronage and literary culture in the second half of the seventeenth century that so few letters of this type survive, particularly given the contradictory nature of some of Dryden’s stylistic advice, the inclusion of himself in such criticisms, and the humane and human reminder that at least once Dryden writes he is ‘calld to dinner’ and possibly repents at leisure what he had written in haste.3 1. To follow the trajectory of Dryden’s career to this date, one need only consider the titles of the chapters in Winn’s John Dryden: ‘“Draydon the Poet and all the Wits of the Town” 1661–1665’; ‘“To Delight the Age in which I Live” 1665–1669’; ‘“Success, Which Can no More than Beauty Last” 1669–1673’; ‘“Another Taste of Wit” 1673–1676’; ‘The “Bowe of Ulysses” 1676–1679’; and ‘The Tory Satirist 1680–1683’. 2. See Letters 72 and 73, to Elizabeth Thomas. 3. See Letter 17.

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82 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 14. Sir Godfrey Kneller, William Walsh, oil on canvas (c. 1708), NPG 3232. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Letter 12 ([Later than 1686]) 83



Letter 121 [William Walsh]2 to Dryden

Manuscript: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Mal 9, fol. 70b.



To Mr. Dryden.

I confess Sir I have great occasions to make apologies yt trouble you in this kind, without having the honour of beeing known to you, or owning my Self. However I trust yor goodness will pardon it, since ’tis ye opinion of yor Judgment yt causes you the trouble, and the little opinion of my own yt makes mee conceal my Self. I can only assure ^\you/ yt I have not so little, as to think I ought to set ^\any great/ value my self much upon these Compositions;3 the faults are too palpable even to my self, and as they must appear much plainer to so good a Judge as your Self ^\are/, so deal frankly with me Sir & let me know without any complement your real thoughts of ’em: in which I can assure you, you will very much oblidge Sr Your St 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter VI; Scott, Works, Letter VII; Ward, Letters, Letter 12. Like most of Walsh’s letters, it is a draft, and undated and unsigned; however, ‘the date is determined by references [elsewhere in the drafts of letters and poems in the eighty-three leaves of Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Mal 9] to events which occurred in 1686, such as the deaths of Walsh’s brother Walter and sister Katherine’ (Phyllis Freeman, ‘William Walsh and Dryden: recently recovered letters’, Review of English Studies, 24:95 (1948), 195–202 (195, n3)). 2. William Walsh (bap. 1662, d. 1708) was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, and Middle Temple. He took no degree, but, following the death of his father in 1682, lived partly as a county gentleman and partly as a ‘conspicuously well-dressed amourous beau’ in London (see James Sambrook, ‘Walsh, William (bap. 1662, d. 1708), poet’, ODNB, 57.121–2 (121)). Walsh joined Dryden’s circle at Will’s coffee house in Covent Garden, Dryden correcting his verse and writing a eulogistic preface to his prose Dialogue Concerning Women (London: R. Bentley and J. Tonson, 1691). His next publication was Letters and Poems, Amourous and Gallant (London: Jacob Tonson, 1692). Dryden, in the postscript to his sumptuous folio edition of The Works of Virgil (1697) (California Edition, 5–6), called Walsh ‘without flattery, the best Critick of our Nation’ (sig. Hhhhv; California Edition, 6.809). For an account of Walsh’s life and writings, see P. C. [i.e. Phyllis] Freeman, ‘William Walsh (1662–1708): a survey of his life and writings, with a special study of Bodleian MS. Malone 9’ (unpublished MLitt thesis, University of Oxford, 1934). 3. Now lost.

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Letters 13 and 14

Dryden’s letter to Sir George Etherege (Letter 13) touches very closely on both matters of state and the state of the world of men of letters. His language is informal and at one point downright offensive, as befits the recipient of the letter, a notorious rake. ‘[A]t its centre is the figure that Dryden fashioned himself as a negligent correspondent, a man so lazy he could hardly be bothered to sign his own name’.1 The letter shows how personal matters intermingled with public affairs and how audiences and the reading public tried to gain access to knowledge of the court and literary affairs through their attendance at public events (plays) and their reading of public works (poetry and drama). Etherege’s reply to Dryden (Letter 14) doubts that Dryden is as truly idle as his letter would make him out to be and as his own letterbooks show him not to have been. The evidence is all against it: ‘You know I am no flatterer, & therefore will excuse me, when I tell you, I cannot endure you shou’d arrogate a thing to yourself you have not the least pretence to’. He shows an easy familiarity with Dryden and essentially gossips about their common friends and the men of state whom they both know. He also shows a familiarity with the affairs of Dryden’s son Charles, which might attest to a longer correspondence, now lost. There is no known surviving image of him. Both letters are transcribed from the copies in Etherege’s letterbook made by his secretary Hugo Jones in early March 1687.2 Jones uses ‘=’ for line-end ­hyphenation (his lineation will not follow either Dryden’s or Etherege’s, of course). He fills the end of his lines with dashes, which are not recorded here. 1. Zwicker, John Dryden, 774. 2. See Beal, Catalogue, http://www.celm-ms.org.uk/repositories/british-libraryadditional-10000.html (accessed 23 April 2021).

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Letter 13 (16 February 1686/7) 85

Letter 131 Dryden to Sir George Etherege2

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 11513, fols 179–80.

[179v] 

London, Feb. 16.th 87

A guilty man, you know Sr naturally avoids one who can convince him of his faults, & I acknow=ledge myself to be of that number. for which reason I have not dared in three weeks time Since your last letter3 lay by me, yet to open it. for my conscience tells me, that tho’ you may express yourself with all imaginable civility, & I believe kindness too, yet there must be some=what of upbraiding me for my neglect, which I will not go about to excuse, because I cannot. ’tis a blott, and you may enter, if you will. not forgive an oversight, wch you may Safely do & win the game afterwards in good writing. for I will never enter the lists4 in Prose with the undoubted best Author of it wch our nation has produc’d. Therefore O thou immortall source of Idleness (5you see I [180r] I am ready to make prayers to you, and in=voke you by your darling attribute, pardon a poor creature who is your image, & whom no gratitude, no consideration of friendship no letters tho’ never so elegantly written can oblige to take up the penn, tho’ it be but to manage it half an hour. for while I am writing this, I have layd it down and almost concluded with an imperfect sentence I am almost lazy enough to get a Stamp for my name like the King of France6 wch indeed wou’d be to be great in idleness I have made my Court to the King once in seaven moneths, have seen my Lord Cham=berlain7 full as often. I believe if they think of me at all, they imagine I am very proud but I am gloriously lazy. I have a Sonn whom I love intirely, with my Lord Middleton8 but I never thank him for his kindness for fear of opening my mouth. I might probably get something at Court, but my Lord Sunderland9 I imagine thinks me dead while I am silently wishing him all prospe=rity. for wishes cost me no more than thinkng In short without Apoplexy, Wycherleys long sickness I forget every thing to enjoy nothing that is myself.10 can you expect news from ^\out/ of Covent Garden from such a man? The Coffee=house11 Stands certainly where it did, & angry men meet in the Square12 sometimes, as [180v] Abercomy, and Goodman lately did.13 where they say Alexander the great was wounded in the arme.14 by which you may note, he had better have been idle. I cannot help

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86 The correspondence of John Dryden

hearing, that white Sticks change their Masters,15 & yt officers of ye Army are not immortall in their places be=cause the King finds they will not vote for him in the next Sessions.16 Oh that our Monarch17 wou’d encourage noble idleness by his own exam=ple, as he of blessed memory did before him18 for my minde misgives me, that he will not much advance his affaires by Stirring19 I was going on but am glad to be admonishd by the paper.20 ask me not of Love. for every man hates every man perfectly, & women are still the Same Bitches. but after all I will contradict myself and come off with an exception as to my own particular, who am as much as idleness will dispence with me. Sr. Your most faithfull Servant John Dryden.

1. Ward, Letters, Letter 13; Zwicker, John Dryden, 414–15. 2. Etherege was originally a lawyer at Clement’s Inn, but moved, with a modest inherit­ ance of £40 a year, into literary and rakish circles. By 1663 he had made the acquaintance of Lord Buckhurst, later Earl of Dorset and an important literary patron. Etherege dedicated his first play, The Comical Revenge, Or, Love in a Tub (London: Henry Herringman, 1664), to Buckhurst. The cast was a strong one and the production by the Duke’s Company at Lincoln’s Inn Fields was a succès d’estime. John Downes, its prompter, later recalled, ‘The clean and well performance of this Comedy, got the Company more Reputation and Profit than any preceding Comedy; the Company taking in a Months time at it 1000l’. Etherege’s second play, She Wou’d if she Cou’d, a Comedy (London: Henry Herringman, 1668), was first performed on 6 February 1668, again by the Duke’s Company at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Herringman, who registered the play on 24 June, was once more Etherege’s publisher. Despite a strong cast and a capacity audience, the first performance was disastrous. The King was in the audience along with much of the court. Samuel Pepys records: ‘I to the Duke of York’s playhouse; where a new play of Etherige’s, called ‘She Would if she Could’; and though I was there by two o’clock, there was 1000 people put back that could not have room in the pit: and I at last, because my wife was there, made shift to get into the 18d. box, and there saw; but Lord! how full was the house, and how silly the play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few people pleased in it. The King was there; but I sat mightily behind, and could see but little, and hear not all. The play being done […] here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sidly, and Etherige, the poet; the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour, and had not their parts perfect, and that [Henry] Harris [1633/4–1704; who played the comic role of Sir Joslin Jolly] did do nothing, nor could so much as sing a ketch in it; and so was mightily concerned: while all the rest did, through the whole pit, blame the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something very rouguish and witty; but the design of the play, and end, mightily insipid’ (Pepys, The Diary (6 February 1668/9), 9.53–4). Etherege then spent some time as secretary to the ambassador to Turkey, a prestigious post in rank and salary. Etherege regarded himself as a gentleman writer, and did not supervise the publication of any of his occasional verses

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Letter 13 (16 February 1686/7) 87

of the 1670s. This did not preclude his friendship with Betterton, the actor-manager of the Duke’s Company, who had taken important roles in his plays. By 1676 Etherege appears to have been in the service of Mary of Modena, Duchess of York and wife of the future James II. In the Dedication to his The Man of Mode, Or, Sir Fopling Flutter (London: Henry Herringman, 1676) Etherege writes, ‘I hope the honour I have of belonging to You, will excuse my presumption’, claiming that his new comedy is ‘the first thing I have produc’d in Your Service’ (A2r; The Dramatic Works of Sir George Etherege, ed. H. F. B. Brett-Smith, two vols (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1927), 2.183). Works, 2.183). The first recorded performance, which may also have been the premiere, of Etherege’s third and last play, The Man of Mode, was acted before the King on 11 March 1676 at Dorset Garden. The King’s presence at this performance, that of his court at later performances, along with Sir Carr Scrope’s prologue and song, Dryden’s epilogue, and the printed dedication to the Duchess of York, all testify to the court-centred ethos of Etherege’s comedy. The play was licensed on 3 June and published by Herringman probably shortly thereafter. It was an immediate and lasting success. This was in part because the audience thought they could recognize rakes and men of letters as characters in his plays. Dorimant, for instance, was variously associated with Rochester, Monmouth, or Buckhurst. At some point between November 1677 and 1679 Etherege acquired a knighthood and he was married when James, Duke of York, became King James II in 1685. Sir George was swiftly appointed to the post of resident at Ratisbon (Regensburg, Bavaria). His personal, social, and diplomatic life for the next four years is the most fully documented part for Etherege, or indeed that of any other Restoration writer. Not only are many of his personal letters preserved but no fewer than six versions of his letterbooks were made (two of which are unlocated). The multiplicity of manuscript texts of his official correspondence reveals the complications of the political world into which Etherege had moved. Etherege’s official copy of the letterbooks is now at Harvard and has been edited by Frederick Bracher (Letters of Sir George Etherege, ed. Frederick Bracher (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974)). These two volumes were transcribed by Etherege’s secretary, Hugo Jones, with Etherege’s autograph corrections (see John Barnard, ‘Etherege, Sir George (1636–1691/2), playwright and diplomat’, ODNB, 18.631–6 (633–4)). For an account of Etherege and Wycherley’s writings, see B. A. Kachur, Etherege and Wycherley (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). On Wycherley, see note 10 below. 3. Now lost. 4. That is, compete with, as in the lists of a medieval tournament. 5. This parenthesis is unclosed, presumably because the writer turns over the sheet after ‘you see I’ and forgets. 6. Louis XIV. The ‘Stamp’ is an official seal. ‘In the later seventeenth century the French term “cachet” is used for letters signed by such a device’ (Zwicker, John Dryden, 775n). 7. Dryden’s patron Buckingham, then third Earl of Mulgrave. 8. Charles Middleton, styled second Earl of Middleton and Jacobite first Earl of Monmouth (1649/50–1719), politician. From August 1684 until the Glorious Revolution he was Secretary of State, first for the ‘Northern’ and then for the ‘Southern’ departments. ‘The son to whom Dryden refers is Charles who had obtained employment with Lord Middleton’ (Zwicker, John Dryden, 775n). 9. Sunderland was an opponent of Dryden’s patron, Rochester. ‘He was able to remove him from his Treasury position a month before this letter was written’ (Ward, Letters, 155, n3). 10. William Wycherley (bap. 1641, d. 1716), playwright. His masterpiece, the sex comedy and satire on superficial honour The Country-Wife (London: Thomas Dring, 1675), was probably first acted at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 12 January 1675. The main

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88 The correspondence of John Dryden

character is Horner, a libertine who pretends to be impotent following treatment for the pox. The play was too strong for some, and women spectators in particular were offended by the famously bawdy ‘china scene’, where a hypocritical club of closet she-rakes (Mrs Squeamish and Lady Fidget) cuckold their husbands under their very noses. It was successful in its day and continued so until the early years of the eighteenth century. Wycherley answered his women critics in his next comedy, The Plain-Dealer, A Comedy (London: James Magnes and Richard Bentley, 1677). Wycherley told Pope he wrote it in three weeks, defying Rochester’s famous character, in An Allusion to Horace, of ‘slow Wicherley’ who ‘spares no pains’ to polish and refine his comedies. Yet he had also told Pope that the play was written ten years before performance, and claims to be both a brilliant, slapdash, spontaneous amateur and a boy genius. His contemporaries viewed it as his signature play and admired it as ‘the best Comedy that ever was Compos’d in any Language. The only Fault that has been found in it, is its being too full of Wit; a Fault which few Authors can be guilty of’ ([Abel Boyer (ed.)], Letters of Wit, Politicks and Morality (London: J. Hartley, W. Turner, and Tho. Hodgson, 1701), 217). The criticism that it was ‘too full of wit’ was widespread, and much debated by critics. The play was first performed on 11 December 1676 by the King’s Company at the Theatre Royal. As Kate Bennett notes, it was so complex, radical, and original in its use of theatrical conventions that audiences did not know what to make of it, and it had to be saved by Wycherley’s powerful friends, who gave it their ‘loud approbation’. These included the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Rochester, the Earl of Dorset (the chief spokesman for the play, according to Matthew Prior), the Earl of Mulgrave, Henry Savile, Henry Bulkeley, Sir John Denham, and Edmund Waller. In 1678 Wycherley fell dangerously ill with a fever; Dryden later identified ‘Wycherleys long sickness’ as apoplexy. In old age Wycherley claimed that his mental and physical deterioration dated from this sickness. John Dennis says that Charles II visited Wycherley in his lodgings, an extraordinary mark of esteem, and, finding him very weakened in body and spirits, gave him £500 to take a recuperative holiday in the spa resort of Montpellier. Change of air, Wycherley later counselled a friend, is good ‘after a Fever’ (John Dennis, Letters on Several Occasions (London: sold by the booksellers of Westminster, 1701), 27–8)’ (see Kate Bennett, ‘Wycherley, William (bap. 1641, d. 1716), playwright’, ODNB, 60.608–15 (610–11)). In his transcription Etherege’s secretary, Jones, does not render ‘myself’ as two words, which is Dryden’s orthographical practice. 11. That is, Will’s coffee house, Russell Street, Covent Garden. There were no fewer than five coffee houses called Will’s in late seventeenth-century London, as is made clear in ‘Will’s coffee house’, Notes & Queries, 10:2 (December 1904), 461–2. See also Winn, John Dryden, 130–1. 12. That is, the Piazza, Covent Garden (Will’s coffee house was on Russell Street, Covent Garden). 13. Captain Duncan Abercomy of the Duke of Grafton’s first regiment of footguards (Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward E. Langhans (eds), A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, sixteen vols (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973–93), 6.264. ‘Cordell, or “Scum,” Goodman, the actor’ (Ward, Letters, 155, n6). 14. Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 bc) ‘received an arrow wound through the corselet in his shoulder. (The wound caused him little trouble, for the breastplate prevented the dart passing right through the shoulder.)’ (Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, transl. P. A. Brunt, two vols (Cambridge: Harvard University Press Press, 1976), IV.23 (1.417). 15. The ‘white Stick’ – more usually the less bathetic ‘white staff’ – is the symbol of office of the Lord Treasurer.

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Letter 13 (16 February 1686/7) 89

16. That is, sessions of Parliament. 17. James II. 18. Charles II. 19. Ward cites L. I. Bredvold, The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1934), 183, where the fable of the swallows in Dryden’s The Hind and the Panther becomes ‘an expression of Catholic disapproval of James [II] and his policies’: ‘The Swallow, privileg’d above the rest | Of all the birds, as man’s familiar Guest, | Pursues the Sun in summer brisk and bold, | But wisely shuns the persecuting cold’ (Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, ll. 427–30). For the whole of the fable of the swallows, see ll. 427–648 (California Edition, 3.173–80). 20. Dryden was presumably nearing the end of the sheet in his original, a fact of course not reflected in this apograph.

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90 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 141 Sir George Etherege to Dryden

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 11513, fols 64v–66r

[64v] Ratisbonne2 10/20 March. 1686/7 Sr. (Mr. Dreyden) You know I am no flatterer, & therefore will excuse me, when I tell you, I cannot en=dure you shou’d arrogate a thing to yourself you have not the least pretence to. is it not enough that you excelle in so many eminent vertues, but you must be a putting in for a Vice which all the world knows is properly my province. if you persist in your Claim to laziness, you will be thought as affected in it as Montaigne is, when he complains of the want of memory.3 what Soul has ever been more active than your own? what Country nay what corner of the earth has it not travaill’d into? whose bosom has it not div’d into, &4 [65r] and inform’d it self there so perfectly of all the Secrets of mans heart that onely the great being (whose image it bears) knows them better? I (whose every action of my life is a witness of my idleness) little thought yt you, who have rais’d so many immortall monuments of your industry durst have set up to be my Rival. but to punish you I will distinguish. you have noe share in that noble Laziness of the minde, wch all I write make out my just title to; but as for that of the body. I can lett you come in for a Snack5 without any jealousy. I am apt to think you have bated something of your mettle since you and I were Rivalls in other matters tho’ I hope you have not yet attain’d the per=fection I have hear’d Sr Charles Sidley6 brag of, wch. is, that when a short youth runs quick through every veine, & puts him in minde of his ancient prowess, he thinks it not worth while to bestow motion on his et cætera muscle.7 Tho’ I have not been able formerly to forbear playing the fool in verse and prose I have now judgement enough to know how much I ventur’d, & am rather amaz’d at my good fortune, than vain upon a little Success, & did I not see my own error, the commendation you give me wou’d ^\be/ enough to perswade me of it. a woman who has luckily been thought agreeable, has not reason to be proud, when she [65v] hears herself prais’d extravagantly prais’d by an undoubted beauty. it wou’d be a pretty thing for a man, who has learn’d of his own head to Scrape on the fiddle to enter the list with the greatest Master in the science of musick – it is not to contend with

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Letter 14 (10/20 March 1686/7) 91

you in writing but to view with you in kindness, that makes me fond of your Correspondence.8 & I hope my want of Art in friendship will make you forgett the faults it makes me commit in writing. I have not time now to acquaint you, how I like my employment. nature no more intended me for a Polititian than she did you for a Courtier. but since I am imbarck’d I will endeavour not to be wanting in my duty. it concerns me nearly for shou’d I be shipwreck’d the season is too far gone to ex=pect an other adventure. the conversation I have with the ministers here improves me dayly more in Phylosophie, than in Policy. & shews me, that the most necessary part of it is better to be learn’d in the wide world, than in the gardens of Epicurus.9 I am glad to hear your son is in the office,10 hoping now & then by your favour to have the benefit of a letter from him. Pray tell Sr. Henry Shere.11 his honesty and good understanding have made me Love him Ever since I knew him. if we meet in England again, he may find the gravity of this place has fitted me for his Spanish humor I was so pleas’d with reading your letter yt I was vexd at the last proof you gave me of 12 [66r] of your Laziness: the not finding it in your heart to turn over the paper. In that you have had the better of me, but I will al=ways remember that darling sin, rather than omit any thing which may give you an assurance of my being faithfully &c. 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 14. 2. After James II became King, Etherege was appointed resident at Ratisbon (Regensburg, Bavaria) (see Barnard, ‘Etherege’, 634). 3. Montaigne writes: ‘[B] The slips by which my memory so often trips me up precisely when I am most sure of it are not vainly lost: it is no use after that its swearing me oaths and telling me to trust it: I shake my head. The first opposition given to its testimony makes me suspend judgement and I would not dare then to trust it over any weighty matter nor to stand warrant for it when another is involved. Were it not for the fact that others do even more frequently from lack of integrity what I do lack from memory, I would on matters of fact as readily accept that truth is to be found on another’s lips not mine’ (Michel de Montaigne, The Essays: A Selection, transl. and ed. with an introduction and notes by M. A. Screech (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2004), 376). 4. This ampersand is a catchword for the ‘and’ which opens the following sheet of paper. 5. OED, ‘snack n.’, ‘to come in for a snack to have a share (in something), to divide profits’. 6. Sir Charles Sedley, fifth Baronet (bap. 1639, d. 1701), writer and politician. ‘Aged twenty-one at the Restoration, Sedley took enthusiastically to the pleasures of the court and town, often in the company of Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, later sixth Earl of Dorset. His witty conversation and the fact that he “never asked the king for any thing” made him a favourite drinking companion of Charles II’ (Harold Love, ‘Sedley, Sir

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92 The correspondence of John Dryden

Charles, fifth baronet (bap. 1639, d. 1701), writer and politician’, 49.657–9 (657)). Dryden dedicated The Assignation to him and ‘his high standing as a critic was acknowledged when Dryden introduced him anagrammatically as “Lisideius”, the champion of contem­ porary French drama in the dialogue Of Dramatic Poesy [sic]’ (Love, ‘Sedley’, 658). 7. OED, ‘et cetera | etcetera, n.’ ‘As phrase: And the rest, and so forth, and so on (cf. Greek καὶ τὰ λοιπά, German und so weiter), indicating that the statement refers not only to the things enumerated, but to others which may be inferred from analogy. Occasionally used when the conclusion of a quotation, a current formula of politeness, or the like, is omitted as being well known to the reader’ (in this case, the penis). 8. Now largely lost. 9. That is, the house and garden outside Athens in which Epicurus taught students and developed his philosophy, in contrast to the urban and public settings of the schools of Plato, Aristotle, and so on. For Etherege, ‘Phylosophie’ (or at least the most necessary part thereof) is better learned in public life than in rural or semi-rural retirement – and perhaps also better learned outside of formal schools. 10. ‘Charles Dryden had secured [… a place] with Lord Middleton, one of the Secretaries of State’ (Winn, John Dryden, 421). 11. Sir Henry Sheres (bap. 1641, d. 1710), military engineer and author. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1675. He had been instrumental in the service of Edward Montagu, first Earl of Sandwich (1625–72), in negotiations for the Treaty of Madrid (1667), which established a commercial and partly military alliance between England and Spain against the French and Portuguese. In 1669 he was sent to Tangiers, where Dryden’s uncle, John Creed, was secretary to the Tangiers Commission (Ward, Letters, 156, n2). He was a colleague and friend of Pepys, who suspected him of conducting an affair with his wife Elizabeth, although he bequeathed him a mourning ring at his funeral. Etherege’s mention of Sheres’s ‘Spanish humor’ may refer to his loquaciousness on his travels and service, which Pepys and others recorded. Sheres also wrote extensively, translating from the Greek Lucian (c. 125–80), the Syrian satirist who was a significant influence on the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616). Henry Fielding writes that Lucian ‘may almost be called the Father of true Humour: Mr. Dryden says, he knows not whom he imitated’ and calls Cervantes, along with François Rabelais (1483×94–1553), Lucian’s equals (Dryden read Cervantes in Walter Pope’s Select Novels. The First Six Written in Spanish by Miguel Cervantes (London: Charles Brome and Thomas Horne, 1694): see California Edition, 7.589). Fielding refers to Dryden’s ‘The Life of Lucian, A Discourse on his Writings, and A Character of Some of the Present Translators’, published posthumously in The Works of Lucian, Translated from the Greek (London: Printed for Sam. Briscoe, [1710] 1711), 3–62 (California Edition, 20.208–27). In this edition Sheres translates ‘The Cobler and his Cock, or the Dream’ (67–90) and ‘The Parasite, or the Art of Flattery’ (91–113) and Dryden distinguishes him by mentioning him first, although his translations are not first: ‘As for the Translators, all of them, that I know, are Men of establish’d Reputation, both for Wit, and Learning, at least sufficiently know to be so, among all the finer Spirits of the Age. Sir Henry Sheers, has given many Proofs of his Excellence in this kind […]’ (49; California Edition, 20.223). Samuel Briscoe claims in his ‘Dedicatory Epistle’ that Dryden wrote ‘The Life of Lucian’ in 1696 (sig. A3r; for the history of the translation, which originated with Peter Motteux in 1693, see California Edition, 20.370–2, and Letter 23, n12 below) (see J. D. Davies, ‘Sheres, Sir Henry (bap. 1641, d. 1710)’, ODNB, 50.289–90; Henry Fielding, Covent-Garden Journal, 30 June 1752, No. 52, in The CoventGarden Journal; and, A Plan of the Universal Register-Office, ed. Bertrand A. Goldgar (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 285). 12. This is a catchword.

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Letter 15

This brief letter conveys little information except for the fact that it confirms the strong affection and ambition for Walsh held by Dryden. In fact, lacking allusion, but rich in compliment, it suggests that Dryden wrote it hastily, albeit with the feelings of the recipient in mind. It is important to remember, following the Glorious Revolution of two years previous to this letter, that Walsh was a Whig and therefore held political opinions opposed to Dryden’s. His political allegiance may be something which Dryden sought to set to one side; it seems not to have weakened their friendship.

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94 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 151 Dryden to William Walsh

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.14.

[14r] My Deare Padron2

Nothing cou’d please me better, than to know you as well by the endowments of your Mind, as ^\by/ these of your person. I knew before this discovery, that you were ingenious, but not that you were a Poet; & one of the best that these times produce, or the succeeding times can expect.3 Give me leave not onely to honour, but to Love you; and I shall endeavour on my part, to make more a[dv]an[ce]s to you, than you have made to me, who am both by gratitude & by inc[lination] Your most faithfull humble Servant John Dryden. [14v] For My Honourd Friend William Walsh. Esq These.

1. Robert Bell (ed.), Poetical Works of John Dryden, three vols (London: J. W. Parker and Son, 1854), 1.72; Ward, Letters, Letter 15. This letter is without a date and contains no internal evidence to suggest one. In the light of their subsequent correspondence, Ward gives it the approximate date [1690] ‘only because it appears to me to initiate the correspondence’ (Ward, Letters, 156, headnote). 2. This is an odd term for Dryden to use to Walsh, considering their respective positions in literary culture (see Ward, Letters, 156, headnote). 3. This judgement has not been borne out by posterity, there having been no edition of his works since the eighteenth century.

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Letters 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21

In these letters Dryden advises Walsh on the particular points in his poetry which deserve consideration and perhaps correction, something to which the poet responds dutifully and enthusiastically. ‘Though it has always been known that Dryden was eager to aid younger writers with suggestions and criticism’, writes Ward, ‘these letters between him and Walsh provide the sole example of the poet’s definite corrections of a particular poem for another poet’.1 The letters demonstrate Dryden and Walsh’s wide reading in classical and contemporary literature and criticism. The latter was a subject only slowly beginning to be publicly accepted as something worthy of serious attention, although Dryden was to pioneer such a practice in his public criticism, such as Of Dramatick Poesie and ‘A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire’.2 1. Ward, Letters, 157, n4. 2. Found in Dryden, The Satires, sig. ar–or; California Edition, 4.3–90. For the development of criticism in England in this period, see Michael Gavin, The Invention of English Criticism, 1650–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), esp. 50–73.

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96 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 161 William Walsh to Dryden

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 10434, fols 8r–9r

[8r] Dear Sir You will see how easy ’tis to encourage an ill Writer into ye troubling you. The favourable opinion you shewd of ye Songs: have made mee send you an Epigram & an Elegy,2 which I fancy to bee better in their kinds than ye songs because they are kinds yt I think I unders[tand] better. An Epigram ’tis true is but a Trifle, but so d[iffi]cult a Trifle yt Rapin says ’tis enough to have ma[de] one good in ones Life time;3 I remember you said when wee talkt about these things at ye Coffee house, yt there were not above 20 good Epigrams in Martial & I’ll [8v] undertake wn you have chose those 20 to make some reasonable objection agt one half of ’em; to find particularly in yt wch you say is ye best of ye Book, & truly I am of yr Opinion. In ye first Verse to have made it exact, hee ought ^\not/ to have named ye Eunuch Dindymus, except hee had named ye Old man too; but because this is rather a want of Perfection yn a Fault; you may observe in ye 3d Verse Viribus hic operi non est, hic utilis annis. The Poet has unfounded his own sense, for hee means yt this is not useful upon ye account of his want of strenght, & this for his too many years. Which hee expresses only this is not useful upon account of his strength, this of his years; as if too little was to bee supplyd in one place, & too many in ye other out of ye Readers Invention.4 I dont say this as if I pretended to my own Epigram was comparable to any of his, but to show yt ye a thing may bee very beautiful [& y]et have some blemish. The Elegy is upon ye same [subj]ect wth ye 11 El: of ye 3d Book of Ovid;5 which beeing [e]steemd ^\ye best/ of all his, is disadvantage enough to any [bod]y yt is to write upon it afterwards.6 I shoud not trouble [you] with these little things, but yt I have sent you a Discourse I have writt about Women;7 which I woud beg you at yor leisure to look over & tell me your opinion of it; as also of ye Verses. I see my self ’tis [9r] incorrect, but twas writt in haste, in obedience to the command of a fair Lady.8 Tis not Ill assure you Sir out of any want of respect; if I have not made you all the advances imaginable, as you pleasd to tell mee in yor Letters; But methinks I am ashamd to profess yt in words yt I am not able to perform in actions; But I’ll assure you, if there were any thing

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Letter 16 ([1690?]) 97

in which I were capable of serving you, you shoud finde yt no man in ye World were with more zeal then my Self. Dear Sir Yor most Affectionate ffriend & most Humble Servt. 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 16. ‘The date can only be guessed at – sometime in 1690; for Walsh mentions his Dialogue Concerning Women […] The letter is a copy in Walsh’s hand, preserved in a small manuscript volume of letters, addresses, elegies, and verses [see Letter 12, n1 for a similar volume in the Bodleian Library]. Apparently Walsh wrote out his correspondence in rough draft in this volume, and later transferred it to note paper for sending. The manuscript is in a good state of preservation, though a few folios are torn at the edges. An accurate transcription is made difficult by many interlinear corrections and insertions’ (Ward, Letters, 156, headnote). However, Ward’s orthographical and physical analysis of the volume of manuscripts is not supported by his editing of them. Similarly, Osborn makes unsupported, unconstructive, and unreconstructive statements about the dating of the letters (Osborn, John Dryden, 226, n3, and 227, n4). Both Osborn and Ward would have recognized that the volume determines the order of events through internal evidence had both consulted it (see Freeman, ‘William Walsh and Dryden’, 199). 2. Probably the verses which were published as Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant. 3. See Rymer’s translation of René Rapin’s Reflexions sur la poétique d’Aristote et sur les ouvrages des poëtes anciens et modernes (Paris: Franc̦ ois Muguet & M. l’Archevesque, 1674): ‘An Epigram is little worth, unless it be admirable; and it is so rare to make them admirable, that ’tis sufficient to have made one in a Man’s life’ (Thomas Rymer, Monsiuer Rapin’s Reflections on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poesie (London: Henry Herringman, 1694), 154). 4. See Martial, Epigrams, XI, lxxxi: ‘Cum sene commune vexat spado Dindymus aeglen | et iacet in medio sicca puella toro. | Viribus hic, opera non est hic utilis annis: | ergo sine effectu prurit utrique labor, | supplex illa rogat pro se miserisque duobus, | hunc iuvenem facias, hunc, Cytherea, virum.’ (‘Eunuch Dindymus and an old man harass Aegle in common, and the girl lies dry in the middle of the bed. Lack of strength makes the one, length of years the other useless for the job: so each labors in fruitless desire. She begs in supplication for herself and the two unfortunates, Cytherea, that you make one of them young and the other a man’ (Martial, Epigrams, ed. and transl. by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, three vols (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 3.69)). 5. See Ovid, Amores, III, xia: ‘Multa diuque tuli; vitiis patientia victa est; | cede fatigato pectore, turpis amor! | scilicet adserui iam me fugique catenas, | et quae non puduit ferre, tulisse pudet. | vicimus et domitum pedibus calcamus amorem; | venerunt capiti cornua sera meo. | perfer et obdura! dolor hic tibi proderit olim; | saepe tulit lassis sucus amarus opem. | Ergo ego sustinui, foribus tam saepe repulsus, | ingenuum dura ponere corpus humo? | ergo ego nescio cui, quem tu conplexa tenebas, | excubui clausam servus ut ante domum? | vidi, cum foribus lassus prodiret amator, | invalidum referens emeritumque latus; | hoc tamen est levius, quam quod sum visus ab illo – | eveniat nostris hostibus ille pudor! | Quando ego non fixus lateri patienter adhaesi, | ipse tuus custos, ipse vir, ipse comes? | scilicet et populo per me comitata placebas; | causa fuit multis noster amoris

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98 The correspondence of John Dryden

amor. | turpia quid referam vanae mendacia linguae | et periuratos in mea damna deos? | quid iuvenum tacitos inter convivia nutus | verbaque conpositis dissimulata notis? | dicta erat aegra mihi – praeceps amensque cucurri; | veni, et rivali non erat aegra meo! | His et quae taceo duravi saepe ferendis; | quaere alium pro me, qui queat ista pati. | iam mea votiva puppis redimita coron | lenta tumescentes aequoris audit aquas. | desine blanditias et verba, potentia quondam, | perdere – non ego nunc stultus, ut ante fui! [b] Luctantur pectusque leve in contraria tendunt | hac amor hac odium, sed, puto, vincit amor. | odero, si potero; si non, invitus amabo. | nec iuga taurus amat; quae tamen odit, habet.| nequitiam fugio – fugientem forma reducit; | aversor morum crimina – corpus amo. | sic ego nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum, | et videor voti nescius esse mei. | aut formosa fores minus, aut minus inproba, vellem; | non facit ad mores tam bona forma malos. | facta merent odium, facies exorat amorem – | me miserum, vitiis plus valet illa suis! | Parce, per o lecti socialia iura, per omnis | qui dant fallendos se tibi saepe deos, | perque tuam faciem, magni mihi numinis instar, | perque tuos oculos, qui rapuere meos! | quidquid eris, mea semper eris; tu selige tantum, | me quoque velle velis, anne coactus amem! | lintea dem potius ventisque ferentibus utar, | ut, quam, si nolim, cogar amare, velim.’ (‘Much have I endured, and for long time; my wrongs have overcome my patience; withdraw from my tired-out breast, base love! Surely, now I have claimed my freedom, and fled my fetters, ashamed of having borne what I felt no shame while bearing. Victory is mine, and I tread under foot my conquered love; courage has entered my heart, though late. Persist, and endure! this smart will some day bring thee good; oft has bitter potion brought help to the languishing. Can it be I have endured it – to be so oft repulsed from your doors, and to lay my body down, a free born man, on the hard ground? Can it be that, for some no one you held in your embrace, I have lain, like a slave keeping vigil, before your tight-closed home? I have seen when the lover came forth from your doors fatigued, with frame exhausted and weak from love’s campaign; yet this is a slighter thing than being seen by him – may shame like that befall my enemies! When have I not in patience clung close to your side, myself your guard, myself your lover, myself your companion? Be sure, too, that people liked you because you were at my side; my love for you has won you love from many. Why repeat the shameful lies of your empty tongue, and recall the perjured oaths to the gods you have sworn to my undoing? Why tell of the silent nods of young lovers at the banquet board, and of words concealed in the signal agreed upon? Say I had been told she was ill – headlong and madly I ran to her; I came, and she was not ill – to my rival! Oft bearing such-like things, and others I say naught of, I have hardened; seek another in my stead who can submit to them. Already my craft is decked with votive wreath, and listens undisturbed to the sea’s swelling waters. Cease wasting your caresses, and the words that once had weight – I am not now the fool I was! [b] Struggling over my fickle heart, love draws it now this way, and now hate that – but love, I think, is winning. I will hate, if I have strength; if not, I shall love unwilling. The ox, too, loves not the yoke; what he hates he none the less bears. I fly from your baseness – as I fly, your beauty draws me back; I shun the wickedness of your ways – your person I love. Thus I can live neither with you nor without, and seem not to know my own heart’s prayer. I would you were either less beauteous or less base; beauty so fair mates not with evil ways. Your actions merit hate, your face pleads winningly for love – ah! wretched me, it has more power than its owner’s misdeeds. Spare me, O by the laws of love’s comradeship, by all the gods who oft lend themselves for you to deceive, and by that face of yours, to me the image of high divinity, and by your eyes, that have taken captive mine! Whatever you be, mine ever will you be; choose you only whether you wish me also willing, or to love because constrained! Let me rather spread my sails and use the favouring breeze, that her, whom I should be forced to love against my will, I may love

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Letter 16 ([1690?]) 99

by choice.’ Ovid, Heroides. Amores, transl. Grant Showerman, rev. G. P. Goold (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 494–9. 6. Walsh, ‘Elegy to his false mistress’ is a close – and perhaps predictable – imitation of Ovid’s poem: ‘CAElia, your Tricks will now no longer pass, | And I’m no more the Fool that once I was. | I know my happier Rival does obtain | All the vast Bliss for which I sigh in vain. | Him, him you love; to me you use your Art: | I had your Looks, another had your Heart. | To me y’are sick, to me of Spies afraid: | He finds your Sickness gone, your Spies betray’d. | I sigh beneath your Window all the Night; | He in your Arms possesses the Delight. | I know you treat me thus, false Fair, I do; | And, oh! what plagues me worse, he knows it too: | To him my Sighs are told, my Letters shown; | And all my Pains are his Diversion grown. | Yet since you cou’d such horrid Treasons act, | I’m pleas’d you chose out him to do the Fact: | His Vanity does for my Wrongs attone; | And ‘cis by that I have your Falshood known. | What shall I do! for treated at this rate, | I must not love; and yet I cannot hate. | I hate the Actions, but I love the Face; | Oh, were thy Vertue more, or Beauty less! | I’m all Confusion, and my Soul’s on fire, | Torn by contending Reason and Desire: | This bids me love, that bids me Love give o’er; | One counsels best, the other pleases more. | I know I ought to hate you for your Fault; | But, oh! I cannot do the thing I ought. | Canst thou, mean Wretch! canst thou contented | (prove, | With the cold Relicks of a Rival’s Love? | Why did I see that Face to charm my Breast? | Or having seen, why did I know the rest? | Gods! if I have obey’d your just Commands, | If I’ve deserv’d some Favour of your hands, | Make me that tame, that easie Fool again, | And rid me of my Knowledge, and my Pain. | And you, false Fair! for whom so oft I’ve griev’d, | Pity a Wretch that begs to be deceiv’d; | Forswear your self for one who dies for you, | Vow not a word of the whole Charge was true; | But Scandals all, and Forgeries, devis’d | By a vain Wretch, neglected and despis’d. | I too will help to forward the Deceit, | And, to my power, contribute to the Cheat. | And thou, bold Man, who think’st to rival me, | For thy Presumption I cou’d pardon thee; | I cou’d forgive thy lying in her Arms, | I cou’d forgive thy rifling all her Charms; | But, oh! I never can forgive the Tongue, | That boasts her Favours, and proclaims my Wrong.’ (Walsh, Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant, 85–7). 7. This ‘Discourse’ is Dialogue Concerning Women (see Letter 12, n2). 8. Unidentified.

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100 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 171 Dryden to William Walsh

Manuscript: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Osborn b302.

[b302ar] You command me, Deare Sir, to make a kind of Critique on your Essay:2 ’tis an hard Pro-vince; but if I were able to undertake it, possibly, a greater proofe of friendship is scarcely to be found; where to be truly a friend, a man must seeme to exercise a little malice. As it happens, I am now incumberd, with some necessary business, relating to one of my Sonns; which when it is over, I shall have more leysure to obey you, in case there appeare any farther need. There is not the least occasion of reflecting on your disposition3 of the piece, nor the thoughts. I see nothing to censure in either of them. Besides this, the style is easy and naturall; as fit for Dialogue, as if you had set Tully 4 before you: ^\and/ as Gallant as Fontenelle in his plurality of Worlds.5 In the correctness of the English, there is not much for me to animadvert. Be pleasd therefore to avoyd the words, don’t, can’t, shan’t & the like abbreviations of wSyllables; which seem to me to Savour of a little rusticity. as for Pedantry you are not to be taxd with it. I remember I hinted somewhat of concluding your sentences with prepositions or conjunctions sometimes, which is not elegant. as in your first sentence (See the Consequences of.6) I find likewise, that you make not a due Distinction betwixt that, & who; A Man that [MS damaged; is not] proper; the Relative who, is proper. that, ought alwayes to signify a thing; who, a pe[MS damaged; rson, or a]n, acquaintance that wou’d have undertook the business; true English is, an friend ^\acquaintance/ who woud have undertaken the business. I am confi=dent I need not proceed with these little Criticism’s, which are rather cavillings. Philarque7 or the Critique on Balzac,8 observes it as a fault in his style, that he has in many places written twenty words together (en suitte) which were all Monosyllables. I observe this in Some lines of your Noble Epigramm: and am often guilty of it my selfe through hastinesse. Mr Waller counted this a vertue of the English tongue, that it coud bring so many words of the Teutonique together, & yet the smoothness of the verse not vitiated.9 Now I am speaking of your Epigramm,10 I am sure you will not be offended with me for saying, there is some imperfection in the two last lines:

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Letter 17 ([Early 1691]) 101

Blend ’em together, Fate, ease both their paine; And, of two wretches make one happy man. The word blend includes the sence of together: ease both their paine; paine is singular both is plurall. but indeed paine may have a collective or plurall signification. then the Rhyme is not full of pain & Man. an half rhyme is not alwayes a fault; but, in the close of any paper of Verses,11 tis to be avoyded. And, after all, tell me truly, if those words ease both their pain; ^\or/ are not Superfluous in the sence, & only put, for the sake of the rhyme, & filling up the Verse. It came into my head to alter them, & I am affrayd, for the worse. Kind Fate, or Fortune, blend them, if you can: And, of two Wretches ^\make one happy man./ Kind Fate, lookes a little harsh: for fate, without an Epithet, is alwayes taken in the ill sence. Kind, added, changes that signi fication.12 (Fati valet hora benigni.)13 the words [if you can]14 have almost the same fault I taxd in your ending of the line: but, being better considerd, that is, whether fortune or fate, can alter a Mans [b302av] temper, who is already so temperd: & leaving it doubtfull, I thinke does not prejudice the thought, in the last line. Now I begin, to be in for Cakes & Ale;15 and why should I not put a quære16 on those other lines? Poor Shift, does all his whole contrivance Set, To spend that wealth he wants the Sence to get. All his whole Contrivance, is but all his Contrivance, or his whole Contrivance; then, one of those words, lookes a little like tautology.17 Then, an ill natur’d man might ask, how he cou’d spend wealth, not haveing the Sence to get it? But this is triffling, in me. For your sence is very intelligible; which is enough to secure it. And, by your favour, so is Martial’s; Viribus, hic non est, hic non est utilis annis:18 & yet in exactness of Criti=cism, your Censure stands good upon him. – I am calld to dinner, & have onely time to add a great truth; that I am from the bottome of my Soul, Deare Sir, Your most humble Servant, and true lover John Dryden. Your [MS deletion] ^\[a]postrophe’s/ to your Mistresse; where you break off the thrid19 of your discourse, & address your selfe to her, are, in [my] opinion, as fine turnes of gallantry, as I have mett with anywhe[re.]

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102 The correspondence of John Dryden

[b302bv] [T]o My Honourd Friend [W]illiam Walsh, Esq., These.

1. Bell, Poetical Works, 1.68–70; Ward, Letters, Letter 17. As it is clearly an answer to Letter 16, it can be dated to early 1691 (see Ward, Letters, 157, headnote). 2. ‘This is […] Walsh’s Dialogue Concerning Women, which Dryden was now reading in manuscript’ (Ward, Letters, 158, n6). 3. OED, ‘disposition, n.’, ‘The action of setting in order, or condition of being set in order; arrangement, order; relative position of the parts or elements of a whole’, and perhaps more specifically ‘Rhetoric and Logic. The due arrangement of the parts of an argument or discussion.’ 4. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 bc), Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political and oratorical theorist, consul, and constitutionalist, commonly known in England after his middle Latin name. 5. ‘The reference is to Bernard le Bovier de Fontanelle’s Entretiens sur la pluralité de mondes ([Paris: T. Almaury,] 1686), which was designed to popularize Descartes’s theories of astronomy’ (Ward, Letters, 157, n1). 6. Presumably Dryden simply suggested grammatical changes so that the first sentence of the text did not end in the prepositional collocation ‘which we do not at first see the Consequences of’. The opening sentence of the published text by Walsh is: ‘’Tis a dangerous thing, Madam, it must be confest, this Conversing with fair Ladies; and it draws us into Inconveniencies, of which we do not at first see the Consequences’ (Walsh, Dialogue Concerning Women, 1). 7. Dryden refers to the priest Jean Goulu: ‘remarquer la suitte de quinze petits mots, dont les treize sont monosyllabes’ [‘following fifteen little words, of which thirteen are monosyllables’] (Jean Goulu, Des letres de Phyllarque a Ariste. Où i lest [sic] traicté de l’eloquence Françoise (Nancy: George Verd, [1628]), 137). In his dedication to the Æneid Dryden mentions the same criticism: ‘I had long since consider’d, that the way to please the best Judges, is not to Translate a Poet literally; and Virgil least of any other. For his peculiar Beauty lying in his choice of Words, I am excluded from it by the narrow compass of our Heroick Verse, unless I wou’d make use of Monosyllables only, and those clog’d with Consonants, which are the dead weight of our Mother-Tongue. ’Tis possible, I confess, though it rarely happens, that a Verse of Monosyllables may sound harmoniously; and some Examples of it I have seen. My first Line of the Aeneis is not harsh: Arms, and the Man I Sing, who forc’d by Fate, &c. But a much better instance may be given from the last Line of Manilius, made English by our Learned and Judicious Mr. Creech. Nor could the World have born so fierce a Flame. Where the many Liquid Consonants are plac’d so Artfully, that they give a pleasing sound to the Words, though they are all of one Syllable. ’Tis true, I have been sometimes forc’d upon it in other places of this Work, but I never did it out of choice: I was either in haste, or Virgil gave me no occasion for the Ornament of Words; for it seldom happens but a Monosyllable Line turns Verse to Prose, and even that Prose is rugged, and unharmonious. Philarchus, I remember, taxes Balzac for placing Twenty Monosyllables in file, without one dissyllable betwixt them. The way I have taken, is not so streight as Metaphrase, nor so loose as Paraphrase: Some things too I

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Letter 17 ([Early 1691]) 103

have omitted, and sometimes have added of my own. Yet the omissions I hope, are but of Circumstances, and such as wou’d have no grace in English; and the Additions, I also hope, are easily deduc’d from Virgil’s Sense. They will seem (at least I have the Vanity to think so), not stuck into him, but growing out of him. He studies brevity more than any other Poet, but he had the advantage of a Language wherein much may be comprehended in a little space’ (Dryden, The Works of Virgil, 242–3; California Edition, 5.329–30; see also Ward, Letters, 157, n2). 8. Jean Louis Guez de Balzac (1594–1654). His Lettres choisies de sieur de Balzac (Paris: T. du Bray, 1624) was well known in England (see Ward, Letters, 159, n3). 9. Francis Atterbury (1663–1732), (later) Bishop of Rochester, politician, and Jacobite conspirator, had recently praised Edmund Waller (1606–87) – the poet, courtier, and poli­ tician, often disparaged as a weathercock – as a refiner of English verse: ‘Before his time, men Rhym’d indeed, and that was all: as for the harmony of measure, and that dance of words, which good ears are so much pleas’d with, they knew nothing of it. Their Poetry then was made up almost entirely of monosyllables; which, when they come together in any cluster, are certainly the most harsh untunable things in the World […] So that really Verse in those days was but down-right Prose, tagg’d with Rhymes. Mr. Waller remov’d all these faults, brought in more Polysyllables, and smoother measures; bound up his thoughts better, and in a cadence more agreeable to the nature of the Verse he wrote in: So that where-ever the natural stops of that were, he contriv’d the little breakings of his sense so as to fall in with ’em’ (Atterbury, ‘Preface’ to Edmund Waller, The Second Part of Mr. Waller’s Poems (London: Tho. Bennet, 1690), sigs A5v–A6v). ‘Waller’s prosody was seen and can demonstrably be seen to have “overcome the natural disadvantages” of the Germanic “origins of their language”, and although we do not know if Waller was aware of these concerns […] it seems clear […] he was intent on writing in a smoother, sweeter form of English’ (Thomas Kaminski, ‘Edmund Waller’s “easy” style and the heroic couplet’, Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, 55:1 (2015), 95–123 (109)). Dryden writes of how ‘[by] this graffing […] on old words […] has our Tongue been Beautified’ by Waller, but his whole point is that ‘we live in an Age, so Sceptical, that as it determines little, so it takes nothing from Antiquity on trust: and I profess to have no other ambition in this Essay, than that Poetry may not go backward, when all other Arts and Sciences are advancing’ (‘Defence of the Epilogue. Or, An Essay on the Dramatique Poetry of the last Age’, in the Conquest of Granada, 168, 161; California Edition, 17.212, 203). No precise source has been found for Dryden’s vocabulary, but he was, like Waller, a Fellow of the Royal Society, albeit largely inactive and expelled for non-payment of dues in 1667. 10. ‘Walsh’s epigram, called “Gripe and Shifter”, appeared in 1692 in Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant [104–5]. The text is as follows: Rich Gripe does all his Thoughts and Cunning bend, | T’encrease that Wealth he wants the Soul to spend. | Poor Shifter does his whole contrivance set | To spend the Wealth, he wants the Sense to get. | How happy wou’d appear to each his Fate, | Had Gripe his Humour, or he Gripe’s Estate! | Kind Fate and Fortune, blend ’em if you can, | And of two Wretches, make one happy Man’ (Ward, Letters, 157, n3). 11. This term refers literally to short poems in manuscript – such as those Walsh had sent to Dryden – though the phrase can also refer to the titles of short-printed poems (such as the anonymous broadside A Loyal Paper of Verses Upon His Majesties Gracious Declaration (London: for Francis Ellis, 1687)). In Of Dramatick Poesie both Crites and Neander use the term, as part of the discussion of the propriety of rhyming verse in drama. Both use it alongside the word ‘poem’, suggesting a hierarchy. Neander says ‘Blank verse is acknowledg’d to be too low for a Poem, nay more, for a paper of verses’ (Dryden, Of Dramatick Poesie, Kv; California Edition, 17.66, 17.74). Johnson uses it to refer to Joseph

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104 The correspondence of John Dryden

Addison’s contribution, ‘An account of the greatest English poets’, to the fourth Tonson– Dryden miscellany (Johnson, The Lives of the English Poets, ed. Roger Lonsdale, four vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), 3.3). Dryden’s usage here seems less an attempt to be dismissive about the status of Walsh’s verse than a kind of tradesmanlike solidarity, in keeping with the technical or ‘backstage’ nature of their exchange. 12. ‘Signification’ runs over the line in the mansucript, but there is no hyphen. 13. From Juvenal’s sixteenth (and last, indeed unfinished) satire, line 4, ‘plus etenim fati valet hora benigni’; the satire goes on (lines 5 and 6) ‘quam si nos Veneris commendet epistula Marti | et Samia genetrix quae delectur harena’ (‘A moment of generous fate is more powerful, after all, than a letter of recommendation to Mars from Venus or from his mother, who loves the sands of Samos’ (Susanna Morton Braund (ed. and transl.), Juvenal and Persius (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 506–7)), and in context is part of a larger construction. But the motto comes to mean there is value even in a very short period, whether a short life, or a circumscribed part of life, which is marked by good fortune. 14. The square brackets are Dryden’s. 15. OED, ‘cake, n. and adj. P4. a. cakes and ale n. fun, pleasure, revelry’; that is, Dryden begins to take pleasure in the matter. The first citation of this phrase is from Shakespeare, Twelfth Night: ‘Dost thou thinke because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more Cakes and Ale?’ (2.3.111). This usage may be theatrical cant between two literary figures, but more likely was simply an otherwise unrecorded idiom, Shakespeare’s plays not then being seen as the argot of the intelligentsia. 16. Latin: ‘query’. 17. ‘It will be observed that Walsh amends his lines precisely as Dryden suggests’ (Ward, Letters, 157, n4). 18. This refers to Walsh’s earlier criticism of Martial, Epigrams, XI, lxxxi, l. 3 (see Letter 16, n4). Dryden defends Martial’s line on the same grounds that he defends Walsh’s from his own critique: the sense is intelligible enough to secure it against Dryden’s ‘triffling’ criticism. Dryden concedes that Walsh’s ‘Censure’ ‘stands good’ ‘in exactness of criticism’. He may also imply the same of his own ‘censure’ of Walsh’s line: correct, but not important. 19. That is, thread (see OED, ‘thread, n. 3. A’), an older spelling, also used by Dryden in both The Hind and the Panther and the Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern (California Edition, 7.25; 3.169).

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Letter 18 ([Early 1691]) 105

Letter 181 William Walsh to Dryden

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 10434, fols 9v–10r.

[9v] I give you infinite thanks, Dear Sir, for ye trouble you have given yor self in yor Criticism. To tell any body of yr fault wth a design yt they shoud mend ’em, is certainly ye highest act of friendship; To tell ’em, yt others may avoid ’em, is an just end of criticising; But to do ’em only, to lessen one mans reputation wthout any design of bettering anothers is wt is properly calld Malice. I shall take care to correct those little faults you finde & wn you have more leisure shall beg you to look it over again. I saw a great many of ye faults you finde in my Epigram before, & am now very sensible of ye rest. I made yt very objection agt shifts spending Wealth, wthout beeing able to get it, to one yt I shewd em to; That a Man may spend Wealth wthout knowing how to get it; wee have instances of several [peo]ple born to good Estates yt do; but yn ye Poor Shift [MS damaged; go?]es to take away yt defence;2 But however shift [bei?]ng a sort of Hangeron, may contrive to spend [MS damaged; Weal?]th for other people, wch yet hee is unable to get again: [MS damaged; Yt?] was wt I satisfyd my self wth at ye [frst] time [MS damaged; wth?] out thinking farther upon it; th’ truly I question [MS damaged; ve?]ry much whether twill defend it or no; The all whole3 I confess I did not reflect upon but however ’tis very plain tautology. The Ease yt pain,4 I was so little Satisfied ^\wth/, yt wn I writt ’em down frst in my Table books5 I durst not make use of it, for both [10r] ye reason, you mention; yt it was not a go[o]d rhyme, & perfectly a botching out6 ye Verses; & ’tho I had my choice of several other endings, yett I first writ it out, & left it without ye Verse to bee finishd after, because Iall7 ye way, I wd think of verse lyable to ye same objection of botching up ye Verse; Your correction of it is ^\much/ better yn any of mine; yet it seems (at least at first sight) to bee a little faulty too. I am Dear Sir [There is a paragraph in Walsh’s hand unrelated to this letter below on this sheet.] 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 18. This letter should probably be dated after the preceding letter to early 1691.

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106 The correspondence of John Dryden

2. That is, the fact that Walsh’s character ‘Shift’ is said to be ‘Poor’ means we cannot suppose him to have been born into ‘good Estates’, rendering moot this defence against Dryden’s ‘triffling’ criticism in the preceding letter (see Letter 17, n10; ‘how he cou’d spend wealth, not haveing the Sence to get it?’). In this letter Walsh frequently introduces fragmentary quotations from his verse with ‘ye’/‘the’ (see ‘The all whole’ and ‘The Ease yt pain’ below); for the eventual text of the epigram under discussion here see Letter 17, n10). 3. This was corrected in the third line of the published version (see Walsh, Letters and Poems, 104). 4. This was corrected in the final version (see Walsh, Letters and Poems, 105). 5. OED, ‘tablebook n.’ ‘A book of writing tablets […]; a notebook. Now hist.’ This manuscript has not survived. 6. OED, ‘botch, v.1 to make clumsy, imperfect, or temporary repairs to; to patch up. Also in figurative contexts.’ See also ‘botcher, n.1’: ‘A person whose occupation is mending shoes; a cobbler’; ‘A tailor who carries out repairs, as opposed to one who makes new clothing’. Here (and in ‘botching up’, below), Walsh alludes self-deprecatingly to the mechanical aspects of making verses, but that self-deprecation also reveals the fact that in these letters Dryden and Walsh are talking about the nuts and bolts of poetic composition (and, at times, how to conceal them). Botching and botchers are invoked in relation to poetry in the description of some lines from Elkanah Settle’s Empress of Morocco in Dryden, Crowne, and Shadwell’s notes and observations thereon: ‘like good Cloaths sent to a Botcher to finish, the fancy is so bungled together, so filled with Bombazeene stiffning, that one abhors it in the shape he has put it’ (Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco, or, Some few errata’s to be printed instead of the sculptures with the second edition of the play (London: [s.n.], 1674), 33; California Edition, 17.136). In the Preface to The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue (London: J. Bowyer and C. King, 1715), Elizabeth Elstob uses the phrase in a passage that calls to mind Dryden’s thoughts on the difficulty of managing monosyllables and the importance of avoiding contractions in Letter 17: ‘I cannot see why our Language may not now and then be tolerated in using Monosyllables, when it is done discreetly, and sparingly; and as I do not commend any of our Moderns who contract Words into Monosyllables to botch up their Verses, much less such as do it out of Affectation; yet certainly the use of Monoyllables may be made to produce a charming an harmonious Effect, where they fall under a Judgement that can rightly dispose and order them’ (xiv [italics reversed]). Elstob goes on to give a wealth of examples of English poets – including Dryden and Waller – who exhibit just such a judgement (xv–xxix). 7. The ‘a’ of ‘all’ is written over an unfinished ‘I’.

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Letter 19 ([Early 1691]) 107

Letter 191 William Walsh to Dryden

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 10434, fols 29–30.

[29r] Dear Sir Wee young Authours are like young Women, who are allways plaguing a Man, when he is once acquainted wth yr infirmities. I have lookt over my Dialogue of Women, & if I can judge of my own things, as imparti-ally as of other peoples, I think it may do not much worse yn many other things yt are printed with tolerable Success. However tis upon a particular reason yt I woud have it printed; of wch I will make you Confident;2 The lady to whom it is written has playd mee some scurvy trickes for which, [29v] I may come to fall out publickly with her.3 & because it is usual for all ye Sex to take one anothers part in these case[s]; I wou’d first print this Defence of ’em, to engage my self a party amongst ’em,4 There is another reason also, & yt is, I have another Mistress,5 who is resolved to conferr favour upon none but Merit; & as shee is a person of sense, so shee does place all this meritt, as Women usually do, in a fine outside; But is a great friend to Witt & Learning; If I coud therefore any ways make her believe yt I had any pretences to those, it might bee a g[r]eat meens towards ye making mee succeed. The Business therefore is that I have hardly confidence enough in it, to print in my own name; on ye other side shoud it bee printed wthout any name at all, it may perhaps never come to bee read: Now if you woud give yor selfe ye trouble to write some little preface to it; it might a very g[r]eat means to recommend it to ye World.6 Tis true I am no great friend to Commendation Letters of Recom mendation7 before Books nor I believe does any of solid Judgemt ever like ’em ye better for it, but this beeing intended only for ye Ladies, ye know they are often imposed upon by such [30r] things. It is a very usual thing amongst ye French, for one friend to write prefaces for another; however I do not much fancy yt manner of doing it; wch is a fulsome Panegyrick upon ye Work. All yt I woud have done in the case; is to acquaint em, yt ye Authour of it having not confidence enough in ye piece to venture it to ye press; you thought yt it might pass as well as others yt they have been troubled with. If you finde any thing in ye manner, of ye Dialogue, in ye Gallantry of ye Apostrophes,8 or if you think there is somewt of reading shewn in it, yt is considerable for a man who professes himself so perfect a Servt to

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108 The correspondence of John Dryden

ye Sex, you may please to let ’em know as much. I wou’d by no means impose so far upon yor friendship, as to desire you to say any thing more yn wt you think, but if you think there is any thing tolerable in it, you may let ’em know yt. All yt can reasonably be urged agt this is, yt I having com spoken with Justice of some of yor things in it, yt may look like a bribe to you to return ye com say some thing of mine.9 But in answer to this ’tis plain, yt if I have said more of you yn of any other of or Contemporaries, tis only evidently for noe other reason but because you deserve it better & yt I have [30v] every where taken all occasions of mentioning any Witt of or own Times; as a piece of Candour wch I have very much admired in some great Authours; & ye contrary to wch seems only to bee marks of ill Malice. If you will do mee have leisure, & do not think to do this & dont think ye piece unworthy it; I will send you the Copy,10 wch: you may dispose of with ye same freedom as if it were yor own, reserving mee some as sufficient number of Printed ones to disperse among my friends. I do not mean yt you shoud speake of it as a piece of wch ye Authour is not known, for tho’ I will not venture to put my Name; yet except it is known to bee mine, it will not answer ye Ends for wch I design’d it. I am X 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 19. The date is probably early 1691. 2. OED: ‘confident, adj. and n., A person entrusted with secrets or private matters.’ 3. A Dialogue Concerning Women is addressed to ‘Eugenia’, the recently widowed Anne Pierrepoint (née Greville), Countess of Kingston-upon-Hull [‘Kingston’], of whose lovers Walsh is known to be one (the volume containing this letter contains another to an unknown confidante of Kingston, ‘wn shee had forcet mee into ye most violent passion in ye World […] shee went immediately wth my tears wet upon her face into ye arms of another man. When after this shee sent me a letter out of ye Country, to desire my assist­ ance if any body shou’d discover her to her husband […] I readily promisd my service’ (British Library, Add. MSS 10434, fols 32r–32v, quoted in Freeman, ‘William Walsh and Dryden’, 199, n1). One of the ‘scurvy trickes’ which Walsh believed of Kingston was of her having secretly remarried another. In this he was correct, her having married her late husband’s cousin William Pierrepoint in March 1691. He wrote to her, ‘I was told last night at ye Musick meeting yt ye Town expected a second Edition of ye Dialogue concerning Women, wherein all yor Letters to mee wou’d be exposd; & some have told mee yt you also had said ye same thing. I can only assure you Madam yt I never had any such design’ (ibid., fol. 37vff., quoted in Freeman (199), for whose full account of this relationship and episode, see esp. 198–201). 4. ‘A dialogue written to flatter and impress Lady Kingston was, then, to be published as the first step in a campaign to discredit her’ (California Edition, 20.300–1). There is, then, also some irony in the opening of Dryden’s ‘Preface to A Dialogue Concerning

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Letter 19 ([Early 1691]) 109

Women’: ‘The Perusal of this Dialogue, in defence of the Fair Sex, Written by a Gentleman of my acquaintance, much surpris’d me: For it was not easie for me to imagine, that one so young, cou’d have treated so nice a Subject with so much judgment. ’Tis true, I was not ignorant that he was naturally Ingenious, and that he had improv’d himself by Travelling; and from thence I might reasonably have expected that air of Gallantry, which is so visibly diffus’d through the body of the Work, and is indeed the Soul that aminates all things of this nature’ (Walsh, A Dialogue Concerning Women, Being a Defence Of the Sex. Written to EUGENIA (London: Printed for R. Bentley and J. Tonson, 1691), A2r–v; California Edition, 20.3). 5. According to A. E. Wallace Maurer, this ‘Mistress’ was Jane Leveson-Gower (California Edition, 20.301), daughter of Sir William Leveson-Gower, fourth Baronet (c. 1647–91). He inherited the title and estate from his nephew in 1689 and Dryden had recently dedicated Amphitryon; Or, The Two Socia’s (London: Jacob Tonson, 1690) to him and refers to his daughter as ‘young Berenice, who is misimploying all her Charms on stupid Country Souls, that can never know the Value of them; and losing the Triumphs, which are ready prepar’d for her in the Court and Town. And yet I know not whether I am so much a loser by her absence; for I have Reason to apprehend the sharpness of her Judgment, if it were not allay’d with the sweetness of her Nature; and after all, I fear she may come time enough, to discover a Thousand Imperfections in my Play, which might have pass’d on Vulgar Understandings’ (sig. A3v; California Edition, 15.225). 6. Dryden wrote the Preface to Walsh’s Dialogue Concerning Women (sig. A2r–A4v). Walsh had the dedication ‘Written to Eugenia’ printed on the title page, which would have fitted his design as set out here. 7. ‘Recommendation’ runs over the line in the manuscript, but there is no hyphen. 8. As Dryden has already written that he does, in the postscript to Letter 17. 9. In fact, ‘Walsh speaks only briefly about Dryden and mentions none of his works by name’ (Ward, Letters, 159, n3). 10. Walsh seems to suggest that he encloses the manuscript of the text for which he is requesting a prefatory note from Dryden, and that Dryden may distribute the printed work as he wishes, saving for those copies that Walsh himself would like to distribute. It is unclear how the text arrived with Tonson for publication, but the implication is that it was to be and – perhaps was – managed by Dryden.

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110 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 201 William Walsh to Dryden

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 10434, fols 55–7.

[55v] To Mr Dryden. I sent you a letter yt day I came out of Town by my Chairman,2 th w a Copy of ye Song On Flavia enclosed in it,3 wch I suppose, hee deliverd you; I told you there also yt it was not impossible but I might trouble you wth a letter out of ye Countrey. Accordingly Sr ye time is come & you must bear it as patiently as you can. The business I write to you abt, is a design of yt 4 I have had of a Treatise w:ch I woud have yor Opinion of, before I set abt it. The Treatise I design yn, is of ye Nature of Love:5 It shall bee divided into three parts. In the first wee will speak of ye Nature of Love in general; wee will shew yt this general Inclination wch we cal Love is ye Cause of all ye Vertues & Vices in ye World as it is placed before good or bad Objects: [56r] Wee shall divide it into Love of ye [Minde & of the body.] Wee will shew yt Love is a tendency of ye Minde [to god] & yt all ye Errours & Vices yt proceed from Love, is loving good ye lesser Good wn it is accompanyd wth a greater Evil; not yt it makes us love ye Evil, but ye Good does so blinde us as to make us not take notice of ye Evil. Wee will shew yt Amourousness is so far from beeing a fault yt it requires all ye Wisdome & Vertue in ye World to bee truly so. Wee will shew yt there can be no happiness but in Love; yt ye Joys of [MS deletion; Materiall?] But as ye difference of ye Objects this Love is placed upon ^\may/ make, yt bad wch is in its own nature Good, it draws us insensibly into ye 2d part wch: is ye Object of Love. This wee shall make to bee Beauty as ^\Socrates &/ Plato has done first,6 & every body since from him. Wee shall divide Beauty into Corporeal Beauty of ye Body & ye Minde. In Corporeal Beauty wee shall divide into Visible & Invisible. ye Visible shall bee Colour, Proportion, & Air. The Invisible shall bee yt Sympathy & Antipathy wch makes us love wn there is no Beauty yt appears. & yt makes us love one particular Object wn other people love others. As ye Loadstone draws Iron & not Straws7 &:8 wee shall divide the Beauty of ye Minde into yt of ye Understanding & ye Will Intellectual & Moral in reference to ye facultyes of ye Minde Intell ye Understanding & ye Will. Wee [in another hand: will shew] [56v] [MS damaged] ye Connexion there is between these 3 Beautyes in them. Wee will shew yt ye Beauty of ye

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Letter 20 (13 August 1691) 111

Body is a sign of Beauty of ye Mind; wee will shew yt ye Errors yt happen, in proceed either from mistaking Beauty; taking yt Beauty yt is not really so in yt Creature. as mistaking Manly Beauty in a Woman or Feminine in a Man. Or from doating upon some little Beauty, wn there are other Deformityes, yt are worse signes & overcome ye other. Or from an utter Depravation of or Understanding, wch makes it delight in wt is not Beautiful. The third part shall be Enjoymt. Wee will shew yt as Love allways tends to Enjoymt, so will shew wt it proposes to it self in it.9 wch is production of somewt ^\Beautiful/ in order to sasitfy yt inbred Desire wee have of Immortality. That as there are 3 sort of Love so there are 3 sorts of Ways to do this. ye Ist Corporeal by Children. ye 2d Intellectual, by wise Discourse Writing &: ye 3d Moral by good & Vertuous Actions. That wee may take occasion to give reasons why Love does not last after Enjoymt Wee will shew yt all Happiness even In ye Happiness of Heaven, is only enjoying wt wee love Wee will take occasion here to shew why some Loves do nott last after Enjoymt. Wee will speak here of [57r] Marriage, & taking it for granted yt they are generally unfortunate, endevor wt ye reasons of it. Now to make it both more plain Instructive, & more Entertaining too, I wou’d treat it by way of Dialogue. I woud lay ye Scene of it in France as beeing a place where they are apter to talk of Love yn here. I woud have it ye Hostel Rambouillet wch was ye rendezvous of all ye Beaux Esprits of yt Age.10 & I woud bring in Le Chambre,11 Balzac,12 & Voiture13 talking abt it. Le Chambre because no Man has treated ye Passions so judiciously or so floridly. Balzac because hee set up Morals to talk of ye Moral part; & Voiture ^\& ye Ladye14/ for ye Gallantry, wch will be necessary to set of ye Piece. Wt may bee objected agt this is, yt it is doing too much honour to another Countrey especially at a time wn wee are at Warr wth ’em;15 tho’ in answer to yt I think ’tis no more to bring ’em in in a Dialogue, yn to translate any thing yt they have written. Pray let mee know whether you approve of ye design or no; & whether you think it bee wthin my strenght. I have drawn you such a confused Scheme of it; yt I do not know whether you will take it right, but however you may guess at my design by it. But I trouble you too long ab[t] a Trifle, & take you of from better Employmt. ye World will be much [57v] more concerned in. Is Cleomenes finisht pray or have you begun ye other design you told mee abt ye priesthood.16

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112 The correspondence of John Dryden

Pray Let mee know wn you go out of Town & whither. Have you heard out of Staff, I had a letter from London wch told mee thee ye young Lady was just going to be marryd to a young Ld whose name they coud not tell. That is not fair play methinkes to take so consider able place, wthout proclaiming War.17 Abberley18 August: 13: 1691 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 20. 2. OED, ‘chairman, n.’ ‘One whose occupation it is to carry persons in chairs or chairlike conveyances; spec. the two men who carried a sedan-chair.’ 3. See William Walsh, ‘To Caelia, upon some Alterations in her Face’, in Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant, 105–7. 4. ‘yt’ is written over ‘of’. 5. There is no record of this elaborate plan ever having been executed. 6. Plato (428/427 or 424/423 bc to 348/347 bc), Athenian philosopher. W. R. M. Lamb writes of Plato’s Symposium: ‘Its theme is the passion of personal love, so often the subject or occasion of literary art, but rarely examined in its moral aspect with any true perception of profit. Love is here treated with a sense of its universal importance and with a reach and certainty of insight which do not appear in any other of the great religious or moral teachers. This confident mastery was one of the extraordinary powers of Socrates (c. 470–399 bc) which Plato at this stage of his writing was intent on portraying; it was one of the strangely memorable impressions which the elder man left on his associates, in spite of his simple, inquisitive manner and his constant avowals of ignorance. In some of his more positive moods he described himself as an inveterate “lover,” in the sense of a declared and devout wor­shipper of the great energy of Nature which in its various workings amongst men was called by the general name of “Eros.” Often he would feign, in his playful, paradoxical way, to put himself on a level with ordinary sensual men, and by discussing their views – if they had any, and consented to state them – would endeavour to lead the talk on to his own conception of love, where it was to be approached on the loftiest and most serious plane of thought. For the very purpose of a telling contrast with the common attitude to the matter, he would make a humorous use of the terms of ordinary love-passion to produce a sudden surprise in his hearers, when they found that his own pursuit of intellectual refinement through friendly or affectionate intercourse was independent of the outward attractions of sense.’ W. R. M. Lamb (transl.), Plato: Lysis, Symposium, Georgias (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925): 74–5. 7. OED, ‘loadstone | lodestone, n.’ ‘Magnetic oxide of iron; also, a piece of this used as a magnet.’ Since Plato, the attraction of iron by the lodestone (magnetism) and pieces of straw by rubbed amber (static electricity) had been discussed alongside one another. In City of God, XXI.vii, discussing natural wonders, Augustine writes of ‘the loadstone that draws iron by an invisible attraction but will not move a straw’ (City of God, Volume I: Books 1–3, transl. George E. McCracken (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 45. 8. In this letter Walsh uses the ampersand followed by a colon to signify ‘etc.’ 9. This is a collocation common in philosophical works in this period; see, for example, in the previous year, ‘in whatever Impiety proposes to its Self’ (John Philips (transl.), ‘Concerning those whom God is slow to punish’, in Plutarch’s Morals Translated from the Greek by Several Hands, four vols (London: R. Bently [sic], 1690), 4.167–218 (187)).

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Letter 20 (13 August 1691) 113

10. The Hôtel de Rambouillet was the Paris residence of Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet (1588–1665), known as ‘Madame de Rambouillet’, who ran a renowned literary salon there from 1620 until 1648. 11. Marin Cureau de La Chambre (1594–1669). Les Caractères des passions par le sieur de La Chambre, five vols (Paris: [s.n.] 1640) is the main work on which his reputation rests. 12. See Letter 17, n8. 13. Vincent Voiture (1594–1648). Walsh apparently refers to his ‘letters of gallantry’ (Ward, Letters, 159, n4), which were published as Letters of Affaires Love and Courtship. Written to Several Persons of Honour and Quality; By the Exquisite Pen of Monsieur de Voiture, a Member of the Famous French Academy Established at Paris by Cardinall de Richelieu. English’d by J.D. (London: T. Dring and J. Starkey, 1657). 14. That is, Rambouillet. 15. The War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97). 16. ‘After some difficulties, Cleomenes was acted in May, 1692. [Thomas] Southerne (1660–1746), playwright, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and was sometime collaborator with Dryden. Despite fighting on the side of James II in the 1680s, by the early 1690s he was enjoying considerable theatrical success with his comedies, in which he was supported by Dryden. In his Epistle Dedicatory to The Wives’ Excuse [Or, Cuckolds Make Themselves (London: W. Freeman, 1692)] (for which Dryden wrote a prefatory poem [sig. A2r–A3r]), he boasts that when Dryden fell ill in the summer of 1691, “he bequeathed to my care the writing of half the last act of his tragedy of Cleomenes.” In the Gentleman’s Journal for February, 1691/2 (p. 27), Peter Motteux records that “Mr. Dryden has completed a new Tragedy, intended shortly for the Stage….” In March, he writes, “We are to have … Mr. Dryden’s Cleomenes very shortly.” On April 12, “it was to have appear’d upon the Stage on Saturday last … but Orders came from Her Majesty to hinder it being acted, so none can tell when it shall be play’d.” On May 14, however, he records that it has been acted with great applause, and devotes a considerable space to an appreciative criticism of it. For the copyright, Dryden received thirty guineas from Tonson. The poet’s receipt [published in Malone, Prose Works, 1.1.455, n6)] for that amount … is dated October 6, 1691, which suggests that the play was then completed – or at least nearly enough so for Tonson to risk his money’ (Ward, Letters, 159, n8). The work ‘abt ye priesthood’ has not been identified, though George Douglas Atkins suggests that the later ‘Character of a Good Parson; Imitated from Chaucer, and Inlarg’d’ may in part have been a much delayed fulfilment of such plans, prompted by the suggestion of Pepys referred to in Letter 65 below. See George Douglas Atkins, The Faith of John Dryden: Change and Continuity (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015), 152. 17. Walsh is referring to ‘a common friend, Jane Leveson-Gower [of Trentham, Staffordshire], whose marriage to Lord [Henry] Hyde was being delayed by his absence in Flanders with the King, and who appears to have been whiling away the interval by a semi-intellectual flirtation [Walsh includes with his letter copies of others that had passed between him and Leveson-Gower] with the handsome author of the Dialogue Concerning Women’ (Freeman, ‘William Walsh and Dryden’, 198 and n6). In his later dedication to Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, of Cleomenes, Dryden writes of her: ‘your admirable Daughter-in-law; shining, not like a Star, but a Constellation of her Self; a more true and brighter Berenice. Then it was, that whether out of your own Partiality, and Indulgence to my Writings, or out of Complaisance to the Fair Company, (who gave the first good Omen to my Success, by their Approbation,) your Lordship was pleas’d to add your own: And afterwards to Represent it to the Queen, as wholly Innocent of those Crimes, which were laid unjustly to its Charge’ (sig. A3r; California Edition, 16.75). 18. Abberley, Worcestershire, was Walsh’s childhood home.

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114 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 211 William Walsh to Dryden

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 10434, fols 59–61.

[59r] To Mr Dryden.

[59v] Sr I am very sorry to hear you have but been well, but hope the Thunder has cleard ye Air, & made it fitter for you; ^\tho not perhaps for/ Poetry I see will still be reservd to ye same Destiny & methinks Homer who went abt ^\wth a Dog & Bell/ alone,2 had somewt ye advantage of [MS deletion] a Man yt goes about in some sort of Mens Company. But who is ye Lord pray yt was talkt of for ye fair Lady for this is ye first yt I heard ^\you told mee/ of it.3 Since I recd yors I have lookt over Castiglione; where hee treats of Love:4 Speron Sperone has a Dialogue upon ye same Occasion5 Tassone has some Chapters abt it in his Pensieri,6 & Alveto d’Equicola has writt a Book wch hee calls Di Natura di Amore.7 I give you in his own words, because it is not very good Italian, for now at least they say della Nature d’Amore. These are all ye Italians yt I have seen abt it, if therefore yt you mention bee any thing else, I shou’d bee glad to see it if I knew wt it was; Tho’ Truly these woud give me little encouragemt, for there is nothing new in em. Le Chambre is ye only Modern yt has treatted yt Subject well,8 & indeed as a Naturalist he has gone farther in it yn any of ye Antients. But ye chief Man I intend to follow is Plato: Who has writt one Dialogue of Love, & ^\one/ 2 of Beauty,9 ^\ye latter indeed altogether allegorical/ & yt of Love is one of ye best yt [60r] ever hee writt. The Dialogue consists of a great many,10 & so on [MS indecipherable: yt?]11 give several accounts of this Passion all several; & all very entertaining. But as there are but 3 ways of considering it, one as a Naturalist, one as a Moralist, & ^\one as/ a Gallant, I made choice of those 3 persons12 to do it. In ^\ye two last of/ whose Characters13 I finde you think there is a great deal of difficulty. Now yt of Boileaus by ye way is quite a different undertaking, for tis one thing to represent ^\imitate/ im yr14 writing, another thing yr speaking; & hee yt shoud bring in Cicero spea talking in a Dialogue wth all those long periods & elaborate Periods yt hee uses in his Orations, wou’d quite destroy ye Nature of this sort of writing. Tis true indeed Letters ought to bee ye way of writing the most like speaking, but as

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Letter 21 ([September or October 1691]) 115

Demetrius Phalereus tells you yt even in his time they were allowed to bee much more flourishing in one yn ye other;15 So Balzacks Letters are in a Stile much more different from ye common way of talking yn any in his times.16 And you see wn hee writes his Moralls,17 hee as well as his familiar Letters to Conrart & Chapelain, hee leaves all yt those affected Hyperboles & Metaphors, yt hee commonly made use of; as not proper in yt place.18 So ^\now/ yt my business is nt I reckon to look upon him as an Orator but a Moral Philosopher. By ye way do you think Boileau has so extremely well succeeded in his Imitation of him.19 I confess I allways thought it a chef d’Oevre,20 till looking upon it again [60v] after ye receipt of yor letter, it does not appear to mee so well as formerly, & I may ^\will/ tell you my reason, yt you may inform mee better if I am in ye Wrong. Balzac you know was ye first yt brought ye French Prose to any thing of Excellence.21 Then No Modern in any language has imitated ye beauty of Ciceros Numbers like him, & there is nothing more full, more musical ^\round, more majestical/, or more harmonious yn his Numbers. ^\his connexion very fine/22 Hee writes in yt Sublime Stile yt Longin talks so much of, & this has of23 sometimes carried him too far, into too bold Metaphor & too high strong Hyperboles. Now pray how does Boileau imitate this. His periods are short, rough, & unmusical no connexion at all between em, ^\more like Seneca24 or Lipsius25 yn Cicero or Balzac./ but to make amends hee has given you three times more Hyperboles yn ever Balzac made use of in ye same compass.26 I confess it puts mee in mind of Kg Charles ye 2d Picture upon the sign Posts, where the Painters thought if they made a damnd ugly face wth a black Periwigg they had done yr businesse. If a man woud enter into ye retail27 of these businesses one might make several Criticismes upon yt letter. Le bruit de vos actions ressuscite les Morts: Il reveille des gens endormis depuis trente annees, & condamnes a un silence sommeil eternal. Il fait parler le silence même.28 Is there not there enough of yt sort for one letter & yet before ye ending of it, you finde; Il fait sans cesse ressouvenir de vous dans [61r] le sejour mêmes de l’oubli: Il trouve des partizans zeles dans le pais de l’Indifference:29 ^\Here are ye same sort of thoughts and numbers/ If these were too many of this sort to come together as indeed they were, they were much worse to come upon you again so soon after. And yet as if hee had30 done enough in yt hee brings ’em upon you again in Voitures letter; Il s’est fait entendre dans un lieu ou l’on n’entend pas Dieu tonner, & a fait connaitre votre gloire dans un pays ou l’on ne connaist point le Soleil.31 This is not ye

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116 The correspondence of John Dryden

only ye same thing over again; but it is brought in where it is not near so proper. Not but yt I confess I look upon his letter in imitation of Voiture as admirably well done: His Character indeed is very hard to hitt; & yt indeed I take to bee difficulty of ye piece. For his letters are so very natural & easy, yt nothing can bee more proper for Dialogue. But besides understand beeing very conversant in his Style, a Man must bee in a good humr wn hee woud imitate him or else hee will make nothing of it. I wou’d send you a Copy of some Letters in his way but yt I have tired you too much already. I am Sr 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 21. ‘The date is probably September or October 1691. The reference in the first sentence obviously is to Dryden’s illness of the late summer. The letter is in answer to Dryden’s reply, not extant, to Walsh’s (Letter [20])’ (Ward, Letters, 160, headnote). 2. Homer, the collective name of the authors of the Iliad and the Odyssey, was ­legendarily blind. Demonstrating his poetic affinity with John Oldham (1653–83), who had died young, aged thirty, Dryden contributed ‘To the Memory of Mr. Oldham’ (‘Farewell, too little and too lately known, | Whom I began to think and call my won; | For sure our Souls were near ally’d; and thing | Cast in the same Poetick mould with mine’ (ll. 1–4)) to Remains of Mr. Oldham (London: Jo. Hindmarsh, 1684), [no sig.], which was bound up with The Works of Mr. John Oldham (London: [s.n.], 1684). Oldham had written of Homer that ‘The blind old Bard, with Dog and Bell before, | Was fain to sing for bread from door to door; | The needy Muses all turn’d Gipsies then, | And of the begging Trade e’re since have been:’ (A Satyr [in which ‘[t]he Person of Spencer is brought in, Dissuading the Author from the Study of Poetry, etc.]’, ll. 157–60, in [John Oldham], Poems, and Translations by the Author of the Satyrs upon the Jesuits (London: Jos. Hindmarsh, 1683), 172–3. See John Harold F. Brooks (ed.), with the collaboration of Raman Selden, The Poems of John Oldham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 243. 3. Presumably in a letter which has been lost; ‘ye Lord’ is Lord Henry Hyde and ‘ye fair Lady’ is Jane Leveson-Gower (see Letter 20, n17). 4. Baldassare Castiglione, Count of Casatico (1478–1529), was the author of Il libro del cortegiano (Venice: Aldine Press, 1528). It addresses the constitution of the perfect courtier and, in its final instalment, a perfect lady of the court. Walsh probably refers to the Book of the Courtier – the earliest English edition of which was The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio Diuided into Foure Bookes. Very Necessary and Profitatable [sic] for Yonge Gentilmen and Gentilwomen Abiding in Court, Palaice or Place, Done into Englyshe by Thomas Hoby (London: Wyllyam Seres, 1561) – Books II and IV, secs. 49–67 (see Ward, Letters, 161, n2). 5. Sperone Speroni degli Alvarotti (1500–88), Italian Renaissance humanist, scholar, and dramatist. He was one of the central members of Padua’s literary Accademia degli Inflammati and wrote on both moral and literary matters. ‘His Dialoghi [d’amore (Venice: Manucio, 1542)] came out in Venice in 1542 and was on the nature of love. It was translated into French in 1551. He was regarded in his own time as an authoritative voice on literary matters’ (Ward, Letters, 161, n3).

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Letter 21 ([September or October 1691]) 117

6. Alessandro Tassoni (1565–1635), Italian poet, literary critic, and political writer. He was the author of ‘pensieri’ (miscellany essays) from 1608–27, which are somewhat like Montaigne’s Essais of a quarter of a century earlier. The definitive edition was Dieci libri di pensieri diversi d’Alessandro Tassoni (Carpi: Girolamo Vaschieri, 1620), and Walsh may be thinking of Tassoni’s discussions of love in Lib. VI.38: ‘se il gusto d’un amante sia maggio nel senso, o nel’intelletto’ [‘Whether the taste of a lover is in the sense or the intellect’], that ‘amore umano non ha per fine altro che cose sensibili’ [‘human love has no purpose other than feelings’], or even that ‘Amori Platonici sone favole’ [‘Platonic loves are the stuff of fables’]. The Dieci libri was ‘the prose work that Tassoni himself regarded as his major claim to fame’ (Peter Bondanella, Julia Conaway Bondanella, and Jody Robin Shiffman (eds), Cassell Dictionary of Italian Literature (London: Cassell, 1996), 573). 7. ‘Mario Equicola (1460–1541), historian and philosopher. His Della natura d’Amore was translated into French in 1554. Divided into six books, it treats methodically the ques­ tions of the philosophy of love’ (Ward, Letters, 161, n5). The work originally had the title Libro de natura de amore di Mario Equicola (Venice: Lorenzo Lorio da Portes, 1525; [s.n.], 1526). Walsh and Ward mistake this differently; Equicola’s Di natura d’amore (Venice: Lucio Spineda, 1626) was the most recent and may be the title of which Walsh is thinking. 8. That is, in Les Caractères des passions. 9. That is, Plato, the Symposium and Hippias Major, the latter of which is ‘now usually considered spurious’ (Ward, Letters, 161, n7). The ‘2’ in this line is not struck through, but clearly supposed to be replaced by the interlined ‘one’. 10. That is, Plato’s Symposium has ‘a great many’ speakers: seven named inter­locutors – Socrates; Phaedrus; Eriximachus; Pausanias; Aristophanes; Agathon; Alcibiades – against Walsh’s proposed three. 11. Ward reads ‘yt’, but it is very badly formed if so. It is not the only badly formed word in these drafts. It seems most likely that ‘and so on’ is functioning for Ward as a prompt to say more in the letter he sends, perhaps to put in something he has already written elsewhere. Given the ensuing sentence, it is possible that this would concern the differing perspectives of Plato’s speakers. 12. That is, Le Chambre, Balzac, and Voiture (see Letter 20, n13). 13. By ‘character’ in this letter Walsh means something like literary style (Ward, Letters, 161, n13). Dryden must have raised this question of ‘character’ or style in his reply to Letter 20, now lost. 14. ‘yr’ is written over ‘im’. Presumably, Walsh began with ‘represent’ at the end of the line, crossed it out, and began ‘imitate’ on next line, then decided to interline ‘imitate’ above the crossed out ‘represent’ instead, writing over the ‘im’ with ‘yr’ and continuing. 15. Demetrius of Phalerum (c. 350 – c. 280 bc) was an Athenian orator originally from Phalerum, a student of Theophrastus, and perhaps of Aristotle (384–322 bc) and one of the first Peripatetics. On Style (Περὶ ἑρμηνείας), which is supposedly by Demetrius, is the work of a later writer, circa second century ad. ‘On Style may well be the earliest post-­ Aristotelian treatise on literary theory to survive complete; and even if it is not, it is an important early source on an exceptionally wide range of topics. In contrast to the more stimulating but idiosyncratic Aristotle’s Poetics and Longinus’ On the Sublime, it is not likely to be highly innovative, but that in itself makes On Style a particularly useful introduction and guide to our understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of classical literary criticism’ (Doreen C. Innes (ed. and transl.), in her introduction to Demetrius’ On Style in the collection Aristotle: Poetics. Longinus: On the Sublime. Demetrius: On Style, ed. and transl. Stephen Halliwell et al., Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 309). Innes provides and translates the relevant passage in On Style (479–83): ‘(224) καὶ λέγει μέν τι ἴσως, οὐ μὴν ἅπαν· δεῖ γὰρ ὑποκατεσκευάσθαι πως

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118 The correspondence of John Dryden

μᾶλλον τοῦ διαλόγου τὴν ἐπιστολήν· ὁ μὲν γὰρ μιμεῖται αὐτοσχεδιάζοντα, ἡ δὲ γράφεται καὶ δῶρον πέμπεται τρόπον τινά. (225) τίς γοῦν οὕτως ἂν διαλεχθείη πρὸς φίλον ὥσπερ ὁ Ἀριστοτέλης πρὸς Ἀντίπατρον ὑπὲρ τοῦ φυγάδος γράφων τοῦ γέροντός φησιν· “εἰ δὲ πρὸς ἁπάσας οἴχεται γᾶς φυγὰς οὗτος, ὥστε μὴ κατάγειν, δῆλον ὡς τοῖσγε εἰς Ἅιδου κατελθεῖν βουλομένοις οὐδεὶς φθόνος·” ὁ γὰρ οὕτως διαλεγόμενος ἐπιδεικνυμένῳ ἔοικεν μᾶλλον, οὐ λαλοῦντι. (226) καὶ λύσεις συχναὶ ὁποῖαι οὐ πρέπουσιν ἐπιστολαῖς· ἀσαφὲς γὰρ ἐν γραφῇ ἡ λύσις, καὶ τὸ μιμητικὸν οὐ γραφῆς οὕτως οἰκεῖον ὡς ἀγῶνος, οἷον ὡς ἐν τῷ Εὐθυδήμῳ· “τίς ἦν, ὦ Σώκρατες, ᾧ χθὲς ἐν Λυκείῳ διελέγου; ἦ πολὺς ὑμᾶς ὄχλος περιειστήκει·” καὶ μικρὸν προελθὼν ἐπιφέρει, “ἀλλά μοι ξένος τις φαίνεται εἶναι, ᾧ διελέγου· τίς ἦν;” ἡ γὰρ τοιαύτη πᾶσα ἑρμηνεία καὶ μίμησις ὑποκριτῇ πρέπει μᾶλλον, οὐ γραφομέναις ἐπιστολαῖς. (227) Πλεῖστον δὲ ἐχέτω τὸ ἠθικὸν ἡ ἐπιστολή, ὥσπερ καὶ ὁ διάλογος· σχεδὸν γὰρ εἰκόνα ἕκαστος τῆς ἑαυτοῦ ψυχῆς γράφει τὴν ἐπιστολήν. καὶ ἔστι μὲν καὶ ἐξ ἄλλου λόγου παντὸς ἰδεῖν τὸ ἦθος τοῦ γράφοντος, ἐξ οὐδενὸς δὲ οὕτως, ὡς ἐπιστολῆς. (228) Τὸ δὲ μέγεθος συνεστάλθω τῆς ἐπιστολῆς, ὥσπερ καὶ ἡ λέξις. αἱ δὲ ἄγαν μακραί, καὶ προσέτι κατὰ τὴν ἑρμηνείαν ὀγκωδέστεραι, οὐ μὰ τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐπιστολαὶ γένοιντο ἄν, ἀλλὰ συγγράμματα, τὸ χαίρειν ἔχοντα προσγεγραμμένον, καθάπερ τοῦ Πλάτωνος πολλαὶ καὶ ἡ Θουκυδίδου. (229) καὶ τῇ συντάξει μέντοι λελύσθω μᾶλλον· γελοῖον γὰρ περιοδεύειν, ὥσπερ οὐκ ἐπιστολήν ἀλλὰ δίκην γράφοντα· καὶ οὐδὲ γελοῖον μόνον ἀλλ᾿ οὐδὲ φιλικὸν (τὸ γὰρ δὴ κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν “τὰ σῦκα σῦκα” λεγόμενον) ἐπιστολαῖς ταῦτα ἐπιτηδεύειν. (230) εἰδέναι δὲ χρή, ὅτι οὐχ ἑρμηνεία μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ πράγματά τινα ἐπιστολικά ἐστιν. Ἀριστοτέλης γοῦν ὃς μάλιστα ἐπιτετευχέναι δοκεῖ τοῦ [αὐτοῦ] ἐπιστολικοῦ, “τοῦτο δὲ οὐ γράφω σοί,” φησίν· “οὐ γὰρ ἦν ἐπιστολικόν.” (231) εἰ γάρ τις ἐν ἐπιστολῇ σοφίσματα γράφοι καὶ φυσιολογίας, γράφει μέν, οὐ μὴν ἐπιστολὴν γράφει. φιλοφρόνησις γάρ τις βούλεται εἶναι ἡ ἐπιστολὴ σύντομος, καὶ περὶ ἁπλοῦ πράγματος ἔκθεσις καὶ ἐν ὀνόμασιν ἁπλοῖς. (232) κάλλος μέντοι αὐτῆς αἵ τε φιλικαὶ φιλοφρονήσεις καὶ πυκναὶ παροιμίαι ἐνοῦσαι· καὶ τοῦτο γὰρ μόνον ἐνέστω αὐτῇ σοφόν, διότι δημοτικόν τί ἐστιν ἡ παροιμία καὶ κοινόν, ὁ δὲ γνωμολογῶν καὶ προτρεπόμενος οὐ δι᾿ ἐπιστολῆς ἔτι λαλοῦντι ἔοικεν, ἀλλὰ μηχανῆς. (233) Ἀριστοτέλης μέντοι καὶ ἀποδείξεσί που χρῆται ἐπιστολικῶς, οἷον διδάξαι βουλόμενος, ὅτι ὁμοίως χρὴ εὐεργετεῖν τὰς μεγάλας πόλεις καὶ τὰς μικράς, φησίν, “οἱ γὰρ θεοὶ ἐν ἀμφοτέραις ἴσοι, ὥστ᾿ ἐπεὶ αἱ χάριτες θεαί, ἴσαι ἀποκείσονταί σοι παρ᾿ ἀμφοτέραις.” καὶ γὰρ τὸ ἀποδεικνύμενον αὐτῷ ἐπιστολικὸν καὶ ἡ ἀπόδειξις αὐτή. (234) ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ πόλεσίν ποτε καὶ βασιλεῦσιν γράφομεν, ἔστωσαν τοιαῦται [αἱ] ἐπιστολαὶ μικρὸν ἐξηρμέναι πως. στοχαστέον γὰρ καὶ τοῦ προσώπου ᾧ γράφεται· ἐξηρμένη μέντοι καὶ οὐχ ὥστε σύγγραμμα εἶναι ἀντ᾿ ἐπιστολῆς, ὥσπερ αἱ Ἀριστοτέλους πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον, καὶ πρὸς τοὺς Δίωνος οἰκείους ἡ Πλάτωνος. (235) καθόλου δὲ μεμίχθω ἡ ἐπιστολὴ κατὰ τὴν ἑρμηνείαν ἐκ δυοῖν χαρακτήροιν τούτοιν, τοῦ τε χαρίεντος καὶ τοῦ ἰσχνοῦ. καὶ περὶ ἐπιστολῆς μὲν τοσαῦτα, καὶ ἅμα περὶ τοῦ χαρακτῆρος τοῦ ἰσχνοῦ.’ ‘(224) There is perhaps some truth in what he says, but not the whole truth. The letter should be a little more formal than the dialogue, since the latter imitates improvised conversation, while the former is written and sent as a kind of gift. (225) Who would ever talk to a friend as Aristotle writes to Antipater on behalf of an old man in exile? “If he is a wanderer over all the world, an exile with no hope of being recalled home, it is clear that we cannot blame men like him if they wish to return home, to Hades.” A man who talked like that would seem to be making a speech, not chatting. (226) Yet a series of abrupt sentence breaks such as < . . . > does not suit the letter. Abruptness in writing causes obscurity, and the imitation of conversation is less appropriate to writing than to real debate. Take the Euthydemus: “Who was it, Socrates, you were talking to yesterday in the Lyceum? There was certainly a large crowd standing round your group.” And a little further on he adds: “I think he was a stranger, the man you were talking to. Who was he?” All this sort of style in imitation of reality suits oral delivery better, it

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Letter 21 ([September or October 1691]) 119

does not suit letters since they are written. (227) Like the dialogue, the letter should be strong in characterization. Everyone writes a letter in the virtual image of his own soul. In every other form of speech it is possible to see the writer’s character, but in none so clearly as in the letter. (228) The length of a letter, no less than its range of style, should be restricted. Those that are too long, not to mention too inflated in style, are not in any true sense letters at all but treatises with the heading, “Dear Sir.” This is true of many of Plato’s letters, and that one of Thucydides. (229) The sentences should also be fairly loosely structured. It is absurd to build up periods, as if you were writing not a letter but a speech for the law courts. Nor is it just absurd to be so formal in letters, it is even contrary to friendship, which demands the proverbial calling of “a spade a spade.” (230) We should also be aware that there are epistolary topics as well as style. Certainly Aristotle is thought to have been exceptionally successful in the genre of letters, and he comments, “I am not writing to you on this, since it is not suitable for a letter.” (231) If anyone should write in a letter about problems of logic or natural philosophy, he may indeed write, but he does not write a letter. A letter’s aim is to express friendship briefly, and set out a simple subject in simple terms. (232) It has its own beauty, but only in expressions of warm friendship and the inclusion of numerous proverbs. This should be its only permitted philosophy, permitted since the proverb is ordinary, popular wisdom. But the man who utters sententious maxims and exhortations seems to be no longer chatting in a letter but preaching from the pulpit. (233) Aristotle, however, sometimes even develops proofs, though in such a way that they suit the letter. For instance, wanting to prove that large and small cities have an equal claim on benefactors, he says: “The gods are equal in both; so, since the Graces are gods, you will find grace stored up equally in both.” The point being proved suits a letter, and so does the proof itself. (234) Sometimes we write to cities and kings: such letters must be a little more elaborate, since we should consider the person to whom the letter is written, but it should not be so elaborate that the letter turns into a treatise, like those of Aristotle to Alexander or that of Plato to Dion’s friends. (235) In summary, in terms of style the letter should combine two of the styles, the elegant and the plain, and this concludes my account of the letter, and also of the plain style.’ 16. See Letter 17, n8. 17. That is, draws his conclusions. 18. See Balzac, Letters de M. de Balzac à M. Conrart (Paris: [s.n.], 1659) and Lettres familières de M. de Balzac à M. Chapelain (Paris: A. Courbé, 1659). 19. See ‘Balzac’ (Nicholas Boileau-Déspréaux), ‘A Monseigneur Le Duc De Vivonne Sur Son Entrée Dans Le Phare de Messine’ (2 June 1675), in Oeuvres de Boileau publiées d’après les texts originaux avec des notices par Jacques Bainville, five vols (Paris: [s.n.], 1929), 4.10–17. 20. OED, ‘chef d’œuvre, n. A masterpiece.’ 21. Walsh means Balzac, not ‘Balzac’ (i.e. Boileau) (see Letter 17, n8). 22. This unfinished interlined thought is a symptom of the roughness of this draft letter – it is not clear where Walsh intends it to be placed. 23. Presumably the first letters of ‘often’. 24. Lucius Anneaeus Seneca the younger (4 bc – 65 ad), Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, satirist, and statesman, famous for his suicide at the order of the Emperor Nero (see the account in Tacitus, Annals: Books 13–16, transl. John Jackson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937), XV.lxii (314–15). 25. Joest Lips (Justus Lipsius) (1547–1606), Flemish classicist and editor, philologist, and philosopher, a Catholic apologist and close correspondent of Montaigne. He ‘did more than anyone else to popularize the Senecan, pointed prose style that so delighted the strong wits of seventeenth-century Europe’ (Anthony Grafton, ‘Portrait of Justus Lipsius’,

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120 The correspondence of John Dryden

The American Scholar, 56:3 (1987), 382–90 (382). In England, his neo-stoicism influenced the political thinking of Thomas Hobbes (‘as Lipsius prescribed in times of revolution: “yield to God, and give place to time”’ (Niall Allsopp, Poetry and Sovereignty in the English Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 11). However, this neat neo-stoical exhortation was added by Lipsius to Solon’s resignation at his loss of Athens: ‘O patria, inquit, tibi & dictis & factis opitulatus sum. atq. ita domum abiit, in posterum quieturus. Hoc facias. cede deo, cede tempori: & si bonus ciuis es, te ipsum mollioribus et melioribus fatis reserua’ [‘O my country, he said, I have helped you to the limits of my words and actions, and he returned home, to a quiet retreat. Do this: give in to God, give in to time, and if you are a good citizen, save yourself for a sweeter and better destiny’] (Lipsius, De constatia libri duo (Antwerp: Plantin, 1654), 73). Dryden had worked alongside Creech, who translated Plutarch’s ‘The Life of Solon’ in the period following the Exclusion Crisis. The account of Solon’s enforced withdrawal from power and public life is one which Dryden must later have found apposite: ‘[…] but Solon, though he was now very old, and had none to back him; yet came into the Market-place, and made a speech to his Citizens, sometimes blaming their inadvertency and meanness of spirit, sometimes passionately exhorting them, not this tamely to lose their Liberty; and likewise then spoke that memorable saying that before ’twas easier task to have stop’d the rising Tyranny, but now the greater and more glorious action to destroy it, when it was begun already and gathered strength. But all being afraid to side with him, he return’d home, and taking his Arms he brought them out, and laid them in the Porch before his Door, with these words: To the utmost of my power I have striven for my Country and my Laws, and then he busied himself no more’ (Creech, ‘Life of Solon’, in Dryden [ed.], Plutarch’s Lives. Translated From the Greek by Several Hands, five vols (London: Jacob Tonson, 1683–[85]), 1.319–20). Allsopp notes that ‘Dryden […] left an intriguing record on John Aubrey’s notes on Hobbes: “Mr. John Dreyden, Poet Laureat, is his great admirer, and oftentimes makes use of his Doctrine in his Playes – from Mr Dreyden himself.” […] Dryden knew Hobbes only from the page [… and Hobbes’ influence in his work consists of] established components of […] longer traditions (Allsopp, Poetry and Sovereignty, 16). Lipsius, then, is not simply a marker of exemplary prose style, but one whose ‘Doctrine’ and indeed Catholicism must have struck home with Dryden. 26. For Boileau-Déspréaux, see Letter 4, n15. In fact, the following French quotation is the opening of Boileau’s parody of Balzac’s letter to Corneille, in ‘A Monseigneur Le Duc De Vivonne’: ‘Enfin mon Apollon m’a secouru ce matin; et, dans le temps que j’y pensois le moins, m’a fait trouver sur mon chevet [une Lettre] qui, au défaut de la mienne, pourront peut-être vous amuser agréablement. […] Voici celle de Balzac. Vous la reconnaîtrez aisément à son style, qui ne saurait dire simplement les choses, ni descendre de sa hauteur […]’ (‘Finally, my Apollo rescued me this morning, and when I least thought of it, discovered by my bedside [a Letter] which, in the absence of mine, could perhaps amuse you pleasantly. […] Here is Balzac’s. You will easily recognize it by its style, which cannot say things simply nor descend from its height […]’) (Boileau-Déspréaux, Oeuvres de Boileau, 4.11). 27. OED, ‘retail, n.1, A. 2 The action of relating something in detail; a detailed account or retelling. Obs.’ 28. ‘The rumour of your deeds brings the dead back to life: it wakes up those who have been sleeping for thirty years, condemned to an eternal silent sleep. It makes the very silence speak’ (Boileau-Déspréaux, Oeuvres de Boileau, 4.11–12. 29. ‘Even in oblivion you are endlessly remembered: you find partisans in the land of indifference’ (Boileau-Déspréaux, Oeuvres de Boileau, 4.13. 30. Walsh seems to have omitted a ‘not’ here. 31. ‘You are heard even in the lands that know no god, your glory is celebrated in a sunless world’ (Boileau-Déspréaux, Oeuvres de Boileau, 4.14.

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Letter 22

In this letter, Dryden approaches Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, for assistance in finding an official post following his loss of the offices of Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal at the Glorious Revolution. Dorset was famous for his patronage in the 1690s of ‘Lord Dorset’s Boys’ (Matthew Prior, ‘Matt’; George Stepney, ‘Cat’; and Charles Montagu, ‘Chamont’).1 Dorset also gave Dryden a substantial subvention at his loss of office from his own private means: ‘Tho’ I must ever acknowledge to the Honour of your Lordship, and the Eternal Memory of your Charity, that since this Revolution, wherein I have patiently suffer’d the Ruin of my small Fortune, and the loss of that poor Subsistence which I had from two Kings, whom I had ever serv’d more Faithfully than Profitably to myself; then your Lordship was pleas’d, out of no other Motive, but your own Nobleness, without any Desart of mine, or the least Sollicitation from me to make me a most bountiful Present, which at that time, when I was most in want of it, came most seasonably and unexpectedly to my Relief’.2 1. For a literary account of Stepney – one of these three poets, politicians, and diplomats – see H. T. Swedenberg, Jr, ‘George Stepney, my Lord Dorset’s Boy’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 10:1 (1946), 1–33; for another – of Prior – see Francis Rippy, ‘Matthew Prior’, in Eighteenth-Century British Poets, ed. John Sitter, Dictionary of Literary Biography, first series, vol. 95 (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1990), 210–39; for the background of Stepney and Montagu’s relations with Dryden, see David Hopkins ‘Charles Montague, George Stepney and Dryden’s metamorphoses’, Review of English Studies, 51:201 (2000), 83–9; for the means ‘Lord Dorset’s Boys’ used to prepare their manuscripts for print, see Bernard, The Literary Correspondences, 109–14 and 117–18. 2. Dryden, The Satires, xiii (California Edition, 4.23). See also Winn, John Dryden, 435.

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122 The correspondence of John Dryden

Letter 221 Dryden to Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset

Source: [Anon.,] History of the Sackville Family (Earls and Dukes of Dorset) Together with a Description of Knole, Early Owners of Knole and a Catalogue Raisonné of the Pictures and Drawings at Knole, edited by Charles J. Phillips, two vols (London: Cassell, [1930]), 1.444.

My Lord, A long indisposition of six weeks has hindered me from paying you my acknowledgment for your last favours,2 and now your poor Servant Mr. Munson3 not having the confidence to wait upon you himself has desired me to sollicit for him with your Lordships for a favour, in which your onely recommendation will make him happy. If Queen Dowager, as we believe, is going for Portugal many lodgings in Summerset-house will be empty,4 in which case may your Lordships be pleased to recommend him to my Lord Feversham5 for a spare room or two, which will disburden him of halfe the charges of his poor subsistence: if I had confidence enough my Lord, I would presume to mind you of a favour which your Lordship formerly gave me some hopes of from the Queen;6 but if it be not proper or convenient for you to ask, I dare give your Lordship no further trouble in it, being on so many other accounts allready your Lordships most obligd obedient Servant John Dryden. Octob: 7th Thursday.

1. Ward, Letters, Letter 22. ‘Since the rumor of the Queen Dowager’s departure for Portugal, which finally took place in March, 1692, was now current, the year of the letter must be 1691. October 7 in this year fell on a Wednesday; Dryden may possibly have made a mistake in the day of the week [or more likely, the date of the month]’ (Ward, Letters, 161, headnote). 2. In a letter now lost. 3. The Monson family had been involved in politics since the reign of Charles I and were Royalists in the Civil War. Sir John Monson, first Baronet, MP (1599–1683), had been the guardian of Mulgrave (see Bertha Porter, revised by Sean Kelsey, ‘Monson, Sir John, second baronet (1599–1683)’, ODNB, 38.676–7). Dryden inscribed a copy of his Satires ‘For his true Friend Mr Tho: Monson’, and sixteen additional handwritten lines to Satire 6 in this volume (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, BEIN 1974 +3) are accepted as being by Dryden (see California Edition, 4.781–2; Hammond and Hopkins, The Poems, 4.42–3). Stuart Gillespie discusses the debate about the reasons for the addition of these lines in manuscript and/or their exclusion from the printed

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Letter 22 (7 October [1691]) 123

translation (Stuart Gillespie, English Translation and Classical Reception: Towards a New Literary History (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 108–9). 4. Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705), Queen Dowager (widow of Charles II), lived at Somerset House on the Strand, London. Christopher Wren supervised another major redecoration of Somerset House in 1685 when she took up permanent residence following the death of her husband. The Queen Dowager was addressed after the death of Charles II in Aphra Behn (1640?–89), A Poem Humbly Dedicated to the Great Patern [sic] of Piety and Virtue Catherine, Queen Dowager on the Death of Her Dear Lord and Husband, King Charles II (London: Henry Playford, 1685). After William, Prince of Orange, and his wife, Mary, daughter of James II, succeeded to the English throne in 1688, considerable antagonism existed between the strictly Roman Catholic Dowager Queen Catherine at Somerset House and the Protestant King and Queen at Whitehall. A Bill was introduced to Parliament to limit the number of Catherine’s Roman Catholic servants, and she was warned not to agitate against the government. While William was away fighting in Ireland, further threats and accusations were directed at her by Queen Mary, including that of failing to pray for the success of the King’s Irish campaign. Just as matters were becoming extremely uncomfortable for Catherine, she was asked to become Regent of Portugal and left England in 1692, the last queen to inhabit the palace. 5. Louis Duras, second Earl of Feversham (1641–1709), soldier and diplomat, moved from France to England in the 1660s and entered the service of the Duke of York. He later entered the service of Queen Catherine. He was one of only two Protestants to be present at Charles II’s deathbed conversion to Roman Catholicism. Feversham remained loyal to James II. He entered some sort of rapprochement with King William III and Queen Mary, although in June 1690 he took responsibility for the fact that the Queen Dowager’s Protestant chaplains had stopped praying for the King and Queen. At the Queen Dowager’s departure for Portugal, Feversham remained in England, responsible for affairs there, including her household at Somerset House, leading him to be known as the ‘king-­ dowager’ (see Stuart Handley, ‘Duras, Louis, second earl of Feversham (1641–1709), soldier and diplomat’, ODNB, 17.387–8 (388)). 6. The nature of this ‘favour’ is unknown. The Earl of Dorset remained one of Dryden’s closest companions and patrons; he was at this time Lord Chamberlain. Later in this year, Dryden addressed ‘The Original and Progress of Satire’ to him.

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Letter 23

This is the first surviving letter from Tonson to Dryden, by now deprived of his royal offices after the Glorious Revolution and the literary and cultural cachet which these titles brought with them. In it Tonson accuses Dryden of sharp practice and showing a lack of loyalty and consideration for him in his treating with another bookseller. As I have noted before, it has to be recognized that contractual concerns sometimes trump literary ones; at the core of literature there was a prostitute muse.1 1. Bernard, The Literary Correspondences, viii.

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Letter 23 ([November 1692]) 125

Letter 231 Jacob Tonson to Dryden

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Dryden–Tonson correspondence, f D779 L Bound, pp. 9 and 11.

[9] Sr, I have here returned ye Ovid,2 whch I read wth a great deal of satisf pleasure ^\& think nothing can be more | entertaining/; but if by this-Letter you find I am not soe well Satisfied as-perhaps you might think, I hope at ye Same time the matter of fact I lay down in this Letter will appear grounds for it, & wch I beg you woud consider of & then I hope ^\believe I shall/ at least to bee excused. You You may please Sr to remember that–upon my first proposall about ye 3d Missellany I offered fifty pounds & talkt of Severall Authours without naming Ovid;3 You ask’d if it shou’d not – be guynneas, & said I shoud not repent it, upon ^\To/ wch I imediately complyd & left it wholy to you-what, & for ye quantity too. [MS deletion] and I Declare It was the farthest in ye world from my – thoughts that by leaving to you I shoud – have ^\the/ less: Thus the Case stood, when you went into Essex.–4After I came out of Northamtnshr5 I wrote to you & received a Letter datd Monday Oct 3d 92.6 from wch Letter I now write word for word7 What followes. [‘]I am translating about Six hundred lines, or somewhat less of ye first book – of the Metamorphoses. If I cannot get my price wch shall be Twenty guynneas I will translate – the whole book, wch coming out before the – Whole Translation will spoyl Tate’s undertakings8 Tis one of the best I ^\have/ ever made and very pleasant. This wth Heroe & Leander9 & the piece of Homer,10 (or if it be not enough I will add more) will [av] make a good part of a missellany.–[’]11 Those Sr are ye very words & ye onely ones in that Letter relating to that affair, & ye Monday following you came to Town. – After your arrivall you shewd Mr. Motteaux12 What you had done wch he told me was to ye end of ye Story of Daphnis,13 & demanded as you mentiond in Your Letter twenty guyneas; wch that Bookseller refusd. now Sr I the rather believe there was just soe much done by reason ye Number of lines you [MS deletion] mention in yor Letter agrees lastly wth ye quantity of Lines that soe much of ye first book makes wch upon Counting ye Ovid I find to be in ye lattin 566. – in ye English 759. & ye Bookseller told me there was noe more demanded of him

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126 The correspondence of John Dryden

for it. – Now Sr what I entreat you woud please to consider of is this – That it is reasonable for me to expect at least as much favour from you as a strange Bookseller,14 & I will nevour believe yt tis in it can be in yor nature to use one ye worse for leaving it to you. & if the matter of fact as I state it be true (& [MS deletion] upon my word what I mention I can shew you in yor letter) Then pray Sr consider how much dearer I pay than you offered it to ye other Bookseller, for ye For he might have had to ye end at ye Story of Daphnis 759 lines for 20 guynneas, wch is in yor translation & then suppose 20 guyneas more for the same 759 lines number that makes for 40 guyneas 151815 [11] And all that I have for fifty guyneas are but 1446. soe that if this be all ^\you if I have noe more lines/ I pay-10 guynneas above 40. & have 72 Lines less than after ye proportion you said. ^\for fifty in proportion/ than the other Bookseller shoud have had ^\for 40/ at ye rate you offered him ye ffirst part. This is Sr what I shall take as a great favour if you please to think of: I had intentions of speaking to letting you know this before, but ye reasons that hindred me were; first ye feare of offending & next ye not finding yr Letter, & the third but til I had paid ye mony I would not ask to see ye book nor count ye lines least it shoud look like a Design of not keeping my word. When you have looked over ye rest of what you have already translated, I – desire you woud send it. & I own yt if– you dont think fit to ad somthing more, tis wholy ^\I must submit/ at yor choice for I left it entirely to you; but I believe you cannot Imagine I expected soe litle for you were pleased to doe use me much kindlyer in Juvenall16 wch is not reckond soe easy to translate as Ovid.17 Sr I humbly beg your pardon for this long Letter & upon my word I had rather have yr good will than any mans alive, & whatever you are pleasd to doe will always acknowledg my self Sr Yor most obliedgd humble Servt, J. Tonson.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter VII; Scott, Works, Letter VIII; Ward, Letters, Letter 23. The manner of the rough tone and nature of this manuscript, reflected in its deletions, under­lining, pen rests, and form indicate that it is a draft. The Clark volume of which it is part was largely in the possession of Tonson and his heirs and its provenance is not distinct or distinctly known. The subject matter and details are such that Tonson would

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Letter 23 ([November 1692]) 127

probably want to keep a record. The letters from Dryden which Tonson mentions are dated 3 and 10 October. ‘November, 1692, [i]s a better date, therefore, than January or February, 1693, which Malone advanced’ (Ward, Letters, 162, headnote). 2. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (43 bc – 17/18 ad), Roman poet, was to feature in Examen Poeticum (London: Jacob Tonson, 1693), compiled by Dryden, not as in Tonson’s preconceptions of the volume. The volume came out in July 1693. Dryden is here returning a copy of Ovid lent to him by Tonson. 3. The authors Tonson and Dryden may have discussed (as they were included in Examen Poeticum) include Casimire, Catullus, Homer, Horace, Malherbe, Persius, Pindar, Seneca, Testi, and Virgil, and they may also have discussed the Bible, especially the Psalms. However, many of the poems may have been submissions over which they each had limited control. Ovid, nonetheless, makes up a considerable part of the volume (see Examen Poeticum, which opens with ‘The first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses translated into English’ (1–98); also 268–94). 4. After completing the ‘Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire’, Dryden travelled to Essex; he was back in London by mid-October (see Winn, John Dryden, 454). 5. Tonson had evidently been in Dryden’s home county that summer. 6. This letter has not survived. 7. The second ‘word’ is written in the left-hand margin. 8. Nahum Tate (c. 1652–1715), poet, playwright, and translator, was appointed Poet Laureate – in place of Thomas Shadwell (c. 1640–92) – through the influence of the Earl of Dorset, then Lord Chamberlain, on 24 December 1692. Tate was translating Ovid in the 1690s (see [Anon.,] Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Translated by Several Hands (London: W. Rogers and F. Sanders, 1697); Tate probably served as editor, as he signed the Preface (‘To The Right Honourable William Earl of Portland’ (sig. A3r–A5v (A5v)). A further fragment of the aborted project may be represented in Tate’s version, with Aaron Hill, of The Celebrated Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses, for the Armour of Achilles (1708) (see David Hopkins, ‘Dryden and the Garth–Tonson Metamorphoses’, Review of English Studies, 39:153 (1988), 64–74, where the author does a speculative tally (by line numbers) of the poems which Dryden is possibly talking about). Such competition as translators may be the apparent source of Dryden’s rivalry; however, in the next year Tate and Dryden were to collaborate on Satires (see David Hopkins, ‘Tate, Nahum (c. 1652–1715), poet, playwright, and translator’, ODNB, 53.811–13). Presumably Dryden had heard that Tate was planning a complete Metamorphoses himself at the time (the first and only volume of which appeared in 1697). Dryden’s reference to the ‘Whole Translation’ seems to be to the complete Metamorphoses ‘by several hands’ which he is planning himself. Dryden did bring out some translations from Ovid in Examen Poeticum (1693), but then put his Ovid venture (for which he seems to have begun to solicit collaborators) on hold while he turned his attention to the more prestigious task of translating Virgil. Tate (who perhaps heard that Dryden’s attentions had been diverted in this way) presumably felt that the path was clear for his own version. But it got no further than the volume published in 1697. Dryden’s own plan for a complete English Metamorphoses was put into effect after Dryden’s death by his friend Sir Samuel Garth. Garth’s Preface makes it clear that the volume was designed partly as a tribute to Dryden. Since Garth was a staunch Whig, this represents an example of literary loyalty cutting right across party divides. For an account of Tate’s life and writings, see Christopher Spencer, Nahum Tate (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1972). For the best and most complete account of Tonson’s involvement with this many-handed translation over many decades, see Richard Morton, The English Enlightenment Reads Ovid: Dryden and Jacob Tonson’s 1717 Metamorphoses (New York: AMS Press, [2013]).

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128 The correspondence of John Dryden

9. Possibly ‘Heroe & Leander’ refers to the poem by Thomas Hoy included in [Anon.,] Ovid’s Art of Love with Hero and Leander of Musaeus, from the Greek Translated by Several Hands (London: J. T., 1692), sig. G4r–I2v. 10. The ‘piece of Homer’ is clearly ‘The Last Parting of Hector and Andromache From the Sixth Book of Homer’s Iliad’ included in Examen Poeticum, 456–68 (California Edition, 4.425–31). 11. In fact, Dryden’s contribution to Examen Poeticum was to consist of two Ovidian translations, in addition to this. 12. Peter Anthony Motteux [formerly Pierre-Antoine Le Motteux] (1663–1718), journalist and translator, was not a bookseller. From 1692 to 1694, he was the editor of the Gentleman’s Journal, and it is perhaps here that Dryden intended to place his work, as he did at later times; Motteux gave Dryden’s work favourable attention (see Ward, Letters, 163, n4). 13. ‘Daphnis’ here is Daphne of Book 1 of the Metamorphoses; Dryden’s tally of 566 lines confirms that he is writing about The First Book down to the end of the Apollo and Daphne story. 14. Tonson had been Dryden’s bookseller since 1679, when Henry Herringman (Dryden’s previous principal bookseller) decided to curtail his publication of original work. Since then Tonson had been Dryden’s principal, although not exclusive, bookseller. ‘Mr Tonson He was a Bookseller to the famous Dryden; and is himself a very good judge of Persons and Authors; and as there is nobody more competently qualified to give their opinion of another, so there is none who does it with more severe exactness; or with less partiality; for, to do Mr. Tonson justice, he speaks his mind upon all occasions and will flatter nobody’ (John Dunton, The Life and Errors of John Dunton, Written by Himself. Together with the Lives and Characters of a Thousand Persons Now Living in London, &c., two vols (London: J. Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1818), 1.216). See Bernard, ‘Henry Herringman, Jacob Tonson, and John Dryden’, 274–7. 15. This edition does not preserve MS lineation, but it is necessary here: in the last three lines on the page, Tonson is effectively writing out a calculation, which he has first roughly noted in the left-hand margin. The numbers are tight against the right-hand margin and are each glossed by the text next to them. As this is a draft, Tonson’s layout is not perfect: no doubt he would have written the second ‘759 lines’ on the same line should he have had the space to do so. He probably did so in the fairer copy of this letter that he sent to Dryden, now lost. 16. That is, with Dryden, The Satires. This work was published hardly a month before this letter was written. The project had taken some years (see Winn, John Dryden, 454–9); it was nearly ready for the press in February 1692 but was held up to allow Dryden time to complete his translation of Persius. The dedication ‘To the Right Honourable Charles, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, Lord Chamberlain of Their Majesties Household: Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, &c.’ was dated as early as 18 August 1692 (Dryden, The Satires, xxxix; California Edition, 3.3–90 (90)), but the volume was advertised only at the end of October (see the London Gazette, 24–27 October 1692, issue no. 2813). Dryden ‘inscrib’d’ the fifth satire of Persius ‘to my Learned Master Doctor Busby, to whom I am not only oblig’d my self, for the best part of my own Education, and that of my two Sons; but have also receiv’d from him the first and truest Taste of Persius. May he be pleas’d to find in this Translation the Gratitude, or at least some small Acknowledgement of his unworthy Scholar, at the distance of 42 Years, from the time when I departed from under his Tuition’ (Dryden, The Satires, 58–9; California Edition, 4.323). ‘Dryden’s share of Juvenal consisted of 2,280 lines from the first, third, sixth, tenth, and sixteenth satires. I do not know whether he received fifty guineas for it’ (Ward, Letters, 163, n6).

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Letter 23 ([November 1692]) 129

17. In 1692 Dryden’s finances were in a precarious position and it is not surprising that he sought the best bargain over his work: ‘Dryden’s capacity to produce work he could be proud of during years of intermittent sickness, painful poverty and rapid labor is impressive’ (Winn, John Dryden, 454). It may be for this reason also that Dryden insisted on having a contract with Tonson for The Works of Virgil.

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Letter 24

This innocuous short letter from Richard Swan appeared in print only after Dryden’s death. It may reflect the baser sort of humour which Dryden’s elevated theories of satire provoked. It is certainly lacking in the intelligence the poet and critic may have hoped for, although the opening suggests the wider circle of acquaintance which Dryden may have had of which there is no surviving record. There is no surviving image of Richard Swan.

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Letter 24 ([1693]) 131

Letter 241 Richard Swan2 to Dryden

Source: [Anon.,] An Useful and Entertaining Collection of Letters Upon Various Subjects (London: W. Bickerton, 1745), 228–9.

[228] Sir, When I saw you last, you gave me you Word that you would send me a Pound of Snuff in two Days Time; but what signifies your Word; for if you had kept your Word, I had had it long ago. Now, though you left your Word with me, I don’t know what to do with it; I am afraid nobody will take your Word (I mean for a Pound of Snuff) unless you retrieve it very soon. But it may be you only designed a Compliment to my Understanding, be-lieving I knew you so well, as not to depend upon your Word, for Words are but wind; and so indeed a Word to the Wise is sufficient. However, you will find if you continue thus to forfeit your Word, that your Word, by the Bye, will become a Bye-Word; nevertheless, something may be said in Favour of your Word; as for Example; that though it brought me not a Pound of Snuff, and consequently proved a Word of no Weight, yet it is certain, that I have taken Snuff at it3 in some mea-sure. Perhaps you will not like my Quibbling,4 because it is playing upon a Word; but, when your Word ceases to pass in earnest, then it naturally passes into a Jest, and so in a Word, your Word is the Occasion of these Words I’ve wrote, and of so many Words more which I have still to say, when I have a farther Opportunity of wording on’t with you by Word of [229] Mouth, which shall be next Time we meet upon the Word of Your humble Servant, Richard Swan 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 76. 2. ‘Swan was a notorious punster of the time. Dryden refers to him in the […] Satires […] as, “[referring to one of Horace’s puns…] A miserable Clench, in my Opinion, for Horace to Record: I have heard honest Mr. Swan make many a better, and yet have had the Grace to hold my countenance. But it may be Puns were then in Fashion, as they were Wit in the Sermons of the last Age, and in the Court of King Charles the Second”’ (Dryden, The Satires, xliii; California Edition, 4.72–3). Since it may be a response to Dryden’s Satires, it is included here rather than at the end of the volume, where Ward places it, as ‘contain[ing] nothing of importance and little of entertainment’ (Ward, Letters, 189, headnote). 3. See OED, ‘snuff n. 1 II.1.b. to take snuff, to take offence or umbrage (at a thing)’. 4. OED, ‘quibbling, n.’ ‘The action of making quibbles. Also: an instance of this, a quibble’.

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Letter 25

Both this letter and Letter 27 show Dryden’s easy familiarity with Walsh and his family, the affairs of the theatrical world, and the literary world. It is also interesting to note that Dryden did not make any secret of his sons’ affairs at Rome, which would make them traitors in England at the time. Dryden’s knowledge of current affairs shows how effective the dissemination of news was in news­ letters and newspapers of the period.

Letter 25 ([9 May 1693]) 133

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Figure 15. Sir Godfrey Kneller, John Dryden, oil on canvas (1693), NPG 2083. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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134 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 251 Dryden to William Walsh

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.17.

[17r] You may well wonder my Friend, that I have not written to you in so long a time, when I have nothing but laziness to plead in my excuse; which is not, nor ought to be a reasonable plea. Yet I cou’d offer another reason for not writeing; if my letters were worth excuseing. I am up to the Eares in Law; & have been for six weekes together. I have been cousend of fifty pounds, & more; by one whom I thought my Friend: & am affrayd that at the long run, I will rather loose it, & let him go, whom I have arrested, than prosecute him in the tedious court of Chancery; to do which I must pass through a tedious course of Common Law.2 But to leave this, there passes nothing in the Town worth your knowing. Durfey has brought another farce upon the Stage:3 but his luck has left him: it was sufferd but foure dayes; & then kickd off for ever. Yet his Second Act, was wonderfully diverting; where the scene was in Bedlam:4 & Mrs Bracegirdle5 and Solon6 were both mad: the Singing was wonderfully good; And the two whom I nam’d, sung better than Redding7 and Mrs Ayloff,8 whose trade it was: at least our partiality carryed it for them. The rest was woefull stuff, & concluded with Catcalls; of which the two noble Dukes of Richmond9 & of St Albans10 were chief managers.11 For other newes ’tis all uncertain. But we all believe, that the King of France,12 who was to set out from Versailles, on Saturday last, is gone for Flanders;13 & intends to offer Battle: in order to wch, we thinke he will besiege Maestrickt: the country about wch being plaine & open, He may may poure in his horse upon them; of wch he has fifty thousand, & the Confederates not above half that number.14 The great Turke15 takes the field this yeare in person; as our foreign Gazettes tell us. As for our descent on France; either we never did intend it; or we do still: & I believe the latter. For without prejudice or partiality, I look upon the Confederacy to be upon its last legs after this Campaign, if K: William does not attempt something very extraordinary, & succeed in it. For which reason, I thinke you are very much in the right, not to press into publique business,16 till you see the success of this ensueing Summer. I spoke with a Young Gentleman, who is just arrivd from Flanders & came from Bruxelles. He assures me, that not above a fortnight ago, the French burnt a village, within a mile of the Town;

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Letter 25 ([9 May 1693]) 135



& the Garrison, though they knew of it, yet durst not venture out. that the Town wishes the French were Masters of it; & that generally the Hollanders17 are desirous of a peace. This is still to confirme you in your opinion of sitting still. I spoke to Mr Tonson to send you down the Bookes you down the Bookes18 you desir’d; in order to the writeing of a preface before my next Play:19 if he has not done it, I will remind him of it. For I shall be very proud, of your entring into the lists,20 though not against Rymer; yet as a champion for our cause, who defy the Chorus of the Ancients. The play I am now writeing it a feignd story: & a Tragicomedy of the nature of the Spanish Fryar: And I am sure the tale of it is likely to be diverting enough. I have plotted it all; & written two Acts of it. This morning I had their chief Comedian whom they call Solon, with me; to consult with him concerning his own Character: & truly I thinke he has the best Understanding of any man in the Playhouse. Mr Wycherleys Poems will not come out, till Michaelmass Terme: if his versification prove as well as his wit, I shall believe it will be extraordinary.21 However Congreve22 & Southern23 & I, shall not faile to appeare before it. & if you will come in, he will have reason to acknowledge it for a favour.24 And, on our sides, you shall be very welcome to make up the Mass. I had this day a letter from my Sonns at Rome;25 which to my wonder tells me, that on our fifteenth of Aprill (on which they dated) they were in the extreamity of hott weather: so that they cou’d onely stirr out, morning & evening [MS illegible]: & were already in the midst of peas and cherryes: tis quite contrary heere; where we have nothing but raine, cold weather, & a late Spring time, without hope of any Summer. Write me word if you please, when we may hope to see you in Town; or whether at all this Summer: & what is become of the insurrection at Worcester, concerning the transportation of Corne.26 You may ^\see/ I set not up for a Wit in this letter: Nor will at any time, with you to whom I profess an entire friendship. I had your Sydar safe; & it was as perfectly good, as I am sure you designd it. I am Sir Your most faithfull Humble Servant John Dryden [17v] Tuesday Afternoon May the 9th or 10th Ffor William Walsh Esqr. Att Abberley neare Worcester

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136 The correspondence of John Dryden

These. To be left with the Postmaster at Worcester, to be conveyd as above directed. [Mr Dryden Letter]

1. Bell, Poetical Works, 1.72–4; Ward, Letters, Letter 24. ‘Since [Dryden] had completed half of Love Triumphant, which was acted in December, 1693, the year must be 1693. It this year Tuesday fell on May 9’ (Ward, Letters, 163, headnote). 2. In fact, there is no record of Dryden being involved in a lawsuit and no means of identifying the person ‘whom I have [had] arrested’ (see Winn, John Dryden, 462). 3. That is, Thomas D’Urfey, The Richmond Heiress, Or, A Woman Once in the Right (London: Samuel Briscoe, 1693). 4. That is, Bethlem Royal Hospital, which had begun to specialize in mental illnesses since before 1400. It had moved in 1675–6 from its original site at Bishopsgate outside London Wall into a striking building designed by Robert Hooke at Moorfields: ‘Bethlem was splendid, and its governors put considerable effort into ensuring that splendour, as well as its visibility [for example, it had a façade of over 500 feet]’ (Christine Stevenson, ‘Robert Hooke’s Bethlem’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 55:3 (1996), 254–75 (254, 264 and n88)). 5. Anne Bracegirdle (bap. 1671, d. 1748), actress and singer, first appeared in 1688 as a member of Betterton’s company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. In 1692 Captain Richard Hill and Charles Mohun, third Baron Mohun (1675?–1712) attempted to abduct her, failing when she retreated to her home in Howard Street. Hill waited outside, vowing revenge upon William Mountfort, the actor, whom he believed to be his rival in love. Mountfort appeared at the scene and Hill killed him. Whether Bracegirdle and Mountfort were lovers is unknown, but this is certainly implied in The Players’ Tragedy (London: Randal Taylor, 1693), the anonymously authored novel of the events, which was rushed into print early the next year. Bracegirdle did not return to the stage until after Mohun’s trial and acquittal in February 1693, when she returned as Lady Trickitt in Southerne’s The Maid’s Last Prayer, Or, Any Rather Than Fail (London: [s.n.], 1693). Neither this role, nor her Araminta in William Congreve’s first play, The Old Batchelour (London: Peter Buck, 1693), was a great success, but by April her performance in D’Urfey’s The Richmond Heiress had re-­ established her popularity (see J. Milling, ‘Bracegirdle, Anne (bap. 1671, d. 1748), actress and singer’, ODNB, 7.141–3 (142)). 6. Thomas Doggett (c. 1670–1721), actor and theatre manager, known as ‘Solon’ after his creation of the role in Thomas D’Urfey’s The Marriage-Hater Matched (London: Richard Bentley, 1692). 7. ‘This was probably [John] Reading [fl. 1684–1725], a singer at Drury Lane’ (Ward, Letters, 163, n3); see Highfill et al., A Biographical Dictionary, 12.277–8. 8. Mrs Ayliff (fl. 1692–6), singer and actress, was a leading stage and concert soprano but her forename, age, and marital status are unknown (see Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson, ‘Ayliff, Mrs (fl. 1692–1696), singer and actress’, ODNB, 3.15). 9. Charles Lennox, first Duke of Richmond, first Duke of Lennox, and Duke of Aubigny in the French nobility (1672–1723), landowner, natural son of Charles II and Louise Renée de Penancoët de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649–1734). After a period in France with his mother under the protection of Louis XIV he fled to England, where he found it convenient to change both his politics and his religion, and on Whitsunday 15 May 1692 was received again into the Church of England. He made his peace with William III, on 14 November 1693 he took his seat in the House of Lords, and he served as aide-de-camp in

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Letter 25 ([9 May 1693]) 137

the Flanders wars throughout the reign (see Timothy J. McCann, ‘Lennox, Charles, first duke of Richmond, first duke of Lennox, and duke of Aubigny in the French nobility (1672– 1723), landowner’, ODNB, 33.357–9 (358)). 10. Charles Beauclerk, first Duke of St Albans (1670–1726), army officer, the illegitimate son of Charles II and Nell Gwyn (1651?–87). On 17 May 1693 St Albans left for Flanders and served under William III in the campaign of Landen. A false report was brought to London that he had fallen in the Battle of Landen (29 July 1693). On his return from Flanders, William made him captain of the band of pensioners, which he attempted to reform, but it remained as it had been under John Lovelace, third Baron Lovelace (1640– 93), the previous captain (see William Hunt, rev. Jonathan Spain, ‘Beauclerk, Charles, first duke of St Albans (1670–1726), army officer’, ODNB, 4.610–11 (611)). 11. That is, instigators. 12. That is, Louis XIV. 13. That is, the Spanish Netherlands. 14. The ‘Confederates’ (’the Confederacy’) were the member states of the Alliance: England, the Dutch Republic, and the Holy Roman Empire. ‘Dryden’s information on the course of the war came apparently from the newssheets of the day [‘our foreign Gazettes’], which were full of speculation and of interpretation of the moves on the Continent’ (Ward, Letters, 164, n7). 15. That is, Ahmed II (1643–95), Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1691 to 1695. 16. ‘The position which Walsh was trying to get was Teller of the Exchequer. Henry Carey – as Dryden reports in [L]etter [26] – was sworn into that position on July 17, after presenting a security bond of £3,000 of his own, and £500 each of eight other persons’ (Ward, Letters, 165, n1). 17. ‘Hollanders’ could refer to the County of Holland, one of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, but the term was generally used to refer to the United Provinces as a whole. 18. Dryden writes ‘you down the Bookes’ twice, restarting the phrase at the second ‘you’ (which should have been followed by ‘desir’d’): a sign, perhaps, that he was writing this letter relatively quickly. 19. This preface to Dryden’s last play, Love Triumphant, Or, Nature Will Prevail (London: Jacob Tonson, 1694), seems not to have been written. ‘It should be recalled that Rymer’s Short View of Tragedy, extremely critical of Dryden, had appeared in the closing weeks of 1692 […] Dryden here seems to be reserving for himself an attack on Rymer’ (Ward, Letters, 164, n9). ‘The date of the first performance is not precisely known, but it seems likely to have been in mid-January. See the discussion under 10 Jan. 1693/4 and Evelyn’s remarks on 11 Jan. 1693/4. Part of the music for the play was composed by John Eccles: “Young I am and yet unskill’d,” sung by a girl, in Gentleman’s Journal, January/February 1693/4, and Thesaurus Musicus [Being, a Collection of the Newest Songs Performed at Their Majesties Theatres; and at the Consorts in Viller-street in York-buildings […] Covent-Garden. With a Thorow-bass to Each Song, for the Harpsicord, Theorbo, or Bassviol. (London: John Hudgebutt,], 1694). One song was set by Purcell, “How happy’s the husband,” the words by Congreve and sung by Mrs Ayliff, in Thesaurus Musicus, 1694’ (van Lennep et al., The London Stage, 1.431). 20. Dryden is presumably using this military terminology with self-irony at this point. 21. ‘Wycherley’s poems did not appear until 1704 [Miscellany Poems: as Satyrs, Epistles, Love-verses, Songs, Sonnets, &c. (London: C. Broome, J. Taylor, and B. Tooke, 1704)]. Though they were ready at this time, proposals for subscriptions were not published until November, 1696. In January, 1700 Wycherley brought suit against Samuel Briscoe, his publisher, for failure to publish and to account for subscription money. See Howard P. Vincent, “William Wycherley’s Miscellany Poems,” Philological Quarterly, XVI (1937), 145–148’ (Ward, Letters, 164, n12).

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138 The correspondence of John Dryden

22. William Congreve (1670–1729), playwright and poet, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and was admitted to Middle Temple in 1691. In 1692 he published – under the pseudonym ‘Cleophil’ – Incognita, Or, Love and Duty Reconcil’d, A Novel (London: Peter Buck, 1692) as well as two Horatian odes and three other poems in Charles Gildon’s Miscellany Poems upon Several Occasions Consisting of Original Poems […] (London: Peter Buck, 1692), and assisted Dryden with the preparation of Tonson’s publication of Dryden’s Satires. On 9 March 1693, The Old Batchelour, a play by Congreve revised by Dryden, opened for ‘an exceptionally long run’ (see C. Y. Ferdinand and D. F. McKenzie, ‘William Congreve (1670–1729)’, ODNB, 12.933–40 (935)). In the dedication to Examen Poeticum Dryden drew attention to Congreve’s extended translation from the Iliad: ‘I am sure my Friend has added to the Tenderness which he found in the Original; and, without Flattery, surpass’d his Author’ (sig. B4v; California Edition, 4.373). Congreve was widely perceived to be Dryden’s literary successor, a position confirmed the following year with the publication by Tonson of Dryden’s laudatory verse epistle ‘To my Dear Friend Mr. Congreve on his Comedy, call’d, the Double Dealer’ (The Double Dealer, A Comedy (London: Jacob Tonson, 1694), sig. a2r–a3v). For an account of Congreve’s writings, see David Thomas, William Congreve (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992). 23. See Letter 20, n16. 24. If Walsh supplied a prefatory poem for Wycherley, it was not printed. 25. Now lost. ‘Dryden’s sons may have gone to Rome only recently. A letter from Cardinal Howard, dated at Rome on June 30, 1693, gives an interesting side light on the poet and his family at this time […] “Now that we are in expectation of his Majesty’s speedy restoration, so many will petition for favours, that I must also be one of them beforehand, begging of his Majesty […] that here being two brothers, Catholic gentlemen, called Charles and John Drayton, sons to the famous poet laureat Drayton in London; one whereof I have, in the interim, got a place of cameriera di honora, with our old man; and the other liveth with me. But they always desiring to serve their natural King, and both their father and they having been always faithful, would have gone to serve him in France, had it not been to put him in straits, among so many others, for their maintenance. Wherefore, my humble request is, that his Majesty will please to make them his gentlemen ushers daily waiters in ordinary in his presence-chamber, or grooms of his privy-­chamber, at his return into England; which honour I am confident they will both as faithfully as decently perform; their father being a convert, and their mother a catholic sister to the lord Berkshire”’ (Ward, letters, 164, n13). Philip Howard, name in religion Thomas, Cardinal Howard (1629–94), was a distant relative of Lady Elizabeth Dryden. His complicated career included being vicar-general of the English Dominicans (from 1661) and one of the principal chaplains of Queen Catherine of Braganza. In 1675 all Catholic priests had been expelled from England and he left, carrying letters of commendation from the King and Queen. It was said that he performed the marriage ceremony of the Duke of York and Mary of Modena. He was cited as a conspirator in the Popish Plot (1679) and charged with high treason. The following year he was appointed Cardinal Protector of England and Scotland, but even before the Glorious Revolution he had been eclipsed with the King conducting his papal affairs through his [uncle by marriage], Rinaldo, Cardinal d’Este (see Allan White, ‘Howard, Philip [name in religion Thomas] (1629–1694)’, ODNB, 28.409–12). 26. On 30 April 1693 some merchants bought corn in Worcester for export. The rabble seized their corn, upon which the Mayor of Worcester dispersed them and put the ringleaders into jail. On 1 May the ringleaders were forcibly released and marched with their supporters to seize the corn again (see Andrew Clark (ed.), The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, five vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891–1900), 3.422, 425).

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Letter 26

This published letter from Charles Gildon to Dryden is a public occasion. Gildon is associating himself publicly with the poet and translator in a volume in which he also takes Dryden’s side against Rymer. If Gildon’s personal and financial life at this time was precarious, so was Dryden’s.1 One thinks now of this as being the decade of Dryden’s greatest successes, but it may have seemed like far from that to him at the time; as Winn points out ‘in [Dryden’s] version of the invocation to Book I of the Metamorphoses, in which Ovid asks the gods for inspiration, [he] speaks of “my long laborious Work” (l.4), a telling interpolation, yet Dryden later referred to that translation as “one of his best”’.2 There is no surviving image of Charles Gildon. 1. See Letter 23. 2. Winn, John Dryden, 454; see Letter 23.

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140 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 261 Charles Gildon2 to Dryden

Source: Charles Gildon (ed.), Miscellaneous Letters and Essays on Several Subjects (London: Benjamin Bragge, 1694), 1–3.

[1] To JOHN DRYDEN Esq May the 10th. 1693.

I3 Hope, Sir, you’l not measure my Love and Value for you by the Visits I make you,4 for then you wou’d extreamly injure me; for I cannot be so impudent with a Man I have an aweful Esteem for, as to intrude too often into his Company, for I’m sensible I can no measure attone for the loss of that time, my Visits wou’d rob from your better Thoughts; and I rather satisfie my self with the expression of my Zeal and Love in absence, than, at the expence of my Friend, gratifie my own desire of his frequent Company. But yet, I confess, this long [2] default of my Duty, can be excus’d by nothing, but the unavoidable business about my Concerns in the Country,5 which has divorc’d me as long from, what I value next to you, my Books. Mistake me not, Sir, I mean not my Scribling, which I’m far enough from valuing, and only comply with, by the compelling Obligation that taught the Parrot, suum XAIPE.6 Nay, I have so little of an Author, that I have not the Arrogance, and want all Self-Esteem, which some ev’n as dull as my self abound with beyond bearing; and which is, indeed, like a Wife, tho’ an Evil, yet such a one that is necessary. For a Diffidence of one’s self in Writing, as well as in Addresses to the Fair and the Great, is seldom any advantage to a Man, at least in this Age, where the highest Impudence passes for a handsom Assurance, and Noise and much Talk for Wit, and Repartée: It dispirits a Man, and as he can’t please himself with what he Writes, so he very hardly can rise to the tast of any that are not duller. But when I was forc’d to this Curse of Scribling,7 I furnish’d my self with as much of a Stoic, as I cou’d, to fortifie my self against publick Censure; and in my own defence soon believ’d the Reputation but a Whim, since the Worst had their Admirers, as well as the Best, at least in our Age; nor cou’d I perswade my self that the next wou’d be one jot better in its Judgment. And to say truth, there is nothing cou’d make me have any tolerable Opinion of my self, but the Love and Esteem I have for you; whom (give me leave to contra-[3]dict my self, and shew such Arrogance) I do pretend to value, as much as any Man can: and I defie my greatest

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Letter 26 (10 May 1693) 141



Enemies to do me Justice, and contradict me by any word or discourse ev’n where I had a Moral Certainty, you cou’d never hear of it again. This, Sir, I urge, as a Praise of my self; for next to being a good Poet, is to know how to value one; the first has given Immortality, the latter (when in a Man of Quality) gain’d it. But lest the length of my Letter shou’d do, what I apprehend from my Visits I’ll

Subscribe my Self,



Your Friend and humble Servant

Charles Gildon: 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 77. 2. Charles Gildon (c. 1665–1724), writer, came from a Roman Catholic family; although he spent five years at the English College in Douai, France, he did not enter the priesthood. His first work was ‘a flattering History of the Athenian Society[, for the Resolving All Nice and Curious Questions. By a Gentleman, Who Got Secret Intelligence of their Whole Proceedings. To Which are Prefix’d Several Poems, Written by Mr. Tate, Mr. Motteux, Mr. Richardson, and Others (London: sold by the booksellers of London, [1692)] com­missioned by John Dunton. (The Athenian Society was a ‘notes and queries’ periodical founded by Dunton)’ (see James Sambrook, ‘Gildon, Charles c. 1665–1724), writer’, ODNB, 22.225–6 (225)). On 14 February 1692, a young Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) sent the Athenian Society an ‘Ode to the Athenian Society’ (see Jonathan Swift, The Poems of Jonathan Swift, ed. Sir Harold Williams, 2nd edn, three vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), 1.13–25), his first printed work, prefaced with a letter from Swift dated from Moor Park, Surrey. ‘Swift’s interest in Dunton’s venture may have been due to the fact that Sir William Temple was a contributor [to The Athenian Mercury [… a]ccording to Johnson, in his life of Swift, this was the poem which led Dryden to observe, “Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet”, words which were “the motive of Swift’s perpetual malevolence to Dryden”’ (Swift, The Poems, 1.14). In the same year (the year before this letter was written), Gildon edited Miscellany Poems upon Several Occasions, which was clearly influenced by the ‘Dryden–Tonson miscellanies’. Before 1693 Gildon ‘discarded Roman Catholicism […] twice edit[ing] the works of the notorious deist Charles Blount (d. 1693), adding writings of his own in Oracles of Reason [(London: [s.n.],] 1693)’ (Sambrook, ‘Gildon’, 225). 3. A drop letter. 4. ‘Charles Gildon paid the old poet [Dryden] visits and wrote him a flattering letter dated 10 May 1693; he, too, published an answer to Rymer in the summer of 1694 [see “Some Reflections on Mr. Rymer’s Short View of Tragedy, and an Attempt at a Vindication of Shakespear, in an Essay directed to John Dryden Esq” Gildon, Miscellaneous Letters and Essays, 64–118]’ (Winn, John Dryden, 461). 5. After returning to England, aged nineteen, and two years later going to London [1686?], ‘he spent or was tricked by lawyers out of the greatest part of his paternal estate, and, aged about twenty-three, he imprudently married a woman of no fortune. Her name is unknown and no reference to her after 1703 has been found’ (Sambrook, ‘Gildon’, 225). 6. ‘Welcome!’ (Gr.). 7. This is an attitude towards writing which Dryden would at this time recognize, if not one of which he would wholly approve.

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Letter 27

See headnote to Letter 25.

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Letter 27 ([17 August 1693]) 143

Letter 271 Dryden to William Walsh

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.15.

[15r] My Friend

Yesterday morning my Lord Leycester2 sent his Gentleman to me, to let you know by me, that he had made enquiry about the place you mentiond; & found that some dayes before your letter came, it had been given away to one Mr Carey, who had possest it in the time of K: Charles the 2d. and that this Gentleman was actually sworn into it. I suppose that you imagind a place of that benefit, being now worth 1500lb p annum, wou’d not be long voyd: & therefore set not your heart upon it.3 I spoke for places in the coach too late; there will be none voyd, till next weeke.4 Tonson has likewise fayled me in the publishing his Miscellanyes.5 Tho that shou’d not have hinderd me any longer [than?] till Saturday. I thinke I gave you an account of all things in your Letter: onely forgot, perhaps, one thing: wch is you desird to know what kind of [MS deletion] ^\Book/ it was Hen Herringman or his man publishd under the name of MiscellanyPoems: they are almost all old, as I am informd; & have been most of them printed before.6 One or two of My Lord Roscomons excepted. No body vallues them; nor woud you yourselfe, as my Friends tell me. I gave your service to Congreve; who is since gone out of Town for a moneth or six weekes. No newes, I thinke: that of the Ships is at a stand. We have lost about forty or fifty; including the Dutch merchants:7 de Tourvilles letter ^\to his King/ says he has destroyd seaven Dutch & English men of warr; & that he is still in pursuit of merchants ships8 Huy,9 I thinke I told you is taken; & so is Darmstead neere Francfort: the Dauphin10 & Lorge11 are gone to find Louis of Baden,12 who is not above 24 thousand strong: Saxony will not joine him, unless he may command: & in probability, has taken French money, to lye still.13 The Confederacy totters;14 for the Emperour15 is inclind to treat; but France will grant no Cessation in the meane time. All things favour the Monarch,16 who pushes round him: & our Fleet

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144 The correspondence of John Dryden

yesterday was in Torbay:17 no newes of Rook,18 since his last letter we ghess him gone for Ireland, with the remainder of his scatterd covey.19 I am Sir, Your most Faithfull Servant John Dryden. Thursday. [15v] For William Walsh Esq Att Abberley neere Worcester These. To be left at the posthouse in Worcester, & thence conveyd. 1. Bell, Poetical Works, 1.77–8; Ward, Letters, Letter 25. The reference to ‘Yesterday’ in this letter, means it can be dated to 17 August 1693 and that Dryden must have heard the news in the express from Plymouth before its official publication five days later (‘Plimouth, August 17. Yesterday the Fleet came to an Anchor in Torbay’ (London Gazette, 17–21 August 1693, issue no. 2898)). However, a single source for the many current affairs mentioned has not been identified and Dryden’s writing of ‘no newes of Rook’ shows that this letter was written before the news was published, as the same short paragraph in the London Gazette goes on to mention Rear Admiral Sir George Rooke’s actions (see n18 below). Tonson was not the publisher of the London Gazette during Dryden’s lifetime (see Letter 11, n2). 2. Philip Sidney, third Earl of Leicester (1619–98), Parliamentarian army officer and politician. He succeeded his father as Earl of Leicester on 2 November 1677. Between 1678 and 1681 he was active in his opposition to the crown during the Exclusion Crisis, and then withdrew from politics after 1685. In his later years Leicester was a patron of literature, entertaining members of the literary elite, including Dryden and Wycherley, at Leicester House, London, setting apart one day in the week for the entertainment of men of letters (see C. H. Firth, rev. Sean Kelsey, ‘Sidney, Philip, third earl of Leicester (1619–1698), parliamentarian army officer and politician’, ODNB, 50.568–9 (569)). 3. ‘The position which Walsh was trying to get was Teller of the Exchequer […] Henry Carey was sworn into that position on July 17, after presenting a security bond of £3,000 of his own, and £500 each of eight other persons’ (Ward, Letters, 165, n1). 4. That is, the coach to Northamptonshire, where he went the following week. 5. That is, Examen Poeticum, published by Tonson. 6. Herringman’s ‘man’ was Francis Saunders (who, with Joseph Knight, took over Herringman’s bookselling business in the 1690s, when Herringman had retreated from the trade and turned wholesaler), who advertised in the Term Catalogues for Easter, 1694, A Collection of Poems on Several Occasions Written by the Right Honourable The Earls of Mulgrave, Rochester, Roscommon and Orrery; Sir Robert Howard, Sir Charles Sedley, Mr Montague, Sir George Etherege, Mr How, Mr Granvill, Mr Chetwood, Mr Dryden, and Mr Tate: With Several Pieces of Mrs Wharton’s, Never Before Printed (London: Francis Saunders, 1693). There is no consensus about the poems of Roscomon which are not included in this

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Letter 27 ([17 August 1693]) 145

edition. Carl A. Niemeyer suggests ‘A Roscomon canon’, Studies in Bibliography, 36 (1939), 622–36, which is the basis for Ruth Louise Widmann, ‘Poems of Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscomon (1637–1685): a critical edition’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Illinois, 1967). It is not possible from either to establish which ‘One or two of My Lord Roscomons [are] excepted’ from this volume, as the inclusion of some items in either Niemeyer or Widmann – or both – may not be definitive. 7. That is, the ships of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (the Dutch East India Company). The world’s first publicly listed company, and first transnational trading company, trading between Asia and Europe, was run from the United Provinces of the Netherlands (see Edward Stringham, ‘On the origins of stock markets’, in The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 325–40 (328– 30)). Dryden’s Amboyna (1673) is a propagandistic historical dramatic account of the massacre of ten members of the (English) East India Company by the Dutch East India Company in 1623, and especially the English trader Gabriel Towerson (1576–1623), who, with William Hawkins (1565?–1613), was one of the first two Englishmen to visit the Mughal Empire. His Mughal Armenian Christian wife Mariam Hawkins (née Khan) was probably the first native woman from India to emigrate to England. After Hawkins’s death she married Towerson. Dryden is said to have based the character of Ysabinda on her (see Bindu Malieckal, ‘Mariam Khan and the legacy of Mughal women in early modern literature of India’, in Early Modern and Islamic Worlds, ed. Bernadette Andrea and Linda McJannet (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 97–122 (97–8)). Alison Games argues that this was the first English massacre, a familiar cultural touchstone which became the linchpin of the British Empire, and that its influence endures to the present day (Inventing the English Massacre: Amboyna in History and Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020); see esp. 148–81). Dryden’s reference to ‘Ships’ marks the onset of the guerre de course. 8. This letter is unidentified. Admiral Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, comte de Tourville (1642–1701), French naval commander, was made Marshal of France in this year. Louis XIV had ‘sent out the largest battle fleet that he ever ordered to leave port’. ‘Tourville destroyed enemy commercial shipping, but was also then in a position to return to the English Channel, with all the consequent dangers to the British and Dutch fleets; however, this did not happen’ (John A. Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV, 1667–1714 (London: Longman, 1999), 239–40). The naval action was both fluid and rapid and in the London Gazette, for example, it was reported alongside the movements of the merchant convoys which they were attempting to protect. There are accounts in contemporary English and French newspapers of Tourville reporting to ‘King James’ after this action, rather than to his own King, Louis XIV, whose instructions to Tourville and to and from his ministers were widely circulated (see, for example, The Present State of Europe or the Historical and Political Mercury, 6 (1 July 1692), 29). William III’s strategy hinged on the involvement of naval forces at this point and the correspondents’ ignorance of this is of significance. ‘The year had gone badly in Flanders and, after the initial success, at sea; there seemed little hope, as he himself told his friends at the close of the campaign [in 1692], of invading France […] he was even inclining towards the idea of a negotiated peace […]. From his vantage point at the head of the alliance, with his varied sources of information of which he alone knew the sum, and with his European interests which separated him from all his English ministers, and of which he alone had always been acknowledged to be the judge, William looked at the Mediterranean with a different eye from that of the authorities at home [England, Scotland, and Ireland]. To him, it was now the one point at which allied sea power impinged upon allied strategy. […] At the end of 1692, therefore, William’s European interests met English domestic interests for the first time on their own ground; and the divergence between

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146 The correspondence of John Dryden

his ministers and himself in the autumn of that year, unimportant as it seemed in its contemporary setting, was the prelude to a major struggle […].’ (John Erhman, The Navy in the William III 1689–1697: Its State and Direction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 498–9). 9. ‘Huy [a town in the Spanish Netherlands] was reported as taken by the French on July 18’ (Ward, Letters, 166, n5). 10. Louis of France (1661–1711), eldest son and heir of Louis XIV and his spouse, Maria Theresa of Spain. As the heir apparent to the French throne, he was styled Dauphin. 11. Guy Alfonce de Durfort (1630–1702), duc de Lorges, Marshal of France, French nobleman and soldier. Lorges was the father-in-law of Louis de Rouvroy (1675–1755), styled duc de Saint-Simon, French soldier and diplomat, who portrays him in his posthumous Mémoires with great affection. In the War of the Grand Alliance, de Lorges commanded the French army in Germany against William III from 1690 to 1695. 12. Ludwig Wilhelm (1677–1707), Margrave of Baden-Baden, commonly known as ‘Louis of Baden’. He commanded an army against the French in the War of the Grand Alliance. 13. The reference is slightly unclear. Frederick William (1620–88), Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, had been vehemently anti-French. His heir, Frederick I (1657–1713), Duke (later King) of Prussia, was in favour of a rapprochement with the French, which seems to be what is indicated here with the caveat ‘unless he may command’, that is, that the latter may command the direction of the campaign. ‘Saxony’ is probably the derivative of a vassal state of the Elector of Brandenburg. 14. See Letter 25, n14. 15. Leopold I (1640–1705), Holy Roman Emperor from 1658; leader of the Grand Alliance. 16. By ‘the Monarch’ Dryden could be referring to either Louis XIV, whose naval power is in the ascendant, or possibly, as a Jacobite sensing an eventual victory, the exiled James II. 17. ‘[O]ur Fleet’ refers to the English fleet, although there may be some sad, self-­ indulgent irony in this for Dryden: William of Orange (by now William III) had landed at Torbay on 5 November 1688. 18. In May 1693, Rear-Admiral Sir George Rooke (c. 1650–1709) (later Admiral of the Fleet) was appointed to convoy the 400 ships of the Smyrna fleet – on the outbound Mediterranean trade. With him were the joint admirals, Vice-Admiral Henry Killigrew (c. 1652–1712) and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Cloudesley Shovell (1650–1707), who, assuming that the French fleet was at Brest, left Rooke to escort the merchant ships alone. The French attacked and defeated him, leaving him to sail for Madeira with the remnants of the convoy and thence to Ireland (see John B. Hattendorf, ‘Rooke, Sir George (c. 1650– 1709), naval officer’, ODNB, 47.689–94 (690)). For an account of Rooke’s life and career, see John Knox Laughton (ed.), From Howard to Nelson: Twelve Sailors (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1899), 125–58. 19. OED, ‘covey, n.1’: ‘A brood or hatch of partridges […] figurative and transferred. A family, party, or set (of persons or things)’. It may be this figurative usage was suggested to Dryden by Rooke’s surname. The manuscript does not read ‘convoy’, as can be seen by comparison with ‘conveyd’, the final word of the address on this letter.

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Letters 28 and 29

These two letters chart the development of Dryden’s personal and professional relationship with his publisher, Tonson, and attest to his continuing relationship with Congreve. They reflect the fact that print culture was to some extent still a form of ‘coterie’ publication and that the distribution of books was seen as a token of friendship by authors. The letters show that the bucolic lifestyle advocated by Horace was something in which many of his contemporaries engaged: here both Dryden and Tonson have been to Northamptonshire (from where Dryden writes).1 1. For the Horatian ideal of retirement, see Bernard, The Literary Correspondences, 25–37, and Stephen Bernard (ed.), The Letters of Jacob Tonson in Bodl. MS Eng. lett. c.129 (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 2019 [2020]), 28–38. For an examination of the subject in Dryden’s poetry, see Michael McKeon, ‘The politics of pastoral retreat: Dryden’s poem to his cousin’, in Enchanted Ground: Reimagining John Dryden, ed. Jayne Lewis and Maximillian E. Novak (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 91–110.

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148 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 281 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.4.

Mr. Tonson

I am ashamd of my self, that I am so much behind hand with you in kindness. above all things I am sensible of your good nature, in bearing [me] company to this place;2 wherein besides the cost, you must needs neglect your own business; but I will endeavour to make you some amends; & therefore I desire you to command me something for your service.3 I am sure you thought My Lord Radclyffe wou’d have done something: I ghessd more truly, that he cou’d not;4 but I was too farr ingagd to desist; though I was tempted to it, by the melancholique prospect I had of it. I have translated six hunderd lines of Ovid; but I believe I shall not compasse his 772 lines under nine hunderd or more of mine.5 This time I cannot write my wife, because he who is to carry my letter to Oundle, will not stay till I can write another. Pray’ Sir let her know that I am well; & for feare the few Damsins6 shoud be all gone, desire her to buy me a Sieve full, to preserve whole, & not in Mash.7 I intend to come up at least a week before Michaelmass; for Sir Matthew is gone abroad, I suspect a wooeing and his Caleche8 is gone with him:9 so that I have been but thrice at Tichmarsh,10 of which, you were with me once. This dissappointment makes the place weary-some to me, wch otherwise woud be pleasant. About a fortnight ago I had an int=imation by a friend by letter, That one of the Secretaryes,11 I suppose Trenchard12 had informd the Queen,13 that I had abusd her Government, (those were the words) in my Epistle to my Lord Radclyffe;14 & that thereupon, she had commanded her Historiographer Rymer, to fall upon my Playes; wch he15 assures me is now doeing.16 I doubt not his malice, from a former hint you gave me: & if he be employd, I am confident tis of his own seeking; who you know has spoken slightly of me in his last Critique:17 & that gave me occasion, to snarl againe.18 In your next, let me know what you can learn of this matter. I am Mr Congreve’s true Lover & desire you to tell him, how kindly I take his often Remembrances of me:19 I wish him all prosperity; & hope I shall never loose his Affection. Nor yours Sir; as being Your most Faithfull, & much obligd Servant John Dryden. I had all your Letters.20

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Letter 28 ([Terminus ad quem 30 August 1693]) 149

Aug 30.th Sir Matthew had your Book, when he came home last; & desird me, to give you his Acknowledgments. ADDRESS:

Clapton, Northamptonshire.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter VIII; Scott, Works, Letter IX; Ward, Letters, Letter 26; Zwicker, John Dryden, 533. 2. Tonson accompanied Dryden on a trip to Northamptonshire in the autumn of 1693 (see Winn, John Dryden, 464). However, the fact of this letter having been written at all implies that Tonson joined Dryden later. 3. Here is an instance of Tonson being the instigator of a work by Dryden, although we do not know which it might have been. 4. Radcliffe was the Catholic dedicatee of Examen Poeticum; as Dryden explains, he was unable to offer Dryden any financial consideration for the dedication. Radcliffe has been identified as the ‘Lord R.’, four of whose poems appear in the collection (see California Edition, 4.696, n; for a full analysis of the attribution of these poems, see David M. Vieth, ‘Poems by “My Lord R.”: Rochester v. Radclyffe’, Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, 72:4 (1957), 612–19). He was the father of Edward Radcliffe, to whom Letter 7 is addressed. 5. See Book 1 of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, which comprises exactly 772 lines of the text in Borchard Cnipping’s Variorum Ovid (1629; 1670; 1683) which Dryden used (see Hammond and Hopkins, The Poems, 5.623, headnote). 6. That is, damsons: small black or dark purple Syrian plums, introduced to Greece and Italy. 7. This is not the last time Tonson is engaged to conduct Dryden’s domestic affairs (see, for example, Letter 39). This use of ‘mash’ as a noun referring to a preserve is notable, as ‘mash’ in such a context is historically recorded as uniquely referring to matter being distilled (see OED, ‘mash. n1’). 8. OED, ‘Calash, n’, ‘1 a kind of light carriage with low wheels, having a removable folding hood or top’. 9. Sir Matthew Dudley, second Baronet (1661–1721), Whig politician, and host of Dryden at Clapton, Northamptonshire. 10. Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire, the Dryden family estate. In 1693 it was the ­possession of Sir John Pickering, second Baronet, heir of Sir Gilbert Pickering, first Baronet, appointed Lord Pickering under the Protectorate, politician, and distant cousin of Dryden. It was he who involved Dryden in the cortège of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell (see Winn, John Dryden, 91). 11. That is, the Secretaries of State, of which there were two: one each for the Northern and Southern Departments (the Southern Department was considered the senior of the two). 12. Sir John Trenchard (1649–95), politician. An arch-Whig, following the Glorious Revolution he was rewarded with a number of high offices, culminating with his appointment as Secretary of State for the Northern Department in March 1693. 13. That is, Queen Mary II. 14. The dedication to Francis Radcliffe, first Earl of Derwentwater, claims ‘No Government has ever been, or ever can be, wherein Time-servers and Block-heads will not be uppermost. The Persons are only chang’d, but the same juglings in State, the same

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150 The correspondence of John Dryden

Hypocrisie in Religion, the same Self-Interest, and Mis-mannagement, will remain for ever. Blood and Mony will be lavish’d in all Ages, only for the Preferment of new Faces, with old Consciences. There is too often a Jaundise in the Eyes of Great Men; they see not whom they raise, in the same Colours with other Men’ (‘Dedication’, Examen Poeticum, sig. A3v; California Edition, 4.363). 15. Either Radcliffe or Rymer. 16. This letter, if it was a direct letter, from Rymer does not survive. Rymer this year published A Short View of Tragedy. In response to Thomas Rymer’s earlier Tragedies of the Last Age, ‘[p]ublicly Dryden contented himself with a jibe at Thomas Shadwell’s Successor, But no, not I, but poetry is curst; For Tom the Second reigns like Tom the First

… [however,] in a letter to Dennis [see Letter 33] [he] grants that almost all the faults Rymer has discovered in Shakespeare are truly there and expresses reverence for Rymer’s learning […]. In the mellow mood of the preface to the Fables Dryden can refer non­ committally to “our learned Mr. Rymer”’ (Curt A. Zimansky (ed.), The Critical Works of Thomas Rymer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956), xxxviii). However, Dryden ‘seems to have restarted his argument [against Rymer’s A Short View of Tragedy] several times, abandoning half-completed outlines and leaving his thoughts half developed. Even the manuscript would not help much, and that was burned in 1786 or 1787’ (Zimansky, The Critical Works, xxxiii–xxxix, see esp. xxxiv, n2; see also Osborn, John Dryden, 267–79). In the Preface to Examen Poeticum – an anthology of poetry – Dryden nonetheless responds obliquely but pointedly to A Short View of Tragedy: ‘Ill Writers are usually the sharpest Censors: For they (as the best Poet, and the best Patron said), when in the full perfection of decay, turn Vinegar, and come again in Play. Thus the corruption of a Poet, is the Generation of a Critick […]. If I am the Man, as I have Reason to believe, who am seemingly Courted, and secretly Undermin’d: I think I shall be able to defend my self, when I am openly attacqu’d. And to show, besides, that the Greek Writers only gave us the Rudiments of a Stage which they never finish’d. That many of the Tragedies in the former Age amongst us, were without Comparison beyond those of Sophocles and Euripides. But at present, I have neither the leisure nor the means for such an Undertaking. ’Tis ill going to Law for an Estate, with him who is in possession of it, and enjoys the present Profits, to feed his cause. But the quantum mutatus may be remember’d in due time. In the mean while, I leave the World to judge, who gave the provocation. This, my Lord, is, I confess, a long digression, from Miscellany Poems to Modern Tragedies: But I have the ordinary Excuse of an Injur’d Man, who will be telling his Tale unseasonably to his Betters’ (Dryden, ‘To the Right Honourable My Lord Radcliffe’, in Examen Poeticum, [4–7]; California Edition, 4.366–7). Dryden’s quotation of Æneis addressing the ghost of Hector was not unremarkable at the time. Rymer’s dedication to Dorset of his Short View includes the phrase, referring to ‘others [than Homer and Virgil] of a Modern Cut, quantum Mutatus!’ (Zimansky, The Critical Works, 83). 17. See Letter 6, n1. 18. Dryden may be referring to his private, unpublished response to Rymer with his ‘Heads of an answer to Rymer’, which was scribbled in his copy of Rymer’s A Short View of Tragedy. The work was published posthumously by Tonson in The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. 19. There is no record of these ‘often [frequent] Remembrances’ of Dryden by Congreve. If they were not oral or orally conveyed, then sadly a significant correspondence of affection between the two or concerning them must be lost. 20. Now largely lost.

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Letter 29 (13 September [1693]) 151

Letter 291 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Folger Shakespeare Library, Tonson Papers, C.c.1, fol. 77.

My Good Friend, This is onely to acquaint you, that I have taken my place in the Oundle Coach for Tuesday next;2 & hope to be at London on Wednesday Night. I had not confidence enough to hope Mr. Southern & Mr. Congreve wou’d have given me the favour of their company for the last foure miles; but since they will be so kind to a friend of theirs, who so truely loves both them & you, I will please my self with expecting it if the weather be not ^\so/ bad, as to hinder them. I assure you I lay up your last kindnesses to me in my heart; & the less I say of them, I charge them to account so much the more; being very sensible that I have not hetherto deservd them. Haveing been oblig’d to sit up all last Night almost, out of civility to strangers, who were benighted3 & to resign my bed to them, I am sleepy all this day: & If I had not taken a very lusty pike that day, they must have gone supperless to bed, foure Ladyes and two Gentlemen; For Mr Dudley4 & I were alone with but one Man, & no Mayd in the House. This time I cannot write to my wife; do me the favour to let her know I receivd her letter, am well; & hope to be with her on Wednesday next at Night. No more; but that I am Very much Your Friend and Servant John Dryden Wednesday the 13.th 7br 5 For Mr Jacob Tonson Bookseller, att the Sign of The Judges Head in Chancery-Lane neare Fleetstreet These London 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XII; Scott, Works, Letter XIV; Ward, Letters, Letter 27. ‘Malone […] assigns [this letter] to 1695, but it should be dated to 1693; for obviously it is written from the same place (and a fortnight later) as [Letter 28]; and September 13 was a Wednesday in 1693’ (Ward, Letters, 167, headnote). 2. Oundle is six miles north of Titchmarsh. 3. That is, night fell before these strangers were able to complete their journey, and they sought shelter at Dudley’s house. 4. Presumably – given the epithet ‘Mr’ – William, the brother of his host, Sir Matthew. 5. That is, September.

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Letter 30

This letter demonstrates Dryden’s continued central position in the network of writers working in the 1690s and his awareness of new writing talent, such as Congreve. He was clearly well read in both classical and contemporary drama and dramatic theory, and was already well advanced on his translation of Virgil. His knowledge of affairs of state is necessarily more limited than it had been when he was associated with courtiers, but he still shows a keen interest in them, which he must have gleaned from the newsletters and newspapers and from around the City and Westminster.

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Letter 30 ([December 1693?]) 153

Letter 301 Dryden to William Walsh

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.16.

[16br] Deare Mr Walsh

I have read over your lettr2 many times: & you know that when we repeat actions often, tis with pleasure. The Method which you have taken, is wonderfully good; & not onely all present Poets, but all who are to come in England, will thanke you for freeing them from the too servile imitation of the Ancients.3 If heerafter the Audience, will come to tast the confinement of the French (which I believe the English never will,) then it will be easy for their Poets, to follow the strictness of the Mechanique rules, in the three Unities.4 In the meane time, I am affrayd, for my sake, you discover not your Opinion, concerning my Irregular way, of Tragicomedies,5 in my doppia favola.6 I beseech you let no consideration of mine hinder you from makeing a perfect Critique. I will never defend that practice: for I know it distracts the Hearers. But I know, withall, that it has hitherto pleasd them, for the sake of variety; & for the particular tast, which they have to low Comedy. Mascardi, in some of his Miscellany Treatises,7 has a Chapter concerning this; & exempli=fies, in the Satyr & Corsica, of the Pastor Fido: As I remember those two persons though not of a piece with the rest, yet serve in the Conclusion, to the discovery & beauty of the Design.8 Your Critique, by your description of its bulk, will be to large for a preface to my Play, which is now studying; but cannot be acted till after Christmasse is over.9 I call it Love Triumphant; or Nature will prevaile: Unless instead of the second Title you like this other: Neither Side to blame; which is very proper, to the two chief Characters of the Heroe & Heroine: who notwithstanding the Extravance of their passion, are neither of them faulty, either in duty, or in Honour. Your Judgment of it, if you please. When you do me the favour to send your Booke I will take care to correct the press; & to have it printed well.10 It will be more for your Honour, too, to print it alone, & take off the suspition of your being too much my friend, I meane too partiall to me, if it comes in company of my Play. I have rememberd you to all your friends; and in particular to Congreve; who sends you his play,11 as a present from him selfe, by this conveyance; & much desires the honour of being better known

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154 The correspondence of John Dryden

to you. His Double Dealer is much censurd by the greater part of the Town: and is defended onely by the best Judges, who, you know, are commonly the fewest. Yet it gets ground daily, & has already been acted Eight times. The women thinke he has exposed their Bitchery too much; & the Gentlemen, are offended with them him; for the discovery of their follyes: & the way of their Intrigues, under the notion of Friendship to their Ladyes Husbands. [Written down 16av] My verses, which you will find before it, were written before the play was acted. but I neither alterd them nor do I alter my opinion of the play.12 For other newes, you will heare from all hands; that the House of Lords grow very warm; & have a mind to try the Land Admiralls:13 those of the Sea having been acquitted by the Commons: Yet they have orderd Rook, Killigrew,14 Shovell, & the Turkish Merchants,15 to appeare before them: and on the other side, the King has taken away the Commissions of the Marine Admiralls. You know Russell will be the Man.16 The Whig party, who brought in the King, thinke Killigrew & his Brethren Jacobites, & my Lord Carmarthen17 with all the High Church men, to be betrayers of the Government. In my Conscience they wrong them. The Commons are inspecting their own House, for the private pensions: which Squib18 pretends to discover, & will name above an Hunderd men: it will all come to nothing I believe, by the over votes of the other side, in both Houses: when they are tir’d, they will give the Six Millions; & next Michaelmass, we shall have a new Parliament: but for the Trienniall Bill, now sent down from the Lords, I conceive it will be thrown out by the Commons: because of the Rider, which explaines the word Holden; not to signify to hold.19 We heare of about ten of our Easterland Ships20 & two small Men of Warr, are taken by Du Bart, & carried into France: they were laden, with corne & other provisions.21 Last, for my selfe: I have undertaken to translate all Virgil: & as an Essay,22 have already paraphrasd, the third Georgique, as an Example. it will be publishd in Tonsons next Miscellanyes, in Hillary terme.23 I propose to do it by subscription; haveing an hunderd & two Brass Cutts, with the Coats of Armes of the Subscriber to each Cutt: & every Subscriber to pay five guinneys: half in hande besides another inferiour Subscription of two Guinneys, for the rest whose names are onely written in a Catalogue, printed with the Book.24 I am Dear Sir, Your most faithfull Servant. John Dryden.

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Letter 30 ([December 1693?]) 155

Dec. 12th I have just receivd your verses to My Wycherley:25 but cannot stay to read them before I put up this letter, ’tis so late att night. [16bv] For William Walsh Esq Att Abberley, neare Worcester These: By Worcester Stage Coach. With a small parcell in paper, directed to Mr Walsh.

1. Bell, Poetical Works, 1.75–7; Ward, Letters, Letter 28; Zwicker, John Dryden, 534. 2. Now lost. This letter from Walsh doubtless referred to the outlined preface to Dryden’s play (see Letter 25, n19). 3. The querelles des anciens et modernes raged between the ‘ancien’, Boileau, and the ‘moderne’, Charles Perrault (1628–1703), French poet and critic, in the late seventeenth century (see Terence Cave, ‘Ancients and moderns: France’, in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, ed. H. B. Nisbet and Claude Rawson, eight vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989–), 3.417–25; for the dispute in England, see Joshua Scodel, ‘Seventeenth-century English literary criticism: classical values, English texts and contexts’, in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Vol. 3: The Renaissance, ed. Glyn P. Norton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 543–53 (550–4)). Dryden was a ‘modern’, as is evidenced by his battling with ‘Virgil’ in Jonathan Swift’s A Tale of a Tub. Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind. To Which is Added, An Account of a Battel Between the Antient and Modern Books in St. James’s Library (London: John Nutt, 1704): ‘On the left Wing of the Horse, Virgil appeared in shining Armor, completely fitted to his Body; He was mounted on a dapple grey Steed, the slowness of whose Pace, was an Effect of the highest Mettle and Vigor. He cast his Eye on the adverse Wing, with desire to find an Object worthy of his Valor: When, behold, upon a sorrel Gelding of a monstrous Size, appeared a Foe, issuing from among the thickest of the Enemy’s Squadrons; But his Speed was less than his Noise; for his Horse, old and lean, spent the Dregs of this Strength in a high Trot, which tho’ it made Advances, yet caused a loud Clashing of his Armor, terrible to hear. The two Cavaliers had now approach’d within the Throw of a Lance, when the Stranger desired a Parley, and lifting up the Vizard of his Helmet, a Face hardly appreared from within, which after a Pause, was known for that of the renowned Dryden’ (262–3). 4. Aristotle was the first to consider the problem of the dramatic unities of action and time; space, the third unity was a neoclassical invention. Aristotle, however, did not invent them. He discussed the unities of action and time in his Poetics (see Aristotle: Poetics. Longinus: On the Sublime. Demetrius: On Style, 28–141): ‘Μῦθος δ᾿ ἐστὶν εἷς οὐχ ὥσπερ τινὲς οἴονται ἐὰν περὶ ἕνα ᾖ· πολλὰ γὰρ καὶ ἄπειρα τῷ ἑνὶ συμβαίνει, ἐξ ὧν ἐνίων οὐδέν ἐστιν ἕν· οὕτως δὲ καὶ πράξεις ἑνὸς πολλαί εἰσιν, ἐξ ὧν μία οὐδεμία γίνεται πρᾶξις. διὸ πάντες ἐοίκασιν ἁμαρτάνειν ὅσοι τῶν ποιητῶν Ἡρακληίδα Θησηίδα καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ποιήματα πεποιήκασιν· οἴονται γάρ, ἐπεὶ εἷς ἦν ὁ Ἡρακλῆς, ἕνα καὶ τὸν μῦθον εἶναι προσήκειν. ὁ δ᾿ Ὅμηρος ὥσπερ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα διαφέρει καὶ τοῦτ᾿ ἔοικεν καλῶς ἰδεῖν, ἤτοι

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156 The correspondence of John Dryden

διὰ τέχνην ἢ διὰ φύσιν· Ὀδύσσειαν γὰρ ποιῶν οὐκ ἐποίησεν ἅπαντα ὅσα αὐτῷ συνέβη (οἷον πληγῆναι μὲν ἐν τῷ Παρνασσῷ, μανῆναι δὲ προσποιήσασθαι ἐν τῷ ἀγερμῷ), ὧν οὐδὲν θατέρου γενομένου ἀναγκαῖον ἦν ἢ εἰκὸς θάτερον γενέσθαι, ἀλλὰ περὶ μίαν πρᾶξιν οἵαν λέγομεν τὴν Ὀδύσσειαν συνέστησεν, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὴν Ἰλιάδα. χρὴ οὖν, καθάπερ καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἄλλαις μιμητικαῖς ἡ μία μίμησις ἑνός ἐστιν, οὕτω καὶ τὸν μῦθον, ἐπεὶ πράξεως μίμησίς ἐστι, μιᾶς τε εἶναι καὶ ταύτης ὅλης, καὶ τὰ μέρη συνεστάναι τῶν πραγμάτων οὕτως ὥστε μετατιθεμένου τινὸς μέρους ἢ ἀφαιρουμένου διαφέρεσθαι καὶ κινεῖσθαι τὸ ὅλον· ὃ γὰρ προσὸν ἢ μὴ προσὸν μηδὲν ποιεῖ ἐπίδηλον, οὐδὲν μόριον τοῦ ὅλου ἐστίν.’ ‘A plot is not unified, as some think, if built round an individual. Any entity has in­numer­ able features, not all of which cohere into a unity; likewise, an individual performs many actions which yield no unitary action. So all those poets are clearly at fault who have composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, and similar poems: they think that, since Heracles was an individual, the plot too must be unitary. But Homer, in keeping with his general ­superiority, evidently grasped well, whether by art or nature, this point too: for though composing an Odyssey, he did not include every feature of the hero’s life (e.g. his wounding on Parnassus, or his feigned madness in the call to arms), where events lacked necessary or probable connections; but he structured the Odyssey round a unitary action of the kind I mean, and likewise with the Iliad. Just as, therefore, in the other mimetic arts a unitary mimesis has a unitary object, so too the plot, since it is mimesis of an action, should be of a unitary and indeed whole action; and the component events should be so structured that if any is displaced or removed, the sense of the whole is disturbed and dislocated: since that whose presence or absence has no clear significance is not an integral part of the whole’ (Aristotle, Poetics, VIII (56–9)). Earlier Aristotle writes, ‘Ἡ δὲ κωμῳδία ἐστὶν ὥσπερ εἴπομεν μίμησις φαυλοτέρων μέν, οὐ μέντοι κατὰ πᾶσαν κακίαν, ἀλλὰ τοῦ αἰσχροῦ ἐστι τὸ γελοῖον μόριον. τὸ γὰρ γελοῖόν ἐστιν ἁμάρτημά τι καὶ αἶσχος ἀνώδυνον καὶ οὐ φθαρτικόν, οἷον εὐθὺς τὸ γελοῖον πρόσωπον αἰσχρόν τι καὶ διεστραμμένον ἄνευ ὀδύνης. αἱ μὲν οὖν τῆς τραγῳδίας μεταβάσεις καὶ δι᾿ ὧν ἐγένοντο οὐ λελήθασιν, ἡ δὲ κωμῳδία διὰ τὸ μὴ σπουδάζεσθαι ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἔλαθεν· καὶ γὰρ χορὸν κωμῳδῶν ὀψέ ποτε ὁ ἄρχων ἔδωκεν, ἀλλ᾿ ἐθελονταὶ ἦσαν. ἤδη δὲ σχήματά τινα αὐτῆς ἐχούσης οἱ λεγόμενοι αὐτῆς ποιηταὶ μνημονεύονται. τίς δὲ πρόσωπα ἀπέδωκεν ἢ προλόγους ἢ πλήθη ὑποκριτῶν καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα, ἠγνόηται. τὸ δὲ μύθους ποιεῖν τὸ μὲν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐκ Σικελίας ἦλθε, τῶν δὲ Ἀθήνησιν Κράτης πρῶτος ἦρξεν ἀφέμενος τῆς ἰαμβικῆς ἰδέας καθόλου ποιεῖν λόγους καὶ μύθους. ἡ μὲν οὖν ἐποποιία τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ μέχρι μὲν τοῦ μετὰ μέτρου λόγῳ μίμησις εἶναι σπουδαίων ἠκολούθησεν· τῷ δὲ τὸ μέτρον ἁπλοῦν ἔχειν καὶ ἀπαγγελίαν εἶναι, ταύτῃ διαφέρουσιν· ἔτι δὲ τῷ μήκει· ἡ μὲν ὅτι μάλιστα πειρᾶται ὑπὸ μίαν περίοδον ἡλίου εἶναι ἢ μικρὸν ἐξαλλάττειν, ἡ δὲ ἐποποιία ἀόριστος τῷ χρόνῳ καὶ τούτῳ διαφέρει, καίτοι τὸ πρῶτον ὁμοίως ἐν ταῖς τραγῳδίαις τοῦτο ἐποίουν καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσιν. μέρη δ᾿ ἐστὶ τὰ μὲν ταὐτά, τὰ δὲ ἴδια τῆς τραγῳδίας· διόπερ ὅστις περὶ τραγῳδίας οἶδε σπουδαίας καὶ φαύλης, οἶδε καὶ περὶ ἐπῶν· ἃ μὲν γὰρ ἐποποιία ἔχει, ὑπάρχει τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ, ἃ δὲ αὐτῇ, οὐ πάντα ἐν τῇ ἐποποιίᾳ.’ ‘Comedy, as we said, is mimesis of baser but not wholly vicious characters: rather, the laughable is one category of the shameful. For the laughable comprises any fault or mark of shame which involves no pain or destruction: most obviously, the laughable mask is something ugly and twisted, but not painfully. Now, tragedy’s stages of development, and those responsible for them, have been remembered, but comedy’s early history was forgotten because no serious interest was taken in it: only at a rather late date did the archon grant a comic chorus; previously performers were volunteers. It is from a time when the genre already had some formal features that the first named poets of comedy are remembered. Who introduced masks, prologues, various numbers of actors, and everything of that kind, has been lost. The composition of plots originally came from Sicily; of Athenian poets Crates was the first to relinquish the iambic manner and to create stories

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Letter 30 ([December 1693?]) 157

and plots with an overall structure. Epic matches tragedy to the extent of being mimesis of elevated matters in metrical language; but they differ in that epic has an unchanging metre and is in narrative mode. They also differ in length: tragedy tends so far as possible to stay within a single revolution of the sun, or close to it, while epic is unlimited in time span and is distinctive in this respect (though to begin with the poets followed this same practice in tragedy as in epic). Epic and tragedy have some components in common, but others are peculiar to tragedy. So whoever knows about good and bad tragedy knows the same about epic, as epic’s resources belong to tragedy, but tragedy’s [sic] are not all to be found in epic’ (Aristotle, Poetics, V (44–7)). The Italians in the sixteenth century, followed by the French for the following 200 years, were to observe the unities. ‘Dryden had discussed the unities, distinctions between English and French plays, and the place of the “rules” in writing for the stage in the Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668), the Defence of An Essay of Dramatique Poesie (1668), the Preface to All for Love (1678), and the Preface to Troilus and Cressida (1679)’ (Zwicker, John Dryden, 814, n). 5. Tragicomedy derives from a reference by Plautus (254–184 bc) to the unconventional mixture of kings, gods, and servants in his Amphitryon: ‘faciam ut commixta sit; tragico[co]moedia’ (‘I’ll make sure it’s a mixed play; it’ll be a tragicomedy’ (Plautus, Amphitryon, The Comedy of Asses, The Pot of Gold, The Two Bacchises, The Captives, ed. and transl. Wolfgang de Melo (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 18–19 (‘Prologue’, Amphitryon, l. 90)). As a form in English theatre, it reached its zenith in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Dryden produced his own version of Amphitryon (1690). 6. That is, his Amphitryon. ‘As in a Play of the English Fashion, which we call a Tragicomedy, there is but to be but one main Design: and tho’ there be an Under-plot, or Second Walk of Comical Characters and Adventures, yet they are subservient to the Chief Fable, carry’d along under it, and helping to it; so that the Drama may not seem a Monster with two Heads. This the Copernican Systeme of the Planets makes the Moon to be mov’d by the motion of the Earth, and carry’d about her Orb, as a Dependent of hers: Mascardi in his Discourse of the Doppia favola, or Double-tale in Plays, gives an instant of it, in the famous Pastoral of Guarini, call’d Il Pastor Fido; where Corsica and the Satyre are the Under-parts: Yet we may observe, that Corsica is brought into the Body of the Plot, and made subservient to it’ (Dryden, The Satires, xlvii; California Edition, 4.79). 7. Agostini Mascardi (1591–1640), Italian rhetorician. In Dell’unità della favola drammatica Mascardi discusses the ‘favola doppia’ – note Dryden’s reversal of the Italian adjective and noun, perhaps showing both his familiarity with the original and how he had internalized and in some manner ‘Englished’ the term or perhaps how he had remembered it was from Mascardi but quotes the unattributed ‘doppia favola’ in the criticism of Rapin ([René Rapin,] Observations sur les poemes d’Homere et de Virgile ([Paris]: Thomas Jolly, Denys Thierry, and Claude Barbin, 1649), 54 (also under various titles in 1664, 1669, and 1679). This ‘doppia favola’ is the Aristotelean tragicomic double plot (see ‘διπλῆν’ in Aristotle, Poetics, XIV (30–2). Mascardi’s discussion is in what Dryden calls his ‘Miscellany Treatises’, that is, Prose vulgari di monsignor Agostino Mascardi cameriere d’honore di n. sig. Vrbano Ottauo (Venice: Fontana, 1625). 8. Giovanni Battista Guarini (1538–1612), whose Il pastor fido (1590) had been translated by Richard Fanshawe, Il Pastor Fido. The Faithfull Shepherd (London: R. Raworth, 1647). 9. Love Triumphant was acted in January 1693/4: ‘Sup’d at Mr Ed Sheldons where was Mr Dryden the Poet, who now intending to Write no more Plays (intent upon the Translation of Virgil) read to us his Prologue & Epilogue to his last Valedictory Play, now shortly to be Acted’ (Evelyn, Diary (11 January 1693/4), 5.164). There is no preface by Walsh to this play; as to its being Dryden’s ‘Valedictory Play’, this may reflect the

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158 The correspondence of John Dryden

sentiments noted earlier, concerning Queen Mary’s having commanded Rymer to ‘fall upon’ his plays (Letter 28, especially n16). 10. Dryden seemingly was to have proofread some of Walsh’s work. 11. The Double Dealer (London: Jacob Tonson, 1694). The superscription to the address reads ‘With a small parcell in | paper, directed to Mr Walsh’, so Dryden evidently included the play, which had just been published (see the London Gazette, 4–7 December, 1693, issue no. 2929). 12. See John Dryden, ‘To My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve, On His Comedy, call’d, The Double Dealer’, in William Congreve, The Double-Dealer, sig. A2r–A3v. In this poem Dryden writes, ‘But You, whom ev’ry Muse and Grace adorn, | Whom I foresee to better Fortune born, | Be kind to my Remains; and, oh defend, | Against Your Iudgment Your departed Friend!’ (ll. 70–3) (California Edition, 4.432–4 (434)). In fact, Congreve was to prepare Dryden’s plays for publication (William Congreve (ed.), The Dramatick Works of Mr. John Dryden, six vols (London: Jacob Tonson, 1717)). 13. That is, those in the navy who were not active at sea, but ex officio governed and commanded the navy and might be thought responsible for its conduct and effectiveness. 14. Killigrew had been ordered to appear with Admiral Sir Ralph Delaval before the House of Commons to account for their part in the loss of the Smyrna fleet (see Letter 27, n18). Although acquitted, he lost his command in the navy, along with Shovell. ‘Killigrew [was] suspected of Jacobite sympathies and of planning to keep the fleet out of the way to allow James II to invade; indeed, the earl of Ailesbury had held negotiations to this effect with Killigrew early in 1693. Killigrew never commanded again’ (see J. K. Laughton, revised by J. D. Davies, ‘Killigrew, Henry (c. 1652–1712)’, ODNB, 31.560–1 (561)). 15. That is, those who held stock in the companies to which the Smyrna fleet belonged. 16. In May 1694 Admiral Edward Russell, Earl of Orford (1652–1727), naval officer, was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty when the power of the Whig electoral magnates, the incipient junto, was growing. Among these men, Thomas Wharton, John Somers, and Charles Montagu (a distant relative), Russell could already count himself an equal (see D. D. Aldridge, ‘Russell, Edward, earl of Orford (1652–1727), naval officer’, ODNB, 48.228–31 (229)). For an account of Russell’s life and career, see David West, Admiral Edward Russell and the Rise of British Naval Supremacy (Kinloss: Librario, 2005). 17. Danby, who, according to Sir John Reresby, said he had had the presidency of the Council ‘forced […] upon him’, had been elevated Marquess of Carmarthen in April 1689. His public policy was epitomized in him having said to King William that he ‘would serve him in everything but against the Church’ (Knights, ‘Osborne’, 32). 18. ‘Robert Squib, who was called to the House of Commons on December 9 to make an accounting of the money paid for secret service and to Members of Parliament by William Jephson, deceased, whose accounts Squib had in his possession’ (Ward, Letters, 168, n8). 19. ‘The Triennial Bill provided that the Parliament then sitting should cease to exist on January 1, 1694, and that no further Parliament should last longer than three years. Dryden was correct in his prediction; it was thrown out in the Commons’ (Ward, Letters, 168, n7). However, the Meeting of Parliament Act 1694 (6 & 7 Will & Mary c 2) did effect this change and is commonly known as the Triennial Act. 20. OED, ‘eastland, n. An eastern country or district; spec. (usually with capital initial) the (esp. eastern) Baltic region (now historical)’, and so the reference is to part of the Baltic merchants’ fleet. Dryden’s spelling is rare, and older (it is used by Spenser in The Faerie Queene, II.x.41.3). 21. Jean Baert (1650–1702), French privateer and naval commander. At this time, due to his success, Bart was only an irregular captain in the French navy, not being from the nobility. On 9 December Baert captured the Warrington and the Milford (see Narcissus

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Letter 30 ([December 1693?]) 159

Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, six vols (Oxford: at the University Press, 1857), 3.237) and the following year he was ennobled by Louis XIV for the capture of a Dutch convoy of wheat which saved Paris from starvation. He was made admiral in April 1697. 22. OED, ‘essay, n. †2. A trial specimen, a sample, an example; a rehearsal.’ 23. See Dryden (ed.), The Annual Miscellany for the Year 1694, sig. Br–E5r. 24. Dryden and Tonson signed the contract for The Works of Virgil on 15 June 1694 (see British Library, Add. Chart. 8429 (Dryden’s signed copy) and Add. MSS 36933 (Tonson’s signed copy)). 25. These verses by Walsh did not in the end appear in Wycherley’s Miscellany Poems.

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Letters 31, 32, and 33

This nascent correspondence between Dryden and the poet and critic John Dennis is all that evidently survives of a long association which lasted until Dryden’s death. Dennis was England’s first professional critic and an advocate for the institution of criticism [… Pope’s] elegant verse lampooned Dennis as a plodding critic out of step with the modern, polite society of eighteenth-century London. This image distorts Dennis’s actual career, especially in its early phase. In the 1690s Dennis set up for an ambitious polymath: writing critical treatises would be only one part of a multifaceted career.1

Dennis reflects the high esteem in which Dryden was held by his circle of fellow writers and critics at Will’s coffee house in the 1690s. As Dennis’s biographer writes, ‘The accession of Willia[m] had deprived Dryden of his position of poet laureate and royal historiographer, but it could not take from him the literary dictatorship of England’.2 While he oversalts his letters with praise of Dryden, Dennis peppers them with literary references which the pre-eminent literary figure of the age would have found gratifying and perhaps have expected. Dennis came from a lower position on the social and literary scale to Dryden and this is shown in his deferential language. Dryden, however, meets Dennis’s praise with praise of his own. Dennis was the champion of Dryden’s literary causes – ‘prac­tically all of our author’s critical writings before 1700 were directed against those who had opposed his master’3 – and was to be the careful guardian of Dryden’s reputation after his death, writing to Tonson on 4 June 1715: When I had the good Fortune to meet you in the Citty, it was with concern that I heard from you, of the attempt to lessen the Reputation of Mr. Dryden; & tis with Indignation that I have since learnt that that attempt has chiefly been carried on by small poets [Joseph Addison and the ‘little Senate’ at Will’s coffee house in the early eighteenth century], who ungratefully strive to eclipse the glory of a great man, from whom alone They derive their own Faint Lustre. But that eclipse of Mr. Dryden will be as momentary as that of the Sun was lately. The Reputation of Mr. Dryden will soon break out again in its full lustre, and theirs wil Disappear […].4

1. Gavin, The Invention of English Criticism, 66–71 (66–7). 2. H. G. Paul, John Dennis: His Life and Criticism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1911), 6–7. For an assessment of Dryden’s self-image in his later life, see Cedric

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Letters 31, 32, and 33 161

D. Reverand II, ‘The final “Memorial of my Own Principles”: Dryden’s alter egos in his later career’, in John Dryden: Tercentenary Essays, ed. Paul Hammond and David Hopkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 282–309. 3. Paul, John Dennis, 8. For a discussion of how Dennis’s critical works ventriloquize the thoughts of Dryden in this period, see Paul, John Dennis, 8–10. 4. Bernard, The Literary Correspondences, 165.

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162 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 16. John Vandergucht, John Dennis, line engraving (1734), NPG D27317. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Letter 31 (January 1693/4) 163

Letter 311 John Dennis2 to Dryden

Source: [John Dennis,] Letters Upon Several Occasions (London: Sam. Briscoe, 1696), 46–8.3

[46] Sir, Thô no Man writes to his Friends with greater Ease, or with more Chearful-ness, than my self; and thô I have lately had the Presumption to place you at the Head of that small Party, nevertheless I have experienc’d with Grief, that in writing to you I have not found my old Facility. Since I came to this place I have taken up my Pen several times in order to write to you, but have constantly at the very Beginning found myself Damp’d and Disa-bled; upon which I have been apt to be-lieve that extraordinary Esteem may some-times make the Mind as Impotent as a Vio-lent Love does the Body, and that the ve-hement Desire we have to exert it, extremely decays our Ability. I have heard of more than one lusty Gallant, who, thô he could at any time with Readiness and Vigour possess the Woman whom he lov’d but moderately, yet when he has been about to give his darling Mistress, whom he has ve-hemently and long desir’d, the first last [47] Proof of his Passion, has found on a sudden that his Body has Jaded and grown resty4 under his Soul, and gone backward the faster, the more he has spurr’d it forward. Esteem has wrought a like effect upon my Mind. My extraordinary inclination to shew that I honour you at an extraordinary rate, and to shew it in words that might not be altogether unworthy Mr. Dryden’s Perusal, incapacitates me to perform the very action to which it incites me, and Nature sinks in me under the fierce Effort. But I hope you will have the Goodness to pardon a Weakness that proceds from a Cause like this, and to consider that I had pleas’d you more if I had honour’d you less. Who knows but that yet I may please you, if you encourage me to mend my Fault?5 to which if you knew but the Place I am in, Charity would engage you, thô Ju-stice could not oblige you. For I am here in a Desart, depriv’d of Company, and depriv’d of News; in a Place where I can hear nothing at all of the Publick, and what proves it ten times more a Desart, nothing at all of you: For all who are at present concern’d for their Countrey’s Honour, hearken more after your Prepara-tives,6 than those for the next Campaigne. These last may possibly turn to our Confu-[48]sion,

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164 The correspondence of John Dryden

so uncertain are the Events of War; but we know that whatever you undertake must prove Glorious to England, and thô the French may meet with Success in the Field, by you we are sure to Conquer them. In War there are a thousand unlook’d for accidents which happen every day, and Fortune appears no where more like her self; but in a Combat of Wit, the more Humane Contention, and the more Glori-ous Quarrel, Merit will be always sure to prevail: And therefore, thô I can but hope the Confederate Forces will give chase to De Lorges and Luxemburgh,7 I am very confident that Boileau and Racine8 will be forced to submit to you. Judge therefore if I, who very much love my Country, and who so much esteem you, must not with a great deal of Impatience expect to hear from you. I am, Sir, Your most humble Servant [John Dennis] Bushy-Heath, Jan. 1693–4 1. Ward, Letters, Letter 29. 2. John Dennis (1658–1734), literary critic, travelled on the Grand Tour before deter­ mining on a literary career. Supported by his private income, he established himself in London as a modish man of letters, publishing occasional verse (fables, translations, and self-conscious exercises in wit, some of which were collected in Poems in Burlesque: With a Dedication in Burlesque to Fleetwood Shepherd, Esquire (London: printed for the booksellers, 1692). Although Dennis was frequenting Will’s as early as 1692, some time was to pass before he became an intimate of the giants who congregated there. In 1692 he was an impecunious and inelegant young man of an undistinguished family, and his only achievements in literature were unpromising trivialities. Within the first three months of 1693, however, he had published the Miscellanies in Verse and Prose (London: [s.n.], 1693) and the Impartial Critick: Or, Some Observations Upon a Late Book, Entituled, A Short View of Tragedy, Written by Mr. Rymer, and Dedicated to the Right Honourable Charles Earl of Dorset, &c. By Mr. Dennis (London: R. Taylor, 1693) (see E. N. Hooker (ed.), The Critical Works of John Dennis, two vols (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939–43), 1.xiii–xiv). Dennis cultivated the leading literary figures, Dryden (see Hooker, The Critical Works, 1.xiv–xv), Wycherley (see Hooker, The Critical Works, 1.xv–xvi), and Congreve (see Hooker, The Critical Works, 1.xvi–xvii) among them. At the same time, and with an eye on his dwindling fortune, Dennis also courted statesmen. A committed but independent Whig, he was proud that his literary works had been favourably received by ‘the late Earls of Godolphin and Halifax, Mr. Maynwaring and others among the Whigs’, he recalled in 1719, ‘and by the present Duke of Buckingham and my Lord Lansdown among the Tories’ (Hooker, The Critical Works, 2.173) (see Jonathan Pritchard, ‘Dennis, John (1658–1734), literary critic’, ODNB, 15.819–22 (819–20)). For an account of Dennis’s life and writings, see Paul, John Dennis.

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Letter 31 (January 1693/4) 165

3. The density and often poor placement of line-end hyphenation in this printed collection of letters (a particularly egregious example is ‘o-verstocked’ in Letter 33) indicates a lack of skill by Briscoe’s printer and possibly some lack of expense in the undertaking of the volume. 4. OED, ‘resty’, ‘adj. 2. Refusing to go forward, refractory, resisting control.’ Often used of horses, this is in keeping with the other equestrian words ‘Jaded’ and ‘spurr’d’. 5. Dennis’s whole mode of address strongly suggests that this is the first letter he has ever written to Dryden. 6. That is, for Dryden’s The Works of Virgil. 7. François Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville, Duke of Piney-Luxembourg, called Luxembourg (1628–95), French general, marshal of France, famous as the comrade and successor of Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1621–86), French general and the most famous representative of the Condé branch of the royal House of Bourbon. 8. Jean-Baptiste Racine (1639–99), French dramatist, primarily a tragedian, writing Andromaque (1667), Phèdre et Hippolyte (1677), and Athalie (1691), although he did write one comedy, Les Plaideurs (1669), and a muted tragedy, Esther (1689), for the young.

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166 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 321 John Dennis to Dryden

Source: [John Dennis,] Letters Upon Several Occasions (London: Sam. Briscoe, 1696), 49–52.

[49] Dear Sir, You may see already by this Presump-tuous greeting,2 that Encouragement gives as much Assurance to Friendship, as it imparts to Love.3 You may see too, that a Friend may sometimes proceed to ac-knowledge Affection, by the very same De-grees by which a Lover declares his Passion. This last at first confesses Esteem, yet owns no Passion but Admiration. But as soon as he is Animated by one kind Expression, his Look, his Style, and his very Soul are altered, But as Sovereign Beauties know very well, that he who confesses he Esteems and Admires them, implies that he Loves them, or is inclin’d to Love them; a Per-son of Mr. Dryden’s Exalted Genius, can discern very well, that when we say esteem him highly, ’tis Respect restrains us if we say no more. For where great Esteem is with-out Affection. ’tis often attended with En-vy, if not with Hate; which Passions De-tract even when they Commend, and Si-lence is their highest4 Panegyric. ’Tis indeed [50] impossible, that I should refuse to Love a Man, who has so often given me all the pleasure that the most Insatiable Mind can desire; when at any time I have been Dejected by Disappointments, or Tormented by cruel Passions, the recourse to your Verses has Calm’d my Soul, or rais’d it to Transports which made it contemn Tranquillity.5 But thô you have so often given me all the pleasure I was able to bear, I have reason to complain of you on this account, that you have confin’d my Delight to a narrow-er compass. Suckling,6 Cowley and Denham, who formerly Ravish’d me in ev’ry part of them, now appear tastless to me in most, and Waller himself, with all his Gal-lantry, and all that Admirable Art of his turns,7 appears three quarters Prose to me. Thus ’tis plain that your Muse has done me an jnjury; but she has made me amends for it. For she is like those Extraordinary Women, who, besides the Regularity of their Charming Features, besides their en-gaging Wit, have Secret, Unaccountable, Enchanting Graces, which thô they have been long and often Enjoy’d, make them always new and always desirable. I re-turn you my hearty thanks for your most obliging Letter.8 I had been very unreasonable if I had Repin’d that the Favour ar-[51]riv’d no sooner. ’Tis allowable to grum-ble at

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Letter 32 (3 March 1693[/4]) 167

the delaying a payment, but to murmur at the deferring a Benefit, is to be impu-dently ungrateful beforehand. The Com-mendations which you give me, exceeding-ly sooth my Vanity.9 For you with a breath can bestow or confirm Reputation; a whole Numberless People Proclaims the praise which you give, and the Judgments of three mighty Kingdoms appear to depend upon yours. The People gave me some little applause before, but to whom, when they are in the humour will they not give it, and to whom when they are froward will they not refuse it? Reputation with them depends upon Chance, unless they are gui-ded by those above them. They are but the keepers as it were of the Lottery which Fortune sets up for Renown; upon which Fame is bound to attend her Trumpet, and sound when Men draw the Prizes. Thus I had rather have your Approbation than the applause of Fame. Her commen-dation argues good luck, but Mr. Dryden’s implies desert. Whatever low opinion I have hitherto had of my self, I have so great a value for your Judgment, that, for the sake of that, I shall be willing hence-for-ward10 to believe that I am not wholly desert-less; but that you may find me still more [52] Supportable, I shall endeavor to compen-sate whatever I want in those glittering Qualities, by which the World is dazled, with Truth, with Faith, and with Zeal to serve you; qualities which for their rarity, might be objects of wonder, but that Men dare not appear to admire them, because their Admiration would manifestly declare their want of them. Thus Sir, let me as-sure you, that thô you are acquainted with several Gentlemen, whose Eloquence and Wit may capacitate them to offer their ser-vice with more Address to you, yet no one can declare himself, with greater Chearful-ness, or with greater Fidelity, or with more profound Respect than my self. Sir, Your most, &c. [John Dennis] March 3. 1693.

1. Scott, Works, Letter X; Ward, Letters, Letter 30. 2. That is, ‘Dear Sir’, as opposed to the ‘Sir’ with which Dennis began his previous letter. 3. Evidently Dryden had responded in some way to Dennis’s first letter, although there is no extant record of such a response. 4. The second ‘h’ in ‘highest’ is turned type. 5. Dennis here, in this strangely eroticized language, is seemingly – unknowingly – embodying in his prose the critical ideas he was later to fix and refine: ‘Now, the Enthusiastick Passions are […] caused by Idea’s occurring to us in Meditation, and

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168 The correspondence of John Dryden

producing the same Passions that the Objects of those Idea’s would raise in us, if they were set before us in the same Light that those Idea’s give us of them. And here I desire the Reader to observe, that Idea’s in Meditation, are often very different from what Idea’s of the same Objects are, in the course of common Conversation’ (John Dennis, The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry (London: Geo. Strahan and Bernard Lintott, 1704), 16–17; Hooker, The Critical Works, 338–9). ‘In emphasizing what is just beyond critical comprehension [the sublime], Dennis sees in Dryden’s writing something similar to what he would, in the following decade, conceptualize as enthusiasm […]. One concern that Dennis shares with Dryden is with Longinian ideas about the power of “Images” to provoke strong emotional responses. Setting out to explain where “enthusiastic passions” come from, Dennis suggests it is “the Thoughts or Images of Things, that carry those Passions along with them […]. Dennis’s enthusiasm should no doubt be regarded as part of a Whig preoccupation with Christian reform. In arguing for the reunion of passion and reason, he envisaged poetry providing a glimpse of a prelapsarian moral ideal, tying in with the culture of religious reform in the 1690s and 1700s. Yet, in noting how his admiration for Dryden appeared to converge with a fascination with the obscure and mysterious functions of enthusiasm, we can learn about the mobility of literary ideas across partisan divides, how a Tory writer’s works could influence or be appropriated by Whig poetic culture’ (John West, Dryden and Enthusiasm: Literature, Religion, and Politics in Restoration England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 172–4). 6. Sir John Suckling (1609–41), a Caroline court poet referred to as ‘Natural, easie Suckling’ (William Congreve, The Way of the World (London: Jacob Tonson, 1700), 4.4.15; (D. F. McKenzie (ed.), The Works of William Congreve, three vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 2.180). 7. OED, ‘turn, n., sense 32 A modification of phraseology for a particular effect, or as a grace or embellishment; a special point or detail of style or expression (in literary work, or transf. in art, etc.).’ This was a fashionable if rather imprecise literary-critical term (the OED cites Dryden and Addison). 8. Now lost. 9. Dennis perhaps obliquely refers to some encouragement of his literary works of this year (see Letter 31, n2). 10. The second hyphen is a line-end hyphen.

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Letter 33 ([After 11 April 1695]) 169

Letter 331 Dryden to John Dennis

Source: [John Dennis,] Letters Upon Several Occasions (London: Sam. Briscoe, 1696), 53–8.

[53] My Dear Mr. Dennis, When I read a Letter so full of my Commendations as your last, I cannot but consider you as a Master of a vast Treasure, who having more than e-nough for your self, are forc’d to ebb out upon your Friends. You have indeed the best right to give them, since you have them in Propriety; but they are no more mine when I receive them, than the Light of the Moon can be allowed to be her own, who shines but by the Reflexion of her Brother.2 Your own Poetry is a more Powerful Example, to prove that the Mo-dern Writers may enter into comparison with the Ancients, than any which Per-rault could produce in France;3 yet neither he, nor you who are a better Critick,4 can persuade me that there is any room left for a Solid Commendation at this time of day, at least for me.5 If I undertake the Tran-slation of Virgil, the little which I can perform will shew at least, that no man is fit to write after him, in a barbarous Mo-[54]dern Tongue. Neither will his Machines6 be of any service to a Christian Poet.7 We see how ineffectually they have been try’d by Tasso, and by Ariosto. ’Tis using them too dully if we only make Devils of his Gods: As if, for Example, I would raise a Storm, and make use of Æolus,8 with this only difference of calling him Prince of the Air. What invention of mine would there be in this; or who would not see Virgil thorough me; only the same trick play’d over again by a Bungling Juggler? Boileau has well observed, that it is an easie matter in a Christian Poem, for God to bring the Devil to reason.9 I think I have given a better hint for New Machines in my Pre-face to Juvenal; where I have particularly recommended two Subjects, one of King Arthur’s Conquest of the Saxons, and the other of the Black Prince in his Conquest of Spain. But the Guardian Angels of Mo-narchys and Kingdoms, are not to be touch’d by every hand. A Man must be deeply conversant in the Platonick Philosophy to deal with them: and therefore I may rea-sonably expect that not Poet of our Age will presume to handle those Machines, for fear of discovering his own Ignorance; or if he should, he might perhaps be Ingrate-ful enough not to own me for his Benefa-[55]ctour.10 After I have confess’d thus much of our Modern Heroick Poetry, I cannot but

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170 The correspondence of John Dryden

conclude with Mr. Rym[er], that our English Comedy is far beyond anything of the Ancients.11 And notwithstanding our irre-gularities, so is our Tragedy.12 Shakespear had a Genius for it; and we know, in spite of Mr. R—13 that Genius alone is a greater Virtue (if I may so call it) than all other Qualifications put together. You see what success this Learned Critick has found in the World, after his Blaspheming Shake-spear. Almost all the Faults which he has discover’d are truly there; yet who will read Mr. Rym– or not read Shakespear? For my own part I reverence Mr. Rym–s Learning, but I detest his Ill Nature and his Arrogance. I indeed, and such as I, have reason to be afraid of him, but Shake-spear has not. There is another part of Po-etry in which the English stand almost up-on an equal foot with the Ancients; and ’tis that which we call Pindarique; intro-duced but not perfected by our Famous Mr. Cowley: and of this, Sir, you are cer-tainly one of the greatest Masters.14 You have the Sublimity of Sense as well as Sound, and know how far the Boldness of a Poet may lawfully extend. I could wish you would cultivate this kind of Ode; and [56] reduce it either to the same Measures which Pinder us’d,15 or give new Measures of your own. For, as it is, it looks like a vast Tract of Land newly discover’d. The Soil is wonderfully Fruitful, but Unmanur’d, o-verstock’d with Inhabitants; but almost all Salvages, without Laws, Arts, Arms, or Policy. I remember Poor Nat. Lee,16 who was then upon the Verge of Madness, yet made a Sober, and a Witty Answer to a Bad Poet, who told him, It was an easie thing to write like a Madman: No, said he, ’tis a very difficult to write like a Madman, but ’tis a very easy matter to write like a Fool. Otway17 and He are safe by Death from all Attacks, but we poor Poets Mili-tant (to use Mr. Cowley’s Expression)18 are at the Mercy of Wretched Scribblers: And when they cannot fasten upon our Verses, they fall upon our Morals, our Prin-ciples of State and Religion. For my Principles of Religion, I will not justifie them to you.19 I know yours are far different. For the same Reason I shall say nothing of my Principles of State.20 I believe you in yours follow the Dictates of your Reason, as I in mine do those of my Conscience. If I thought my self in an Error I would re-tract it; I am sure that I suffer for them; and Milton makes even the Devil say, [57] That no Creature is in love with Pain.21 For my Morals, betwixt Man and Man, I am not to be my own Judge. I appeal to the World if I have Deceiv’d or Defrauded any Man: And for my private Conversa-tion, they who see me every day can be the best Witnesses, whether or no it be Blameless and Inoffensive. Hitherto I have no reason to complain that Men

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Letter 33 ([After 11 April 1695]) 171

of either Party shun my Company. I have never been an Impudent Beggar at the Doors of Noblemen: My Visits have indeed been too rare to be unacceptable; and but just enough to testifie my Gratitude for their Bounty, which I have frequently received, but always unask’d, as themselves will Witness. I have written more than I need-ed to you on this Subject: For I dare say you justifie me to your self. As for that which I first intended for the Principal Sub-ject of this Letter, which is my Friend’s Passion and his Design of Marriage, on better consideration I have chang’d my Mind: For having had the Honour to see my Dear Friend Wycherley’s Letter to him on that occasion, I find nothing to be added or amended.22 But as well as I love Mr. Wycherley, I must confess I love my self so well, that I will not shew how much I am inferiour to him in Wit and Judgment; by undersaking [58] any thing after him. There is Moses and the Prophets in his Counsel. Jupiter and Juno, as the Poets tell us, made Tiresias their Umpire, in a certain Merry Dispute, which fell out in Heav’n betwixt them. Tiresias you know had been of both sexes, and therefore was a Proper Judge;23 our Friend Mr. Wycherly is full as competent an Arbitratour. He has been a Batchelor, and Marry’d man, and is now a Widower. Virgil says of Ceneus, Nunc Vir nunc Faemina Ceneus, Rursus & in veterem fato revoluta figuram.24

Yet I suppose he will not give any large commendations to his middle State:25 Nor as the Sailer said, will be fond after a Ship-wrack to put to Sea again.26 If my Friend will Adventure this, I can but wish him a good Wind, as being his and My Dear Mr. Dennis, Your most Affectionate and most Faithful Servant, John Dryden. 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter IX; Scott, Works, Letter XI; Ward, Letters, Letter 31. This letter must have been written after 11 April 1695, alluding as it does to Wycherley’s letter on his remarriage (see n25 below). 2. ‘Dryden used this figure of the moon borrowing light from the sun at the opening of Religio Laici (1682), “Dim, as the borrow’d beams of Moon and Stars” [1; California Edition, 2.109 (l. 20)] and in The Hind and the Panther (1687), “Then, as the Moon who first receives the light | By which she makes our nether regions bright, | So might she shine, reflecting from afar | The rays she borrow’d from a better star”’ [28; California Edition, 3.137 (ll. 501–4)] (Zwicker, John Dryden, 812–13, n).

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172 The correspondence of John Dryden

3. Dryden here refers to Perrault’s Parallèle des anciens et des modernes, en ce qui regarde les arts et les sciences (Paris [Amsterdam?]: Jean Baptiste Coignard, 1688), a central work in the ‘querelle des anciens et modernes’. 4. Dennis had, in fact, produced very little in the way of criticism by this time. 5. Dryden was at the time attacking Rymer’s A Short View of Tragedy: ‘Formerly [critics] were quite another Species of Men. They were Defendors of Poets, and Commentators on their Works: to Illustrate obscure Beauties; to place some passages in a better light, to redeem others from malicious interpretations: to help out an Author’s Modesty, who is not ostentatious of his Wit; and, in short, to shield him from the Ill-Nature of those Fellows, who were then call’d Zoili, and Momi, and now take upon themselves the Venerable Name of Censors. But neither Zoilus, nor he who endeavour’d to defame Virgil, were ever Adopted into the Name of Criticks by the Ancients: what their Reputation was then, we know; and their Successours in this Age deserve no better. Are our Auxilliary Forces turn’d our Enemies? Are they, who, at best, are but Wits of the Second Order, and whose only Credit amongst Readers, is what they obtain’d being subservient to the Fame of Writers, are these become Rebels of Slaves, and Usurpers of Subjects; or to speak in the most Honourable Terms of them, are them from our Seconds, become Principals against us?’ (Dryden, Examen Poeticum, A4r–A5r; California Edition, 4.364–5). 6. OED, ‘machine, n.’ ‘In literature, etc.: a contrivance for the sake of effect; a super­ natural agency, personage, or incident introduced into a narrative; the interposition of one of these. Now rare.’ 7. ‘’Tis this, in short, That Christian poets have not been acquainted with their own Strength. If they had search’d the Old Testament as they ought, they might there have found the Machines which are proper for their Work; and those more certain in their effect, than it may be the New-Testament is, in the Rules sufficient for Salvation. The perusing of one chapter in the Prophesy of Daniel, and accommodating what there they find, with the principles of Platonique philosophy, as it is now Christianis’d, would have made the Ministry of Angels as strong an Engine, for the Working up of Heroique Poetry, in our Religion, as that of the Ancients has been to raise theirs by all the Fables of their Gods, which were only receiv’d for Truths by the most ignorant, and weakest of the People’ (Dryden, The Satires, xi; California Edition, 4.19). 8. OED, ‘Aeolus, n.’ ‘the name of the mythical ruler of the winds who lived in the Aeolian Islands, also the name of the mythical ancestor of the Aeolians’. 9. Dryden objects to ‘Boileau’, that is, as he interprets him, rejecting Christian machinery in epic poetry, whereas Dryden did not (see John M. Aden, ‘Dryden and Boileau: the question of critical influence’, Studies in Philology, 50:3 (1953), 491–509 (496)). 10. ‘Dryden seems to have a presentiment of what afterwards happened’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.34, n3): ‘As for the City Bard, or Knight Physician [Sir Richard Blackmore], I hear his Quarrel to me is, that I was the author of Absalom and Architophel [sic], which he thinks is a little hard on his Fanatique patrons in London. But I will deal the more civilly with his two Poems, because nothing ill is to be spoken of the Dead; And therefore Peace be to the Manes of his Arthurs. I will only say that it was not for this Noble Knight that I drew the Plan of an Epick Poem on King Arthur, in my Preface to the Translation of Iuvenal, The Guardian Angels of Kingdoms were Machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected them, as Dares did the Whirl-bats of Eryx, when they were thrown before him by Entellus: Yet from that Preface he plainly took his Hint; For he began immediately upon the Story, though he had the Baseness not to acknowledge his Benefactor, but, instead of it, to traduce me in a libel’ (Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern, sig. D2r; California Edition, 7.45–6).

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Letter 33 ([After 11 April 1695]) 173

11. ‘And yet for modern Comedy, doubtless our English are the best in the World’ (Rymer, A Short View of Tragedy, 168) 12. This goes against Rymer’s whole view of modern English tragedy. 13. That is, Rymer. 14. Dryden’s own later odes reflect the influence of Dennis’s Williamite odes of the early 1690s. 15. That is, Pindarics. Pindar (c. 522–433 bc), Greek lyric poet, was the creator of the Pindaric ode, with its distinctive form of strophe, antistrophe, and epode – a patterned stanza movement intended for choral song and dance. Pindar was remarkable for his rapid and often dizzying transitions; striking and difficult metaphors; and great metrical variety (see David Hopkins and Charles Martindale (eds), The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature, five vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012–19), 3.523–31). 16. Nathaniel Lee (1645×52–92), playwright and poet, author of The Rival Queens; Or, The Death of Alexander the Great (London: James Magnes and Richard Bentley, 1677), and collaborator with Dryden on Oedipus. In 1684 Lee was admitted to ‘Bedlam’, the Bethlem Hospital for the insane; he was discharged in spring 1688, but although he welcomed William III and Mary II in that year (On Their Majesties Coronation (London: Abel Roper, 1689)), and received the patronage of the Earl of Dorset to stage a production of the once banned Massacre of Paris: A Tragedy (London: R. Bentley and M. Magnes, 1690), he never fully recovered and died on the streets of London (see J. M. Armistead ‘Lee, Nathaniel (1645×52–1692), playwright and poet’, ODNB, 33.93–6 (94–5)). For an account of the life and writings of Lee, see Mahmood Hasan, ‘The life and works of Nathaniel Lee’ (unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1937). For an account of the relationship between Otway and Lee, see Roswell Gray Ham, Otway and Lee: Biography from a Baroque Age (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969). 17. Thomas Otway (1652–85), playwright and poet. Otway had enjoyed the patronage of the Earl of Dorset and the Duke of York in the 1670s, but Venice Preserv’d, his most famous play, was first staged in February 1682, with a prologue by Dryden. 18. ‘Hail, Bard Triumphant! And some care bestow | On us, the Poets Militant below!’ (‘On the Death of Mr. Crashaw’, in Cowley, Poems, 29 (ll. 60–1)). 19. That is, his Roman Catholicism. 20. For Dryden’s clandestine Jacobitism in the last decade of his life, see Winn, John Dryden, 456–60. 21. ‘To whom thus Satan with contemptuous browe. | Gabriel, thou had’st in Heav’n th’esteem of wise, | And such I held thee; but this question askt | Puts me in doubt. Lives ther who loves his pain? | Who would not, finding way, break loose from Hell, | Though thither doomd?’ (John Milton, Paradise Lost (London: [Samuel Simmons], 1667), IV.886– 91a ([p.] 58)). 22. The letter about marriage is in the same volume as the source for this letter ([Dennis,] Letters Upon Several Occasions, 31). 23. In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. 24. Dryden has slightly misremembered the Virgil quotation. It is Aeneid, 6.448–9: ‘iuvenis quondam, nunc femina, Caeneus | rursus et in veterem fato revoluta figuram’. Dryden translated the lines ‘Cænus, a Woman once, and once a Man; | By ending in the Sex she first began’ (Dryden, The Works of Virgil, 6.608–9; California Edition, 5.549). Dryden’s ‘Nunc Vir nunc Faemina’ here in the letter means ‘At one time a man, at another a woman’: Caeneus was a hero who changed gender from female to male, Caenis to Caeneus: but in the Underworld, according to Virgil, she has reverted to her original status.

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174 The correspondence of John Dryden

25. By ‘middle State’ Dryden means marriage: between being a bachelor and a widower. The subject is complex but indicates how financially and personally precarious the matter of marriage could be, as it had been to some extent for Dryden. Wycherley had a complicated romantic and matrimonial life. Lady Letitia-Isabella Moore (d. 1685), daughter of John, Earl of Radnor, first married Charles Moore, second Earl of Drogheda. Young, attractive, and seemingly wealthy she was in fact a spendthrift with few reliable financial resources. According to Dennis, Wycherley met her by chance in a bookseller’s shop in Tunbridge Wells when the Countess entered and asked for his play The PlainDealer; Wycherley’s friend Robert Fairbeard of Gray’s Inn pointed out the author. From then on Wycherley called on her daily at her lodgings in Tunbridge Wells, accompanied her to the public places, and continued to visit her when she returned to London. In June 1679 the Earl of Drogheda died, and his widow and Wycherley secretly married on 29 September 1679. Wycherley believed that he was marrying a fortune, but his new wife was substantially in debt, requiring them to avoid creditors. Marrying without the King’s consent, he lost his royal appointment and the King’s favour and patronage, and was caught up in lengthy litigation over his wife’s estate. This unhappy six-year marriage was blighted by litigation, mounting debt, and disappointment. Trying to use the leverage of poetry, in his poem to ‘my Lord Chancellor Boyle, at once Chancellour and Primate of Ireland: Written when the Author had a suit depending before him’, he writes that he married for ‘an Estate’ and so should either be given the financial benefit of his ‘Bargain’ or be relieved from his wife and ‘end my Law-Suit, or my Domestic Strife’ (The Works of William Wycherley, ed. Montague Summers, four vols (Soho [Westminster]: The Nonesuch Press, 1924), 3.195–7). Dennis blamed the Countess for ruining Wycherley’s career at court. Wycherley describes himself in a letter circa 1695 as ‘one sufficiently experienced in Love-disasters’, and although love is ‘for the time a pleasant Frenzy’, marriage ‘infallibly’ proves ‘a tedious Vexation’ ([Dennis,] Letters on Several Occasions, 27–8). On her death, his wife left her whole estate to him, but he was unable to claim it as he was in the Fleet prison for debt and was in debt – and often debtors’ prison – for the rest of his life (see Bennett, ‘Wycherley’, 612). 26. ‘Dryden’s evil opinion of the state of matrimony, never fails to glance forth upon such occasions as the present’ (Scott, Works, 18.188, n). However, see Letter 3, n3.

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Letters 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, and 42

This series of letters (which extends to Letters 50, 51, and 52, from the autumn of 1697) continues to demonstrate Dryden’s personal and professional relationship with his bookseller, Tonson. Dryden’s gradual progress on The Works of Virgil can be clearly seen, running alongside which is his deep concern for the renumeration which the edition would bring. Although Dryden was to go on to publish Fables Ancient and Modern, this work was to be his last substantial translation and it had a national and international reach and reputation. Dryden’s concern with his literary and personal legacy – in the form of patronage for his and his son’s work – is also evidenced in these letters.

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176 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 341 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Folger Shakespeare Library, Tonson Papers, C.c.1, fol. 78.

Mr Tonson Tis now three dayes since I have ended the fourth Eneid;2 and I am this Morning beginning to transcribe it; as you may do afterwards; for I am willing some few of my Friends may see it; & shall give leave to you, to shew your transcription to some others, whose names I will tell you.3 The paying Ned Sheldon the fifty pounds put me upon this speed;4 but I intend not so much to overtoil my self, after the Sixth Book is ended; if the Second Subscriptions rise,5 I will take so much the car more care ^\paines time/ because the profit will incourage me the more; if not I will must make the more ^\hast/ speed; yet allwayes with as much care as I am able.6 But However I will not fail in my paines of translating the Sixth Eneid with the same Exactness as I have performd the Fourth: because that Book is my greatest Favourite. &7 You know money is now very scrupulously8 receivd: in the last wch you did me the favour to change for my wife, besides the clipd money, there were at least forty shillings brass.9 You may if you please come to me at the Coffee house10 this Afternoon, or at farthest to-morrow, that we may take care together, where & [w]hen I may receive the fifty pounds, and the Guinneys; which must be some time this week. I am Your Servant John Dryden. Wednesday-morning, I have written to my Lord Lawderdail, for his decorations.11 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter X; Scott, Works, Letter XII; Ward, Letters, Letter 32. ‘Scarcely any of the letters to Tonson have the date of the year; and it is only from the circumstances that we can form any possible conjecture concerning the time when they were written. I am therefore by no means sure that I have in every instance arranged them rightly. As Dryden began his translation of Virgil in the middle of 1694, and here he says he had finished the fourth Æneid, I suppose this letter to have been written in April or May, 1695. – The payment for each Æneid appears to have been fifty pounds’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.38, n6). Barnard writes: ‘[…] whenever his [Dryden’s] illness took place it is clear that the traditional dating of Letters 32–36 [Referring to Ward, Letters] must be retained’ (John Barnard, ‘The dates of six Dryden letters’, Philological Quarterly, 42:3

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Letter 34 ([April or May 1695?]) 177

(1963), 396–403 (402)). For the financial reward attendant on the completion of the fourth Æneid, see the contract between Dryden and Tonson (British Library, Add. Chart. 8429 (Dryden’s copy) and Add. MSS. 36933 (Tonson’s copy); see also California Edition, 6.1179–83). 2. That is, Dryden was a third of the way through his translation of the twelve books of the Aeneis; the translations of the Eclogues and the Georgiques were already complete. 3. Dryden’s Virgil was evidently subject to manuscript circulation before print pub­li­cation. 4. Edward Sheldon was a friend of Dryden; John Evelyn met Dryden at Sheldon’s for supper on 11 January 1694 (see De Beer, The Diary of John Evelyn, 5.164). ‘The £50 mentioned here are difficult to explain. They may have constituted payment for Aeneids 1–4, given by Tonson to Sheldon, and in turn given to Dryden. Yet at the end of the letter, Dryden speaks of when and where he may receive the £50. The first mention of the amount, of course, could refer to an entirely different transaction; i.e. Dryden’s payment of a personal debt to Sheldon, which forced him to overwork himself in order to collect £50 from Tonson upon the completion of Aeneid 4’ (Ward, Letters, 170, n2). 5. ‘There were two lists of subscribers. The first, limited to 101, paid five guineas in all (three guineas initially, and a further two on receipt of the book), the second paid two guineas (both groups paying well above the cost price, which Tonson reckoned at £1). Those paying the higher price had their names and arms engraved on one of the illustrative plates’ (Barnard, ‘Dryden’, 178–9). In addition to this, Malone notes ‘From an advertisement in the London Gazette, No. 3559, Dec. 21, 1699, relative to Collier’s “Great Historical Dictionary,” it appears to have been the practice to fix a day, after which no subscriptions for a book should be received at the price originally proposed; those who subscribed after that day being obliged to pay an advanced price, of which notice was given in the proposals. Non-subscribers, probably, paid still more. Perhaps something of this sort is here alluded to’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.38, n7). 6. That is, the profits from the volume would be the greater, there being no limit on the number of second subscribers. 7. This wayward ampersand seems to have been added later. 8. OED, ‘scrupulously adv.’ ‘In a scrupulous manner; with scruple, doubt, or cautiousness; with conscientious strictness; with minute care or punctilious exactness’. 9. That is, Tonson was paying Dryden in debased coinage. This was prior to the revaluation in 1696 of the coinage under John Locke (1632–1704), Whig philosopher and member of the Board of Trade (see Peter Laslett, ‘John Locke, the Great Recoinage, and the origins of the Board of Trade, 1695–1698’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3:14 (1957), 370–402); in this year Tonson’s prosperity can be seen in his decision to subscribe £500 to the Bank of England (Ophelia Field, The Kit-Cat Club: Friends who Imagined a Nation (London: Harper Press, 2008), 25). See also Thomas Levenson, Newton and the Counterfeiter (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), for an account of the role of Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) in combating fraud. 10. Presumably the upstairs room at Will’s coffee house, Covent Garden. 11. In fact, John Maitland, fifth Earl of Lauderdale (c. 1665–1710), politician, did not subscribe to the edition (see ‘The Names of the List of Subscribers’ in Dryden’s The Works of Virgil, ††2r–††3v; California Edition, 5.67–71). The ‘decorations’ referred to are the coats of arms for the engraved plate in the folio edition.

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178 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 351 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.3.

Send word if you please Sir, what is the most you will give for my Sonns fir play;2 that I may take the fairest Chapman,3 as I am bound to do, for his benefit. And if you have any Silver which will go, my Wife will be glad of it. I lost thirty shillings or more by the last payment of thirty fifty pounds, wch you made at Mr Knight’s.4 Yors J. Dryden. May 26th Sir Ro: Howard writt me word, that if I cou’d make any advantage by being payd in clippd money; He woud change it in the Exchequer.5

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XVI; Scott, Works, Letter XVIII; Ward, Letters, Letter 37. For confirmation of the dating to 1695 of this letter by Margaret P. Boddy, ‘Dryden– Lauderdale relationships: some bibliographical notes and a suggestion’, Philological Quarterly, 42 (1963), 267–72 (268); see also Barnard, ‘The dates of six Dryden letters’, 400. 2. That is, John Dryden (son), The Husband His Own Cuckold (London: J. Magnes and Richard Bentley, 1696), his ‘fir[st]’ play; this work is taken account of in the contract for the translation of The Works of Virgil. 3. OED, ‘chapman, n. 1. a. A man whose business is buying and selling; a merchant, trader, dealer. Obsolete or archaic.’ 4. According to Malone this was Robert Knight, a goldsmith, who later became Cashier of the South Seas Company (see Ward, Letters, 174, n). 5. Dryden had been writing about the debasement of the English sovereign currency by clipping and relating it to the debasement of the Crown since the Exclusion Crisis. The foundation of the private Bank of England the year before this letter (on 27 July 1694) ‘must be regarded as a Whig response to the crisis in credit and debt of the previous decades, helping to enable the rise of the fiscal-military state in the form of a standing army and navy, long-term government bonds to pay for them, and the development of paper money’ (Sean Moore, ‘Sovereign debt default and Restoration literature: Dryden’s Exclusion Crisis poems, goldsmiths, and the Stop of the Exchequer of 1672’, The Eighteenth Century, 61:1 (2020), 23–44 (23). Dryden had clearly adapted to the times as the payment through Knight the goldsmith had cost him dearly.

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Letter 36 (8 June 1695) 179



Letter 361 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.1.



Saturday, June 8, 1695

Mr Tonson Tis now high time for me to think of my second Subscriptions:2 for the more time I have for collecting them the larger they are like to be. I have now been idle just a fortnight, & therefore might have calld sooner on you, for the remainder of the first Subscriptions.3 And besides, Mr Aston will be goeing into Cheshyre a week hence, who is my onely help, and to whom you are onely beholding for makeing the bargain Betwixt us, which is so much to my loss:4 But I repent nothing of it that is passd, but that I do not find my self capable of translating so great an Authour, & therefore feare to loose my own Credit, & to hazard your profit, which it wou’d grieve me if you shou’d loose, by your too good opinion of my Abilities. I expected to have heard of you this week, according to the intimation you gave me of it; but that failing, I must deferr it no longer than till the ensueing week because Mr Aston will afterwards be gone, if not sooner. Be pleasd to send me word what day will be most convenient to you: & be ready with the price of paper, & of the Books.5 No matter for any Dinner; for that is a charge to you, & I care not for it. Mr Congreve may be with us, as a Common friend; for as you know him for yours, I make not the least doubt, but He is much more mine. Send an immediate answer, & you shall find me ready to do all things wch become Your Servant John Dryden ADDRESS: London.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XI; Scott, Works, Letter XIII; Ward, Letters, Letter 33. For the dating of this letter, ‘June 8 fell on a Friday in 1694 but on a Saturday in 1695’ (Barnard, ‘The dates of six Dryden letters’, 397). 2. That is, those who did not take part in the first subscription, for the fine-paper edition with ‘cutts’. 3. According to the agreement with Tonson, the second subscription was to have been launched after the sixth Æneid was finished. 4. It is unknown who Aston was; Ward identifies him as Walter Aston, (later) fourth Lord [Aston] of Forfar (Ward, Letters, 171, n2). This Scottish noble family lived in Staffordshire and were ardent Roman Catholic recusants. Dryden clearly felt aggrieved at his part in the transaction. In Letter 34, Dryden had written to Tonson that ‘the profit [of

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180 The correspondence of John Dryden

the Second Subscriptions] will incourage me the more’; however, Tonson seems not yet to have announced the second subscription according to the contract; Dryden was waiting on the remainder of the first subscriptions of three guineas each. See also Winn, John Dryden, 480. 5. That is, according to the contract.

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Letter 37 (29 October [1695]) 181

Letter 371 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Dryden–Tonson correspondence, D779, 1695 Oct. 29.



Octob: the 29th

Mr Tonson Some kind of intercourse must be carryed on betwixt us, while I am translate-ing Virgil. Therefore I give you notice, that I have done the seaventh Eneid in the Country:2 and intend some few days hence, to go upon the Eigth: when that is finishd, I expect fifty pounds, in good silver;3 not such as I have had formerly. I am not obligd to take gold, neither will I; nor stay for it beyond four & twenty houres after it is due.4 I thank you for the civility of your last letter in the Country: but the thirty shillings upon every book remains with me.5 You always intended I shoud get nothing by the Second Subscriptions, as I found from first to last.6 And your promise to Mr Congreve,7 that you had found a way for my benefit, which was an Encou-ragement to my paines, came at last, ^\for me/ to desire Sir Godfrey Kneller & Mr Closter-man to gather for me.8 I then told Mr Congreve that I knew you too well to believe you meant me any kindness: & he promisd me to believe accordingly of you, if you did not; But this is past, & you shall have your bargain if I live, & have my health.9 you may send me word what you have done in my business with the Earl of Derby.10 And I must have a place for the Duke of Devonshyre.11 Some of your friends will be glad to take back their three guinneys. The Countess of Macclesfield12 gave her money to Will Plowden13 before Christmass; but he rememberd it not, & payd it not in. Mr Aston tells me my Lord Derby expects but one Book.14 I find My Lord Chesterfield, and my Lord Petre are both left out;15 but my Lady Macclesfield must have a place, if I can possibly: and Will Plowden shall pay you in, the money three guinneys if I can obtain so much favour from you. I desire neither excuses nor reasons from you; for I am but too well satisfyd already. The Notes & Prefaces shall be short: because you shall get the more by saveing paper.16 John Dryden For Mr Jacob Tonson, Bookseller, Att the Sign of the Judges Head, neare Hercules Pillars In Fleet Street These

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182 The correspondence of John Dryden

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XIII; Scott, Works, Letter XV; Ward, Letters, Letter 34; Zwicker, John Dryden, 545–6. For the dating of this letter, ‘In [Ward] Letter 34 [the present letter], dated “Octob: the 29th,” Dryden, referring to the one guinea down-payment of his second subscribers, told Tonson that “… the thirty shillings upon every book remains with me” (p. 77) […]. Similarly, in [Ward] Letter 36 [Letter 39 here] Dryden talks of receiving his copy money “in guinneys at 29 shillings each” (p. 80). The guinea, nominally worth twenty shillings when minted by Charles II in 1663, had risen slowly to 22s. 1d. by January 1694. The clipping of silver coins along with the outflow of silver to the Continent had resulted in the deterioration of silver currency, and contributed to a gradual rise in the relative value of gold, and therefore of the guinea. During 1694 the tempo of the drop in the value of silver quickened slightly, and by January 1695 the guinea had reached 22s. 9d. The changes in 1695 were dramatic and caused a serious financial crisis. In effect silver currency collapsed, and by June 1695 the guinea had climbed to a price of 29s. 6–7d. It stayed at slightly above twenty-nine shillings for the rest of the year and into the first quarter of 1696. Not until February 1696 did Parliament begin to force the price of the guinea down, and not until April 10, 1696, was its value again fixed at 22s. [Ward] Letters 34 and 36 could therefore only have been written between June 1695 and early 1696. If Letter 34 [the present letter] was written on October 29, 1695, and Letter 36 [Letter 39 here] in December or January 1695/6 (as Ward suggests) the remaining letters in the series must also date from 1695. Consequently previous accounts given of Dryden’s progress with his translation and of his dealings with Tonson can stand unchallenged. If further evidence is needed to support the dates given Letters 32–36 by Malone and Ward, it can be found in the sequence of Dryden’s translation [of The Works of Virgil (1697)’ (Barnard, ‘The dates of six Dryden letters’, 397–8). Tonson retained two guineas of the first subscription, probably to pay for the copper-plate engravings with arms that were to adorn the folio edition (see Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.40, n9). 2. At Burghley House, Lincolnshire, seat of John Cecil, fifth Earl of Exeter (1648–1700), (see Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.43, n4). 3. Dryden’s previous payment may have been in clipped coinage, but more pertinently perhaps silver was easier to exchange than gold at the time. 4. The value of gold rose by a third in 1695, which made it impractical as common currency (see William Letwin, The Origins of Scientific Economics: English Economic Thought 1660–1776 (London: Routledge, 1963), 69; see also Winn, John Dryden, 481). 5. The letter does not survive; the fact was that Dryden must pay thirty shillings per book for paper and the printing of it. 6. Dryden is involved in a dispute with Tonson about his misunderstanding of the contractual position concerning the second subscriptions, from which Dryden received less than he expected. Tonson need pay Dryden only for the translation, while Dryden can charge considerably more for his subscriptions than he pays Tonson for the work. Tonson could begin to make a return on his investment only after Dryden’s subscribers had had their copies. 7. Congreve was involved also as witness to the original contract for The Works of Virgil (for the copies of which see Letter 34, n1). 8. That is, collect subscriptions to the edition, the chief gatherer of which was to be Atterbury (see Letter 17, n9), who had published a Latin translation of Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel: Absalom et Achitophel. Poema Latino carmine donatum (Oxford: Johannem Crosley, 1682), and two years later a small anthology of Latin verse. The manuscript advertisement for the second subscriptions reads: ‘I have instructed my much Honourd Friend Mr. Atterbury, to receive the Money subscribed to me for the Translation of Virgil; & to give receipts to the Subscribers for the same. The Price of the Book is two Guinneys: one of

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Letter 37 (29 October [1695]) 183

which is to be payd to Mr. Atterbury at the time of Subscription: the other to my Stationer Mr. Tonson, at the receipt of the Book. The Paper, print & figures of the Book, to be the best: and equall in all respects to those of Books, for which five Guinneys are subscribd: only the Coats of Armes are not inserted to these Second Subscribers. The Names and Titles of these Second Subscribers, shall be printed in a List before the Book. By agreement betwixt me and my Stationer, no more Books are to be printed on the finest paper, than onely those, which are bespoken by the Subscribers. All the Eclogues, all the Georgigs [sic], & the first six Eneids are already Translated: and I Judg the Whole Work will be finished by Lady Day next. John Dryden’ (Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 4429(10)). 9. Dryden’s health in the 1690s was poor, and was known to be poor (see Barnard, ‘Early expectations’, 200). 10. William Richard George Stanley, ninth Earl of Derby (1655–1702), nobleman, was a first subscriber (see Dryden, The Works of Virgil (1697), ††2v; California Edition, 5.67). 11. William Cavendish, first Duke of Devonshire (1641–1707), politician, was neither a first nor a second subscriber. He had been one of the seven signatories to the invitation to William of Orange; ‘Dryden’s eagerness to have him as a subscriber to one of the plates in his translation shows the Jacobite poet fully appreciated the importance of bipartisan support’ (Barnard, ‘Dryden, Tonson and the patrons’, 181). 12. Anne Brett (née Mason) [other married name Anne Gerard, Countess of Macclesfield] (1667/8–1753), courtier, was sensationally divorced from Charles Gerard, Viscount Brandon (c. 1659–1701) in 1698. She was reputedly the mother of Richard Savage (1697/8–1743), poet and playwright; she was neither a first nor a second subscriber, probably for the reasons set out in this letter. 13. An unidentified collector of subscriptions for Tonson, but probably the William Plowden who was admitted to a fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford, along with John Dryden (son), in January 1687/8 at the command of James II. Later he followed James II to France, but was eventually allowed to return to England (see Ward, Letters, 172, n6). 14. A first subscriber, this must have been a disappointment to both Tonson and Dryden. 15. Thomas Petre, sixth Baron Petre (bap. 1633, d. 1707), was left out, but Philip Stanhope, second Earl of Chesterfield (1633–1714), courtier and politician, was accommodated by the expedient of having 101 first subscribers (Dryden, The Works of Virgil (1697), folio, ††2v; California Edition, 5.67); there were 102 engravings, including the frontispiece. For Dryden’s relationship with Chesterfield, see Ward, Letters, 85–7 and 89–91; it was rumoured that Chesterfield and Lady Elizabeth Dryden had an affair before her marriage to Dryden (see Ward, Letters, 176, n1). 16. The ‘Notes & Prefaces’ are short, but his ‘Dedication’ certainly is not. The ‘Notes & Prefaces’ were not all by Dryden: Chetwood was the author of the ‘Life of Pub. Virgilius Maro’ (5–20; California Edition, 5.9–36) and of the ‘Preface to the Pastorals with a Defence of Virgil’ (21–30; California Edition, 5.37–56), defending René Rapin’s neo-classical premises against Bernard de Fontanelle’s rationalistic formulation; Addison composed the ‘An Essay on the Georgics’ (¶v–¶¶¶¶r; California Edition, 5.145–53); both contributed the prose arguments for each book; and Dryden himself supplied ‘Notes and Observations on Virgil’s Works in English’ (675–90; California Edition, 6.811–36)). ‘This seems to be a bitter gibe at Jacob’s parsimony’ (Scott, Works, 18.123, n).

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184 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 381 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Dryden–Tonson correspondence, f D779 L Bound, p. 39.

Mr Tonson Meeting Sir Ro: Howard2 at the play-house3 this morning, and asking him how he likd my Seaventh Eneid, He told me you had not brought it: He goes out of town to morrow, being Saturday, after dinner. I desire you not to fail of carrying my manuscript, for him to read in the Country. & desire him to bring it up with him, when he comes next to Town.4 I doubt you have not yet been with my Lord Chesterfield, and am in pain about it. Yors J Dryden. Friday Night. When you have leysure, I shou’d be glad to see how Mr Congreve & you have worded my propositions for Virgil:5 When my Sonns play6 is acted, I intend to translate again, if my health continue. Some time next week let me heare from you, concerning the Propositions.7 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XIV; Scott, Works, Letter XVI; Ward, Letters, Letter 35. The dating of this letter is evident from it being before the unrecorded first performance of Dryden’s son’s play (see Letter 35, n2, and Van Lennep et al., The London Stage, 1.458). 2. For Howard, see Letter 3, n5. Howard had translated the fourth book of the Aeneid (see Howard, Poems (1660)). 3. Late in 1694, Howard helped Betterton and his actors to obtain a licence for the new theatre at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 4. Howard and Dryden had fallen out in 1664 over the production of The Indian Queen; by 1695 they were reconciled (see Winn, John Dryden, 482). 5. These ‘propositions’ no longer seems to exist, but Congreve was known to be an assiduous collector of second subscriptions (see Barnard, ‘Dryden, Tonson and the patrons’, 195). For Dryden’s business relations with Congreve, see Jennifer Brady, ‘Dryden and Congreve’s collaboration in The Double Dealer’, in John Dryden: Tercentenary Essays, ed. Paul Hammond and David Hopkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 113–39 (120–1). See the contract for the translation, in which Dryden foregoes almost all original work until after the completion of The Works of Virgil. 6. The Husband His Own Cuckold. 7. The ‘Propositions’ are the advertisement for the second subscribers to the edition as reproduced in California Edition, 6.1183–4; there was also apparently another advertisement for second subscribers by Congreve (see Ward, Letters, 173, n1), although there is seemingly no trace of it.

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Letter 39 ([January 1695/6?]) 185

Letter 391 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Dryden–Tonson correspondence, f D779 L Bound, p. 31.

[31r] Sir I receivd your letter very kindly, because indeed I expected none; but thought you as very a tradesman as Bentley;2 who has cursd our Virgil so heartily.3 I shall loose enough by your bill upon Mr Knight: for after haveing taken it all in silver, & not in half Crowns neither, but shillings and six pences, none of the money will go; for which reason I have sent it all back again, & as the less loss will receive it in guinneys, at 29 shilling each.4 Tis troublesome to be a looser; but it was my own fault to accept it this way, which I did to avoyd more trouble.5 I am not sorry that you will not allow any thing towards the Notes; for to make them good, wou’d have cost me half a yeares time at least. those I write shall be onely Marginall to help the unlearned, who understand not the poeticall Fables. the Prefaces as I intend them, will be somewhat more learned. It wou’d require seaven yeares to translate Virgil exactly. But I promise you once more, to do my best, in the four remaining Books, as I have hetherto done in the foregoing. Upon triall I find all ^\of/ your trade are Sharpers & you not more than others; therefore I have not wholly left you. Mr. Aston does not blame you for getting as good a bargain as you cou’d, though I cou’d have gott an hunderd pounds more: and you might have spard almost all your trouble, if you had thought fit to publish the proposalls for the first [31v] Subscriptions: for I have guinneas offerd me every day, if there had been room; I believe modestly speaking, I have refusd already 25.6 I mislike nothing in your letter therefore, but onely your upb-raiding me with the publique encouragement, & my own reputation concernd in the Notes: when I assure you I cou’d not make them to my mind, in less than half a Yeares time. Get the first half of Virgil transcribd as soon as possibly you can; that I may put the notes to it; & you may have the other four books which lye ready for you, when you bring the former; that the press may stay as little as possibly it can.7 My Lord Chesterfield has been to visite me, but I durst say nothing of Virgil to him, for feare there shou’d be no void place for him; if there be, let me know; & tell me whether you have made room for the Duke of Devonshyre;8 haveing no silver by me I

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186 The correspondence of John Dryden

desire my Lord Derbys money; deducting your own.9 And let it be good, if you desire to oblige me who am not your Enemy, & may be your friend John Dryden. Friday, forenoon Let me heare from you, as speedily as you can. 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XV; Scott, Works, Letter XVII; Ward, Letters, Letter 36. ‘It is dated merely “Friday, forenoon”. Since the eighth Æneid is now completed (he had begun it at the end of October), I should be inclined to date the letter in late December or early January, 1695’ (Ward, Letters, 174, headnote). 2. The letter does not survive. Richard Bentley (bap. 1645, d. 1697), bookseller, was a shareholder in many titles (see Giles Mandelbrote, ‘Richard Bentley’s copies: the ownership of copyrights in the late 17th century’, in The Book Trade and Its Customers, 1450–1900: Historical Essays for Robin Myers, ed. Arnold Hunt, Giles Mandelbrote, and Alison Shell, with an introduction by McKenzie (Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1997), 55–94); he had a poor reputation among authors, for example Dryden. He was part-sharer before Tonson in the copyright of Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) and published a number of works with Tonson in the first five years of Tonson’s career (see Lynch, Jacob Tonson, 98). 3. The reference is obscure; the verb ‘curse’ suggests a verbal imprecation and so the reference may never be traced. 4. The third payment, for the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth Æneids. 5. The currency crisis was then at its height and Dryden would seem to have been a loser by it. 6. This bears out Samuel Johnson’s father’s statement that ‘the nation considered its honour as interested’ in the publication of Dryden’s translation (see Johnson, The Lives of the English Poets, 2.144). 7. That is, Dryden was keen to get The Works of Virgil published as swiftly as possible. 8. Tonson had. 9. That is, Dryden wanted his share of the first subscription already paid by Derby in October 1696; due to the machinery of gathering subscriptions, Dryden clearly does not know how full the first subscription list is.

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Letter 40 (June 1696) 187

Letter 401 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Folger Shakespeare Library, Tonson Papers, C.c.1, fol. 15.



London, June 1696

Mr Tonson I had this ^\yesterday/ morning two watches sent me by Mr Tompion,2 which I am to send my Sonns this week.3 I cou’d not perswade him to take gold at any rate: But he will ^\take/ a Goldsmiths bill for two and twenty pounds, which is their price. I desire you wou’d give him such a bill, and abate it out of the next fifty pounds, which you are to pay me, when Virgil is finishd. Ten Eneids are finishd; & the ninth & tenth written out in my own hand. You may have them with the Eigth, which is in a foul copy,4 when you please to call for them; & to bring those which are transcribd. Mr. Tompions man will be with me at four a clock in the Afternoon; & bring the watches, & must be payd at sight. I desire you therefore to procure a Goldsmiths bill, & let me have it before that houre, & send an answer by my Boy.5 Yours. Jo: Dryden. Thursday Morning. 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XVII; Scott, Works, Letter XIX; Ward, Letters, Letter 38. 2. Thomas Tompion (bap. 1639, d. 1713), horologist and maker of scientific instruments, was largely self-taught, a friend of Robert Hooke (1635–1703), curator of experiments for the Royal Society, and John Flamsteed (1646–1719), the first Astronomer Royal. Tompion’s instruments were at the cutting edge of horology and scientific measure­ ment. The popularity of his work was such that it was often manufactured – at one point he had over 100 watchmakers working for him – making him a wealthy man; he was employed by both Kings Charles II and William III. 3. In 1696 Dryden’s sons John and Charles were in Rome; their brother ErasmusHenry had been ordained there (see Letter 45, headnote (below)). 4. For ‘foul copy’, see OED, ‘foul, adj., n., and adv.’ ‘a draft or working manuscript’. 5. This shows the diversity of Dryden and Tonson’s business relationship.

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188 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 411 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Folger Shakespeare Library, Tonson Papers, C.c.1, fol. 16.

Mr Tonson

I have the remainder of my Northamptonshyre rents come up this weeke,2 and desire the favour of you, to receive them for me; from the Carrier of Tocester: who lodges at the Castle in Smithfield.3 I suppose it is the same man, from whom you lately receivd them for my wife. Any time before ten a clock tomorrow morning, will serve the turne. If I were not deepely ingag’d in my studyes, which will be [MS damaged] finishd in a day or two, I wou’d not put you to this trouble. I have inclosd my Tenants letter to me, for you to shew the Carrier; & to testify the summ which is six[teen] pounds, & about tenn shillings; which the letter sets down.4 Pray Sir, give him an acquittance for so much receivd, as I suppose you did last time. I am, Your very Faithfull Servant John Dryden. Wednesday Afternoon. From the Coffe house.5 Nov: 25th 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XVIII; Scott, Works, Letter XX; Ward, Letters, Letter 39. 2. Again demonstrating the diversity of the business relationship which existed between Dryden and Tonson. Dryden’s family property lay in Northamptonshire, and it was from there that he drew his only regular source of income (see Winn, John Dryden, ch. 1). 3. The carrier of ‘Tocester’, that is, Towcester, Northamptonshire, was a deliverer of goods (and seemingly monies) from the provinces. One of many at the time; he is listed in John Strype’s gazetteer of carriers found in his Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster (‘Tocester Carrier, Ram Smithfield, fri. Castle Smithfield–bars, fri. 3 Cups St. John’s–street, fri.’ (http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/strype/TransformServlet?page=app1_142&display=​ normal, accessed 23 April 2021)). 4. ‘[Dryden’s] tenant’s name was Harriot’ (see Ward, Letters, 175, n2). This may have been the quarter-rent or an outstanding part of it, which benchmarks Dryden’s relative earnings from his properties and his intellectual property. 5. That is, Will’s coffee house.

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Letter 42 ([January 1696/7?]) 189

Letter 421 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.2.

Sir According to my promise I have sent you all that is properly yours of my translation.2 I desire, as you offerd, that it shou’d be transcribd in a legible hand; & then sent back to me, for the last review; As for some notes on the margins, they are not every where; & where they are, are imperfect; so that you ought not to transcribe them, till I make them compleat. I feare you can scarcely make any thing of what I have written ^\my foul copy./; But it is the best I have. You see my hand failes me3 & therefore I write so short a letter. What I wrote yesterday was too sharp;4 but I doubt it is all true. Your Boys comeing upon so unseaso-nable a visit, as if you were frighted for your self, discomposd me.– transcribe in very large paper; & leave a very large margin. Send your Boy for the foul copies & he shall have them: for it will not satisfy me, to send them by my own servant. J. Dryden. I cannot yet find the first Sheet of the first Eneid. If it be lost, I will translate it over againe. But perhaps it may be amongst the loose papers The fourth & Ninth Ecclogues which I have sent, are corrected in my wife’s printed Miscellany.5 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XIX; Scott, Works, Letter XXI; Ward, Letters, Letter 40. 2. ‘The translation was perhaps sent to the press, when the first eight books of the Æneid were finished. This letter probably accompanied the last two books: for the ninth and tenth had been previously sent […]. The work having been published early in July, 1697, I have assigned January, 1696/7, as a probable date to it’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.51, n1). 3. Further evidence of Dryden’s failing health. 4. This letter does not survive. 5. Dryden, Miscellany Poems, contains his translations of the fourth and ninth eclogues of Virgil (350–4 and 390–5); Lady Elizabeth Dryden seems to have owned a hand-­ corrected copy of her own, which is both a significant fact, given that the Drydens are assumed to have had a somewhat distant relationship, and a significant loss.

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Letters 43 and 44

This exchange of letters (which extends to Letters 46 and 47) between poet and patron exemplifies the simple relationship which Dryden cultivated outside of his public dedication.1 His patron, Philip Stanhope, second Earl of Chesterfield, is cognizant of the significance of the dedication: ‘When I consider that the greatest men are desirous of being distinguished by some marke of your esteem, I am surpris’d at the obligation that you have layd upon me by intending (as you mention) to place my name before some of your works’; and later in another letter: ‘Tho I have never been ambitious of being obliged by many men, yet I am very much pleasd with the being so by Mr: Dryden. Not out of vanity in having my inconsiderable name placed (by so great a man) in the front of one of his Works, but because it gives the World a testimony of his friendship to me.’ The letters are superficially simple, but complexities of relationships underlie them. 1. These letters are scribal copies, preserved in the letter book of the second Earl of Chesterfield now in the British Library (Add. MSS 19253). They were published in [Stanhope, Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield,] Letters of Philip, Second Earl of Chesterfield: to Several Celebrated Individuals of the Time of Charles II, James II, William III, and Queen Anne, with Some of Their Replies (London: E. Lloyd and Son, 1829), 376–9.

Letters 43 and 44 191

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Figure 17. Edward Scriven after Sir Peter Lely, Philip Stanhope, second Earl of Chesterfield, 1633–1713. Courtier [no date; reproduced in W. W. Craig, Life of Lord Chesterfield: An Account of the Ancestry, Personal Character & Public Services of the Fourth Earl of Chesterfield (London: John Lane the Bodley Head; New York: John Lane Company, 1907), 24]. © National Galleries of Scotland

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192 The correspondence of John Dryden

Letter 431 Dryden to Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 19253, fol. 179b.

From Mr. John Dryden The Poet, Lond. Febr 17th 96[/7] My Lord I have hitherto wanted confidence to give your Lordship the trouble of a letter which I design’d almost a year together: And am now forc’d to take this opportunity or wholly loose it. My Translation of Virgil is already in the Press and I can not possibly deferr the publication of it any Longer than Midsummer Term at farthes[t]. I have hinder’d it thus long in hopes of his return, for whom, and for my Conscience I have sufferd, that I might have layd my Authour at at his feet:2 But now finding that Gods time for ending our miseries is not yet, I have been advis’d to make three severall Dedications, of the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Eneis. The Eclogues have been desired a year ago by my Lord Clifford; whose father the Treasurer was my Patron,3 the Eneids, by the Marquess of Normanby, and if I durst presume so farr, I would humbly offer the Georgiques to your Lordships patronage. They are not I confess the most specious4 part of Virgil, but in revenge they are his Masterpiece in which he has not onely out done all other Poets, but him self.5 Accordingly I have labour’d and I may say have cultivated the Georgiques with more care than any other part of him, and as I think my self with more success. Tis suitable to the retir’d life which you have chosen, and to your studies of Philosophy: From the first hour since I have had the happiness of being know to your Lordship I have alwayes prefer’d you in my poor esteem to any other Nobleman and that in all respects. And you may please to believe me as an honest man, that I have not the least consideration of any profit in this Address, but onely of honouring my self by dedicating to you. By this time My Lord you may perceive why I have been solicitous to procure the favour of your being one of the subscribers to this Worke: And, to return to the beginning of my Letter, twas upon a just diffidence of my success in this presumption that I have humourd my natural bashfulness, in not

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Letter 43 (17 February 1696/7) 193

addressing to you sooner, But as teeming Women must speak at last or loose their longing so I am constrain’d to beg that I may not miscarry of my translation, who am with all manner of humility Your Lordships most obedient Servant John Dryden.

1. This is a scribal copy, preserved in the letter book of the second Earl of Chesterfield ([Stanhope,] Letters of Philip, 376–9). The manuscript of this letter book contains a note from Lady Elizabeth Dryden which implies a compromising relationship between them in the late 1650s (see Winn, John Dryden, 124–5 and n11). Ward, Letters, Letter 41. 2. ‘The return of James II was continually looked forward to by the Jacobites’ (Ward, Letters, 176, n2). 3. Clifford, a member of the Cabal, was Comptroller of the Household (what Dryden calls the ‘Treasurer’) and the dedicatee of Amboyna. His son and heir was Hugh Clifford, second Baron Clifford of Chudleigh (1663–1730), a Roman Catholic. There is anecdotal evidence that Dryden finished the ‘Eclogues’ (the Pastorals) at the latter’s seat at Ugbrooke in Devonshire (see Winn, John Dryden, 477 and n). 4. OED, ‘specious, adj., 1. Fair or pleasing to the eye or sight; beautiful, handsome, lovely; resplendent with beauty.’ This is the obsolete, exclusively positive sense of the word. 5. ‘That Emperour afterwards thought it matter worthy a publick Inscription: Rediit cultus Agris [‘return to cultivate the fields’] Which seems to be the motive that Induced Macaenas, to put him upon Writing his Georgics, or Books of Husbandry: A Design as new in Latin Verse, as Pastorals, before Virgil were in Italy; which Work took up Seven of the most vigorous Years of his life […]’ (Dryden, ‘Life of Virgil’, in The Works of Virgil, sig. *4r).

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194 The correspondence of John Dryden

Letter 441 Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield to Dryden

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 19253, fol. 180a.

My answer to the former Feb: the 18 97 Sr: When I consider that the greatest men are desirous of being distinguished by some marke of your esteem, I am surpris’d at the obligation that you have layd upon me by intending (as you mention) to place my name before some of your works. It looks as if you were tired with the Court, and would now think of a Hermitage or of a Country Gentleman, who being in no Post whereby he may merit such a favour, must value it the more, as proceeding from no other motive than your kindness which I shall alwayes indeavour to deserve by being with great reality Sr: Your most humble Servant Chesterfeild 1. This is a scribal copy, preserved in the letter book of the second Earl of Chesterfield ([Stanhope,] Letters of Philip, 379). Ward, Letters, Letter 42.

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Letter 45

This letter continues to bear testimony to Dryden’s concern about the financial transactions which lay behind the publication of The Works of Virgil. In among all of this – and almost in passing – is Dryden’s solicitude for one of his ‘perswasion’, that is, a fellow Roman Catholic. This is only lightly touched on, but probably was something which loomed large in the Dryden nuclear family, only Lady Elizabeth Dryden of whom possibly remained Anglican.1 Dryden’s three sons had been in Rome in 1696 and one of them (later Sir) Erasmus-Henry Dryden, fifth Baronet, was ordained first a deacon in the Roman Catholic Church on 19 September and then a priest on 19 December 1693.2 1. See Hammond in Letter 3, n3. 2. See Winn, John Dryden, 473.

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196 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 451 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Dryden–Tonson correspondence, f D779 L Bound, p. 17.

Mr Tonson I desire you woud let Mr Pate2 know, I can print no more names of his Subscribers than I have money for, before I print their names. He has my Receipt I acknowledgment of ten guineas receivd from him; & as I told you I owe him for above three yards of fine cloath. Let him reckon for it; & then there will remain the rest for me, out of the ten more names wch He has given in. If he has not money by him, let him blott out as many of his names as He thinks good, & print onely those for wch he pays, or strikes off, in adjusting the Accounts betwixt me & him. this is so reason-nable on both sides, that He cannot refuse it. but I would have all things ended ^\now,/ because I am to deal with a Draper, who is of my own perswasion;3 & to whom I have promisd my Custome. Yors John Dryden. Tuesday Morning July the 6th 1697. [Written down the inner margin of the page] I have sent to My Tailour, & he sends me word, that I had three yards and half Elle of cloath from Mr Pate: I desire he woud make his price & deduct so much, as it comes to, & make even for the rest, with ready money: as also that he woud send word what the name was, for whom Sam: Atkins4 left him to make account for. For Mr Tonson These.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XX; Scott, Works, Letter XXII; Ward, Letters, Letter 43. 2. William Pate [called the ‘Learned Tradesman’] (1666–1746), draper and writer, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; he lived opposite the Royal Exchange, London; he was a frequenter of literary circles in London and a friend of Jonathan Swift (who mentions him in Journal to Stella: Letters to Esther Johnson and Rebecca Bingley, ed. sir Harold Williams, 2nd edn, three vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 13,

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Letter 45 (6 July 1697) 197

19, and 29), of Dr John Arbuthnot [Arbuthnott] (bap. 1667, d. 1735), physician and satirist, and of Pope. He was a collector of the second subscriptions. 3. That is, Roman Catholic. There may seem some danger attached to this statement, but in the late seventeenth century the cloth trade was rife with politics (see Richard L. Greaves, Secrets of the Kingdom: British Radicals from the Popish Plot to the Revolution of 1688–89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 302–5, for the link between clothmaking and radical dissent). 4. It is unknown who Sam Atkins was, although Ward claims that he was clerk to Pepys, a second subscriber to The Works of Virgil, folio, and a solicitor for it (see Ward, Letters, 176, n2).

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Letters 46 and 47

See headnote to Letters 43 and 44.

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Letter 46 (10 August 1697) 199

Letter 461 Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield to Dryden

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 19253, fol. 181a.

To Mr: Dryden upon his Dedication of his translation of Virgils Georgics to me. Aug: the 10th and sending ^\me/ the book. 97

Sr: Tho I have never been ambitious of being obliged by many men, yet I am very much pleasd with the being so by Mr: Dryden. Not out of vanity in having my inconsiderable name placed (by so great a man) in the front of one of his Works, but beause it gives the World a testimony of his freindship to me. I confess that I have alwayes esteem’d you the Homer of this Age, and I am sure that you have had one advantage far above him, for he never shin’d much but in the darke, I mean till he was dead, and you have had that glory the greatest part of your life. But I do not pretend to offer the incence of prase, to him who is the best teacher of others how to give it; my intention being onely at this time to express some part of my resentments2 for the unvaluable3 Present that you have made me; and to desire your acceptance (by this bearer) of a small mark of those respects4 which shall ever be payd you by Sr: Your most humble servant Chesterfield 1. This is a scribal copy. Ward, Letters, Letter 44. 2. OED, ‘resentments, n. A feeling or sentiment held in respect of another. Obs.’ 3. OED, ‘unvaluable, adj. †1. a. Of inestimable value; = invaluable adj. 1. Obsolete. (Common in 17th cent.).’ 4. It is unknown what this was, but as Dryden writes in the next letter of the ‘noble present’ and the ‘largeness of your present’ it must have been a considerable financial gratuity.

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200 The correspondence of John Dryden

Letter 471 Dryden to Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 19253, fol. 181b.

Mr. Dreydens answer to my  Letter on the other side Aug: the 18 1697 My Lord I can not pretend to acknowledg, as I ought, the noble present, which I have receiv’d from your Lordship, any more, than I can pretend to have deserv’d it. I will not think, that, like Sylla,2 you rewarded a bad Poet and at the same time commanded him to write no more: for the greatest vallue, I can put upon my selfe is your favourable opinion of my Verses. I am glad that they have pleas’d the World; but I am proud that they have pleas’d your Lordship. By the largeness of your present, I must conclude that you considerd who gave and who was to receive; and I know but one, who made this reflection before your Lordship, and that was Alexander.3 I am sure I need not say that I have avoided flattery in my Dedication; for your character was established with all, who had the honour of knowing you. I have onely spread it, amongst those, who had not that happiness, as being from the bottom of my heart, and without poetry Your Lordships most obedient and Most obliged servant John Dryden 1. This is a scribal copy. Ward, Letters, Letter 45. 2. Probably a reference to Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138–78 bc), Roman general and statesman. 3. This letter to a patron – perhaps unwittingly – surpasses the most famous, that of Samuel Johnson (see Johnson to Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, 7 February 1755, in Samuel Johnson, The Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. Bruce Redford, five vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992–4), 1.94–7). ‘Urbem cuidam Alexander donabat, vesanus et qui nihil animo nisi grande conciperet. Cum ille, cui donabatur, se ipse mensus tanti muneris invidiam refugisset dicens non convenire fortunae suae: “Non quaero,” inquit, “quid te accipere deceat, sed quid me dare.” Animosa vox videtur et regia, cum sit stultissima.’ [‘Alexander – madman that he was, and incapable of conceiving any plan that was not grandiose – once presented somebody with a whole city. When the man to whom he was presenting it had taken his own measure, and shrank from incurring the jealousy that so great a gift would arouse, Alexander’s reply was: “I am concerned, not in what is becoming for you to receive, but in what is becoming for me to give.” This seems a spirited and regal speech, but in reality it is most stupid.’] (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Moral Essays. Volume III: De Beneficiis, transl. John W. Basore (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935), II.16 (78–9)).

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Letter 48

This letter shows Dryden corresponding with one of the prominent self-made men of his age, Sir William Trumbull, petitioning him to intervene in a small domestic tragedy. Even in the 1690s, when Dryden’s Roman Catholic religion would have set him at odds with the staunchly Protestant Trumbull, he must have felt his name and reputation for probity strong enough to be put to a cause such as this. There is no reply from Trumbull extant and the outcome of the case is unknown.

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202 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 18. George Vertue after Sir Godfrey Kneller, Sir William Trumbull, line engraving (1724), NPG D6987. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Letter 48 (18 August [1697?]) 203



Letter 481 Dryden to Sir William Trumbull2

Source: Facsimile in Sotheby’s catalogue The Trumbull Papers (14 December 1989), lot 54.

 Sir

Aug: the 18.th

Being just ready to take Coach for the Country, two of my best friends who have contributed very much to my recovery,3 have requested me to give you this trouble in behalf of their Brother Mr Metcalf,4 who is com-manded to appear to morrow before the Councill for printing a pamphlet of two Sheets, in Latine, concerning a project of [MS deletion: theirs?] to live in some our clergy, to live in Common, that thereby they might be helpfull to Such of our Communion who are in want.5 My Lord Arch-bishop6 is pleasd to represent this Action, as dangerous: for my own part I can say nothing for it, because I have not read it; but I humbly request your moderation in it; & what favour you can give, upon a just hearing of it. He is a Young Man,7 & this his first offence, as I hope it will be his last. I know you are instructed in the Cause; & I petition for no more, than what I may hope from the known Candour of your Nature, that upon asking pardon, & promising to offend no more, He may be forgiven, at the humble Suit of Sir Your most Obedient, Obliged Servant John Dryden

1. Ward, Letters, Letter 46. 2. Sir William Trumbull (1639–1716), civil lawyer and government official, was Ambassador to France from late 1685 until mid 1686. He was then sent as James II’s Ambassador to Constantinople, then the most sought after ambassadorial post, from spring 1687 until summer 1691. In May 1695, Sunderland – who had been the Ambassador to France in the 1670s – engineered Trumbull’s appointment as Secretary of State in the Northern Department, against the wishes of Charles Talbot, first Duke of Shrewsbury (1660–1718), Secretary of State for the Southern Department, the senior office. Although Trumbull took up his new duties immediately, the underlying conflict between Sunderland and Shrewsbury forced his early departure from high office. Elected MP for Oxford University in October 1695, he struggled with his parliamentary duties, fulfilling minimal requirements in the House. As Secretary of State, however, he was effective, following Jacobite activities and employing a highly effective network of informers doggedly to investigate reports of a conspiracy to assassinate the King. By late February 1696 a full disclosure of the plot involving Sir John Fenwick, third Baronet (c. 1644–97) was made in

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204 The correspondence of John Dryden

Council and in Parliament. Trumbull’s obsessive pursuit of the conspirators sprang from his abiding fears of a Stuart coup and of a Catholic regime bound to France. Shrewsbury was maintaining contacts with the exiled Stuart court, and his under-­secretary, James Vernon (bap. 1646, d. 1727) and Trumbull had an increasingly acrimonious relationship, which culminated in him surrendering his seals of office to the King over the manner of the ratification of the Treaty of Ryswick and failing to seek re-election at the University. This marked the end of his political career (see A. A. Hanham ‘Trumbull, Sir William (1639– 1716), civil lawyer and government official’, ODNB, 55.464–8 (466–7)). 3. ‘These best friends may possibly have been priests’ (Ward, Letters, 177, n1). 4. Thomas Metcalfe, Catholic bookseller and later moneylender and mortgagor to the Catholic gentry (c. 1669–1751). For an account of Metcalfe’s life, his prominence in the English Catholic community, the books published and advertised by him, and a transcription of his will, see Frans Korsten, Jos Blom, and Frans Blom, ‘The two lives of Thomas Metcalfe’, British Catholic History, 30 (2010), 130–61. 5. This pamphlet – Constitutiones clericorum saecularium in communi viventium ([London: printed by Thomas Metcalfe], anno domini 1697) – was a papal bull of Innocent XI (Korsten et al., ‘The two lives of Thomas Metcalfe’, 131). See William John Hardy (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of William and Mary: Preserved in the Public Record Office, eleven vols (London: HMSO by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1895–1919): ‘The Warden of the Stationer’s Company and Stephens, the messenger of the press, called in. He gave an account of seizing a popish book called the Constitutions of Innocent, on the 11th. It is designed for the use of the English clergy and printed in Bloomsbury for one Metcalfe, a bookseller in Drury Lane. Ordered that Metcalfe be taken up by the Duke of Shrewsbury warrant, and that the Council be acquainted with the fault’ (8.300); ‘Warrant to Robert Stevens, messenger in ordinary, to apprehend Thomas Metcalf, bookseller, who has caused several popish and seditious books and pamphlets to be printed, particularly a book entitled Constitutiones clericorum saecularium in communi viventium, &. He is to be brought by the Duke of Shrewsbury for examination’ (8.301); and ‘Metcalf, the bookseller, who printed Constitutiones Innocentis, was called in. He said he had the copy from one Gerald, who used to come to his shop, but did not know what he was or where he lived. He bespoke 100 to be printed for private use’ (8.318). Korsten et al. surmise that Dryden’s intervention was successful ‘since the matter of the Constitutiones seems to have been dropped’ (‘The two lives of Thomas Metcalfe’, 131). 6. Thomas Tenison (1636–1715), Archbishop of Canterbury. Nominated by his predecessor, John Tillotson (1630–94), William III appointed Tenison Archbishop on 6 December 1694. In many ways he was an admirable compromise and opinions about him were divided. To some he was recognized as a person of great learning, piety, and moderation, who had already been marked out by Roman Catholic priests and Jesuits. Tories, however, thought that he lacked sense and judgement, and that he would be a tool of the Whigs (see William Marshall, ‘Tenison, Thomas (1636–1715), archbishop of Canterbury’, ODNB, 54.109–16 (111–12)). For an account of the life and career of Tenison, see Edward Carpenter, Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury; His Life and Times (London: SPCK, 1948). 7. Metcalfe will have been around twenty-eight years of age at the time.

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Letters 49, 50, 51, and 52

This series of letters, the first to his sons, the others to Tonson (see headnote to Letters 34–42), all mention Dryden’s most popular poem, Alexander’s Feast, or, The Power of Musique (London: Jacob Tonson, 1697), his ode for St Cecilia’s Day. His close connection with other poets and their work is also evidenced, in this case Mary, Lady Chudleigh’s commendatory verses written to celebrate the edition of The Works of Virgil. There is some niceness about the publication of these verses by a woman in a largely male-dominated world of composition and translation. These letters are the last extant between Dryden and his long-term bookseller, Tonson, mentioning his refusal to dedicate The Works of Virgil to William III and the means by which Tonson nonetheless achieved some association of The Works with his King. Despite this, they were to continue to work together on his publications right up until Dryden’s death (and Tonson was to attend Dryden’s reburial in Westminster Abbey in 1700 financed by his fellow Kit-Cat Montagu).1 There are no surviving images of any of Dryden’s sons. 1. See Field, The Kit-Cat Club, 1–8, and Winn, John Dryden, 512–13.

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206 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 19. Sir Godfrey Kneller, John Dryden, oil on canvas (1697), TC Oils P 56. © The Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge

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Letter 49 (3 [September 1697]) 207

Letter 491 Dryden and Lady Elizabeth Dryden to their sons

Manuscript: Lambeth Palace Library, vol. 933 (vol. 5 in the Collection of Edmund Gibson (1669–1748), Bishop of London), item 56.

[56[a]r] 

[Sept. the] 3d, our stile

[Dear Sons, Being now at Sir William Bowyer’s in the] country2 I cannot write at large bec[ause I find my self somewhat indi]sposd with a cold, & am thick of heareing, rather worse than I was in Town. I am glad to find by your Letter of July 26th your stile, that you are both in health: but wonder you shou’d think me so negligent, as to forget to give you an account of the Ship, in wch your parcell is to come. I have written to you two or three Severall Letters, concerning it; wch I have sent by safe hands, as I told you, & doubt not but you have them, before this can arrive to you. Being out of Town, I have forgotten the Ship’s name, wch your Mother will enquire, & put it in your her3 letter, wch is joynd with mine. But the Master’s name I remember: He is calld Mr Ralph Thorp;4 the Ship is bound to Leghorn,5 consignd to Mr Peter & Mr. Tho: Ball Merchants.6 I am of your opinion, that by Tonsons meanes, almost all our Letters have miscarryed for this last yeare.7 But however he has missd of his design, in the Dedication: though He had prepard the Book for it: for in every figure of Eneas, he has causd him to be drawn like K. William, with a hookd Nose.8 After my return to Town, I intend to alter a play of Sir Robert Howards, written long since, & lately put by him into my hands: tis calld the Conquest of China by the Tartars.9 It will cost me six weeks study, with the probable benefit of an hunderd pounds. In the meane time I am writeing a Song for St Cecilia’s feast, who you know is the Patroness of Musique.10 This is troublesome, & no way beneficiall: but I coud not deny the Stewards of the feast, who came in ^\a/ body to me, to desire that kindness; one of them being Mr Bridgman,11 whose parents are your Mothers friends. I hope to send you thirty guineas, betwixt Michaelmass & Christmass of wch I will give you an account, when I come to Town. I remember the Counsell you give me in your letter: but dissembling, though lawfull in some Cases, is not my talent: yet for your sake I will struggle, with the plain openness of my nature, & keep in my just resentments against that degenerate Order.12 In the

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208 The correspondence of John Dryden

mean time, I flatter not my self with any manner of hopes. But do my duty & suffer for Gods sake, being assurd before hand, never to be rewarded, though the times shoud alter.13 Towards the latter end of this Moneth, September, Charles will begin to recover his perfect health, according to his Nativity,14 wch casting it my self, I am sure is true; & all things hetherto have happend accordingly [56[b]v] to the very time that I pred[icted them; I hope at the same time to recover more] health according to my Age. R[emember me to poor Harry whose prayers I earnestly] desire.15 My Virgil succeeds in [the World beyond its desert or my Expectation. You] know the profits might have been more, but neither my conscience [nor] my honour wou’d suffer me to take them: but I never can repent of my Constancy; since I am thoroughly perswaded of the justice of the laws, for which I suffer.16 It has pleasd God to raise up many friends to me amongst my Enemyes; though they who ought to have been my friends, are negligent of me. I am calld to dinner, & cannot go on with this letter; wch I desire you to excuse; & am Your most affectionate Father John Dryden. [56[a]r] [Written in Elizabeth Dryden’s hand down the left-hand side of the page turned ninety degrees clockwise] [My] deare Sonns I sent your Letter emedietly to your father after I had read it as you will find by his: I have not [room] to say much havinge writ a former Letter to you datted the 27 of August your father being then out of Town he writs me word he is much at woon17 as to his health: and his defnese is not wores but much as he was when he was heare; he expresses a great desire to see my deare Charlles: and trully I see noe reson why you should not both come Together, to be a comfort to woon another. and to us both: if the king of france include Ingland in the peace18 for you doe but just make shift to Live wheare you are: and soe I hope you may doe heare: for I will Leaf noe ston unturned to help my beloved Sonns: if I cane I will send this Letter by the same way it came that is it was brought me from woon Mr Galowway who corresponds with Rizzie:19 I payd woon and Sixpence for it and did offer to pay him what he demanded so that he would take care the might come saf to your hands: I Long tell I heare my dear Charlles is better. [56[b]v] [Subscribed to Dryden’s signature in Elizabeth Dryden’s hand] I have onlly room to tell you that the names of the Merchantes your parcell went in You are to demmand them of Mr. Robbert Ball20 & Thommas Ball In Livodoeno21 In Livorno: You

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Letter 49 (3 [September 1697]) 209

are not to pay any charges for the box: for the port of London if the have demanded any of you send word to me what it is: for otherwayes wee shall pay twice for them: and this Mr Walkedon22 tells me with his service to you both farewell my deare children God allmighty keep you in his protection for that is the wishes and prayers of your most affect Mother that sends her Blessinge to you all: not forgeting my Sonn Harry,23 whoes24 prayers I desire for a comfortabell meetinge I hope I may have some better thinges: against you come that ^\then/ what is sent sent you in that box Theare being nothing considerabell but my dear Jackes play: who I desire in his next to me to give me a true account how my deare Sonn Charlles is head dus25 for I cane be at noe rest tell I heare he is better or rather thorroly well which I dally pray for [56[b]v] Al Illustrissimo Sigre Carlo Dryden, Camariere d’Honore A S.S.26 In Roma Franca per Mantoua27 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXI; Scott, Works, Letter XXIII; Ward, Letters, Letter 47. The manuscript is badly mutilated. The lacunae come from Malone’s complete transcription of the letter (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.54–9), although some of his readings are inaccurate. Due to the reference to The Works of Virgil, the year must be 1697. The sheet is bound unfolded in the volume at Lambeth Palace Library. To make Dryden’s letter and Elizabeth’s Dryden’s letter, which is written around his, more comprehensible, the transcription renders the texts as discrete and uses [a] and [b] to indicate where on the bifolium each part of the text is to be found. 2. Denham Court, Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir William Bowyer, second Baronet (1639–1722). ‘Being invited by that worthy gentleman, Sir William Bowyer, to DenhamCourt, I translated the first Georgick at his house, and the greatest part of the last Æneid. A more friendly entertainment no man ever found. No wonder therefore, if both those versions surpass the rest; and own the satisfaction I received in his converse, with whom I had the honour to be bred in Cambridge, and in the same college’ (Dryden, The Works of Virgil, 622; California Edition, 6.809). 3. ‘her’ is written over ‘your’. 4. Unidentified. 5. That is, the tolerant and cosmopolitan free port of Livorno in Tuscany. For the importance of this mercantile hub of economic innovation under the Medicis, see Corey Tazzara, The Free Port of Livorno and the Transformation of the Mediterranean World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 6. Unidentified. 7. ‘The reason for the survival of this sole letter to Rome supports this suggestion [that Tonson was careless in his selection of messengers to carry Dryden’s letters to his sons at Rome]: through Tonson and his messengers it never left England’ (Ward, Letters, 178,

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210 The correspondence of John Dryden

n2). Scott put it more strongly: ‘Jacob, being bent to convert Dryden to his own views of politics, intercepted his sons’ letters from Rome, as proceeding from an interest hostile to his views’ (Scott, Works, 18.132, n). 8. See ‘Virgil receiving the laurel by Michael Vander Gucht in the Works of Virgil (1697), frontispiece’, reproduced in Bernard, The Literary Correspondences, 39 (Fig. 19). ‘In MS. Harl. P.35, in the Museum, are the following verses, occasioned by this circumstance: “To be published in the next edition of Dryden’s Virgil. ‘Old Jacob, by deep judgment swayed, | To please the wise beholders, | Has placed old Nassau’s hook-nosed head | On poor Æneas’ shoulders.’ ‘To make the parallel hold tack, | Methinks there’s little lacking; | One took his father pick-a-pack, | And t’other sent his packing’”’ (Scott, Works, 18.132, n). 9. It seems Dryden was studying The History of the Conquest of China by the Tartars (1671; 1676; or 1679), a translation from the Spanish Historia de la conquista de la China por el Tartaro (Paris: Antonio Bertier, 1670) by the historian Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1600–59). He never did ‘alter it’, although one scene of the play exists, incorporated with John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester’s Valentinian (British Library, Add. MSS 28692). 10. That is, Alexander’s Feast. 11. ‘Orlando Bridgeman, grandson of [Sir Orlando Bridgeman, first baronet (1609–74), judge, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal (August 1667–May 1668)]. He was one of the Stewards at the St. Cecilia’s Feast in 1697. He also subscribed to the Virgil’ (Ward, Letters, 178, n5). 12. That is, the Anglican clergy. 13. Dryden – apparently against the urgings of his sons – never compromised his principles and came to any sort of accommodation with the Williamite dispensation. 14. OED, ‘nativity, n.’ ‘Birth considered astrologically; a horoscope. Now rare (arch.).’ 15. That is, Erasmus-Henry. 16. ‘[William III] repeatedly assured the Emperor and the King of Spain – and through them the Pope – that his intervention in England was aimed at their common enemy, the King of France, not English Catholics. On the contrary, he promised his Catholic allies that he would succour their co-religionists in England. He kept his word. The King was probably behind the bill to protect private Catholic worship, introduced in the Lords in December 1689. This measure proved abortive, and there were no further moves to establish a formal toleration for English papists. But there was no persecution either. The laws imposing fines for failing to attend the Established Church – the recusancy legis­lation – became a dead letter. And while Catholic landowners faced a fresh hardship after 1692 – double payment of the land tax – Roman priests ministered to their flocks unmolested. King William’s liberal policy towards his Catholic subjects was not simply a product of diplomatic ex­ pediency: it was also a matter of personal conviction. As Bishop Burnet noted in 1691, the King “does think that the Conscience is Gods Province, and that therefore it ought to be left to him; and from his experiences in Holland he does look upon Tolleration as one of the wisest measures of Government. He was not satisfyed with this Tolleration of Dissenters but also stopt some severe acts that were designed against Papists”’ (Craig Rose, England in the 1690s: Revolution, Religion, and War (Oxford: Blackwells, 1999), 26–7). 17. That is, ‘much at one with his health’; his health is much the same. 18. The Treaty of Ryswick was proclaimed on 19 October 1697, the month after this letter was written. 19. Unidentified. The Italian surname Ricci, sometimes spelled ‘Rizzi’ by contem­ poraries, is not an uncommon surname in the country or this region. See ‘Ricci – Famiglia toscana. del sec 13–19°’, in Enciclopedia On Line © Treccani 2021, https://www.treccani. it/enciclopedia/ricci_res-1cc89902-477f-11dd-a3be-0016357f4ed7 (accessed 23 April 2021).

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Letter 49 (3 [September 1697]) 211

20. Robert Balle was a merchant in Livorno from 1662 until 1698; his nephew Thomas remained in Livorno after Robert returned to London. See N. R. R. Fisher, ‘Robert Balle, merchant of Leghorn and Fellow of the Royal Society (ca. 1640–ca. 1734)’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 55 (2001), 351–71 (351–2). 21. Elizabeth Dryden’s clear hand begins this word identically to ‘Livorno’ which follows. However, ‘doeno’ could mistakenly recollect the Latinate spelling of ‘Modoena’ (Modena), the city from which Queen Mary’s d’Este family originated (see also Letter 25, n25, for the city’s connection with the Dryden sons). 22. Unidentified. 23. That is, Erasmus-Henry. 24. Elizabeth Dryden also uses ‘oe’ in her spelling of Livodoeno above. 25. As in ‘how […] Charles his head does’; that is, Elizabeth seeks news on how Charles’s ‘head’ is recovering (Dryden uses the similar formulation ‘Charles his letter’ in Letter 52 below). ‘Head’ might refer to an injury to, or the symptoms of an illness in, that part of the body. 26. Charles was a Chamberlain or ‘Camariere d’Honore’ to the Pope, who is indicated here by ‘S.S.’, an abbreviation of the Latin ‘Sanctissimus’, or ‘holiest’. 27. This may indicate that the route by which this reply was sent lay through Mantua, then one of the finest courts in Europe, under Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Montferrat (1652–1708).

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212 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 501 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Folger Shakespeare Library, Tonson Papers, C.c.1, fol. 37.

Mr Tonson I thank you heartily for the Sherry; it was as you sayd, the best of the kind I ever dranke. I have found the Catalogue you desire, of the Subscribers names, you left with me; & have sent them to you inclosd.2 Remember, in the Copy of Verses for St. Cecilia, to alter the name of Lais, wch is twice there, for Thais; those two Ladyes were Contemporaryes, wch causd that small mistake.3 I wish you cou’d tell me how to send My Sonns our Virgil, wch you gave me; & should be glad if you coud put me in a way of remitting thirty guineas to Rome; wch I woud pay heer, for my Sonns to have the vallue there, according as the Exchange goes; any time this fortnight, will be soon enough to send the money. the Book I know will require a longer space, because Ships go not for Italy every day.4 | I am | Your humble Servant | John Dryden. I hear Tom Brown is comeing out upon me.5 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXII; Scott, Works, Letter XXIV; Ward, Letters, Letter 48. 2. That is, the catalogue of subscribers for The Works of Virgil. 3. Laïs of Corinth was a Greek hetæra (courtesan); Thaïs, also a Greek hetæra, accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns and encouraged him to destroy Persepolis. The story is first recounted in Diodorus of Sicily (for an account of this that is nearly contemporary with Dryden’s letter, see George Booth, The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian in Fifteen Books (London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1700), 551–2). Laïs was the most renowned courtesan of ancient Greece. Dryden’s use of the figure of Thaïs over Laïs disrupts the pattern of alliteration woven around ‘Lovely Lais’ (Dryden, Alexander’s Feast, 1, 5; California Edition, 7.3, 6) and shows how he privileged truth over art, which is most striking in this the most ‘musical’ of all his poems. For a discussion of ‘Lovely Thais’, see Tom Mason and Adam Rounce, ‘Alexander’s Feast; or the Power of Musique: the poem and its readers’, in John Dryden: Tercentenary Essays, ed. Paul Hammond and David Hopkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 140–73 (159–62). 4. Here, again, Dryden relies upon Tonson to effect his domestic affairs, in this case the dispatch of a book and the remittance of some money to Rome, where Dryden’s sons Charles and Erasmus-Henry were living and studying. 5. Thomas Brown (bap. 1663, d. 1704), in prison for his A Satyr upon the French King on the Peace of Reswick (1697), believed he secured his release with his Petition to the Lords in Council by which He Received His Enlargement from Prison (1697): ‘For if Poets are publish’d for Libelling Trash | John Dryden, tho’ sixty may yet fear the lash | No Pension nor Praise, | Much Birch without Bays, | These are not right ways, | Our Fancy to raise | To

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Letter 50 ([Autumn 1697]) 213

the writing of Plays’ (first collected in The Works of Mr. Thomas Brown, in Prose and Verse; Serious, Moral, and Comical, two vols (1707), 1.94–5). For a discussion of how famous and controversial Dryden was during his lifetime, see Steven N. Zwicker, ‘Why are they saying these terrible things about John Dryden? The uses of gossip and scandal’, Essays in Criticism, 64:2 (2014), 158–79).

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214 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 511 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 45/17.

Mr. Tonson

I have broken off my Studies from The Conquest of China,2 to review Virgil, & bestowd Nine entire days upon him. You may have the printed Copy you sent me, to morrow morning, if you will come for it your Self; for the Printer is a beast, & understands nothing I can say to him, of correcting the press.3 Dr Chetwood claims my promise of the Ode on St Cecilia’s day; which I desire you to send him (according to the parliament phrase) forthwith. My wife says you have broken your promise, about the picture, & desires it speedily:4 the rest I will tell you when You Come. Yors John Dryden. Wednesday.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXIII; Scott, Works, Letter XXV; Ward, Letters, Letter 49. The dating can be assumed from the fact that Alexander’s Feast is now in print. 2. See Letter 49, n9. 3. Robert Everingham (fl. 1680–1700) was the printer of The Works of Virgil (see Letter 52 and Henry R. Plomer, A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1668 to 1725 (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1922), 113). 4. If Lady Elizabeth Dryden means a picture of the author she may be referring to the ‘family’ copy of the ‘Trinity’ Kneller portrait (oil on canvas; Figure 19 in this volume), which was sold at six times the estimate at Sotheby’s in the British Sale: Paintings, Drawings and Watercolours (London: Sotheby’s, 2002), lot 18. The provenance came directly from the last male heir of the Dryden family. The portrait has a much rougher finish than the Trinity version (its brushwork seems almost Rembrantian) but essentially presents Dryden in the same pose, possibly with a scar on his forehead, indicating what seems like a recent operation on the ‘cancer of the head’. On 14/24 June 1696, Thomas Burnett of Kemnay wrote to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, ‘Monsieur Dryden se trouvet malade d’une cancere dans sa tête’ (quoted in Barnard, ‘Early expectations’, 200).

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Letter 52 ([Autumn 1697]) 215

Letter 521 Dryden to Jacob Tonson

Manuscript: British Library, Egerton MSS 2869, fol. 34.

[34[a]r] Mr Tonson You were no sooner gone, but I felt in my pocket, & found my Lady Chudleighs verses:2 which this Afternoon I gave Mr Walsh to read in the Coffee house.3 His opinion is the same with mine, that they are better than any wch are printed before the Book: so thinks also Mr Wycherley. I have them by me; but do not send them, till I heare from My Lord Clifford, whether My Lady will put her name to them or not. therefore I desire they may be printed last of all the Copyes, ^\& of all the Book./4 I have also written this day to Mr Chetwood, & let him know, that the Book is immediatly goeing to the press again. My Opinion is, that the Printer shou’d begin with the first Pastoral; & print on to the end of the Georgiques, or farther, if occasion be till Dr Chetwood corrects his preface, wch He writes me word is printed very false.5 You cannot take too great care of the printing this Edition, ex-actly after my Amendments: for a fault of that nature will disoblige me Eternally. I am glad to heare from all Hands, that my Ode is esteemd the best of all my poetry, by all the Town: I thought so my self when I writ it [34[a]v] but being old, I dmistrusted6 my own Judgment I hope it has done you Service, & will do more.7 You told me not, but the Town says you are printing Ovid de Arte Amandi; I know my Translation is very uncorrect: but at the same ^\times/ I know no body else can do it better, with all their pains.8 If there be any loose papers in the Virgil I gave you this Morning, look for them, & send them back by my Man: I miss not any yet: but ’tis possible some may be left; because I gave you the Book, in a hurry. I vow to God, if Everingham9 takes not care of this Impression, He shall never print any thing of mine heerafter: for I will write on, since I find I can. I desire you to make sure of the three pounds of snuff, the same of which I had one pound from you. When you send it any Morning, I will pay for it all together. But this is not the business of this letter.– When you were heer, I intended to have sent an Answer to poor Charles his letter; but I had not then the letter wch my Chirurgeon10 promisd me, of his advice, to prevent a Rupture wch He fears. Now I have the Surgeons Answer, wch I have inclosed in my letter to my Sonn: this is a business of the greatest consequence in

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216 The correspondence of John Dryden

the world:11 for you know how I love Charles: And therefore I write ^\to you/ with all the Earnest ness of a father, that you will procure Mr Francia12 [34[b]r] to inclose it, in his pacquet this week: for a week lost may be my Sonns ruine: whom I intend to send for, next Summer, without his Brother, as I have written him word: and if it please God that I must dye of overstudy, I cannot spend my life better, than in saveing his. I vallue not any price for a double Letter:13 let me know it, & it shall be payd: for I dare not trust it by the Post: Being satisfyd by Experience, that Ferrard14 will do by this, as He did by two Letters, which I sent My Sonns, about my Dedicating to the King; of which they receivd neither.15 If You cannot go your self, then send a Note to Signior Francia, as earnestly as you can write it, to beg that it may go this Day ^16 wch I meane Friday. I need not tell You, how much heerein you will oblige Your Friend and Servant J.D. [34[b]v] For Mr Tonson, These.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXIV; Scott, Works, Letter XXVI; Ward, Letters, Letter 50; Zwicker, John Dryden, 624–5. The sheet is bound unfolded in the volume at the British Library. To render the layout of the text on the folded sheet clear [a] and [b] are used to indicate where on the bifolium each part is to be found. 2. Mary, Lady Chudleigh (bap. 1656, d. 1710), poet and essayist, was a friend of Dryden (for their acquaintance and his influence on her poetry, see Margaret J. M. Ezell (ed.), The Poems and Prose of Mary, Lady Chudleigh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), xxviii). ‘To Mr. Dryden, on his excellent Translation of Virgil’, the commendatory verses for the second edition of The Works of Virgil (1698) to which Dryden refers, were not published until 1703, when they appeared in Lady Mary Chudleigh’s Poems on Several Occasions. Together with The Song of the Three Children. Paraphras’d by Lady Chudleigh (London: Bernard Lintott, 1703), 25–8; Ezell, The Poems and Prose, 70–2). 3. Probably Will’s coffee house. 4. This is perhaps the most privileged position in the book other than the opening, showing how the editor, Dryden, valued the verses; Dryden does not know if Chudleigh wants her name to be given. In the event, it was not printed. 5. That is, Chetwood claims the printer has produced an imperfect edition of his work; this would seem to be true given Dryden’s arrangements to accommodate the changes he made in the second edition. 6. Dryden writes an ‘m’ over the ‘d’ of ‘distrusted’. 7. In 1683 a musical society was formed in London for the annual performance on St Cecilia’s Day (22 November) of a composition in honour of the patron saint of music;

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Letter 52 ([Autumn 1697]) 217

Tonson, while a sponsor of musical competitions (see Field, The Kit-Cat Club, 98), was not a sponsor of the St Cecilia’s Day festivities (for the standard work on which see W. H. Husk, An Account of the Musical Celebrations on St. Cecilia’s Day in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: [s.n.], 1857). Dryden had already written the lyric A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day (London: Jacob Tonson, 1687). In 1697 he wrote the Pindaric Alexander’s Feast, which was set to music (now lost) by Jeremiah Clarke. It portrays Alexander the Great, after his defeat of Darius in 331 bc, celebrating the victory by a banquet, at which the renowned flautist, lyrist, and singer Timotheus entertains the guests. 8. Dryden seems to have heard that Tonson is to publish someone else’s translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and is insisting that his is better. Dryden’s translation did not appear until Tonson published it in Ovid’s Art of Love. 9. See Letter 51, n3. 10. That is, surgeon. Tonson’s father, Jacob Tonson, had been a barber surgeon (see OED, ‘barber, n., a. [note] Formerly the barber was also a regular practitioner in surgery and dentistry. The Company of Barber-surgeons was incorporated by Edward IV in 1461; under Henry VIII the title was altered to “Company of Barbers and Surgeons” and barbers were restricted to the practice of dentistry’). 11. Charles Dryden had apparently suffered a head injury (Winn, John Dryden, 492). 12. Francis Francia (1661?–1734), a Jewish merchant, was tried as a Jacobite in 1716, so might have been a likely means of access to Rome (see [Anon.,] Tryal of Francis Francia (London: D. Midwinter, 1717) for a transcription of the trial at which he was found not guilty). 13. That is, a letter written on two sheets of paper, which usually attracted a higher postage fee (presumably the enclosure of Dryden’s surgeon’s letter within his reply to Charles amounted to two sheets). 14. It is unknown who Ferrard was. Ward (180n) assumes he was some sort of messenger. 15. As Ward (180n) points out, Dryden had earlier blamed Tonson for the miscarriage of letters; this is also the letter to which he here refers ‘about my Dedicating [The Works of Virgil] to the King’ (Lambeth Palace Archives, vol. 933, MS 933, letter 56; Ward, Letters, 92–4). 16. A caret in want of an interlineation: presumably Dryden considered interlining ‘by’ before ‘wch’, before changing his mind and writing ‘I meane’.

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Letter 53

This letter from Dryden to John Caryll, the heir to the Jacobite John Caryll, Baron Durford, shows how closely Dryden kept in touch with the Jacobite court in exile and even with one who had recently been suspected of a plot to assassin­ ate William III. This explains his reluctance to accommodate those prominent members of the Williamite court who were willing to bring Dryden back into royal favour, or at least to provide him with some financial security.1 1. See, for example, Letter 49: ‘It has pleasd God to raise up many friends to me amongst my Enemyes’.

Letter 53 (21 July 1698) 219

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Figure 20. [Unknown artist,] John Caryll, Baron Durford, oil on canvas [no date], reproduced in Max de Trenqualéon, Etude historique et religieuse sur le comte de Sussex en Angleterre, two vols (Paris: Chez M. Torré; West Grinstead: Monseigneur Denis; London: Burns and Oates, [1893]), 2 [frontispiece]. © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

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220 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 531 Dryden to John Caryll2

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 28618, fol. 84b.

Sr: ’Tis the part of an honest Man to be as good as his Word, butt you have been better: I expected but halfe of what I had, and that halfe, not halfe so Good. Your Veneson had three of the best Qualities, for it was both fatt, large & Sweet, To add to this you have been pleased to invite me to Ladyholt,3 and if I could promise my Self a year’s Life, I might hope to be happy in so sweet a Place, & in the Enjoyment of your good Company. How God will dispose of me, I know not: but am apt to flatter my Self with the thoughts of itt; because I very much desire itt, And am Sr. with all manner of Acknow ledgement Yr. most Obliged and most faithful Servant John Dryden. July 21. 1698.

1. Ward, Letters, Letter 51. 2. John Caryll (1667–1736), friend and correspondent of Pope, was the heir of John Caryll, Jacobite first Baron Caryll of Durford (bap. 1626, d. 1711), poet and politician. ‘Dryden helped Caryll[’s uncle] consolidate his literary reputation in the 1680s by including his translations of Ovid and Virgil in the Miscellanies’; ‘[h]is most ambitious and controversial work was Naboth’s Vineyard[: Or, The Innocent Traytor: Copied from the Original of Holy Scripture, in Heroick Verse (London: Printed for C.R.,] 1679), a satire on the Popish Plot that drew extensive parallels between contemporary and scriptural events [… which] is no recognized as a key precursor to […] Absalom and Achitophel’ (Joseph Hone, Alexander Pope in the Making (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 15). He was at the court of St Germain-en-Laye in 1689 and was soon after acting as Under-secretary of State to King James. He became full Secretary of State in 1694. From this date to his death Caryll was in the thick of Jacobite diplomacy. Highly esteemed by James and Mary, he was ennobled in 1698, becoming Baron Caryll of Durford, another name for the manor of West Harting in Sussex, which belonged to the Caryll estate. A letter to his sister, 15 July 1695[?], shows that he hesitated to accept this peerage, lest his nephew and heir, the recipient of the current letter, should lack money to support it, writing, ‘nothing is so wretched as beggerly honour’. He therefore left his heir £2,000 a year rents in the Hôtel de Ville, referring to it as ‘the best security for English Catholics’ (British Library, Add. MSS 28226, fols 103, 130) (see Howard Erskine-Hill, ‘Caryll, John, Jacobite first Baron Caryll of Durford (bap. 1626, d. 1711), poet and politician’, ODNB, 10.454–6 (455)). For an account of Caryll’s literary relationships, see S. K. Mugaseth, ‘John Caryll the friend of Pope’ (unpublished BLitt thesis, University of Oxford, 1936); for a discussion of the Caryll family archives, see Howard Erskine-Hill, ‘John, first Lord Caryll of Durford, and the Caryll papers’, in The

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Letter 53 (21 July 1698) 221

Stuart Court in Exile and the Jacobites, ed. Eveline Cruikshanks and Edward Corp (London: Hambledon Press, 1995), 73–90). 3. Ladyholt was the house Caryll’s uncle built in 1689 in West Harting. Caryll entered into possession of it in 1697, his uncle’s life interest having previously been granted to John Cutts, Baron Gowran, in 1695.

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Letters 54, 55, 56, and 57

This series of letters includes the first extant letter by Dryden to his second cousin Mrs Elizabeth Steward. Dryden wrote both formally and informally to her (sometimes, as James Anderson Winn writes, ‘with outmoded gallantry’1), as can be seen across the correspondence. He was a frequent guest at her home and often the recipient of gifts from her. Steward’s religion is uncertain, unlike her staunchly Anglican husband Elmes Steward and her mother Elizabeth Creed, an accomplished portraitist and religious artist for whom Dryden composed ‘Lines to Mrs. Elizabeth Creed’: So much religion in your name doth dwell, Your soul must needs in piety excell. Thus names, like pictures drawn in small, of old, Their owners’ nature and their story told. ––– Your name but half expresses; for in you Belief and practice do together go. My prayers shall be, while this short life endures, These may go hand in hand, in you and yours; Till faith hereafter be in vision drown’d, And practice is with endless glory crown’d.

The elder Elizabeth Creed was to be at Dryden’s deathbed. In the Dryden family memorial inscription at St Mary Virgin, Titchmarsh, she writes:

‘HE RECEIVED THE NOTICE OF HIS APPROACHING DISSOLUTION WITH SWEET SUBMISSION AND ENTIRE RESIGNATION TO THE DIVINE WILL; AND HE TOOK SO TENDER AND OBLIGING A FAREWELL OF HIS FRIENDS, AS NONE BUT HE HIMSELF COULD HAVE EXPRESSED’2

The letters were presumably mostly sent from Titchmarsh. Dryden was at this time at the height of his literary reputation, having the previous year published his highly illustrated folio subscription translation of The Works of Virgil. This series of letters shows that Dryden – and his sons – retained a strong affection for his Protestant family in Northamptonshire and a close association and familiarity with them. It is perhaps telling, although unfortunately not unusual, that no letters from this evidently important female correspondent survive. Two portraits by Michael Dahl of Elizabeth Steward survive: Portrait of a Lady, probably Mrs. Elizabeth Steward (see Figure 21) and another sold at Christie’s, London, on 22 June 1979, lot 127.3 There is no surviving image of Elmes Steward.

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Letters 54, 55, 56, and 57 223

1. Winn, John Dryden, 500. 2. Malone writes that ‘Lines to Mrs. Elizabeth Creed’ were reportedly delivered extempore after dinner at her house (Malone, Prose Works, 1.1.341–42); see also California Edition, 7.542, frontispiece, 929n, and John R. Sweney, ‘Dryden’s “Lines to Mrs. Creed”’, Philological Quarterly, 51:2 (1972), 489–90. There is a brief note of her life and work by K. A. Esdaile, ‘Cousin to Pepys and Dryden: a note on the works of Mrs. Elizabeth Creed of Tichmarsh [sic]’, Burlington Magazine, 77:448 (1940), 24–7). 3. See Bonhams, Old Master Paintings, Wednesday 25 October 2017, Knightsbridge London (London: Bonhams, 2017), 112.

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224 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 21. Michael Dahl, Portrait of a Lady, probably Mrs. Elizabeth Steward, oil on canvas [no date]. © Bonhams, London

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Letter 54 (1 October 1698) 225



Letter 541 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward2

Source: The manuscript is now in private hands. A facsimile of it appears in Sale 9548, 14 December 2000: Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts (New York: Christie’s, 2000), 65.

Madam

You have done me the honour to invite so often3 that it wou’d look like want of respect to refuse it any longer. How can you be so good, to an old decrepid Man,4 who can entertain you with no discourse which is worthy of your good sence; & who can onely be a trouble to you in all the time He stays at Cotterstock?5 Yet I will obey your Com=mands as farr as possibly I can; and give you the inconvenience, you are pleas’d to desire: At least for the few days, which I can spare from other necessary business; which requires me at Tichmarsh. Therefore if you please to send your Coach, on Tuesday next,6 by Eleven a clock in the Morning, I hope to wait on you before dinner.7 There is onely one more trouble, wch I am almost ashamd to name. I am obliged to visite My Cousin Dryden of Chesterton some time next week, who is nine miles from hence, & onely five from you.8 If it be with your Convenience to spare me your Coach thether for a day, the rest of my time till Monday is at your service: & I am sorry for my own sake, it cannot be any longer this year; because I have some visits after my return hether, which I cannot avoyd. But if it please God9 to give me life & health, I may give you occasion another time, to repent of your kindness by making you weary of my Company. My Sonn10 kisses your hand. Be pleasd to give his humble Service to my Cousin Steward,11 and mine, who am Madam Your most Obedient, Oblig’d Servant John Dryden. Saturday Octob. 1st –98.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXV; Scott, Works, Letter XXVII; Ward, Letters, Letter 52. 2. Elizabeth Steward (see Letter 6, n4 (above), and Ward, Letters, 180, headnote) was married to Elmes Steward (1674–1754), in 1692, and he purchased Cotterstock Hall as their country house that year. He hunted with Dryden’s cousin John Driden of Chesterton,

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226 The correspondence of John Dryden

and was High Sheriff of Northamptonshire for the term of a year from November 1699, during which time Dryden last communicated with the family (see http://www. highsheriffnorthamptonshire.com/lists.htm, accessed 23 April 2021). For a description of Cotterstock Hall, see ‘Cotterstock’, in Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Northamptonshire, Vol. 6: Architectural Monuments in North Northamptonshire (London: HMSO, 1984), 37–43 (plate 102 shows the front elevation and plan of the Hall). Steward’s family had built Lilford Hall (see Letter 6) in 1635. Although the youngest of eight children, Elmes Steward was the heir of both the Steward and Elmes family estates, which included land across Northamptonshire and plantations in Barbados (see B. M. Freeman, Cotterstock Hall ([Oundle]: [s.n.], 2007), 22–8). 3. None of these invitations survive. 4. Dryden was by the time of his writing sixty-seven years old. 5. Cotterstock Hall – the Stewards’ house – two and a half miles outside Oundle, near to where Dryden’s own family estate was in Northamptonshire. On the north side of the village street at Cotterstock it had been built as Holt’s Manor in the thirteenth century and subsequently frequently rebuilt. The Norton family had acquired the property in the early seventeenth century and certainly by the Interregnum John Norton, MP (fl. 1624–63), High Sherriff of Northamptonshire (1649), had restructured the house into an ‘H’ and added a ‘long gallery’ added to the manor (Freeman, Cotterstock Hall, 16–21 (17)). 6. Dryden is writing on a Saturday, which shows the speed with which post was delivered to the provinces in the period. 7. OED, ‘dinner n.’ ‘The chief meal of the day, eaten originally, and still by the majority of people, about the middle of the day’. 8. John Driden of Chesterton – Dryden’s first cousin – near whose estate Dryden’s own was, which relates to the near correspondence of this letter, and to whom Dryden devotes ‘To My Honour’d Kinsman John Driden, of Chesterton, in the County of Huntingdon, Esquire’ (probably written in the spring of 1699) (Winn, John Dryden, 503). Published in Dryden’s final opus, Fables Ancient and Modern, 91–101 (California Edition, 7.196–202), the poem describes Dryden’s ideal of the retired Horatian retirement (borrowing from his own translation ‘From Horace Epod. 2d.’ (Dryden [ed.], Sylvae, 135–59 [sic]) and begins: ‘How Bless’d is He, who leads a Country Life | Unvex’d with anxious Cares, and void of Strife! | Who studying Peace, and shunning Civil Rage, | Enjoy’d his Youth, and now enjoys his Age: | All who deserve his Love, he makes his own; | And to be lov’d himself, needs only to be known’ (ll. 1–6). Driden was a wealthy landowner and Parliamentarian in the 1690s. A Whig, he was the unlikely model for Dryden’s ideal of retirement. For a detailed discussion of Driden’s political loyalties and his philanthropy, see Hammond and Hopkins, The Poems, 5.189. 9. Dryden frequently invokes ‘God’ in his letters, often informally as here. 10. Probably Charles Dryden, who is known to have stayed with the Stewards at Cotterstock when he returned from Italy and who lived with Dryden and his wife, Lady Elizabeth. Ward reports that he drowned in the Thames four years after his father’s death (Ward, Letters, 181 n2). 11. That is, Elmes Steward.

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Letter 55 ([October 1698?]) 227



Letter 551 Dryden to Elmes Steward

Manuscript: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Gratz Collection, British Authors/ Poets Case 10, Box 38 [unnumbered item].

[ar] My Honourd Cousin

I shou’d have receivd your Letter2 with too much satis-faction, if it had not been allayd, with the bad news of my Cousin your wife’s indisposition;3 which yet I hope will not continue. I am sure if care & love will contribute to her health, she will want neither from so tender a Husband as you are: & indeed you are both worthy of each other. You have been pleasd, each of you, to be kind to my Sonn4 & me your poor Relations, without any merit on our side, unless you let our gratitude pass for our desert, And now you are pleasd to invite another trouble on your self: which our bad Company may possibly draw upon you next year, if I have life & health, to come into Northamptonshyre. And that you will please not to make so much a stranger of me another time. I intend my wife shall tast the plover you did me the favour to send me. If either your Lady, or you shall at any time honour me with a letter, My house is in Gerard Street, the fifth door on the left hand, comeing from Newport Street.5 I pray God I may heare better news of both your healths, & of my good Cousin Creeds,6 and ^\my Cousin/ Mrs Dorothy,7 than I have had, while I was in this Country. I shall languish till you send me word; & I assure you I write this without any poetry, who am from the bottome of my Heart My Honourd Cousins most obliged Humble Servant John Dryden. My sonn & I, kiss my Cousin Stewards8 hand, & give our service, to your sister,9 & pretty Miss Betty.10 [av]

For my Honourd Cousin Elmes Steward Esq Att Cotterstock.

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228 The correspondence of John Dryden

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXVI; Scott, Works, Letter XXVIII; Ward, Letters, Letter 53. ‘The date is difficult to arrive at. I place it in October because in the preceding letter, to Mrs. Steward, [Dryden] seems to suggest that he has plans for only ten days or two weeks more in the country before his return to London. This letter seems to me to be the last before he left Titchmarsh for the city’ (Ward, Letters, 181, headnote). 2. Now lost. 3. That is, Elizabeth Steward. 4. Charles returned from Italy in the middle of 1698. 5. See Letter 5, n3. Gerrard Street is between Leicester Square and Shaftesbury Avenue, and runs from Wardour Street to Greek Street. It was opened about 1681 (see Wheatley, London Past and Present, 2.104). 6. John Creed (d. 1701), naval administrator, JP for Northamptonshire, High Sheriff of the county in 1690–1, and feoffee of the Oundle charities in 1700. Through his wife Elizabeth Creed (c. 1642–1728), daughter of Sir Gilbert Pickering, he was related to both Dryden and Pepys, the latter of whom loathed him (Pepys, The Diary, 6 October 1666, 7.310) (see C. S. Knighton, ‘Creed, John (d. 1701), naval administrator’, ODNB, 14.125–6 (126)). Creed was, with Pepys, one of the agents in London for Sandwich, a ‘General at Sea’ and supporter of Richard Cromwell. However, following the arrival in London of General George Monck’s Scottish army, Montagu purged the navy and, with the fleet under his command, then brought Charles II back from exile to England; two days later he was raised to the peerage (see J. D. Davies, ‘Montagu [Mountagu], Edward, first earl of Sandwich (1625–1672)’, ODNB, 38.708–14 (710)). Elizabeth Creed is said to have been a lady in waiting at the Restoration court, but no supporting evidence of this has been found. 7. Dorothy, the eldest daughter of the Creeds and sister of the addressee’s wife. 8. That is, Elizabeth Steward herself. 9. Name unknown. 10. That is, Elizabeth Steward’s daughter, also called Elizabeth, ‘then only six years old’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.68, n1).

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Letter 56 (23 November 1698) 229

Letter 561 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, D779L, 1698 Nov. 23 to [Mrs. Steward, Cotterstock].

Nov:23d. 1698.

[recto] Madam To take acknowledgments of favours, for favours done you, is onely yours. I am always on the receiveing hand: & you who have been pleasd to be troubled so long with my bad Company, in stead of forgiveing, which is all I cou’d expect, will turn it to a kindness on my side. If your House be often so molested, you will have reason to be weary of it, before the ending of the Year: & wish Cotterstock were planted in a desart, an hundred miles off from any Poet. After I had lost the happiness of your Company, I cou’d expect no other than the loss of my health, which follow’d, according to the proverb, that Misfortunes seldome come alone. I had no woman to visite, but the Parson’s wife; & she who was intended by Nature, as a help meet for a deaf Husband, was somewhat of the loudest, for my Conversat-ion; & for other things, I will say no more, than that she is just your Contrary: and an Epitome of her own Country. My Journey to London, was yet more unpleasant than my abode at Tichmarsh: for the Coach was Crowded up with an Old woman, fatter than any of my Hostesses on the Rode. I must confess she was for the most part Silent, unless it were, that sometimes her backside talkd; & that discourse was not over savoury to the Nose. Her weight made the horses travell very heavily; but to give them a breathing time, she wou’d often stop us; & plead some necessity of Nature, & tell us we were all flesh and blood: but she did this so frequently, that at last we conspired against her; & that she might not be incon-venienc’d by staying in the Coach, turnd her out, in a very dirty place, where she was to wade up to the Anckles, before she cou’d reach the Next hedge. When I was ridd of her, I came sick home: & kept my House, for three weeks together; but by advice of my Doctour, takeing twice the bitter draught, with Sena in it,2 & looseing at least twelve Ounces of blood, by Cupping on my Neck, I am just well enough, to go abroad in the Afternoon:3 but am much afflicted, that I have you a Companion of my sickness: though I scapd with one cold fit of an Ague;4 & yours I feare is an

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230 The correspondence of John Dryden

Intermitting feavour. Since I heare nothing of your father, whom I left ill, I hope he is recoverd, of his reall sickness; & that your sister is well of hers, which was onely in Imagination. My wife, & sonn5 return you their most ^\humble/ service; & I give mine to my Cousin Steward. Madam, Your most Obliged, & most Obedient Servant John Dryden. [verso] For Mrs Steward, Att Cotterstock Neare Oundle, In the County of Northampton, These: To be left with the postmaster of Oundle; & thence conveyd.

54.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXVII; Scott, Works, Letter XXIX; Ward, Letters, Letter

2. OED, ‘Senna, n.’ ‘Pharmacol. The dried leaflets of various species of Cassia, used as a cathartic and emetic’. 3. OED, ‘cupping, n.’ ‘Surg. The operation of drawing blood by scarifying the skin and applying a “cup” or cupping-glass the air in which is rarefied by heat or otherwise’. 4. OED, ‘ague, n.’ ‘An acute or high fever; disease, or a disease, characterized by such fever, esp. when recurring periodically, spec. malaria. Also: a malarial paroxysm, or (esp. in later use) the initial stage of such a paroxysm, marked by an intense feeling of cold and shivering. Now chiefly hist.’ 5. That is, Charles.

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Letter 57 (12 December 1698) 231

Letter 571 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.7.

[7ar] Madam

Dec: 12.th–98.

All my Letters being nothing but Acknowledgments of your favours to me, ’tis no wonder if they are all alike: for they can but Express the same thing; I being eternally the Receiver; and you the Giver. I wish it were in my power to turn the skale, on the other hand, that I might see, how you, who have so Excellent a wit, cou’d thank on your Side. Not to name my self, & my wife, My Sonn Charles is the great Commender of your last receivd Present: who being of late somewhat indispos’d, usd of late ^\uses/ to send for some of the same sort, which we call heer Marrow Puddings,2 for his Suppers: but the tast of yours, has so spoyld his Markets heer, that there is not the least Comparison betwixt them. You are not of an Age to be a Sybill;3 & yet I think you are a Prophetess: for the direction on your Basket4 was for him; and He is likely to enjoy the greatest part of them: for I always think the young are more worthy than the old: Especially since you are One of the former Sort; & that He mends upon your Medicine. I am very glad to hear my [7av] Cousin your Father5 is comeing, or come to Town: perhaps this Ayr, may be as Beneficiall to him as it has been to me; but you tell me nothing of your own Health; & I fear Cotterstock is too Agueish for this Season. My wife & Sonn,6 give you their most humble thanks and Service; as I do mine, to my Cousin Steward; and am Madam, Your most Oblig’d, Obedient Servant, John Dryden [7bv] For Mrs Steward Att Cotterstock, near Oundle, in the County of Northton, These To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle.

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232 The correspondence of John Dryden 55.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXVIII; Scott, Works, Letter XXX; Ward, Letters, Letter

2. OED, ‘marrow, n. compounds C.2 marrow-pudding n. (a) a pudding made with beef […] marrow’. 3. That is, a prophetess. The Sibyls were oracular women believed to possess prophetic powers, based at Delphi and Pessinos in ancient Greece. 4. That is, the address. 5. That is, John Creed. 6. That is, Charles.

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Letter 58

This letter appeals for patronage from Mary, Duchess of Ormond, from an avowedly Jacobite family. It is probably for this reason that Dryden refers to ‘We Jacobites’; her husband, James Butler, second Duke of Ormond, was to lead the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. That he does so does suggest a familiarity with the Duchess of which there is no other record.

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234 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 22. John Smith after Sir Godfrey Kneller, Mary Butler (née Somerset), Duchess of Ormond, and Her Son Thomas, Earl of Ossory, mezzotint (c. 1693), NPG D31316. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Letter 58 (The first day of winter 1698) 235

Letter 581 Dryden to Mary, Duchess of Ormond2

Source: Illustrated London News, 28 August 1858, 197.

May it please yr Grace The first day of Winter. 1698. r What Ireland was before y coming Thither3 I cannot tell, but I am sure you have brought over one manufacture4 thither wch is not of ye growth of ye country,5 and that is beauty. But at the same time, you have impoverished yr native Land6 by taking more away yn you have left behind. We Jacobites7 have no more reason to thank you than we have our present King who has enriched Holland wth the wealth of England.8 If this be all the effect of his going over the water for a whole Summer together9 and of yr Graces leaving us for a much longer time, we have rea-son to complain if not of both, yet at least of one of you for the Sun has never Shone on us since you went into Eclipse on Ireland, and if we have another Such a yeare we shall have a famine of Beauty as well as Bread, for if the last be the Staff of Life10 to the rest of the World the first is so to the Nation of Poets; who feed only at the eyes. But you Plantagenets, never think of these mean Concernmts; the whole race of you have been given to make voyages into ye Holy Land to Conquer Infidells or at least to Subdue France without caring wt becomes of yr naturall subjects ye poor English. I think we must remonstrate to you yt we can no longer live without you: For so our Ancestours have done to some of yr Family wn they have been too long abroad And besides who knows but God who can do all things wch seem impossible to us may raise up another beauty in yr Absence who may dispute yr Kingdome with you for thus also has yr Pre-decessour Richard Cœur de Leon11 been servd when his Br John12 whose christened name I bear while he was takeing Jerusalem from ye Turks was likely to have Usurpd Engd from him And I cannot promise for ye fidelity of a Country which is not over famous for that vertue.13 The product o[f ] Ireland will onely serve to warm my Body as it does this Winter by yr Graces favour to me but I cannot beare to be cold at heart and the older I am the more [need]14 I have of the Sun to comfort me for wch reason I humbly advise you to returne next Spring wth the first Swallow though you falsifie the Proverb for then one Swallow will make a Spring at least to him who is Yr Graces most Obliged and most Obedient Servant John Dryden.

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236 The correspondence of John Dryden

1. Saintsbury, ‘Additions and corrections’; Ward, Letters, Letter 56; Zwicker, John Dryden, 627–28. Saintsbury uses Illustrated London News as his source, and names the writer of the column, Peter Cunningham (1816–69), but the manuscript – supplied by a ‘well-wisher’, according to Cunningham – is now untraced. Cunningham most likely had sight of the apograph owned by the antiquary and book collector Philip Bliss, which was lot 54 in Sotheby’s sale of 21 August 1858 (i.e. five days before the newspaper issue in question). The lot was withdrawn from sale because it was a copy and not an autograph letter (see https://celm-ms.org.uk/authors/drydenjohn.html, accessed 23 April 2021). The catalogue entry for the Sotheby’s sale of 18–19 December 1905, at which a copy of this letter was bought by Sabin, repeats the description of the 1858 catalogue almost verbatim and presents the document as an autograph once more (Sotheby’s, Catalogue of Autograph Letters, Historical Documents, etc., The Property of the Late Mr. Frederick Barker (London: Sotheby, Wilkinson, & Hodge, 1905), p. 40). It seems very likely that the same document was offered at the 1858 and 1905 sales, but that has not been possible to verify. The date, salutation, valediction, and opening and closing lines of this letter are given in a facsimile copy in Northamptonshire Record Office, D (CA) 302, on the same sheet which reproduces a similar proportion of Letter 59, to Elizabeth Steward. On the nature and possible source of these partial facsimiles see Letter 59, n2. The Northamptonshire facsimile differs from both Saintsbury and Illustrated London News in some accidentals, and one substantive (giving ‘growth of yt country’ rather than ‘ye country’, which seems a more plausible reading). As Zwicker notes, this partially facsimiled document is not in Dryden’s hand (Zwicker, John Dryden, 841n); it is a fair copy, and the hand looks secretarial. While the most likely explanation, it has also not been possible to confirm that this partial facsimile is taken from the apograph(s) listed in the 1858 and 1905 Sotheby’s sales (or, as seems to have been the case with Letter 59, a facsimile reproduction of such an apograph): the substantive variant involves a single superscript letter and might well have been a mistranscription; the accidentals could be explained as editorial interventions (i.e. expanding ampersands to ‘and’; the normalization of Dryden’s ‘thether’ to ‘thither’, which spelling he also uses in Letters 54 and 59). Unlike with Letter 59 (see n2 below), the Sotheby’s catalogue for the 1905 sale does not contain a facsimile image. 2. Following their source, Saintsbury and Ward give the addressee as the second Duke of Ormond, but Pierre Legouis argues that the Duchess was the more likely addressee, on the basis that her descent from the Plantagenets was clearer and had already been alluded to by Dryden in his dedication to her of ‘Palamon and Arcite’ in Fables Ancient and Modern: ‘O true Plantagent! O Race Divine, | (For Beauty still is fatal to the Line,)’ (‘To Her Grace the Dutchess of Ormond’ (ll. 30–1), sig. Ar–ar (A2r); California Edition, 7.48–53 (49)) (see Pierre Legouis, ‘Dryden’s letter to “Ormond”’, Modern Language Notes, 66:2 (1951), 88–92). Lady Mary Somerset (1664/5–1733), daughter of Henry Somerset, first Duke of Beaufort, married James Butler, Earl of Ossory and later second Duke of Ormond (1665– 1745), army officer, politician, and Jacobite conspirator, on 3 August 1685 at Badminton, Gloucestershire (see Stuart Handley, ‘Butler, James, second duke of Ormond (1665–1745), army officer, politician, and Jacobite conspirator’, ODNB, 9.163–8 (164)). Fables Ancient and Modern has been seen as providing a historical mandate from this, her Plantagenet line for the Stuarts in its dedications and Dryden’s choice of works (see, for example, Winifred Ernst, John Dryden and His Readers: 1700 (New York; Abingdon: Routledge, 2020)). It is almost certain that the Duchess is the addressee, but there is no consensus on the correct interpretation of Fables Ancient and Modern by Dryden and his readers. 3. ‘The duchess sailed for Ireland 12 June 1697’ (Zwicker, John Dryden, 841n). 4. The sense that Dryden intends to convey here is of personal – though paradoxically passive – action, which is also an act of creation. This is not a nuance recorded in the OED.

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Letter 58 (The first day of winter 1698) 237

5. That is, Ireland, in a deprecating sense. The partial facsimile in Northamptonshire Record Office, D (CA) 302, reads ‘growth of yt country’ here. 6. That is, England. 7. Dryden’s first extant avowed profession of his political beliefs. 8. For ‘the conviction that England was bearing a disproportionate share of the Confederacy’s war effort’, see Rose, England in the 1690s, 118–19. However, Parliament had also already examined the matter of the Irish estates settled on the favourites of the King. Indeed, the adjective ‘present’ to describe William III as King demonstrates the confidence Dryden has in the discretion of his correspondent, the wife of the King’s representative in Ireland. 9. That is, on campaign. The description of the King ‘over the water’ was usually in reference to James II, and so there is some (inconclusive, given what Dryden has explicitly written in a deflecting manner about ‘We Jacobites’) political play on words here. 10. OED, ‘staff’ ‘n. 4. b. In the Biblical phrase to break the staff of bread (literally from Hebrew maṭṭēhˈleχem, Vulgate baculum panis), to diminish or cut off the supply of food […] c. Hence the staff of life = bread.’ 11. Richard I (called Richard Coeur de Lion, Richard the Lionheart) (1157–99) had led the Third Crusade (1189–92) until he and Saladin agreed to the Treaty of Jaffa (1192). 12. John (1167–1216), King of England, and Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, signatory of the Magna Carta on 15 June 1215. 13. ‘With characteristic irony, Dryden glances at the theme of usurpation in a country “not over famous” for political fidelity’ (Zwicker, John Dryden, 842n). 14. The source reads ‘heed’, but Saintsbury gives ‘need’, and is probably right. Interestingly, the facsimile in Northamptonshire Record Office also reads ‘heed’. Perhaps the ‘n’ in the apograph used as copy text for the Illustrated London News – or indeed in the autograph on which it was based – was oddly formed and misread.

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Letters 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, and 64

This series of letters attests to Dryden’s continuing relationships in his declining years with the Stewards of Cotterstock Hall. There is much familial transaction of gifts: books from Dryden, and food from Elizabeth Steward. The letters show the deep comfort Dryden found in his later years in his extended family.

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Letter 59 ([2 February] 1698[/9]) 239

Letter 591 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Source: Sotheby’s, Catalogue of the Famous Library of Printed Books, Illuminated Manuscripts, Autograph Letter and Engravings Collected by Henry Huth, and Since Maintained and Augmented by His Son Alfred H. Huth, Fosbury Manor, Wiltshire, eleven vols (London: Dryden Press, [1911–20]), A–B [33, No. 63]2

Candlemas-Day,3 1698[/9] Madam, Old Men are not so insensible of beauty, as it may be, you young Ladies think. For my own part, I must needs acknowledge that your fair Eyes had made me your Slave before I receivd your fine presents. your letter puts me out of doubt that they have lost nothing of their lustre, because it was written with your own hand: & \not/ heareing of a feavour or an Ague, I will please my self with the thoughts that they have wholly left you. I wou’d also also, flatter my self with the hopes, of waiting on you att Cotterstock some time Next Summer; but my want of health may perhaps hinder me. But if I am well enough, to travell as farr North=ward as Northamptonshyre, you are sure of a guest, who has been too well usd, not to trouble you again. My Sonn,4 of whom you have done me the favour to enquire, mends of his indisposition very slowly; the Ayr of England not agreeing with him hetherto, so well as that of Italy. The Bath5 is propos’d by the Doctours, both to him, and me: But we have not yet resolv’d absolutely on that Journey: for that City is so closs & so ill situated, that perhaps the Ayr may do us more harm, than the waters can do us good: for which reason, we intend to try them heer first; and if we find not the good effect, which is promisd of them, we will save our selves the pains, of goeing thether. In the mean time, betwixt ^\my intervalls/ of physique & other remedies which I am useing for my gravell,6 I am still drudgeing on: always a Poet, & never a good one. I pass my time some-times with Ovid, & sometimes with our Old English Poet, Chaucer; translateing such stories, as best please my fancy; & intend besides them to add Somewhat of my own: So that it is not impossible, but ere the Summer be passd, I may come down to you with a Volume in my hand, like a Dog out of the water, with a Duck in his Mouth.7 As for the rarities you promise \me/, if Beggars might be Choosers, a part of a Chine of honest bacon, wou’d please my Appetite better ^\more/ than all the marrow puddings:8 for I like them better plain; haveing a very vulgar stomach. My wife, & your

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240 The correspondence of John Dryden

Cousin Charles, give you their most humble service, & thanks for your remembrance of them. I present my own, to my worthy Cousin your husband; & am with all respect, Madam, Your most Obliged Servant, John Dryden. For Mrs Stewart, att Cotterstock, near Oundle, in Northamptonshyre, These. To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle.9 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXIX; Scott, Works, Letter XXXI; Ward, Letters, Letter 57. 2. The date, salutation, first three and last seven lines, and the valediction of this letter are reproduced in Northamptonshire Record Office, D (CA) 302, on the same sheet of paper as the similar reproduction of Letter 58. That reproduction was likely taken from the facsimile in the Sotheby’s catalogue used as a source here. A note in pencil on the reverse of D (CA) 302, presumably made by an archivist, reads: ‘This is a facsimile of a letter in the Huth collection from John Dryden in 1698 to Mrs Stewart. The Letter was sold at Sotheby’s 13th June 1911.’ Most duplication methods, with the exception of ­photography and tracing, would risk damaging an original document (and some risk would remain with tracing). D (CA) 302 matches the Sotheby’s facsimile very closely – too closely to be a freehand imitation – but it is not a photographic facsimile: the cleanness of those descenders which in the original interact with the line below means that these lines were picked out by hand. The comparative thinness and uniformity of the pen strokes suggest the use of a modern pen rather than a quill. The most probable duplication method used is hectographic/gelatin duplication – writing over the Sotheby’s facsimile in hectographic ink and then transferring to a gelatin plate for duplication – but tracing, wet transfer, or transfer lith­ography are also possibilities. It is unclear exactly why this kind of partial facsimile was taken, and how it ended up being kept with the Dryden family papers (on the same sheet as the similar facsimile of a partial reproduction of Letter 58), but the fact that it preserves enough of the letter to compare hands and lineation suggests that it was for the purposes of authentication (there is no danger such partial facsimiles could be passed off as genuine, and both this transcription and that of Letter 58 reproduce just ten lines of the body of each letter, indicating a systematic approach). That the letters reproduced are consecutive in the sequence of Dryden’s extant correspondence suggests the involvement of an editor of the letters, or at least a scholar interested therein. There is also an apograph of this letter held at Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, MSS 0478 [formerly Apograph George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, MS Group 112 2/12], which differs from the source text mainly in accidentals (for example, all ampersands are written out as ‘and’; and interlineations are not preserved, and some are added), but with some substantive omissions (for example, it reads ‘written with your hand’ rather than ‘written with your own hand’). The fact that the Smathers apograph preserves the asterisk following ‘your fair eyes’ which marks a note in Malone’s edition (Prose Works, 73), as well as the two em dashes found towards the end of

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Letter 59 ([2 February] 1698[/9]) 241

his transcription, suggests some relationship with that edition (there are no such dashes either in the source or in Scott; Ward preserves the second but not the first, though both are left uncorrected in Osborn’s transcription of Malone’s corrections to that letter (see Beinecke Library, Yale University, James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, pd 119, 75)). Beal, Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts, claims this is found in Bodleian Mal E 61–3, vol. I, part i [unspecified page numbers], but see notes 5 and 6 to ‘Notes on the text’ (p. xiv). 3. Candlemas Day is 2 February. 4. That is, Charles. 5. That is, a visit to the healing waters at Bath Spa, Somerset. 6. OED, ‘gravel’, ‘n., 4. Pathology. A term applied to: aggregations of urinary crystals which can be recognized as masses by the naked eye […] (also) the disease of which these are characteristic.’ 7. Dryden was then working on his last substantial volume of translations and original poems, Fables Ancient and Modern. 8. OED, ‘marrow, n.1 compounds C2 marrow-pudding n. (a) a pudding made with beef marrow’. 9. The address is not included in the Sotheby’s facsimile and is taken from Malone.

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242 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 601 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.5.

[5r] Madam Thursday, Feb: 9th -98[/9] For this time I must follow a bad Example, & send you a shorter Letter than Your Short one:2 you were hinderd by dancers; & I am forc’d to dance attendance all this Afternoon, after a trouble some business, so soon as I have written this & Seald it. Onely I can assure you that your father & mother,3 & all your Relations are in health; or were yesterday, when I sent to enquire of their welfare. On Tuesday Night, we had a violent wind, wch blew down three of my Chimneys & dismantled all one side of my House, by throwing down the tiles. My Neighbours, & indeed all the Town, sufferd more or less; & some were killd. The Great Trees in St James’s Park, are many of them torn up from the roots; as they were before Oliver Cromwells death,4 & the late Queens: but your father had no damage. I sent my Man for the present you designd me: but he returnd empty handed: for there was no such man as Carter a Carrier, Inning at the Bear, & ragged Staff at ^\in/ Smithfield.5 Nor any one there, ever heard of such a person: by which I ghess that some body deceivd you with a Count-erfeited Name. Yet my obligations are the same; & the favour shall be always Ownd, by Madam Your most humble Servant & Kinsman John Dryden. [5v] For Mrs Stewart Att Cotterstock neare Oundle, In the County of Northampton These To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXX; Scott, Works, Letter XXXII; Ward, Letters, Letter 58. 2. Now lost.

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Letter 60 (9 February 1698[/9]) 243

3. That is, John and Elizabeth Creed. 4. ‘In a small Common-place book written by Archbishop Sancroft […] is the following entry: “Sep. 3. 1658. The blustering tyrant, OLIVER, in a whirlwind left the world; dying, as he had lived, in a storm”’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.76, n6). Scott notes that in Dryden’s Heroique Stanza’s, he writes ‘And th’Isle when her protecting Genius went | Upon his Obsequies loud sighs conferr’d’ (12; California Edition, 1.16). 5. Smithfield, a market in the City of London.

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244 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 611 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward2

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, D779L, 1699 Feb. 18, pp. 2 and 3.

[2r] Madam

I have at last receivd the Chine of Bacon, you were pleasd to send me a fortnight ago; & hope to tast it tomorrow; not haveing eaten any thing that pleasd me for these last three days. But this being a meat I love, I hope it will recover my Stomack. The fair Foundress, shall be sure to be remeberd. Your side of the Country has been lucky to me this Country Winter: For besides your presents, my good Cousin Driden of Chesterton, has supply’d me often, with much kindness. I have written twice to give him my Acknowledgments: but not hearing from him am affrayd he is so oppressd with grief, for the late death, of my Cousin Benjamin his Brother, & my great friend, that he is fallen sick. In this perplexity for him, I dare not write to him a third letter,3 for feare of displeasing him, at an Unseasonable time: Divers of his friends haveing written to him, & haveing receivd no Answer, I dare not presume to send again. Nor know I any other way of heareing of his health unless I can come to the knowledge of it by your means. My Cousin your Husband,4 I know is inward with him: & if I durst, I wou’d humbly desire him and you, to send one of your Servants on purpose to Chesterton, to enquire of his Welfare; wch I were a most ungratefull man if I did not from my heart desire, & pray for. you wou’d infinitely oblige me, if with your own respects, you wou’d be pleased to add my Service, & my Sonns, who are both indebted to him for many favours. If you think I am not too impudent a Petitioner, grant this request; and give your self once more the trouble, of writeing, at your first Convenience, to Madam, Your most obligd, & most faithfull Servant, & Kinsman John Dryden. My humble respects to My Cousin Stewart.

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Letter 61 ([18 February 1698/9]) 245

[3r] For Mrs Stewart, Att Cotterstock near Oundle, in Northamptonshyre These. To be left with with the Postmaster Of Oundle

1. This letter is not in Ward. It was first published by Alan Roper, ‘Bringing home the bacon in a new Dryden letter’, Clark Library Newsletter, 5 (Fall 1983), 1–3. 2. For the dating of this letter to 18 February 1698/9, see Roper, ‘Bringing home the bacon’, 3. The letter is postmarked ‘FE | 18’. 3. The first two are lost. 4. That is, Elmes Steward.

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246 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 621 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward2

Manuscript: Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 870 (20).

[870ar] Madam

Though I have not leisure to thank you for the last trouble I gave you, yet having by me two Lampoons, lately made, I know not but they may be worth your reading; & therefore have presumd to send them:3 I know not the Authours; but the Town will be ghessing: The Ballad of the Pews, which are lately rais’d higher, at St James’s Church;4 is by some sayd to be either Mr. Manwareing, or my Lord Peterborough.5 the Poem of The Confederates some think to be Mr Walsh:6 the copyes are both likd: And there are really two factions of Ladyes, for the two Play-houses: If you do not understand the names of some persons mentiond, I can help you to the knowledge of them: You know, Sir Tho: Skipwith is master of the Playhouse in Drury Lane:7 & my Lord Scarsdale is the Patron of Betterton’s House:8 being in love, with Somebody there.9 The Lord Scott, is second sonn to the Duchess of Monmouth.10 I need not tell you, who my Lady Darent=water is,11 but it may be you know not her Lord is a poet, & none of the best:12 Forgive this hasty Billet, from Your most Oblig’d Servant JDryden. Feb. 23d. [870br] For Mrs Stewart, Att Cotterstock, near Oundle in Northamptonshyre These. To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XLIII; Scott, Works, Letter XLVI; Ward, Letters, Letter 73. 2. For the dating of this letter to 1698/9, see W. J. Cameron, ‘John Dryden and Henry Heveningham’, Notes & Queries, 202:2 (May 1957), 199–203 (203). 3. These lampoons are not included with the letter.

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Letter 62 (23 February [1698/9]) 247

4. ‘Our author’s memory here deceived him. From the ballad itself we learn, that it was the Chapel Royal at St. James’s, in which the pews were raised’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.109). 5. Charles Mordaunt, third Earl of Peterborough and first Earl of Monmouth (1658?– 1735), army officer and diplomatist. ‘Visiting the Netherlands in 1686 [Mordaunt] was apparently the first English nobleman openly to suggest to William, prince of Orange, that he succeed to the English crown’ (see John B. Hattendorf, ‘Mordaunt, Charles, third earl of Peterborough and first earl of Monmouth (1658?–1735)’, ODNB, 39.13–21 (14)). 6. Malone identified this as ‘A New Ballad, Call’d, The Brawny Bishop’s Complaint’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.110). This poem is found in the revised edition of the ‘Dryden– Tonson miscellanies’: John Dryden et al. (eds), Miscellanies: Miscellany Poems. Containing Variety of New Translations of the Ancient Poets: Together with Several Original Poems. By the Most Eminent Hands. Publish’d by Mr. Dryden, six vols (London: Jacob Tonson, 1716), 3.89–90. 7. Sir Thomas Skipwith, second Baronet (c. 1652–1710), politician and patentee of the Theatre Royal. 8. In Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 9. Robert Leke, third Earl of Scarsdale (1654–1708), a Jacobite whose infatuation with an actress the Whig Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718) would later mock in ‘Horace, Book II. Ode IV. Imitated. The Lord G –, to the Earl of S –.’ (included in The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Honourable The Late Earls of Rochester and Roscommon (London: B. Bragge, 1707), 40–2; The Plays and Poems of Nicholas Rowe, ed. Stephen Bernard, five vols (London: Pickering Masters, 2018), 4.43–5 and n77). Among other demonstrations of this political inclination, Scarsdale was one of only five peers to formally protest in the House of Lords Journal against the passing of the Act of Settlement (1701), an act which confirmed the Stuarts’ exclusion from the throne (Journals of the House of Lords, v (London: various imprints, 1509–), 16.699 (May 1701)). Malone writes that a ‘stranger’ wrote to him suggesting that this ‘somebody […] was Mrs Bracegirdle’ (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Mal 27, fol. 106). 10. Anna [Anne] Scott, Duchess of Monmouth and suo jure Duchess of Buccleuch (1651–1732), noblewoman, widow of the rebellious Duke of Monmouth, had six children by him but only Henry Scott, first Earl of Deloraine, survived childhood. It is he to whom Dryden refers (see Eirwen E. C. Nicholson, ‘Scott, Anna [Anne], duchess of Monmouth and suo jure duchess of Buccleuch (1651–1732), noblewoman’, ODNB, 49.346–7). 11. That is, Lady Mary Tudor, Countess of Derwentwater (1673–1726), illegitimate daughter of Charles II and Mary Davies. 12. Francis Radcliffe, first Earl of Derwentwater to whom Dryden had dedicated Examen Poeticum.

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248 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 631 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.6.

[6r] Madam

I have reason to be pleasd with writeing to you; because you are daily giveing me Occasions to be pleasd. The Present which you made me this week I have receivd: & it will be part of the treat I am to make to three of my friends, about Tuesday next: my Cousin Driden of Chesterton,2 haveing been also pleasd to add to it, a turkey hen with Eggs, & a good young Goose; besides a very kind letter, & the News of his own good health, which I vallue more than all the rest; He being so noble a Benefactour to a poor, & so undeserveing a Kinsman, & one of another per=suasion, in matters of Religion. Your Enquiry of his welfare, & sending also mine, have at once obligd both him and me. I hope my good Cousin Stewart3 will often visite him, especially before hunting goes out, to be a comfort to him in his Sorrow, for the loss of his deare Brother,4 who was a Most Extraordinary well Natur’d Man, & much my friend. Exercise I know is My Cousin Driden’s life; & the oftner he goes out, will be the better for his health. We poor Catholiques daily expect a most Severe Proclamation to come out against us;5 & at the same time are Satisfyed, that the King is very Unwilling to persecute us; considering us to be but an handful, & those disarmd: But the Archbishop of Canterbury is our heavy Enemy, & heavy He is indeed, in all respects.6 This Day was playd a reviv’d Comedy of Mr Congreve’s calld the Double Dealer, which was never very takeing; in the play bill was printed,– Written by Mr Congreve; with Severall Expressions omitted: what kind of Expressions those were [6v] you may easily ghess; if you have seen the Monday’s Gazette, wherein is the Kings Order, for the reformation of the Stage:7 but the printing an Authours name, in a Play bill, is a new manner of proceeding, at least in England.8 When any papers of verses, in Manuscript come out, which are worth your reading, come abroad, you shall be sure of them; because being a Poetess your self,9 you like those Entertainments. I am still drudgeing at a Book of Miscellanyes,10 which I hope will be well enough. if otherwise, threescore & seaven may be pardon’d.11 Charles12 is not yet so well recoverd as I wish him: but I may say, without vanity, that his vertue & Sobriety, have made

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Letter 63 (4 March 1698[/9]) 249

him much belov’d belov’d, in all Companies both He & his Mother give you their most humble acknowledgments of your remembring them. Be pleasd to give mine to my Cousin Stewart, who am both his, & your most Oblig’d Obedient Servant John Dryden. March the 4th. 1698[/9] You may see I was in hast, by writeing on the wrong side of the Paper.

59.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXI; Scott, Works, Letter XXXIII; Ward, Letters, Letter

2. John Driden of Chesterton the Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire from 8 April 1699 to 3 January 1708. ‘His affection for the poet’s family is partly shown by his bequest of £500 to Charles in 1707, but since Charles had predeceased him, it became a lapsed legacy’ (Ward, Letters, 182, n1). 3. That is, Elmes Steward. 4. That is, Benjamin Dryden, one of the sons of Dryden’s uncle Sir John Dryden, second Baronet. 5. ‘By the King A Proclamation’ against Roman Catholics was published in the London Gazette, 2–6 March 1698, issue no. 3475. 6. For William III’s liberal attitude towards the toleration of Catholics, see Letter 49, n16. ‘Catholics came to recognize [… that Archbishop Tenison was] a leading opponent [of them]’ (Marshall, ‘Tenison’, 110). 7. The order for the reformation of the stage, dated 18 February 1698, was printed in the London Gazette, 27–29 February 1698, issue no. 3475. Tate, the Poet Laureate, had drawn up some proposals for the reformation of the stage on 6 February (see Lambeth Palace Library, vol. 933, item 57). This reference shows the reach of the readership for the London Gazette. 8. For the use of play bills in advertising for the stage, see van Lennep et al., The London Stage, 1.lxxv–lxxvii. 9. None of Steward’s poetry survives. 10. That is, Fables Ancient and Modern. 11. Dryden’s age in 1698. 12. That is, Dryden’s son Charles.

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250 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 641 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, f D779L, [1699] July 11 to [Mrs. Stewart, Cotterstock].

[ar]

Madam

Tuesday, July the 11th.

As I cannot accuse my Self, to have receivd any Letters from you without answer, so on the other side, I am obligd to believe it, because you say it. Tis true I have had so many fitts of Sickness & so much other unpleasant business, that I may possibly have receivd those favours, & deferrd my Ack nowledgment,2 till I forgot to thank you for them.3 However it be, I cannot but Confess, that never was any Unanswering Man so Civilly reproachd by a fair Lady. I presum’d to send you word by your Sisters, of the trouble I intended you this Summer; & added a petition, that you wou’d please to order some small Beer to be brewd for me, without hops, or with a very inconsiderable quantity, because I lost my health last year, by drinking bitter beer at Tichmarsh. It may perhaps be Sour, but I like it not the worse, if is be small Enough. What els I have to request, is onely the favour of your Coach, to meet me at Oundle, & to convey me to you: of which I shall not fail to give you timely Notice. My Humble Service attends my Cousin Stewart, & your relations at Oundle.4 My wife & Sonn,5 desire the Same favour. And I am particularly, Madam, Your most Obedient Servant John Dryden. [br] For Mrs Stewart, Att Cotterstock, near Oundle, Northamptonshyre These To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXII; Scott, Works, Letter XXXIV; Ward, Letters, Letter 60. The sheet is bound unfolded in the volume at the William Andrews Clark Library.

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Letter 64 (11 July [1699]) 251

To render the layout of the text on the folded sheet clear [a] and [b] are used to indicate where on the bifolium each part is to be found. 2. ‘Acknowledgment’ runs over the line in the manuscript, but there is no hyphen. 3. Evidently not all of the Dryden–Steward correspondence survives. 4. That is, Elizabeth Steward’s parents, John and Elizabeth Creed, who lived at Cobthorne House, West Street, Oundle. This house had been the residence of William Boteler [Butler] (fl. 1645–70), Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell’s major-general for Northamptonshire (see Ivan Roots, revised, ‘Boteler [Butler], William (fl1645–1670)’, ODNB, 6.751–3 (751)). 5. That is, Charles.

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Letters 65 and 66

These two letters are a brief glimpse into a relationship between Dryden and Pepys, which went back to their time at Cambridge.1 It shows Dryden’s receptivity to suggestions from his contemporaries for what he should compose and translate, even at this late stage in his career, when one would imagine that he had the confidence to decide upon such matters for himself. 1. ‘In Covent-garden tonight, going to fetch home my wife, I stopped at the great Coffeehouse there, where I never was before – where Draydon the poet (I knew at Cambridge) and all the wits of the town, and Harris the player and Mr. Hoole of our college; and had I time then, or could at other times, it will be good to come thither, for I perceive is very witty and pleasant discourse. But I could not tarry and it was late; they were all ready to go away’ (Pepys, The Diary, 3 February 1664, 5.37).

Letters 65 and 66 253

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Figure 23. [Attributed to John Riley,] Samuel Pepys, oil on canvas (c. 1690), NPG 2100. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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254 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 651 Dryden to Samuel Pepys2

Manuscript: MS insertion in Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern, [1700], Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, PL2442.

[ar] Padron Mio3 

July the 14th. – 99.

I remember, last year, when I had the honour of dining with you, you were pleasd to recommend to Me, the Cha-racter of Chaucer’s Good Parson.4 Any desire of yours is a Command to me; And accordingly I have put it into my English, with Such Additions and alterations, as I thought fit.5 Having translated as many fables from Ovid, & as many Novells6 from Boccace, & tales from Chaucer, as will make an Indifferent large Volume in Folio, I intend them for the Press in Michaelmass Term next. In the mean time My Parson desires the favour of being known to you; & promises, if you find any fault in his Character, He will reform it; when ever you please, He shall wait on you: & for the safer Conveyance, I will carry him in my pocket, who am My Padrons7 most Obedient Servant John Dryden. [av] For Samuel Pepys Esq, Att his House In York-street These.

61.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXIII; Scott, Works, Letter XXXV; Ward, Letters, Letter

2. Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), naval official and diarist. By the 1690s Pepys was retired. In this decade he published his only book to come out in his lifetime: Memoires Relating to the State of the Royal Navy of England, for Ten Years, Determin’d December 1688 (London: Rich. Chiswell, 1690); repr. and ed. J. R. Tanner (Oxford: [s.n.], 1906). 3. ‘My master’. 4. ‘The Character of a Good Parson, Imitated from Chaucer, and Inlarg’d’, in Fables Ancient and Modern (531–6; California Edition, 7.506–10). 5. Dryden’s translations included: from Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale (Palamon and Arcite) (1–23; California Edition, 7.54–195), The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (The Cock and the Fox) (611–23; California Edition, 7.286–335), The Wife of Bath’s Tale (479–99; California Edition, 7.450–83), The Flower and the Leaf (383–405; California Edition, 7.364–405),

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Letter 65 (14 July 1699) 255

and ‘The Character of a Good Parson, Imitated from Chaucer, and Inlarg’d’; from Ovid’s Metamorphosis: ‘Meleager and Atalanta’ (Book VIII) (105–20; California Edition, 7.203– 15), ‘Baucis and Philemon’ (Book VIII) (155–62; California Edition, 7.238–43), ‘Ceyx and Alcyone’ (Book IX) (361–79; California Edition, 7.349–63), the whole of Book XII (419–49; California Edition, 7.406–31), ‘Ajax and Ulysses’ (Book XIII) (453–75; California Edition, 7.432–49), ‘On the Pythagorean Philosophy’ (Book XV) (503–30; California Edition, 7.484– 505); from Boccaccio’s Decameron: Sigismonda and Guiscardo (123–51; California Edition, 7.216–37), Theodore and Honaria (257–360; California Edition, 7.336–48), and Cymon and Iphigenia (451–64; California Edition, 7.513–32). 6. OED, ‘novel’, ‘n., 4. Any of a number of tales or stories making up a larger work; a short narrative of this type, a fable. Usually in plural. Now historical. Examples include the Decameron of Boccaccio.’ 7. OED, ‘padrone, n., A master, employer, patron, or proprietor.’

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256 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 661 Samuel Pepys to Dryden

Manuscript: MS insertion in Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern, [1700], Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, PL2442.

[av]  Sr,

Friday July. 14. 1699.

You truly have oblig’d mee; and possibly in say-ing soe, I am more in earnest then you can readily thinke; as verily hopeing from this yo.ur Copy of one good Parson, to fancy some amends made mee for the hourly offence I beare with, from ye sight of soe many lewd Originalls.2 I shall with great pleasure attend you on this occasion, when e’re you’l permitt it; unlesse you could have the kindnesse to double it to mee, by suffering my Coach to wayte on you (& who ^\you/ can gayne mee ye same favour from) hither, to a Cold Chicken & a Sallade, any Noone after Sun-day, as being just stepping into ye Ayre for 2 Days. I am most respectfully, Your. honord. & obednt. Servt. S.P. 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXIII; Scott, Works, Letter XXXVI; Ward, Letters, Letter 62. 2. That is, his contemporaries. Pepys may be using ‘lewd’ in the by then uncommon sense of ‘lay’ (see OED, ‘lewd, adj.’ †1) or mean simply to condemn contemporary clergymen (OED, ‘lewd, adj.’ †5. ‘Of persons, their actions, etc.: Bad, vile, evil, wicked, base; un­principled, ill-conditioned; good-for-nothing, worthless, “naughty”’).

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Letters 67 and 68

In these letters, along with Letters, 70 and 71, 74 and 75, and 77 and 78, Dryden further expresses his fondness for his cousin Elizabeth Steward and discusses both his own affairs and those of their common relations; he also discusses political affairs and literary matters. This was apparently the third most sustained relationship that Dryden had with a woman in his life.1 1. After his wife, Lady Elizabeth Dryden (for whom, see Winn, John Dryden, 102, 119–20, 125–8, 158–9, 168–9, 171, 181, 186, 192–3, 204, 208, 219, 234, 241, 268, 279–82, 284, 315, 321, 336, 346–8, 355, 363, 371, 373, 385, 415, 434, 452–53, 473, 475, and 525–31), and his mistress, Anne Reeves (about whom, see Winn, John Dryden, 212–13, 218–19, 231, 236–7, 253, 260, 271, 280–2, 284, 391, 402, and 532–9).

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258 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 671 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, f D779L, 1699 Aug. 5 to [Mrs. Stewart, Cotterstock].

[recto] Madam This is onely a word, to threaten you with a troublesome guest next week: I have taken places for my Self & my Sonn2 in the Oundle Coach; which sets out on Thursday next, the tenth of this present August: & hope [MS deletion] to wait on a fair Lady3 at Cotterstock, on Friday the Eleventh. If you please to let your coach come to Oundle, I shall save my Cousine Creed4 the trouble of hers. All heer are your most humble Servants, & particularly an Old Cripple, who calls him self, Your most Obliged Kinsman & Admirer, John Dryden. Saturday Aug: 5th. 1699. [verso] For Mrs Stewart Att Cotterstock, near Oundle In Northamptonsh: These To be left, with the Postmaster of Oundle.

63.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXIV; Scott, Works, Letter XXXVII; Ward, Letters, Letter

2. That is, Charles. 3. That is, Elizabeth Creed. 4. ‘Our author, in addressing his female relations, generally writes Cousine, following the French mode’ (Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.67, n6). Here Dryden refers to his aunt Elizabeth Creed.

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Letter 68 (28 September 1699) 259

Letter 681 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.8.

[8ar] Madam

Your goodness to me will make you sollicitous of my welfare since I left Cotterstock. My Journey has in general, been as happy, as it cou’d be, without the satisfaction & honour of your Company. Tis true the Master of the Stage Coach, has not been over civill to me: for he turnd us out of the Road, at the first stop, & made us go to Pilton;2 there we took a fair young Lady of Eighteen & her Brother a young Gentleman; they were related to the Treshams,3 but not of that Name: thence we drove to Higham, where we had an old Serving woman, & a young fine Mayd: we din’d at Bletso, & lay at Silso, six miles beyond Bedford. there we put out the old woman, & took in Coucellour Jennings his Daughter;4 Her father goeing along in the Kettering Coach, or rideing by it, with other Company: We all din’d at Hatfield together; & came to Town safe, at 7 in the Evening. We had a young Doctour, who rode by our Coach, & seemd to have a smicke-ring5 to our young Lady of Pilton & ever rode before to get dinner in a readiness: My Sonn Charles knew him formerly a Jaco bite; & now goeing over to Antigoo,6 with Colonel Codrington,7 haveing been formerly in the West Indies. Which of our two Young Ladies was the handsomer I know not. My Sonn likd the Councellours daughter best: I thought they were both equall. But, not goeing by Tichmarsh Grove, & afterwards by Catworth, I missd my two Couple of Rabbetts, which my [8av] Cousin your father8 had given me to carry with me; & cou’d not see my Sister9 by the way: I was likewise dissappointed of Mr Cole’s Ribadavia wine:10 but I am almost resolvd to sue the Stage Coach; for putting me six or seaven miles out of the way; wch He cannot justify. Be pleasd to accept my acknow-ledgment of all your favours, & my Cousin Stuarts;11 & by employing my Sonn & me in any thing you desire to have done, give us occasion to take our Revenge on our kind relations both at Oundle & Cotterstock. Be pleas’d, your father, your Mother, your two fair Sisters & your Brother may find my Sonns Service, & mine, made acceptable to them by your

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260 The correspondence of John Dryden

delivery, and believe me, to be, with all manner of gratitude, (give me leave to add all manner of [MS deletion] Adoration,) Madam Your most Obliged, Obedient Servant John Dryden. Sept: 28th 99. [8br is blank] [8bv] For Mrs Stuart, Att Cotterstock, near Oundle In Northton shyre, These. To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXV; Scott, Works, Letter XXXVIII; Ward, Letters, Letter 64. 2. Pilton is just over three miles south-west of Oundle and the seat of the Treshams. 3. That is, the family of George Tresham (see Letter 6, n5). 4. Unidentified. 5. OED, ‘smickering, n.’ ‘Obs. an amorous inclination’. 6. That is, Antigua, an island in the British West Indies and the residence of the Governor of the Leeward Islands. 7. Col. Christopher Codrington (1668–1710), colonial governor, plantation owner, and benefactor. His wealth derived largely from the profits from sugar plantations on Antigua, Barbados, and from the lease of Barbuda, integral components of the trans­ atlantic slave-based economy. In 1690 he was elected a fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and was a friend of many prominent Oxford wits, including Joseph Addison, Charles Boyle, and Creech. He served with distinction under William III, especially at the Siege of Namur in 1695. That year he stood in the election for the university seat and delivered the oration when the King visited Oxford on 5 November – the anniversary of his landing at Torbay – but rejoined his company in April 1696. Soon after returning to London in July 1698 Codrington learned of the death of his father and secured his own appointment as Governor-General of the Leeward Islands in May 1699. He composed laudatory verses for his friend Garth’s The Dispensary: A Poem (London: John Nutt, 1699) and organized the publication of [Thomas Brown’s compilation] Commendatory Verses, on the Author of the Two Arthurs, and the Satyr Against Wit. By Some of His Particular Friends (London: [s.n.], 1700), which defended Garth and other friends from the attacks of Blackmore (see Scott Mandelbrote, ‘Codrington, Christopher (1668–1710), colonial governor and benefactor’, ODNB, 12.383–4). For an account of Codrington’s life and career, see Vincent T. Harlow, Christopher Codrington, 1668–1710 (London: Hurst, 1990).

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Letter 68 (28 September 1699) 261

8. That is, John Creed. 9. Dryden’s second sister, Rose, had married the Reverend Dr John Laughton, vicar of Catworth, Northamptonshire. 10. OED, ‘Ribadavia, n.’ ‘A type of wine produced in Ribadavia in the Galicia region of Spain’. Cole is unidentified. 11. That is, Elmes Steward.

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Letter 69

Dryden’s letter to Charles Montagu must attest to a longstanding relationship with one of ‘Lord Dorset’s Boys’, as they start in mediis rebus. Dryden discusses his verses addressed to his cousin ‘John Driden of Chesterton’, which Montagu had evidently seen. Dryden may have thought the opening lines on retirement suitable reading for one in Montagu’s position and offered his cousin’s modus vivendi as an example for the statesman to follow.

Letter 69 ([October 1699?]) 263

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Figure 24. Sir Godfrey Kneller, Charles Montagu, first Earl of Halifax, oil on canvas (c. 1690–5), NPG 800. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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264 The correspondence of John Dryden

Letter 691 Dryden to the Right Honourable Charles Montagu2

Manuscript: British Library, Add. MSS 12112, fol. 1.

[1r] Sir These Verses3 had waited on you, with the former; but they wanted that Correction, which I have since given them, that they ^\may/ the better endure the Sight of so great a Judge & Poet. I am now in feare that I have purgd them out of their Spirit; as our Master Busby, usd to whip a Boy so long, till he made him a Confirmd Blockhead. My Cousin Driden saw them in the Country; & the greatest Exception He made to them, was a Satire against the Dutch valour, in the late Warr.4 He desir’d me to omit it, (to use his Own words) out of the respect He had to his Soveraign.5 I obeyd his Commands; & left onely the praises, which I think are due to the gallantry of my own Countrymen. In the description which I have made of a Parliament Man,6 I think I have not onely drawn the features of my worthy Kinsman, but have also given my Own Opinion, of what an Englishman in Parliament oughto be; & deliver it as a Memorial of my own Principles to all Posterity. I have consulted the Judgment of my Unbyassd friends, who have some of them the honour to be known to you; & they think there is nothing which can justly give offence, in that part of the Poem. I say not this, to cast a blind to your Judgment (which I cou’d not do, if I indeavourd it) but to assure you, that nothing relateing to the publique shall stand, without your permission. For it were to want Common Sence, to desire your patronage, & resolve to disoblige you: And ^\as/ I will not hazard my hopes of your protection by refusing to obey you in any thing, which I can perform with my Conscience, or my honour; So I am very confident you will never impose any other terms on Me. My thoughts at present are fixd on Homer: And by my translation of the first Iliad;7 I find him a Poet more according to my Genius than Virgil: and Consequent-ly hope I may do him more justice, in his fiery way of writeing; which as it is liable to more faults, so it is capable of more beauties, than the exactness, & sobriety of Virgil. Since ’tis for my Country’s honour as well as for my own,8 that I am willing to

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Letter 69 ([October 1699?]) 265

undertake this task; I despair not of being encouragd in it, by your favour who am Sir Your most Obedient Servant John Dryden. [1v] From Mr Dryden. The above is the handwriting of Charles Montague, afterwards Earl of Halliaxe Halifaxe E Malone. 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXVI; Scott, Works, Letter XXXIX; Ward, Letters, Letter 65. ‘Although undated, it was probably written, as Malone suggested, in October, 1699’ (Ward, Letters, 184, headnote). 2. Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax (1661–1715), politician, was one of ‘Lord Dorset’s Boys’ (see Letter 22, headnote, n1). He was at the heart of the Treasury when the legislation founding the Bank of England was devised in the 1693–4 parliamentary session and in May 1694 was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer and sworn a Privy Councillor. On 1 May 1697 he became First Lord of the Treasury. At the end of 1699 he relinquished the Chancellorship, but remained First Lord and was named in June 1699 as a lord justice. With a potentially troubled session ahead, on 15 November 1699, on the eve of Parliament’s reassembly, he retired from the Treasury altogether. In December 1699 Joseph Addison had written to Montagu of his Continental fame, in which ‘your name comes in upon the most difficult subjects, if we speak of the men of wit or the men of business, of poets or patrons, politicians or parliament men’ (Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941), 12–13). However, in politics at least Montagu was no longer pre-eminent in the Commons and on 13 December 1700 he was created Baron Halifax. Dryden thus writes to him in his descent from power (see Stuart Handley, ‘Montagu, Charles, earl of Halifax (1661–1715), politician’, ODNB, 38.691–6 (693–4)). 3. That is, ‘To My Honour’d Kinsman, John Driden of Chesterton’. 4. See ‘To My Honour’d Kinsman, John Driden of Chesterton’ (ll. 127–79), which deal with ‘the public need for continued surcease from war. Thus we hear the notes of Driden’s ancestry and generosity struck once more, and the note of peace, the two latter now ringing out beyond Chesterton to the whole of England as generosity will ring out in the [next] section. War, we are told, is simply too expensive. We might expect Dryden to approach the matter of expense from the point of view of one overtaxed landholder speaking to another, but instead he takes a trademan’s view of peace’ (California Edition, 7.661). 5. That is, William III. 6. That is, a Member of Parliament. 7. Published in Fables Ancient and Modern (189–219; California Edition, 7.260–85). 8. Dryden refers here to the reception of The Works of Virgil of two years earlier, which had been judged to be a national achievement.

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Letters 70 and 71

See headnote to Letters 67 and 68.

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Letter 70 ([October 1699]) 267

Letter 701 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.9.

Madam I pretend not to write to you: if I did, I should not have borrowd a corner in my Sonns letter: But even then, I shou’d have filld my paper, before I had emptyd my thoughts, for I can never express with words how much your undeservd favours have wonn on me: Dr Radclyff2 calls Northamptonshyre a Shineing Country: I doubt not but he means for Hospitality; & yet He has never been at Cotterstock: The two young Gentlemen, who sayd they were almost stervd with you, had better fortune than I found, who can complain of nothing but too much, & a variety of daintyes. But you it seems, were spareing to them of your company, which had certainly been thrown away upon them: that I confess, I had, & that onely I can never surfeit. who am, with all manner of respect and gratitude Madam Your most Obligd Kinsman and most Obedient Servant John Dryden. Be pleasd to give my ^\humble/ most service to my Cousin Steward,3 his Sister,4 & all your little fair family. 1. Bell, Poetical Works, 1.80–1; Ward, Letters, Letter 66. It is written by Dryden, but a later hand has written on it in pencil ‘Oct. 1699’. It is written on the reverse of Charles Dryden’s letter to Elizabeth Steward: ‘Madam. | I have been so sensible of the loss of your charming conversation ever since my departure, that I assure you in all my travells I never left any place with more reluctance than Cotterstock, and never found any satisfaction equall to what I enjoyd there. I have enclosd the papers which you were plesd to lend me and have read them with extream pleasure, as I should receive any thing which comes from your fair hands. I heartily hope this may find you in better health, for as I am infinitely obligd, so nobody can wish your happiness in all respects more than my selfe. With my most humble service to my cousin Steward for all his favours I am, Madam, | your most obedient humble servant | Charles Dryden.’ 2. Dr John Radcliffe (bap. 1650, d. 1714), physician and philanthropist, had been physician to the Stuart courts. Even though William III appointed his countryman, Bidloo [Govert Bidloo or Govard Bidloo (1649–1713), physician, anatomist, poet, and playwright], as his chief physician, Radcliffe’s court practice continued to prosper after the departure of James II. When two of William’s foreign attendants, William Bentinck, afterwards Earl of Portland, and William Zulestein, Earl of Rochford, became seriously ill and recovered after

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268 The correspondence of John Dryden

Radcliffe’s ministrations, William rewarded him with 500 guineas and an appointment as one of his physicians at a salary of £200 per annum. Aware that William’s tenure was new and, perhaps, not secure, Radcliffe declined the appointment. Nonetheless, he continued to be called to court and stated that he received £600 per year for the period 1688–99 from the King alone (see Robert L. Mertenson, ‘Radcliffe, John (bap. 1650, d. 1714), physician and philanthropist’, ODNB, 45.740–3 (741–2)). For an account of Radcliffe’s life and career, see Campbell Richard Hone, The Life of Dr. John Radcliffe, 1652–1714, Benefactor of the University of Oxford (London: Faber and Faber, 1950), and David Cranston and Valerie Petts, John Radcliffe and His Legacy to Oxford (Bicester: Words by Design, 2013). 3. That is, Elmes Steward. 4. Unidentified.

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Letter 71 (7 November [1699]) 269

Letter 711 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.10.

[10ar] Madam

Even your Expostulations2 are pleasing to me: for though they shew you angry; yet they are not without many expressions of your kindness: & therefore I am proud to be so chidden. Yet I cannot so farr abandon my own defence, as to confess any idle-ness or forgetfulness on my part. What has hindred me from writeing to you, was neither ill health nor a worse thing ingratitude, but a flood of little businesses, which yet are necessary to my Subsistance, & of which I hopd to have given you a good account before this time; but the Court rather speaks kindly of me, than does any thing for me, though they promise largely: & perhaps they think I will advance, as they go backward: in which they will be much deceivd: for I can never go an Inch beyond my Conscience & my Honour.3 If they will consider me as a Man, who have done my best to improve the Language, & Especially the Poetry, & will be content with my acquiescence under the present Government, & forbearing Satire on it,4 that I can promise, because I can perform it: but I can neither take the Oaths, nor forsake my Religion, because I know not what Church to go to, if I leave the Catholique; they are all so divided amongst them selves in matters of faith, necessary to Salvation: & yet all assumeing the name of Protestants. May God be pleasd to open your Eyes, as he has opend mine:5 Truth is but one; & they who have once heard of it, can plead no Excuse, if they do not embrace it. But these things are too serious, for a trifling Letter. – If you desire to heare any thing more of my Affairs, The Earl of Dorsett, & your Cousin Montague,6 have both seen the two Poems, to the Duchess of Ormond, & my worthy Cousin Driden: And are of Opinion that I [10av] never writt better. My other friends, are divided in their Judgments which to preferr: but the greater part are for those to my dear Kinsman; which I have Corrected with so much care, that they will now be worthy of his Sight: & do neither of us any dishonor after our death. There is this day to be acted a New tragedy, made by Mr Hopkins; & as I believe in rhime. He has formerly written a play in verse calld Boadicea, which you fair Ladyes likd: & is a poet who writes good verses without knowing how, or why; I meane, he writes

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270 The correspondence of John Dryden

naturally well, without art or learning, or good Sence.7 Congreve is ill of the Gout at Barnet Wells: I have had the honour of a visite from the Earl of Dorsett, & din’d with him. Matters in Scotland, are in a high ferment; & next door to a breach betwixt the two Nations:8 But they say from Court, that France & we are are hand & glove. tis thought the King, will endeavour to keep up a standing Army;9 & make the stirrs in Scot land his pretence for it: My Cousin Driden, & the Country Party I suppose will be against it: for when a Spirit is raisd, ’tis hard conjureing him down again. You may see I am dull, by my writeing news: but it may be My Cousin Creed10 may be glad to hear what I believe is true, though not very pleasing: I hope He recovers health in the Country, by his staying so long in it. My Service to my Cousin Stuart;11 & all at Oundle. I am, faire Cousine Your most Obedient Servant John Dryden. Nov: 7th. [10bv] For Mrs Stuart, Att Cotterstock, near Oundle In Northamptonshyre These. To be left At the posthouse In Oundle: 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXVII; Scott, Works, Letter XL; Ward, Letters, Letter 67. 2. OED, ‘expostulation, n., 1. The action of expostulating or remonstrating in a friendly manner; earnest and kindly protest.’ This letter is now lost and with it the context. 3. Dryden never received any preferment from the Williamite court, but it may be that Dorset, Montagu, and others solicited on his behalf. 4. According to the wishes of his cousin John Driden of Chesterton (see Letter 69, n4), whom Dryden describes in ‘To My Honour’d Kinsman, John Driden of Chesterton’ as ‘studying Peace, and shunning Civil Rage’ (line 3, Fables Ancient and Modern, 93; California Edition, 7.196. 5. This is proof that Elizabeth Steward was not a Roman Catholic. 6. That is, Charles Montagu, first Earl of Halifax (see Letter 69, n2). 7. Charles Hopkins (1664?–1700?), Boadicea Queen of Britain. A Tragedy (London: Jacob Tonson, 1697), and Friendship Improv’d, Or, The Female Warriour (London: Jacob Tonson, 1700). 8. For William III’s Revolution settlement in Scotland, see Tim Harris, Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720 (London: Allen Lane, 2006) 409–21 and

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Letter 71 (7 November [1699]) 271

487. The ‘high ferment’ was the fate of the Scottish colony at Darien: on 25 March 1699 ‘Mr Alexander Hamilton, a messenger from the other side of the Atlantic, was called into the chamber [of the board of directors of the Company of Scotland] and “very joyously” received. He was the bearer of intoxicating news: the Company of Scotland had achieved its aims of establishing a colony at Darien on the isthmus of Central America. At last Scotland could think of itself as an imperial power’ (Douglas Watt, The Price of Scotland: Darien, Union, and the Wealth of Nations (Edinburgh: Luath, 2007), 13. William III initially opposed subscriptions to the Company of Scotland but this was ‘considered to be the fault of the English rather than of the King [who] was described as showing his favour to the scheme’ (Helen J. Paul, The Darien Scheme and Anglophobia in Scotland (Southampton: School of Social Sciences, Economics Division, University of Southampton, 2009), 10). For the fate of this attempt at colonization, see Watt, The Price of Scotland, 1–205. 9. ‘As if to underline William’s failure, his plans to keep up a large English army to threaten and contain Louis were thwarted by a war-weary Westminster parliament in the two years after the peace. Arguing that a standing army was a drain on national resources and a threat to English liberties, MPs used their powers to cut the forces to 7000 men by the end of 1699 – far too small a figure to impress foreign powers’ (see Tony Claydon, ‘William III and II (1650–1702), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and prince of Orange’, ODNB, 59.73–98 (86)). 10. That is, John Creed. 11. That is, Elmes Steward.

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Letters 72 and 73

Dryden here, along with Letter 76, famously encourages the young woman poet Elizabeth Thomas in her studies of English literature and literature in translation, whilst offering some critical assessments of his own. Dryden had few women correspondents so far as we can tell from the extant letters. That two of these three exist only in printed form is therefore significant. Thomas gained notoriety in Dryden studies for her account of Dryden’s death and burial written thirty years later. The publication of The Nine Muses, or Poems Written by Nine Several Ladies Upon the Death of the Late Famous John Dryden, Esq (London: Richard Basset, 1700) is notable for its public demonstration of Dryden’s reception among women writers.

Letters 72 and 73 273

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Figure 25. Giles King, Elizabeth Thomas, line engraving (c. 1730s), NPG D40745. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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274 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 721 Dryden to Elizabeth Thomas2

Source: Miscellanea in Two Volumes, two vols (London: [s.n.], 1727 [1726]), 1.149–51.

[149] Madam,

THE Letter you were pleased to direct for me, to be left at the Coffee-house3 last Summer, was a great Honour; and your Verses were, I thought, too good to be a *Woman’s; some of my Friends to whom I read them were of the same Opinion. ’Tis not over gallant, I must con-fess, to say this of the fair Sex; but most cer-tain it is, that they generally write with more Softness than Strength. On the contrary, you want neither Vigour in your Thoughts, nor force in your Expressions, nor Harmony in your Numbers, and methinks I find too much of Orinda‡4 in your Manner (to whom I had the Honour to be related, and also to be known.) But I continued not a Day in the Ignorance of the Person to whom I was ob-liged; for, if you remember, you brought the [150] Verses to a Bookseller’s Shop, and enquired there, how they might be sent to me. There happened to be in the same Shop a Gentle-man, who hearing you speak of me, and see-ing a Paper in your Hand, imagined it was a Libel against me, and had you watched by his Servant, till he knew both your Name, and where you lived, of which he sent me word immediately. Tho’ I have lost his Letter, yet I remember you live some where about St. *Giles’s, and are an only Daughter. You must have passed your Time in Reading much better Books than mine; or otherwise you could not have arrived at so much Knowledge as I find you have. But whether Sylph or Nymph I know not; Those fine Creatures, as your Authour Count Gabalis‡ assures us have a mind to be christened, and since you do me the Favour to desire a Name from me, take that of Corinna if you please; I mean not the Lady with whom Ovid was in Love, but the famous Theban Poetess, who overcame Pindar five Times, as Historians tell us.5 I wou’d have call’d you Sapho, but that I hear you are handsomer. Since you find I am not altogether a Stranger to you, be pleased to make me happier by a better Knowledge [151] of you; and instead of so many unjust Praises which you give me, think me only worthy of being, Madam,

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Letter 72 ([November 1699?]) 275



Your most humble Servant



and Admirer,



John Dryden.

* A Pastoral, hereafter mentioned. ‡ The celebrated Mrs. Katherine Phillips. * Corinna then lived in Dyott-Street, in St. Giles’s in the Fields, as did also Mr. Dryden in the same Parish. ‡ A new Translation of the entertaining History of the Count de GABALIS,6 has been lately printed by E. Curll7 in the Strand. Price 1s. 6d.

68.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXVIII; Scott, Works, Letter XLI; Ward, Letters, Letter

2. Elizabeth Thomas (1675–1731), poet. Thomas’s earliest ‘claim to fame’ was receiving her pen-name, Corinna, from Dryden, with whom she shared a brief correspondence in the last year of his life. She had several literary and material friendships with well-known men and women of her day, including the writer Mary, Lady Chudleigh. As a gentlewoman who could not always afford to live as one, Thomas used her talent as a writer to obtain patronage from friends and family, which often came in the forms of cash gifts, extended visits, and books (see Rebecca Mills, ‘Thomas, Elizabeth (1675–1731), poet’, ODNB, 54.314–15 (314)). ‘Nearly thirty years later [than this letter, written in the last year of Dryden’s life] she provided the bookseller [Edmund] Curll with a very faulty account of Dryden’s death and funeral, which was published in Curll’s [Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Amours of William Congreve Esq; Interspersed with Miscellaneous Essays, Letters, and Characters, Written by Him. Also Some Very Curious Memoirs of Mr. Dryden and his Family, With a Character of Him and His writings, by Mr. Congreve. Compiled from their Respective Originals, By Charles Wilson Esq, four pts (London: E. Curll, 1730)]. Her story was generally accepted until Malone discredited a great of her testimony. [See Malone, Prose Works, 1.1.347–82]’ (Ward, Letters, 186, headnote). 3. That is, Will’s coffee house. 4. Katherine Philips (née Fowler) (1632–64), poet. As a poet, Philips is best known for poems on the theme of friendship, and for the establishment of a ‘society of friendship’ among her close associates, to whom she assigned coterie names. Her two closest friends, Anne Owen (1633–92) and Mary Aubrey (dates unknown), were Lucasia and Rosania, while she herself was Orinda (see Warren Chernaik, ‘Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632–1664), poet’, ODNB, 44.59–63 (60)). For an account of the life and writings of Philips, see Paula Loscocco, Betty Travitsky, and Anne Prescott, Katherine Philips (1632– 1664) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 5. Corinna (or Korinna) was an ancient Greek poet, traditionally attributed to the sixth century bc. According to ancient sources such as Plutarch and Pausanias, she came from Tanagra in Boeotia, where she was a teacher and rival to the better-known Theban poet Pindar.

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276 The correspondence of John Dryden

6. This posthumously published letter refers to Nicolas-Pierre-Henri, Abbé de Montfaucon de Villars, Le comte de Gabalis (Paris: Barbin, 1670), which had been published in translation as The Count de Gabalis: Being a Diverting History of the Rosicrucian Doctrine of Spirits, viz. Sylphs, Salamanders, Gnomes, and Dæmons (London: Printed for B. Lintott and E. Curll, 1714) and is the Rosicrucian text to which Pope refers that year in his dedica­ tion to Arabella Fermor of the Rape of the Lock (London: Printed for Bernard Lintott, 1714), sig. A3v–A4r. 7. For an account of Curll’s dealings with Thomas, see Baines and Rogers, Edmund Curll, 214.

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Letter 73 ([November 1699?]) 277



Letter 731 Dryden to Elizabeth Thomas

Manuscript: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Rawl Letters 90, fol. 54r.

Madam, The great desire which I observe in you to write well; & those good parts which God Almighty & Nature have bestowd on you, make me not to doubt that by Application to Study, & the reading of the best Authours, you may be absolute Mistress of poetry. Tis an Unprofitable Art, to those who profess it; but you, who write onely for your diversion, may pass your Houres with pleasure in it, & without prejudice [MS deletion] always avoiding, (as I know you will,) the licenses which Mrs Behn2 allowd her self: of writing loosly; & giveing (if I may have leave to say so) some Scandal to the modesty of her Sex. I confess, I am the last Man who ought, in justice, to arraign her, who have been my self, too much a Libertine, in most of my Poems; which I shou’d be well contented, I had either Time to purge, or to see them fairly burnd.3 But this I need not say to you, who are too well born, & too well principled, to fall into that Mire. In the mean Time, I wou’d advise you, not to trust too much to Virgil’s Pastorals;4 for as Excellent as they are, yet Theocritus5 is fair before him, both in Softness of Thought, & Simplicity of Expression. Mr Creech has translated that Greek Poet, which I have not read in English.6 If you have any considerable faults, they consist chiefly in the choice of words, & the placeing them so as to make the Verse run smoothly. But I am at present, so taken up with my own Studies; that I have not the Leisure, to descend to particulars; being in the mean time the fair Corinnas Most Humble & most Faithfull Servant, John Dryden. P.S. I keep your two Copies till you want them [and are pleased to sen]d for them.

69.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XXXIX; Scott, Works, Letter XLII; Ward, Letters, Letter

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278 The correspondence of John Dryden

2. That is, Aphra Behn. 3. Dryden addresses this in the Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern: ‘I have pleaded Guilty to all Thoughts and Expressions of mine, which can be truly argu’d of Obscenity, Profaneness, or Immorality; and retract them’ (unnumbered page; California Edition, 7.46). 4. Dryden had translated these in The Works of Virgil (1–48). 5. In Sylvæ Dryden had translated ‘Idyllium the 18th. The Epithalmium of Helen and Melelous’, ‘Idyllium the 23rd, The Despairing Lover’ and ‘Daphnis. From Theocritus Idyll. 27’ (100–6, California Edition, 3.66–9; 107–33, California Edition 3.69–72; and 114–23, California Edition, 3.73–7). 6. Thomas Creech (transl.), The Idylliums of Theocritus with Rapin’s Discourse of Pastorals Done into English (Oxford: Anthony Stephens, 1684). Theocritus (c. 300–260 bc) was a poet, most famous for these Greek pastoral works.

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Letters 74 and 75

See headnote to Letters 67 and 68.

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280 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 741 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.11.

[11br] 

Saturday Nov: 26th [Written in another hand] 1699

After long Expectation, Madam, at length your happy letter2 came, to your Servant, who almost despaird of it: The onely comfort I had, was my hopes of seeing you; & that you deferrd writeing, because you wou’d Surprise me with your presence, & beare your Relations Company to Town. Your Neighbour Mr Price,3 has given me an Apprehension, that My Cousin your father4 is in some danger, of being made Sheriff this following yeare; but I hope tis a Jealousy without ground: And that the warm Season onely keeps him in the Country. If you come up next Week, you will be entertaind with a New Tragedy; which the Author of it, one Mr Dennis, cryes up at an Excessive rate, & Colonel Codrington,5 who has seen it, prepares the world to give it loud Applauses. Tis calld Iphigenia, & Imita-tated from Eurypides an Old Greek poet. This is to be acted at Betterton’s House & another play of the same name, is very shortly to come on the stage in Drury Lane.6 I was lately to visite the Duches of Norfolk;7 & she speaks of you with much Affection, & Respect. Your Cousin Montague, after this present Session of Parliament, will be created Earl of Bristoll:8 &, I hope, is much my friend: But I doubt I am in no Condition of haveing a kind-ness done me; Haveing the Chancellour my Enemy.9 And not being capable of renounceing the Cause, for which I have so long Sufferd.10 My Cousin Driden of Chesterton is in Town, & lodges with my Brother11 in Westminster. My Sonn has seen him, & was very kindly receivd by him. Let this Letter stand for nothing, because it has nothing [MS deletion] but news in it; & has so little of the main business, wch is to assure my fair Cousine, how much I am her Admirer, & her most devoted Servant, John Dryden. [11bv] I write no Recommendations of Service to our friends at Oundle, because I suppose they are leaveing that place. But I wish my Cousin Stuart12 a Boy, as like Miss Jem:13 as He & you can make him. My wife and Sonn,14 are never forgetfull of their Acknowledg-ments to you both.

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Letter 74 (26 November [1699]) 281

[11ar] For Mrs Stuart, Att Cotterstock near Oundle In the County of Northton These To be left at the Post House In Oundle.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XL; Scott, Works, Letter XLIII; Ward, Letters, Letter 70. 2. Now lost. 3. Unidentified. 4. That is, John Creed. 5. Christopher Codrington (see Letter 68, n7) wrote an wrote an epilogue for John Dennis’s Iphigenia. A Tragedy (London: Richard Parker, 1700). 6. Dryden refers to Racine’s Iphigénie. Tragedie (Paris: Claude Barbin, 1675), which was performed and published as Achilles, Or, Iphigenia in Aulis, transl. Abel Bowyer [sic] (London: Thomas Bennet, 1700). 7. Mary Howard (née Mordaunt), Duchess of Norfolk (c. 1659–1705), noblewoman, was estranged from her husband and lived on her estate, Lowick, Northamptonshire. She had been compelled to convert to Roman Catholicism when her husband had confined her to a convent in France in 1685. In 1696, she had been called to testify before the House of Lords in the attainder of Fenwick. She was sensationally divorced on his third attempt by Henry Howard, seventh Duke of Norfolk (1655–1701), by an Act of Parliament, shortly before Dryden died. 8. In fact, Charles Montagu was created Earl of Halifax. However, in 1695 the Whig MP John Hervey (1665–1751) married Elizabeth Felton, his second wife, the daughter of Elizabeth Howard (1676–1741), daughter and co-heir of James Howard, third Earl of Suffolk (1606/7–1688), a cousin of Dryden and therefore a kinswoman of Steward. Hervey was created Earl of Bristol in 1714 at the Hanoverian succession (see Philip Carter, ‘Hervey, John, first earl of Bristol (1665–1741), politician and landowner’, ODNB, 26.861–2). 9. John Somers, Baron Somers (1651–1716), jurist and drafter of the Act of Union (1707). For an account of his life, see W. L. Sachse, Lord Somers: A Political Portrait (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975). 10. Dryden’s religion and politics prevented anyone at court providing official support (see Winn, John Dryden, 508). 11. That is, Sir Erasmus Dryden, sixth Baronet (1636–1718), of King Street, Westminster. After the death of the poet’s son, this brother inherited the Dryden baronetcy and estates. 12. That is, her husband Elmes Steward. 13. Jemima Steward, Elizabeth Steward’s young daughter, who was baptized on 25 February 1697 (see George Baker, The History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton, two vols (London: John Bowyer Nichols and Son, and John Rodwell, 1822–30), 2.298). There was a portrait of her by her grandmother in the schoolroom adjoining the chapel at Ashton, Northamptonshire (see T. Litchfield, ‘Paintings by Miss Elizabeth Creed’, Notes & Queries, 199:2 (May 1954), 226). 14. That is, Charles.

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282 The correspondence of John Dryden Letter 751 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.12.

[12br]  Madam

Thursday, Dec: the 14th –99

When I have either too much business, or want health to write to write to you, I count my time is lost, or at least my Conscience accuses me that I spend it ill: At this time my head is full of cares; and my body ill at ease. My Book is printing,2 & my Bookseller3 makes no hast. I had last night at bed time, an unwelcome fit of vomiting; & my Sonn Charles lyes sick upon his ^\Bed/ with the Colique: which has been violent upon him, for almost a week. with all this, I cannot but remember, that you accused me of barbarity, I hope in jeast onely, for mistaking one Sheriff for another, which proceeded from my want of heareing well. I am heartily sorry for that a chargeable office is fallen on my Cousin Stuart.4 But my Cousin Driden comforts me, that it must have come one time or other, like the Small pox; & better have it young than old. I hope it ^\will/ leave no great marks behind it: & that your fortune will no more feel it, than your beauty, by the addition of a years wearing: My Cousine your mother,5 was heer yesterday, to see my wife, though I had not the happiness to be at home. Both the Iphiginia’s have been playd with bad Success; & being both acted, one against the other, in the same week, clashd together, like two rotten ships, which cou’d not endure the Shock; & Sunk to rights. The King’s Proclamation against vice & profaneness is issued out in print:6 but a deep disease is not to be cur’d with a slight Medicine. The parsons who must read it, will find as little effect from it, as from their dull Sermons: tis a Scare-Crow, wch will not fright many birds from preying on the fields & orchards. The best News I heare, is, that the Land, will not be chargd very deep this yeare: let that comfort you for your Shrievalty;7 & continue me in your good graces, who am, fair Cousine Your most faithfull, Obligd Servant Jo: Dryden.

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Letter 75 (14 December 1699) 283

[12ar] For Mrs Stuart, Att Cotterstock, near Oundle In Northamptonshyre These, To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle. 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XLI; Scott, Works, Letter XLIV; Ward, Letters, Letter 71. 2. That is, Fables Ancient and Modern. 3. That is, Jacob Tonson. 4. That is, Elmes Steward 5. That is, Elizabeth Creed. 6. See London Gazette, 14–18 December 1699, issue no. 3558. 7. Dryden was a small landowner as he had been left the Blakesley farm, of around 200 acres, by his father in 1654 (see Julia Moss, John Dryden in Northamptonshire ([Oundle]: Oundle Historical Society, 2000), 2; and Winn, John Dryden, 79). Elmes Steward was High Sheriff of Northamptonshire at this time.

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Letter 76

See headnote to Letters 72 and 73.

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Letter 76 (29 December 1699) 285



Letter 761 Dryden to Elizabeth Thomas

Source: Miscellanea in Two Volumes, two vols (London: [s.n.], 1727 [1726]), 1.153.



Fair Corinna,

I Have sent your Poems back again, after ha-ving kept them so long from you : By which you see I am like the rest of the World, an impudent Borrower, and a bad Pay-master. You take more Care of my Health than it deserves ; that of an old Man is always crazy, and at present, mine is worse than usual, by a St. An-thony’s Fire2 in one of my Legs; tho’ the Swelling is much abated, yet the Pain is not wholly gone, and I am too weak to stand up-on it. If I recover, it is possible I may attempt Homer’s Iliads : A Specimen of it (the first Book) is now in the Press, among other Po-ems of mine, which will make a *Volume in Folio, of twelve Shillings Price; and will be published within this Month.3 I desire, fair Au-thor, that you will be pleased to continue me in your good Graces, who am with all Since-rity and Gratitude, Your most humble Servant, and Admirer, John Dryden. Friday, December 29th. 1699. *The Volume here referred to by Mr. Dryden, is (what commonly goes by the Title) of his Fables, &c.

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XLII; Scott, Works, Letter XLV; Ward, Letters, Letter 72. 2. OED, ‘Anthony, n.’ ‘St. Anthony’s fire n. (also Anthony’s fire) [‘from the tradition that those who sought the intercession of St. Anthony recovered from the pestilential ery­ sipelas called the sacred fire, which proved extremely fatal in 1089.’ Brewer Phr. & Fable] a popular name of erysipelas.’ 3. Fables Ancient and Modern was finally published in March 1700 (see Letter 77).

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Letters 77 and 78

See headnote to Letters 67 and 68.

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Letter 77 (12 March 1699[/1700]) 287

Letter 771 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward

Manuscript: Haverford College, Haverford, PA, Special Collections, Charles Roberts Autograph Letters Collection, MS Coll. 115.

[115r]  Tuesday March the 12th 1699.[/1700] Madam

Tis a week since I receivd the favour of a letter, which I have not yet Acknowledgd to you. About that time, my new Poems were publishd; which are not come till this day into my hands. They are a debt to you I must Confess, and I am glad, ^\because/ they are so Unworthy to be made a Present. Your Sisters I hope, will be so kind to have them conveyd to you; that my writeing may have the honour of waiting on you, which is denyd to me. The Town encourages them with more Applause than any thing of mine deserves; And particularly My Cousin Driden accepted One from me so very Indulgently, that it makes me more & more in Love with him. But all Our hopes of the House of Commons, are wholly dashd; Our Proprieties are destroyd: & rather than we shoud not perish, they have made a breach in the Magna Char=ta;2 for which God forgive them. Congreves New Play has had but Moderate Success; though it deserves much better.3 I am neither in health, nor do I want Afflictions of any kind; but am in all Conditions, Madam, Your most Obligd, Obed -ient Servant, John Dryden. [115v] Ffor4 Mrs Stuart, Att Cotterstock near Oundle, These. By the Oundle Carrier, with A Book,5 directed to her These. Northamptonshyre,

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288 The correspondence of John Dryden

1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XLIV; Scott, Works, Letter XLVII; Ward, Letters, Letter 74. 2. The statute, 11 and 12 William III, declared that after 29 September 1700 all Roman Catholics who had not taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy should be incapable of holding property or inheriting (see Malone, Prose Works, 1.2.129, n4). 3. That is, Congreve’s final play, The Way of the World (London: Jacob Tonson, 1700). 4. This is the only instance in his letters that Dryden uses ‘Ff’ for ‘F’. 5. That is, Fables Ancient and Modern.

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Letter 78 (11 April 1700) 289

Letter 781 Dryden to Elizabeth Steward2

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.13.

[13ar] Madam

The Ladies of the Town have infected You at a distance: they are all of your Opinion; & like my last Book of Poems, better than any thing they have formerly seen of mine. I always thought my Verses to my Cousin Driden were the best of the whole; & to my comfort the Town thinks them so; & He, which pleases me most, is of the same Judgment as appears by a noble present he has sent me, which surprised me, because I did not in the least expect it. I doubt not but He receivd what you were pleasd to send him; because He sent me the Letter, which you did me the favour to write me.3 At this very Instant I heare the Guns, which goeing off, give me to understand that the King is goeing to the Parliament, to pass Acts; & Conse quently to prorogue them: for yesterday I heard, that both He & ^\the/ Lords have given up the Cause; & the House of Commons have gaind an Entire victory;4 though, under the Rose,5 I am of the Opinion, that much of the Confidence is abated on either side; & that whensoever they meet next, it will give the House a farther Occasion, of encroaching on the prerogative & the Lords. for they who beare the purse will rule. the Parliament being risen, My Cousin Driden will immediately be with you, & I believe, return his thanks in person. All this while, I am lame at home; & have not stirrd abroad this Moneth at least: Neither my wife nor Charles are well. but have intrusted their Service in my hand. I humbly add my own to the Unwilling High Sheriff, & wish him fairly at the end of his trouble.6 [13br] The latter end of last week, I had the honour of a visite from my Cousine your Mother,7 & my Cousine Dorothy,8 with which I was much comforted: Within this Moneth there will be playd for my profit, an old play of Fletchers, calld the Pilgrim, corr-ected, by my good friend Mr Vanbrook;9 to which I have added A New Masque,10 & am to write a New Prologue & Epilogue.11 Southerns tragedy, calld the Revolt of Capoua, will be playd At Bettertons House12 within this fortnight.13 I am out with that Company, & therefore, if I can help it, will not read it before tis Acted; though the Authour much desires I shou’d. do not think I will refuse a present from fair hands; for I am resolvd to save my Bacon.

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290 The correspondence of John Dryden

I beg your pardon, for this slovenly letter; but I have not health to transcribe it. My Service to my Cousin your Brother, who I heare is happy in your Company, which He is not,14 who most desires it, & who is, Madam, Your most Obligd, Obedient Servant John Dryden. Thursday, April the 11th 16700.15 [13bv] For Mrs Stuart, Att Cotterstock, neare Oundle in Northamptonshyre, These To be left with the postmaster of Oundle. 1. Malone, Prose Works, Letter XLV; Scott, Works, Letter XLVIII; Ward, Letters, Letter 75; Zwicker, John Dryden, 673–4. 2. ‘[This] letter of 11 April to Elizabeth Steward suggests little sense of an ending, what with its touches of gallantry and of the pleasures that characterize Dryden’s other letters to his young cousin – the family intimacies, the gifts, news of relatives and friends, and Dryden’s pride in his “last Book of Poems” […] The letter’s valediction—“My Service to my Cousin your Brother, who I heare is happy in your Company, which He is not, who most desires it” – conveys, in the poet’s light touch as in the mood of its verb, both the present tense and an imagined future, a moment of farewell but not a longer leave-taking’ (Zwicker, John Dryden, 858, headnote). 3. This letter is not extant. 4. ‘King William had made large grants of land out of the forfeited estates in Ireland, to his foreign servants, Portland, Albemarle, Rochford, Galway, and Athlone, and to his favourite, Lady Orkney. The Commons, who now watched every step of their deliverer with bitter jealousy, appointed a commission to enquire into the value of these grants; and followed it with a bill for resuming and applying them to the payment of the public debt [which was tacked to their bill of supply.] The King […] passed the bill […] without any complaint in public, but with a generous indignation in private’ (Scott, Works, 18.180, n). 5. That is, secretly, privately, in strict confidence (see OED, ‘sub rosa, adv. and adj. post-classical Latin A. adv.’). 6. That is, Elmes Steward, High Sheriff of Northamptonshire for a year from November 1699. 7. That is, Elizabeth Creed. 8. Dorothy, the eldest daughter of the Creeds and the sister of the addressee. 9. That is, John Vanbrugh (1664–1726), playwright and architect, author of The Pilgrim, A Comedy […] Written Originally by Mr. Fletcher, and Now Very Much Alter’d, With

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Letter 78 (11 April 1700) 291

Several Additions. Likewise a Prologue, Epilogue, Dialogue and Masque, Written by the Late Great Poet Mr. Dryden, Just Before His Death, Being the Last of His Works (London: Benjamin Tooke, 1700). 10. ‘The Secular Masque’ was Dryden’s last published work (see Vanbrugh, The Pilgrim, 47–54; California Edition, 16.270–73). 11. Never written. 12. That is, the playhouse at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 13. Thomas Southerne, The Fate of Capua. A Tragedy (London: Benjamin Tooke, 1700). 14. That is, Dryden. 15. The ‘7’ is written over the ‘6’.

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292 The correspondence of John Dryden

Figure 26. James Maubert, John Dryden, oil on canvas (after 1700), NPG 1133. © National Portrait Gallery, London1

1. The provenance of this portrait may originate with Jacob Tonson (see John Ingamells, Later Stuart Portraits 1685–1714 (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2009), 81).

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Bibliography

Manuscripts Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, BEIN 1974 +3 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, James Marshall and MarieLouise Osborn Collection, Osborn b302 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, James Marshall and MarieLouise Osborn Collection, Osborn Manuscripts, File 17581 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, James Marshall and MarieLouise Osborn Collection, pd 118 [Malone, Prose Works, vol. 1, pt 1, and vols 2 and 3; the ‘Yale Exemplum’] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, James Marshall and MarieLouise Osborn Collection, pd 119 [Malone, Prose Works, vol. 1, pt 2] Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Mal 9, fol. 70b Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Mal 27, fols 106, 177 Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Mal 39, fol. 144 Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS Rawl Letters 90, fol. 54r British Library, Add. Chart. 8429 British Library, Add. MSS 10434, fols 8r–9r, 9v–10r, 29r–30v, 32r–2v, 55r–7v, 59r–61v British Library, Add. MSS 11513, fols 64v–6r, 179r–80v British Library, Add. MSS 12112, fol. 1 British Library, Add. MSS 17077, fol. 49 British Library, Add. MSS 19253, fols 179b, 180a, 181a, 181b British Library, Add. MSS 28618, fol. 84b British Library, Add. MSS 28692 British Library, Add. MSS 36933 British Library, Egerton MSS 2869, fols 1r–2v, 34 British Library, Harl MSS 7003, fols 293r–4v Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 4429(10) Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 45/17 Cambridge University Library, MS Mm.1.47 Christie’s, Sale 9548, 14 December 2000: Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts (New York: Christie’s, 2000), 65 [facsimile of manuscript] Folger Shakespeare Library, ‘Autograph letter signed from Sir Robert Howard to Sir Robert Long [manuscript], 1666 August 13’, X.d.9 Folger Shakespeare Library, Tonson Papers, C.c.1, fols 15, 16, 37, 77, 78 Haverford College, Haverford, PA, Special Collections, Charles Roberts Autograph Letters Collection, MS Coll. 115 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Ferdinand J. Dreer Autograph Collection, 115:1, British Poets, Vol. II, pp. 9–10 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Gratz Collection, British Authors/Poets Case 10, Box 38 [unnumbered item] Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 64 Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 870 (20) Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Hyde 77 (3.222)

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294 Bibliography

James M. Osborn, John Dryden: Some Biographical Facts and Problems (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1965), opposite 272 [facsimile of manuscript] Lambeth Palace Library, vol. 933 (vol. 5 in the Collection of Edmund Gibson [1669–1748], Bishop of London), items 56 and 57 Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature (RTC01); 1280s–1958 (mostly 1800s–1930s), Box 6, fol. 31 Northamptonshire Record Office, D (CA) 302 Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, PL2442 Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 130.1–17 Sotheby’s, Catalogue of the Famous Library of Printed Books, Illuminated Manuscripts, Autograph Letter and Engravings Collected by Henry Huth, and Since Maintained and Augmented by His Son Alfred H. Huth, Fosbury Manor, Wiltshire, eleven vols (London: Dryden Press, [1911–20]), A–B [33, No. 63] [facsimile of manuscript] Sotheby’s, The Trumbull Papers (14 December 1989), lot 54 [facsimile of manuscript] William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, D779L, 16[53?] May 23 to Maddame Honor William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, D779L, [1682?] to [Busby] William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, D779L, 1698 Nov. 23 to [Mrs. Steward, Cotterstock] William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, D779L, 1699 Feb. 18, pp. 2 and 3 William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, f D779L, [1699] July 11 to [Mrs. Stewart, Cotterstock] William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, f D779L, 1699 Aug. 5 to [Mrs. Stewart, Cotterstock] William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Dryden– Tonson correspondence, D779, 1695 Oct. 29 William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Dryden– Tonson correspondence, f D779 L Bound, pp. 9 and 11 William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, Dryden– Tonson correspondence, f D779 L Bound, pp. 17, 31, 39

Periodicals

Gentleman’s Journal London Gazette The Present State of Europe or the Historical and Political Mercury Times Literary Supplement

Primary texts

[Anon.,] A Loyal Paper of Verses Upon His Majesties Gracious Declaration (London: for Francis Ellis, 1687) [Anon.,] Ovid’s Art of Love with Hero and Leander of Musaeus, from the Greek Translated by Several Hands (London: J. T., 1692) [Anon.,] A Collection of Poems on Several Occasions Written by the Right Honourable The Earls of Mulgrave, Rochester, Roscommon and Orrery; Sir Robert Howard, Sir Charles Sedley, Mr Montague, Sir George Etherege, Mr How, Mr Granvill, Mr Chetwood, Mr Dryden, and Mr Tate: With Several Pieces of Mrs Wharton’s, Never Before Printed (London: Francis Saunders, 1693)

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Index

Abberley, Worcestershire, 112, 113 Abercomy, Captain Duncan, 85, 88 Abingdon, Earl of see Bertie, James, first Earl of Abingdon Act of Oblivion (1660), 28 Act of Union (1707), 281 Addison, Joseph, 72, 78, 160, 260, 265 ‘An Account of the Greatest English Poets’ (1694), 103 ‘An Essay on the Georgics’ (1697), 183 Cato (1713), 78 Rosamund (1713), 78 The Campaign (1713), 78 advertisements, 41, 53, 177, 182, 184 Agathon, 117 Ahmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, 134, 137 Albemarle, Earl of see Keppel, Arnold Joost van, first Earl of Albemarle Alcibiades, 117 Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, 1 Alexander III of Macedon see Alexander the Great Alexander the Great, 85, 88, 200, 212 Alvarotti, Sperone Speroni degli, 114 Dialoghi d’amore (1542), 116 Anglicanism, 10 [Anon.] A Collection of Poems on Several Occasions (1693), 144 A Loyal Paper of Verses Upon His Majesties Gracious Declaration (1687), 103 ‘Essay on satire’ (c. 1679), 47 Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Amours of William Congreve (1730), 275 The Nine Muses (1700), 272 The Players’ Tragedy (1693), 136 Antigua, 259, 260 Arbuthnot [Arbuthnott], Dr John, 197 Aristophanes, 117 Aristotle, 92, 117, 157 Poetics, 155 Arlington, Earl of see Bennet, Henry, first Earl of Arlington Armagh, Archbishop of see Boyle, Michael, Archbishop of Armagh Ashley, Baron see Ashley Cooper, Anthony, first Baron Ashley Ashley Cooper, Anthony, first Baron Ashley, 46

Aston, Walter, fourth Lord of Forfar, 179, 181, 185 Astronomer Royal see Flamsteed, John Athlone, Earl of, see Ginckel, Godard van Reede, first Earl of Athlone Atkins, Samuel, 196, 197 Atterbury, Francis see Rochester, Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Aubrey, John, 4, 120 Aubrey, Mary, 275 Augustine, Matthew C., 35 Augustine of Hippo City of God, 112 Ayliff, Mrs, 134, 136, 137

Baden[-Baden], Ludwig Wilhelm, margrave of, 143, 146 Baden, Louis of see Baden[-Baden], Ludwig Wilhelm, margrave of Badminton, Gloucestershire, 236 Baert, Admiral Jean, 154, 158 Baker, William, MP, 5 Ball, Peter, 207 Ball, Robert, 208, 210 Ball, Thomas, 207, 208, 210 Balzac see Balzac, Jean Louis Guez de; Boileau-Déspréaux, Nicolas (‘Balzac’) Balzac, Jean Louis Guez de, 102, 111, 117 Letters de M. de Balzac à M. Conrart (1659), 115, 119 Lettres choisies (1624), 100, 103, 115 Lettres familières de M. de Balzac à M. Chapelain (1659), 115, 119 Barbados, 226, 260 Barbuda, 260 Barnet Wells, Hertfordshire, 270 Bath, Earl of see Granville, John, first Earl of Bath Bath Spa, Somerset, 239, 241 Bayes, Mr, 2, 20 see also Dryden, John; Sheffield, John, first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, The Rehearsal (1672) Beal, Peter, xiv Beauclerk, Charles, first Duke of St Albans, 134, 137 Beaufort, Duke of, 236 Beaumont, Francis, 49, 52 Beaumont, Francis, and John Fletcher Philaster (1620), 52 Works (1711), 49

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314 Index

Bedford, Bedfordshire, 259 Bedlam see Bethlem Royal Hospital Behn, Aphra, 277, 278 A Poem Humbly Dedicated to … Catherine, Queen Dowager (1685), 123 Belasyse, Thomas, second Viscount Fauconberg, 70 Bell, Robert, 6 Bennet, Henry, first Earl of Arlington, 46, 70 Bentinck, William, first Earl of Portland, 127, 267, 290 Bentley, Richard, 185, 186 Berkshire, Earl of see Howard, Charles, second Earl of Berkshire; Howard, Thomas, third Earl of Berkshire Bertie, Charles, 46 Bertie, James, first Earl of Abingdon, 46 Bertie, Robert, third Earl of Lindsey, 46 Bethlem Royal Hospital, 134, 136 Betterton, Thomas, 77, 80, 87, 136, 184 Bidloo, Govert [Govard], 267 Blackmore, Sir Richard, 172, 260 Prince Arthur (1695), 172 Blakeway, Rev. J. B., 19 Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, 259 Blount, Charles Oracles of Reason (1693), 141 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 254, 255 Boileau-Déspréaux, Nicolas (‘Balzac’), 38, 41, 114, 119, 155, 164, 169, 172 ‘A Monseigneur Le Duc De Vivonne’ (1675), 119, 120 Le Lutrin (1674), 41 Œvres diverses (1674), 41 Booth, George Historical Library of Diodorus (1700), 212 Bourbon, Phillipe de, fourth duc de Vendôme see Vendôme, Phillipe de Bourbon, fourth duc de Vendôme Bowtell [Boutel, née Davenport], Elizabeth, 80 Bowyer, Sir William, second Baronet, 207, 209 Boyer, Abel [ed.], Letters of Wit, Politicks and Morality (1701), 88 (transl.), Achilles, Or, Iphigenia in Aulis (1700), 281 Boyle, Charles, 260 Boyle, Michael, Archbishop of Armagh, 174 Bracegirdle, Anne, 134, 136, 247 Brett (née Mason, other married name Gerard), Anne, Countess of Macclesfield, 181, 183 Bridgeman, Orlando, 207, 210 Bridgeman, Sir Orlando, first Baronet, 210 Bringis (the carrier), 52 Briscoe, Samuel, 92, 137 Brounckard, Henry, 38, 42 Brouncker, William, second Viscount Brouncker, 42

Brown, Thomas, 212 A Satyr upon the French King (1697), 212 Petition to the Lords in Council (1697), 212 Buckhurst, Lord see Sackville, Charles, sixth Earl of Dorset and first Earl of Middlesex Buckingham and Normanby, Duke of see Sheffield, John, first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby Bulkeley, Henry, 88 Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire, 182 Burnet, Bishop, 210 Burnett, Thomas, 214 Burney, Dr Charles, 5 Busby, Dr Richard, 1, 60, 62, 128, 264 Butler, Charlotte, 77, 80 Butler, James, first Duke of Ormond, 76, 79 Butler, James, second Duke of Ormond, 233, 236 Butler (née Preston), Elizabeth, Duchess of Ormond and suo jure Lady Dingwall, 79, 269 Butler (née Somerset), Mary, Duchess of Ormond, 233 Butler, Samuel, 69, 72 Hudibras, 67, 72 Cabal ministry, 46, 193 Cadiz, 41 Cambridge, University of, 43, 64, 65, 209, 252 see also Trinity College, Cambridge Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire, 1, 6 Canterbury, Archbishop of see Laud, William, Archbishop of Canterbury; Sancroft, William, Archbishop of Canterbury; Tenison, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury; Tillotson, John, Archbishop of Canterbury Carey, Henry, 137, 143, 144 Carmarthen, Marquess of see Osborne, Thomas, first Duke of Leeds Cary, Anthony, fifth Viscount Falkland, 70 Caryll, John, 218, 220 Caryll, John, first Jacobite Baron Caryll of Durford, 218, 220 Naboth’s Vineyard (1679), 220 Casimire, 127 Castiglione, Baldassare, count of Casatico Il libro del cortegiano (1528), 114, 116 Castlehaven, Earl of, 70 Catherine (of Braganza), Queen Consort of Charles II and Regent of Portugal, 122, 123, 138 Catullus (Gaius Valerius Catullus), 127 Catworth, Northamptonshire, 259 Cavalier Parliament (1661–79), 32 Cavendish, William, first Duke of Devonshire, 181, 183, 185 Cecil, John, fifth Earl of Exeter, 182 Cervantes, Miguel de, 92 Chambre, Marin Cureau de la, 111, 117 Les Caractères des passions (1640), 113, 114, 117 Chancery, Court of, 134

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Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 2, 9, 39, 40, 42, 45–7, 58, 63, 67, 69, 70–4, 78, 80, 86, 88, 91, 115, 121, 123, 131, 136–8, 143, 174, 182, 187, 228, 247 court of, 34, 40, 60 death of, 79, 80, 123 Charles I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 7, 40–2 Charlton, Wiltshire, 31 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 2, 3, 72, 239, 254 Checkley, Mr, 24 Cheshire, 179 Chesterfield, Earl of see Stanhope, Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield; Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth Earl of Chesterfield Chesterton, Northamptonshire, 244, 265 Chetwood, Rev. Dr Knightly, Dean of Gloucester, 76, 79, 214, 215, 216 ‘Life of Pub. Virgilius Maro’ (1697), 79, 183 manuscript life of Roscomon, 79 ‘Preface to the Pastorals’ (1697), 183 Chudleigh, Mary, Lady, 205, 216, 275 ‘To Mr. Dryden, on his excellent Translation of Virgil’ (1703), 215, 216 Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero), 100, 102, 114, 115 Clapton, Northamptonshire, 149 Clarendon, Earl of see Hyde, Edward, first Earl of Clarendon Clarke, Jeremiah, 217 Clarke, Samuel (ed.), C. Julii Caesaris Quae Extant (1712), 78 Clement’s Inn, 86 Clifford, Hugh, second Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, 192, 215 Clifford, Thomas, first Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, 46, 192, 193 Clostermann, John, 181 Codrington, Col. Christopher, 259, 260, 280 Collier, Jeremy (transl.), Great Historical, Geographical, Genealogical and Poetical Dictionary (1701), 177 Company of Scotland, 271 Compton, Henry, Bishop of London, 70 Congress of Cologne (1673), 71 Congreve, William, 135, 137, 143, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 164, 179, 181, 182, 184, 270 Incognita (1692), 138 The Double Dealer (1694), 138, 153, 158, 248 The Old Batchelour (1693), 136, 138 The Way of the World (1700), 168, 287, 288 Constable, Robert, third Viscount of Dunbar, 42 Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, 28, 203 Cooke, Sarah, 77, 80 Corneille, Pierre, 120 Costentin, Anne-Hilarion de, comte de Tourville, 143, 145 Cotoner y de Oleza, Fra’ Nicolás, 70

Index 315 Cotterstock Hall, Northamptonshire, 52, 225, 226, 229, 231, 238, 239, 258, 259, 267 Cotton, Charles (transl.), Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne (1685–[6]), 79 Coventry, George, third Baron Coventry, 42 Cowley, Abraham, 67, 69, 166, 170 Cutter of Coleman-Street (1663), 72 Poems (1656), 72, 173 ‘The Complaint’ (1663), 72 The Guardian (1650), 72 Verses, Written Upon Several Occasions (1663), 72 Works (1668), 72 Crates, 156 Creech, Thomas, 102, 260 ‘Life of Solon’ (1683), 120 The Odes, Satyrs, and Epistles of Horace (1684), 54 Titus Lucretius Carus his Six Books of Epicurean Philosophy, done into English Verse (1683), 58 T. Lucretius Carus the Epicurean Philosopher his Six Books De Natura Rerum (1682), 40, 54, 57, 58 (transl.), The Idylliums of Theocritus (1684), 278 Creed, Dorothy (cousin), 227, 228, 289, 290 Creed, John, 92, 227, 228, 231, 232, 242, 243, 251, 259, 260, 270, 271, 281 Creed (née Pickering), Elizabeth (cousin), 52, 222, 228, 242, 243, 251, 258, 283, 289, 290 Cromwell, Oliver see Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland Cromwell, Richard, 28 Crowne, Mr, 106 Cutts, John, Baron Gowran, 221 Dahl, Michael, 222 Danby, Earl of see Osborne, Thomas, first Duke of Leeds Darien colony, 270 Darmstadt, 143 Dauphin, the see France, Louis de Davenant, Sir William, 72 Davenport, Aubrey, pretender Earl of Oxford, 43 Davenport, Hester, 43 Davies, Mary, 58, 247 Delaval, Admiral Sir Ralph, 158 Demetrius Phalereus or of Phalerum, 115, 117 Denham Court, Buckinghamshire, 209 Denham, Sir John, 88, 166 Dennis, John, 9, 88, 280 Grounds of Criticism (1704), 168 Iphigenia (1700), 280, 281 Letters on Several Occasions (1701), 88, 174 Miscellanies in Verse and Prose (1693), 160, 164 Poems in Burlesque (1692), 164 The Impartial Critick (1693), 164

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316 Index

Derby, Earl of see Stanley, William, ninth Earl of Derby Derwentwater, Countess of see Tudor, Lady Mary, Countess of Derwentwater Derwentwater, Earl of, 58 Descartes, René, 102 d’Este, Rinaldo, Cardinal d’Este, Duke of Modena, 138 de Vere, Aubrey, twentieth Earl of Oxford, 38, 42 de Vere (née Kirke), Diana, Countess of Oxford, 43 Devonshire, Duke of see Cavendish, William, first Duke of Devonshire Digby, Lady Ann see Sunderland, Ann Spencer (née Digby), Countess of Dillon, Wentworth, fourth Earl of Roscomon, 76, 79, 143, 144 Essay on Translated Verse (1684), 76, 79 The Miscellaneous Works of […] Rochester and Roscommon (1707), 247 Dilston Hall, Northumberland, 58 Doggett, Thomas, 134, 135, 136 Dolben, John, Bishop of Rochester and Archbishop of York, 64, 66 Dorset, Earl of see Sackville, Charles, sixth Earl of Dorset and first Earl of Middlesex Downes, John, Roscius Anglicanus (1789), 80, 86 Driden, John, of Chesterton, MP (cousin), 19, 51, 52, 225, 226, 244, 249, 262, 264, 269, 270, 280, 282, 287, 289 ‘To my Honour’d Cousin, John Driden of Chesterton’ (1700), 289 Drogheda, Charles Moore, second Earl of see Moore, Charles, second Earl of Drogheda Dryden, Benjamin (cousin), 244, 248, 249 Dryden, Charles (son), 1, 60, 62–6, 76, 77, 79, 80, 84, 92, 138, 187, 208, 209, 211, 212, 217, 225–8, 230–2, 239–41, 244, 248, 249, 250, 251, 258, 259, 267, 280–2, 289 Dryden, Erasmus (father), 1 death of, 1, 19 Dryden, Honor, 19 Dryden, John ‘A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire’ (1693), 95, 123, 127 ‘A Lady’s Song’ ([posthumous] 1704), 10 Albion and Albanius (1685), 77, 80 Alexander’s Feast (1697), 205, 210, 212, 217 All for Love (1678), 2, 34, 45, 48, 77, 80, 157 All for Love (1692), 35 Almanzor and Almahide, Or, The Conquest of Granada (1672), 23, 44, 77, 80 Amboyna (1673), 44, 145, 193 Amphitryon (1690), 109, 153, 157 An Evening’s Love (1671), 44 Annus Mirabilis (1667), 2, 72 [Anon.], Absalom and Achitophel (1681), 2, 9, 40, 54, 70, 72, 172, 182

[Anon.], Mac Flecknoe (1682), 2, 54 [Anon.], The Medal (1682), 10, 54, 72 ‘A Secular Masque’ (1700), 289 A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day (1687), 217 Astraea Redux (1660), 1, 28 Aureng-Zebe (1676), 2, 47, 54 burial of, 2 ‘Character of a Good Parson’ (1700), 113 ‘Character of a Good Parson; Imitated from Chaucer, and Inlarg’d’ (1700), 111 Cleomenes (1692), 70, 73, 111, 113 and contemporary writers, 9 correspondents of, 8 Defence of An Essay of Dramatique Poesie (1668), 157 ‘Defence of the Epilogue’, in Almanzor and Almahide, Or, The Conquest of Granada (1672), 103 deprived of public offices, 2, 3, 8, 77, 121, 124 Dryden–Tonson miscellanies (1684–1709), 2, 74, 79, 104, 127, 141 [ed.], Examen Poeticum (1693), 49, 125, 127, 128, 138, 143, 144, 149, 150, 172, 247 [ed.], Miscellany Poems (1684), 43, 74, 79, 189 [ed.], Plutarch’s Lives (1683-85), 120 [ed.], Sylvae, or, The Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies (1685), 76, 79, 226, 278 [ed.], The Annual Miscellany (1694), 41, 159 Eleonora (1692), 46 ‘Epilogue, Spoken to the same’ (1684), 43 Fables Ancient and Modern (1700), 2, 3, 19, 79, 104, 150, 172, 175, 226, 241, 248, 249, 254, 282, 283, 285, 287, 288 ‘Heads of an answer to Rymer’ (1711), 49, 150 Heroique Stanza’s (1659), 1, 24, 243 Historiographer Royal, 2, 47, 71, 74, 77 Jacobite, 8–10, 173, 183 ‘Life of Lucian’ (1711), 92 ‘Lines to Mrs. Elizabeth Creed’, 222, 223 Love Triumphant (1694), 136, 137, 153, 157 Marriage à-la-mode (1673), 2, 34, 39, 44 marriage of, 29, 32 Mr. Limberham (1680), 44, 46, 47 national and international reputation of, 5 ‘Notes and Observations on Virgil’s Works in English’ (1697), 183 Oedipus (1679), 54, 173 Of Dramatick Poesie (1668), 2, 52, 92, 95, 103, 157 Poet Laureate, 2, 29, 47, 71, 77 ‘Preface to A Dialogue Concerning Women’ (1691), 109 ‘Prologue to His Royal Highness upon His first appearance at the Duke’s Theatre’ (1682) see Otway, Thomas, Venice Preserv’d (1682)

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‘Prologue, To the University of Oxon. Spoken by Mr. Hart, at the Acting of the Silent Woman’ (1684), 43 and the Protectorate, 1 Religio Laici (1682), 2, 76, 79, 171 and Roman Catholicism, 2, 8, 9, 10, 58, 173, 195, 196, 201 Secret Love (1668), 43, 44 Sir Martin Mar-All (1668), 44 sons of, 9 survival of his correspondence, 3 The Assignation (1673), 44, 91 The Duke of Guise (1683), 70, 78 The Hind and the Panther (1687), 2, 52, 71, 89, 104, 171 The Indian Emperour (1665), 2, 44 The Rival Ladies (1664), 1, 24, 44 ‘The Secular Masque’ (1700), 3, 291 The Spanish Fryar (1681), 23, 135 The State of Innocence (1677), 54 ‘The Vindication of the Duke of Guise’ (1683), 71 The Wild Gallant (1663), 1, 28 To His Sacred Majesty (1661), 1 ‘To my Dear Friend Mr. Congreve’ (1694), 138 ‘To My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve’ (1694), 158 ‘To My Honour’d Kinsman, John Driden of Chesterton’ (1700), 19, 226, 264, 265 To My Lord Chancellor (1662), 1, 28, 72 and Tory literary culture, 9 ‘To the Earl of Roscomon, on his Excellent Essay on Translated Verse’ (1684), 79 ‘To the Memory of Mr. Oldham’ (1684), 74, 116 translations and modernizations, 3 (transl.), History of the League (1684), 67, 71, 73, 76, 78 (transl.), Ovid’s Art of Love (1709), 217 (transl.), Satires of Juvenal and Persius (1693), 3, 71, 121, 122, 127, 128, 131, 138, 157, 169, 172 (transl.), The History of the League (1684), 71 (transl.), The Works of Virgil (1697), 2, 3, 10, 83, 103, 129, 165, 173, 175, 177, 182–4, 186, 187, 192, 195, 197, 205, 208, 209, 210, 212, 214, 216, 217, 222, 265, 278 (transl.), The Works of Virgil, manuscript circulation of, 177 Troilus and Cressida (1678), 77 Troilus and Cressida (1679), 157 Tyrannick Love (1670), 44 Works of the Late Famous Mr. John Dryden (1701), 47 Dryden, John, and Henry Purcell King Arthur (1691), 80 Dryden, John, and John Sheffield, first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby (transl.), ‘Helen to Paris’ (1680), 47

Index 317 Dryden, John, and Sir Robert Howard The Indian Queen (1665), 1, 44, 184 Dryden, John, et al. Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco (1674), 106 Dryden, John (son), 1, 60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 77, 80, 138, 183, 184, 187, 244 The Husband His Own Cuckold (1696), 178, 184 Dryden (née Howard), Lady Elizabeth, (wife), 1, 29, 32, 63, 138, 148, 176, 178, 183, 188, 189, 193, 195, 207, 208, 211, 214, 226, 227, 230, 231, 239, 249, 250, 257, 280, 282, 289 Dryden (née Pickering), Mary (mother), 1 Dryden, Sir Erasmus, first baronet, MP (grandfather), 1 Dryden, Sir Erasmus-Henry, fifth baronet (son), 1, 187, 195, 209, 210, 211, 212 Dryden, Sir Erasmus, sixth Baronet (uncle), 281 Dryden, Sir John, second Baronet, MP (uncle), 19, 60, 249 Dublin, Trinity College, 113, 138 Dudley, Mr, 151 Dudley, Sir Matthew, second Baronet, MP, 148, 149, 151 Dudley, William, 151 Duke’s Theatre, 80 Dunbar, Earl of, 38 Dunbar, Viscount of, 42 Dunton, John, 141 Life and Errors of John Dunton (1818), 128 Duras, Louis, second Earl of Feversham, 122, 123 D’Urfey, Thomas A Fond Husband (1677), 47 The Marriage-Hater (1692), 136 The Richmond Heiress (1693), 134, 136 Durfort, Guy Alfonce de Dufort, duc de Lorges, 146, 164 Dutch East India Company, 143, 145

East India Company, 145 Eaton, Sir John, 38, 41 Eccles, John, 137 Elstob, Elizabeth, Rudiments of Grammar for the Anglo-Saxon Tongue (1715), 106 Englefield, Sir Francis, 33 Epicurus, 91, 92 epistolarity, 10 Equicola, Mario, Libro de natura de amore (1525), 114, 117 Eriximachus, 117 Etherege, Sir George, xiii, 38, 86, 91 A Collection of Poems (1673), 41 She Wou’d if she Cou’d (1668), 86 The Comical Revenge (1664), 86 The Man of Mode (1676), 87 Euripides, 150, 280 Evelyn, John, 70, 137, 157, 177 Everingham, Robert, 214, 215, 217

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318 Index

Exclusion Bill (1680), 70 Exclusion Crisis (1679–81), 54, 120, 144

Fairbeard, Robert, 174 Falkland, Viscount, 70 Fanshawe, Richard, The Faithfull Shepherd (1647), 157 Fauconberg, Viscount, 70 Fenwick, Sir John, third Baronet, 203 Fermor, Arabella, 276 Feversham, Earl of see Duras, Louis, second Earl of Feversham Fielding, Henry, 92 The Covent-Garden Journal (1752), 92 Flamsteed, John, 187 Flanders see Spanish Netherlands Fletcher, John, 49, 52, 289 see also Beaumont, Francis, and John Fletcher Fontanelle, Bernard le Bovier de, Entretiens sur la pluralité de mondes (1686), 102 Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de, 100 Frampton, Tregonwell, 38, 42 France Douai, English College at, 141 Isle de Ré, 38, 41 La Rochelle, 41 Rouen, 32 St Germain-en-Laye, 220 France, Louis de, 143, 146 France, Queen Maria Theresa de, 146 Francia, Francis, 216, 217 Frankfurt, 143 Frederick, Duke of Prussia see Frederick I, King of Prussia Frederick I, King of Prussia, 146 Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, 146

Galloway, Mr., 208 Galway, Earl of, 290 Garth, Sir Samuel, 127 The Dispensary (1699), 260 Gerard, Charles, Viscount Brandon, 183 Gildon, Charles, 141 [ed.], History of the Athenian Society (1692), 141 Miscellaneous Letters and Essays (1694), 141 [ed.], Miscellany Poems upon Several Occasions (1692), 138, 141 Gillespie, Stuart, and David Hopkins, 74 Ginckel, Godard van Reede, first Earl of Athlone, 290 Glorious Revolution (1688), 2, 8, 58, 93, 121, 124, 149 Goodman, Cordell, 85, 88 Goulu, Jean, Des letres de Phyllarque a Ariste ([1628]), 102 Grabu, Louis, 80 Granville, George, first Baron Lansdowne, 164

Granville, John, first Earl of Bath, 70 Guarini, Giovanni Battista, 157 Il pastor fido (1590), 157 Gwillam, Mrs, 6 Gwyn, Nell, 137

Halifax, Earl of see Montagu, Charles, first Earl of Halifax Hamilton (née Villiers), Elizabeth, Countess of Orkney, 290 Hammond, Anthony, 42 Hammond, Paul, 19 Harris, Henry, 86, 252 Hatfield, Hertfordshire, 259 Hawkins (née Khan), Mariam, 145 Hawkins, William, 145 Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of Charles I, 31 Henry VIII, King of England and Ireland, 2 Herringman, Henry, 67, 78, 86, 128, 143, 144 Hervey, John, first Earl of Bristol, 281 Hervey (née Felton), Elizabeth, Countess of Bristol, 281 Higham Ferrars Park, Northamptonshire, 32, 259 Hill, Aaron, 127 Hill, Aaron, and Nahum Tate, The Celebrated Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses (1708), 127 Hill, Captain Richard, 136 Hill, Rev. Thomas, 60 Historiographer Royal see Dryden, John, Historiographer Royal Hobbes, Thomas, 120 Hoby, Thomas (transl.), The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio (1561), 116 Holland, County of, 137 Homer, 57, 77, 79, 114, 116, 125, 127, 199, 264 The Illiad, 285 Hooke, Robert, 63, 136, 187 Hoole, Mr, 252 Hopkins, Charles Boadicea Queen of Britain (1697), 269, 270 Friendship Improv’d (1700), 270 Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), 76, 127, 131, 147, 226, 247 Howard, Charles, second Earl of Berkshire (father-in-law), 31 Howard, Elizabeth (cousin), 281 Howard, Henry, seventh Duke of Norfolk, 281 Howard, James, third Earl of Suffolk, 281 Howard, Lady Elizabeth see Dryden, Lady Elizabeth (wife) Howard (née Mordaunt), Mary, Duchess of Norfolk, 281 Howard (née O’Brien), Lady Honoria (sisterin-law), 33 Howard, Philip name in religion Thomas, Cardinal Howard, 138 Howard, Sir Robert, Poems (1660), 184 Howard, Sir Robert, and John Dryden The Indian Queen (1665), 1, 44, 184

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Howard, Sir Robert, MP (brother-in-law), 1, 31, 32, 44, 178, 184, 207 Howard, Thomas, third Earl of Berkshire (brother-in-law), 138 Hoy, Thomas Ovid’s Art of love with Hero and Leander of Musaeus, from the Greek translated by several hands (1692), 128 Hume, Sir George, first Earl of Dunbar, 38, 42 Hyde, Edward, first Earl of Clarendon, 1, 32, 69, 70, 72 Hyde, Lady Jane, 107 Hyde, Lawrence, first Earl of Rochester, 67, 70, 73, 113 Hyde, Lord Henry, 113, 114, 116 Hyde (née Boyle), Henrietta, Countess of Rochester, 70 Hyde (née Leveson-Gower), Lady Jane, 107, 109, 113, 114, 116 Hyde of Kenilworth, Viscount, 70 Hyde, Sir Edward, 32 Inner Temple, 28 Inns of Court see Clement’s Inn; Inner Temple; Middle Temple Interregnum (1649–60), 8, 34 Italy see Livorno; Modena; Padua; Rome; Venice

Jacobite Rebellion (1715), 233 James I and VI, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 42 James II and VII, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 2, 8, 9, 40, 42, 48, 58, 63, 69, 72, 80, 85–9, 91, 113, 121, 123, 138, 143, 146, 158, 173, 183, 193, 203, 220, 237, 267 Jephson, William, 158 Jermyn, Henry, first Earl of St Albans, 32, 72 John, King of England, 235, 237 Johnson, Samuel, 4, 103, 186, 200 Jones, Edward, 77, 80 Jones, Hugo, 84, 87, 88 Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis), 104, 126 Keppel, Arnold Joost van, first Earl of Albemarle, 290 Kéroualle, Louise Renée de Penancoët de, Duchess of Portsmouth, 71, 136 Kettering, Northamptonshire, 259 Killigrew, Vice-Admiral Henry, 146, 154, 158 Kingston, Countess of, 108 Kirke, Diana, 43 Kirke, George, 43 Kit-Cat Club, 78, 205 Kneller, Sir Godfrey, first Baronet, 181 Knight, Joseph, 144 Knight, Robert, 178, 185 Ladyholt, West Harting, Sussex, 220, 221 Landen, Battle of (1693), 137

Index 319 Langbaine, Gerard, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691), 44 Lansdowne, Lord, 164 Latimer, Edward Osborne, Lord, 9, 44, 46 Lauderdale, Duke of, 46 Lauderdale, Earl of see Maitland, John, fifth Earl of Lauderdale Laud, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, 62–3 Laughton (née Dryden), Rose (sister), 261 Laughton, Rev. Dr John (brother-in-law), 261 Leckmore, Mr, 27 Leeds, Duke of, 46 Lee, Nathaniel, 170 Massacre of Paris (1690), 173 Oedipus (1679), 173 On Their Majesties Coronation (1689), 173 The Rival Queens (1677), 173 Leeward Islands, 260 Leghorn see Italy, Livorno Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 214 Leigh, Richard (attrib.), Censure of the Rota (1673), 41 Leke, Robert, third Earl of Scarsdale, 246, 247 Lennox, Charles, first Duke of Richmond, first Duke of Lennox, and Duke of Aubigny in the French nobility, 134, 136 Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, 143, 146 Leveson-Gower, Jane, 107 Leveson-Gower, Sir William, fourth Baronet, 109 Lilford, Northamptonshire, 52, 226 Lindsey, Earl of, 46 Lipsius, Justus, 115, 119 De constantia libri duo (1654), 120 Livorno, 207, 208, 209, 210 Locke, John, 63, 177 London, 2, 38, 39, 45, 110, 112, 125, 134, 135, 143, 154, 184, 207, 208, 215, 229, 231, 242, 246, 259, 280, 287, 289 Bell (Smithfield), The, 52 Bishopsgate, 136 Blackheath, 40 Covent Garden, 39, 42, 43, 73, 85, 88 Fleet prison, 174 Fleet Street, 74 Gracechurch Street, 24 Howard Street, 136 Moorfields, 136 Old Bailey, 42 Royal Exchange, 74, 196 Smithfield market, 242, 243 Somerset House, 122, 123 St James’s Park, 242 St Swithin (church), 32 The Strand, 74, 123 Tower of London, 24, 28, 42 see also Westminster London, Bishop of, 70 London Gazette see newspapers Longinus (pseudo-Longinus) Perì Hýpsous, 115, 117

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320 Index

Long Parliament (1640–60), 28, 60 Long, Sir Robert, first Baronet, 31, 32 Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, 165 Louis XIV, King of France, 9, 71, 85, 87, 134, 136, 137, 143, 145, 146, 208, 210, 271 Lovelace, John, third Baron Lovelace, 137 Lowick, Northamptonshire, 281 Lucian, 92 Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus), 54, 58, 76, 79 De Rerum Natura, 37, 40, 54, 79 Luxemburgh, 164 Lynn, Francis, 66

Macclesfield, Countess of see Brett (née Mason, other married name Gerard), Anne, Countess of Macclesfield MacDonald, Hugh, 74 Madrid, Spain, 71 Magna Carta (1215), 237 Maimbourg, Louis Histoire de la ligue (1686), 71, 74, 78 Maitland, John, first Duke of Lauderdale, 46 Malherbe, François de, 127 Malone, Edmond, xiii, xiv, 4, 19, 57, 265 ‘Yale Exemplum’, 4 Malta, Grand Master of, 70 Manilius (Marcus Manilius), 102 Maria Theresa of Spain, 146 Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis), 101 Epigrams, 96, 97, 104 Marvell, Andrew, 1, 28 Mary, Duchess of York (Mary of Modena), 87 Mary, Queen Consort of James II and VII, 87, 138, 220 Mary II, Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 123, 173 Mary Stuart II, Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 113, 123, 148, 149 Mascardi, Agostini Dell’unità della favola drammatica (1625), 157 Mascardi, Agostino Prose vulgari (1625), 153, 157 Massue de Ruvigny, Henri de, first Earl of Galway, and marquis de Ruvigny in the French nobility, 290 Matiland, John, fifth Earl of Lauderdale, 176, 177 May, Baptist, 45, 48 Mayes, Mr see May, Baptist Maynwaring, Arthur, 164, 246 Meredith, Mr, 64 Metcalfe, Thomas, 203, 204 Middle Temple, 83, 138 Middleton, Charles, second Earl of Middleton and Jacobite first Earl of Monmouth, 85, 87, 92 Middleton, Earl of, 85 Milton, John, 1, 28, 78, 170 Paradise Lost (1667), 54, 173, 186

Modena, 87, 138, 211 see also Mary, Duchess of York Mohun, Charles, third Baron Mohun, 136 Monck, General George, 228 Monmouth, Duchess of see Scott, Anna [Anne], Duchess of Monmouth and suo jure Duchess of Buccleuch Monmouth, Duke of, 80 Monmouth, Earl of, 85 Monson, Mr, 122 Monson, Sir John, first Baronet, 122 Monson, Thomas, 122 Montagu, Charles, first Earl of Halifax, 2, 72, 121, 158, 164, 205, 262, 265, 269, 270, 281 Montagu, Edward, first Earl of Sandwich, 92, 228 Montagu, Ralph, 71 Montaigne, Michel de, 77, 90, 119 Essais (1580), 117 ‘On some lines of Virgil’, 79 Montfaucon de Villars, Nicolas-Pierre-Henri, Abbé de, Le comte de Gabalis (1670), 275, 276 Montmorency-Bouteville, François Henri de, duc de Piney-Luxembourg, 164, 165 Moore, C. A., 10 Moore, Charles, second Earl of Drogheda, 174 Moore (née Robartes), Letitia-Isabella, Countess of Drogheda, 174 Moor Park, Surrey, 141 Morgan, Robert, 65, 66 Motteaux, Peter Anthony (formerly PierreAntoine Le), 92, 113, 125, 128 Mountfort, William, 136 Moyle, Walter, 42 Mulgrave, Earl of see Sheffield, John, first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby

Nero, 119 newspapers, 132 Athenian Mercury, 141 Gentleman’s Journal, 113, 128, 137 London Gazette, 53, 73, 78, 144, 145, 158, 177, 248, 249, 283 Observator, 73 The Present State of Europe or the Historical and Political Mercury, 145 Nichols, John, 6 Norfolk, Duchess of, 281 Norfolk, Duke of, 281 Normanby, Marquess of see Sheffield, John, first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby Northamptonshire, 80, 125, 127, 147, 149, 239, 267 Cobthorne House, Oundle, 251 Triangular Lodge (Rushton Hall), 52 Norton, John, MP, 226 O’Brien, Henry, fifth Earl of Thomond, 33

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Oldham, John, 116 [Anon.], Poems, and translations (1683), 116 Remains of Mr. John Oldham (1684), 74, 116 Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1, 28, 52, 149, 242, 243, 251 funeral of, 28 opera, English, 77 Orange, William, Prince of, 123 Ord, Ann, 6 Orford, Earl of, 158 Orkney, Lady see Hamilton (née Villiers), Elizabeth, Countess of Orkney Ormond, Duchess of see Butler (née Preston), Elizabeth, Duchess of Ormond and suo jure Lady Dingwall Ormond, Duke of see Butler, James, first Duke of Ormond; Butler, James, second Duke of Ormond Osborne, Thomas, first Duke of Leeds, 44–8, 70, 71, 154, 158 Osborn, James M., xiv, 4, 6, 24 Ottoman Empire, 137 see also Constantinople Otway, Thomas, 170, 173 Venice Preserv’d (1682), 72, 173 Oundle, Northamptonshire, 52, 148, 151, 250, 258, 259 Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), 47, 96, 99, 125, 127, 139, 148, 149, 217, 239, 255, 274 Ars Amatoria, 149, 217 Owen, Anne, 275 Oxford see Oxford, University of; playhouses, Sheldonian Theatre Oxford, Earl of, 42 Oxford, University of, 38, 43, 54, 63, 64, 65, 66, 203 All Souls College, 54, 260 Christ Church, 62, 63, 66 Magdalen College, 183 Wadham College, 54, 83 Padua, 116 Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de, Historia de la Conquista de la China por el Tartaro (1670), 214 Paris, France, 71 Hôtel de Rambouillet, 111, 113 Pate, William, 196 Pausanias, 117, 275 Penn, Sir William, 33 Pepys, Elizabeth, 92 Pepys, Samuel, 13, 42, 86, 92, 197, 228, 252, 254 Perceval, Susanna, 77, 80 Perrault, Charles, 155 Parallèle des anciens et des modernes (1688), 172 Persius (Aules Persius Flaccus), 127

Index 321 Petre, Thomas, sixth Baron Petre, 181, 183 Phaedrus, 117 Philips, John, 112 Philips (née Fowler), Katherine, 13, 274, 275 Pickering, Lord see Pickering, Sir Gilbert, first Baronet, MP Pickering, Rev. Henry (grandfather), 1 Pickering, Sir Gilbert, first Baronet, MP, 60, 228 Pickering, Sir John, second Baronet, 149 Pierrepoint (née Greville), Anne, Countess of Kingston-upon-Hull, 108 Pierrepoint, William, 108 Pigott, Honor, 19 Pilton, Northamptonshire, 52, 259 Pindar (Pindarus), 127, 170, 173, 274 Plato, 92, 110, 112, 114, 117, 119 Hippias Major, 117 Platonic philosophy, 169, 172 Symposium, 112, 117 Plautus Amphitryon, 157 playhouses Dorset Garden, 43, 80, 87 Duke’s Theatre, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 72, 86, 184, 247, 280, 289, 291 Sheldonian Theatre, 57 Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 87, 88, 135, 136, 246, 247, 280 Plowden, William, 181 Plutarch, 120, 275 Plymouth, Devon, 144 Poet Laureate see Dryden, John, Poet Laureate; Shadwell, Thomas, Poet Laureate; Tate, Nahum, Poet Laureate Pope, Alexander, 3, 57, 78, 88, 160, 197, 220 Rape of the Lock (1714), 276 Popish Plot (1679), 138 Portsmouth, Duchess of, 136 Portsmouth, Hampshire, 41 Portugal, 122 Post Office, 10 Prior, Matthew, 88, 121 Protectorate Parliament (third), 28 Prynne, William, 28 Psalms, 127 Purcell, Henry, 80, 137 Pye, Sir Robert, 32 querelle des anciens et modernes, 155 Rabelais, François, 92 Racine, Jean-Baptiste, 164, 165, 281 Andromaque (1667), 165 Athalie (1691), 165 Esther (1689), 165 Iphigénie (1675), 281 Les Plaideurs (1669), 165 Phèdre et Hippolyte (1677), 165 Radcliffe, Charles, 58 Radcliffe, Dr John, 267

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322 Index

Radcliffe, Edward, second Earl of Derwentwater, 6, 54, 58, 149 Jacobite, 58 Radcliffe, Francis, first Earl of Derwentwater, 58, 148, 149, 150, 247 Rambouillet, Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de, 113 Rapin, René Observations sur les poemes d’Homere et de Virgile (1649), 157 Reflexions sur la poétique d’Aristote (1674), 96, 97 Reading, John, 134, 136 Reeves, Anne, 1, 257 Regensburg, Bavaria (Ratisbon), 87, 90, 91 Reresby, Sir John, 158 Restoration, the (1660), 1, 8, 10, 28, 91 Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 28 Richard I, King of England, 235, 237 Richelieu, Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, duc de, 41 Richmond, Duke of see Lennox, Charles, first Duke of Richmond, first Duke of Lennox, and Duke of Aubigny in the French nobility Robartes, John, first Earl of Radnor, 174 Rochester, Bishop of see Dolben, John, Bishop of Rochester and Archbishop of York Rochester, Countess of, 70 Rochester, Earl of see Hyde, Lawrence, first Earl of Rochester; Wilmot, John, second Earl of Rochester Rochester, Francis Atterbury, Bishop of, 103, 182 Preface to The Second Part of Mr. Waller’s Poems (1690), 103 (transl.), Absalom et Achitophel. Poema Latino (1681), 182 Rochford, Earl of, 267 Roman Catholicism, 8, 10, 123, 141, 197, 248, 288 Rome, 209 Rooke, Rear Admiral Sir George, 144, 146, 154 Roscomon, Earl of see Dillon, Wentworth, fourth Earl of Roscomon Rouvroy, Louis de Rouvroy, styled the duc de Saint-Simon, 146 Rowe, Nicholas, ‘Horace, Book II. Ode IV. Imitated’ (1707), 247 Royal Society, 42, 46, 92, 103, 187 Rump Parliament (1648–60), 28 Rupert, Prince, prince and count palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Cumberland, 40 Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, 52 Russell, Admiral Edward Russell, Earl of Orford, 154, 158 Rye House Plot (1683), 10

Rymer, Thomas, 49, 135, 139, 148, 150, 170, 173 A Short View of Tragedy (1693), 52, 137, 141, 150, 172, 173 Edgar (1678), 51, 53 Historiographer Royal, 150 Monsieur Rapin’s Reflections on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poesie (1694), 97 Tragedies of the Last Age (1678), 49, 51, 52, 53, 150

Sackville, Charles, sixth Earl of Dorset and first Earl of Middlesex, 6, 8, 9, 13, 52, 86, 88, 91, 123, 127, 128, 150, 173, 262, 270 Sackville, Charles, sixth Earl of Dorset and first Earl of Middlesex, 49, 121, 269 Saintsbury, George, 6 Salisbury, Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of, 210 Salwey, Edward, 24 Salwey, Edward, MP (cousin by affinity), 24, 27 Salwey, Major Richard (uncle), 24 Salwey (née Dryden), Dorothy (aunt), 24, 28 Sancroft, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, 243 Sandwich, Edward Montagu, first Earl of see Montagu, Edward, first Earl of Sandwich Sappho, 274 Saunders, Francis, 143 Savage, Richard, 183 Savile, Henry, 88 Scarsdale, Earl of see Leke, Robert, third Earl of Scarsdale Schomberg, Friedrich Hermann von Schönberg, Duke of Schomberg, count of Mertola, Marshal of France, 40 Scott, Anna [Anne], Duchess of Monmouth and suo jure Duchess of Buccleuch, 246, 247 Scott, Henry, first Earl of Deloraine, 246, 247 Scott, James, first Duke of Monmouth, 80, 87, 247 Scott, Sir Walter, first Baronet, 4, 6, 10 opinion of Dryden’s correspondence, 6 Scrope, Sir Carr, 87 Sedley, Sir Charles, fifth Baronet, 86, 90, 91 Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca the younger), 115, 119, 127 De beneficiis, 200 Settle, Elkanah, The Empress of Morocco (1673), 47, 106 Shadwell, Thomas, 2, 150 Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco see Dryden, John, et al., Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco (1674) Poet Laureate, 127 The Virtuoso (1676), 2 Shakespeare, William, 2, 48, 49, 51, 57, 78, 150, 170 The Tempest (1623), 54

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Sheffield, John, first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, 45, 47, 52, 85, 87, 88, 122, 192 The Rehearsal (1672), 40 Sheldon, Edward, 157, 176, 177 Sheres, Sir Henry, 91, 92 (transl.), ‘The Cobler and his Cock’ (1711), 92 (transl.), ‘The Parasite, or the Art of Flattery’ (1711), 92 Shovell, Admiral Sir Cloudsley, 146, 154, 158 Shrewsbury, Duke of, 203 Sidney, Philip, third Earl of Leicester, 143, 144 Siege of Namur (1695), 260 Silsoe, Bedfordshire, 259 Skipwith, Sir Thomas, second Baronet, 246, 247 Smith, Mrs, 57 Socrates, 110, 112, 117 Solon, 120 Somerset, Henry, first Duke of Beaufort, 236 Somerset House, London, 123 Somers, John, Baron Somers, 158, 280, 281 Sophocles, 150 Southerne, Thomas, 113, 135, 151 The Fate of Capua (1700), 289, 291 The Maid’s Last Prayer (1693), 136 The Wives’ Excuse (1692), 113 South Seas Company, 178 Spanish Netherlands, 134, 137 Brussels, 134 Huy, 143, 146 Landen, 137 Spencer, Robert, second Earl of Sunderland, 69, 70, 203 Spenser, Edmund, 72, 78 The Fairie Queene (1590–6), 23 Sprat, Thomas, 72 Squib, Robert, 154, 158 St Albans, Duke of see Beauclerk, Charles, first Duke of St Albans St Albans, Earl of, 72 Stanhope, Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield, 9, 181, 183, 184, 185, 190, 193 Letters of Philip, Second Earl of Chesterfield (1829), 193, 194, 196 Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, 200 Stanley, William, ninth Earl of Derby, 181, 183, 186 Stationers’ Register, 24, 39, 53, 73 St Cecilia’s Day, 216 Stephens, Anthony, 57 Stepney, George, 121 Steward, Elizabeth see Steward (née Creed), Elizabeth (second cousin) Steward, Elizabeth (third cousin), 227, 228 Steward, Elmes, 52, 222, 225–7, 238, 240, 246–50, 259, 261, 267, 268, 270, 271, 282, 283, 290 Steward, Jemina (third cousin), 280, 281

Index 323 Steward (née Creed), Elizabeth (second cousin), 3, 8, 222, 225, 227, 228, 238, 249, 257, 267, 281 Strype, John, Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster (1720), 188 Suckling, Sir John, 166, 168 Suffolk, Earl of, 281 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, 200 Sunderland, Ann Spencer (née Digby), Countess of, 70 Sunderland, Earl of see Spencer, Robert, second Earl of Sunderland Swalle, Abel, 77 Swan, Richard, 130, 131 Swift, Jonathan, 196 A Tale of a Tub (1704), 155 ‘Ode to the Athenian Society’ (1692), 141

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, Annals, 119 Talbot, Charles, first Duke of Shrewsbury, 203 Tangiers, 92 Tassoni, Alessandro, 114 Dieci libri di pensieri diversi d’Alessandro Tassoni (1620), 117 Tate, Nahum Ovid’s Metamorphosis (1697), 127 Poet Laureate, 125, 127, 247 Temple, Sir William, 141 Tenison, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, 203, 204, 248, 249 Terence (Publius Terentius Afer), 56 term catalogues, 144 Testi, Fulvio, 127 theatres see playhouses Theophrastus, 117 Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–4), 40 Third Crusade (1189–92), 237 Thomas, Elizabeth, 9, 81, 272, 275 Thomond, Earl of, 33 Thorp, Ralph, 207 Tickell, Thomas Poem […] on the Prospect of Peace (1714), 78 Tillotson, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 204 Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire, 1, 19, 45, 47, 51, 52, 60, 148, 149, 151, 222, 225, 228, 229, 250, 259, 283 Tompion, Thomas, 187 Tonson, Jacob, 2, 5, 10, 53, 74, 77, 79, 113, 124, 127, 135, 138, 143, 144, 147, 150, 159, 160, 175, 183, 196, 205, 207, 209, 212, 216, 217, 283 and Cambridge University Press, 78 Tonson, Jacob (father), 217 Tonson the third, Jacob, 6 Torbay, Devon, 144 Tory literary culture, 9 Tourville, comte de see Constentin, AnneHilarion de, comte de Tourville; Constentin, Anne-Hilarion de, comte de Tourville

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324 Index

Towcester, Northamptonshire, 188 Towerson, Gabriel, 145 tragi-comedy, 153, 157 Treaty of Jaffa (1192), 237 Treaty of Madrid (1667), 92 Treaty of Ryswick (1697), 204, 208, 210 Trenchard, Sir John, 148, 149 Tresham, George, 52, 260 Tresham, Sir Thomas, 52 Triennial Act (1694), 158 Trinity College, Cambridge, 1, 3, 19, 24, 63, 65, 66, 196 Trinity College, Dublin, see Dublin, Trinity College Trumbull, Sir William, MP, 201, 203 Tuchet, James, third Earl of Castlehaven, 70 Tudor, Lady Mary, Countess of Derwentwater, 58, 246, 247 Tully see Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 174 Ugbrooke, Devonshire, 193 United Provinces of the Netherlands, 145, 235 Holland, 137 Zealand, 38, 41

Vanbrugh, John, 78, 289 The Pilgrim (1700), 290, 291 Vander Gucht, Michael, 210 Varnell, Peter, 42 Vendôme, Phillipe de Bourbon, fourth duc de, 70 Venice, 116 Venner’s Rising (1661), 42 Vernon, James, 204 Villiers, George, first Duke of Buckingham, 40, 41 Villiers, George, second Duke of Buckingham, 2, 33, 38, 39, 40, 46, 72, 86, 88, 164 Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), 56, 76, 102, 127, 152, 154, 155, 157, 169, 171–3, 176, 181, 182, 184, 185, 193, 210, 214, 215, 264, 277 Eclogues, 189 Voiture, Vincent, 111, 115, 117 [Anon.], Letters of Affaires Love and Courtship (1657), 113 Walkedon, Mr., 209 Waller, Edmund, 88, 100, 166 Walsh, William, xiii, 6, 9, 10, 81, 93–5, 103, 104, 106, 113, 116, 117, 119, 132, 137, 138, 143, 153, 155, 157–9, 215, 244 [Anon.], Dialogue Concerning Women (1691), 83, 97, 100, 102, 107, 108, 109, 113

‘Elegy to his false mistress’ (1692), 99 Letters and Poems, Amourous and Gallant (1692), 83, 96, 97, 99, 103, 112 Ward, Charles E., 4 Waring, Mr, 24 War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97), 113, 146 War of the Reunions (1683–4), 78 West, Mr, 27 West Harting, Sussex, 220 West Indies, 259 Westminster, 60 King Street, 281 Westminster Abbey, 2, 63, 72, 205 Westminster School, 1, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 Wharton, Thomas, first Marquess of Wharton, 158 Whig literary culture, 9, 78 Whitehall Palace, 123 William III and II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 13, 113, 123, 134, 136, 137, 145, 146, 154, 158, 173, 187, 203, 204, 207, 210, 216, 217, 218, 235, 237, 248, 249, 260, 264, 265, 267, 270, 271, 289, 290 Williams, Abigail, 9 Will’s coffee house, Covent Garden, 9, 77, 81, 83, 85, 88, 96, 160, 164, 176, 177, 188, 215, 216, 252, 274, 275 Wilmot, John, second Earl of Rochester, 2, 8, 34, 47, 87, 88 An Allusion to Horace (1670s), 2, 34, 88 Poems, &c. On Several Occasions (1691), 39, 40 The Miscellaneous Works of … Rochester and Roscommon (1707), 247 Valentinian, 210 Winn, James Anderson, 4, 19, 139 Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, 33 Worcester Park, Surrey, 32 Worcester, Worcestershire, 135, 138 Wren, Sir Christopher, 63, 123 Wycherley, William, 52, 144, 155, 164, 171, 215 Miscellany Poems (1704), 135, 137, 138, 159 The Country-Wife (1675), 87 The Plain-Dealer (1677), 88, 174 Wycherley, William, 85, 87 York, Archbishop of see Dolben, John, Bishop of Rochester and Archbishop of York York, Duke of see James II and VII, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland

Zealand, County of, 41 Zulestein, William, first Earl of Rochford, 267, 290