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disquisitions with which the room resounded; Dryden, however, did not always take a part, contenting himself sometimes with being a listener and it may be collected from one of his Prefaces,' compared with a passage in THE REHEARSAL, that

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3 "I have been listening," says our author, "what objections had been made against the conduct of the play; but found them all so trivial, that if I should name them, a true critick would imagine that I played booty, and only raised up phantoms for myself to conquer." Pref. to DON SEBASTIAN. Again, in the Preface to ALL FOR LOVE: "I should not have troubled myself thus far with French poets, but that I find our Chedreux criticks wholly form their judgment by them."-So also Congreve, in the Dedication of THE DOUBLE DEALER: “ I have heard some whispering, as if they intended to accuse this play of smuttiness," &c.

In the first Act of THE REHEARSAL, we find the following dialogue:

"BAYES. My next rule is, the rule of record;-by way of table-book:-pray, observe.

"JOHNS. We hear, you, Sir, Go on.

"BAYES. AS thus. I come into a coffee-house, or some other place, where witty men resort. I make as if I minded nothing: do ye mark ?-but as soon as any one speaks, pop! I slap it down, and make that too my own."

As there are in this piece several allusions to our author's expressions and habits, this passage also may have a reference to him.-If he had ever been seen at Will's with a table-book in his hand, that circumstance would afford a sufficient ground to a professed caricaturist for denying him that fertility which unquestionably he possessed; ridicule, not truth, being the object of all painters and writers of that description.

he occasionally minuted in a table-book the objections that were made to his writings by the Chedreux criticks of the day.

According to Pope, Dryden was the person who made Will's Coffee-house the place of resort for the Wits of his time. About twelve years after his death, Addison led them to Button's, who was a servant of his, and opened a house in CoventGarden, on the south side of Great Russel-street.

Dryden, as he has himself told us, lived in Gerard-street, probably from the time of his marriage; and his house (for why should it not be as precisely ascertained as the various places of Milton's residence?) was the fifth on the left hand, in coming from Little Newport-street.' Behind, his apartments looked into the gardens of Leicester-House. He had long lived there; for it was in returning from Will's to his own house, in December, 1679, that he was way-laid by bravoes and cruelly beaten; Rose-street, or as it ought rather to be called, Rose-alley, being the shortest

After his

• Spence's ANECDOTES.- Pope says, death, Addison transferred it to Button's," &c.; but he could not mean, immediately afterwards; for it appears from THE TATLER, and from a letter of Henry Cromwell to Pope, that Will's continued to be frequented by the Wits at least till 1710. Probably Addison established his servant in a new house about 1712; and his fame, after the production of CATO, drew thither many of the Whigs. Letter to Mrs. Steward, about October, 1698.Dryden's house in Gerard-strect is now numbered, 43. kk

VOL. I.

way

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from Covent-Garden to Gerard-street.-As even the domestick day of such a man cannot be uninteresting, I may add, that he usually devoted his mornings to the composition of his various works; and his place of study was by no means convenient, for he commonly wrote in a room on the ground-floor, next the street. The hour of dinner, even in the latest period of his time, did not, I believe, exceed two o'clock; and plays began at four in the afternoon. Between three and four he repaired to the Coffee-house,* and there a great part of the evening was spent. "Addison," says Pope, "passed each day alike, and much in the same manner as Dryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in writing; dined en famille, and then went to Will's;-only he came home earlier o'nights."-In Addison's time it was customary,

• Spence.

7 From a passage in a letter from Congreve to Dennis, dated Tunbridge-Wells, Aug. 11, 1695, the dinner-hour at that place should seem then to have been at noon. In 1702, the hour of dinner in London, at the west end of the town, was two o'clock, or half past two; and in the City they dined at twelve. See Gildon's Comparison between the two Stages, p. 69. In 1740, persons of fashion dined at four o'clock,(Cibber's APOL. p. 101,) and citizens at two. See the Epilogue to THE SHE-GALLANTS, performed in 1696:

"On pain of being posted to your sorrow,

"Fail not at four to meet me here to-morrow." * Reasons of Mr. Bayes's changing, &c. Part I. p. 32. Addison, as Pope related to Mr. Spence, "studied all the morning; then met his party at Button's, dined

at about seven or eight o'clock, to retire from the coffee-house to the tavern, where wine, and frequently pipes and tobacco, were immediately called for; and in an hour or two afterwards they supped, and then again circulated the bottle.

Dryden having declared of himself, that he was saturnine and reserved, and not one of those who endeavour to entertain company by lively sallies of merriment and wit,' the author of the lampoon entitled A SATIRE TO HIS MUSE, has made him say,

"Nor wine, nor love, could ever see me gay;

"To writing bred, I knew not what to say." Dr. Johnson, after quoting these lines, observes, that "we must be content to believe what an adversary says of him, when he likewise says it of himself." But surely his representation of his convivial talents must be acknowledged to have

the text:

there, and stayed five or six hours, and sometimes far into the night." "I was (adds Pope) of the company for about a year, but I found it too much for me it hurt my health; and so I quitted it."-In another place his account is more conformable to the representation given in "Addison's chief companions, before he mar ried Lady Warwick, [1716,] were Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carew D'Avenant, and Colonel Brett. He used to breakfast with one or other of them at his lodgings in St. James's Place; dine at taverns with them: then to Button's, and then to some tavern again, for supper and the evening: and this was the usual round of his life."

'Defence of the Essay of Dramatick Poesy, vol. i. part ii p. 163.

gained somewhat, as it passed through the hands of his censurer; and there can be little doubt, that, though he might not be entitled to the character of a gay fellow or spritely talker, his conversation' was easy, cheerful, and full of information; and that he, whose "thoughts flowed upon him so fast, that his only care was, which to choose and which to reject," could not but have been a pleasing and instructive companion. He was accordingly highly respected and caressed by many of the most eminent persons of his time; for among his convivial friends we find the first Duke of Ormond, Lord Roscommon, Philip Earl of Leicester, Lord Danby, the Marquis of Halifax, Lord Dorset, Lord Carbery, Lord Mulgrave, Lord Peterborough, Sir William Trumbull, and Sir Charles Sidley; and how entertaining and lively their conversation was, to which Dryden would scarcely have been admitted, if he had not contributed his share, we may judge from a slight circumstance

* It is thus characterized by a contemporary writer: "O, Sir, there's a medium in all things. Silence and chat are distant enough, to have a convenient discourse come between 'em; and thus far I agree with you, that the company of the Author of ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL is more valuable, though not so talkative, than that of the modern men of banter; for what he says is like what he writes, much to the purpose, and full of mighty sense; and if the Town were for any thing desirable, 'twere for the conversation of him and one or two more of the same character."-" The Humours and Conversation of the Town exposed, in two Dialogues." 1693, P. 73.

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