of which the fheriffs had carefully felected them, refufed to find the bill of high treafon against him. This was a fubject of unbounded triumph to his adherents, who celebrated his acquittal by the most public marks of rejoicing. Amongst others, a medal was ftruck, bearing the head and naine of Shaftesbury, and on the reverfe, a fun, obfcured with a cloud, rifing over the Tower and City of London, with the date and refufal of the Bill (24th November, 1681), and the motto LATAMUR' Thefe medals, which his partifans wore oftentatiously at their bofoms, excited the general indignation of the Tories; and the King himself is faid to have fuggefted it as a theme for the fatirical mufe of Dry. den, and to have rewarded his performance with an hundred broad picces. To a poet of lefs fertility, the royal command, to write again upon a character which, in a former fatire, he had drawn with fo much precifion and felicity, might have been as embarraffing at leaft as honourable. But Dryden was inex. hauftible, and eafily difcovered, that, though he had given the outline of Shaftesbury in Abfalem and Achitophel,' the finished colouring might merit another canvas. About the 16th of March, 1681, he published, anonymously, The Medal, a Satire against Sedition,' with the apt motto, Per Graium populos, mediæque per Elidis urbem In this fatire, Shaftesbury's hiftory; his frequent political apof tafies; his licentious courfe of life, fo contrary to the ftern rigour of the fanatics, with whom he had affociated; his arts in inftigating the fury of the antimonarchifts; in fine, all the political and moral bearings of his character; are founded and expofed to contempt and reprobation, the beauty of the poetry adding grace to the feverity of the fatire." He who will venture to make fuch bold attacks on the idol of a faction, may be fure that the refentment of the worthippers will be neither flow nor fparing. Mr. Scott, at this part of Dryden's life, enumerates the principal poems and pamphlets which were iffued against the blafphemer of Shaftesbury. One, a non-conformist clergyman, having announced that Achitophel, in Hebrew, means "the brother of a fool," Dryden retorted, with infinite coolness, that in that cale the author of the difcovery night pass with his readers for next-a-kin, and that it was probably the relation which made the kindness. Another published a piece, which has been currently known in our times under the title of Dryden's Satire to his Mufe. This was imputed to Lord Somers; but, in a converfation with Mr. Pope, he pofitively dilavowed it. "All these, and many other pieces, the fruits of incensed and almoft almost frantic party fury," Mr. Scott fays, "are marked by the moft coarse and virulent abuse. The events in our author's life were few, and his morals, generally foeaking, irreproachable; fo that the topics for the malevolence of his antagonists, were both fcanty and ftrained; but they ceafed not, with the true pertinacity of angry dulnefs, to repeat, in profe and verfe, in couplet, ballad, and madrigal, the faine unvaried accufations, amounting in fubftance to the following: That Dryden had been bred a puritan and republican; that he had written an elegy on Cromwell, (which one wily adverfary actually reprinted ;) that he had been in poverty at the Reftoration; that Lady Elizabeth Dryden's character was tarnished by the circumftances attending their nup tials; that Dryden had written the Effay on Satire,' in which the King was libelfed; that he had been beaten by three men in Rofe-alley; finally, that he was a Tory, and a tool of arbitrary power, This cuckoo fong, garnished with the burden of Bayes and Poet Squab, was rung in the ear of the public again and again, and with an obftinacy which may convince us how little there was to be faid, when that little was fo often repeated." ( Two only of thefe affailants drew on themfelves any thing like a ferious caftigation from the bard. These were Settle and Shadwell. With Elkanah he had an old quarrel; with Shadwell he had been on terms of friendship, but party separated them. Shadwell being as zealously attached to the Whig faction as Dryden to the Tories, publifhed an answer to The Medal," entitled, "The Medal of John Bayes." It appeared in autumn 1681, and is diftinguifhed by fcurrility, even among the fcurrilous lampoons of Settle, Care, and Pordage. Shadwell alfo feems to have had a fhare in a lampoon, entitled, "The Tory Poets," in which both Dryden. and Otway were grofsly reviled. Dryden feems to have thought, that fuch reiterated attacks, from a contemporary of fome eminence, whom he had once called friend, merited a more fevere calligation than could be adminiftered in a general fatire. He therefore compofed "Mac-Flecknoe, or a Satire on the True-blue Proteflant Poet, T. S. by the author of Abfalom and Achitophel," which was publifhed October 4, 1682. Richard Flecknoe, from whom the piece takes its title, was fo diftinguithed as a wretched poet, that his name had become almoft proverbial. Shadwell is reprefented as the adopted fon of this venerable monarch, who fo long "In profe and verfe was owned without difpute, The folemn inauguration of Shadwell as his fucceffor in this Hh3 drowly σε drowfy kingdom, forms the plan of the poem; being the fame which Pope afterwards adopted on a broader canvas for his Dunciad." The vices and follies of Shadwell are not concealed, wile the awkwardnefs of his pretenfions to poetical fame are held up to the keeneft ridicule. "Nor was this the only vengeance taken by Dryden. Shortly after Mac Ficcknoe, a fecond part of Abfalo and Achi. tophel appeared. The body of the poem," Mr. Scott fays, was written by Nahum Tate, one of thofe fecond-rate bards, who, by dint of pleonaim and expletive, can find smooth lines, if any one will apply them with ideas. The fecond part of Abfalom and Achitophel' is, however, much beyond his ufual pitch, and exhibits confiderable marks of a careful revifion by Dryden, cipecially in the fatirical paffages; for the eulogy on the Tory chiefs is in the flat and feeble strain of Tate himself, as is obvious when it is compared with the defcription of the Green Dragon Club, the character of Corah, and other paffages exhibiting marks of Dryden's hand. But if the fecond part of Abfalom and Achitophel' fell below the firft in its general tone, the celebrated paffage inferted by Dryden poffeffed even a double portion of the original fpirit. The victims whom he felected out of the partifans of Monmouth and Shaftesbury for his own particular feverity, were Robert Fergufon, afterwards well known. by the name of the Plotter; Forbes; Johnson, author of the Parallel between James, Duke of York, and Julian the Apoftate; but, above all, Settle and Shadwell, whom, under the names of Doeg and Og, he has depicted in the livelieft colours his poignant fatire could afford. They who have patience to look into the lampoons which thefe worthies had publifhed against Dryden, will, in reading his retort, be reminded of the combats between the giants and knights of romance. His antagonists came on with infinite zeal and fury, difcharged their ill-aimed blows on every fide, and exhaufted their ftrength in violent and ineffectual rage. But the keen and trenchant blade of Dryden never makes a thrust in vain, and never ftrikes but at a vulnerable point.” Thefe poems eftablifhed a new ftyle of fatirical writing, which Mr. Scott notices with proper references to the previous efforts of Hall, Donne, and Cleveland, allowing to the more modern author the merited praife of giving to his fatires varied tone, correct rhyme, and mafculine energy; all which had hitherto been ftrangers to the English fatire. Thus, while Dryden's ftyle refembled that of Juvenal rather than Horace, he may claim a fuperiority for uniform and undeviating dignity over the Roman fatirifl. Having written thefe poems with almoft incredible difpatch, and alfo produced Religio Laici, which Mr. Scott referves to be noticed in connection with the Hind and the Panther, Panther, Dryden rendered a further fervice to his party as a dramatift, by affifting Lee in writing the Duke of Guife. The theatre, in common with all other means, was reforted to by the furious controvertists for and againft the fucceffion of the Duke of York, and grofs ribaldry was employed to animate the partifans on either fide, and deprefs their op ponents. "Settle had produced the tragedy of Pope Joan,' Shadwell the comedy of the Lancashire Witches,' to expose to hatred and ridicule the religion of the fucceffor to the crown. Otway and D'Urfey, Crowne and Southerne, names unequal in fame, vied in producing plays against the Whigs, which might counterbalance the effect of thefe popular dramas. A licence fimilar to that of Ariftophanes was introduced on the English ftage, and living perfonages were exhibited under very flight difguifes. In the prologues and epilogues, which then ferved as a fort of moral to the plays, the veil, thin as it was, was completely raised, and the political analogies pointed out to all fuch of the audience as might otherwife have been too dull to apprehend them.” The Duke of Guife appears to have been the firft fubject which recommended itfelf to the mind of Dryden as capable of dramatic embellishment; but he had abflained from putting his design in execution until the fudden demand of Lee, and the aptitude of fome circumftances, brought it forward at this particular conjun&ture. The fcenes he had in his clofet were therefore revifed, and inferted in the new play, of which Dryden wrote the firft fcene, the whole fourth act, and great part of the fifth, and Lee compofed the reft. For fome time the tenderness of the King toward his darling fon the Duke of Monmouth, prevented the reprefentation of the play; but the perfeverance of that unhappy and mifguided youth in his mifconduct removed the obitacle. The piece was acted in December 1682, and met that which it was well calculated to provoke, the zealous oppofition of the Whigs. The conflict of faction terminated in favour of the authors; but, although the Duke of Guife contains many fine fcenes, and fome characters of confiderable ftrength and beauty, the decided repugnance of one part of the audience to its being reprefented at all, and the latent conviction of fome of the other party, that the flage was not the fit place for political conteft, made it fail of complete and permanent fuccefs. Indeed, to modern obfervation, it must appear that genius was wretchedly degraded, when Dryden was obliged to make his fatire pungent to the tafle of one faction, and agreeable to that of the other, by the infufion Hh 4 infufion of fo coarfe an ingredient, as the compa& between a conjuror and the devil for the fale of the finner's foul; in which the prince of darknefs over-reaches the mortal, and flies away with him before his time. This miferable trash, unrecommended by any writer of credit, except Dryden, has found its way through the different ftages of folly and dulnefs, the legend, the mystery, the pantomime, the tales of the nursery, to the German ballads, and the romance of Mr. M. G. Lewis. The attacks on this play were confidered of fufficient importance to induce Dryden to write a vindica tion of it. M. Scott has fhown confiderable care and diligence in furnishing the reader with the topics of English and French hiftory, neceffary for underftanding the political in tent of the piece; but he has fallen into, and períevered in, a ftrange mistake, in fubftituting Henry the Second for Henry the Third of France: this error occurs not only in the Life of Dryden, vol. i. p. 287, but twice in the introduction to the play, vol. x. p. 4 and 8. At the period of Dryden's life, when he was the fuccefsful advocate of the court, and the deftructive affailant of the adverse party, it might have been expected that profit as well as fame would have attended his efforts; but the court left him amid the blaze of his glory to write a biographical preface to a tranflation of Plutarch; to tranflate Maimbourg's Hiftory of the League, and publifh the first volume of his Mifcellanies, for bread. He was even reduced to the neceffity of extorting the payment of his falary as Laureat, by piercing and inceffant fupplications. Should any one whom Heaven favours with genius, its choiceft gift, be hereafter difpofed to proffitute its powers, may this example never be abfent from his mind; let him reflect on the bitter pangs with which he must receive the pittance he has fo hardly earned; and the fill more intolerable anguish which muft affail him fhould his bafenefs be unproductive of the expected good. The glorious hope of immortalizing himself, and fixing the ftandard of national poetry, by producing an epic, was at this period to vanish from the mind of Dryden, Arthur, one of the fubjects on which he had intended to employ himself, was renounced as an epic, and converted into a dramatic poem. As an introduction, Albion and Albanius. was planned, a piece originally in one act, comprifing poetry, allegory, mufic, aud machinery, and intended to compliment Charles the Second. The monarch died while the piece was in rehearfal; it was afterward lengthened, and performed with little fuccefs fix nights, when its existence on the 6 theatre |