Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/590

 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

681

1699, May 4. ITte Weekly Comedy, as it is daily acted at most Coffee-nouses in London.

1700, June 26. An order was made by the lord mayor and court of aldermen, forbidding to affix in any part of the city or the liberUes thereof, the playhouse bills, according to the presentment of the grand jury, which ran thus : — " The having some effectual course taken (if possible) to prevent the youth of this city from resorting to the playhouses," Sec. The usual method of advertising the performances of the London theatres was originally by affixing them to numerous posts, which formerly encumbered the streets of the metropolis, and hence the phrase potting bxlU. See page 541, ante.

1700. John Asoill, a member of parliament, wrote a work entitled, An Argument, proving that Man may be translated from hence without patting through death, &c. This work was voted a blasphemous libel, ordered to be burnt, and the author to be expelled the house. John As- gill was born about the middle of the seven- teenth century, and studied at Lincoln's inn; in 1699 he went to Ireland, where he acquired a fortune, and was elected a member of parlia- ment. Finding his affairs desperate in Ireland he returned to England, when he was chosen member for Bramber, in Sussex, and enjoyed his seat two years. During an interval of pri- vilege he was committed to the Fleet for debt; while he was in imprisonment the house took into consideration the above book, and having voted it blasphemous he was expelled from his seat. He continued in the rules of the Fleet and king's bench thirty years, in which time be published many political tracts, and died in 1 738.

1700. R. Joseph Athias, one of the most famous printers of his day, was the son of Tobias Athias, who printed a Spanish bible for the use of the Jews. He resided at Amsterdam, where he published a Hebrew bible, in 1661; and again in 1667, in 2 vols. Hvo., both printed under the inspection of the learned John Leus- den. For the latter, which is considered the most accurate, the States General presented him with a chain of gold and a gold medal pendant! Of the edition of 1661, 3000 were printed; and were the first printed copies of the Hebrew bible in which the verses were distin- guished by Arabic numerals. It is also affirmed that he printed an immense number of English bibles, and actually ruined himself by attempt- ing to preserve for many years all the forms of a large English bible! but there is reason to doubt the correctness of this statement. Le Long places his death in this year.

1700. The Dutch Prophet; or, the Devil of a Conjuror; being infallible Predictions of what shall happen in and about the Cities of London and Westminster, from Tuesday the 20th of No- vember to Tuesday the 3rd of December, 1700. By Peter Nicholas Van-grin, late Superior of the College of Lapland Witches, and Chief Ne- cromancer to the Dutch at Japan : to be conti- nued weeUy. No. 1.

1700. The infallible Aatrologer.

1700, May 1. Died, John Dryden, one of the most illustrious of English poets. He Maa bom at Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire, of an ancient family, August 9, 1631, and was edu- cated at Westminster and Cambridge. In 1667 he removed to London, and practised the literary trade, which he had chosen, for forty years, en- joying, during that period, a high though not an undisputed reputation, and suffering consider- ably from poverty. His plays, twenty-seven in number, of the various classes of tragedies, co- medies, and tragi-comedies, are, upon the whole, unworthy of his genius. In 1665 he married lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the earl of Berkshire. On the establishment of the Royal Society he was chosen one of the first members. In 1662 appeared his first play, called the Wild Gallant. Soon after the fire of London he en- gaged with the king's theatre for an annual sti- pend, on condition of fumishing a certain number of plays in each year. At the accession of James II. Dryden turned Roman Catholic, and, like most converts, endeavoured to defend his new faith at the expense of the old one, in a poem called the Hind and the Panther, which was admirably answered by Prior and Montague in the Country Mouie and City Moute. At the revolution he lost his posts, and was succeeded by Shadwell, whom Dryden satirized under the name of Mac Flecknoe, in October 1682. In 1 695 appeared his translation of Virgil, which alone would immortalize his memory. He was buried in Westminster abbey, where is a monu- ment to his memory, erected by Sheffield duke of Buckingham. A complete edition of his whole works, in 18 vols. 8vo. was printed at Edinburgh, by Ballantyne and Co. in 1808. He had three sons; Charles became usher of the palace to pope Clement XI. and was drowned in 1704; John wrote a comedy, called The Husband hit own Cuckold; and Henry entered into a religious order abroad.

Dryden was a man of amiable and virtuous disposition, but was tempted by the ta.ste of the age to write on many occasions very licentiously, and allowed himself to be humed away by injured self-love into rancorous controversies, which impaired his peace, and degraded his genius. He was endowed with a vigorous and excursive imagination, and possessea a mastery over language which no subsequent writer has attained. With little tenderness or humour, be had great power of delineating character, won- derful ease, an almost sublime contempt for mesm things, and sounding, vehement, varied versification.

The dedications of Dryden, though carried to an excessive height in adulation, were the vices of the time more than of the man; they were loaded with flattery, and no disgrace was an- nexed to such an exercise of men's talents; the contest being who should go farthest in the most graceful way, and with the best turns of ex- pression. The common price for a dedication was from £20 to £40, though, upon special oc- casions, a larger sum has been given. From the

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