Chapter XV: Epilogue: Spoken by Mrs Bracegirdle

I've had to-day a dozen billet-doux
From fops, and wits, and cits, and Bow-street beaux;[25]
Some from Whitehall, but from the Temple more;
A Covent-Garden porter brought me four.
I have not yet read all: But, without feigning,
We maids can make shrewd guesses at your meaning.
What if, to shew your styles, I read them here? }
Methinks I hear one cry, "O Lord, forbear! }
No, madam, no; by heaven, that's too severe." }
Well then, be safe----
But swear henceforwards to renounce all writing, }
And take this solemn oath of my inditing,-- }
As you love ease, and hate campaigns and fighting. }
Yet, faith, 'tis just to make some few examples:
What if I shew'd you one or two for samples?
Here's one desires my ladyship to meet
[_Pulls out one._
At the kind couch above in Bridges-Street.
Oh sharping knave! that would have--you know what,
For a poor sneaking treat of chocolate.
Now, in the name of luck, I'll break this open,
[_Pulls out another._
Because I dreamt last night I had a token;
The superscription is exceeding pretty,
--"To the desire of all the town and city."
Now, gallants, you must know, this precious fop
Is foreman of a haberdasher's shop:
One who devoutly cheats; demure in carriage;
And courts me to the holy bands of marriage;
But, with a civil innuendo too,
My overplus of love shall be for you.
"Madam, I swear your looks are so divine,
[_Reads._
When I set up, your face shall be my sign;
Though times are hard--to show how I adore you,
Here's my whole heart, and half-a-guinea for you.
But, have a care of beaux! they're false, my honey;
And, which is worse, have not a rag of money."
See how maliciously the rogue would wrong ye!
But I know better things of some among ye.
My wisest way will be to keep the stage,
And trust to the good-nature of the age:
And he, that likes the music and the play,
Shall be my favourite gallant to-day.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: In imitation of the blind man, who said, that "red resembled the sound of a trumpet."]

[Footnote 20: One virtue ascribed by Odinn to the Runick characters was, to blunt the weapons of an enemy.]

[Footnote 21: In this Ode is contained all the use which our poet made of his knowledge of the Saxon manners, gleaned from Bede and Bochart. It is certain, that the Saxons, like the other Northmen, used the horrible superstition of human sacrifices. Woden, Freya or Frigga his wife, and Thor the god of war, were worshipped by the Saxons with probably the same attributes ascribed to them as in Denmark and Sweden. The casting of lots is mentioned by Alfred in his version of Bede, _pluton mid tanum_, "they cast lots with twigs." Much, and most extensive learning, has been displayed on the subject, by Mr Turner, in the fourth volume of his Anglo-Saxon History.]

[Footnote 22: This long stage direction contains an attempt to render interesting what is necessarily ridiculous. With all the assistance of bloody spunges, a stage combat must be always a ludicrous representation of a real one. We are content, in old plays, to let it pass, as a hieroglyphic, which conveys to us the author's meaning; but modern dramatists would do well to obscure their combats, if the termination is to be a bloody one.]

[Footnote 23: The Nine Worthies were equally divided among three religions; namely, Three Pagans, Hector, Pompey, and Alexander the Great; three Jews, Joshua, David, and Judas Machabæus; and three Christians, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Boulogne.]

[Footnote 24: In this passage, Dryden's discontent with the existing circumstances glances out: It is probable, that much was here omitted, or altered, which would have adorned the termination of the piece, had it been represented to Charles II. as originally designed by the author.]

[Footnote 25: With a slight alteration in spelling, a modern poet would have written _Bond-Street_ beaux. A billet-doux from _Bow-Street_ would be now more alarming than flattering.]

CLEOMENES,

THE

SPARTAN HERO,

A

TRAGEDY.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

THE LIFE OF CLEOMENES,

BY MR THOMAS CREECH.

_His armis, illâ quoque tutus in Aulâ._--JUV. Sat. iv.

CLEOMENES.

There has been occasion to remark, that Dryden seldom avails himself of national peculiarities, or national _costume_, in sketching his dramatic personages; the present tragedy forms, however, a remarkable exception to this general observation. Cleomenes, the last of the Spartans, is designed, not only as a hero, but as a Lacedemonian; and is a just picture of that extraordinary race of men, whose virtues were comprized in patriotism, and whose whole passions centered in a thirst for military glory. This character Dryden has drawn with admirable spirit and precision. It was indeed peculiarly suited to his genius; for, although sometimes deficient in the pathos and natural expression of violent passion, by which Otway, and even Southerne, could affect the passions of an audience, he never fails in expressing, in the most noble language, the sentiments of that stoical philosophy, which considers sufferings rather as subjects of moral reflection, than of natural feeling. Yet, lest a character so invulnerable to the shafts of adversity, so much the _totus teres atque rotundus_ of the poet, should fail to interest the audience, (for we seldom pity those who shew no symptoms of feeling their own sorrows,) Dryden has softened the character of his Spartan hero by the influence of those chaste and tender domestic affections, which thrive best in bosoms rendered by nature or philosophy inaccessible to selfish feeling. The haughty and unbending spirit, the love of war, and thirst of honour proper to the Lacedemonian, and inculcated by the whole train of his education, complete the character of Cleomenes. The same spirit, which animates the father, is finely represented as descending upon the son. Cleonidas is a model of a Spartan youth; and every slight expression which he uses, tends to bring out that celebrated character. The idea of this spirited boy seems to be taken from the excellent character of Hengo, in the "Bonduca" of Beaumont and Fletcher; whom Cleonidas resembles in the manner of his death, and in his previous sufferings by hunger, as well as in his premature courage, and emulation of his father's military glory.[26] The wife and mother of Cleomenes seem to be sketched after those of Coriolanus: the former exhibiting a mild and gentle disposition; the latter, the high-souled magnanimity of a Spartan matron. Of the other characters, little need be said. Ptolemy is a silly tyrant, Sosibius a wily minister, and Cleanthes a friend and confident; such as tyrants, ministers, and confidents in tragedies usually are. Judging from his first appearance, the author seems to have intended Pantheus as a character somewhat in contrast to that of Cleomenes; but he soon tires of the task of discrimination, and Pantheus sinks into a mere assistant. Cassandra is not sketched with any peculiar care; her snares are of a nature not very perilous to Spartan virtue, for her manners are too openly licentious. Such, however, as are fond of tracing the ideas of poets to those who have written before them, may consider Cassandra,--in her pride, her love, and her alternate schemes for saving and destroying Cleomenes,--as furnishing the original hint of the much more highly finished character of Zara in Congreve's "Mourning Bride."

The conduct of the piece, being calculated to evince the Spartan virtue, patience, and courage, contains a long train of hopes disappointed, seducing temptations resisted, sufferings patiently endured, and finally closed by a voluntary death. There is no particular object to which the attention of the audience is fixed, as that upon which the conclusion of the piece necessarily depends. The liberation of Cleomenes from his Egyptian bondage is doubtless the consummation concerning which the poet meant that we should be anxious; but this event might be brought about in so many different ways, and, if accomplished, brings Cleomenes so little nearer to the restoration of Spartan liberty, that it is perhaps insufficient to excite that strong, concentrated, and vivid interest, which the plot of a drama ought properly to inspire. The mind is distracted among the various possibilities by which the desired catastrophe might be accomplished; and feels a consciousness, that even were Cleomenes dismissed with full sails from the port of Alexandria, it would be rather the beginning than the winding up of his history. For these reasons, the plot seems more deficient in interest than might have been expected, from the spirited delineation of the principal character.

It appears that Dryden was unable, from illness, to put the finishing strokes to "Cleomenes." That task he committed to Southerne, now his intimate friend, and who, as may be easily imagined, felt himself much honoured by the task imposed upon him.[27] The half of the fifth act was that upon which Southerne exercised this power of revisal and finishing; for that it amounted to no more, will, I think, be obvious to any who takes the trouble to compare that act with those which precede it. The rabble-scene, introduced, as the poet himself tells us, to gratify the more barbarous part of his audience, is indeed deplorably bad.

The play, when presented to the theatre, met with unexpected opposition from the government, then directed by Queen Mary, in the absence of her husband. This was not very surprising, considering the subject of the play, and Dryden's well-known principles. The history of an exiled monarch, soliciting, in the court of an ally, aid to relieve his country from a foreign yoke, and to restore him to the throne of his fathers, with the account of a popular insurrection undertaken for the same purposes, were delicate themes during the reign of William III.; at least, when the pen of Dryden was to be employed in them, whose well-known skill at adapting an ancient story to a modern moral had so often been exercised in the cause of the house of Stuart. Besides, he had already given offence by his prologue to the "Prophetess," when revived, which contains some familiar metaphorical sneers, as Cibber calls them, at the Irish war, the female regency, and even the Revolution itself. This prologue had been forbidden; and a similar exertion of authority was deemed fit in the case of "Cleomenes." Accordingly, before the inoffensive nature of the piece could be explained, the court took alarm at the subject in the abstract, and the performance of the piece was prohibited by the Chamberlain.[28] It appears, the exertions of Lord Rochester, the maternal uncle of Queen Mary, and of his family, had been sufficiently powerful to guarantee the harmless nature of the play, and to procure a recal of the mandate, by which the acting of the piece, and the consequent profits of the author, had been for some time suspended.

When the play was performed, our author had the satisfaction to see the first character admirably represented by the well-known Mrs Barry, to whom he has paid, in the preface, the splendid compliment of saying, "that she had gained by her performance a reputation beyond any woman he had ever seen on the theatre."[29] If this expression, as Cibber seems to think, be a little over-stretched, it at least serves to prove to us, that the play was well received; for, otherwise, the intercourse of civility between the author and performers is generally very slender.

Cleomenes was acted and published in 1692.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 26: The whole passage is so very fine, that I think I may venture to extract it from this beautiful and forgotten tragedy. Caratach and Hengo, the uncle and nephew, are besieged on a rock by the Romans, and reduced to extremity by hunger. They are decoyed by some food, hung on a rock by the centurion Judas.

CARATACH _and_ HENGO _on the rock_.

_Caratach._ Courage, my boy! I have found meat: Look, Hengo,
Look where some blessed Briton, to preserve thee,
Was hung a little food and drink; cheer up, boy,
Do not forsake me now!

_Hengo._ Oh uncle, uncle,
I feel I cannot stay long; yet I'll fetch it,
To keep your noble life. Uncle, I'm heart-whole,
And would live.

_Car._ Thou shalt, long, I hope.

_Hengo._ But my head, uncle!
Methinks the rock goes round.

_Enter, below_, MACER _and_ JUDAS, _Romans_.

_Macer._ Mark them well, Judas.

_Judas._ Peace, as you love your life.

_Hengo._ Do not you hear
The noise of bells?

_Car._ Of bells, boy? 'tis thy fancy;
Alas, thy body's full of wind!

_Hengo._ Methinks, sir,
They ring a strange sad knell, a preparation
To some near funeral of state.--Nay, weep not,
Mine own sweet uncle; you will kill me sooner.

_Car._ Oh, my poor chicken!

_Hengo._ Fie, faint-hearted uncle!
Come, tie me in your belt, and let me down.

_Car._ I'll go myself, boy.

_Hengo._ No, as you love me, uncle;
I will not eat it, if I do not fetch it;
The danger only I desire: pray tie me.

_Car._ I will, and all my care hang o'er thee! Come, child,
My valiant child.

_Hengo._ Let me down apace, uncle;
And you shall see how, like a daw, I'll whip it
From all their policies; for 'tis most certain
A Roman train; and you must hold me sure too;
You'll spoil all else. When I have brought it, uncle,
We'll be as merry----

_Car._ Go, in the name of heaven, boy.--
[_Lets him down._

_Hengo._ Quick, quick, good uncle! I have it--Oh!
[JUDAS _shoots_ HENGO.

_Car._ What ailest thou?

_Hengo._ Oh, my best uncle, I am slain!

_Car._ I see you,
And heaven direct my hand.--
[_He kills_ JUDAS _with a stone_.
Destruction
Go with thy coward soul!--How dost thou, boy?--
Oh villain, pocky villain!

_Hengo._ Oh, uncle, uncle,
Oh how it pricks me! Am I preserved for this?
Extremely pricks me.

_Car._ Coward, rascal coward!
Dogs eat thy flesh!

_Hengo._ Oh, I bleed hard! I faint too; out upon't,
How sick I am!--the lean rogue, uncle!

_Car._ Look, boy;
I've laid him sure enough.

_Hengo._ Have you knocked his brains out?

_Car._ I warrant thee, for stirring more; cheer up, child.

_Hengo._ Hold my sides hard; stop, stop; oh, wretched fortune,
Must we part thus? Still I grow sicker, uncle.

_Car._ Heaven look upon this noble child!

_Hengo._ I once hoped
I should have lived to have met these bloody Romans
At my sword's point, to have revenged my father,
To have beaten them. Oh hold me hard!--but, uncle--

_Car._ Thou shalt live still, I hope, boy. Shall I draw it?

_Hengo._ You draw away my soul, then. I would live
A little longer; spare me, heavens! but only
To thank you for your tender love. Good uncle,
Good noble uncle, weep not.

_Car._ Oh my chicken,
My dear boy, what shall I lose!

_Hengo._ Why, a child
That must have died however; had this 'scaped me,
Fever or famine. I was born to die, sir.

_Car._ But thus unblown, my boy?

_Hengo._ I go the straighter
My journey to the Gods. Sure I shall know you
When you come, uncle?

_Car._ Yes, boy.

_Hengo._ And I hope
We shall enjoy together that great blessedness
You told me of?

_Car._ Most certain, child.

_Hengo._ I grow cold;
Mine eyes are going.

_Car._ Lift them up.

_Hengo._ Pray for me--
And, noble uncle, when my bones are ashes,
Think of your little nephew! mercy!--

_Car._ Mercy!
You blessed angels, take him!

_Hengo._ Kiss me--so--
Farewell, farewell!
[_Dies._

_Car._ Farewell the hopes of Britain!
Thou royal graft, farewell for ever!--Time and death,
Ye've done your worst. Fortune, now see, now proudly
Pluck off thy veil, and view thy triumph; look,
Look what thou hast brought this land to.--Oh, fair flower,
How lovely yet thy ruins show! how sweetly
Even death embraces thee! The peace of heaven,
The fellowship of all great souls, be with thee!

_The Tragedy of Bonduca_, act v.

This extract is perhaps longer than necessary; but, independently of its extreme beauty, it serves to justify the observation in the text, that Dryden had the recollection of Hengo strongly in his memory while composing the character of Cleonidas. Both are extenuated by hunger, and both killed insidiously by a cowardly enemy; and the reader will discover more minute resemblances to the very dialogue of Beaumont and Fletcher on perusing p. 209, and pp. 324, 325. I do Dryden no injury in ascribing a decided superiority to the more ancient dramatists.]

[Footnote 27: This fact is ascertained by the following passage in the Dedication of Southerne's play, called the "Wife's Excuse," to the Honourable Thomas Wharton.

"These, sir, are capital objections against me; but they hit very few faults, nor have they mortified me into a despair of pleasing the more reasonable part of mankind. If Mr Dryden's judgment goes for any thing, I have it on my side; for, speaking of this play, he has publicly said, "the town was kind to Sir Anthony Love; I needed them only to be just to this;" and to prove there was more than friendship in his opinion, upon the credit of this play with him, falling sick last summer, he bequeathed to my care the half of the last act of his tragedy of "Cleomenes;" which, when it comes into the world, you will find to be so considerable a trust, that all the town will pardon me for defending this play, that preferred me to it. If modesty be sometimes a weakness, what I say can hardly be a crime: in a fair English trial, both parties are allowed to be heard; and, without this vanity of mentioning Mr Dryden, I had lost the best evidence of my cause."

I cannot but remark a material difference between this quotation, as here quoted from the 8vo edition of Southerne's Plays, 1774, and as quoted by Mr Malone, who reads "_the fifth act_," instead of "_the half_ of the fifth _act_."]

[Footnote 28: Motteux, in the "Gentleman's Journal," has announced the prohibition of Cleomenes, and its removal, in a remarkable passage quoted by Mr Malone.

"I was in hopes to have given you in this letter an account of the acting of Dryden's "Cleomenes:" it was to have appeared upon the stage on Saturday last, and you need not doubt but that the town was big with the expectation of the performance; but orders came from her Majesty to hinder its being acted; so that none can tell when it shall be played."

"I told you in my last," says the same writer in the following month, "that none could tell when Mr Dryden's "Cleomenes" would appear. Since that time, the innocence and merit of the play have raised it several eminent advocates, who have prevailed to have it acted; and you need not doubt but it has been with great applause."]

[Footnote 29: Cibber has thus described Mrs Barry at the time when she was honoured by this high compliment from Dryden:

"Mrs Barry was then (in 1690) in possession of almost all the chief parts in tragedy: With what skill she gave life to them, you may judge from the words of Dryden in his preface to "Cleomenes." I perfectly remember her acting that part; and, however unnecessary it may seem to give my judgement after Dryden's, I cannot help saying, I do not only close with his opinion, but will venture to add, that though Dryden has been dead these thirty-eight years, the same compliment to this hour may be due to her excellence. And though she was then not a little past her youth, she was not till that time fully arrived to her maturity of power and judgment. From whence I would observe, that the short life of beauty is not long enough to form a complete actress. In men, the delicacy of person is not so absolutely necessary, nor the decline of it so soon taken notice of. The fame Mrs Barry arrived at, is a particular proof of the difficulty there is in judging with certainty from their first trials, whether young people will ever make any great figure in a theatre. There was, it seems, so little hope of Mrs Barry at her first setting out, that she was at the end of the first year discharged the company, among others that were thought to be a useless expence to it. I take it for granted, that the objection to Mrs Barry at that time must have been a defective ear, or some unskilful dissonance in her manner of pronouncing. But where there is a proper voice and person, with the addition of a good understanding, experience tells us, that such defect is not always invincible; of which not only Mrs Barry, but the late Mrs Oldfield, are eminent instances,--Mrs Barry, in characters of greatness, had a presence of elevated dignity; her mien and motion superb, and gracefully majestic; her voice full, clear, and strong, so that no violence of passion could be too much for her; and when distress or tenderness possessed her, she subsided into the most affecting melody and softness. In the art of exciting pity, she had a power beyond all the actresses I have yet seen, or what your imagination can conceive. Of the former of these two great excellencies, she gave the most delightful proofs in almost all the heroic plays of Dryden and Lee; and of the latter, in the softer passions of Otway's Monimia and Belvidera. In scenes of anger, defiance, or resentment, while she was impetuous and terrible, she poured out the sentiment with an enchanting harmony; and it was this particular excellence for which Dryden made her the above-recited compliment upon her acting Cassandra in his "Cleomenes." But here I am apt to think his partiality for that character may have tempted his judgment to let it pass for her master-piece, when he could not but know there are several other characters in which her action might have given her a fairer pretence to the praise he has bestowed upon her for Cassandra: for in no part of that is there the least ground for compassion, as in Monimia; nor equal cause for admiration, as in the nobler love of Cleopatra, or the tempestuous jealousy of Roxana. 'Twas in these lights I thought Mrs Barry shone with a much brighter excellence than in Cassandra. She was the first person whose merit was distinguished by the indulgence of having an annual benefit-play, which was granted to her alone, if I mistake not, first in King James's time; and which became not common to others, till the division of this company after the death of King William's Queen Mary. This great actress died of a fever towards the latter end of Queen Anne; the year I have forgot, but perhaps you will recollect it by an expression that fell from her in blank verse, in her last hours, when she was delirious, viz.

Ha, ha! and so they make us lords by dozens!"

"And yet (says Antony Aston, in his curious 'Supplement to Cibber's work,') this fine creature was not handsome, her mouth opening most on the right side, which she strove to draw t'other way, and at times composing her face, as if sitting to have her picture drawn. Mrs Barry was middle-sized, and had darkish hair, light eyes, dark eye-brows, and was indifferently plump. She had a manner of drawing out her words, which became her, but not Mrs Bradshaw and Mrs Porter, her successors. Neither she, nor any of the actresses of those times, had any tone in their speech, so much lately in use. In tragedy she was solemn and august; in free comedy, alert, easy, and genteel; pleasant in her face and action; filling the stage with variety of gesture. She was woman to Lady Shelton, of Norfolk, (my godmother,) when Lord Rochester took her on the stage, where for some time they could make nothing of her. She could neither sing nor dance, no not in a country-dance."--MALONE, Vol. III. p. 227.]

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE EARL OF ROCHESTER,

KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, &c[30].

It is enough for your lordship to be conscious to yourself of having performed a just and honourable action, in redeeming this play from the persecution of my enemies; but it would be ingratitude in me, not to publish it to the world. That it has appeared on the stage, is principally owing to you: that it has succeeded, is the approbation of your judgment by that of the public. It is just the inversion of an act of parliament: Your lordship first signed it, and then it was passed amongst the Lords and Commons. The children of old men are generally observed to be short-lived, and of a weakly constitution. How this may prove, I know not, but hitherto it has promised well; and if it survive to posterity, it will carry the noble fame of its patron along with it; or, rather, it will be carried by yours to after-ages. Ariosto, in his Voyage of Astolpho to the Moon, has given us a fine allegory of two swans; who, when Time had thrown the writings of many poets into the river of oblivion, were ever in a readiness to secure the best, and bear them aloft into the temple of immortality.[31] Whether this poem be of that number, is left to the judgment of the swan who has preserved it; and, though I can claim little from his justice, I may presume to value myself upon his charity. It will be told me, that I have mistaken the Italian poet, who means only, that some excellent writers, almost as few in number as the swans, have rescued the memory of their patrons from forgetfulness and time; when a vast multitude of crows and vultures, that is, bad scribblers, parasites, and flatterers, oppressed by the weight of the names which they endeavoured to redeem, were forced to let them fall into Lethe, where they were lost for ever. If it be thus, my lord, the table would be turned upon me; but I should only fail in my vain attempt; for, either some immortal swan will be more capable of sustaining such a weight, or you, who have so long been conversant in the management of great affairs, are able with your pen to do justice to yourself, and, at the same time, to give the nation a clearer and more faithful insight into those transactions, wherein you have worthily sustained so great a part; for, to your experience in state affairs, you have also joined no vulgar erudition, which all your modesty is not able to conceal: for, to understand critically the delicacies of Horace, is a height to which few of our noblemen have arrived; and that this is your deserved commendation, I am a living evidence, as far, at least, as I can be allowed a competent judge on that subject. Your affection to that admirable Ode, which Horace writes to his Mecænas, and which I had the honour to inscribe to you, is not the only proof of this assertion[32]. You may please to remember that, in the late happy conversation which I had with your lordship at a noble relation's of yours, you took me aside, and pleased yourself with repeating to me one of the most beautiful pieces in that author. It was the Ode to Barine, wherein you were so particularly affected with that elegant expression, _Juvenumque prodis publica cura_. There is indeed the virtue of a whole poem in those words; that _curiosa felicitas_, which Petronius so justly ascribes to our author. The barbarity of our language is not able to reach it; yet, when I have leisure, I mean to try how near I can raise my English to his Latin; though, in the mean time, I cannot but imagine to myself, with what scorn his sacred _manes_ would look on so lame a translation as I could make. His _recalcitrat undique tutus_ might more easily be applied to me, than he himself applied it to Augustus Cæsar. I ought to reckon that day as very fortunate to me, and distinguish it, as the ancients did, with a whiter stone; because it furnished me with an occasion of reading my Cleomenes to a beautiful assembly of ladies, where your lordship's three fair daughters were pleased to grace it with their presence[33]; and, if I may have leave to single out any one in particular, there was your admirable daughter-in-law, shining, not like a star, but a constellation of herself, a more true and brighter Berenice. Then it was, that, whether out of your own partiality, and indulgence to my writings, or out of complaisance to the fair company, who gave the first good omen to my success by their approbation, your lordship was pleased to add your own, and afterwards to represent it to the queen, as wholly innocent of those crimes which were laid unjustly to its charge. Neither am I to forget my charming patroness, though she will not allow my public address to her in a dedication, but protects me unseen, like my guardian-angel, and shuns my gratitude, like a fairy, who is bountiful by stealth, and conceals the giver when she bestows the gift; but, my Lady Silvius[34] has been juster to me, and pointed out the goddess at whose altar I was to pay my sacrifice and thanks-offering; and, had she been silent, yet my Lord Chamberlain himself, in restoring my play without any alteration, avowed to me, that I had the most earnest solicitress, as well as the fairest, and that nothing could be refused to my Lady Hyde.

These favours, my lord, received from yourself, and your noble family, have encouraged me to this dedication; wherein I not only give you back a play, which, had you not redeemed it, had not been mine; but also, at the same time, dedicate to you the unworthy author, with my inviolable faith, and (how mean soever) my utmost service; and I shall be proud to hold my dependance on you in chief, as I do part of my small fortune in Wiltshire. Your goodness has not been wanting to me during the reign of my two masters; and, even from a bare treasury, my success has been contrary to that of Mr Cowley; and Gideon's fleece has then been moistened, when all the ground has been dry about it[35]. Such and so many provocations of this nature have concurred to my invading of your modesty with this address. I am sensible that it is in a manner forced upon you; but your lordship has been the aggressor in this quarrel, by so many favours, which you were not weary of conferring on me, though, at the same time, I own the ambition on my side, to be ever esteemed,

Your Lordship's most thankful,

And most obedient Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: Dryden had already distinguished Hyde, Earl of Rochester, by inscribing "The Duke of Guise" to him. As he was son of the famous Lord Clarendon, he was, of course, uncle to Queen Mary, by the mother's side, and his protection continued therefore to be respectable, although his political tenets were strongly Jacobitical.]

[Footnote 31: See the end of the 34th and beginning of the 35th canto of the "Orlando Furioso."]

[Footnote 32: The 29th Ode of the First Book. See it among our author's translations from Horace.]

[Footnote 33: These ladies, Mr Malone supposes to be Lord Rochester's two daughters, Henrietta Lady Dalkeith, and Mary Lady Conway, with his daughter-in-law Lady Hyde, the Berenice who is mentioned presently afterward. The Duchess of Ormond, eldest daughter of the Earl, died in 1685, and therefore could not be of the number.]

[Footnote 34: Lady Silvius was the wife of Sir Gabriel Silvius, employed upon various occasions as an English envoy on the Continent.]

[Footnote 35:

"As a fair morning of the blessed spring,
After a tedious stormy night,
Such was the glorious entry of our King;
Enriching moisture dropp'd on every thing;
Plenty he sow'd below, and cast about him light.
But then, alas! to thee alone
One of old Gideon's miracles was shewn,
For every tree and every herb around
With pearly dew was crown'd;
And upon all the quicken'd ground
The fruitful seed of heaven did brooding lie,
And nothing but the Muses' fleece was dry."]