This Section cannot be more properly conIcluded than with the list which Mr Malone has drawn out of Dryden's plays, with the respective dates of their being acted and published; which is a correction and enlargement of that subjoined by the author himself to the opera of «Prince Arthur.»> Henceforward we are to consider Dryden as unconnected with the stage.

SECTION VII.

State of Dryden's Connexions in Society after the Revolution-Juvenal and Persius-Smaller Pieces-Eleanora -Third Miscellany-Virgil-Ode to St Cecilia-Dispute with Milbourne-With Blackmore-Fables-The Author's Death and Funeral-His private CharacterNotices of his Family.

THE evil consequences of the Revolution upon Dryden's character and fortunes began to abate sensibly within a year or two after that event. It is well known, that King William's popularity was as short-lived as it had been universal. All parties gradually drew off from the king, under their ancient standards. The clergy returned to their maxims of hereditary right, the Tories to their attachment to the house of Stuart, the Whigs to their jealousy of the royal authority. Dryden, we have already observed, so lately left in a small and detested party, was now associated among multitudes who, from whatever contradictory motives, were joined in opposition to the government. A reconcilia

tion took place betwixt him and some of his kinsmen; particularly with John Driden of Chesterton, his first cousin ; with whom, from about this period till his death, he lived upon terms of uninterrupted friendship. The influence of Clarendon and Rochester, the Queen's uncles, were, we have seen, often exerted in the poet's favour; and through them he became connected with the powerful families with which they were allied. Dorset, by whom he had been deprived of his office, seems to have softened this harsh, though indispensible, exertion of authority, by a liberal present; and to his bounty Dryden had frequently recourse in cases of emergency.

Such, I understand, is the general purport of some letters of Dryden's, in possession of the Dorset family, which contain certain particulars rendering them unfit for publication. Our author himself commemorates Dorset's generosity in the Essay on Satire, in the following affecting passage: : «Though I must ever acknowledge, to the honour of your lordship, and the eternal memory of your charity, that since this Revolution, wherein I have patiently suffered the ruin of my small fortune, and the loss of that poor subsistence which I had from two kings, whom I had served more faithfully than profitable to myself—then your lordship was pleased, out of no other motive but your own nobleness, without any desert of mine, or the least solicitation from me, to make me a most bountiful present which at that time, when I was most in want of it, came most seasonably and unexpectedly to my relief. That favour, my lord, is of itself sufficient to bind any grateful man to a perpetual acknowledgment, and to all the future

Indeed, upon one occasion it is said to have been administered in a mode savouring more of ostentation than delicacy, for there is a tradition, that Dryden and Tom Brown, being invited to dine with the Lord Chamberlain, found under their covers, the one a bank note for 100l., the other for 5ol. I have already noticed, that these pecuniary benefactions were not held so degrading in that age as at present; and, probably, many of Dryden's opulent and noble friends took, like Dorset, occasional opportunities of supplying wants, which neither royal munificence, nor the favour of the public, now enabled the poet fully to provide for.

If Dryden's critical empire over literature was at any time interrupted by the mischances of his political party, it was in abeyance for a very short period; since, soon after the Revolution, he appears to have regained, and maintained till his death, that sort of authority in Will's coffee-house, to which we have frequently had occasion to allude. His supremacy, indeed, seems to have been so effectually established, that a «pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box,» was equal to taking a

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service which one of my mean condition can be ever able to perform. May the Almighty God return it for me, both in blessing you here, and rewarding you hereafter !»Essay on Satire.

So says Ward, in the London Spy.