[69] Sir Samuel Garth, the ingenious author of the "Dispensary." Although this celebrated wit and physician differed widely from Dryden in politics, being a violent Whig, they seem, nevertheless, to have lived in the most intimate terms. Dryden contributed to Garth's translation of the "Metamorphoses;" and Sir Samuel had the honour to superintend the funeral of our poet, and to pronounce a Latin oration upon that occasion. Garth's generosity, here celebrated, consisted in maintaining a Dispensary for issuing advice and medicines gratis to the poor. This was highly disapproved of by the more selfish of his brethren, and their disputes led to Sir Samuel's humorous poem.
[70] A very bloody war had been recently concluded by the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. But the country party in Parliament entertained violent suspicions, that King William, whose continental connections they dreaded, intended a speedy renewal of the contest with France. Hence they were jealous of every attempt to maintain any military force; so that, in 1699, William saw himself compelled, not only to disband the standing army, but to dismiss his faithful and favourite Dutch guards. The subsequent lines point obliquely at these measures, which were now matter of public discussion. Dryden's cousin joined in them with many of the Whigs, who were attached to what was called the country-party. As for the poet, his jacobitical principles assented to every thing which could embarrass King William. But, for the reasons which he has assigned in his letter to Lord Montague, our author leaves his opinion concerning the disbanding of the army to be inferred from his panegyric on the navy, and his declamation against the renewal of the war.
[71] Our poet had originally accompanied his praises of the British soldiers with some aspersions on the cowardice of the Dutch, their allies. These he omitted at his cousin's desire, who deemed them disrespectful to King William. In short, he complains he had corrected his verses so far, that he feared he had purged the spirit out of them; as Bushby used to whip a boy so long, till he made him a confirmed blockhead.
[72] Sir Robert Bevile, maternal grandfather to John Driden of Chesterton, seems to have been imprisoned for resisting some of Charles I.'s illegal attempts to raise supplies without the authority of parliament. Perhaps our author now viewed his opposition to the royal will as more excusable than he would have thought it in the reigns of Charles II. or of James II. It is thought, that the hard usage which Sir Robert Bevile met on this score, decided our poet's uncle, his son-in-law, in his violent attachment to Cromwell.
[73] The reader will perhaps doubt, whether Mr Dryden's account of his cousin Chesterton's accomplishments as a justice of peace, fox-hunter, and knight of the shire, even including his prudent abstinence from matrimony, were quite sufficient to justify this classification.
[74] The ancients did not understand perspective; accordingly their figures represent those on an Indian paper. It seems long before it was known in England; for so late as 1634, Sir John Harrington thought it necessary to give the following explanation, in the advertisement to his translation of Orlando Furioso.
"The use of the picture is evident;—that, having read over the book, they may read it as it were again in the very picture; and one thing is to be noted, which every one haply will not observe, namely, the perspective in every figure. For the personages of men, the shapes of horses, and such like, are made large at the bottom, and lesser upward, as if you were to behold all the same in a plain, that which is nearest seems greatest, and the farthest shews smallest, which is the chief art in picture."
[75] This portrait was copied from one in the possession of Mr Betterton, and afterwards in that of the Chandos family. Twelve engravings were executed from this painting, which, however, the ingenious Mr Stevens, and other commentators on Shakespeare, pronounced a forgery. The copy presented by Kneller to Dryden, is in the collection of Earl Fitzwilliam, at Wentworth-house; and may claim that veneration, from having been the object of our author's respect and enthusiasm, which has been denied to its original, as a genuine portrait of Shakespeare. It is not, however, an admitted point, that the Chandos picture is a forgery: the contrary has been keenly maintained; and Mr Malone's opinion has given weight to those who have espoused its defence.
[76] He travelled very young into Italy. Dryden.
[77] Mr Walpole says, that "where Sir Godfrey offered one picture to fame, he sacrificed twenty to lucre; and he met with customers of so little judgment, that they were fond of being painted by a man who would gladly have disowned his works the moment they were paid for." The same author gives us Sir Godfrey's apology for preferring the lucrative, though less honourable, line of portrait painting. "Painters of history," said he, "make the dead live, and do not begin to live themselves till they are dead. I paint the living, and they make me live."—Lord Orford's Lives of the Painters. See his Works, Vol. III. p. 359. Dryden seems to allude to this expression in the above lines.