whose business was so public and so useful, as conveying about the faults of the great and the fair; for in my books, the lord was shewn a knave or fool, though his power defended the former, and his pride would not see the latter. The antiquated coquet was told of her age and ugliness, though her vanity placed her in the first row in the king's box at the playhouse; and in the view of the congregation at St James's church. The precise countess, that would be scandalized at double entendre, was shown betwixt a pair of sheets with a well-made footman, in spite of her ́ quality and conjugal vow. The formal statesman, that set up for wisdom and honesty, was exposed as a dull tool, and yet a knave, losing at play his own revenue, and the bribes incident to his post, besides enjoying the infamy of a poor and fruitless knavery without any concern. The demure lady, that would scarce sip off the glass in company, was shewn carousing her bottles in private, of cool Nantz too, sometimes, to correct the crudities of her last night's debauch. In short, in my books were seen men and women as they were, not as they would seem,-stript of their hypocrisy, spoiled of the fig-leaves of their quality. A knave was called a knave, a fool a fool, a jilt a jilt, and a whore a whore. And the love of scandal and native malice, that men and women have to one another, made me in such request when alive, that I was admitted to the lord's closet, when a man of letters and merit would be thrust out of doors. And I was as familiar with the ladies as their lap-dogs: for to them I did often good services; under pretence of a lampoon, I conveyed a billet doux; and so, whilst I exposed their vast vices in the present, I prompted matter for the next lampoon."

The following lampoon, in which it is highly improbable that Dryden had any share, is chiefly levelled against Sir Car Scrope, son of Sir Adrian Scrope of Cockington, in Lincolnshire, a courtier of considerable poetical talents, of whom Anthony Wood says, "that, as divers satirical copies of verses were made upon him by other persons, so he hath diverse made by himself upon them, which are handed about to this day." We have seen that he is mentioned with contempt in the "Essay on Satire ;" and, in the "Advice to Apollo,” in the State Poems, Vol. I. his studies are thus commemorated :

Sir Car, that knight of withered face,
Who, for the reversion of a poet's place,
Waits on Melpomene, and sooths her grace;
That angry miss alone he strives to please,
For fear the rest should teach him wit and ease,
And make him quit his loved laborious walks,
Where, sad or silent, o'er the room he stalks,
And strives to write as wisely as he talks.

He is also mentioned in many other libels of the day, and some of his answers are still extant. Rochester assailed him in his "Allusion to the Tenth Satire of Horace's first Book." Sir Car Scrope replied, and published a poem in Defence of Satire, to which the earl retorted by a very coarse set of verses, addressed to the knight by name. Sir Car Scrope was a tolerable translator from the classics; and his version of the "Epistle from Sapho to Phaon" is inserted in the translation of Ovid's Epistles by several hands, edited by our author. Dryden mentions, in one of his prefaces, Sir Car Scrope's efforts with approbation. But it is not from this circumstance alone I conclude that this epistle has been erroneously attributed to our author; for the whole internal evidence speaks loudly against its authenticity. Indeed, it only rests on Dryden's name being placed to it in the 6th volume of the Miscellanies published after his death.

A

FAMILIAR EPISTLE

то

MR JULIAN,

SECRETARY OF THE MUSES.

THOU common shore of this poetic town,
Where all the excrements of wit are thrown;
For sonnet, satire, bawdry, blasphemy,
Are emptied, and disburdened all in thee:
The choleric wight, untrussing all in rage,
Finds thee, and lays his load upon thy page.
Thou Julian, or thou wise Vespasian rather,
Dost from this dung thy well-pickt guineas gather.
All mischief's thine; transcribing, thou wilt stoop
From lofty Middlesex to lowly Scroop.

*

What times are these, when, in the hero's room, Bow-bending Cupid doth with ballads come, And little Aston † offers to the bum?

* Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, was created Earl of Middlesex He is better known as the Earl of Dorset.

in 1675.

+ Probably the person mentioned in the "

Essay on Satire."

Can two such pigmies such a weight support,
Two such Tom Thumbs of satire in a court?
Poor George* grows old, his muse worn out of fashion,
Hoarsely he sung Ephelia's lamentation.

Less art thou helped by Dryden's bed-rid age;
That drone has lost his sting upon the stage.
Resolve me, poor apostate, this my doubt,
What hope hast thou to rub this winter out?
Know, and be thankful then, for Providence
By me hath sent thee this intelligence.

A knight there is, † if thou canst gain his grace,
Known by the name of the hard-favoured face.
For prowess of the pen renowned is he,
From Don Quixote descended lineally;
And though, like him, unfortunate he prove,
Undaunted in attempts of wit and love.
Of his unfinished face, what shall I say,-
But that 'twas made of Adam's own red clay;
That much, much ochre was on it bestowed;
God's image 'tis not, but some Indian god:
Our christian earth can no resemblance bring,
But ware of Portugal for such a thing;
Such carbuncles his fiery face confess,

As no Hungarian water can redress.

A face which, should he see, (but heaven was kind,
And, to indulge his self, Love made him blind,)
He durst not stir abroad for fear to meet
Curses of teeming women in the street:
The best could happen from this hideous sight,
Is, that they should miscarry with the fright,-
Heaven guard them from the likeness of the knight!
Such is our charming Strephon's outward man,
His inward parts let those disclose who can.

* Sir George Etherege.

+ Sir Car Scrope.

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One while he honoureth Birtha with his flame,
And now he chants no less Lovisa's* name;
For when his passion hath been bubbling long,
The scum at last boils up into a song;
And sure no mortal creature, at one time,
Was e'er so far o'ergone with love and rhyme.
To his dear self of poetry he talks,

His hands and feet are scanning as he walks;
His writhing looks his pangs of wit accuse,
The airy symptoms of a breeding muse,
And all to gain the great Lovisa's grace.
But never pen did pimp for such a face;
There's not a nymph in city, town, or court,
But Strephon's billet-doux has been their sport.
Still he loves on, yet still he's sure to miss,
As they who wash an Ethiop's face, or his.
What fate unhappy Strephon does attend,
Never to get a mistress, nor a friend!
Strephon alike both wits and fools detest,
'Cause he's like Esop's bat, half bird half beast;
For fools to poetry have no pretence,
And common wit supposes common sense;
Not quite so low as fool, nor quite a top,
He hangs between them both, and is a fop.
His morals, like his wit, are motley too;
He keeps from arrant knave with much ado.
But vanity and lying so prevail,

That one grain more of each would turn the scale;
He would be more a villain had he time,
But he's so wholly taken up with rhyme,
That he mistakes his talent; all his care
Is to be thought a poet fine and fair.

Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth.

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