[45] i.e. Upon the 25th March 1700; it being supposed (as by many in our own time) that the century was concluded so soon as the hundredth year commenced; as if a play was ended at the beginning of the fifth act.

[46] It was again set by Dr. Boyce, and in 1749 performed in the Drury-lane theatre, with great success.

[47] By a letter to Mrs. Steward, dated the 11th April 1700, it appears they were then only in his contemplation, and the poet died upon the first of the succeeding month.  Vol. xviii.

[48]
  “Quick Maurus, though he never took degrees
  In either of our universities,
  Yet to be shown by Rome kind wit he looks,
  Because he played the fool, and writ three books. 
  But if he would be worth a poet’s pen,
  He must be more a fool, and write again: 
  For all the former fustian stuff he wrote
  Was dead-born doggrel, or is quite forgot;
  His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe,
  Is just the proverb, and ‘As poor as Job.’ 
  One would have thought he could no longer jog;
  But Arthur was a level, Job’s a bog.
  There though he crept, yet still he kept in sight;
  But here he founders in, and sinks downright. 
  Had he prepared us, and been dull by rule,
  Tobit had first been turned to ridicule;
  But our bold Briton, without fear or awe,
  O’erleaps at once the whole Apocrypha;
  Invades the Psalms with rhymes, and leaves no room
  For any Vandal Hopkins yet to come. 
  But when, if, after all, this godly gear
  Is not so senseless as it would appear,
  Our mountebank has laid a deeper train;
  His cant, like Merry Andrew’s noble vein,
  Cat-calls the sects to draw them in again. 
  At leisure hours in epic song he deals,
  Writes to the rumbling of his coach’s wheels;
  Prescribes in haste, and seldom kills by rule,
  But rides triumphant between stool and stool. 
  Well, let him go,—­’tis yet too early day
  To get himself a place in farce or play;
  We know not by what name we should arraign him,
  For no one category can contain him. 
  A pedant,—­canting preacher,—­and a quack,
  Are load enough to break an ass’s back. 
  At last, grown wanton, he presumed to write,
  Traduced two kings, their kindness to requite;
  One made the doctor, and one dubbed the knight.”

[49] One of these well-meaning persons insulted the ashes of Dryden while they were still warm, in “An Epistle to Sir Richard Blackmore, occasioned by the New Session of the Poets.”  Marked by Mr. Luttrell, 1st November 1700.

  “His mighty Dryden to the shades is gone,
  And Congreve leaves successor of his throne: 
  Though long before his final exit hence,
  He was himself an abdicated Prince;
  Disrobed of all regalities of state,
  Drawn by a hind and panther from his seat. 
  Heir to his plays, his fables, and his