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Taste continued to be governed by the precepts of Boileau and the French classical school. Poetry remained chiefly didactic and satirical, and satire in Pope's hands was more personal even than in Dryden's, and addressed itself less to public issues.
Yet Montague and Prior, who had keenly satirised Dryden, were introduced by Dorset into public life; and the best comedy of Dryden's mortal enemy, Shadwell, was written at Dorset's country seat. The munificent Earl might, if such had been his wish, have been the rival of those of whom he was content to be the benefactor.
I observed, a family could not expect a poet but in a hundred generations. 'Nay, said Dr Johnson, 'not one family in a hundred can expect a poet in a hundred generations. He then repeated Dryden's celebrated lines, Three poets in three distant ages born, &c.
Even more precious than the pistol and binoculars were his books, an oddly assorted library that included the child's pictorial history already mentioned, Dryden's translation of the Iliad, an imperfect copy of The Three Musketeers, and The Descent of Man.
When a prey to his mortifications as an insolvent debtor, he did not give way for a moment, but in one year produced his 'Saul, 'Israel, the music for Dryden's 'Ode, his 'Twelve Grand Concertos, and the opera of 'Jupiter in Argos, among the finest of his works. As his biographer says of him, "He braved everything, and, by his unaided self, accomplished the work of twelve men."
He wrote several pieces in favour of James the IId's party: amongst which was a Panegyric on that King. He wrote another intitled the King of Hearts, to ridicule lord Delamere's entry into London, at his first coming to town after the revolution. This poem was said to be Dryden's, who was charged with it by Mr.
Thence with W. Pen, who is in great pain of the gowte, by coach round by Holborne home, he being at every kennel full of pain. Thence home, and by and by comes my wife and Deb. home, have been at the King's playhouse to-day, thinking to spy me there; and saw the new play, "Evening Love," of Dryden's, which, though the world commends, she likes not.
His name has been preserved in Dryden's satire, MacFlecknoe, as "throughout the realms of nonsense absolute;" but according to some authorities his slighter pieces were not wanting in grace and fancy. Scottish statesman and political writer, s. of Sir Robert F. of Saltoun, East Lothian, to which estate he succeeded at an early age.
It may be conjectured that Dryden's Puritan associations may have stood in the way of his more properly poetic culture, and that his early knowledge of Shakespeare was slight. He tells us that Davenant, whom he could not have known before he himself was twenty-seven, first taught him to admire the great poet.
The same year he published his Translation of the Idylliums of Theocritus, with Rapin's Discourse on Pastorals, as also the Life of Phelopidas, from the Latin of Cornelius Nepos. In Dryden's Translation of Juvenal and Persius, Mr. He also translated into English, the verses before Mr. Quintenay's Compleat Gardiner. The Life of Solon, from the Greek of Plutarch.
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