"Iliad" into blank verse; but, after all, translated the only book of it which he published into rhyme. But, in fine, he determined to modernise some of the fine old tales of Boccacio and Chaucer; and in March 1699-1700, appeared his brilliant "Fables," with some other poems from his pen, for which he received £300 at Jonson's hands.

This was his last publication of size, although he was labouring on when death surprised him, and within the last three weeks of his life had written the "Secular Margin," and the prologue and the epilogue to Fletcher's "Pilgrim,"—productions remarkable as showing the ruling passion strong in death,—the squabbling litterateur and satirist combating and kicking his enemies to the last,—Jeremy Collier, for having accused him of licentiousness in his dramas; Milbourne, for having attacked his "Georgics;" and poor Blackmore for having doubted the orthodoxy of "Religio Laici," and the decency of "Amphitryon" and "Limberham."

He had now to go a pilgrimage himself to a far country. He had long been troubled with gout and gravel; but next came erysipelas in one of his legs; and at last mortification, superinduced by a neglected inflammation in his toe, carried him off at three o'clock on Wednesday morning the 1st of May 1700. He died a Roman Catholic, and in "entire resignation to the Divine will." He died so poor, that he was buried by subscription, Lords Montague and Jeffries delaying the interment till the necessary funds were raised. The body, after lying embalmed and in state for ten days in the College of Physicians, was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, where now, between the graves of Chaucer and Cowley, reposes the dust of Dryden.

His lady survived him fourteen years, and died insane. His eldest son Charles was drowned in 1704 at Datchett, while seeking to swim across the Thames. John died at Rome of a fever in 1701. Erasmus, who was supposed to inherit his mother's malady, died in 1710; and the title which he had derived from Sir Robert passed to his uncle, the brother of the poet, and thence to his grandson. Sir Henry Edward Leigh Dryden, of Canons-Ashby, is now the representative of the ancient family.

We reserve till our next volume a criticism on Dryden's genius and works. As to his habits and manners, little is known, and that little is worn threadbare by his many biographers. In appearance he became, in his maturer years, fat and florid, and obtained the name of "Poet Squab." His portraits show a shrewd, but rather sluggish face, with long gray hair floating down his cheeks, not unlike Coleridge, but without his dreamy eye, like a nebulous star. His conversation was less sprightly than solid. Sometimes men suspected that he had "sold all his thoughts to his booksellers." His manners are by his friends pronounced "modest;" and the word modest has since been amiably confounded by his biographers with "pure." Bashful he seems to have been to awkwardness; but he was by no means a model of the virtues. He loved to sit at Will's coffee-house, and be the arbiter of criticism. His favourite stimulus was snuff, and his favourite amusement angling. He had a bad address, a down look, and little of the air of a gentleman. Addison is reported to have taught him latterly the intemperate use of wine; but this was said by Dennis, who admired Dryden, and who hated Addison; and his testimony is impotent against either party. We admire the simplicity of the critics who can read his plays, and then find himself a model of continence and virtue. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;" and a more polluted mouth than Dryden's never uttered its depravities on the stage. We cannot, in fine, call him personally a very honest, a very high-minded, or a very good man, although we are willing to count him amiable, ready to make very considerable allowance for his period and his circumstances, not disposed to think him so much a renegado and deliberate knave as a fickle, needy, and childish changeling, in the matter of his "perversion" to Popery; although we yield to none in admiration of the varied, highly-cultured, masculine, and magnificent forces of his genius.

CONTENTS

ON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS

HEROIC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF OLIVER CROMWELL

ASTRÆA REDUX. A POEM ON THE HAPPY RESTORATION AND RETURN OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY CHARLES II., 1660

TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY. A PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE. PRESENTED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1662

SATIRE ON THE DUTCH

TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS, ON THE MEMORABLE VICTORY GAINED BY THE DUKE OVER THE HOLLANDERS, JUNE 3, 1665; AND ON HER JOURNEY AFTERWARDS INTO THE NORTH

ANNUS MIRABILIS: THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666. AN HISTORICAL POEM

AN ESSAY UPON SATIRE. BY MR DRYDEN AND THE EARL OF MULGRAVE, 1679

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL

THE MEDAL. A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION

RELIGIO LAICI; OR, A LAYMAN'S FAITH. AN EPISTLE

THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS: A FUNERAL PINDARIC POEM, SACRED TO THE HAPPY MEMORY OF KING CHARLES II

VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS, PARAPHRASED

THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. A POEM, IN THREE PARTS

MAC FLECKNOE

BRITANNIA REDIVIVA. A POEM ON THE PRINCE, BORN JUNE 10, 1688

DRYDEN'S POEMS.

ON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.[1]

  Must noble Hastings immaturely die,
  The honour of his ancient family;
  Beauty and learning thus together meet,
  To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet?
  Must Virtue prove Death's harbinger? must she,
  With him expiring, feel mortality?
  Is death, Sin's wages, Grace's now? shall Art
  Make us more learned, only to depart?
  If merit be disease; if virtue death;
  To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath 10
  Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
  Labour a crime? study, self-murder deem?
  Our noble youth now have pretence to be
  Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully.
  Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise,
  Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise:
  Than whom great Alexander may seem less,
  Who conquer'd men, but not their languages.
  In his mouth nations spake; his tongue might be
  Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy. 20
  His native soil was the four parts o' the Earth;
  All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
  A young apostle; and, with reverence may
  I speak it, inspired with gift of tongues, as they.
  Nature gave him, a child, what men in vain
  Oft strive, by art though further'd, to obtain.
  His body was an orb, his sublime soul
  Did move on Virtue's and on Learning's pole:
  Whose regular motions better to our view,
  Than Archimedes[2] sphere, the Heavens did show. 30
  Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
  Beauty and learning, fill'd up all the parts.
  Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear
  Scatter'd in others; all, as in their sphere,
  Were fix'd, conglobate in his soul; and thence
  Shone through his body, with sweet influence;
  Letting their glories so on each limb fall,
  The whole frame render'd was celestial.
  Come, learned Ptolemy[3] and trial make,
  If thou this hero's altitude canst take: 40
  But that transcends thy skill;