CHAPTER I.

DRYDEN'S BEST PATRON, SIR ROBERT HOWARD. RISKS INCURRED BY THE POET. ANECDOTE OF WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER. DRYDEN'S MAR

RIAGE. IT.

-MRS. REEVES. STATE OF THE STAGE.-LOVE OF CHARLES II. FOR PROSPERITY OF DRYDEN INTERRUPTED BY THE FIRE OF LONDON. -ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE FIRE.-PRESENCE OF MIND OF CHARLES II. STATE OF THE CITY AND OF THE COURT. -CHANGE IN DRYDEN'S STYLE OF WRITING.

VOL. II.

B

DRYDEN'S PATRON, SIR ROBERT HOWARD.

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CHAPTER I.

DRYDEN now had gained a powerful patron to second those efforts, which, without being fostered by some friendly aid, might at that time have been utterly fruitless. The age, Sir Walter Scott remarks, 'afforded little encouragement for the ambitious labours of an epic poem;' and to fill up the measure of shame, the ‘Paradise Lost' fell still-born from the press. The influential patron who befriended Dryden was Sir Robert Howard, a younger son of Thomas, Earl of Berkshire, and a distinguished Royalist. During the Commonwealth, Sir Robert had suffered a tedious and shameful imprisonment in Windsor Castle. He was not only a brave, but an intelligent man, who could well appreciate the mind of the poet, and who sought steadily to advance his fortunes.

But, although Dryden may be said at all times to have commanded 'the town,' as it was then styled, there had been passages in his career which showed the personal risks which a satirist in those times of ruffian violence incurred.

Encouraged, however, by Howard, Dryden's life now brightened, and with his expanding powers of mind the channels of his heart were also opened. In spite of his bitterness as a writer, Dryden is said to have been the gentlest of human beings. He had personal qualities,' Congreve tells us, 'to challenge both love and esteem from all who

4

PERSONAL QUALITIES OF DRYDEN.

were truly acquainted with him. He was of a nature exceedingly humane and compassionate: easily forgiving injuries, and capable of a prompt and sincere reconciliation with them who had offended him. His friendship, where he professed it, went much beyond his professions. As his reading had been very extensive, so was he very happy in a memory tenacious of everything that he had read. He was not more possessed of knowledge than he was communicative of it. But then his communication of it was by no means pedantic or imposed upon the conversation; but just such, and went so far, as by the natural turns of the discourse in which he was engaged, it was necessarily prompted or required. He was extremely ready and gentle in his correction of the errors of any writer who thought fit to consult him; and full as ready and patient to admit of the reprehension of others in respect of his own oversights or mistakes. He was of very easy, I may say of very pleasing access; but something slow, and as it were diffident in his advances to others. He had something in his nature that abhorred intrusion in any society whatsoever. Indeed, it is to be regretted that he was rather blameable in the other extreme; for by that means he was personally less known, and consequently his character might become liable both to misapprehensions and misrepresentations. He was of all the men that ever I knew one of the most modest and the most easily to be discountenanced in his approaches either to his superiors or his equals."

With these advantages, and with the opportunities of an intimacy which is often more attainable to a dependent in a family of high rank than even to equals, what followed cannot be a matter of surprise; it was the old story-an attachment between the young secretary and his patron's sister, Lady Elizabeth Howard.

There is no evidence that this marriage was peculiarly objectionable to the Earl of Berkshire's family; on the contrary, Dryden resided for some time in the house of his