[52] Those who wish to peruse this memorable romance may find it in vol. xviii.  It was first published in Wilson’s “Life of Congreve,” 1730.  Mr. Malone has successfully shown that it is false in almost all its parts; for, independently of the extreme improbability of the whole story, it is clear, from Ward’s account, written at the time, that Lord Jefferies, who it is pretended interrupted the funeral, did, in fact, largely contribute to it.  This also appears from a paragraph, in a letter from Doctor afterwards Bishop Tanner, dated May 6th, 1700, and thus given by Mr. Malone:—­“Mr. Dryden died a papist, if at all a Christian.  Mr. Montague had given orders to bury him; but some lords (my Lord Dorset, Jefferies, etc.), thinking it would not be splendid enough, ordered him to be carried to Russel’s:  there he was embalmed; and now lies in state at the Physicians’ College, and is to be buried with Chaucer, Cowley, etc., at Westminster Abbey, on Monday next.”—­MSS.  Ballard. in Bibl.  Bodl. vol. iv. p. 29.

[53] The following lines are given by Mr. Malone as a specimen:—­

  “Before the hearse the mourning hautboys go,
  And screech a dismal sound of grief and woe: 
  More dismal notes from bog-trotters may fall,
  More dismal plaints at Irish funeral;
  But no such floods of tears e’er stopped our tide,
  Since Charles, the martyr and the monarch, died. 
  The decency and order first describe,
  Without regard to either sex or tribe. 
  The sable coaches led the dismal van,
  But by their side, I think, few footmen ran;
  Nor needed these; the rabble fill the streets,
  And mob with mob in great disorder meets. 
  See next the coaches, how they are accouter’d,
  Both in the inside, eke and on the outward: 
  One p——­y spark, one sound as any roach,
  One poet and two fiddlers in a coach: 
  The playhouse drab, that beats the beggar’s bush,
         * * * * *
  By everybody kissed, good truth,—­but such is
  Now her good fate, to ride with mistress Duchess. 
  Was e’er immortal poet thus buffooned! 
  In a long line of coaches thus lampooned!”

[54] [Transcriber’s note:  “Page 73” in original.  See Footnote 14, Section II.]

[55] [Transcriber’s note:  “‘Poet Squab,’ p. 215” in original.  See Footnote 14, Section V.]

[56] From “Epigrams on the Paintings of the most eminent Masters,” by J.E. (John Elsum), Esq., 8vo, 1700, Mr. Malone gives the following lines:—­

  The Effigies of Mr. Dryden, by Closterman,
  Epig. clxiv.

  “A sleepy eye he shows, and no sweet feature,
  Yet was indeed a favourite of nature: 
  Endowed and graced with an exalted mind,
  With store of wit, and that of every kind. 
  Juvenal’s tartness, Horace’s sweet air,
  With Virgil’s force, in him concentered were. 
  But though the painter’s art can never show it,
  That his exemplar was so great a poet,
  Yet are the lines and tints so subtly wrought,
  You may perceive he was a man of thought. 
  Closterman, ’tis confessed, has drawn him well,
  But short of Absalom and Achitophel.”