[72] Sir Robert Bevile, maternal grandfather to John Driden of Chesterton, seems to have been imprisoned for resisting some of Charles I.'s illegal attempts to raise supplies without the authority of parliament. Perhaps our author now viewed his opposition to the royal will as more excusable than he would have thought it in the reigns of Charles II. or of James II. It is thought, that the hard usage which Sir Robert Bevile met on this score, decided our poet's uncle, his son-in-law, in his violent attachment to Cromwell.

[73] The reader will perhaps doubt, whether Mr Dryden's account of his cousin Chesterton's accomplishments as a justice of peace, fox-hunter, and knight of the shire, even including his prudent abstinence from matrimony, were quite sufficient to justify this classification.

[74] The ancients did not understand perspective; accordingly their figures represent those on an Indian paper. It seems long before it was known in England; for so late as 1634, Sir John Harrington thought it necessary to give the following explanation, in the advertisement to his translation of Orlando Furioso.

"The use of the picture is evident;—that, having read over the book, they may read it as it were again in the very picture; and one thing is to be noted, which every one haply will not observe, namely, the perspective in every figure. For the personages of men, the shapes of horses, and such like, are made large at the bottom, and lesser upward, as if you were to behold all the same in a plain, that which is nearest seems greatest, and the farthest shews smallest, which is the chief art in picture."

[75] This portrait was copied from one in the possession of Mr Betterton, and afterwards in that of the Chandos family. Twelve engravings were executed from this painting, which, however, the ingenious Mr Stevens, and other commentators on Shakespeare, pronounced a forgery. The copy presented by Kneller to Dryden, is in the collection of Earl Fitzwilliam, at Wentworth-house; and may claim that veneration, from having been the object of our author's respect and enthusiasm, which has been denied to its original, as a genuine portrait of Shakespeare. It is not, however, an admitted point, that the Chandos picture is a forgery: the contrary has been keenly maintained; and Mr Malone's opinion has given weight to those who have espoused its defence.

[76] He travelled very young into Italy. Dryden.

[77] Mr Walpole says, that "where Sir Godfrey offered one picture to fame, he sacrificed twenty to lucre; and he met with customers of so little judgment, that they were fond of being painted by a man who would gladly have disowned his works the moment they were paid for." The same author gives us Sir Godfrey's apology for preferring the lucrative, though less honourable, line of portrait painting. "Painters of history," said he, "make the dead live, and do not begin to live themselves till they are dead. I paint the living, and they make me live."—Lord Orford's Lives of the Painters. See his Works, Vol. III. p. 359. Dryden seems to allude to this expression in the above lines.

[78] Tycho Brache, the Danish astronomer.

[79] Dryden's opinion concerning the harshness of Oldham's numbers, was not unanimously subscribed to by contemporary authors. In the "Historical Dictionary," 1694, Oldham is termed, "a pithy, sententious, elegant, and smooth writer:" and Winstanley says, that none can read his works without admiration; "so pithy his strains, so sententious his expression, so elegant his oratory, so swimming his language, so smooth his lines." Tom Brown goes the length to impute our author's qualification of his praise of Oldham to the malignant spirit of envy: "'Tis your own way, Mr Bayes, as you may remember in your verses upon Mr Oldham, where you tell the world that he was a very fine, ingenious gentleman, but still did not understand the cadence of the English tongue."—Reasons for Mr Bayes' changing his Religion, Part II. p. 33.

But this only proves, that Tom Brown and Mr Winstanley were deficient in poetical ear; for Oldham's satires, though full of vehemence and impressive expression, are, in diction, not much more harmonious than those of Hall or of Donne. The reader may take the following celebrated passage on the life of a nobleman's chaplain, as illustrating both the merits and defects of his poetry:

[80] Henry Killigrew, D.D., the young lady's father, was himself a poet. He wrote "The Conspiracy," a tragedy much praised by Ben Jonson and the amiable Lord Falkland, published in 1634. This edition being pirated and spurious, the author altered the play, and changed the title to "Pallantus and Eudora," published in 1652.—See Wood's Athenæ Oxon. Vol. II. p. 1036.

[81] This line certainly gave rise to that of Pope in Gay's epitaph:

[82] James II. painted by Mrs Killigrew.

[83] Mary of Este, as eminent for beauty as rank, also painted by the subject of the elegy.

[84] Mrs Katherine Philips, whom the affectation of her age called Orinda, was the daughter of Mr Fowler, a citizen of London. Aubrey, the most credulous of mankind, tells us, in MS. Memoirs of her life, that she read through the Bible before she was four years old, and would take sermons verbatim by the time she was ten. She married a decent respectable country gentleman, called Wogan; a name which, when it occurred in her extensive literary correspondence, she exchanged for the fantastic appellation of Antenor. She maintained a literary intercourse for many years with bishops, earls, and wits, the main object of which was the management and extrication of her husband's affairs. But whether because the correspondents of Orinda were slack in attending to her requests in her husband's favour, or whether because a learned lady is a bad manager of sublunary concerns, Antenor's circumstances became embarrassed, notwithstanding all Orinda's exertions, and the fair solicitor was obliged to retreat with him into Cardiganshire. Returning from this seclusion to London, in 1664, she was seized with the small-pox, which carried her off in the 33d year of her age.

Her poems and translations were collected into a folio after her death, which bears the title of "Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs Katherine Philips, the matchless Orinda. London, 1667."—See Ballard's Memoirs of Learned Ladies, p. 287.

This lady is here mentioned with the more propriety, as Mrs Anne Killigrew dedicated the following lines to her memory:

[85] James Bertie, Lord Norris of Rycote, was created Earl of Abingdon in 1682. There is in the Luttrell Collection an Elegy on his death.

[86] The gout.

[87] Donne's character as a love-poet is elsewhere very well given by Dryden. "He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with the speculations of philosophy, where he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softness of love." Elizabeth Drury was the daughter of Sir Robert Drury, with whom Donne went to Paris. Donne celebrated her merit, and lamented her death in elegies, entitled, "The Anatomy of the World, wherein, by occasion of the untimely Death of Mrs Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay of this whole World is represented." These elegiac verses are divided into two anniversaries, through which the editor attempted in vain to struggle in search of the acknowledgment quoted by Dryden.

[88] In allusion to the provision made in Egypt, during the seven years of plenty, for the succeeding seven years of famine.

[89] Lady Abingdon had six sons and three daughters.

[90] Æneas descending to the shades, finds his father Anchises engaged in the review of his posterity.—See Æneid, lib. vi.

[91] Lady Abingdon died in her thirty-third year; at which age Jesus Christ was crucified.

[92] She died in a ball-room in her own house.

[93] Whitsunday night.

[94] I have here inserted the Dedication which led to so singular a mistake, as the "Orpheus Britannicus" is a scarce book.—"To the Honourable Lady Howard. Madam, Were it in the power of music to abate those strong impressions of grief which have continued upon me ever since the loss of my dear lamented husband, there are few, I believe, who are furnished with larger or better supplies of comfort from this science, than he has left me in his own compositions, and in the satisfaction I find, that they are not more valued by me, who must own myself fond to a partiality of all that was his, than by those who are no less judges than patrons of his performances. I find, madam, I have already said enough to justify the presumption of this application to your ladyship, who have added both these characters to the many excellent qualities which make you the admiration of all that know you.

"Your ladyship's extraordinary skill in music, beyond most of either sex, and your great goodness to that dear person, whom you have sometimes been pleased to honour with the title of your master, makes it hard for me to judge whether he contributed more to the vast improvements you have made in that science, or your ladyship to the reputation he gained in the profession of it: For I have often heard him say, that, as several of his best compositions were originally designed for your ladyship's entertainment, so the pains he bestowed in fitting them for your ear, were abundantly rewarded by the satisfaction he has received from your approbation and admirable performance of them, which has best recommended both them and their author to all that have had the happiness of hearing them from your ladyship.

"Another great advantage, to which my husband has often imputed the success of his labours, and which may best plead for your ladyship's favourable acceptance of this collection, has been the great justness both of thought and numbers which he found in the poetry of our most refined writers, and among them, of that honourable gentleman, who has the dearest and most deserved relation to yourself, and whose excellent compositions were the subject of his last and best performances in music.

"Thus, madam, your ladyship has every way the justest titles to the patronage of this book; the publication of which, under the auspicious influence of your name, is the best (I had almost said the only) means I have left, of testifying to the world, my desire to pay the last honours to its dear author, your ladyship having generously prevented my intended performance of the duty I owe to his ashes, by erecting a fair monument over them, and gracing it with an inscription which may perpetuate both the marble and his memory.

"Your generosity, which was too large to be confined either to his life or person, has also extended itself to his posterity, on whom your ladyship has been pleased to entail your favours, which must, with all gratitude, be acknowledged as the most valuable part of their inheritance, both by them, and your ladyship's most obliged, and most humble servant,

Fr. Purcell."

[95] The following account of the manner in which Sir Palmes Fairbone fell, and of the revenge to which the author alludes, is taken from the Gazette of the time:

"Malaga, November 12.—Three days since arrived here a small vessel, which stopped at Tangier, from whence we have letters, which give an account, that on the 2d instant, Sir Palmes Fairbone, the governor, as he was riding without the town with a party of horse, to observe what the Moors were doing, was shot by one of them, and, being mortally wounded, fell from his horse: That the Moors had intrenched themselves near the town, whereupon the whole garrison, consisting of 4000 horse and foot, sallied out upon them, commanded by Colonel Sackville: That they marched out in the night; but were quickly discovered by the Moors' sentinels, who immediately gave the alarm: That in the morning there was a very sharp engagement, which lasted six hours; and then the Moors, who were above 20,000, fled, and were pursued by the English, who killed above 1500 of them, took four of their greatest guns, and filled up all the trenches, and then retired to the town with several prisoners, having obtained a most signal victory, wherein the Spanish horse behaved themselves as well as men could do. The day the said vessel came from Tangier, which was the 7th, they heard much shooting, which makes us believe there has been a second engagement.

"Malaga, November 12, (1680.)—By a vessel arrived from Tangier, we have advice, that on Wednesday last all the force of that garrison took the field, and gave battle to about 30,000 Moors. The Spanish horse and 800 seamen marched in the van, the English horse with the main body. The fight lasted near six hours, with the slaughter of between 1500 and 2000 Moors, and of 150 of the garrison: That the Moors fled; the English kept the field; took six pieces of cannon, and six colours. Every soldier that brought in a flag had thirty guineas given to him; and every one that took a Moor prisoner had him for his encouragement. There were about twenty taken; and 300 bodies of Moors were dragged together in one heap, and as many heads in another pile. But the great misfortune was, that the Saturday before, the governor, as he was walking under the walls, received a mortal wound, which the Spanish horse so bravely resented, that immediately, without command, they mounted and charged the Moors with that courage, that they killed many of them, with the loss of seven or eight of themselves. Before this action, the Moors were so near the walls of the town, that with hand-slings they pelted our soldiers with stones."—London Gazette, No. 1567.

"Whitehall, November 27.—Yesterday morning arrived here Lieutenant-colonel Talmash from Tangier, and gave his Majesty an account, that Colonel Sackville, who has now the chief command, (Sir Palmes Fairbone, the late governor, having been unfortunately wounded with a musket shot on the 24th past, of which he died three days after,) finding that the Moors began to approach very near to Pole-fort, and were preparing to mine it, called a council of war, and, pursuant to what was there resolved, marched out on the 27th with 1500 foot and 300 horse, and fell upon the Moors with so much bravery, that, notwithstanding the inequality of their number, and the stout resistance they made, they beat them out of the trenches, and from their several lines, and gave them a total defeat; pursuing them a mile into the country, with a great slaughter of them; filling up their trenches, and levelling their lines, and taking two pieces of cannon, five colours, and several prisoners; though with the loss of many officers and private soldiers killed and wounded on our side."—Ibidem, No. 1569.

[96] The diapason, with musicians, is a chord including all notes. Perhaps Dryden remembered Spenser's allegorical description of the human figure and faculties:

[97] St Cecilia is said to have invented the organ, though it is not known when or how she came by this credit. Chaucer introduces her as performing upon that instrument:

The descent of the angel we have already mentioned. She thus announces this celestial attendant to her husband:

[98] James, second Duke of Ormond, was eldest son of the gallant Earl of Ossory, and grandson to the great Duke of Ormond, to whose honours he succeeded in 1688. He was first married to Lady Anne Hyde, daughter of Lawrence Earl of Rochester; and, upon her death, to Lady Mary Somerset, second daughter of the Duke of Beaufort. The Duke of Ormond was favoured by King William, but attained still higher power and influence during the reign of Queen Anne, especially in her later years, when he entered into all the views of her Tory administration. Upon the accession of George I, he was impeached of high treason, and consulted his safety by flying abroad. He died in Spain in 1746.

The tales which follow, with the various translations marked in the preface, were first published in 1700 in one volume folio.

[99] See Vol. XVII. p. 1.

[100] See the passage in "Absalom and Achitophel," Vol. IX. p. 242. and the notes on that poem, pages 294-301.

[101] This character of the unfortunate nobleman was not exaggerated. When the impeachment against him was moved, Hutchinson, Jekyll, and many others, gave a splendid testimony to his private virtues.

[102] P. Valerius Poplicola, the third Roman consul; the same who caused the fasces, the emblems of consular dignity, to be lowered before the common people.

[103] In the bloody battle of Landen, fought on 29th July, 1693, the Duke of Ormond was in that brigade of English horse which King William led in person to support his right wing of cavalry. The Duke charged at the head of a squadron of Lumley's regiment, received several wounds, and had his horse shot under him. He was about to be cut to pieces, when he was rescued by a gentleman of the gardes-du-corps, and made prisoner. King William lost the day, after exhibiting prodigies of conduct and valour.

[104] This was, I suppose, our author's old foe, Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the tardy progress of whose great buildings at Cleveden was often the subject of satire:

[105] These translations are to be found in the 12th volume, being placed after the versions of Ovid's "Epistles."

[106] I cannot find any such passages in Spenser as are here alluded to.

[107] Edward Fairfax, natural son of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton in Yorkshire, translated Tasso's celebrated poem, stanza for stanza, with equal elegance and fidelity. His version, entitled "Godfrey of Bulloigne, or the Recovery of Jerusalem," was first published in 1600. Collins has paid the original author and translator the following singular compliment:

[108] It would seem, from this respectful expression, that our author's feud with Rymer (See Vol. XI. p. 60. Vol. XII. p. 46.) was now composed.

[109] Jeremy Collier, whose diatribe against the theatre galled Dryden severely.

[110] See this version, Vol. XII. p. 357.

[111] The celebrated author of the "Leviathan." Burnet says, he was esteemed at court as a mathematician, though he had little talent that way.

[112] In this instance Dryden has inverted the fact. Boccacio tells the story of Griselda in his "Decameron," which was written about 1160, and Petrarch did not translate it till 1173, the year of his death, when he executed a Latin version of it. Even then, he mentions it as a traditional tale, which he had often heard with pleasure. The original edition of the story is difficult to discover. Noguier, in his "Histoire de Tholouse," affirms, that this mirror of female patience actually existed about the year 1103, and Le Grand lays claim to her history as originally a French fabliau. It seems certain, at least, that it was not invented by Petrarch, although Chaucer quotes his authority, probably that he might introduce a panegyric on his departed friend:

[113] Tyrwhitt has laboured to show, that Boccacio's poem, called the "Philostrato," contains the original of Chaucer's "Troilus and Creseide." But Chaucer himself calls his original "Lollius" and the Book "Trophe;" and I think, with Mr Godwin, that we are not hastily to conclude that this was an invention, to disguise his pillaging Boccacio, when we consider the probability of the work, which served as their common original, being lost in the course of so many ages. See this question discussed in Godwin's "Life of Chaucer," Vol. I. p 263.

[114] Unquestionably these poems are original as to the mode of treating them; but, in both cases, Chaucer was contented to adopt the story of some more ancient tale-teller. The "Wife of Bath's Tale" is imitated from the "Florent" in Gower, and that probably from the work of an older minstrel. Or Chaucer may have copied the old tale called the "Marriage of Sir Gawain," which is probably the corrupted fragment of a metrical romance. The apologue of "The Cock and the Fox," is to be found in the "Fables" of Marie of France, who seems to have lived in the reign of Henry III. of England.

[115] The Tabard was the inn whence Chaucer's pilgrims set forth on their joyous party to Canterbury, and took its name from the sign, a herald's coat, or tabard.

It is much to the credit of British painting, that Mr Stothard, of London, has been able to execute a picture, representing this celebrated groupe on their journey to Canterbury, with the genius and spirit of a master, and all the rigid attention to costume that could be expected by the most severe antiquary.

[116] Dryden seems here to intimate some hankering after those Dalilahs of composition, as he elsewhere calls them, that consisted in turning and playing upon words.

[117] The famous Cowley, whose metaphysical conceits had already, it would seem, begun to tarnish the brilliancy of his reputation.

[118] Thomas Speght's edition of Chaucer was published in 1597 and 1602. The preface contains the passage which Dryden alludes to: "And for his (Chaucer's) verses, although, in divers places, they seem to us to stand of unequal measures, yet a skilful reader, who can scan them in their nature, shall find it otherwise. And if a verse, here and there, fal out a syllable shorter or longer than another, I rather aret it to the negligence and rape of Adam Scrivener, (that I may speake as Chaucer doth) than to any unconning or oversight in the author: For how fearful he was to have his works miswritten, or his verse mismeasured, may appeare in the end of his fift booke of "Troylus and Creseide," where he writeth thus:

By his hasty and inconsiderate contradiction of honest Speght's panegyric, Dryden has exposed himself to be censured for pronouncing rashly upon a subject with which he was but imperfectly acquainted. The learned Tyrwhitt has supported Speght's position with equal pains and success, and plainly proves, that the apparent inequalities of the rhyme of Chaucer, arise chiefly from the change in pronunciation since his time, particularly from a number of words being now pronounced as one syllable, which in those days were prolonged into two, or as two syllables which were anciently three. These researches, in the words of Ellis, "have proved what Dryden denied, viz. that Chaucer's versification, wherever his genuine text is preserved, was uniformly correct, although the harmony of his lines has, in many cases, been obliterated by the changes that have taken place in the mode of accenting our language."—Specimens of the Early English Poets, Vol. I. p. 209.

[119] Chaucer was doubtless employed and trusted by Edward and by his grandson, and probably favoured by Henry IV., the son of his original patron; but if Dryden meant, that he held, during these reigns, the precise office of poet-laureat, once enjoyed by himself, it is difficult to suppose that any such had existence.

[120] The rebellion of the Commons was that tumult which took place under the management of John of Northampton, commonly called John Cumbertown. Chaucer was forced to fly to Holland, in consequence of having some concern in that insurrection, and on his return he was arrested and committed to the Tower. Katherine Swynford, mistress, and at length wife, to John of Gaunt, was sister of Philippa Rouet, wife of the poet.

[121] "The Ploughman's Tale" is now generally accounted spurious. In speaking of it, Dryden inadvertently confounds it with the work of Robert Langland, a secular priest, well known to collectors by the title of "Pierce Plowman's Visions." Both poems contain a bitter satire against the clergy; but that which has been falsely ascribed to Chaucer, is expressly written in favour of Wickliffe's doctrine. Dryden probably was sufficiently ready to adopt any authority which seemed to countenance severity against the churchmen,—a subject upon which he always flies into declamation.

[122] This ceremony having been only partially performed when Samuel Johnson, the author of Julian, was thus ignominiously punished, it was found that the degradation was incomplete, and thus he saved his benefice.

[123] It is almost unnecessary to mention their names,—Henry the Second and Thomas a Becket.

[124] Dr James Drake wrote, in answer to Collier, a work called, "The Ancient and Modern Stage Surveyed, or Mr Collier's View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the Stage set in a true light." 8vo, 1699, p. 348-355.

[125] The famous Italian physiognomist.

[126] Gat-toothed, according to Chaucer; meaning nothing more than goat-toothed, which, applied to such a character, has an obvious meaning. The commentators, however, chose to read gap-toothed, as of more easy explanation.

[127] Alluding here, as elsewhere in the preface, to Jeremy Collier and Luke Milbourne, who had assailed not only his writings, but his moral character, with great severity.

[128] To whom "Don Sebastian" is dedicated. See Vol. VII. page 281. He died in 1696-7.

[129] This literal error was corrected by Tyrwhitt, from the better MSS. of Chaucer, being in fact, not a blunder of the poet, but of the press.

[130] This lady lived to the age of ninety-four. Her huge romances, "Artamenes, Clelia, and Cleopatra," were in my childhood still read in some old-fashioned Scottish families, though now absolutely forgotten, and in no chance of being revived. Mademoiselle de Scuderi died about eighteen months after this discourse was written. There is no reason to think she was seriously engaged in translating Chaucer, whose works certainly never existed in the old Provençal or Norman French, into which last they were more likely to have been translated.

[131] Pope, however, modernized this prologue, and, it is said, some of Chaucer's looser tales, though the latter were published under the name of Betterton. Malone, vol. iv. p. 631.

[132] The allusion, in Boccace, was probably to his own poem, the "Theseida," a work so scarce, as almost never to have been heard of, until it was described by Tyrwhitt, in his Essay concerning the Originals whence Chaucer drew his tales. It contains the whole story of Palamon and Arcite. But the tale itself was more ancient than the days of Boccace.

[133] There seems to have been something questionable in Milbourne's character. Dryden, a little lower down, hints, that he lost his living, for writing a libel upon his parishioners.

[134] "Prince Arthur," and "King Arthur," two works, facetiously entitled epic poems, published in 1695 and 1697. In the preface to the first, occurred the following severe attack upon Dryden, which is inserted by Mr Malone as illustrative of the passage in the text.

"Some of these poets, to excuse their guilt, allege for themselves, that the degeneracy of the age makes their lewd way of writing necessary. They pretend, the auditors will not be pleased, unless they are thus entertained from the stage; and to please, they say, is the chief business of the poet. But this is by no means a just apology. It is not true, as was said before, that the poet's chief business is to please: his chief business is to instruct, to make mankind wiser and better; and, in order to this, his care should be to please and entertain the audience, with all the wit and art he is master of. Aristotle and Horace, and all their critics and commentators, all men of wit and sense, agree, that this is the end of poetry. But they say, it is their profession to write for the stage; and that poets must starve, if they will not, in this way, humour the audience; the theatre will be as unfrequented as the churches, and the poet and the parson equally neglected. Let the poet, then, abandon his profession, and take up some honest, lawful, calling; where, joining industry to his great wit, he may soon get above the complaints of poverty, so common among these ingenious men, and lie under no necessity of prostituting his wit, to any such vile purposes as are here censured. This will be a course of life more profitable and honourable to himself, and more useful to others. And there are, among these writers, some, who think they might have risen to the highest dignities, in other professions, had they employed their wit in those ways. It is a mighty dishonour and reproach to any man that is capable of being useful to the world, in any liberal and virtuous profession, to lavish out his life and wit, in propagating vice and corruption of manners, and in battering, from the stage, the strongest entrenchments, and best works, of religion and virtue. Whoever makes this his choice, when the other was in his power, may he go off the stage unpitied, complaining of neglect and poverty, the just punishments of his irreligion and folly."