[180] He was about a year after created Lord Halifax.
[181] Lord Somers.—Mr Malone is of opinion, that this passage adds some support to what has been suggested in our author’s Life, that a part of Dryden’s “Satire to his Muse” was written in his younger days by this great man. Yet I cannot think, that great man would be concerned in so libellous a piece: and in the same breath Dryden tells us, that he hoped Montague, who had really written against him, was much his friend.
[182] Erasmus Dryden, who lived in King’s-street, Westminster, and was a grocer. In Dec. 1710, he succeeded to the title of Baronet.
[183] Jemima, Mrs Steward’s youngest daughter, probably then four or five years old.
[184] “Fables Ancient and Modern.”
[185] Elmes Steward, Esq., was appointed sheriff of the county of Northampton in Nov. 1699.
[186] Dennis’s “Iphigenia” was performed at the theatre in Little Lincoln’s Fields; and “Achilles, or Iphigenia in Aulis,” written by Abel Boyer, and, if we are to believe the author, corrected by Dryden, was acted at the theatre in Drury-Lane. Dennis says in his Preface, that the success of his play was “neither despicable, nor extraordinary;” but Gildon, in his “Comparison between the two Stages,” 8vo, 1702, informs us, that it was acted but six times; and that the other tragedy, after four representations, was laid aside. Malone.
[187] In the London Gazette, No. 3557, Thursday, December 14, 1699, it is mentioned, that a proclamation for preventing and punishing immorality and profaneness, had been issued out on the 11th instant. We know, by the experience of our own time, the justice of Dryden’s observation.
[188] Not at St James’ Church, but at the Chapel Royal. The pews, it seems, were raised to prevent the devotions of the maids of honour from any distractions in time of service. But the ballad maliciously supposes, that the intention was to confine the sun-beams of their eyes to the preacher, Bishop Burnet. The ballad itself may be found Vol. X. p. 270.
[189] This poem is a banter upon the interest which the nobility took in the disputes between the Dury-Lane theatre, where Skipwith was manager, and that in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, of which Betterton was sovereign. The “Island Princess” of Fletcher had
been converted into a sort of opera, by Peter Motteux, and acted
at Drury-Lane in 1699. The peculiar taste of Rich for every thing that respected show and machinery is well known.