Tradition, however, has not allowed that his confidence in himself exempted him from jealoufy of others. He is accused of envy and infidiousness; and is particularly charged with inciting Creech to translate Horace, that he might lose the reputation which Lucretius had given him. Of this charge we immediately discover that it is merely conjectural; the purpose was fuch as no man would confefs; and a crime that admits no proof, why should we believe? He has been described as magifterially prefiding over the younger writers, and affuming the diftribution of poetical fame; but he who excels has a right to teach, and he whofe judgement is incontestable may, without ufurpation, examine and decide. Congreve represents him as ready to advise and inftruct; but there is reafon to believe that his communication was rather useful than entertaining. He declares of himself that he was faturnine, and not one of those whofe fpritely fayings diverted 86 DR Y DE N. DRYDEN. company; and one of his cenfurers makes him fay, Nor wine nor love could ever fee me gay; There are men whofe powers operate only at leifure and in retirement, and whofe intellectual vigour deferts them in converfation; whom merriment confufes, and objection difconcerts; whofe bashfulness reftrains their exertion, and fuffers them not to speak till the time of speaking is paft; or whofe attention to their own character makes them unwilling to utter at hazard what has not been confidered, and cannot be recalled. Of Dryden's fluggishness in converfation it is vain to search or to guefs the cause, He certainly wanted neither fentiments nor language; his intellectual treasures were great, though they were locked up from his own ufe. His thoughts, when he wrote, flowed in upon him fo faft, that his only care was which to chufe, and which to reject. Such rapidity of compofition naturally promises a flow of talk, yet we must be content to be lieve what an enemy fays of him, when he likewise fays it of himself. But whatever was his character as a companion, it appears that he lived in familiarity with the highest perfons of his time. It is related by Carte of the duke of Ormond, that he used often to pass a night with Dryden, and those with whom Dryden conforted; who they were, Carte has not told; but certainly the convivial table at which Ormond fat was not furrounded with a plebeian fociety, He was indeed reproached with boasting of his familiarity with the great; and Horace will fupport him in the opinion, that to please fuperiours is not the lowest kind of merit. The merit of pleafing muft, however, be eftimated by the means. Favour is not always gained by good actions or laudable qualities. Careffes and preferments are often bestowed on the auxiliaries of vice, the procurers of pleasure, or the flatterers of vanity. Dryden has never been charged with any perfonal agency unworthy of a good character he abetted vice and vanity only with pen. One of his enemies has accused him of lewdness in his conversation; but if accufation his : G 4 accufation without proof be credited, who fhall be innocent ? His works afford too many examples of diffolute licentiousness, and abject adulation; but they were probably, like his merriment, artificial and constrained; the effects of study and meditation, and his trade rather than his pleasure. Of the mind that can trade in corruption, and can deliberately pollute itself with ideal wickedness for the fake of spreading the contagion in fociety, I wish not to conceal or excufe the depravity.-Such degradation of the dignity of genius, fuch abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation. What confolation can be had, Dryden has afforded, by living to repent, and to teftify his repentance. Of dramatick immorality he did not want examples among his predeceffors, or companions among his contemporaries; but in the meannefs and fervility of hyperbolical adulation, I know not whether, fince the days in which the Roman emperors were deified, deified, he has been ever equalled, except by Afra Behn in an addrefs to Eleanor Gwyn. When once he has undertaken the task of praise, he no longer retains fhame in himself, nor supposes it in his patron. As many odoriferous bodies are observed to diffufe perfumes from year to year, without fenfible diminution of bulk or weight, he appears never to have impoverished his mint of flattery by his expences, however lavish. He had all the forms of excellence, intellectual and moral, combined in his mind, with endless variation; and when he had scattered on the hero of the day the golden shower of wit and virtue, he had ready for him, whom he wished to court on the morrow, new wit and virtue with another stamp. Of this kind of meanness he never feems to decline the practice, or lament the necesfity: he confiders the great as entitled to encomiaftick homage, and brings praise rather as a tribute than a gift, more delighted with the fertility of his invention than mortified by the prostitution of his judgement. It is indeed not certain, that on these occafions his judgement much rebelled against his intereft. There are minds which easily fink into fubmiffion, that look on grandeur with |