Mel. Ad autres, ad autres: He mocks himself of me,[1] he abuses me: Ah me unfortunate! [Cries.

Phil. You mistake him, madam, he does but accommodate his phrase to your refined language. Ah qu'il est un cavalier accompli! Pursue your point, sir—
[To him.

Pala. Ah qu'il fait beau dans ces boccages; [Singing.] Ah que le ciet donne un beau jour! There I was with you, with a minuét.

Mel. Let me die now, but this singing is fine, and extremely French in him: [Laughs.] But then, that he should use my own words, as it were in contempt of me, I cannot bear it.
[Crying.

Pala. Ces beaux sejours, ces doux ramages— [Singing.

Mel. Ces beaux sejours, ces doux ramages. [Singing after him.] Ces beaux sejours nous invitent á l'amour! Let me die, but he sings en cavalier, and so humours the cadence!
[Laughing.

Pala. Foy, ma Clymene, voy sous ce chene. [Singing again.] S'entrebaiser ces oiseaux amoreux! Let me die now, but that was fine. Ah, now, for three or four brisk Frenchmen, to be put into masking habits, and to sing it on a theatre, how witty it would be! and then to dance helter skelter to a chanson a boire: Toute la terre, toute la terre est a moi! What's matter though it were made and sung two or three years ago in cabarets, how it would attract the admiration, especially of every one that's an eveillé!

Mel. Well; I begin to have a tendre for you; but yet, upon condition, that—when we are married, you—
[Pal. sings, while she speaks.

Phil. You must drown her voice: If she makes her French conditions, you are a slave for ever.

Mel. First, you will engage—that—

Pala. Fa, la, la, la, &c. [Louder.

Mel. Will you hear the conditions?

Pala. No; I will hear no conditions; I am resolved to win you en François: To be very airy, with abundance of noise, and no sense: Fa la, la, la, &c.

Mel. Hold, hold: I am vanquished with your gayeté d'esprit. I am yours, and will be yours, sans nulle reserve, ni condition: And let me die, if I do not think myself the happiest nymph in Sicily—My dear French dear, stay but a minuite, till I raccommode myself with the princess; and then I am yours, jusqu' a la mort. Allons donc.—
[Exeunt Mel. Phil.

Palu. [Solus, fanning himself with his hat.] I never thought before that wooing was so laborious an exercise; if she were worth a million, I have deserved her; and now, methinks too, with taking all this pains for her, I begin to like her. 'Tis so; I have known many, who never cared for hare nor partridge, but those they caught themselves would eat heartily: The pains, and the story a man tells of the taking them, makes the meat go down more pleasantly. Besides, last night I had a sweet dream of her, and, gad, she I have once dreamed of, I am stark mad till I enjoy her, let her be never so ugly.

Enter Doralice.

Dor. Who's that you are so mad to enjoy, Palamede?

Pala. You may easily imagine that, sweet Dorarlice.

Dor. More easily than you think I can: I met just now with a certain man, who came to you with letters from a certain old gentleman, y'cleped your father; whereby I am given to understand, that to-morrow you are to take an oath in the church to be grave henceforward, to go ill-dressed and slovenly, to get heirs for your estate, and to dandle them for your diversion; and, in short, that love and courtship are to be no more.

Pala. Now have I so much shame to be thus apprehended in the manner, that I can neither speak nor look upon you; I have abundance of grace in me, that I find: But if you have any spark of true friendship in you, retire with me a little into the next room, that hath a couch or bed in it, and bestow your charity upon a dying man! A little comfort from a mistress, before a man is going to give himself in marriage, is as good as a lusty dose of strong-water to a dying malefactor: it takes away the sense of hell and hanging from him.

Dor. No, good Palamede, I must not be so injurious to your bride: 'Tis ill drawing from the bank to-day, when all your ready money is payable to-morrow.

Pala. A wife is only to have the ripe fruit, that falls of itself; but a wise man will always preserve a shaking for a mistress.

Dor. But a wife for the first quarter is a mistress.

Pala. But when the second comes—

Dor. When it does come, you are so given to variety, that you would make a wife of me in another quarter.

Pala. No, never, except I were married to you: married people can never oblige one another; for all they do is duty, and consequently there can be no thanks: But love is more frank and generous than he is honest; he's a liberal giver, but a cursed pay-master.

Dor. I declare I will have no gallant; but, if I would, he should never be a married man; a married man is but a mistress's half-servant, as a clergyman is but the king's half-subject: For a man to come to me that smells of the wife! 'Slife, I would as soon wear her old gown after her, as her husband. Pala. Yet 'tis a kind of fashion to wear a princess's cast shoes; you see the country ladies buy them, to be fine in them.

Dor. Yes, a princess's shoes may be worn after her, because they keep their fashion, by being so very little used; but generally a married man is the creature of the world the most out of fashion: his behaviour is dumpish; his discourse, his wife and family; his habit so much neglected, it looks as if that were married too; his hat is married, his peruke is married, his breeches are married,—and, if we could look within his breeches, we should find him married there too.

Pala. Am I then to be discarded for ever? pray do but mark how that word sounds: for ever! it has a very damn'd sound, Doralice.

Dor. Ay, for ever! it sounds as hellishly to me, as it can do to you, but there's no help for it.

Pala. Yet, if we had but once enjoyed one another!—but then once only, is worse than not at all: It leaves a man with such a lingering after it.

Dor. For aught I know, 'tis better that we have not; we might upon trial have liked each other less, as many a man and woman, that have loved as desperately as we, and yet, when they came to possession, have sighed and cried to themselves, Is this all?

Pala. That is only, if the servant were not found a man of this world; but if, upon trial, we had not liked each other, we had certainly left loving; and faith, that's the greater happiness of the two.

Dor. 'Tis better as 'tis; we have drawn off already as much of our love as would run clear; after possessing, the rest is but jealousies, and disquiets, and quarrelling, and piecing.

Pala. Nay, after one great quarrel, there's never any sound piecing; the love is apt to break in the same place again.

Dor. I declare I would never renew a love; that's like him, who trims an old coach for ten years together; he might buy a new one better cheap.

Pala. Well, madam, I am convinced, that 'tis best for us not to have enjoyed; but, gad, the strongest reason is, because I can't help it.

Dor. The only way to keep us new to one another is never to enjoy, as they keep grapes, by hanging them upon a line; they must touch nothing, if you would preserve them fresh.

Pala. But then they wither, and grow dry in the very keeping; however, I shall have a warmth for you, and an eagerness, every time I see you; and, if I chance to out-live Melantha—

Dor. And if I chance to out-live Rhodophil—

Pala. Well, I'll cherish my body as much as I can, upon that hope. 'Tis true, I would not directly murder the wife of my bosom; but, to kill her civilly, by the way of kindness, I'll put as fair as another man: I'll begin to-morrow night, and be very wrathful with her; that's resolved on.

Dor. Well, Palamede, here's my hand, I'll venture to be your second wife, for all your threatenings.

Pala. In the mean time I'll watch you hourly, as I would the ripeness of a melon; and I hope you'll give me leave now and then to look on you, and to see if you are not ready to be cut yet.

Dor. No, no, that must not be, Palamede, for fear the gardener should come and catch you taking up the glass.

Enter Rhodophil.

Rho. [Aside.] Billing so sweetly! now I am confirmed in my suspicions; I must put an end to this ere it go farther—[To Doralice.] Cry you mercy, spouse, I fear I have interrupted your recreations.

Dor. What recreations?

Rho. Nay, no excuses, good spouse; I saw fair hand conveyed to lip, and prest, as though you had been squeezing soft wax together for an indenture. Palamede, you and I must clear this reckoning: why would you have seduced my wife?

Pala. Why would you have debauched my mistress?

Rho. What do you think of that civil couple, that played at a game, called Hide and Seek, last evening in the grotto?

Pala. What do you think of that innocent pair, who made it their pretence to seek for others, but came, indeed, to hide themselves there?

Rho. All things considered, I begin vehemently to suspect, that the young gentleman I found in your company last night, was a certain youth of my acquaintance.

Pala. And I have an odd imagination, that you could never have suspected my small gallant, if your little villainous Frenchman had not been a false brother.

Rho. Further arguments are needless; draw off; I shall speak to you now by the way of bilbo.
[Claps his hand to his sword.

Pala. And I shall answer you by the way of Dangerfield[2]. [Claps his hand on his.

Dor. Hold, hold; are not you two a couple of mad fighting fools, to cut one another's throats for nothing?

Pala. How for nothing? He courts the woman I must marry.

Rho. And he courts you, whom I have married.

Dor. But you can neither of you be jealous of what you love not.

Rho. Faith, I am jealous, and this makes me partly suspect that I love you better than I thought.

Dor. Pish! a mere jealousy of honour.

Rho. Gad, I am afraid there's something else in't; for Palamede has wit, and, if he loves you, there's something more in ye than I have found: Some rich mine, for aught I know, that I have not yet discovered.

Pala. 'Slife, what's this? Here's an argument for me to love Melantha; for he has loved her, and he has wit too, and, for aught I know, there may be a mine; but, if there be, I am resolved I'll dig for it.

Dor. [To Rhodophil.] Then I have found my account in raising your jealousy. O! 'tis the most delicate sharp sauce to a cloyed stomach; it will give you a new edge, Rhodophil.

Rho. And a new point too, Doralice, if I could be sure thou art honest.

Dor. If you are wise, believe me for your own sake: Love and religion have but one thing to trust to; that's a good sound faith. Consider, if I have played false, you can never find it out by any experiment you can make upon me.

Rho. No? Why, suppose I had a delicate screwed gun; if I left her clean, and found her foul, I should discover, to my cost, she had been shot in.

Dor. But if you left her clean, and found her only rusty, you would discover, to your shame, she was only so for want of shooting.

Pala. Rhodophil, you know me too well to imagine I speak for fear; and therefore, in consideration of our past friendship, I will tell you, and bind it by all things holy, that Doralice is innocent.

Rho. Friend, I will believe you, and vow the same for your Melantha; but the devil on't is, how shall we keep them so?

Pala. What dost think of a blessed community betwixt us four, for the solace of the women, and relief of the men? Methinks it would be a pleasant kind of life: Wife and husband for the standing dish, and mistress and gallant for the desert.

Rho. But suppose the wife and mistress should both long for the standing dish, how should they be satisfied together?

Pala. In such a case they must draw lots; and yet that would not do neither, for they would both be wishing for the longest cut.

Rho. Then I think, Palamede, we had as good make a firm league, not to invade each other's propriety.

Pala. Content, say I. From henceforth let all acts of hostility cease betwixt us; and that, in the usual form of treaties, as well by sea as land, and in all fresh waters.

Dor. I will add but one proviso, that whoever breaks the league, either by war abroad, or neglect at home, both the women shall revenge themselves by the help of the other party.

Rho. That's but reasonable. Come away, Doralice; I have a great temptation to be sealing articles in private.

Pala. Hast thou so? [Claps him on the shoulder.
"Fall on, Macduff,
And cursed be he that first cries, Hold, enough."

Enter Polydamas, Palmyra, Artemis, Argaleon: After them Eubulus and Hermogenes, guarded.

Palm. Sir, on my knees I beg you—

Poly. Away, I'll hear no more.

Palm. For my dead mother's sake; you say you loved her,
And tell me I resemble her. Thus she
Had begged.

Poly. And thus I had denied her.

Palm. You must be merciful.

Arga. You must be constant.

Poly. Go, bear them to the torture; you have boasted
You have a king to head you; I would know
To whom I must resign.

Eub. This is our recompence For serving thy dead queen.

Herm. And education Of thy daughter.

Arga. You are too modest, in not naming all
His obligations to you: Why did you
Omit his son, the prince Leonidas?

Poly. That imposture
I had forgot; their tortures shall be doubled.

Herm. You please me; I shall die the sooner.

Eub. No; could I live an age, and still be racked,
I still would keep the secret. [As they are going off,

Enter Leonidas, guarded.

Leon. Oh, whither do you hurry innocence!
If you have any justice, spare their lives;
Or, if I cannot make you just, at least
I'll teach you to more purpose to be cruel.

Palm. Alas, what does he seek!

Leon. Make me the object of your hate and vengeance:
Are these decrepid bodies, worn to ruin,
Just ready of themselves to fall asunder.
And to let drop the soul,—
Are these fit subjects for a rack and tortures?
Where would you fasten any hold upon them?
Place pains on me,—united fix them here,—
I have both youth, and strength, and soul to bear them;
And, if they merit death, then I much more,
Since 'tis for me they suffer.

Herm. Heaven forbid
We should redeem our pains, or worthless lives,
By our exposing yours.

Eub. Away with us. Farewell, sir:
I only suffer in my fears for you.

Arga. So much concerned for him! Then my [Aside.
Suspicion's true. [Whispers the King.

Palm. Hear yet my last request for poor Leonidas,
Or take my life with his.

Arga. Rest satisfied, Leonidas is he. [To the King.

Poly. I am amazed: What must be done?

Arga. Command his execution instantly:
Give him not leisure to discover it;
He may corrupt the soldiers.

Poly. Hence with that traitor, bear him to his death:
Haste there, and see my will performed.

Leon. Nay, then, I'll die like him the gods have made me.
Hold, gentlemen, I am— [Argaleon stops his mouth.

Arga. Thou art a traitor; 'tis not fit to hear thee.

Leon. I say, I am the— [Getting loose a little.

Arga. So; gag him, and lead him off. [Again stopping his mouth.
[Leonidas, Hermogenes, Eubulus, led off; Polydamas and Argaleon follow.

Palm. Duty and love, by turns, possess my soul
And struggle for a fatal victory.
I will discover he's the king:—Ah, no!
That will perhaps save him;
But then I'm guilty of a father's ruin.
What shall I do, or not do? Either way
I must destroy a parent, or a lover.
Break heart; for that's the least of ills to me,
And death the only cure. [Swoons.

Arte. Help, help the princess.

Rho. Bear her gently hence, where she may
Have more succour. [She is borne off; Arte. follows her.
[Shouts within, and clashing of swords.

Pala. What noise is that?

Enter Amalthea, running.

Amal. Oh, gentlemen, if you have loyalty,
Or courage, show it now! Leonidas,
Broke on the sudden from his guards, and snatching
A sword from one, his back against the scaffold,
Bravely defends himself, and owns aloud
He is our long-lost king; found for this moment,
But, if your valour helps not, lost for ever.
Two of his guards, moved by the sense of virtue,
Are turned for him, and there they stand at bay
Against an host of foes.

Rho. Madam, no more;
We lose time; my command, or my example,
May move the soldiers to the better cause.
You'll second me? [To Pala.

Pala. Or die with you: No subject e'er can meet
A nobler fate, than at his sovereign's feet. [Exeunt.
[Clashing of swords within, and shouts.

Enter Leonidas, Rhodophil, Palamede, Eubulus, Hermogenes, and their Party, victorious; Polydamas and Argaleon, disarmed.

Leon. That I survive the dangers of this day,
Next to the gods, brave friends, be yours the honour;
And, let heaven witness for me, that my joy
Is not more great for this my right restored,
Than 'tis, that I have power to recompense
Your loyalty and valour. Let mean princes,
Of abject souls, fear to reward great actions;
I mean to shew,
That whatsoe'er subjects, like you, dare merit,
A king, like me, dares give.

Rho. You make us blush, we have deserved so little.

Pala. And yet instruct us how to merit more.

Leon. And as I would be just in my rewards,
So should I in my punishments; these two,
This, the usurper of my crown, the other,
Of my Palmyra's love, deserve that death,
Which both designed for me.

Poly. And we expect it.

Arga. I have too long been happy, to live wretched.

Poly. And I too long have governed, to desire
A life without an empire.

Leon. You are Palmyra's father; and as such,
Though not a king, shall have obedience paid
From him who is one. Father, in that name
All injuries forgot, and duty owned. [Embraces him.

Poly. O, had I known you could have been this king,
Thus god-like, great and good, I should have wished
To have been dethroned before. 'Tis now I live,
And more than reign; now all my joys flow pure,
Unmixed with cares, and undisturbed by conscience.

Enter Palmyra, Amalthea, Artemis, Doralice, and Melantha.

Leon. See, my Palmyra comes! the frighted blood
Scarce yet recalled to her pale cheeks,
Like the first streaks of light broke loose from darkness,
And dawning into blushes.—Sir, you said [To Poly.
Your joys were full; Oh, would you make mine so!
I am but half restored without this blessing.

Poly. The gods, and my Palmyra, make you happy,
As you make me! [Gives her hand to Leonidas.

Palm. Now all my prayers are heard:
I may be dutiful, and yet may love.
Virtue and patience have at length unravelled
The knots, which fortune tyed.

Mel. Let me die, but I'll congratulate his majesty: How admirably well his royalty becomes him! Becomes! that is lui sied, but our damned language expresses nothing.

Pala. How? Does it become him already? 'Twas but just now you said, he was such a figure of a man.

Mel True, my dear, when he was a private man he was a figure; but since he is a king, methinks he has assumed another figure: He looks so grand, and so august!
[Going to the King.

Pala. Stay, stay; I'll present you when it is more convenient. I find I must get her a place at court; and when she is once there, she can be no longer ridiculous; for she is young enough, and pretty enough, and fool enough, and French enough, to bring up a fashion there to be affected.

Leon. [To Rhodophil.]
Did she then lead you to this brave attempt?
[To Amalthea.] To you, fair Amalthea, what I am,
And what all these, from me, we jointly owe:
First, therefore, to your great desert we give
Your brother's life; but keep him under guard
Till our new power be settled. What more grace
He may receive, shall from his future carriage
Be given, as he deserves.

Arga. I neither now desire, nor will deserve it;
My loss is such as cannot be repaired,
And, to the wretched, life can be no mercy.

Leon. Then be a prisoner always: Thy ill fate
And pride will have it so: But since in this I cannot,
Instruct me, generous Amalthea, how
A king may serve you.

Amal. I have all I hope,
And all I now must wish; I see you happy.
Those hours I have to live, which heaven in pity
Will make but few, I vow to spend with vestals:
The greatest part in prayers for you; the rest
In mourning my unworthiness.
Press me not farther to explain myself;
'Twill not become me, and may cause your trouble.

Leon. Too well I understand her secret grief, [Aside.
But dare not seem to know it.—Come, my fairest; [To Palmyra.
Beyond my crown I have one joy in store,
To give that crown to her whom I adore. [Exeunt.

To one person, the damnation of this play seems to have afforded exquisite pleasure. This was Edward Ravenscroft, once a member of the Middle Temple,—an ingenious gentleman, of whose taste it may be held a satisfactory instance, that he deemed the tragedy of "Titus Andronicus" too mild for representation, and generously added a few more murders, rapes, and parricides, to that charnel-house of horrors[1]. His turn for comedy being at least equal to his success in the blood-stained buskin, Mr Ravenscroft translated and mangled several of the more farcical French comedies, which he decorated with the lustre of his own great name. Amongst others which he thus appropriated, were the most extravagant and buffoon scenes in Moliere's "Bourgeois Gentilhomme;" in which Monsieur Jourdain is, with much absurd ceremony, created a Turkish Paladin; and where Moliere took the opportunity to introduce an entrée de ballet, danced and sung by the Mufti, dervises, and others, in eastern habits. Ravenscroft's translation, entitled "The Citizen turned Gentleman," was acted in 1672, and printed in the same year; the jargon of the songs, like similar nonsense of our own day, seems to have been well received on the stage. Dryden, who was not always above feeling indignation at the bad taste and unjust preferences of the age, attacked Ravenscroft in the prologue to "The Assignation," as he had before, though less directly, in that of "Marriage a-la-Mode." Hence the exuberant and unrepressed joy of that miserable scribbler broke forth upon the damnation of Dryden's performance, in the following passage of a prologue to another of his pilfered performances, called "The Careless Lovers," acted, according to Langbaine, in the vacation succeeding the fall of "The Assignation," in 1673:

Ravenscroft, however, seems to have given the first offence; for, in the prologue to "The Citizen turned Gentleman," licensed 9th August 1672, we find the following lines, obviously levelled at "The Conquest of Granada," and other heroic dramas of our author:

Langbaine, who quotes the lines from the prologue to Ravenscroft's "Careless Lovers," is of opinion, that he paid Dryden too great a compliment in admitting the originality of "The Assignation," and labours to shew, that the characters are imitated from the "Romance Comique" of Scarron, and other novels of the time. But Langbaine seems to have been unable to comprehend, that originality consists in the mode of treating a subject, more than in the subject itself.

"The Assignation" was acted in 1672, and printed in 1673.

TO MY MOST HONOURED FRIEND, SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, BART[1].

Sir,

The design of dedicating plays is as common and unjust, as that of desiring seconds in a duel. It is engaging our friends, it may be, in a senseless quarrel where they have much to venture, without any concernment of their own[2]. I have declared thus much beforehand, to prevent you from suspicion, that I intend to interest either your judgment or your kindness, in defending the errors of this comedy. It succeeded ill in the representation, against the opinion of many of the best judges of our age, to whom you know I read it, ere it was presented publicly. Whether the fault was in the play itself, or in the lameness of the action, or in the number of its enemies, who came resolved to damn it for the title, I will not now dispute. That would be too like the little satisfaction which an unlucky gamester finds in the relation of every cast by which he came to lose his money. I have had formerly so much success, that the miscarriage of this play was only my giving Fortune her revenge; I owed it her, and she was indulgent that she exacted not the payment long before. I will therefore deal more reasonably with you, than any poet has ever done with any patron: I do not so much as oblige you for my sake, to pass two ill hours in reading of my play. Think, if you please, that this dedication is only an occasion I have taken, to do myself the greatest honour imaginable with posterity; that is, to be recorded in the number of those men whom you have favoured with your friendship and esteem. For I am well assured, that, besides the present satisfaction I have, it will gain me the greatest part of my reputation with after ages, when they shall find me valuing myself on your kindness to me; I may have reason to suspect my own credit with them, but I have none to doubt of yours. And they who, perhaps, would forget me in my poems, would remember me in this epistle.

This was the course which has formerly been practised by the poets of that nation, who were masters of the universe. Horace and Ovid, who had little reason to distrust their immortality, yet took occasion to speak with honour of Virgil, Varius, Tibullus, and Propertius, their contemporaries; as if they sought, in the testimony of their friendship, a farther evidence of their fame. For my own part, I, who am the least amongst the poets, have yet the fortune to be honoured with the best patron, and the best friend. For, (to omit some great persons of our court, to whom I am many ways obliged, and who have taken care of me even amidst the exigencies of a war[3]) I can make my boast to have found a better Mæcenas in the person of my Lord Treasurer Clifford[4], and a more elegant Tibullus in that of Sir Charles Sedley. I have chosen that poet to whom I would resemble you, not only because I think him at least equal, if not superior, to Ovid in his elegies; nor because of his quality, for he was, you know, a Roman knight, as well as Ovid; but for his candour, his wealth, his way of living, and particularly because of this testimony which is given him by Horace, which I have a thousand times in my mind applied to you:

Certainly the poets of that age enjoyed much happiness in the conversation and friendship of one another. They imitated the best way of living, which was, to pursue an innocent and inoffensive pleasure, that which one of the ancients called eruditam voluptatem. We have, like them, our genial nights, where our discourse is neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant, and, for the most part, instructive; the raillery, neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious on the absent; and the cups only such as will raise the conversation of the night, without disturbing the business of the morrow[5]. And thus far not only the philosophers, but the fathers of the church, have gone, without lessening their reputation of good manners, or of piety. For this reason, I have often laughed at the ignorant and ridiculous descriptions which some pedants have given of the wits, as they are pleased to call them; which are a generation of men as unknown to them, as the people of Tartary, or the Terra Australia, are to us. And therefore as we draw giants and anthropophagi in those vacancies of our maps, where we have not travelled to discover better; so those wretches paint lewdness, atheism, folly, ill-reasoning, and all manner of extravagancies amongst us, for want of understanding what we are. Oftentimes it so falls out, that they have a particular pique to some one amongst us, and then they immediately interest heaven in their quarrel; as it is an usual trick in courts, when one designs the ruin of his enemy, to disguise his malice with some concernment of the kings; and to revenge his own cause, with pretence of vindicating the honour of his master. Such wits as they describe, I have never been so unfortunate as to meet in your company; but have often heard much better reasoning at your table, than I have encountered in their books. The wits they describe, are the fops we banish: For blasphemy and atheism, if they were neither sin nor ill manners, are subjects so very common, and worn so threadbare, that people, who have sense, avoid them, for fear of being suspected to have none. It calls the good name of their wit in question as it does the credit of a citizen when his shop is filled with trumperies and painted titles, instead of wares: We conclude them bankrupt to all manner of understanding; and that to use blasphemy, is a kind of applying pigeons to the soles of the feet; it proclaims their fancy, as well as judgment, to be in a desperate condition. I am sure, for your own particular, if any of these judges had once the happiness to converse with you,—to hear the candour of your opinions; how freely you commend that wit in others of which you have, so large a portion yourself; how unapt you are to be censorious; with how much easiness you speak so many things, and those so pointed, that no other man is able to excel, or perhaps to reach by study;—they would, instead of your accusers, become your proselytes. They would reverence so much sense, and so much good nature in the same person; and come, like the satyr, to warm themselves at that fire, of which they were ignorantly afraid when they stood at a distance. But you have too great a reputation to be wholly free from censure: it is a fine which fortune sets upon all extraordinary persons, and from which you should not wish to be delivered until you are dead. I have been used by my critics much more severely, and have more reason to complain, because I am deeper taxed for a less estate. I am, ridiculously enough, accused to be a contemner of universities; that is, in other words, an enemy of learning; without the foundation of which, I am sure, no man can pretend to be a poet. And if this be not enough, I am made a detractor from my predecessors, whom I confess to have been my masters in the art. But this latter was the accusation of the best judge, and almost the best poet, in the Latin tongue. You find Horace complaining, that, for taxing some verses in Lucilius, he himself was blamed by others, though his design was no other than mine now, to improve the knowledge of poetry; and it was no defence to him, amongst his enemies, any more than it is for me, that he praised Lucilius where he deserved it; paginâ laudatur eâdem. It is for this reason I will be no more mistaken for my good meaning: I know I honour Ben Jonson more than my little critics, because, without vanity I may own, I understand him better[6]. As for the errors they pretend to find in me, I could easily show them, that the greatest part of them are beauties; and for the rest, I could recriminate upon the best poets of our nation, if I could resolve to accuse another of little faults, whom, at the same time, I admire for greater excellencies. But I have neither concernment enough upon me to write any thing in my own defence, neither will I gratify the ambition of two wretched scribblers, who desire nothing more than to be answered. I have not wanted friends, even among strangers, who have defended me more strongly, than my contemptible pedant could attack me[7]. For the other, he is only like Fungoso in the play, who follows the fashion at a distance, and adores the Fastidious Brisk of Oxford[8]. You can bear me witness, that I have not consideration enough for either of them to be angry. Let Mævius and Bavius admire each other; I wish to be hated by them and their fellows, by the same reason for which I desire to be loved by you. And I leave it to the world, whether their judgment of my poetry ought to be preferred to yours; though they are as much prejudiced by their malice, as I desire you should be led by your kindness, to be partial to,

Sir,

Your most humble,

And most faithful servant,

John Dryden.