"Dear Sons,

66

Sept. the 3d, our style.

"Being now at Sir William Bowyer's in the country, I cannot write at large, because I find myself somewhat indisposed with a cold, and am thick of hearing, rather worse than I was in town. I am glad to find, by your letter of July 26th, your style, that you are both in health; but wonder you should think me so negligent as to forget to give you an account of the ship in which your parcel is to come. I have written to you two or three letters concerning it, which I have sent by safe hands, as I told you, and doubt not but you have them before this can arrive to you. Being out of town, I have forgotten the ship's name, which your mother will inquire, and put it into her letter, which is joined with mine. But the master's name I remember: he is called Mr. Ralph Thorp; the ship is bound to Leghorn, consigned to Mr. Peter and Mr. Thomas Ball, merchants. I am of your opinion, that by Tonson's means almost all our letters have miscarried for this last year. But, however, he has missed of his design in the Dedication, though he had prepared the book for it; for, in every figure of Æneas, he has caused him to be drawn like King William, with a hooked nose. After my return to town, I intend to alter a play of Sir Robert Howard's, written long since, and lately put into my hands; 'tis called The Conquest of China by the Tartars.' It will cost me six weeks study, with the probable benefit of an hundred pounds. In the mean time I am writing a song for St. Cecilia's Feast, who, you know, is the patroness of music. This is troublesome, and no way beneficial; but I could not deny the Stewards of the Feast, who came in a body to me to desire that kindness, one of them being Mr. Bridgeman, whose parents are your mother's friends. I hope to send you thirty guineas between Michaelmas and Christ

mas, of which I will give you an account when I come to town. I remember the counsel you give me in your letter: but dissembling, though lawful in some cases, is not my talent; yet, for your sake, I will struggle with the plain openness of my nature, and keep in my just resentments against that degenerate order. In the mean time, I flatter not myself with any manner of hopes, but do my duty, and suffer for God's sake; ́ being assured, before hand, never to be rewarded, though the times should alter. Towards the latter end of this month, September, Charles will begin to recover his perfect health, according to his Nativity, which, casting it myself, I am sure is true; and all things hitherto have happened accordingly to the very time that I predicted them I hope at the same time to recover more health, according to my age. Remember me to poor Harry, whose prayers I earnestly desire. My Virgil succeeds in the world beyond its desert, or my expectation. You know the profits might have been more; but neither my conscience nor my honour would suffer me to take them: but I never can repent of my constancy, since I am thoroughly persuaded of the justice of the cause for which I suffer. It has pleased God to raise up many friends to me amongst my enemies, though they who ought to have been my friends are negligent of me. I am called to dinner, and cannot go on with this letter, which I desire you to excuse; and am

"your most affectionate father,

"JOHN DRYDEN."

ENCOMIUMS ON DRYDEN.

ON

MR. DRYDEN'S RELIGIO LAICI.

BY THE EARL OF ROSCOMMON.

ВЕ gone, you slaves, you idle vermin, go,
Fly from the scourges, and your master know;
Let free, impartial men, from Dryden learn
Mysterious secrets of a high concern,
And weighty truths; solid convincing sense,
Explain'd by unaffected eloquence.

What can you (reverend Levi) here take ill?
Men still had faults, and men will have them still;
He that hath none, and lives as angels do,
Must be an angel; but what's that to you?
While mighty Lewis finds the Pope too great,
And dreads the yoke of his imposing seat,
Our sects a more tyrannic power assume,
And would for scorpions change the rods of Rome;
That church detain'd the legacy divine;
Fanatics cast the pearls of heaven to swine:
What then have thinking honest men to do,
But choose a mean between the' usurping two?
Nor can the' Egyptian patriarch blame thy Muse,
Which for his firmness does his heat excuse;

say:

Whatever councils have approved his creed,
The preface, sure, was his own act and deed.
Our church will have that preface read you'll
'Tis true; but so she will the' Apocrypha;
And such as can believe them, freely may.
But did that God (so little understood)
Whose darling attribute is being good,
From the dark womb of the rude chaos bring
Such various creatures, and make man their king:
Yet leave his favourite man, his chiefest care,
More wretched than the vilest insects are?

O! how much happier and more safe are they,
If helpless millions must be doom'd a prey
To yelling furies, and for ever burn

In that sad place from whence is no return,
For unbelief in one they never knew,

Or for not doing what they could not do!
The very fiends know for what crimes they fell,
And so do all their followers that rebel:
If then a blind, well-meaning, Indian stray,
Shall the great gulf be show'd him for the way?
For better ends our kind Redeemer died,

Or the fallen angels' rooms will be but ill supplied.
That Christ, who, at the great deciding day,
(For he declares what he resolves to say)
Will damn the goats for their ill-natured faults,
And save the sheep for actions, not for thoughts,
Hath too much mercy to send men to hell
For humble charity, and hoping well.

To what stupidity are zealots grown,
Whose inhumanity, profusely shown

In damning crowds of souls, may damn their own; I'll err at least on the securer side,

A convert free from malice and from pride,

FROM ADDISON'S ACCOUNT

OF THE ENGLISH POETS.

years.

BUT see where artful Dryden next appears,
Grown old in rhyme, but charming even in
Great Dryden next! whose tuneful Muse affords
The sweetest numbers, and the fittest words.
Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs

She forms her voice, she moves our smiles and tears.
If satire or heroic strains she writes,*

Her hero pleases, and her satire bites.

From her no harsh unartful numbers fall,
She wears all dresses, and she charms in all:
How might we fear our English poetry,
That long has flourish'd, should decay in thee;
Did not the Muses' other hope appear,
Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear!
Congreve! whose fancy's unexhausted store
Has given already much, and promised more.
Congreve shall still preserve thy fame alive,
And Dryden's Muse shall in his friend survive.

ON

ALEXANDER'S FEAST:

OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC. AN ODE.
From Pope's Essay on Criticism.

HEAR how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love: