[97] "The most eminent masters in their several ways appealed to his determination. Waller thought it an honour to consult him in the softness and harmony of his verse, and Dr Sprat in the delicacy and turn of his prose. Dryden determines by him, under the character of Eugenius, as to the laws of dramatic poetry." This occurs in Prior's dedication of his poems to Lionel, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, in which he gives his father's character at length, 8vo Edit. 1709.
[98] The evening before the battle, he is said to have composed the lively song, beginning,
To all you ladies now at land.
Prior gives the following account of the matter. "In the first Dutch war, he went a volunteer with the Duke of York: his behaviour during that campaign was such, as distinguished the Sackvill, descended from that Hildebrand of the name, who was one of the greatest captains that came into England with the Conqueror. But his making a song the night before the engagement, and it is one of the prettiest that ever was made, carries with it so sedate a presence of mind, and such an unusual gallantry, that it deserves as much to be recorded as Alexander's jesting with his soldiers before he past the Granicus, or William the First of Orange giving order over night for a battle, and desiring to be called in the morning, lest he should happen to sleep too long."
[99] The great pestilence in 1663.
[100] As early as 1676, Dryden confesses that he had grown weary of "his long-loved mistress, Rhyme." See the prologue to "Aureng-Zebe," the last rhyming tragedy which he ever wrote. See Vol. V. p. 188. But although Dryden sometimes chose to abandon his own opinions, there is no instance of his owning conversion by the arguments of his adversaries.
[101] The tragedy of "Pompey the Great," 4to, 1664, translated out of French by certain persons of honour. Waller wrote the first act; Lord Buckhurst, it would seem, translated the fourth.
[102] Valerius Maximus, Lib. IV. Cap. 5.
[103] "Poem to the King's most sacred Majesty."—D'Avenant's Works, folio, 1673, p. 268.
[104] See the dedication to the "Rival Ladies," which is elaborately written in the cause of Rhyme against Blank Verse. Vol. II. p. 113.