and meditation, and his trade rather than his pleasure.

Of the mind that can trade in corruption, and can deliberately pollute itself with ideal wickedness for the fake of fpreading the contagion in fociety, I wish not to conceal or excufe the depravity.-Such degradation of the dignity of genius, fuch abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation. What confolation can be had, Dryden has afforded, by living to repent, and to teftify his repentance.

Of dramatick immorality he did not want examples among his predeceffors, or companions among his contemporaries; but in the meanness and servility of hyperbolical adulation, I know not whether, fince the days in which the Roman emperors were deified, he has been ever equalled, except by Afra Behn in an addrefs to Eleanor Gwyn. When once he has undertaken the task of praise, he no longer retains shame in himself, nor fupposes it in his patron. As many odoriferous bodies are obferved to diffufe perfumes from year to year, without fenfible diminution of bulk or weight, he appears never to have impoverished his mint of flattery by his expences, however lavish. He had all the forms of excellence, intellectual and moral, combined in his mind, with endlefs variation; and when he had fcattered on the hero of the day the golden fhower of wit and virtue, he had ready for him, whom he wifhed to court on the morrow, new wit and virtue with another ftamp. Of this kind of meannefs he never feems to decline the practice, or lament the

neceffity:

neceffity: he confiders the great as entitled to encomiaftick homage, and brings praise rather as a tribute than a gift, more delighted with the fertility of his invention than mortified by the prostitution of his judgement. It is indeed not certain, that on these occafions his judgement much rebelled against his interest. There are minds which easily fink into fubmiffion, that look on grandeur with undiftinguishing reverence, and discover no defect where there is elevation of rank and affluence of riches.

His

With his praises of others and of himself is always intermingled a train of discontent and lamentation, a fullen growl of refentment, or a querulous murmur of diftrefs. works are under-valued, his merit is unrewarded, and he has few thanks to pay his ftars that he was born among Englishmen. To his criticks he is fometimes contemptuous, fometimes refentful, and fometimes fubmiffive. The writer who thinks his works formed for duration, mistakes his intereft when he mentions his enemies. He degrades his own dignity by fhewing that he was affected by their cenfures,and gives lafting importance to names, which, left to themselves, would vanifh from remembrance. From this principle Dryden did not oft depart; his complaints are, for the greater part, general; he feldom pollutes his page with an adverse name. He condefcended indeed to a controversy with Settle, in which he perhaps may be confidered rather as affaulting than repelling; and fince Settle has funk into oblivion, his libel remains injurious only to himself.

I

Among

Among answers to criticks, no poetical attacks, or altercations, are to be included: they are, like other poems, effusions of genius, produced as much to obtain praise as to obviate cenfure. These Dryden practifed, and in these he excelled.

Of Collier, Blackmore, and Milbourne, he has made mention in the preface to his Fables. To the cenfure of Collier, whose remarks may be rather termed admonitions than criticifms, he makes little reply; being, at the age of fixty-eight, attentive to better things than the claps of a playhouse. He complains of Collier's rudeness, and the horse-play of his raillery; and afferts that in many places he has perverted by his gloffes the meaning of what he cenfures; but in other things he confesses that he is justly taxed; and fays, with great calmnefs and candour, I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts or expreffions of mine that can be truly accufed of obscenity, immorality, or profaneness, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, he will be glad of my repentance. Yet, as our beft difpofitions are imperfect, he left standing in the fame book a reflection on Collier of great afperity, and indeed of more afperity than wit.

Blackmore he reprefents as made his enemy by the poem of Abfalom and Achitophel, which be thinks a little bard upon his fanatick patrons; and charges him with borrowing the plan of his Arthur from the preface to Juvenal, though be bad, fays he, the bafeness not to acknowledge bis benefactor, but instead of it to traduce me in a libel,

The

The libel in which Blackmore traduced him was a Satire upon Wit; in which, having lamented the exuberance of falfe wit and the deficiency of true, he propofes that all wit fhould be recoined before it is current, and appoints masters of affay who fhall reject all that is light or debased.

'Tis true, that when the coarfe and worthlefs drofs

Is purg'd away, there will be mighty loss; Ev'n Congreve, Southern, manly Wycherly,

When thus refin'd, will grievous suff'rers

be;

Into the melting-pot when Dryden comes, What horrid ftench will rife, what noifome fumes !

How will he fhrink, when all his lewd allay, And wicked mixture, fhall be purg'd away ? Thus ftands the paffage in the last edition; but in the original there was an abatement of the cenfure, beginning thus:

But what remains will be fo pure, 'twill

bear

Th' examination of the most severe. Blackmore finding the cenfure refented, and the civility difregarded, ungenerously omitted the fofter part. Such variations discover a writer who confults his paffions more than his virtue; and it may be reasonably fuppofed that Dryden imputes his enmity to its true cause.

Of Milbourne he wrote only in general terms, fuch as are always ready at the call of anger, whether juft or not: a fhort extract will be fufficient. He pretends a quarrel to me,

that

that I have fallen foul upon priesthood; if I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his fhare of the reparation will come to little. Let him be fatisfied that he shall never be able to force himself upon me for an adverfary; I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him.

As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are fuch Scoundrels that they deServe not the leaft notice to be taken of them. Blackmore and Milbourne are only distinguished from the crowd by being remembered to their infamy.

Dryden indeed discovered, in many of his writings, an affected and abfurd malignity to priests and priesthood, which naturally raised him many enemies, and which was sometimes as unfeasonably refented as it was exerted. Trapp is angry that he calls the facrificer in the Georgicks the holy butcher: the translation is indeed ridiculous; but Trapp's anger arifes from his zeal, not for the author, but the prieft; as if any reproach of the follies of ganifm could be extended to the preachers of truth.

pa

Dryden's diflike of the priesthood is imputed by Langbaine, and I think by Brown, to a repulfe which he suffered when he folicited ordination; but he denies, in the preface to his Fables, that he ever defigned to enter into the church; and fuch a denial he would not have hazarded, if he could have been convicted of falsehood.

Malevolence to the clergy is feldom at a great distance from irreverence of religion, and Dryden affords no exception to this obfer

vation.