Memoirs of John Dryden (Volume 1)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1826 Excerpt: ...once, in a play of mine, I set off a scene, i'gad, beyond expectation, only with a petticoat and the belly-ache. Smith. Pray, how was that, sir? Bayes. Why, sir, I contrived a petticoat to be brought in upon a chair (nobody knew how), into a prince's chamber, whose father was not to see it, that came in by chance. Johns. God's-my-life, that was a notable contrivance indeed! Smith. Ay, but, Mr Bayes, how could you contrive the belly-ache? The -Assignation- was published in 1678, and inscribed, by Dryden, to his much honoured friend Sir Charles Sedley. There are some acrimonious passages in this dedication, referring to the controversies in which the author had been engaged; and, obscure as these have become, it is the biographer's duty to detail and illustrate them. It cannot be supposed, that the authors of the time saw with indifference Dryden's rapid success, and the measures which he had taken, by his critical essays, to guide the public attention, and to fix it upon himself and the heroic plays, in which he felt his full superiority. But no writer of the time could hope to be listened to by the public, if he entered a claim of personal competition against a poet so celebrated. The defence of the ancient poets afforded a less presumptuous and more favourable pretext for taking the field, and for assailing Dry Bayes. The easiest i'the world, i'gad: I'll tell you how. I made the prince sit down upon the petticoat, no more than so, and pretended to his father that he had just then got the belly-ache; whereupon his father went out to call a physician, and his man ran away with the petticoat.---Rehearsal. den's writing's, and avenging the slight notice he had accorded to his contemporaries, under the colour of defending the ancients against his...