The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 18

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John Dryden. The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 18

PREFACE TO A DIALOGUE CONCERNING WOMEN

PREFACE TO WALSH’S DIALOGUE CONCERNING WOMEN

CHARACTER OF M. ST. EVREMONT

CHARACTER OF M. ST. EVREMONT

CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS

THE CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS, AND HIS WRITINGS

THE LIFE OF LUCIAN

THE LIFE OF LUCIAN

DRYDEN’S LETTERS. LETTERS OF DRYDEN

DRYDEN’S LETTERS

LETTER I. TO THE FAIRE HANDS OF MADAME HONOR DRYDEN THESE CRAVE ADMITTANCE.55

LETTER II. TO [JOHN WILMOT,] EARL OF ROCHESTER

LETTER III

LETTER IV. TO THE REV. DR BUSBY

LETTER V. TO THE REV. DR BUSBY

LETTER VI. TO LAURENCE HYDE, EARL OF ROCHESTER75

LETTER VII. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER VIII. FROM JACOB TONSON TO JOHN DRYDEN, ESQ

LETTER IX. TO MR JACOB TONSON.93

LETTER X. MR JOHN DENNIS100 TO MR DRYDEN

LETTER XI. TO MR JOHN DENNIS. [In answer to the foregoing.]

LETTER XII. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XIII. TO MR JACOB TONSON,

LETTER XIV. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XV. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XVI. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XVII. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XVIII. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XIX. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XX. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XXI. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XXII. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XXIII. TO HIS SONS AT ROME

LETTER XXIV. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XXV. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XXVI. TO MR JACOB TONSON

LETTER XXVII. TO MRS STEWARD.142

LETTER XXVIII. TO ELMES STEWARD, ESQ

LETTER XXIX. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XXX. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XXXI. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XXXII. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XXXIII. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XXXIV. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XXXV. TO SAMUEL PEPYS, ESQ.156

LETTER XXXVI. ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING BY MR PEPYS

LETTER XXXVII. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XXXVIII. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XXXIX. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES MONTAGUE.160

LETTER XL. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XLI. TO MRS ELIZABETH THOMAS, JUN.168

LETTER XLII. TO MRS ELIZABETH THOMAS, JUN.173

LETTER XLIII. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XLIV. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XLV. TO MRS ELIZABETH THOMAS, JUN

LETTER XLVI. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XLVII. TO MRS STEWARD

LETTER XLVIII. TO MRS STEWARD

APPENDIX

No. I. Dryden’s Degree as Master of Arts, granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, preserved in the Faculty Book, (Book 6. p. 236. b.)

No. II. DRYDEN’S PATENT. Pat. 22. Car. II. p. 6. n. 6

No. III. THE AGREEMENT CONCERNING THE FABLES

No. IV. MR RUSSEL’s BILL. FOR MR DRYDEN’S FUNERALLS

No. V. MRS THOMAS’S LETTERS. CONCERNING DRYDEN’S DEATH AND FUNERAL;

Mr Charles Dryden’s Letter to Corinna

No. VI. MONUMENT IN THE CHURCH AT TICHMARSH

No. VII. EXTRACT FROM AN EPISTOLARY POEM, TO JOHN DRYDEN, ESQ

THE PREFACE

POEM

No. VIII. EXTRACTS FROM POEMS ATTACKING DRYDEN, FOR HIS SILENCE UPON THE DEATH OF QUEEN MARY

URANIA’S TEMPLE; OR, A SATIRE UPON THE SILENT POETS

No. IX. VERSES OCCASIONED BY READING MR DRYDEN’S FABLES

TO THE READER

UPON READING MR DRYDEN’S FABLES

No. IX. AN ODE BY WAY OF ELEGY, ON THE UNIVERSALLY LAMENTED DEATH OF THE INCOMPARABLE MR DRYDEN

By ALEXANDER OLDYS. TO MY WORTHY FRIEND MR JAMES DIXON

AN ODE ON THE DEATH OF MR DRYDEN

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

No. X. TO THE MEMORY OF MR DRYDEN, A POEM

No. XI. EXTRACT FROM POETÆ BRITANNICI. A POEM, SATIRICAL AND PANEGYRICAL

No. XII. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NINE MUSES;

No. XIII. VERSES. IN PRAISE OF MR DRYDEN

The Confederates, or the First Happy Day of the Island Princess

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I know, my friend will forgive me this digression; for it is not only a copy of his style, but of his candour. The reader will observe, that he is ready for all hints of commending merit, and the writers of this age and country are particularly obliged to him, for his pointing out those passages which the French call beaux endroits, wherein they have most excelled. And though I may seem in this to have my own interest in my eyes, because he has more than once mentioned me2 so much to my advantage, yet I hope the reader will take it only for a parenthesis, because the piece would have been very perfect without it. I may be suffered to please myself with the kindness of my friend, without valuing myself upon his partiality; he had not confidence enough to send it out into the world, without my opinion of it, that it might pass securely, at least amongst the fair readers, for whose service it was principally designed. I am not so presuming to think my opinion can either be his touchstone, or his passport; but I thought I might send him back to Ariosto, who has made it the business of almost thirty stanzas, in the beginning of the thirty-seventh book of his “Orlando Furioso,” not only to praise that beautiful part of the creation, but also to make a sharp satire on their enemies; to give mankind their own, and to tell them plainly, that from their envy it proceeds, that the virtue and great actions of women are purposely concealed, and the failings of some few amongst them exposed with all the aggravating circumstances of malice. For my own part, who have always been their servant, and have never drawn my pen against them, I had rather see some of them praised extraordinarily, than any of them suffer by detraction; and that in this age, and at this time particularly, wherein I find more heroines than heroes. Let me therefore give them joy of their new champion. If any will think me more partial to him than really I am, they can only say, I have returned his bribe; and the worst I wish him is, that he may receive justice from the men, and favour only from the ladies.

It is true, that as I am a religious admirer of Virgil, I could wish that he had not discovered our father’s nakedness.3 But, after all, we must confess, that Æneas was none of the greatest heroes, and that Virgil was sensible of it himself. But what could he do? the Trojan on whom he was to build the Roman empire, had been already vanquished; he had lost his country, and was a fugitive. Nay more, he had fought unsuccessfully with Diomedes, and was only preserved from death by his mother-goddess, who received a wound in his defence. So that Virgil, bound as he was to follow the footsteps of Homer, who had thus described him, could not reasonably have altered his character, and raised him in Italy to a much greater height of prowess than he found him formerly in Troy. Since, therefore, he could make no more of him in valour, he resolved not to give him that virtue, as his principal; but chose another, which was piety. It is true, this latter, in the composition of a hero, was not altogether so shining as the former; but it entitled him more to the favour of the gods, and their protection, in all his undertakings; and, which was the poet’s chiefest aim, made a nearer resemblance betwixt Æneas and his patron Augustus Cæsar, who, above all things, loved to be flattered for being pious, both to the gods and his relations. And that very piety, or gratitude, (call it which you please,) to the memory of his uncle Julius, gave him the preference, amongst the soldiers, to Mark Antony; and, consequently, raised him to the empire. As for personal courage, that of Augustus was not pushing;4 and the poet, who was not ignorant of that defect, for that reason durst not ascribe it, in the supreme degree, to him who was to represent his emperor under another name: which was managed by him with the most imaginable fineness; for had valour been set uppermost, Augustus must have yielded to Agrippa. After all, this is rather to defend the courtier than the poet; and to make his hero escape again, under the covert of a cloud. Only we may add, what I think Bossu says, that the Roman commonwealth being now changed into a monarchy, Virgil was helping to that design; by insinuating into the people the piety of their new conqueror, to make them the better brook this innovation, which was brought on them by a man who was favoured by the gods. Yet we may observe, that Virgil forgot not, upon occasion, to speak honourably of Æneas, in point of courage, and that particularly in the person of him by whom he was overcome. For Diomedes compares him with Hector, and even with advantage:

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But here I must make bold to part company with Casaubon for a moment. He is a vehement friend to any author with whom he has taken any pains; and his partiality to Persius, in opposition to Juvenal, is too fresh in my memory to be forgotten.26 Because Polybius will allow nothing to the power of chance, he takes an occasion to infer, that he believed a providence; sharply inveighing against those who have accused him of atheism. He makes Suidas his second in this quarrel; and produces his single evidence, and that but a bare assertion, without proof, that Polybius believed, with us Christians, God administered all human actions and affairs. But our author will not be defended in this case; his whole history reclaims to that opinion. When he speaks of Providence, or of any divine admonition, he is as much in jest, as when he speaks of fortune; it is all to the capacity of the vulgar. Prudence was the only divinity which he worshipped, and the possession of virtue the only end which he proposed. If I would have disguised this to the reader, it was not in my power. The passages which manifestly prove his irreligion are so obvious that I need not quote them. Neither do I know any reason why Casaubon should enlarge so much in his justification; since to believe false gods, and to believe none, are errors of the same importance. He who knew not our God, saw through the ridiculous opinions of the heathens concerning theirs; and not being able without revelation to go farther, stopped at home in his own breast, and made prudence his goddess, truth his search, and virtue his reward. If Casaubon, like him, had followed truth, he would have saved me the ungrateful pains of contradicting him; but even the reputation of Polybius, if there were occasion, is to be sacrificed to truth, according to his own maxim.

As for the wisdom of our author, whereby he wonderfully foresaw the decay of the Roman empire, and those civil wars which turned it down from a commonwealth to an absolute monarchy, he who will take the pains to review this history will easily perceive, that Polybius was of the best sort of prophets, who predict from natural causes those events which must naturally proceed from them. And these things were not to succeed even in the compass of the next century to that wherein he lived, but the person was then living who was the first mover towards them; and that was that great Scipio Africanus, who, by cajoling the people to break the fundamental constitutions of the government in his favour, by bringing him too early to the consulship,27 and afterwards by making their discipline of war precarious, first taught them to devolve the power and authority of the senate into the hands of one, and then to make that one to be at the disposition of the soldiery; which though he practised at a time when it was necessary for the safety of the commonwealth, yet it drew after it those fatal consequences, which not only ruined the republic, but also in process of time, the monarchy itself. But the author was too much in the interests of that family, to name Scipio; and therefore he gives other reasons, to which I refer the reader, that I may avoid prolixity.

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