actually applied by Dryden. Neither was the state of our author such at the time, as to permit his pleading his own cause. The completion of the piece having been interrupted by indisposition, was devolved upon his friend Southerne, who revised and concluded the last act. The whispers of the author's enemies in the meantime procured a prohibition, at least a suspension, of the representation of "Cleomenes" from the Lord Chamberlain. The exertions of Hyde, Earl of Rochester, who, although a Tory, was possessed necessarily of some influence as maternal-uncle to the Queen, procured a recall of this award against a play which was in every respect truly inoffensive. But there was still a more insuperable obstacle to its success. The plot is flat and unsatisfactory, involving no great event, and in truth being only the question, whether Cleomenes should or should not depart upon an expedition, which appears far more hazardous than remaining where he was. The grave and stoical character of the hero is more suitable to the French than the

English stage; nor had the general conduct of the play that interest, or perhaps bustle, which is necessary to fix the attention of the promiscuous audience of London. In a theatre, where every man may, if he will, express his dissatisfaction, in defiance of beaux-esprits, nobles, or movsquetaires, that which is dull will seldom be long fashionable : "Cleomenes" was accordingly coldly received. Dryden published it with a dedication to Lord Rochester, and the Life of Cleomenes prefixed, as translated from Plutarch by Creech, that it might appear how

false those reports were, which imputed to him the composing a Jacobite play.

Omitting, for the present, Dryden's intermediate employments, I hasten to close his dramatic career, by mentioning, that "Love Triumphant," his last play, was acted in 1692, with very bad success. Those who look over this piece, which is in truth one of the worst our author ever wrote, can be at no loss to discover sufficient reason for its condemnation. The comic part approaches to farce, and the tragic unites the wild and unnatural changes and counterchanges of the Spanish tragedy, with the involutions of unnatural and incestuous passion, which the British audience has been always averse to admit as a legitimate subject of dramatic pity or terror. But it cannot be supposed that Dryden received the failure with any thing like an admission of its justice. He was a veteran foiled in the last of his theatrical trials of skill, and retreated for ever from the stage, with expressions which transferred the blame from himself to his judges; for, in the dedication to James, the fourth Earl of Salisbury, a relation of Lady Elizabeth, and connected with the poet by a similarity of religious and political opinions, he declares, that the characters of the persons in the drama are truly drawn, the fable not injudiciously contrived, the changes of fortune not unartfully managed, and the catastrophe happily introduced: thus leaving, were the author's opinion to be admitted as decisive, no foundation upon which the critics could ground their opposition. The enemies of Dryden, as usuał,

1

triumphed greatly in the fall of this piece; and thus the dramatic career of Dryden began and closed with bad success.

This section cannot be more properly concluded 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.

1 For example, in a Session of the Poets, under the fictitious name of Matthew Coppinger, Dryden is thus irreverently introduced:

"A reverend grisly elder first appear'd,

With solemn pace through the divided herd;
Apollo, laughing at his clumsy mien,
Pronounced him straight the poets' alderman.
His labouring muse did many years excel
In ill inventing, and translating well,

Till 'Love Triumphant' did the cheat reveal.

So when appears, midst sprightly births, a sot,
Whatever was the other offspring's lot,

This we are sure was lawfully begot."

SECTION VII.

State of Dryden's Connexions in Society after the Revolu. tion-Juvenal and Persius-Smaller Pieces-Eleonora - 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 reconciliation 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