the medium of impartial history, we now view characters, who were only known to their contemporaries as zealous partisans of an opposite and detested faction.  The moderation of Dryden’s reprisals, when provoked by the grossest calumny and personal insult, ought also to plead in his favour.  Of the hundreds who thus assailed, not only his literary, but his moral reputation, he has distinguished Settle and Shadwell alone by an elaborate retort.  Those who look into Mr. Luttrell’s collections, will at once see the extent of Dryden’s sufferance, and the limited nature of his retaliation.

The extreme flattery of Dryden’s dedications has been objected to him, as a fault of an opposite description; and perhaps no writer has equalled him in the profusion and elegance of his adulation.  “Of this kind of meanness,” says Johnson, “he never seems to decline the practice, or lament the necessity.  He considers the great as entitled to encomiastic homage, and brings praise rather as a tribute than a gift; more delighted with the fertility of his invention than mortified by the prostitution of his judgment.”  It may be noticed, in palliation of this heavy charge, that the form of address to superiors must be judged of by the manners of the times; and that the adulation contained in dedications was then as much a matter of course, as the words of submissive style which still precede the subscription Dryden considered his panegyrics as merely conforming with the fashion of the day, and rendering unto Caesar the things which were Caesar’s,—­attended with no more degradation than the payment of any other tribute to the forms of politeness and usage of the world.

Of Dryden’s general habits of life we can form a distinct idea, from the evidence assembled by Mr. Malone.  His mornings were spent in study; he dined with his family, probably about two o’clock.  After dinner he went usually to Will’s Coffeehouse, the famous rendezvous of the wits of the time, where he had his established chair by the chimney in winter, and near the balcony in summer, whence he pronounced, ex cathedra, his opinion upon new publications, and, in general, upon all matters of dubious criticism.[60] Latterly, all who had occasion to ridicule or attack him, represent him as presiding in this little senate.[61] His opinions, however, were not maintained with dogmatism; and we have an instance, in a pleasing anecdote told by Dr. Lockier,[62] that Dryden readily listened to criticism, provided it was just, from whatever unexpected and undignified quarter it happened to come.  In general, however, it may be supposed, that few ventured to dispute his opinion, or place themselves of his censure.  He was most falsely accused of carrying literary jealousy to such a length, as feloniously to encourage Creech to venture on a translation of Horace, that he might lose the character he had gained by a version of Lucretius.  But this is positively contradicted, upon the authority of Southerne.[63]