But both to Congreve justly shall submit, One matched in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit.

In him all beauties of this age we see,

Etherege his courtship, Southerne's purity,

The satire, wit, and strength, of manly Wycherly. 30
All this in blooming youth you have achieved;
Nor are your foiled contemporaries grieved.
So much the sweetness of your manners move,
We cannot envy you, because we love.
Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw
A beardless consul made against the law,
And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome,
Though he with Hannibal was overcome.
Thus old Romano bowed to Raphael's fame,
And scholar to the youth he taught became.

O that your brows my laurel had sustained!
Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned:
The father had descended for the son;
For only you are lineal to the throne.
Thus, when the state one Edward did depose,
A greater Edward in his room arose :
But now not I, but poetry, is cursed;
For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.*

Shadwell, who, at the Revolution, was promoted to Dryden's posts of Poet Laureate and Royal Historiographer, died in 1692, was succeeded in his office of Laureate by Nahum Tate, and in that of Historiographer by Thomas Rymer. Our author was at present on bad terms with Rymer; to whom, not to Tate, he applies the sarcastic title of Tom the Second. Yet his old coadjutor, Nahum, is probably included in the warning, that they should not mistake the Earl of Dorset's charity for the recompense of their own merit. We have often remarked that the Earl of Dorset, although, as Lord Chamberlain, he was obliged to dispose of Dryden's offices to persons less politically obnoxious, bestowed at the same time such marks of generosity on the abdicated Laureate, that Dryden here, and elsewhere, honours him with the title of "his patron." For the quarrel between Rymer

35

40

45

But let them not mistake my patron's part,
Nor call his charity their own desert.
Yet this I prophesy,-Thou shalt be seen,
(Though with some short parenthesis between,)
High on the throne of wit, and, seated there,
Not mine, that 's little, but thy laurel wear.*

and Dryden, see the Introduction to the "Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses," vol. xii. Rymer was a useful antiquary, as his edition of the Fœdera bears witness; but he was a miserable critic and a worse poet. His tragedy of " Edgar" is probably alluded to in the Epistle as one of the productions of his reign. It was printed in 1678, but appeared under the new title of " The English Monarch" in 1691.

* It was augured by Southerne and by Higgons that Congreve would succeed to the literary empire exercised by Dryden. The former has these lines addressed to the future monarch

Dryden has long extended his command,

By right divine, quite through the Muses' land,
Absolute lord; and holding now from none
But great Apollo his undoubted crown,-

That empire settled, and grown old in power,—
Can wish for nothing but a successor;
Not to enlarge his limits, but maintain
Those provinces, which he alone could gain.
His eldest, Wycherley, in wise retreat,
Thought it not worth his quiet to be great;
Loose wandering Etherege, in wild pleasure tost,
And foreign interests, to his hopes long lost;
Poor Lee and Otway dead; Congreve appears
The darling and last comfort of his years.
May'st thou live long in thy great master's smiles,
And, growing under him, adorn these isles!
But when-when part of him, (but that be late!)
His body yielding, must submit to fate,
Leaving his deathless works, and thee, behind,
The natural successor of his mind,
Then may'st thou finish what he has begun;
Heir to his merit, be in fame his son!

In the same strain, Bevill Higgons :

What mayn't we then, great youth, of thee
presage
Whose art and wit so much transcend thy age!
How wilt thou shine in thy meridian light,
Who, at thy rising, give so vast a light!
When Dryden, dying, shall the world deceive,

Whom we immortal as his works believe,

Thou shalt succeed, the glory of the stage,

Adorn and entertain the coming age.

50

Thy first attempt an early promise made;
That early promise this has more than paid.
So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,

That your least praise is to be regular.

Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought,

But genius must be born, and never can be

taught.

This is your portion, this your native store;
Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,
To Shakespeare gave as much,-she could not
give him more.

Maintain your post; that's all the fame you

need;

For 'tis impossible you should proceed.
Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage;
Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense,
I live a rent-charge on His providence:*
But you, whom every muse and grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Be kind to my remains; and O defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,

55

60

65

70

But shade those laurels which descend to you:† 75
And take for tribute what these lines express;
You merit more, nor could my love do less.

* [i.e. God's, not Heaven's. Christie has here and elsewhere taken occasion to point out that Dryden condemns in others usages which he affects himself. See Appendix, on Dryden and Ben Jonson.-ED.]

Congreve discharged the sacred duty thus feelingly imposed. See his Dedication to Dryden's Plays, vol. ii. p. 15.

EPISTLE THE THIRTEENTH.

то

MR. GRANVILLE,

ON HIS EXCELLENT TRAGEDY,

CALLED

HEROIC LOVE.

He

GEORGE GRANVILLE, afterwards Lord Lansdowne of Bideford, was distinguished, by the friendship of Dryden and Pope, from the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease. copied Waller, a model perhaps chosen from a judicious consideration of his own powers. His best piece is his "Essay on unnatural Flights in Poetry," in which he elegantly apologises for Dryden having suffered his judgment to be swayed by a wild audience. Granville's play of the "Heroic Love; or, The Cruel Separation," was acted in 1698 with great applause. It is a mythological drama on the love of Agamemnon and Briseis; and this being said, it is hardly necessary to add, that it now scarcely bears reading. Granville's unshaken attachment to Tory principles, as well as his excellent private character, probably gained him favour in our poet's eyes. Lord Lansdowne (for such became Granville's title when Queen Anne created twelve peers to secure a majority to the Ministry in the House of Lords) died on the 30th January 1735. [Pope's [Pope's "Granville the polite."-ED.]

EPISTLE THE THIRTEENTH.

AUSPICIOUS poet, wert thou not my friend,
How could I envy, what I must commend!
But since 'tis nature's law, in love and wit,
That youth should reign, and withering age
submit,

With less regret those laurels I resign,
Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine.
With better grace an ancient chief may yield
The long contended honours of the field,
Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise:
Old monarchs, though successful, still in doubt,
Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.
Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age
Can best, if any can, support the stage;
Which so declines, that shortly we may see
Players and plays reduced to second infancy :
Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown,
They plot not on the stage, but on the town,
And, in despair their empty pit to fill,
Set up some foreign monster in a bill.
Thus they jog on, still tricking, never thriving,
And murdering plays, which they miscall re-
viving.*

* These sarcasms are levelled at the players; one of whom, George Powel, took it upon him to retort in the following

5

10

15

20