profit. If Southerne's biographer can be trusted, Dryden never made by a single play more than one hundred pounds; so that, with all his fertility, he could not, at his utmost exertion, make more than two hundred a-year by his theatrical labours. At the same time, they so totally engrossed his leisure, that he produced no other work of consequence after the «Annus Mirabilis.»2 If, therefore, the payment of his pension was withheld, whether from the resentment of the court, or the poverty of the exchequer, he might well complain of the « unsettled state," which doomed him to continue these irksome and ill-paid labours.

«Dryden being very desirous of knowing how much Southerne had made by the profits of one of his plays, the other, conscious of the little success Dryden had met with in theatrical compositions, declined the question, and answered, he was really ashamed to acquaint him. Dryden continuing to be solicitous to be informed, Southerne owned he had cleared by his last play 700l.; which appeared astonishing to Dryden, who was perhaps ashamed to confess, that he had never been able to acquire, by any of his most successful pieces, more than 100l.»--Life of Southerne, prefixed to his Plays.

There was published, 1679, a translation of Appian, printed for John Amery at the Peacock, against St Dunstan's Church, Fleet-street. It is inscribed by the translator, J. D., to the Earl of Ossory; and seems to have been undertaken by his command. This work is usually termed, in catalogues, Dryden's Appian. I presume it be the work of that Jonathan Dryden, who is, men.

may

sioned p. 27:

SECTION V.

Dryden engages in Politics-Absalom and Achitophel, Part First-The Medal-Mac-Flecknoe-Absalom and Achitophel, Part Second-The Duke of Guise.

THE controversies, in which Dryden had hitherto been engaged, were of a private complexion, arising out of literary disputes and rivalry. But the country was now deeply agitated by political faction; and so powerful an auxiliary was not permitted by his party to remain in a state of inactivity. The religion of the Duke of York rendered him obnoxious to a large proportion of the people, still agitated by the terrors of the Popish Plot. The Duke of Monmouth, handsome, young, brave, and courteous, had all the external requisites for a popular idol; and what he wanted in mental qualities was amply supplied by the Machiavel subtlety of Shaftesbury. The life of Charles was the only isthmus between these contending tides, «which, mounting, viewed each other from

It was

afar, and strove in vain to meet."> already obvious, that the king's death was to be the signal of civil war. His situation was doubly embarrassing, because, in all probability, Monmouth, whose claims were both unjust in themselves and highly derogatory to the authority of the crown, was personally amiable, and more beloved by Charles than was his inflexible and bigotted brother. But to consent to the bill for excluding the lawful heir from the crown, would have been at the same time putting himself in a state of pupilage for the rest of his reign, and evincing to his subjects, that they had nothing to expect from attachment to his person, or defence of his interest. This was a sacrifice not to be thought of so long as the dreadful recollection of the wars in the preceding reign determined a large party to support the monarch, while he continued willing to accept of their assistance. Charles accordingly adopted a determined course; and, to the rage rather than confusion of his partisans, Monmouth was banished to Holland, from whence he boldly returned without the king's licence, and openly assumed the character of the leader of a party. Estranged from court, he made various progresses through the country, and employed every art which the genius of Shaftesbury could suggest, to stimulate the

ge, and to increase the number, of his jans. The press, that awful power, so

and so rashly misused, was not left ide Numbers of the booksellers were distinguished as Protestant or fanatical publishers; and their shops teemed with the furious declamations of Ferguson, the inflammatory sermons of Hickeringill, the political disquisitions of Hunt, and the party plays and libellous poems of Settle and Shadwell. A host of rhymers, inferior even to those last named, attacked the king, the Duke of York, and the ministry, in songs and libels, which, however paltry, were read, sung, rehearsed, and applauded. It was time that some champion should appear in behalf of the crown, before the public should have been irrecoverably alienated by the incessant and slanderous clamour of its opponents. Dryden's place, talents, and mode of thinking, qualified him for this task. He was the poet-laureat and household servant of the king, thus tumultuously assailed. His vein of satire was keen, terse, and powerful, beyond any that has since been displayed. From the time of the Restoration he had been a favourer of monarchy, perhaps more so, because the opinion divided him from his own family. If he had been for a time neglected, the smiles of a sovereign soon made his coldness forgotten; and if his narrow fortune was not increased, or even ren

dered stable, he had promises of provision, which inclined him to look to the future with hope, and endure the present with patience. If he had shared in the discontent which for a time severed Mulgrave from the royal party, that cause ceased to operate when his patron was reconciled to the court, and received a share of the spoils of the disgraced Monmouth. If there wanted further impulse to induce Dryden, conscious of his strength, to mingle in an affray where it might be displayed to advantage, he had the stimulus of personal attachment and personal enmity, to sharpen his political animosity. Ormond, Halifax, and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, among the nobles, were his patrons; Lee and Southerne, among the poets, were his friends. These were partisans of royalty. The Duke of York, whom the «Spanish Friar» probably had offended, was conciliated by a prologue on his visiting the theatre at his return from Scotland, and, it is said, by the omission of certain peculiarly offensive passages, as soon as the play was reprinted. The opposite ranks contained

Mulgrave was created lieutenant of Yorkshire and governor of Hull, when Monmouth was deprived of these and other honours.

2 This is objected to Dryden by one of his antagonists: «Nor could ever Shimei be thought to have cursed David more bitterly, than he permits his friend to blaspheme