that he was equal to Shakspeare, and bequeathed to him his own undisputed poetical crown, and writes of him, "Mr. Congreve has done me the favour to review the 'Æneis,' and compare my version with the original. I shall never be ashamed to own that this excellent young man has showed me many faults which I have endeavoured to correct."
The "excellent young man" was but three or four-and-twenty when the great Dryden thus spoke of him: the greatest literary chief in England, the veteran field-marshal of letters, himself the marked man of all Europe, and the centre of a school of wits, who daily gathered round his chair and tobacco-pipe at Wills'. Pope dedicated his "Iliad" to him;[1] Swift, Addison,
- ↑ "Instead of endeavouring to raise a vain monument to myself, let me leave behind me a memorial of my friendship, with one of the most
"Old Bachelor," but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having fallen foul of it, our "Swell" applied the scourge to that presumptuous body, in the "Epistle Dedicatory" to the "Right Honourable Charles Montague."
"I was conscious," said he, "where a true critic might have put me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack. . . . . . but I have not heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer," He goes on—
"But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the false criticisms that are made upon me; and that is, some of the ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it; for I declare, I would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one of the fair sex. They are concerned that I have represented some women vicious and affected. How can I help it? It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind. . . . . . I should be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliments to those ladies who are offended. But they can no more expect it in a comedy, than to be tickled by a surgeon when he is letting their blood."
