Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/75

 considered as a formidable rival to Dryden at the time, and was the favourite among the younger men at Cambridge and London.

Another controversy is supposed to account for a singular incident in Dryden's career. He was beaten by some ruffians while returning from Will's coffee-house on the night of 18 Dec. 1679. The supposed instigator of this assault was John Wilmot, earl of Rochester. Dryden had dedicated a play to Rochester in 1673, and had written a letter warmly acknowledging his patronage. But Rochester had taken up some of Dryden's rivals and had a bitter feud with Mulgrave, whose ‘Essay on Satire’ (written in 1675 and circulated in manuscript in 1679) was perhaps corrected, and was supposed at the time to have been written, by Dryden. The authorship is apparently ascribed to Dryden by Rochester in a letter to Henry Savile (, Letters, 1697, p. 49), probably written in November 1679. The ‘Essay’ contained an attack upon Rochester, who says in another letter that he shall ‘leave the repartee to Black Will with a cudgel’ (ib. p. 5). The threat was probably fulfilled, but nothing could be proved at the time, although a reward of 50l. was offered for a discovery of the offenders. There is little reason to doubt Rochester's guilt, and the libels of the day frequently taunt Dryden with his suffering. The disgrace was supposed to be with the victim. The Duchess of Portsmouth (see, i. 30), who was attacked in the ‘Essay,’ together with the Duchess of Cleveland, as one of Charles's ‘beastly brace,’ was also thought to have had some share in this dastardly offence.

The erroneous belief that Dryden had taken a share in satirising Charles, and his attack upon the catholics in the ‘Spanish Friar,’ suggested the hypothesis that Dryden was in sympathy with Shaftesbury's opposition to the court. A libeller even represented him as poet laureate to Shaftesbury in an imaginary kingdom (‘Modest Vindication of Shaftesbury’ in Somers Tracts, 1812, viii. 317); and another said that his pension had been taken from him, and that he had written the ‘Spanish Friar’ in revenge. He put an end to any such impression by publishing the first of his great satires. The ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ appeared in November 1681. Shaftesbury had been in the Tower since 2 July, and was to be indicted on 24 Nov. The satire, according to Tate, had been suggested to Dryden by Charles. Although the grand jury threw out the bill against Shaftesbury, the success of the poetic attack was unprecedented. Johnson's father, a bookseller at the time said that he remembered no sale of equal rapidity except that of the reports of Sacheverell's trial. The reputation has been as lasting as it was rapidly achieved. The ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ is still the first satire in the language for masculine insight and for vigour of expression. Dryden tells us that by the advice of Sir George Mackenzie he had read through the older English poets and had written a treatise (suppressed at Mulgrave's desire) on the laws of versification. He had become a consummate master of style, and had now found the precise field for which his powers of mind fully qualified him. The passage praising Shaftesbury's purity as a judge, which greatly heightens the effect of the satire, was introduced in the second edition. Benjamin Martyn (employed by the fourth Earl of Shaftesbury to write the life of the first) states that this addition was made in return for Shaftesbury's generosity in nominating Dryden's son to the Charterhouse, after the first edition of the satire. The story, highly improbable in itself, is discredited by the fact that Dryden's son Erasmus was admitted to the Charterhouse in February 1683 on the nomination of Charles II, while Shaftesbury himself nominated Samuel Weaver in October 1681, that is, just before the publication. It is now impossible to say what suggested the statement. Dryden at any rate continued his satirical career and his assaults upon Shaftesbury. A medal had been struck in honour of the ignoramus of the grand jury, and Charles (according to a story reported by Spence) suggested to Dryden the subject of his next satire, ‘The Medal,’ which appeared in March 1682. Retorts had already been attempted, and others followed. Buckingham published ‘Poetical Reflections,’ Samuel Pordage published ‘Azaria and Hushai,’ and Elkanah Settle ‘Absalom Senior or Achitophel Transposed.’ The ‘Medal’ produced the ‘Medal Reversed,’ by Pordage, ‘Dryden's Satire to his Muse’ (see above), and the ‘Medal of John Bayes,’ by Shadwell, who had been on friendly terms with Dryden, but now came forward as the champion of the whigs. Dryden turned upon Shadwell in ‘Mac Flecknoe,’ a satire of great vigour and finish, which served as the model of the ‘Dunciad.’ Dryden is said to have thought it his best work (‘Dean Lockier,’ in Anecdotes, p. 60). It was published on 4 Oct. 1682. On 10 Nov. following appeared a second part of ‘Absalom and Achitophel.’ It was mainly written by Nahum Tate; but Dryden contributed over two hundred forcible lines and probably revised the whole. Shadwell and Settle again appear as Og and Doeg. A year had thus produced the great satires which show Dryden