Most in his thoughts, and always in his eye[2].
Neither has he so far forgotten a poor inhabitant of his suburbs, whose best prospect is on the garden of Leicester House, but that more than once he has been offering him his patronage, to reconcile him to 289 a world, of which his misfortunes have made him weary[3]. There is another Sidney still remaining, though there can never be another Spenser to deserve the favour. But one Sidney gave his patronage to the applications of a poet; the other offered it unasked. Thus, whether as a second Atticus, or a second Sir Philip Sidney, the latter in all respects will not have the worse of the comparison; and if he will take up with the second place, the world will not so far flatter his modesty, as to seat him there, unless it be out of a deference of manners, that he may place himself where he pleases at his own table.
I may therefore safely conclude, that he, who, by the consent of all men, bears so eminent a character, will out of his inborn nobleness forgive the presumption of this address. It is an unfinished picture, I confess, but the lines and features are so like, that it cannot be mistaken for any other; and without writing any name under it, every beholder must cry out, at first sight,—this was designed for Atticus; but the bad artist has cast too much of him into shades. But I have this excuse, that even the greatest masters commonly fall short of the best faces. They may flatter an indifferent beauty; but the excellencies of nature can have no right done to them; for there both the pencil and pen are overcome by the dignity of the subject; as our admirable Waller has expressed it,
The heroe's race transcends the poet's thought.
There are few in any age who can bear the load 290 of a dedication; for where praise is undeserved, it is satire; though satire on folly is now no longer a scandal to any one person, where a whole age is dipt together. Yet I had rather undertake a multitude one way, than a single Atticus the other; for it is easier to descend than it is to climb. I should have gone ashamed out of the world, if I had not at least attempted this address, which I have long thought owing: and if I had never attempted, I might have been vain enough to think I might have succeeded in it. Now I have made the experiment, and have failed through my unworthiness, I may rest satisfied, that either the adventure is not to be atchieved, or that it is reserved for some other hand.
Be pleased, therefore, since the family of the Attici is and ought to be above the common forms of concluding letters, that I may take my leave in the words of Cicero to the first of them: Me, O Pomponi, valdè pænitet vivere: tantùm te oro, ut quoniam me ipse semper amàsti, ut eodem amore sis; ego nimirum idem sum. Inimici mei mea mihi non meipsum ademerunt. Cura, Attice, ut valeas.
Dabam. Cal.
Jan. 1690.
Footnotes:
- In order to escape as far as possible the odium, which after the Revolution was attached to Dryden's politics and religion, he seems occasionally to have sought for patrons amongst those Nobles of opposite principles, whom moderation, or love of literature, rendered superior to the suggestions of party rancour; or, as he himself has expressed it in the Dedication of "Amphitryon," who, though of a contrary opinion themselves, blamed him not for adhering to a lost cause, and judging for himself what he could not chuse but judge. Philip Sidney, the third earl of Leicester, had taken an active part against the king in the civil wars, had been named one of his judges, though he never look his seat among the regicides, and had been one of Cromwell's Council of State. He was brother of the famous Algernon Sidney, and although retired from party strife, during the violent contests betwixt the Whigs and Tories in 1682-3, there can be no doubt which way his inclinations leaned. He died 6th March, 1696-7, aged more than eighty years. Mr Malone has strongly censured the strain of this Dedication, because it represents Leicester as abstracted from parties and public affairs, notwithstanding his active share in the civil wars. Yet Dryden was not obliged to draw the portrait of his patron from his conduct thirty years before; and if Leicester's character was to be taken from the latter part of his life, surely the praise of moderation is due to him, who, during the factious contests of Charles II's. reign, in which his own brother made so conspicuous a figure, maintained the neutrality of Pomponius Atticus.
- When Henrietta Maria, widow of Charles I. and queen-dowager of England, visited her son after the Restoration, she chose Somerset-House for her residence, and added all the buildings fronting the river. Cowley, whom she had long patronised, composed a poem on the "Queen's repairing Somerset-House," to which our author refers. Mr Malone's accuracy has detected a slight alteration in the verses, as quoted by Dryden, and as written by Cowley:
- If any prouder virtuoso's sense
- At that part of my prospect take offence,
- By which the meaner cabanes are descried
- Of my imperial river's humbler side;
- If they call that a blemish, let them know,
- God and my godlike mistress think not so;
- For the distressed and the afflicted lie
- Most in their care, and always in their eye.
- Our poet's house was in Gerard-Street, looking upon the gardens of Leicester-House.