me, whose business was so public and so useful, as conveying about the faults of the great and the fair; for in my books the lord was shewn a knave or fool, though his power defended the former, and his pride would not see the latter. The antiquated coquet was told of her age and ugliness, though her vanity placed her in the first row in the king's box at the play-house; and in the view of the congregation at St James's church. The precise countess, that would be scandalized at double entendre, was shewn betwixt a pair of sheets with a well-made footman, in spite of her quality and conjugal vow. The formal statesman, that set up for wisdom and honesty, was exposed as a dull tool, and yet a knave, losing at play his own revenue, and the bribes incident to his post, besides enjoying the infamy of a poor and fruitless knavery, without any concern. The demure lady, that would scarce sip off the glass in company, was shewn carousing her bottles in private, of cool Nantz too, sometimes, to correct the crudities of her last night's debauch. In short, in my books were seen men and women as they were, not as they would seem,-stript of their hypocrisy, spoiled of the fig-leaves of their quality. A knave was called a knave, a fool a fool, a jilt a jilt, and a whore a whore. And the love of scandal and native malice, that men and women have to one another, made me in such request when alive, that I was admitted to the lord's closet, when a man of letters and merit would be thrust out of doors. And I was as familiar with the ladies as their lap-dogs; for to them I did often good services: under pretence of a lampoon, I conveyed a billet-dour; and so, whilst I exposed their vast vices in the present, I prompted matter for the next lampoon.' The following lampoon, in which it is highly improbable that Dryden had any share, is chiefly levelled against Sir Car Scrope, son of Sir Adrian Scrope of Cockington, in Lincolnshire, a courtier of considerable poetical talents, of whom Anthony Wood says, "that, as divers satirical copies of verses were made upon him by other persons, so he hath divers made by himself upon them, which are handed about to this day." We have seen that he is mentioned with contempt in the "Essay on Satire;" and, in the " Advice to Apollo," in the State Poems, Vol. I. his studies are thus commemorated: Sir Car, that knight of wither'd face, He is also mentioned in many other libels of the day, and some of his answers are still extant. Rochester assailed him in his "Allusion to the Tenth Satire of Horace's first Book." Sir Car Scrope replied, and published a poem in Defence of Satire, to which the earl retorted by a very coarse set of verses, addressed to the knight by name. Sir Car Scrope was a tolerable translator from the classics; and his version of the "Epistle from Sappho to Phaon" is inserted in the translation of Ovid's Epistles by several hands, edited by our author. Dryden mentions, in one of his prefaces, Sir Car Scrope's efforts with approbation. But it is not from this circumstance alone I conclude that this epistle has been erroneously attributed to our author; for the whole internal evidence speaks loudly against its authenticity. Indeed, it only rests on Dryden's name being placed to it in the 6th volume of the Miscellanies published after his death. A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO MR JULIAN, SECRETARY OF THE MUSES. THOU Common-shore of this poetic town, What times are these, when, in the hero's room, * Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, was created Earl of Middlesex He is better known as the Earl of Dorset. in 1675. + Probably the person mentioned in the " Essay on Satire." Can two such pigmies such a weight support, Less art thou help'd by Dryden's bed-rid age; A knight there is,t if thou canst gain his grace, As no Hungarian water can redress. A face which, should he see, (but heaven was kind, *Sir George Etherege. † Sir Car Scrope. * One while he honoureth Birtha with his flame, His hands and feet are scanning as he walks; That one grain more of each would turn the scale; *Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. 13 |