LETTER XXXVI. ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING BY MR. PEPYS. SIR, Friday, July 14, 1699. You truly have obliged mee; and possibly, in saying so, I am more in earnest then you can readily think; as verily hopeing, from this your copy of one "Good Parson," to fancy some amends made mee for the hourly offence I beare with from the sight of so many lewd originalls. I shall with great pleasure attend you on this occasion, when ere you'l permit it; unless you would have the kindness to double it to mee, by suffering my coach to wayte on you (and who you can gayne mee ye same favour from) hither, to a cold chicken and a sallade, any noone after Sunday, as being just stepping into the ayre for 2 days. I am, most respectfully, Your honord and obednt servant, LETTER XXXVII. TO MRS. STEWARD. S. P. MADAM, Saturday, Aug. 5th, 1699. THIS is only a word, to threaten you with a troublesome guest, next week: I have taken places philosophy. His fame among the Virtuosi was such, that he was thought to be a very proper person to be placed at the head of the Royal Society, of which he was some time [1685, 1686] president. His Prints have been already mentioned. His collection of English Ballads, in five large folio volumes, begun by Mr. Selden, and carried down to 1700, is one of his singular curiosities.-Ob. 26 May, 1703." [When Scott wrote thus, the Diary, in which he himself afterwards took huge delight, had not been published.-ED.] for my self and my sonn in the Oundle coach, which sets out on Thursday next the tenth of this present August; and hope to wait on a fair lady at Cotterstock on Friday the eleventh. If you please to let your coach come to Oundle, I shall save my cousin Creed the trouble of hers. All heer are your most humble servants, and particularly an old cripple, who calls him self Your most obliged kinsman, For Mrs. Stewart, Att JOHN DRYDEN. Cotterstock, near Oundle, in Northamptonshire. These. To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle. MADAM, LETTER XXXVIII. TO MRS. STEWARD. Sept. 28th, 1699. 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 and honour of your company. "Tis true, the master of the stage-coach has not been over civill to me: for he turned us out of the road at the first step, and made us go to Pilton; there we took in a fair young lady of eighteen, and her brother, a young gentleman; they are related to the Treshams, but not of that name: thence we drove to Higham, where we had an old servingwoman, and a young fine mayd: we din'd at Bletso, and lay at Silso, six miles beyond Bedford. There we put out the old woman, and took in Councellour Jennings his daughter; her father goeing along in the Kittering coach, or rideing by it, with other company. We all din'd at Hatfield together, and came to town safe at seaven in the evening. We had a young doctour, who rode by our coach, and seem'd to have a smickering * to our young lady of Pilton, and ever rode before to get dinner in a readiness. My sonn, Charles, knew him formerly a Jacobite; and now going over to Antigoo, with Colonel Codrington,† haveing been formerly in the West Indies.-Which of our two young ladies was the handsomer, I know not. My sonn liked the Councellour's daughter best: I thought they were both equall. But not goeing to Tichmarsh Grove, and afterwards by Catworth, I missed my two couple of rabbets, which my cousin, your father, had given me to carry with me, and cou'd not see my sister by the way I was likewise disappointed of Mr. Cole's Ribadavia wine: but I am almost resolved to sue the stage- coach, for putting me six or seaven miles out of the way, which he cannot justify. Be pleased to accept my acknowledgment of all your favours, and my Cousin Stuart's; and by employing my sonn and me in any thing you desire to have done, give us occasion to take our revenge on our kind relations both at Oundle and Cotterstock. Be pleas'd, Be pleas'd, your father, your mother, your two fair sisters, and your brother, may find my sonn's service and mine made acceptable to *To smicker, though omitted by Dr. Johnson, is found, says Mr. Malone, in Kersey's Dictionary, 1708; where it is interpreted-"To look amorously, or wantonly." + Christopher Codrington, governor of the Caribbee Islands. Colonel John Creed, a gallant soldier. He died at Oundle, Nov. 21, 1751, aged 73, and was buried in the church of Tichmarsh. them by your delivery; and believe me to be with all manner of gratitude, give me leave to add, all manner of adoration, Madam, Your most obliged obedient Servant, For Mrs. Stuart, Att Cotterstock, near Oundle, in Northamptonshire. These. JOHN DRYDEN. To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle. THESE verses† had waited on you with the former, but that they wanted that correction which I have given them, that they may the better endure the sight of so great a judge and poet. I am now in feare that I purged them out of their spirit; as our Master Busby us'd to whip a boy so long, till he made him a confirm'd blockhead. My Cousin Driden saw them in the country; and the greatest *The superscription of this letter is wanting; but that it was addressed to Mr. Montague, is ascertained by the words"From Mr. Dryden," being indorsed on it, in that gentleman's handwriting. Charles Montague (afterwards Earl of Halifax) was at this time First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer; the latter of which offices he had held from the year 1694. The date is supplied by the subsequent letter. -MALONE. The verses addressed to his kinsman, John Driden, of Chesterton, Esq.-The former poem which had been submitted to Mr. Montague, was that addressed to Mary, Duchess of Ormond. They were both inserted in the volume of Fables, which was then printing. See the next letter.-MALONE. exception he made to them was a satire against the Dutch valour in the last war. He desir'd me to omit it (to use his own words), "out of the respect he had to his Sovereign." I obeyed his commands, and 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,* I think I have not only drawn the features of my worthy kinsman, but have also given my own opinion of what an Englishman in Parliament ought to be; and deliver it as a memorial of my own principles to all posterity. I have consulted the judgment of my unbyass'd friends, who have some of them the honour to be known to you and they think there is nothing which can justly give offence in that part of the poem. I say not this to cast a blind on your judgment (which I could not do, if I endeavoured 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, and 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 * The lines alluded to occur in the Epistle to Driden of Chesterton (vol. xi. p. 78). They are very cautiously worded; yet obviously imply, that opposition to government was one quality of a good patriot. Dryden, sensible of the suspicion arising from his politics and religion, seems, in this letter, to deprecate Montague's displeasure, and to prepossess him in favour of the poem, as inoffensive toward the government. I am afraid, that indemnity was all he had to hope for from the protection of this famed Mæcenas; at least, he returns no thanks for benefits hitherto received; and of these he was no niggard where there was room for them. Pope's bitter verses on Halifax are well known: "Dryden alone-what wonder? came not nigh, |
