No More Learning

But the author was too much in the
interests of that family, to name Scipio; and therefore he gives other
reasons, to which I refer the reader, that I may avoid prolixity.

By what degrees Polybius arrived to this height of knowledge, and
consummate judgment in affairs, it will not be hard to make the reader
comprehend; for presupposing in him all that birth or nature could give
a man, who was formed for the management of great affairs, and capable
of recording them, he was likewise entered from his youth into those
employments which add experience to natural endowments; being joined in
commission with his father Lycortas, and the younger Aratus, before the
age of twenty, in an embassy to Egypt: after which he was perpetually
in the business of his own commonwealth, or that of Rome. So that it
seems to be one part of the Roman felicity, that he was born in an age
when their commonwealth was growing to the height; that he might be the
historian of those great actions, which were performed not only in his
lifetime, but the chief of them even in his sight.

I must confess, that the preparations to his history, or the
Prolegomena, as they are called, are very large, and the digressions in
it are exceeding frequent. But as to his preparatives, they were but
necessary to make the reader comprehend the drift and design of his
undertaking: and the digressions are also so instructive, that we may
truly say, they transcend the profit which we receive from the matter
of fact. Upon the whole, we may conclude him to be a great talker; but
we must grant him to be a prudent man. We can spare nothing of all he
says, it is so much to our improvement; and if the rest of his history
had remained to us, in all probability it would have been more close:
for we can scarce conceive what was left in nature for him to add, he
has so emptied almost all the common-places of digressions already; or
if he could have added any thing, those observations might have been as
useful and as necessary as the rest which he has given us, and that are
descended to our hands.

I will say nothing farther of the “Excerpta,” which (as Casaubon
thinks,) are part of that epitome which was begun to be made by Marcus
Brutus, but never finished; nor of those embassies which are collected
and compiled by the command of Constantine the Great; because neither
of them are translated in this work. And whether or no they will be
added in another impression, I am not certain; the translator of these
five books having carried his work no farther than it was perfect. He,
I suppose, will acquaint you with his own purpose, in the preface which
I hear he intends to prefix before Polybius.

Let us now hear Polybius himself describing an accomplished historian,
wherein we shall see his own picture, as in a glass, reflected to him,
and given us afterwards to behold in the writing of this history.

Plato said of old, that it would be happy for mankind, if either
philosophers administered the government, or that governors applied
themselves to the study of philosophy. I may also say, that it would
be happy for history, if those who undertake to write it, were men
conversant in political affairs; who applied themselves seriously
to their undertaking, not negligently, but as such who were fully
persuaded that they undertook a work of the greatest moment, of the
greatest excellency, and the most necessary for mankind; establishing
this as the foundation whereon they are to build, that they can never
be capable of performing their duty as they ought, unless they have
formed themselves beforehand to their undertaking, by prudence, and
long experience of affairs; without which endowments and advantages,
if they attempt to write a history, they will fall into a various and
endless labyrinth of errors.

When we hear this author speaking, we are ready to think ourselves
engaged in a conversation with Cato the Censor, with Lælius, with
Massinissa, and with the two Scipios; that is, with the greatest heroes
and most prudent men of the greatest age in the Roman commonwealth.
This sets me so on fire, when I am reading either here, or in any
ancient author, their lives and actions, that I cannot hold from
breaking out with Montagne into this expression: “It is just,” says he,
“for every honest man to be content with the government and laws of his
native country, without endeavouring to alter or subvert them; but if I
were to choose, where I would have been born, it should have been in a
commonwealth. ” He indeed names Venice, which, for many reasons, should
not be my wish; but rather Rome in such an age, if it were possible,
as that wherein Polybius lived; or that of Sparta, whose constitution
for a republic, is by our author compared with Rome, to which he justly
gives the preference.

I will not undertake to compare Polybius and Tacitus; though, if I
should attempt it upon the whole merits of the cause, I must allow to
Polybius the greater comprehension, and the larger soul; to Tacitus,
the greater eloquence, and the more close connection of his thoughts.
The manner of Tacitus in writing is more like the force and gravity
of Demosthenes; that of Polybius more like the copiousness and
diffusive character of Cicero. Amongst historians, Tacitus imitated
Thucydides, and Polybius, Herodotus. Polybius foresaw the ruin of the
Roman commonwealth, by luxury, lust, and cruelty; Tacitus foresaw in
the causes those events which would destroy the monarchy. They are
both of them, without dispute, the best historians in their several
kinds. In this they are alike, that both of them suffered under the
iniquity of the times in which they lived; both their histories are
dismembered, the greatest part of them lost, and they are interpolated
in many places. Had their works been perfect, we might have had longer
histories, but not better. Casaubon, according to his usual partiality,
condemns Tacitus that he may raise Polybius; who needs not any sinister
artifice to make him appear equal to the best. Tacitus described the
times of tyranny; but he always writes with some kind of indignation
against them. It is not his fault that Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and
Domitian, were bad princes. He is accused of malevolence, and of taking
actions in the worst sense: but we are still to remember, that those
were the actions of tyrants. Had the rest of his history remained to
us, we had certainly found a better account of Vespasian, Titus, Nerva,
and Trajan, who were virtuous emperors; and he would have given the
principles of their actions a contrary turn. But it is not my business
to defend Tacitus; neither dare I decide the preference betwixt him
and our Polybius. They are equally profitable and instructive to the
reader; but Tacitus more useful to those who are born under a monarchy,
Polybius to those who live in a republic.

What may farther be added concerning the history of this author, I
leave to be performed by the elegant translator of his work. [29]




THE LIFE OF LUCIAN.

FIRST PRINTED IN 8VO, IN 1711.




THE LIFE OF LUCIAN.


The Dialogues of Lucian were translated by Walter Moyle, Sir Henry
Shere, Charles Blount, and others, and seem to have been intended
for publication about 1696, when our author supplied the following
prefatory life. The design was, however, for a time laid aside, and
the work did not appear until 1711 several years after Dryden’s death.
Hence the preface wants those last corrections, which, I suspect,
Dryden contented himself with bestowing upon the proof sheets, as they
came from press. I have followed several of Mr Malone’s judicious, and
indeed indispensable, corrections of the printed copy.




THE LIFE OF LUCIAN.


The writing a life is at all times, and in all circumstances, the most
difficult task of an historian; and, notwithstanding the numerous tribe
of biographers, we can scarce find one, except Plutarch, who deserves
our perusal, or can invite a second view. But if the difficulty
be so great where the materials are plentiful, and the incidents
extraordinary, what must it be when the person, that affords the
subject, denies matter enough for a page? The learned seldom abound
with action, and it is action only that furnishes the historian with
things agreeable and instructive. It is true, that Diogenes Laertius,
and our learned countryman Mr Stanley,[30] have both written the “Lives
of the Philosophers;” but we are more obliged to the various principles
of their several sects, than to any thing remarkable that they did,
for our entertainment.

But Lucian, as pleasing and useful as he was in his writings, in the
opinion of the most candid judges, has left so little of his own
affairs on record, that there is scarce sufficient to fill a page, from
his birth to his death.

There were many of the name of Lucian among the ancients, eminent
in several ways, and whose names have reached posterity with honour
and applause. Suidas mentions one, as a man of singular probity,
who, having discharged the administration of the chief prefect of
the Oriental empire,[31] under Arcadius, with extraordinary justice
and praise of the people, drew on himself the envy and hate of the
courtiers, (the constant attendant of eminent virtue and merit,)
and the anger of the emperor himself; and was at last murdered by
Rufinus. [32]

Among those, who were eminent for their learning, were some divines
and philosophers. Of the former, we find one in St Cyprian, to whom
the fourth and seventeenth epistles are inscribed. There was another,
priest of the church of Antioch, who, as Suidas assures us, reviewed,
corrected, and restored to its primitive purity, the Hebrew Bible; and
afterward suffered martyrdom, at Nicomedia, under Maximilian. [33] A
third was a priest of Jerusalem, who not only made a figure among the
learned of his own age,[34] but, as Gesnerus observes, conveyed his
reputation to posterity by the remains of his writings.

But none of this name has met with the general applause of so many
ages, as Lucian the philosopher and eminent sophist, who was author of
the following Dialogues, of whose birth, life, and death, I shall give
you all I could collect of any certain and historical credit.

He had not the good fortune to be born of illustrious or wealthy
parents, which give a man a very advantageous rise on his first
appearance in the world; but the father of our Lucian laboured under
so great a straitness of estate, that he was fain to put his son
apprentice to a statuary, whose genius for the finer studies was
so extraordinary and so rare; because he hoped from that business,
not only a speedy supply to his own wants, but was secure that his
education in that art would be much less expensive to him.

He was born in Samosata, a city of Syria, not far from the river
Euphrates; and for this reason, he calls himself more than once an
Assyrian, and a Syrian; but he was derived from a Greek original, his
forefathers having been citizens of Patras in Achaia.

We have nothing certain as to the exact time of his birth. Suidas
confirms his flourishing under the Emperor Trajan; but then he was
likewise before him. Some mention the reign of Adrian; but it cannot
be fixed to any year or consulate. [35]

The person he was bound to was his uncle, a man of a severe and morose
temper, of whom he was to learn the statuary’s and stone-cutter’s
art; for his father observing our Lucian, now a boy, of his own head,
and without any instructor, make various figures in wax, he persuaded
himself, that if he had a good master, he could not but arrive to an
uncommon excellence in it.

But it happened, in the very beginning of his time, he broke a model,
and was very severely called to account for it by his master. He, not
liking this treatment, and having a soul and genius above any mechanic
trade, ran away home.

After which, in his sleep, there appeared to him two young women, or
rather the tutelar goddesses of the statuary art, and of the liberal
sciences, hotly disputing of their preference to each other; and on a
full hearing of both sides, he bids adieu to statuary, and entirely
surrenders himself to the conduct of virtue and learning. And as his
desires of improvement were great, and the instructions he had, very
good, the progress he made was as considerable, till, by the maturity
of his age and his study, he made his appearance in the world.

Though it is not to be supposed, that there is any thing of reality in
this dream, or vision, of Lucian, which he treats of in his works, yet
this may be gathered from it,--that Lucian himself, having consulted
his genius, and the nature of the study his father had allotted him,
and that to which he found a propensity in himself, he quitted the
former, and pursued the latter, choosing rather to form the minds of
men than their statues.

In his youth, he taught rhetoric in Gaul, and in several other places.
He pleaded likewise at the bar in Antioch, the capital of Syria;
but the noise of the bar disgusting, and his ill success in causes
disheartening him, he quitted the practice of rhetoric and the law, and
applied himself to writing.

He was forty years old, when he first took to philosophy. Having a
mind to make himself known in Macedon, he took the opportunity of
speaking in the public assembly of all that region. In his old age, he
was received into the imperial family, and had the place of intendant
of Egypt,[36] after he had travelled through almost all the known
countries of that age to improve his knowledge in men, manners, and
arts; for some writers make this particular observation on his travel
into Gaul, and residence in that country, that he gained there the
greatest part of his knowledge in rhetoric, that region being in
his age, and also before it, a nursery of eloquence and oratory, as
Juvenal, Martial, and others, sufficiently witness. [37]

The manner of his death is obscure to us, though it is most probable
he died of the gout. Suidas alone tells a story of his being worried
to death, and devoured by dogs, returning from a feast; which being so
uncommon a death, so very improbable, and attested only by one author,
has found little credit with posterity. If it be true, that he was once
a Christian, and afterwards became a renegade to our belief, perhaps
some zealots may have invented this tale of his death, as a just and
signal punishment for his apostacy. All men are willing to have the
miracle, or at least the wonderful providence, go on their side, and
will be teaching God Almighty what he ought to do in this world, as
well as in the next; as if they were proper judges of his decrees,
and for what end he prospers some, or punishes others, in this life.
Ablancourt, and our learned countryman Dr Mayne,[38] look on the story
as a fiction: and, for my part, I can see no reason either to believe
he ever professed Christianity, or, if he did, why he might[39] not
more probably die in his bed at so great an age as fourscore and ten,
than be torn in pieces and devoured by dogs, when he was too feeble to
defend himself. So early began the want of charity, the presumption of
meddling with God’s government, and the spirit of calumny amongst the
primitive believers.

Of his posterity we know nothing more, than that he left a son behind
him, who was as much in favour with the Emperor Julian, as his father
had been with Aurelius the philosopher. This son became in time a
famous sophist; and among the works of Julian we find an epistle of
that great person to him. [40]

I find that I have mingled, before I was aware, some things which are
doubtful with some which are certain; forced indeed by the narrowness
of the subject, which affords very little of undisputed truth. Yet I
find myself obliged to do right to Monsieur d’Ablancourt,[41] who is
not positively of opinion, that Suidas was the author of this fable;
but rather that it descended to him by the tradition of former times,
yet without any certain ground of truth. He concludes it, however, to
be a calumny, perhaps a charitable kind of lie, to deter others from
satirizing the new dogmas of Christianity, by the judgment shown on
Lucian. We find nothing in his writings, which gives any hint of his
professing our belief; but being naturally curious, and living not
only amongst Christians, but in the neighbourhood of Judea, he might
reasonably be supposed to be knowing in our points of faith, without
believing them. He ran a muck, and laid about him on all sides with
more fury on the heathens, whose religion he professed; he struck at
ours but casually, as it came in his way, rather than as he sought it;
he contemned it too much to write in earnest against it.

We have indeed the highest probabilities for our revealed religion;
arguments which will preponderate with a reasonable man, upon a long
and careful disquisition; but I have always been of opinion, that we
can demonstrate nothing, because the subject-matter is not capable of a
demonstration. It is the particular grace of God, that any man believes
the mysteries of our faith; which I think a conclusive argument against
the doctrine of persecution in any church. And though I am absolutely
convinced, as I heartily thank God I am, not only of the general
principles of Christianity, but of all truths necessary to salvation
in the Roman church, yet I cannot but detest our inquisition, as it
is practised in some foreign parts, particularly in Spain and in the
Indies.

Those reasons, which are cogent to me, may not prevail with others, who
bear the denomination of Christians; and those which are prevalent with
all Christians, in regard of their birth and education, may find no
force, when they are used against Mahometans or heathens. To instruct
is a charitable duty; to compel, by threatenings and punishment, is the
office of a hangman, and the principle of a tyrant.

But my zeal in a good cause, as I believe, has transported me beyond
the limits of my subject. I was endeavouring to prove, that Lucian had
never been a member of the Christian church; and methinks it makes
for my opinion, that, in relating the death of Peregrinus, who, being
born a Pagan, pretended afterwards to turn Christian, and turned
himself publicly at the Olympic games, at his death professing himself
a cynic philosopher, it seems, I say, to me, that Lucian would not
have so severely declaimed against this Proteus, (which was another of
Peregrinus his names,) if he himself had been guilty of that apostacy.

I know not that this passage has been observed by any man before
me;[42] and yet in this very place it is, that this author has more
severely handled our belief, and more at large, than in any other part
of all his writings, excepting only the Dialogue of Triephon and
Critias,[43] wherein he lashes his own false gods with more severity
than the true; and where the first Christians, with their cropped hair,
their whining voices, melancholy faces, mournful discourses, and nasty
habits, are described with a greater air of Calvinists or Quakers, than
of Roman Catholics or Church of England men.

After all, what if this discourse last mentioned, and the rest of the
dialogues wherein the Christians are satirized, were none of Lucian’s?
The learned and ingenious Dr Mayne, whom I have before cited, is
of this opinion, and confirms it by the attestation of Philander,
Obsobœus, Mycillus, and Cognatus, whom since I have not read, or two of
them but very superficially, I refer you for the faith of his quotation
to the authors themselves. [44]

The next supposition concerning Lucian’s religion is, that he was of
none at all. I doubt not but the same people, who broached the story of
his being once a Christian, followed their blow upon him in this second
accusation.

There are several sorts of Christians at this day reigning in the
world, who will not allow any man to believe in the Son of God, whose
other articles of faith are not in all things conformable to theirs.
Some of these exercise this rigid and severe kind of charity, with
a good intent of reducing several sects into one common church; but
the spirit of others is evidently seen by their detraction, their
malice, their spitting venom, their raising false reports of those
who are not of their communion. I wish the ancientness of these
censorious principles may be proved by better arguments, than by any
near resemblance they have with the primitive believers. But till I am
convinced that Lucian has been charged with atheism of old, I shall be
apt to think that this accusation is very modern.

One of Lucian’s translators pleads in his defence, that it was very
improbable a man, who has laughed paganism out of doors, should believe
no God; that he, who could point to the sepulchre of Jupiter in Crete,
as well as our Tertullian, should be an atheist. But this argument, I
confess, is of little weight to prove him a deist, only because he was
no polytheist. He might as well believe in none, as in many gods; and
on the other side, he might believe in many, as Julian did, and not in
one. For my own part, I think it is not proved that either of them were
apostates, though one of them, in hopes of an empire, might temporize,
while Christianity was the mode at court. Neither is our author cleared
any thing the more, because his writings have served, in the times of
the heathens, to destroy that vain, unreasonable, and impious religion;
_that_ was an oblique service, which Lucian never intended us; for his
business, like that of some modern polemics, was rather to pull down
every thing, than to set up any thing. With what show of probability
can I urge in his defence, that one of the greatest among the fathers
has drawn whole homilies from our author’s dialogue, since I know that
Lucian made them not for that purpose? The occasional good which he has
done, is not to be imputed to him. St Chrysostom, St Augustin, and many
others, have applied his arguments on better motives than their author
proposed to himself in framing them.

These reasons therefore, as they make nothing against his being an
atheist, so they prove nothing of his believing one God; but only leave
him as they found him, and leave us in as great an obscurity concerning
his religion as before. I may be as much mistaken in my opinion as
these great men have been before me; and this is very probable, because
I know less of him than they; yet I have read him over more than once,
and therefore will presume to say, that I think him either one of the
Eclectic[45] school, or else a Sceptic: I mean, that he either formed
a body of philosophy for his own use out of the opinions and dogmas of
several heathen philosophers, disagreeing amongst themselves, or that
he doubted of every thing; weighed all opinions, and adhered to none
of them; only used them as they served his occasion for the present
dialogue, and perhaps rejected them in the next. And indeed this last
opinion is the more probable of the two, if we consider the genius of
the man, whose image we may clearly see in the glass which he holds
before us of his writings, which reflects him to our sight.

Not to dwell on examples, with which his works are amply furnished,
I will only mention two. In one, Socrates convinces his friend
Chærephon of the power of the gods in transformations, and of a supreme
Providence which accompanies that power in the administration of the
world. In another, he confutes Jupiter, and pulls him down from heaven
to earth, by his own Homerical chain; and makes him only a subservient
slave to blind eternal fate. I might add, that he is, in one half of
his book, a Stoic, in the other an Epicurean; never constant to himself
in any scheme of divinity, unless it be in despising his gentile gods.
And this derision, as it shews the man himself, so it gives us an idea
of the age in which he lived; for if that had been devout or ignorant,
his scoffing humour would either have been restrained, or had not
passed unpunished; all knowing ages being naturally sceptic, and not at
all bigotted; which, if I am not much deceived, is the proper character
of our own.

To conclude this article: He was too fantastical, too giddy, too
irresolute, either to be any thing at all, or any thing long; and in
this view I cannot think he was either a steady atheist, or a deist,
but a doubter, a sceptic, as he plainly declares himself to be, when he
puts himself under the name of Hermotimus the Stoic, in the dialogue
called the “Dialogue of the Sects. ”

As for his morals, they are spoken of as variously as his opinions.
Some are for decrying him more than he deserves; his defenders
themselves dare not set him up for a pattern of severe virtue. No
man is so profligate, as openly to profess vice; and therefore it is
no wonder, if under the reign of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two
Antonines, of which the last was his patron and benefactor, he lived
not so much a libertine as he had it to be in his nature. He is more
accused for his love of boys than of women. Not that we have any
particular story to convince us of this detestable passion in him; but
his own writings bear this record against him, that he speaks often of
it, and I know not that ever he condemns it. Repeated expressions, as
well as repeated actions, witness some secret pleasure in the deed, or
at least some secret inclination to it. He seems to insinuate, in his
“Dialogue of Loves,” that Socrates was given to this vice; but we find
not that he blames him for it, which, if he had been wholly innocent
himself, it became a philosopher to have done. But as we pass over a
foul way as hastily as we can, so I will leave this abominable subject,
which strikes me with horror when I name it.

If there be any who are guilty of this sin, we may assure ourselves
they will never stop at any other; for when they have overleaped the
bounds of nature, they run so fast to all other immoralities, that the
grace of God, without a miracle, can never overtake them.

Lucian is accused likewise for his writing too lusciously in his
“Dialogue of the Harlots. ”[46] It has been the common fault of all
satirists, to make vice too amiable, while they expose it; but of all
men living, I am the most unfit to accuse Lucian, who am so little
able to defend myself from the same objection. We find not, however,
that Lucian was charged with the wantonness of his “Dialogues” in his
own life-time. If he had been, he would certainly have answered for
himself, as he did to those who accused him for exposing Socrates,
Plato, Diogenes, and other great philosophers, to the laughter of the
people, when Jupiter sold them by an inch of candle. But, to confess
the truth, [as] I am of their opinion, who think that answer of his not
over-ingenuous, viz. that he only attacked the false philosophers of
their sects, in their persons whom he honoured; so I am persuaded, that
he could not have alleged more in his excuse for these “Dialogues,”
than that as he taught harlots to deceive, so, at the same time, he
discovered their deceits to the knowledge of young men, and thereby
warned them to avoid the snare.

I find him not charged with any other faults, than what I have already
mentioned. He was otherwise of a life as unblameable as any man, for
aught we find to the contrary: and I have this probable inducement to
believe it, because he had so honourable an employment under Marcus
Aurelius, an emperor as clear-sighted as he was truly virtuous; for
both which qualities we need not quote Lucian, who was so much obliged
to him, but may securely appeal to Herodian, and to all the historians
who have written of him,--besides the testimony of his own admirable
works, which are yet in the hands of all the learned.

As for those who condemn our author for the too much gall and virulency
of his satires, it is to be suspected, says Dr Mayne, that they
themselves are guilty of those hypocrisies, crimes, and follies, which
he so sharply exposes, and at the same time endeavours to reform. I
may add, that, for the most part, he rather laughs like Horace, than
bites like Juvenal. Indeed his genius was of kin to both, but more
nearly related to the former. Some diseases are curable by lenitives;
to others corrosives are necessary. Can a man inveigh too sharply
against the cruelty of tyrants, the pride and vanity of the great,
the covetousness of the rich, the baseness of the Sophists, and
particularly of the Cynics, (who while they preach poverty to others,
are heaping up riches, and living in gluttony,) besides the wrangling
of the sects amongst themselves about supreme happiness, which he
describes at a drunken feast, and calls it the battle of the Lapithæ.

Excepting what already is excepted, he seems to me to be an enemy
to nothing but to vice and folly. The pictures which he draws of
Nigrinus and of Demonax are as fair as that of virtue herself, if,
as the philosopher said, she could wear a body. And if we oppose to
them the lives of Alexander the false prophet, and of Peregrinus, how
pleasingly, and with how much profit, does the deformity of the last
set off the beauty of the first!

Some of his censurers accuse him of flatness and want of wit in many
places. These I suppose have read him in some Latin translations, which
I confess, are generally dull; and this is the only excuse I can make
for them. Otherwise they accuse themselves too manifestly for want
of taste or understanding. Of this number is the wretched author of
the _Lucien en Belle Humeur_, who being himself as insipid as a Dutch
poet, yet arraigns Lucian for his own fault; introduces the ghost of
Ablancourt, confessing his coldness in many places, the poorness of
his thoughts, and his want of humour; represents his readers tired
and yawning at his ill buffoonery and false mirth, and sleeping
over his melancholic stories, which are every where stuffed with
improbabilities. He could have said no worse of a Leyden slip. [47]

The best on it is, the jaundice is only in his own eyes, which makes
Lucian look yellow to him. All mankind will exclaim against him for
preaching this doctrine; and be of opinion when they read his Lucian,
that he looked in a glass when he drew his picture. I wish I had the
liberty to lash this frog-land wit as he deserves; but when a speech
is not seconded in parliament, it falls of course; and this author has
the whole senate of the learned to pull him down: _incipient omnes pro
Cicerone loqui_.

It is to be acknowledged, that his best translator, Ablancourt, thinks
him not a profound master in any sort of philosophy; but only that
he skimmed enough from every sect, to serve his turn in rhetoric,
which was his profession. This he gathers from his superficial way of
arguing. But why may not another man reply in his defence, that he
made choice of those kinds of reasons which were most capable of being
made to shine in his facetious way of arguing; and those undoubtedly
were not the most knotty, nor the deepest, but the most diverting by
the sharpness of the raillery. Dr Mayne, so often praised, has another
opinion of Lucian’s learning, and the strength of his witty arguments,
concluding on that subject in these words, or near them: “For my part,
I know not to whose writings we owe more our Christianity, where the
true God has succeeded a multitude of false,--whether to the grave
confutation of Clemens Alexandrinus, Arnobius, Justin Martyr, St.
Augustin, Lactantius, &c. or the facetious wit of Lucian. ”--I cannot
doubt but the treacherous translator would have given his hand to
what the Englishman has said of their common author. The success has
justified his opinion in the sight of all the world. Lucian’s manner
of convincing, was certainly more pleasant than that of the Christian
writers, and we know the effect was full as powerful; so easily can the
Eternal Wisdom draw good out of evil, and make his enemy subservient to
the establishment of his faith.

I will not enlarge on the praises of his oratory. If we compare his
style with the Greek historians, his contemporaries, or near his time,
we shall find it much more pure than that of Plutarch, Dion, or Appian,
though not so grave; because his subjects and theirs required to be
treated after a different manner. It was not of an uniform web, says
Mayne, like Thucydides, Polybius, and some others whom he names, but
was somewhat peculiar to himself; his words well chosen, his periods
round, the parts of his sentences harmoniously divided, a full flood
or even a torrent of persuasion, without inequalities or swellings;
such as might be put in equal comparison with the best orations of
Demosthenes or Isocrates; not so dry as the first, nor so flowery as
the last. His wit, says Ablancourt, was full of urbanity, that attic
salt, which the French call, fine raillery; not obscene, not gross,
not rude, but facetious, well mannered, and well bred: only he will
not allow his love the quality last mentioned, but thinks it rustical,
and according either to his own genius, or that of the age in which he
lived.

If wit consists in the propriety of thoughts and words, (which I
imagined I had first found out, but since am pleasingly convinced that
Aristotle has made the same definition in other terms,) then Lucian’s
thoughts and words are always proper to his characters and his subject.
If the pleasure arising from comedy and satire be either laughter, or
some nobler sort of delight, which is above it, no man is so great a
master of irony as our author. That figure is not only a keen, but a
shining weapon in his hand; it glitters in the eyes of those it kills;
his own gods, his greatest enemies, are not butchered by him, but
fairly slain: they must acknowledge the hero in the stroke, and take
the comfort which Virgil gives to a dying captain:

_Æneæ magni dextrâ cadis. _

I know not whom Lucian imitated, unless it might be Aristophanes; (for
you never find him mentioning any Roman wit, so much the Grecians
thought themselves superior to their conquerors;) but he, who has best
imitated him in Latin, is Erasmus; and in French, Fontenelle, in his
“Dialogues of the Dead,” which I never read but with a new pleasure.

Any one may see, that our author’s chief design was to dis-nest heaven
of so many immoral and debauched deities; his next, to expose the mock
philosophers; and his last, to give us examples of a good life in the
persons of the true.

The rest of his discourses are on mixed subjects, less for profit than
delight; and some of them too libertine.

The way which Lucian chose of delivering these profitable and pleasing
truths, was that of dialogue: a choice worthy of the author; happily
followed, as I said above, by Erasmus, and Fontenelle particularly, to
whom I may justly add a triumvir of our own,--the reverend, ingenious,
and learned Dr Eachard,[48] who, by using the same method, and the same
ingredients of raillery and reason, has more baffled the philosopher of
Malmesbury, than those who assaulted him with blunt heavy arguments,
drawn from orthodox divinity; for Hobbes foresaw where those strokes
would fall, and leaped aside before they could descend; but he could
not avoid those nimble passes, which were made on him by a wit more
active than his own, and which were within his body, before he could
provide for his defence.

I will not here take notice of the several kinds of dialogue, and the
whole art of it, which would ask an entire volume to perform. This
has been a work long wanted, and much desired, of which the ancients
have not sufficiently informed us; and I question whether any man now
living can treat it accurately. Lucian, it seems, was very sensible
of the difficult task, which he undertook in writing dialogues, as
appears in his discourse against one who had called him Prometheus.
He owns himself, in this particular, to be like to him, to whom he
was resembled, to be the inventor of a new work, attempted in a new
manner,--the model of which he had from none before him; but adds
withal, that if he could not give it the graces which belong to so
happy an invention, he deserves to be torn by twelve vultures, instead
of one, which preys upon the heart of that first man-potter. For,
to quit the beaten road of the ancients, and take a path of his own
choosing, he acknowledges to be a bold and ridiculous attempt, if it
succeed not. “The mirth of dialogue and comedy in my work,” says he,
“is not enough to make it pleasing, because the union of two contraries
may as well produce a monster as a miracle; as a centaur results from
the joint natures of a horse and man. It is not but that from two
excellent beings a third may arise of perfect beauty; but it is what I
dare not promise to myself; for dialogue being a solemn entertainment
of grave discourse, and comedy the wit and fooling of a theatre, I
fear that through the corruption of two good things, I have made one
bad. But whatever the child be, it is my own at least; I beg not with
another’s brat upon my back. From which of the ancients should I have
stolen or borrowed it? My chimeras have no other being than my own
imagination; let every man produce who can; and whether this be a
lawful birth, or a misshapen mass, is left for the present age, and for
posterity, to judge. ”

This is the sense of my author’s words contracted in a narrow compass;
for, if you will believe Ablancourt, and others, his greatest fault is,
that he exhausts his argument,--like Ovid, knows not when to give over,
but is perpetually galloping beyond his stage.

But though I cannot pursue our author any farther, I find myself
obliged to say something of those translators of the following
Dialogues, whom I have the honour to know, as well as of some other
translations of this author; and a word or two of translation itself.

As for the translators, all of them, that I know, are men of
established reputation, both for wit and learning, at least
sufficiently known to be so among all the finer spirits of the age.
Sir Henry Sheers has given many proofs of his excellence in this kind;
for while we, by his admirable address, enjoy Polybius in our mother
tongue, we can never forget the hand that bestowed the benefit. The
learning and judgment above his age, which every one discovers in Mr
Moyle,[49] are proofs of those abilities he has shewn in his country’s
service, when he was chose to serve it in the senate, as his father
had done. The wit of Mr Blount,[50] and his other performances, need
no recommendation from me; they have made too much noise in the world
to need a herald. There are some other persons concerned in this
work, whose names deserve a place among the foremost, but that they
have not thought fit to be known, either out of a bashful diffidence
of their own performance, or out of apprehension of the censure of
an ill-natured and ill-judging age; for criticism is now become mere
hangman’s work, and meddles only with the faults of authors; nay, the
critic is disgusted less with their absurdities than excellence; and
you cannot displease him more than in leaving him little room for his
malice, in your correctness and perfection; though that indeed is what
he never allows any man; for, like the bed of Procrustes, they stretch
or cut off an author to its length. These spoilers of Parnassus are
a just excuse for concealing the name, since most of their malice is
levelled more at the person than the thing; and as a sure mark of their
judgment, they will extol to the skies the anonymous work of a person
they will not allow to write common sense.

But this consideration of our modern critics has led me astray, and
made me insensibly deviate from the subject before me; the modesty or
caution of the anonymous translators of the following work. Whatever
the motive of concealing their names may be, I shall not determine; but
it is certain, nothing could more contribute to make a perfect version
of Lucian, than a confederacy of many men of parts and learning to do
him justice. It seems a task too hard for any one to undertake; the
burden would indeed be insupportable, unless we did what the French
have done in some of their translations, allow twenty years to perfect
the work, and bestow all the brightest intervals, the most sprightly
hours, to polish and finish the work. [51]

But this has not been the fate of our author hitherto; for Lucian, that
is the sincere example of attic eloquence, as Grævius says of him, is
only a mass of solecism, and mere vulgarisms in Mr Spence. [52] I do
not think it worth my while to rake into the filth of so scandalous a
version; nor had I vouchsafed so much as to take notice of it, had it
not been so gross an affront to the memory of Lucian, and so great a
scandal to our nation. D’Ablancourt has taken a great deal of pains to
furnish this intruder into print, with Lucian, in a language more known
to him than Greek; nay, he has left him not one crabbed idiom to study
for, since he has admirably clothed him in a garb more familiar to the
moderns, still keeping the sense of his author in view. But in spite of
all these helps, these leading-strings were not sufficient to keep Mr
Spence from falling to the ground every step he made; while he makes
him speak in the style and language of a jack-pudding, not a master of
eloquence, admired for it through all the ages since he wrote. But too
much of this trifler.

I have said enough already of the version of the learned Dr Mayne, to
shew my approbation of it; but it is only a select parcel of Lucian’s
Dialogues which pleased him most, but far from the whole. As for any
other translation, if there be any such in our language, it is what I
never saw,[53] and suppose it must be antiquated, or of so inferior a
degree, as not even to rival Spence.

The present translation, as far as I can judge by what I have seen, is
no way inferior to Ablancourt’s, and in many things is superior. It
has indeed the advantage of appearing in a language more strong and
expressive than French, and by the hands of gentlemen who perfectly
understand him and their own language.

This has brought me to say a word or two about translation in general;
in which no nation might more excel than the English, though, as
matters are now managed, we come so far short of the French. There may
indeed be a reason assigned, which bears a very great probability;
and that is, that here the booksellers are the undertakers of works
of this nature, and they are persons more devoted to their own gain
than the public honour. They are very parsimonious in rewarding the
wretched scribblers they employ; and care not how the business is done,
so that it be but done. They live by selling titles, not books; and if
that carry off one impression, they have their ends, and value not the
curses they and their authors meet with from the bubbled chapmen.
While
translations are thus at the disposal of the booksellers, and have no
better judges or rewarders of the performance, it is impossible that
we should make any progress in an art so very useful to an enquiring
people, and for the improvement and spreading of knowledge, which is
none of the worst preservatives against slavery.

It must be confessed, that when the bookseller has interest with
gentlemen of genius and quality, above the mercenary prospects of
little writers, as in that of Plutarch’s Lives,[54] and this of Lucian,
the reader may satisfy himself that he shall have the author’s spirit
and soul in the traduction. These gentlemen know very well, that they
are not to creep after the words of their author, in so servile a
manner as some have done; for that must infallibly throw them on a
necessity of introducing a new mode of diction and phraseology with
which we are not at all acquainted, and would incur that censure which
my Lord Dorset made formerly on those of Mr Spence, viz. that he was
so cunning a translator, that a man must consult the original, to
understand the version. For every language has a propriety and idiom
peculiar to itself, which cannot be conveyed to another without
perpetual absurdities.

The qualification of a translator, worth reading, must be, a mastery
of the language he translates out of, and that he translates into; but
if a deficience be to be allowed in either, it is in the original;
since if he be but master enough of the tongue of his author, as to
be master of his sense, it is possible for him to express that sense
with eloquence in his own, if he have a thorough command of that.
But without the latter, he can never arrive at the useful and the
delightful; without which reading is a penance and fatigue.

It is true that there will be a great many beauties, which in every
tongue depend on the diction, that will be lost[55] in the version of a
man not skilled in the original language of the author; but then on the
other side, first it is impossible to render all those little ornaments
of speech in any two languages; and if he have a mastery in the sense
and spirit of his author, and in his own language have a style and
happiness of expression, he will easily supply all that is lost by that
defect.

A translator that would write with any force or spirit of an original,
must never dwell on the words of his author. He ought to possess
himself entirely, and perfectly comprehend the genius and sense of his
author, the nature of the subject, and the terms of the art or subject
treated of; and then he will express himself as justly, and with as
much life, as if he wrote an original; whereas, he who copies word for
word, loses all the spirit in the tedious transfusion.

I would not be understood that he should be at liberty to give such a
turn as Mr Spence has in some of his; where for the fine raillery and
attic salt of Lucian, we find the gross expressions of Billingsgate, or
Moorfields and Bartholomew Fair. For I write not to such translators,
but to men capacious of the soul and genius of their authors, without
which all their labour will be of no use but to disgrace themselves,
and injure the author that falls into their slaughter-house.

I believe I need give no other rules to the reader than the following
version, where example will be stronger than precept, to which I now
refer them; in which a man justly qualified for a translator will
discover many rules extremely useful to that end. But [to] a man who
wants these natural qualifications which are necessary for such an
undertaking, all particular precepts are of no other use, than to make
him a more remarkable coxcomb.




DRYDEN’S LETTERS.




LETTERS OF DRYDEN.


The Letters of Dryden, so far as hitherto given to the public,
are, with a few exceptions, singularly uninteresting. To the
publication of some, which are known to exist, there were found to
occur still stronger objections. I have been only able to add one
to those collected by Mr Malone; and I was strongly tempted to omit
several. There is, however, a satisfaction in seeing how such a man
expressed himself, even upon the most trivial occasions; and I have
therefore retained those complimentary acknowledgments of turkeys,
marrow-puddings, and bacon, which have nothing but such a consideration
to recommend them.




DRYDEN’S LETTERS.


LETTER I.

TO THE FAIRE HANDS OF MADAME HONOR DRYDEN THESE CRAVE ADMITTANCE. [56]

MADAME, Camb. May 23, 16[55. ]

If you have received the lines I sent by the reverend Levite, I doubt
not but they have exceedingly wrought upon you; for beeing so longe
in a clergyman’s pocket, assuredly they have acquired more sanctity
than theire authour meant them. Alasse, Madame! for ought I know, they
may become a sermon ere they could arrive at you; and believe it,
haveing you for the text, it could scarcely proove bad, if it light
upon one that could handle it indifferently. But I am so miserable a
preacher, that though I have so sweet and copious a subject, I still
fall short in my expressions; and, instead of an use of thanksgiving, I
am allways makeing one of comfort, that I may one day againe have the
happinesse to kisse your faire hand; but that is a message I would not
so willingly do by letter, as by word of mouth.

This is a point, I must confesse, I could willingly dwell longer
on; and, in this case, what ever I say you may confidently take for
gospell. But I must hasten. And indeed, Madame, (_beloved_ I had almost
sayd,) hee had need hasten who treats of you; for to speake fully to
every part of your excellencyes, requires a longer houre than most
persons[57] have allotted them. But, in a word, your selfe hath been
the best expositor upon the text of your own worth, in that admirable
comment you wrote upon it; I meane your incomparable letter. By all
that’s good, (and you, Madame, are a great part of my oath,) it hath
put mee so farre besides my selfe, that I have scarce patience to
write prose, and my pen is stealing into verse every time I kisse your
letter. I am sure, the poor paper smarts for my idolatry, which, by
wearing it continually neere my brest, will, at last, be burnt and
martyrd in those flames of adoration, which it hath kindled in mee. But
I forgett, Madame, what rarityes your letter came fraught with, besides
words. You are such a deity that commands worship by provideing the
sacrifice. You are pleasd, Madame, to force me to write, by sending me
materialls, and compell me to my greatest happinesse. Yet, though I
highly value your magnificent presente, pardon mee, if I must tell the
world, they are imperfect emblems of your beauty; for the white and red
of waxe and paper are but shaddowes of that vermillion and snow in your
lips and forehead; and the silver of the inkehorne, if it presume to
vye whitenesse with your purer skinne, must confesse it selfe blacker
then the liquor it containes. What then do I more then retrieve your
own guifts, and present you with that paper adulterated with blotts,
which you gave spotlesse?

For, since ’twas mine, the white hath lost its hiew,
To show ’twas n’ere it selfe, but whilst in you:
The virgin waxe hath blusht it selfe to red,
Since it with mee hath lost its maydenhead.
You, fairest nymph, are waxe: oh! may you bee
As well in softnesse, as in purity!
Till fate, and your own happy choice, reveale,
Whom you so farre shall blesse, to make your seale.

Fairest Valentine, the unfeigned wishe of your humble votary,

JO. DRYDEN.


LETTER II.

TO [JOHN WILMOT,] EARL OF ROCHESTER.

MY LORD, Tuesday. [July, 1673. ][58]

I have accused my selfe this month together, for not writing to you.
I have called my selfe by the names I deserved, of unmannerly and
ungratefull. I have been uneasy, and taken up the resolutions of a man,
who is betwixt sin and repentance, convinc’d of what he ought to do,
and yet unable to do better. At the last, I deferred it so long, that
I almost grew hardened in the neglect; and thought I had suffered so
much in your good opinion, that it was in vain to hope I could redeem
it. So dangerous a thing it is to be inclin’d to sloath, that I must
confess, once for all, I was ready to quit all manner of obligations,
and to receive, as if it were my due, the most handsome compliment,
couch’d in the best language I have read, and this too from my Lord
of Rochester, without shewing myself sensible of the favour. If your
Lordship could condescend so far to say all those things to me, which I
ought to have say’d to you, it might reasonably be concluded, that you
had enchanted me to believe those praises, and that I owned them in my
silence. ’Twas this consideration that moved me at last to put off my
idleness. And now the shame of seeing my selfe overpay’d so much for an
ill Dedication, has made me almost repent of my address. I find, it is
not for me to contend any way with your Lordship, who can write better
on the meanest subject, then I can on the best. I have only engaged
my selfe in a new debt, when I had hoped to cancell a part of the old
one; and should either have chosen some other patron, whom it was in
my power to have obliged by speaking better of him then he deserv’d,
or have made your Lordship only a hearty Dedication of the respect and
honour I had for you, without giving you the occasion to conquer me, as
you have done, at my own weapon.

My only relief is, that what I have written is publique, and I am so
much my own friend as to conceal your Lordship’s letter; for that which
would have given vanity to any other poet, has only given me confusion.

You see, my Lord, how far you have push’d me; I dare not own the honour
you have done me, for fear of shewing it to my own disadvantage. You
are that _rerum natura_ of your own Lucretius;

_Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri. _[59]

You are above any incense I can give you, and have all the happiness
of an idle life, join’d with the good-nature of an active. Your
friends in town are ready to envy the leisure you have given your
selfe in the country, though they know you are only their steward, and
that you treasure up but so much health as you intend to spend on
them in winter. In the mean time, you have withdrawn your selfe from
attendance, the curse of courts; you may think on what you please,
and that as little as you please; for, in my opinion, thinking it
selfe is a kind of pain to a witty man; he finds so much more in it to
disquiet than to please him. But I hope your Lordship will not omitt
the occasion of laughing at the great Duke of B[uckingham,] who is
so uneasy to him selfe by pursuing the honour of lieutenant-general,
which flyes him, that he can enjoy nothing he possesses,[60] though, at
the same time, he is so unfit to command an army, that he is the only
man in the three nations, who does not know it; yet he still picques
himself, like his father, to find another Isle of Rhe in Zealand;[61]
thinking this disappointment an injury to him, which is indeed a
favour, and will not be satisfied but with his own ruin and with ours.
’Tis a strange quality in a man to love idleness so well as to destroy
his estate by it; and yet, at the same time, to pursue so violently the
most toilsome and most unpleasant part of business. These observations
would soon run into lampoon, if I had not forsworn that dangerous
part of wit; not so much out of good-nature, but lest from the inborn
vanity of poets I should shew it to others, and betray my selfe to a
worse mischief than what I do to my enemy. This has been lately the
case of Etherege, who, translating a satyr of Boileau’s, and changing
the French names for English, read it so often, that it came to their
ears who were concern’d, and forced him to leave off the design, e’re
it were half finish’d. Two of the verses I remember:

I call a spade, a spade; Eaton,[62] a bully;
Frampton,[63] a pimp; and brother John, a cully.

But one of his friends imagin’d those names not enough for the dignity
of a satyr, and chang’d them thus:

I call a spade, a spade; Dunbar,[64] a bully;
Brounckard,[65] a pimp; and Aubrey Vere,[66] a cully.

Because I deal not in satyr, I have sent your Lordship a prologue and
epilogue, which I made for our players, when they went down to Oxford.
I hear they have succeeded; and by the event your Lordship will judge
how easy ’tis to pass any thing upon an university, and how gross
flattery the learned will endure. [67] If your Lordship had been in
town, and I in the country, I durst not have entertained you with three
pages of a letter; but I know they are very ill things which can be
tedious to a man, who is fourscore miles from Covent Garden. ’Tis upon
this confidence, that I dare almost promise to entertain you with a
thousand _bagatelles_ every week, and not to be serious in any part of
my letter, but that wherein I take leave to call myself your Lordship’s

Most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.


LETTER III.

_The following Note and Letter contains the determination of a dispute,
and probably of a wager, which had been referred to our author by the
parties. It concerns a passage in Creech’s “Lucretius,” and probably
was written soon after the publication of that translation in 1682,
when it was a recent subject of conversation. The full passage in
“Lucretius” runs thus_:

Præterea quæcunque vetustate amovet ætas,
Si penitus perimit, consumens materiam omnem,
Unde animale genus generatim in lumina vitæ
Redducit Venus? ----

_Which Creech thus renders_:

_Besides, if o’er whatever years prevail
Should wholly perish, and its matter fail,
How could the powers of all kind Venus breed
A constant race of animals to succeed? _

_The translation of Creech is at least complicated and unintelligible;
and I am uncertain whether even Dryden’s explanation renders it
grammatical. Dryden speaks elsewhere with great applause of Creech’s
translation. _

_The original of this decision (in Dryden’s hand-writing) is in the
possession of Mrs White of Bownham-hall, Gloucestershire, and was most
obligingly communicated to the editor by that lady, through the medium
of Mr Constable of Edinburgh. _

* * * * *

The two verses, concerning which the dispute is rais’d, are these:

Besides, if o’re whatever yeares prevaile
Shou’d wholly perish, and its matter faile.

The question arising from them is, whether any true grammatical
construction can be made of them? The objection is, that there is
no nominative case appearing to the word _perish_, or that can be
understood to belong to it.

I have considered the verses, and find the authour of them to have
notoriously bungled; that he has plac’d the words as confus’dly as if
he had studied to do so. This notwithstanding, the very words, without
adding or diminishing in theire proper sence, (or at least what the
authour meanes,) may run thus:--_Besides, if what ever yeares prevaile
over, should wholly perish, and its matter faile. _

I pronounce therefore, as impartially as I can upon the whole, that
there _is_ a nominative case, and that figurative, so as Terence and
Virgil, amongst others, use it; that is, the whole clause precedent
is the nominative case to _perish_. My reason is this, and I think
it obvious; let the question be ask’d, what it is that should wholly
perish, or that perishes? The answer will be, That which yeares
prevaile over. If you will not admit a clause to be in construction a
nominative case, the word _thing_, _illud_, or _quodcunque_, is to be
understood, either of which words, in the femine gender, agree with
_res_, so that he meanes what ever _thing_ time prevails over shou’d
wholly perish, and its matter faile.

Lucretius, his Latine runs thus:

_Prætereà, quæcunque vetustate amovet ætas,
Si penitus perimit, consumens materiam omnem,
Unde animale genus, generatim in lumina vitæ
Redducit Venus? &c. _

which ought to have been translated thus:

Besides, what ever time removes from view,
If he destroys the stock of matter too,
From whence can kindly propagation spring,
Of every creature, and of every thing?

I translated it _whatever_ purposely, to shew, that _thing_ is to
be understood; which, as the words are heere plac’d, is so very
perspicuous, that the nominative case cannot be doubted.

The word, _perish_, used by Mr Creech, is a verb neuter; where
Lucretius puts _perimit_, which is active; a licence which, in
translating a philosophical poet, ought not to be taken; for some
reason, which I have not room to give. But to comfort the loser, I am
apt to believe, that the cross-grain confused verse put him so much out
of patience, that he wou’d not suspect it of any sence.

* * * * *

SIR,

The company having done me so great an honour as to make me their
judge, I desire from you the favour of presenting my acknowledgments
to them; and shou’d be proud to heere from you, whether they rest
satisfyed in my opinion, who am,

Sir,

Your most humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN. [68]


LETTER IV.

TO THE REV. DR BUSBY.

HONOUR’D SIR, Wednesday Morning, [1682. ]

We have, with much ado, recover’d my younger sonn,[69] who came home
extreamly sick of a violent cold, and, as he thinks him selfe, a
chine-cough. The truth is, his constitution is very tender; yet
his desire of learning, I hope, will inable him to brush through
the college. He is allwayes gratefully acknowledging your fatherly
kindnesse to him; and very willing to his poore power, to do all things
which may continue it. I have no more to add, but only to wish the
eldest may also deserve some part of your good opinion; for I believe
him to be of vertuous and pious inclinations; and for both, I dare
assure you, that they can promise to them selves no farther share of my
indulgence, then while they carry them selves with that reverence to
you, and that honesty to all others, as becomes them. I am, honour’d
Sir,

Your most obedient servant and scholar,

JOHN DRYDEN. [70]


LETTER V.

TO THE REV. DR BUSBY.

SIR, [1682. ]

If I could have found in my selfe a fitting temper to have waited
upon you, I had done it the day you dismissed my sonn[71] from the
college; for he did the message: and by what I find from Mr Meredith,
as it was delivered by you to him; namely, that you desired to see
me, and had somewhat to say to me concerning him. I observ’d likewise
somewhat of kindnesse in it, that you sent him away, that you might not
have occasion to correct him. I examin’d the business, and found, it
concern’d his having been _custos_[72] foure or five dayes together.
But if he admonished, and was not believed, because other boyes
combined to discredit him with false witnesseing, and to save them
selves, perhaps his crime is not so great. Another fault, it seems,
he made, which was going into one Hawkes his house, with some others;
which you hapning to see, sent your servant to know who they were, and
he onely returned you my sonn’s name; so the rest escaped.

I have no fault to find with my sonn’s punishment; for that is, and
ought to be, reserv’d to any master, much more to you, who have been
his father’s. But your man was certainly to blame to name him onely;
and ’tis onely my respect to you, that I do not take notice of it
to him. My first rash resolutions were, to have brought things past
any composure, by immediately sending for my sonn’s things out of
college; but upon recollection, I find, I have a double tye upon me
not to do it: one, my obligations to you for my education; another, my
great tendernesse of doeing any thing offensive to my Lord Bishop of
Rochester,[73] as cheife governour of the college. It does not consist
with the honour I beare him and you to go so precipitately to worke;
no, not so much as to have any difference with you, if it can possibly
be avoyded. Yet, as my sonn stands now, I cannot see with what credit
he can be elected; for, being but sixth, and (as you are pleased to
judge,) not deserving that neither, I know not whether he may not go
immediately to Cambridge, as well as one of his own election went to
Oxford this yeare[74] by your consent. I will say nothing of my second
sonn, but that, after you had been pleased to advise me to waite on my
Lord Bishop for his favour, I found he might have had the first place,
if you had not opposed it; and I likewise found at the election, that,
by the pains you had taken with him, he in some sort deserved it.

I hope, Sir, when you have given your selfe the trouble to read thus
farr, you, who are a prudent man, will consider, that none complaine,
but they desire to be reconciled at the same time: there is no mild
expostulation, at least, which does not intimate a kindness and respect
in him who makes it. Be pleas’d, if there be no merit on my side, to
make it your own act of grace to be what you were formerly to my sonn.
I have done something, so far to conquer my own spirit as to ask it;
and, indeed, I know not with what face to go to my Lord Bishop, and
to tell him I am takeing away both my sonns; for though I shall tell
him no occasion, it will looke like a disrespect to my old master, of
which I will not be guilty, if it be possible. I shall add no more, but
hope I shall be so satisfyed with a favourable answer from you, which
I promise to my selfe from your goodnesse and moderation, that I shall
still have occasion to continue,

Sir,

Your most obliged humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN. [75]


LETTER VI.

TO LAURENCE HYDE, EARL OF ROCHESTER[76]

MY LORD, [Perhaps August 1683. ]

I know not whether my Lord Sunderland has interceded with your Lordship
for half a yeare of my salary; but I have two other advocates, my
extreme wants, even almost to arresting, and my ill health, which
cannot be repaired without immediate retireing into the country.
A quarter’s allowance is but the Jesuit’s powder to my disease;
the fit will return a fortnight hence. If I durst, I would plead a
little merit, and some hazards of my life from the common enemyes; my
refuseing advantages offered by them, and neglecting my beneficiall
tudyes, for the King’s service: but I only thinke I merit not to
sterve. I never apply’d myselfe to any interest contrary to your
Lordship’s; and on some occasions, perhaps not known to you, have
not been unserviceable to the memory and reputation of my Lord, your
father. [77] After this, my Lord, my conscience assures me, I may write
boldly, though I cannot speake to you. I have three sonns growing
to man’s estate; I breed them all up to learning, beyond my fortune;
but they are too hopefull to be neglected, though I want. Be pleased
to looke on me with an eye of compassion. Some small employment would
render my condition easy. The King is not unsatisfied of me; the Duke
has often promised me his assistance; and your Lordship is the conduit
through which they passe, either in the Customes, or the Appeals of
the Excise,[78] or some other way, meanes cannot be wanting, if you
please to have the will. ’Tis enough for one age to have neglected Mr
Cowley, and sterv’d Mr Butler; but neither of them had the happiness to
live till your Lordship’s ministry. In the meane time, be pleased to
give me a gracious and speedy answer to my present request of halfe a
yeare’s pention for my necessityes. I am going to write somewhat by his
Majesty’s command,[79] and cannot stir into the country for my health
and studies, till I secure my family from want. You have many petitions
of this nature, and cannot satisfy all; but I hope, from your goodness,
to be made an exception to your general rules,[80] because I am, with
all sincerity,

Your Lordship’s

Most obedient humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.


LETTER VII.

TO MR JACOB TONSON.

_The letters to Tonson are without dates. I have retained those which
Mr Malone has attached to them, from circumstances of internal evidence
which it seems unnecessary to detail, but which appear in general
satisfactory, though not given as absolutely conclusive. _

MR TONSON, Monday Morning, [1684. ]

The two melons you sent I received before your letter, which came
foure houres after: I tasted one of them, which was too good to need
an excuse; the other is yet untouched. You have written diverse things
which give me great satisfaction; particularly that the History of the
League is commended: and I hope the onely thing I feared in it is not
found out. [81] Take it all together, and I dare say without vanity,
’tis the best translation of any history in English, though I cannot
say ’tis the best history; but that is no fault of mine. I am glad
my Lord Duke of Ormond has one: I did not forget him; but I thought
his sorrows were too fresh upon him to receive a present of that
nature. [82] For my Lord Roscommon’s Essay,[83] I am of your opinion,
that you should reprint it, and that you may safely venture on a
thousand more. In my verses before it, pray let the printer mend his
errour, and let the line stand thus:

That heer his conqu’ring ancestors were nurs’d;--[84]

Charles his copy[85] is all true. The other faults my Lord Roscommon
will mend in the booke, or Mr Chetwood[86] for him, if my Lord be gone
for Ireland; of which, pray send me word.

Your opinion of the Miscellanyes[87] is likewise mine: I will for
once lay by the “_Religio Laici_,” till another time. But I must also
add, that since we are to have nothing but new, I am resolved we will
have nothing but good, whomever we disoblige. You will have of mine,
four Odes of Horace, which I have already translated; another small
translation of forty lines from Lucretius; the whole story of Nisus and
Eurialus, both in the fifth and the ninth of Virgil’s Æneids: and I
care not who translates them beside me; for let him be friend or foe, I
will please myself, and not give off in consideration of any man. There
will be forty lines more of Virgil in another place, to answer those
of Lucretius: I meane those very lines which Montagne has compared
in those two poets; and Homer shall sleep on for me,--I will not now
meddle with him. And for the Act which remains of the Opera,[88] I
believe I shall have no leysure to mind it, after I have done what I
proposed; for my business here is to unweary my selfe after my studyes,
not to drudge.

I am very glad you have pay’d Mr Jones, because he has carryed him
selfe so gentlemanlike to me; and, if ever it lyes in my power, I will
requite it. I desire to know whether the Duke’s House are makeing
cloaths, and putting things in a readiness for the singing Opera, to be
played immediately after Michaelmasse. [89] For the actors in the two
playes[90] which are to be acted of mine this winter, I had spoken with
Mr Betterton by chance at the Coffee-house the afternoon before I came
away; and I believe that the persons were all agreed on, to be just
the same you mentioned; only Octavia was to be Mrs Butler, in case Mrs
Cooke were not on the stage; and I know not whether Mrs Percival, who
is a comedian, will do well for Benzayda.

I came hither for health, and had a kind of hectique feavour for a
fortnight of the time: I am now much better. Poore Jack[91] is not yet
recovered of an intermitting feavour, of which this is the twelfth day;
but he mends, and now begins to eat flesh: to add to this, my man,
with over care of him, is fallen ill too, of the same distemper; so
that I am deep in doctors, ’pothecaries, and nurses: but though many
in this country fall sick of feavours, few or none dye. Your friend,
Charles,[92] continues well. If you have any extraordinary newes, I
should be glad to heare it. I will answer Mr Butler’s letter next week;
for it requires no hast.

I am yours,

JOHN DRYDEN.


LETTER VIII.

FROM JACOB TONSON TO JOHN DRYDEN, ESQ.

SIR, [Probably written in Jan. or Feb. 1692-3. ][93]

I have here returned y^e Ovid, w^{ch} I read w^th a great deal of
pleasure, and think nothing can be more entertaining; but by this
letter you find I am not soe well satisfied as perhaps you might think.
I hope at y^e same time the matter of fact I lay down in this letter
will appear grounds for it, and w^{ch} I beg you wou’d concider of; and
then I believe I shall at least bee excused.

You may please, S^r, to remember, that upon my first proposal about y^e
3^d Miscellany, I offer’d fifty pounds, and talk’d of several authours,
without naming Ovid. You ask’d if it shou’d not be guynneas, and said
I shou’d not repent it; upon w^{ch} I imediately comply’d, and left
it wholy to you what, and for y^e quantity too: and I declare it was
the farthest in y^e world from my thoughts that by leaving it to you
I shou’d have the less. Thus the case stood when you went into Essex.
After I came out of Northamptonshire I wrote to you, and reseived a
letter dated Monday Oct. 3^d, 92, from w^{ch} letter I now write word
for word what followes:

“I am translating about six hundred lines, or somewhat less, of y^e
first book of the Metamorphoses. If I cannot get my price, w^{ch} shall
be twenty guynneas, I will translate the whole book; w^{ch} coming out
before the whole translation, will spoyl Tate’s undertakings. ’Tis one
of the best I have ever made, and very pleasant. This, w^{th} Heroe and
Leander, and the piece of Homer, (or, if it be not enough, I will add
more,) will make a good part of a Miscellany. ”

Those, S^r, are y^e very words, and y^e onely ones in that letter
relating to that affair; and y^e Monday following you came to
town. --After your arrivall you shew’d Mr Motteaux what you had done,
(w^{ch} he told me was to y^e end of y^e story of Daphnis,) [Daphne,]
and demanded, as you mention’d in your letter, twenty guyneas, w^{ch}
that bookseller refus’d. Now, S^r, I the rather believe there was
just soe much done, by reason y^e number of lines you mention in yo^r
letter agrees w^{th} y^e quantity of lines that soe much of y^e first
book makes; w^{ch} upon counting y^e Ovid, I find to be in y^e Lattin
566, in y^e English 759; and y^e bookseller told me there was noe more
demanded of him for it. --Now, S^r, what I entreat you wou’d please to
consider of is this: that it is reasonable for me to expect at least
as much favour from you as a strange bookseller; and I will never
believe y^t it can be in yo^r nature to use one y^e worse for leaveing
it to you; and if the matter of fact as I state it be true, (and upon
my word what I mention I can shew you in yo^r letter,) then pray,
S^r, consider how much dearer I pay then you offered it to y^e other
bookseller; for he might have had to y^e end of y^e story of Daphnis
for 20 guynneas, w^{ch} is in yo^r translation

759 lines;
And then suppose 20 guyneas more for the same number 759 lines,
---------
that makes for 40 guyneas 1518 lines;

and all that I have for fifty guyneas are but 1446; soe that, if I have
noe more, I pay 10 guyneas above 40, and have 72 lines less for fifty,
in proportion, than the other bookseller shou’d have had for 40, at
y^e rate you offered him y^e first part. This is, Sir, what I shall
take as a great favour if you please to think of. I had intentions of
letting you know this before; but till I had paid y^e money, I would
not ask to see the book, nor count the lines, least it shou’d look like
a design of not keeping my word. When you have looked over y^e rest of
what you have already translated, I desire you would send it; and I own
y^t if you don’t think fit to add something more, I must submit: ’tis
wholly at yo^r choice, for I left it intirely to you; but I believe you
cannot imagine I expected soe little; for you were pleased to use me
much kindlyer in Juvenall, w^{ch} is not reckon’d soe easy to translate
as Ovid. S^r, I humbly beg yo^r pardon for this long letter, and upon
my word I had rather have yo^r good will than any man’s alive; and,
whatever you are pleased to doe, will alway acknowledge my self, S^r,

Yo^r most obliged humble Serv^t,

J. TONSON.


LETTER IX.

TO MR JACOB TONSON. [94]

MR TONSON, August 30. [1693. ]

I am much asham’d of my self, that I am so much behind-hand with you
in kindness. Above all things I am sensible of your good nature, in
bearing me company to this place, wherein, besides the cost, you must
needs neglect your own business; but I will endeavour to make you some
amends; and therefore I desire you to command me something for your
service. I am sure you thought my Lord Radclyffe[95] wou’d have done
something: I ghess’d more truly, that he cou’d not; but I was too far
ingag’d to desist, though I was tempted to it by the melancholique
prospect I had of it. I have translated six hundred lines of Ovid; but
I believe I shall not compasse his 772 lines under nine hundred or
more of mine.