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one of the Westminster scholarships at Cambridge *

Of his fchool performances has appeared only a poem on the death of Lord Haftings, compofed with great ambition of fuch conceits as, notwithstanding the reformation begun by Waller and Denham, the example of Cowley ftill kept in reputation. Lord Haftings died of the fmall-pox; and his poet has made of the puftules firft rofebuds, and then gems; at laft exalts them into stars and fays,

No comet need foretell his change drew on,
Whose corpfe might feem a conftellation.

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At the university he does not appear to have been eager of poetical diftinction, or to have lavished his early wit either on fictitious fubjects or public occafions. He probably confidered, that he who propofed to be an author, ought firft to be a ftudent. He obtained, whatever was the reafon, no fellowship in the College. Why he was ex

*He went off to Trinity College, and was admitted to a Bachelor's Degree in 1653. H. B 2

cluded

cluded cannot now be known, and it is vain to guefs; had he thought himself injured, he knew how to complain. In the life. of Plutarch he mentions his education in the College with gratitude; but, in a prologue at Oxford, he has thefe lines:

Oxford to him a dearer name fhall be
Than his own mother-univerfity;

Thebes did his rude, unknowing youth engage;
He choofes Athens in his riper age.

It was not till the death of Cromwell, in 1658, that he became a public candidate for fame, by publishing Heroic Stanzas on the late Lord Protector; which, compared with the verfes of Sprat and Waller on the fame occafion, were fufficient to raife great expectations of the rifing poct.

When the king was reftored, Dryden, like the other panegyrifts of ufurpation, changed his opinion, or his profeffion, and published ASTREA REDUX; a poem on the happy Restoration and Return of his most facred· Majefty King Charles the Second.

The

The reproach of inconftancy was, on this occafion, fhared with fuch numbers, that it produced neither hatred nor difgrace! if he changed, he changed with the nation. It was, however, not totally forgotten when his reputation raised him enemies.

The fame year he praised the new king in a fecond poem on his reftoration. In the ASTREA was the line,

An horrid ftillness first invades the ear,
And in that filence we a tempeft fear-

for which he was perfecuted with perpetual ridicule, perhaps with more than was deserved. Silence is indeed mere privation; and, fo confidered, cannot invade; but privation likewife certainly is darkness, and probably cold; yet poetry has never been refused the right of afcribing effects or agency to them as to pofitive powers. No man fcruples to fay that darkness hinders him from his work; or that cold has killed the plants. Death is alfo privation; yet who has made any difficulty of affigning to Death a dart and the power of ftriking?

In fettling the order of his works there is fome difficulty; for, even when they are important enough to be formally offered to a patron, he does not commonly date his dedication; the time of writing and publishing is not always the fame; nor can the first editions be easily found, if even from them could be obtained the neceffary information.

The time at which his firft play was exhibited is not certainly known, because it was not printed till it was fome years afterwards altered and revived; but fince the plays are faid to be printed in the order in which they were written, from the dates of fome, thofe of others may be inferred; and thus it may be collected, that in 1663, in the thirty-fecond year of his life, he Commenced a writer for the ftage; compelled undoubtedly by neceffity, for he appears never to have loved that exercife of his genius, or to have much pleafed himself with his own dramas.

Of the ftage, when he had once invaded it, he kept poffeffion for many years; not indeed without the competition of rivals who fometimes prevailed, or the cenfure of

criticks,

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criticks, which was often poignant and often just; but with fuch a degree of reputation as made him at leaft fecure of being heard,, whatever might be the final determination of the publick.

His first piece was a comedy called the Wild Gallant. He began with no happy auguries; for his performance was fo much. difapproved, that he was compelled to recall it, and change it from its imperfect ftate to the form in which it now appears, and which is yet fufficiently defective to vindicate the criticks.

I wish that there were no neceffity of following the progrefs of his theatrical fame, or tracing the meanders of his mind through the whole series of his dramatick performances; it will be fit, however, to enumerate them, and to take efpecial notice of those that are diftinguished by any peculiarity, intrinfick or concomitant; for the compofition and fate of eight-and-twenty dramas include too much of a poetical life to be omitted.

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