because we feel that his intellect and industry deserved success, and know that he was doomed to many of the sufferings which genius has so often endured. It is but fair also to remember that many of his faults were the faults of his age—that he was not more violent against antagonists than they against him, not more licentious in his writings than many of his contemporaries—and that the exaggerated flattery in his dedications was the fashion of the day. It is important also to remember the view which he himself took of this subject. In writing to the Earl of Rochester, he says: "Because I deal not in satire, I have sent your Lordship a prologue and epilogue which I made for our players when they went down to Oxford. I hear they have succeeded, and by the event your Lordship will judge how easy 'tis to pass anything upon a University, and how gross flattery the learned will endure."
Dr. Johnson did not suppose that Dryden ever laughed in his sleeve at the fine things he said to nobles as well as to learned bodies. He remarks: "Of this kind of meanness he never seems to decline the practice, or lament the necessity: he considers the great as entitled to encomiastick homage, and brings praise rather as a tribute than a gift, more delighted with the fertility of his invention than mortified by the prostitution of his judgment. It is indeed not certain, that on these occasions his judgment much rebelled against his interest. There are minds which easily sink into submission, that look on grandeur with undistinguishing reverence, and discover no defect where there is elevation of rank, and affluence of riches."
If Dryden unmercifully attacked some of his contemporaries, and called hard names, we must remember that courteous controversy was not then in fashion, and that he did not escape his share of rancorous abuse. Indeed, he was fully repaid in scurrility, though the wit was mostly
