Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets. William Howitt

the rank which Dryden held in society by the splendor of his titled and powerful friends, or by his connections among men of genius, we must consider him as occupying at one time as high a station, in the very foremost circle, as literary reputation could gain for its owner. Independent of the notice with which he was honored by Charles himself, the poet numbered among his friends most of the distinguished nobility. The great Duke of Ormond had already begun that connection which subsisted between Dryden and three generations of the house of Butler. Thomas Lord Clifford, one of the Cabal ministry, was uniform in patronizing the poet, and appears to have been active in introducing him to the king's favor. The Duke of Newcastle loved him sufficiently to present him with a play for the stage; the witty Earl of Dorset, then Lord Buckhurst, and Sir Charles Sedley, admired in that loose age for the peculiar elegance of his loose poetry, were his intimate associates, as is evident from the turn of The Essay on Dramatic Poesy, where they are the speakers. Wilmot, earl of Rochester, soon to act a very different part, was then anxious to vindicate Dryden's writings; to mediate for him with those who distributed the royal favor, and was thus careful, not only of his reputation, but his fortune. In short, the author of what was then held the first style of poetry, was sought for by all among the great and gay who wished to maintain some character for literary taste. It was then Dryden enjoyed those genial nights described in the dedication of the Assignation, when 'discourse was neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant, and for the most part instructive; the raillery neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious upon the absent; and the cups such only as raised the conversation of the night, without disturbing the business of the morrow.' He had not yet experienced the disadvantages attendant on such society, or learned how soon literary eminence becomes the object of detraction, of envy, of injury, even from those who can best feel its merit, if they are discouraged by dissipated habits from emulating its flight, or hardened by perverted feeling against loving its possessors." But all this came; and, in the mean time, the poet had to work, like Pegasus in the peasant's cart, for the means to maintain this intercourse with such lofty society. And what did all these great friends do for him? They procured him no good post in return for good services rendered to their party, but the poet's meager office of the laureateship, which, added to that of historiographer to royalty, brought him £200 a year, and his butt of canary. Poor Dryden! with the cross wife, and the barren blaze of aristocracy around him, the poorest coal-heaver need not have envied him.

      Neither did "glorious John" escape his share of annoyance from his cotemporaries of the pen, nor from the publishers. He had a controversy with his friend and brother-in-law, Sir Robert Howard, on the true nature of dramatic poetry, which speedily degenerated into personal bitterness, and a long estrangement. Then came the Rehearsal, that witty farce in which he was ridiculed in the character of Bayes, and his literary productions, as well as personal characteristics, held up to the malicious merriment of the world by a combination of the wits and fashionable pen-men of the time; among them the notorious Villiers, duke of Buckingham, the author of Hudibras, the Bishop of Rochester, and others. The miserable Elkanah Settle was set up as a rival of him; and after these rose in succession the hostile train of the licentious Lord Rochester, Lord Shaftesbury, Milbourne, Blackmore, and others, by whom every species of spite, misrepresentation, and ridicule were for years heaped upon him. Nor did his enemies restrain themselves to the use of the pen in their attacks upon him. One of the most prominent events of Dryden's life is that of a ruffianly attack upon him as he returned from his club at Will's Coffee-house, on a winter's night. Lord Mulgrave had published a satire, called an Essay on Satire, in which Rochester and other wits and profligates of the time were introduced. The poem was a wretched affair; but Dryden, to oblige Mulgrave, had undertaken to revise it. Much labor he could not have bestowed upon it, it was so flat and poor; but Rochester thought fit to attribute it to Dryden himself; and a set of ruffians, supposed to be hired by him and the Duchess of Portsmouth, who had been also reflected on, fell on the poet as he passed through Rose-street, Covent Garden, on his way from Will's Coffee-house to his own house in Gerrard-street. A reward of £50 was in vain offered in the London Gazette and other newspapers for the discovery of the perpetrators of the outrage. The beating was, in those loose times, thought a good joke. The Rose Alley ambuscade became almost proverbial; and even Mulgrave, the real author of the satire, and upon whose shoulders the blows ought in justice to have descended, in his Art of Poetry, thus mentions the circumstance with a pitiful sneer:

      "Though praised and punished for another's rhymes,

       His own deserve as great applause sometimes."

      Thus attacked with pens and cudgels by the envious writers of the day, Dryden was nearly starved by the booksellers. On one occasion, provoked by the refusal of timely supplies by Jacob Tonson, he did not do as Johnson did by Cave, knock him down with a quarto, but ran him through with a triplet, describing the bibliopole's person:

      "With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair,

       With two left legs, and Judas-colored hair,

       And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air."

      "Tell the dog," said the poet to the messenger by whom he sent these complimentary lines, "that he who wrote these can write more." But he needed not to write more; they were as effective as he could desire. Jacob, however, on his part, could make his tongue as pungent as Dryden could his verse. Johnson, in the "Life of Dryden," relates that Lord Bolingbroke one day making a call on Dryden, he heard another person enter the house. "That," said Dryden, "is Tonson. You will take care not to depart before he goes away; for I have not completed the sheet which I promised him; and if you leave me unprotected, I shall suffer all the rudeness to which his resentment can prompt his tongue."

      Perhaps the happiest hours of Dryden's life, next to those spent over his finest compositions in his study, were passed at Will's Coffee-house. After dinner, at two o'clock, he used to repair thither, where assembled all the most famous men of the time. There he reigned supreme. He had a chair placed for him by the chimney in winter, and near the balcony in summer; where, says his biographer, he pronounced, ex cathedrâ, his opinions upon new publications, and in general upon all matters of doubtful criticism. Latterly, all who had occasion to ridicule and attack him, represent him as presiding in this little senate. His opinions, however, were not maintained with dogmatism, but he listened to criticism, provided it was just, from whatever unexpected and undignified quarter it happened to come. In general, however, it may be supposed that few ventured to dispute his opinion, or to place themselves in the gap between him and the object of his censure.

      Dryden's house, which he appears to have resided in from the period of his marriage till his death, was, as I have said, in Gerrard-street; the fifth on the left hand, coming from Little Newport-street, now No. 43. The back windows looked upon the gardens of Leicester House, of which circumstance the poet availed himself to pay a handsome compliment to the noble owner. His excursions to the country seem to have been frequent; perhaps the more so, as Lady Elizabeth always remained in town. In his latter days, the friendship of his relations, John Dryden, of Chesterton, and Mrs. Steward, of Cotterstock, rendered their houses agreeable places of abode to the aged poet. They appear, also, to have had a kind solicitude about his little comforts, of value infinitely beyond the contributions they made toward aiding him.

      The principal traits of his domestic life have been collected together by Malone. From these, and from the pen of Congreve, we learn that he was, in youth, of handsome form and agreeable countenance; modest in his manner, reluctant to intrude himself on the notice and company of others, easily chilled and rebuffed by any thing like a distant behavior. He is described as most amiable and affectionate in his family, generous beyond his means, and most forgiving of injuries; all noble traits of character. Malone related, on the authority of Lady Dryden, that at that time the poet's little estate at Blakesley was occupied by one Harriots, grandson of the tenant who held it in Dryden's time, who stated that his grandfather used to take great pleasure in talking of him. He was, he said, the easiest and the kindest landlord in the world; and never raised the rent during the whole time he possessed the estate. The two most unfortunate circumstances in his life, next to his marriage, was his going over from Puritanism to popery, and from the liberal opinions of his family to the adherence of the worst of kings. For these changes it would be difficult to assign any better motive than that of mending his fortunes. But if this were the case, he was bitterly punished