related in the Life of the Duke of Ormond :— "Once in a quarter of a year," says Carte," he used to have the Marquis of Halifax, the Earls of Mulgrave, Dorset, and Danby, Mr. Dryden, and others of that set of men, at supper; and then they were merry, and drank hard. At one of these entertainments, two of his gentlemen, Preston and Crawford, both of them Scotsmen,' curious to hear the conversation, and desirous to partake of the vivacity of the company, stayed behind the Duke's chair, till the company had drank a bottle a-piece; when his Grace, observing them, said, Gentlemen, this is not fair; if you stay and hear our conversation, you should sit down and drink your bottle fairly with us, or else leave us to ourselves:-upon which they retired."+ I may add, that his company and conversation were sought not only by many highly distinguished for their parts and eminence in the state, but by a numerous band of lively and ingenious young men, who, notwithstanding a great disparity of age, seem to have not only loved and respected him, but to have delighted in his society; and the many hours which he passed with Southerne, Congreve, Oldham, Creech, Garth, Duke, Chet 3 Scottish men, and Scotchmen, are very intelligible, and so is a Scot, or Scots: but what can be made of Scotsmen? With equal propriety we.might call the people of England, Britonsmen. Yet many of the Scottish writers themselves are guilty of the barbarism here used by Carte. Life of James, Duke of Ormond, vol. ii. p. 554. wood, Walsh, Vanbrugh, Moyle, St. John, Maynwaring, and Granville, afford a very strong proof of his companionable qualities. He has himself observed, that the civilest man in the company is commonly the dullest: we may be confident, therefore, that his claim to the society and affection. of the young, the accomplished, and the gay, was not merely good humour and good-breeding; and that they were drawn to him by many other attractions beside that suavity of disposition and manners, which all his contemporaries ascribe to him. However he may have been surpassed by some of those Wits with whom he conversed, in the ready use of the intellectual treasures which he unquestionably possessed, a few of his spritely sayings have been preserved. According to Steele," "when a young fellow just come from the play of CLEOMENES, told him in raillery against the continency of his principal character, 'If I had been left alone with a fair lady, I should not have passed my time like your Spartan;' 'That may be,' answered the bard, with a very grave face; but give me leave to tell you, Sir, you are no hero." Lady Elizabeth Dryden, one morning, having come into his study at an unseasonable time, when he was intently employed on some composition, and GUARDIAN, No. 45. In the Preface to CLEOMENES, we find a similar remark: our author, however, might have made the reply mentioned by Steele, at Will's Coffee-house, and have afterwards availed himself of the same observation, when he published his play. finding he did not attend to her, exclaimed, 'Lord! Mr. Dryden, you are always poring upon these musty books ;-I wish I was a book, and then I should have more of your company.' 'Well, my dear,' replied the poet, when you do become a book, 'pray, let it be an Almanack; for then, at the end of the year, I shall lay you quictly on the shelf, and shall be able to pursue my studies without interruption." Being with Lord Mulgrave* at his seat near Whitby, in Yorkshire, they agreed to play a match at bowls, and promised that neither of them would try the ground beforehand. In the evening, however, Dryden's servant discovered his Lordship taking his distances, and measuring his casts; and informed his master. He took no notice of it; but the next day, after Dryden had bowled, Lord Mulgrave, before he delivered his bowl, cried out, My life, Dryden, to a turnip, that I beat you.'Lay me an even wager, my Lord,' said the bard, and I will take it up." From the late Horace, Earl of Orford. This nobleman (afterwards Duke of Buckinghamshire,) was extremely fond of bowling, and is said to have lost large sums of money in betting at this game. He is supposed to be alluded to in the following lines by Pope, in THE BASSET TABLE, an Eclogue: "At the Groom-porters batter'd bullies play; A gentleman returning from one of D'Urfey's plays, the first night it was acted, said to Dryden, Was there ever such stuff? I could not have imagined that even this author could have written so ill. O, Sir,' replied the old bard, you don't know my friend Tom so well as I do: I'll answer for him, he shall write worse yet." Notwithstanding his confidence in his own powers, and the just value which he set on his performances, tradition informs us, that he was not wholly free from jealousy of rivals. "He would compliment Crowne, (as old Jacob Tonson told Mr. Spence,) when a play of his failed; but was cold to him, if he met with success. He sometimes used to say, that Crowne had some THE MEDLEY, by Mr. Maynwaring, No. 16.-Of Pope's vivacity in conversation, still fewer instances have been recorded: but two, I think.-I am well aware, how hazardous it is, to produce any lively sayings professedly as wit: but if those here mentioned should not appear entitled to that appellation, let it be considered, that they are introduced only because they happen to have been transmitted to us; and that many of Dryden's happier effusions may have perished. Lord Rochester, Lord Dorset, Sir Charles Sidley, and Sir Fleetwood Shephard, were all acknowledged by their contemporaries to be men of wit; yet how few of their good things have been preserved! Urgentur longâ nocte, carent quia vate sacro. If it had not been for the late Mr. Boswell, posterity would not have known that Dr. Johnson was one of the wittiest, as well as wisest and most virtuous, men of the present century. genius; but then he always added, that his father and Crowne's mother were very well acquainted."" When Otway first began to rise into reputation, and for some years afterwards, he appears to have been under-rated by Dryden;' though, towards the end of the reign of Charles the Second, politicks in some measure united them. Gilden supposes, that he had no taste for the pathetick, because, when in his latter days Euripides was recommended to him, instead of Homer, of whose Spence's ANECDOTES.-It has already been observed, that a story always loses somewhat, when it is taken out of its setting. The tone of voice with which these words were spoken, and the smile which probably accompanied them, doubtless ascertained Dryden's meaning, and shewed that they were not spoken in sober sadness. Otway, in the following passage of the Preface to his second play, DON CARLOS, which was acted early in 1676, and published in the same year, unquestionably alludes to Dryden, though he has not named him: "This I may modestly boast of, (which the author of the French Bernice has done before me, in his Preface to that play,) that it [DON CARLOS] never failed to draw tears from the cyes of the auditors; I mean those, whose souls were capable of so noble a pleasure; ----though a certain writer, that shall be nameless, (but you may guess at him by what follows,) being asked his opinion of this play, very gravely cock'd, and cried, Igad, he knew not a line in it he would be author of but he is a fine facetious witty person, as my friend Sir Formal has it; and to be even with him, I know a comedy of his, that has not so much as a quibble in it, which I would be author of; and so, reader, I bid him and thee farewell." |