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and have all the happiness of an idle life, joined with the good nature of an active. Your friends in town are ready to envy the leisure you have given yourself in the country; though they know you are only their steward, and that you treasure up but so much health as you intend to spend on them in winter. In the meantime you have withdrawn yourself from attendance, the curse of courts; you may think on what you please, and that as little as you please; for, in my opinion, thinking itself is a kind of pain to a witty man he finds so much more in it to disquiet than to please him. But I hope your lordship will not omit the occasion of laughing at the great duke of Buckingham, who is so uneasy to himself by pursuing the honour of lieutenantgeneral, which flies him, that he can enjoy nothing he possesses; though at the same time he is so unfit to command an army, that he is the only man in the three nations who does not know it: yet he still piques himself, like his father, to find another Isle of Rhé in Zealand; thinking this disappointment an injury to him, which is indeed a favour, and will not be satisfied but with his own ruin and with ours. 'Tis a strange quality in a man to love idleness so well as to destroy his estate by it; and yet at the same time to pursue so violently the most toilsome and most unpleasant part of business. These observations would soon run into lampoon, if I had not forsworn that dangerous part of wit; not so much out of good nature, but lest, from the inborn vanity of poets, I should show it to others, and betray myself to a worse mischief than what

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I do to my enemy. This has been lately the case of Ethereza; who translating a satire of Boileau's, and changing the French names for English, read it so often, that it came to their ears who were concerned; and forced him to leave off the design, ere it was half finished. Two of the verses I remember :

I call a spade a spade; Eaton a bully;
Frampton a pimp; and brother John a cully.

But one of his friends imagined these names not enough for the dignity of a satire, and changed them thus:

I call a spade a spade; Dunbar, a bully;

Brounckard, a pimp; and Aubrey Vere, a cully.

Because I deal not in satire, I have sent your lordship a prologue and epilogue which I made for our players, when they went down to Oxford. I hear they have succeeded; and by the event your lordship will judge how easy 'tis to pass any thing upon an university, and how gross flattery the learned will endure. If your lordship had been in town, and I in the country, I durst not have entertained you with three pages of a letter; but I know they are very ill things that can be tedious to a man who is fourscore miles from Covent Garden. 'Tis upon this confidence that I dare almost promise to entertain you with a thousand bagatelles every week, and not to be serious in any part of my letter but that wherein I take leave to call myself your lordship's most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

JOHN DRYDEN TO LAURENCE HYDE, EARL OF ROCHESTER.

MY LORD,

[Perhaps August, 1683.] I KNOW not whether my Lord Sunderland has interceded with your lordship for half a year of my salary; but I have two other advocates, my extreme wants, even almost to arresting, and my ill health, which cannot be repaired without immediate retiring into the country. A quarter's allowance is but the Jesuits' powder to my decease; the fit will return a fortnight hence. If I durst, I would plead a little merit, and some hazards of my life from the common enemies; my refusing advantages offered by them, and neglecting my beneficial studies, for the king's service but I only think I merit not to starve. I never applied myself to any interest contrary to your lordship's; and on some occasions, perhaps not known to you, have not been unserviceable to the memory and reputation of my lord, your father. After this, my lord, my conscience assures me I may write boldly, though I cannot speak to you. I have three sons growing to man's estate; I breed them all up to learning, beyond my fortune; but they are too hopeful to be neglected, though I want. Be pleased to look upon me with an eye of compassion: some small employment would render my condition easy. The king is not unsatisfied of me; the duke has often promised me his assistance; and your lordship is the conduit through which their favours pass either in the customs, or the appeals of

the excise, or some other way, means cannot be wanting, if you please to have the will. "Tis enough for one age to have neglected Mr. Cowley, and starved Mr. Butler; but neither had the happiness to live till your lordship's ministry. In the mean time, be pleased to give me a gracious and speedy answer to my present request of half a year's pension for my necessities. I am going to write somewhat by his majesty's command, and cannot stir into the country for my health and studies, till I secure my family from want. You have many petitions of this nature, and cannot satisfy all; but I hope, from your goodness, to be made an exception to your general rules, because I am, with all sincerity, your lordship's most obedient, humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

JOHN DRYDEN TO JACOB TONSON.

MR. TONSON,

Monday morning [Sept. 1684]. THE two melons you sent I received before your letter, which came four hours after: I tasted one of them, which was too good to need an excuse; the other is yet untouched. You have written divers things which gave me great satisfaction; particularly that the History of the League is commended and I hope the only thing I penned in it is not found out. Take it altogether, and I dare say without vanity, 'tis the best translation of any history in English, though I cannot say 'tis the best history; but this is no fault of mine. I am glad my lord duke of Ormond has one: I

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