and vile imitations of him; by making an unjust use of his authority, and turning his artillery against his friends. But how would he disdain to be copied by such hands! I dare answer for him,

nings, then Maid of Honour to the Duchess, and afterwards herself Duchess of Marlborough, &c. The Duke of Monmouth and other noblemen danced. Mr. Hart, Mrs. Davis, and others, from the Theatre Royal, appeared in the Prologue. Langbaine tells us that this Masque, previous to its representation, was rehearsed thirty times.

"It was neither to the favour of the court (says Dennis in one of his Letters) nor of Wilmot, Lord Rochester, one of the shining ornaments of it, that he was indebted for the nomination which the King made of him for the writing the Masque of CALYPSO, [CALISTO.] but to the malice of that noble Lord, who designed by that preference to mortify Mr. Dryden."See also Memoirs of Lord Rochester, in a [pretended] Letter from St. Eyremond to the Duchess of Mazarine, the author of which agrees with Dennis in this statement.

Crown was the son of an independent minister in Nova Scotia; and when he came first to England, became Gentleman-Usher to an old lady, of his father's sect. He probably did not bring much literature with him, and he afterwards published some translations from the French; both which circumstances add probability to my conjecture that he was here in our author's contemplation.

Mr. Spence, from the information of old Jacob Tonson, tells us, that " Dryden was very suspicious of rivals. He would compliment Crown, when a play of his failed, but was cold to him, if it met with success. He some. times used to own that Crown had some genius, but then he always added, that his father and Crown's mother were very well acquainted. Spence's ANECDOTES.

he would be more uneasy in their company than he was with Crispinus, their forefather, in the Holy Way; and would no more have allowed them a place amongst the criticks, than he would Deme trius the mimick, and Tigellius the buffoon : Demetri, teque, Tigelli,

Discipularum inter jubeo plorare cathedras. With what scorn would he look down on such miserable translators, who make doggrel of his Latin, mistake his meaning, misapply his censures, and often contradict their own? He is fixed as a landmark to set out the bounds of poetry:

Saxum antiquum, ingens,

Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis.

But other arms than theirs, and other sinews are required, to raise the weight of such an author and when they would toss him against their enemies,

Genua labant, gelidus concrevit frigore sanguis.
Tum lapis ipse viri vacuum per inane volutus,
Nec spatium evasit, totum nec pertulit ictum.

For my part, I would wish no other revenge, either for myself or the rest of the poets, from this rhyming judge of the twelve-penny gallery, this legitimate son of Sternhold, than that he would subscribe his name to his censure, or (not to tax him beyond his learning,) set his mark; for should he own himself publickly, and come from behind the lion's skin, they whom he condemns would be thankful to him, they whom he

.

praises would choose to be condemned; and the magistrates whom he has elected* would modestly withdraw from their employment, to avoid the scandal of his nomination. The sharpness of his satire, next to himself, falls most heavily on his friends; and they ought never to forgive him for commending them perpetually the wrong way, and sometimes by contraries. If he have a friend whose hastiness in writing is his greatest fault, Horace would have taught him to have minced the matter, and to have called it readiness of thought, and a flowing fancy; for friendship will allow a man to christen an imperfection by the rome nature of some neighbour virtue;

Vellem in amicitiâ sic erraremus, et isti

Errori nomen virtus possuisset honestum ;

but he would never have allowed him to have
called a slow man hasty, or a hasty writer a slow
drudge; as Juvenal explains it :

*the concluding lines of Rochester's Imitation of Our an

Horace

In Rochester's Imitation of Horace are the following

lines, here evidently alluded to:

"Of all our modern wits, none seem to me
"Once to have touch'd upon true comedy,
"But hasty Shadwell, and slow Wycherley."
This character of Wycherley Mr. Pope remarked to
Mr. Spence, “was quite wrong. He was far from being
slow in general; and in particular wrote THE PLAIN
DEALER in three weeks." Spence's ANECDOTES.-So
also Lord Lansdown who has expressly controverted this
notion of Rochester's.

alludes to

canibus pigris, scabieq; vetustá

Lavibus, et sicca lambentibus ora luoeṛna,

Nomen erit, pardus, tigris, leo; si quid adhuc est,
Quod fremit in terris violentius.

Yet Lucretius laughs at a foolish lover, even for excusing the imperfections of his mistress:

Nigra μελίχροος est, immunda et fatida άκοσμος,

· Balba loqui non quit, тpavλía; muta pudens est, &c. But to drive it ad Ethiopem cygnum, is not to be endured. I leave him to interpret this by the benefit of his French version on the other side, and without farther considering him than I have the rest of my illiterate censors, whom I have disdained to answer, because they are not qualified for judges.

It remains that I acquaint the reader, that I have endeavoured in this play to follow the practice of the ancients, who, as Mr. Rymer has judiciously observed, are and ought to be our Horace likewise gives it for a rule in his

masters.

Art of Poetry,

Vos exemplaria Græca

Nocturna versate manu, versate diurnâ.

Yet, though their models are regular, they are too little for English tragedy, which requires to be built in a larger compass. I could give an instance in the OEDIPUS TYRANNUS, which was the masterpiece of Sophocles; but I reserve it for a more fit occasion, which I hope to have hereafter. In my style I have professed to imitate the divine Shak

speare; which that I might perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme. Not that I condemn my former way, but that this is more proper to my present purpose. I hope I need not to explain myself, that I have not copied my author servilely. Words and phrases must of necessity receive a change in succeeding ages; but it is almost a miracle that much of his language remains so pure; and that he who began dramatick poetry amongst us, untaught by any, and as Ben Jonson tells us, without learning, should, by the force of his own genius, perform so much, that in a manner he has left no praise for any who come after him. The occasion is fair, and the subject would be pleasant to handle the difference of style betwixt him and Fletcher; and wherein, and how far, they are both to be imitated. But since I must not be over confident of my own performance after him, it will be prudence in me to be silent: yet I hope I may affirm, and without vanity, that by imitating him I have excelled myself throughout the play; and particularly, that I prefer the scene betwixt Antony and Ventidius in the first act, to any thing which I have written in this kind.