A HARD HIT AT POPE.
Pope was one evening at Button’s Coffee-house, where he and a set of literati had got poring over a Latin manuscript, in which they had found a passage that none of them could comprehend. A young officer, who heard their conference, begged that he might be permitted to look at the passage. “Oh,” said Pope, sarcastically, “by all means; pray let the young gentleman look at it.” Upon which the officer took up the manuscript, and, considering it awhile, said there only wanted a note of interrogation to make the whole intelligible: which was really the case. “And pray, Master,” says Pope with a sneer, “what is a note of interrogation?”—“A note of interrogation,” replied the young fellow, with a look of great contempt, “is a little crooked thing that asks questions.”
DRYDEN DRUBBED.
“Dryden,” says Leigh Hunt, “is identified with the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. He presided in the chair at Russell Street (Will’s Coffee-house); his plays came out in the theatre at the other end of it; he lived in Gerrard Street, which is not far off; and, alas for the anti-climax! he was beaten by hired bravos in Rose Street, now called Rose Alley. The outrage perpetrated upon the sacred shoulders of the poet was the work of Lord Rochester, and originated in a mistake not creditable to that would-be great man and dastardly debauchee.” Dryden, it seems, obtained the reputation of being the author of the Essay on Satire, in which Lord Rochester was severely dealt with, and which was, in reality, written by Lord Mulgrave, afterwards the Duke of Buckinghamshire. Rochester meditated on the innocent Dryden a base and cowardly revenge, and thus coolly expressed his intent in one of his letters: “You write me word that I am out of favour with a certain poet, whom I have admired for the disproportion of him and his attributes. He is a rarity which I cannot but be fond of, as one would be of a hog that could fiddle, or a singing owl. If he falls on me at the blunt, which is his very good weapon in wit, I will forgive him if you please, and leave the repartee to Black Will with a cudgel.” “In pursuance of this infamous resolution,” says Sir Walter Scott, “upon the night of the 18th December 1679, Dryden was waylaid by hired ruffians, and severely beaten, as he passed through Rose Street, Covent Garden, returning from Will’s Coffee-house to his own house in Gerrard Street. A reward of fifty pounds was in vain offered in the London Gazette and other newspapers, for the discovery of the perpetrators of this outrage. The town was, however, at no loss to pitch upon Rochester as the employer of the bravos; with whom the public suspicion joined the Duchess of Portsmouth, equally concerned in the supposed affront thus revenged.... It will certainly be admitted that a man, surprised in the dark, and beaten by ruffians, loses no honour by such a misfortune. But if Dryden had received the same discipline from Rochester’s own hand, without resenting it, his drubbing could not have been more frequently made a matter of reproach to him; a sign, surely, of the penury of subjects for satire in his life and character, since an accident, which might have happened to the greatest hero that ever lived, was resorted to as an imputation on his character.”
ROGERS AND “JUNIUS.”
Samuel Rogers was requested by Lady Holland to ask Sir Philip Francis whether he was the author of Junius’ Letters. The poet, meeting Sir Philip, approached the ticklish subject thus: “Will you, Sir Philip—will your kindness excuse my addressing to you a single question?” “At your peril, Sir!” was the harsh and curt reply of the knight. The intimidated bard retreated upon his friends, who eagerly inquired of him the success of his application. “I do not know,” Rogers said, “whether he is Junius; but, if he be, he is certainly Junius Brutus.”