Another very pleasing performance, which entered [into] the Miscellany called "The Fables," is the epistle to John Driden of Chesterton, the poet's cousin. The letters to Mrs. Steward show the friendly intimacy in which the relations had lived, since the opposition of the Whigs to King William's government in some degree united that party in conduct, though not in motive, with the favourers of King James. Yet our author's strain of politics, as at first expressed in the epistle, was too severe for his cousin's digestion. Some reflections upon the Dutch allies, and their behaviour in the war, were omitted, as tending to reflect upon King William; and the whole piece, to avoid the least chance of giving offence, was subjected to the revision of Montague, with a deprecation of his displeasure, an entreaty of his patronage, and the humiliating offer, that, although repeated correction had already purged the spirit out of the poem, nothing should stand in it relating to public affairs. without Mr. Montague's permission. What answer "full-blown Bufo" returned to Dryden's petition, does not appear; but the author's opposition principles were so deeply woven in with the piece, that they could not be obliterated without tearing it to pieces. His model of an English member of parliament votes in opposition, as his Good Parson is a nonjuror, and the Fox in the fable of Old Chaucer is translated into a puritan.[41] The epistle was highly acceptable to Mr. Driden of Chesterton, who acknowledged the immortality conferred on him, by "a noble present," which family tradition states to have amounted to £500.[42] Neither did Dryden neglect so fair an opportunity to avenge himself on his personal, as well as his political adversaries. Milbourne and Blackmore receive in the epistle severe chastisement for their assaults upon his poetry and private character:
"What help from art's endeavours can we have?
Guibbons but guesses, nor is sure to save;
But Maurus sweeps whole parishes, and peoples every grave,
And no more mercy to mankind will use
Than when he robbed and murdered Maro's muse.
Wouldst thou be soon despatched, and perish whole,
Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourne with thy soul"
Referring to another place, what occurs upon the style and execution of the Fables, I have only to add, that they were published early in spring 1700, in a large folio, and with the "Ode to Saint Cecilia." The epistle to Driden of Chesterton, and a translation of the first Iliad, must have move than satisfied the mercantile calculations of Tonson, since they contained seventeen hundred verses above the quantity which Dryden had contracted to deliver. In the preface, the author vindicates himself with great spirit against his literary adversaries; makes his usual strong and forcible remarks on the genius of the authors whom he had imitated; and, in this his last critical work, shows all the acumen which had so long distinguished his powers. The Fables were dedicated to the last Duke of Ormond, the grandson of the Barzillai of "Absalom and Achitophel," and the son of the heroic Earl of Ossory; friends both, and patrons of Dryden's earlier essays. There is something affecting in a connection so honourably maintained; and the sentiment, as touched by Dryden, is simply pathetic. "I am not vain enough to boast, that I have deserved the value of so illustrious a line; but my fortune is the greater, that for three descents they have been pleased to distinguish my poems from those of other men; and have accordingly made me their peculiar care. May it be permitted me to say, that as your grandfather and father were cherished monarchs, so I have been esteemed and patronised by the grandfather, the father, and the son, descended from one of the most ancient, most conspicuous, and most deserving families in Europe."
There were also prefixed to the "Fables," those introductory verses addressed to the beautiful Duchess of Ormond,[43] which have all the easy, felicitous, and sprightly gallantry, demanded on such occasions. The incense, it is said, was acknowledged by a present of £500; a donation worthy of the splendid house of Ormond. The sale of the "Fables" was surprisingly slow: even the death of the author, which has often sped away a lingering impression, does not seem to have increased the demand; and the second edition was not printed till 1713, when, Dryden and all his immediate descendants being no more, the sum stipulated upon that event was paid by Tonson to Lady Sylvius, daughter of one of Lady Elizabeth Dryden's brothers, for the benefit of his widow, then in a state of lunacy.—See Appendix, vol. xviii.
The end of Dryden's labours was now fast approaching; and, as his career began upon the stage, it was in some degree doomed to terminate there. It is true, he never recalled his resolution to write no more plays; but Vanbrugh having about this time revised and altered for the Drury-lane theatre, Fletcher's lively comedy of "The Pilgrim," it was agreed that Dryden, or, as one account says, his son Charles,[44] should have the profits of a third night on condition of adding to the piece a Secular Masque, adapted to the supposed termination of the seventeenth century;[45] a Dialogue in the Madhouse between two Distracted Lovers; and a Prologue and Epilogue. The Secular Masque contains a beautiful and spirited delineation of the reigns of James I., Charles I., and Charles II., in which the influence of Diana, Mars, and Venus, are supposed to have respectively predominated. Our author did not venture to assign a patron to the last years of the century, though the expulsion of Saturn might have given a hint for it. The music of the Masque is said to have been good; at least it is admired by the eccentric author of John Buncle.[46] The Prologue and Epilogue to "The Pilgrim," were written within twenty days of Dryden's death; [47] and their spirit equals that of any of his satirical compositions. They afford us the less pleasing conviction, that even the last fortnight of Dryden's life was occupied in repelling or retorting the venomed attacks of his literary foes. In the Prologue, he gives Blackmore a drubbing which would have annihilated any author of ordinary modesty; but the knight[48] was as remarkable for his powers of endurance, as some modern pugilists are said to be, for the quality technically called bottom. After having been "brayed in a mortar," as Solomon expresses it, by every wit of his time, Sir Richard not only survived to commit new offences against ink and paper, but had his faction, his admirers, and his panegyrists, among that numerous and sober class of readers, who think that genius consists in good intention.[49] In the Epilogue, Dryden attacks Collier, but with more courteous weapons: it is rather a palliation than a defence of dramatic immorality, and contains nothing personally offensive to Collier. Thus so dearly was Dryden's preeminent reputation purchased, that even his last hours were embittered with controversy; and nature, over-watched and worn out, was, like a besieged garrison, forced to obey the call to arms, and defend reputation even with the very last exertion of the vital spirit.
The approach of death was not, however, so gradual as might have been expected from the poet's chronic diseases. He had long suffered both by the gout and gravel, and more lately the erysipelas seized one of his legs. To a shattered frame and a corpulent habit, the most trifling accident is often fatal. A slight inflammation in one of his toes, became, from neglect, a gangrene. Mr. Hobbes, an eminent surgeon, to prevent mortification, proposed to amputate the limb; but Dryden, who had no reason to be in love with life, refused the chance of prolonging it by a doubtful and painful operation.[50] After a short interval, the catastrophe expected by Mr. Hobbes took place, and, Dryden not long surviving the consequences, left life on Wednesday morning, 1st May 1700, at three o'clock. He seems to have been sensible till nearly his last moments, and died in the Roman Catholic faith, with submission and entire resignation to the divine will; "taking of his friends," says Mrs. Creed, one of the sorrowful number, "so tender and obliging a farewell, as none but he himself could have expressed."
The death of a man like Dryden, especially in narrow and neglected circumstances, is usually an alarum-bell to the public. Unavailing and mutual reproaches, for unthankful and pitiless negligence, waste themselves in newspaper paragraphs, elegies, and funeral processions; the debt to genius is then deemed discharged, and a new account of neglect and commemoration is opened between the public and the next who rises to supply his room. It was thus with Dryden: His family were preparing to bury him with the decency becoming their limited circumstances, when Charles Montague, Lord Jefferies, and other men of quality, made a subscription for a public funeral. The body of the poet was then removed to the Physicians' Hall, where it was embalmed, and lay in state till the 13th day of May, twelve days after the decease. On that day, the celebrated Dr. Garth pronounced a Latin oration over the remains of his departed friend; which were then, with considerable state, preceded by a band of music, and attended by a numerous procession of carriages, transported to Westminster Abbey, and deposited between the graves of Chaucer and Cowley.
The malice of Dryden's contemporaries, which he had experienced through life, attempted to turn into burlesque these funeral honours. Farquhar, the comic dramatist, wrote a letter containing a ludicrous account of the funeral;[51] in which, as Mr. Malone most justly remarks, he only sought to amuse his fair correspondent by an assemblage of ludicrous and antithetical expressions and ideas, which, when accurately examined, express little more than the bustle and confusion which attends every funeral procession of uncommon splendour. Upon this ground-work, Mrs. Thomas (the Corinna of Pope and Cromwell) raised, at the distance of thirty years, the marvellous structure of fable, which has been copied by all Dryden's biographers, till the industry of Mr. Malone has sent it, with other figments of the same lady, to "the grave of all the Capulets."[52] She appears to have been something assisted by a burlesque account of the funeral, imputed by Mr. Malone to Tom Brown, who certainly continued to insult Dryden's memory whenever an opportunity offered.[53] Indeed, Mrs. Thomas herself quotes this last respectable authority. It must be a well-conducted and uncommon public ceremony, where the philosopher can find nothing to condemn, nor the satirist to ridicule; yet, to our imagination, what can be more striking, than the procession of talent and rank, which escorted the remains of DRYDEN to the tomb of CHAUCER!
The private character of the individual, his personal appearance, and rank in society, are the circumstances which generally interest the public most immediately upon his decease.
We are enabled, from the various paintings and engravings of Dryden, as well as from the less flattering delineations of the satirists of his time, to form a tolerable idea of his face and person. In youth, he appears to have been handsome,[54] and of a pleasing countenance: when his age was more advanced, he was corpulent and florid, which procured him the nickname attached to him by Rochester.[55] In his latter days, distress and disappointment probably chilled the fire of his eye, and the advance of age destroyed the animation of his countenance.[56] Still, however, his portraits bespeak the look and features of genius; especially that in which he is drawn with his waving grey hairs.