which, he added, should be after the royal manner. His directions were obeyed, the company dispersed, and lady Elizabeth and her son remained inconsolable. The next day Mr. Charles Dryden waited on the lord Halifax and the bishop, to excuse his mother and himself by relating the real truth. But neither his lordship nor the bishop would admit of any plea; especially the latter, who had the Abbey lighted, the ground opened, the choir attending, an anthem ready set, and himself waiting for some time without any corpse to bury. The undertaker, after three days' expectance of orders for embalment without receiving any, waited on the lord Jefferies, who, pretending ignorance of the matter, turned it off with an ill-natured jest, saying, "That those who observed the orders of a drunken frolick deserved no better; that he remembered nothing at all of it; and that he might do what he pleased with the corpse." Upon this, the undertaker waited upon the lady Elizabeth and her son, and threatened to bring the corpse home, and set it before the door. They desired a day's respite, which was granted. Mr. Charles Dryden wrote a handsome letter to the lord Jefferies, who returned it with this cool answer, "That he knew nothing of the matter, and would be troubled no more about it." He then addressed the lord Halifax and the bishop of Rochester, who absolutely refused to do any thing in it. In this distress Dr. Garth sent for the corpse to the College of Physicians, and proposed a funeral by subscription, to which himself set a most noble example. At last a day, about three weeks after Mr. Dryden's decease, was appointed for the interment : Dr. Garth pronounced a fine Latin oration at the College over the corpse; which was attended to the Abbey by a numerous train of coaches. When the funeral was over Mr. Charles Dryden sent a challenge to the lord Jefferies, who refusing to answer it, he sent several others, and went often himself; but could neither get a letter delivered nor admittance to speak to him which so incensed him that he resolved, since his lordship refused to answer him like a gentleman, that he would watch an opportunity to meet and fight off-hand, though with all the rules of honour; which his lordship hearing, left the town: and Mr. Charles Dryden could never have the satisfaction of meeting 'Hearne recorded in 1726 that in this oration Dr. Garth did not mention one word of Jesus Christ, but made an oration as an apostrophe to the great god Apollo, to influence the minds of the audience with a wise, but, without doubt, poetical understanding, and, as a conclusion, instead of a psalm of David, repeated the 30th ode of the third book of Horace, beginning Exegi monumen tum. He made a great many blunders in the pronunciation.' Hearne's Remains, ii. 267. According to Farquhar, 'the oration was great and ingenious, worthy the subject, and like the author, whose prescriptions can restore the living, and his pen embalm the dead.' Malone's Dryden, i. 363. For Garth's 'irreligion' see post, GARTH, 15. him, though he sought it till his death with the utmost application '.' 154 This story I once intended to omit as it appears with no great evidence; nor have I met with any confirmation but in a letter of Farquhar, and he only relates that the funeral of Dryden was tumultuary and confused". 155 Supposing the story true we may remark that the gradual change of manners, though imperceptible in the process, appears great when different times, and those not very distant, are compared. If at this time a young drunken Lord should interrupt the pompous regularity of a magnificent funeral what would be the event, but that he would be justled out of the way, and compelled to be quiet? If he should thrust himself into a house, he would be sent roughly away; and what is yet more to the honour of the present time, I believe that those who had subscribed to the funeral of a man like Dryden would not, for such an accident, have withdrawn their contributions. 'According to Malone (i. 368) Lord Halifax was burying the body at his own expense. Lords Dorset, Jeffreys, and others prevailed on the relations to have it embalmed, and on the President of the College of Physicians to have it deposited there, till a funeral in the Abbey was arranged, for which a subscription was raised. The body lay in state ten days, and on May 13 was carried to the Abbey, after a Latin oration by Garth, and the singing of an Ode of Horace in the Theatre of the College. There is no foundation for the story of the drunken frolic and of the quarrel between Jeffreys and C. Dryden. Jeffreys, the only son of the infamous Chancellor, was a writer of verse. He died, without male issue, in 1703.' Malone's Dryden, i. 368. Pope attacked Halifax for his share in the funeral: 'He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve.' Prol. Sat. 1. 248. As Chancellor of the Exchequer 'he help'd to starve' him by not giving him a pension. See also Luttrell's Diary, iv. 645. 2 In the first edition the sentence after 'evidence' ran as follows:'but having been since informed that there is in the register of the College of Physicians an order relating to Dryden's funeral, I can doubt its truth no longer.' In the Preface to the first edition Johnson says:'I had been told that in the College of Physicians there is some memorial of Dryden's funeral, but my intelligence was not true; the story therefore wants the credit which such a testimony would have given it. There is in Farquhar's Letters an indistinct mention of it as irregular and disorderly, and of the oration which was then spoken. More than this I have not discovered.' Farquhar ridiculed the mixed ceremony-the Ode of Horace sung instead of David's Psalms.... The pomp of the ceremony was a kind of rhapsody, and fitter, I think, for Hudibras than him.... The quality and mob, farce and heroics; the sublime and ridicule mixed in a piece' [Farquhar's Works, 3rd ed. pt. i. 53]. Malone's Dryden, i. 363; Works, i. 368 n. In the Register of the College is an entry on May 3, granting 'the request of several persons of quality' for the reception of the body. Malone's Dryden, i. 372. For an account of the funeral see Gent Mag. 1786, i. 291. He was buried among the poets in Westminster Abbey, where, 156 though the duke of Newcastle had, in a general dedication prefixed by Congreve to his dramatick works, accepted thanks for his intention of erecting him a monument', he lay long without distinction, till the duke of Buckinghamshire gave him a tablet, inscribed only with the name of DRYDEN 2. He married the lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the earl 157 of Berkshire 3, with circumstances, according to the satire imputed to lord Somers, not very honourable to either party*: by her he had three sons, Charles, John, and Henry. Charles was usher of the palace to Pope Clement the XIth 5, and visiting England in 1704, was drowned in an attempt to swim across the Thames at Windsor. John was author of a comedy called The Husband his own 158 Cuckold. He is said to have died at Rome. Henry entered One grateful woman to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to his denies.' See also Pope's Preface to Miscellanies in Prose for his warning against 'venting praise or censure too precipitately.' Swift's Works, xiii. 6. The inscription is 'J. Dryden, Natus 1632. Mortuus May 1, 1700. Joannes Sheffield, Dux Buckinghamiensis Posuit 1720.' Malone's Dryden, i. 6; Part ii. 133. In 1720 Atterbury wrote to Pope of your design of fixing Dryden's name only below, and his bust above.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ix. 22. For the year of his birth see ante, DRYDEN, 2. 3 In St. Swithin's Church, Cannon Street, 'the last leaf of a mouldering register records Dec. 1, 1663,' Dry den's marriage. Wheatley's London, 'Minds are so hardly matched that Though paired by Heaven, in Para dise were cursed.' Works, xi. 73. 4' After two children and a third miscarriage, By brawny brothers hector'd into marriage.' Satyr to his Muse, p. 4; ante, DRY- For the lampoons on Dryden see 5 Dryden addressed his son as Dryden wrote the Epilogue (ib. x. 425) and Congreve the Prologue, which ends : into some religious order'. It is some proof of Dryden's sincerity in his second religion, that he taught it to his sons. A man conscious of hypocritical profession in himself is not likely to convert others; and as his sons were qualified in 1693 to appear among the translators of Juvenal', they must have been taught some religion before their father's change. 159 Of the person of Dryden I know not any account3; of his mind the portrait which has been left by Congreve, who knew him with great familiarity, is such as adds our love of his manners to our admiration of his genius. 'He was,' we are told, 'of a nature exceedingly humane and compassionate, ready to forgive injuries, and capable of a sincere reconciliation with those that had offended him3. His friendship, where he professed it, went beyond his professions. He was of a very easy, of very pleasing access; but somewhat slow, and, as it were, diffident in his advances to others: he had that in his nature which abhorred intrusion into any society whatever. He was therefore less known, and consequently his character became more liable to misapprehensions and misrepresentations: he 'There's his last refuge; if the play don't take, Yet spare young Dryden for his Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 216. Dryden also wrote the Preface, when the play was printed, and bargained with the publisher. Works, xv. 409; xviii. 127. For his letters to Dr. Busby about his sons see ib. xviii. 99-102. His name was Erasmus Henry. 'He was a Captain in the Pope's Guards.' In 1710 he succeeded to the title of Baronet; he died the same year. None of the brothers married. "All of them," says a good judge, who knew them, were fine, ingenious and accomplished gentlemen.' Malone's Dryden, i. 399, 426. Johnson's account is from Biog. 2 Ante, DRYDEN, 140. 3 'There are,' writes Malone, 'few English poets of whose external appearance more particulars have been recorded.' From satires of the time Malone quotes such epithets as 'learned and florid'; 'cherrycheeked dunce'; 'a fat rosy-coloured fellow.' He had 'a sleepy eye,' and 'a large mole on his right cheek, which all his portraits exhibit.' Malone's Dryden, i. 430-7. 'In the State Poems he is "Poet-Squab, a short, thick man.”’ Prior's Malone, P. 254. 'He was not a very genteel man, he was intimate with none but poetical men. He was as plump as Mr. Pitt; of a fresh colour, and a down look, and not very conversable.' POPE, Spence's Anec. p. 261. 4 For a correct version of what Congreve wrote see Appendix T. 5 Addison, who knew Dryden well, says in The Spectator, No. 169:'The greatest wits I have conversed with are men eminent for their humanity.' Beattie, in his Essays, 1779, p. 14, reproaches him for his inhumanity in a passage where he says that many of Chaucer's words no more merit reviving 'than the crowds of men who daily die, or are slain for sixpence in a battle, merit to be restored to life, if a wish could revive them.' Works, xv. 188. For another instance of his inhumanity see ante, DRYDEN, 122 n. was very modest, and very easily to be discountenanced in his approaches to his equals or superiors'. As his reading had been very extensive, so was he very happy in a memory tenacious of every thing that he had read. He was not more possessed of knowledge than he was communicative of it; but then his communication was by no means pedantick or imposed upon the conversation, but just such, and went so far as, by the natural turn of the conversation in which he was engaged, it was necessarily promoted or required. He was extreme ready, and gentle in his correction of the errors of any writer who thought fit to consult him, and full as ready and patient to admit of the reprehensions of others in respect of his own oversights or mistakes.' To this account of Congreve nothing can be objected but the 160 fondness of friendship; and to have excited that fondness in such a mind is no small degree of praise 2. The disposition of Dryden, however, is shewn in this character rather as it exhibited itself in cursory conversation, than as it operated on the more important parts of life. His placability and his friendship indeed were solid virtues; but courtesy and good-humour are often found with little real worth. Since Congreve, who knew him well, has told us no more, the rest must be collected as it can from other testimonies, and particularly from those notices which Dryden has very liberally given us of himself. The modesty which made him so slow to advance, and so easy 161 to be repulsed, was certainly no suspicion of deficient merit, or unconsciousness of his own value: he appears to have known in its whole extent the dignity of his character, and to have set a very high value on his own powers and performances3. He probably did not offer his conversation, because he expected it to be solicited; and he retired from a cold reception, not submissive but indignant, with such reverence of his own greatness as made him unwilling to expose it to neglect or violation. He wrote in 1679:-'For my own part I never could shake off the rustic bashfulness which hangs upon my nature.' Works, vi. 249. * Dryden, seven years before his death, in his Epistle to My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve (Works, xi. 60), wrote:- But you whom every muse and grace adorn, Whom I foresee to better fortune born, Be kind to my remains; and O defend, Against your judgment, your departed friend. Johnson speaks of Milton's 'high opinion of his own powers' (ante, MILTON, 47), and of Addison's very high opinion of his own merit' (post, ADDISON, 109). Dryden, the year before his death, wrote to a lady:— 'I am still drudging on; always a poet, and never a good one.' Works, xviii. 147. See also post, POPE, 20. |