the eldest may also deserve some part of your good opinion, for I believe him to be of vertuous and pious inclinations; and for both, I dare assure you, that they can promise to themselves no farther share of my indulgence then while they carry themselves with that reverence to you, and that honesty to all others, as becomes them. I am, honourd Sir, your most obedient servant and scholar, JOHN DRYDEN." [1683.] "SIR, IF I could have found in myselfe a fitting temper to have waited upon you, I had done it the day you dismissed my sonn from the college; for he did the message; and, by what I find from Mr. Meredith, as it was delivered by you to him; namely, that you desired to see me, and had somewhat to say to me concerning him. I observ'd likewise somewhat of kindnesse in it, that you sent him away that you might not have occasion to correct him. I examin'd the business, and found it concern'd his haveing been Custos foure or five dayes together. But if he admonished, and was not believed, because other boys combined to dis credit him with false witnesseing, and to save themselves, perhaps his crime is not so great. Another fault it seems he made, which was going into one Hawkes his house, with some others; which you hapning to see, sent your servant to know who they were, and he onely returned you my sonn's name: so the rest escaped. I have no fault to find with my sonn's punishment, for that is, and ought to be, reserved to any master, much more to you who have been his father's. But your man was certainly to blame to name him onely; and 'tis onely my respect to you that I do not take notice of it to him. My first rash resolutions were, to have brought things past any composure, by immediately sending for my sonn's things out of the college; but upon recollection, I find I have a double tye upon me not to do it: one, my obligations to you for my education; another, my great tendernesse of doeing any thing offensive to my Lord Bishop of Rochester,† as chiefe governour of the * Our poet, John, was elected from Westminster-school to Trin. Coll. Cambridge, in 1650; his cousin, Jonathan, in 1656. Of the "two sons" mentioned in this letter, Charles, admitted to the school in 1680, went off to Christ Church in 1685; John, admitted in 1682, to Trin. Coll. in 1685. J. N. + Dr. John Dolben. college. It does not consist with the honour I beare him and you to go so precipitately to worke; no, not so much as to have any difference with you, if it can possibly be avoyded. Yet, as my sonn stands now, I cannot see with what credit he can be elected; for, being but sixth, and (as you are pleased to judge) not deserving that neither, I know not whether he may not go immediately to Cambridge, as well as one of his own election went to Oxford this yeare by youre consent. I will say nothing of my second sonn, but that, after you had been pleased to advise me to waite on my Lord Bishop for his favour, I found he might have had the first place if you had not opposed it; and I likewise found at the election, that, by the pains you had taken with him, he in some sort deserved it. I hope, Sir, when you have given yourselfe the trouble to read thus farr, you, who are a prudent man, will consider, that none complaine, but they desire to be reconciled at the same time; there is no mild expostulation at least, which does not intimate a kindness and respect in him who makes it. Be pleased, if there be no merit on my side, to make it your own act of grace to be what you were formerly to my sonn. I have done something, so farr to conquer my own spirit as to ask it; and, indeed, I know not with what face to go to my Lord Bishop, and to tell him I am taking away both my sonns; for, though I shall tell him no occasion, it will looke like a disrespect to my old Master, of which I will not be guilty if it be possible. I shall add no more, but hope I shall be so satisfyed with a favourable answer from you, which I promise to myselfe from your goodnesse and moderation, that I shall still have occasion to continue, Sir, your most obliged humble servant, 1787, Oct. and Nov. JOHN DRYDEN." LXII. Extracts of Letters from Dr. Arbuthnot to Mr. Watkins. London, Sept. 30, 1721. PRIOR has had a narrow escape by dying; for, if he had lived, he had married a brimstone bitch, one Bessy Cox, that keeps an alehouse in Long-acre. Her husband died about a month ago; and Prior has left his estate between his servant Jonathan Drift and Bessy Cox. Lewis got drunk with punch with Bess the night before last. Do not say where you had this news of Prior. I hope all my mistress's ministers will not behave themselves so. London, Oct. 10, 1721. THERE is great care taken, now it is too late, to keep Prior's will secret, for it is thought not to be too reputable for Lord Harley to execute this will. Be so kind as to say nothing whence you had your intelligence. We are to have a bowl of punch at Bessy Cox's. She would fain have put it upon Lewis that she was his Emma; she owned, Flanders Jane was his Chloe. I know no security from these dotages in bachelors, but to repent of their mis-spent time and marry with all speed. Pray tell your fellow traveller so. 1787, Dec. LXIII. Letters from Richard Savage *, a few weeks before his death. LETTER I. MR. STRONG, Bristol, June 19, 1743. I AM heartily glad all things are safe with you as to your place. I received yours, dated June 6, ten days after date. I wish I knew whether this was owing to the fault of Mr. Pyne, You delayed writing so long, that I began to imagine I should never hear of you, or at least from you, again. Mr. Dagget was near a fortnight in London. He tells me you sent to him at his inn (by which I knew you had received my letter,) to know when he could be at leisure to see you. He sent you a kind invitation by your messenger; but never saw or heard from you, to his great surprise, afterwards, He would have been very glad to have seen you. Mrs. Harris is at London, in Newgate. There has happened so great a quarrel between her and Mr. Dagge, that she called him murderer, They were addressed "to Mr. Strong, at the General Post-Office;" the friend, of whose name Dr. Johnson has given only the initial, in the letter to Mr. Cave, which he has preserved in the "Life of Savage." N. "The tender gaoler," to whose "humanity" Dr. Johnson bore "pubdic attestation," N. before the judges of the King's Bench, in open court. I am sure he used her very kindly here to the very last. The newspapers never mention her, and we have heard nothing of her since her commitment there. Let me know if you hear any thing concerning her. She was always obliging to me, and I heartily wish her life safe. You may venture to call on her on a Sunday, and remember me to her kindly. As for Mr. Weaver's affair, what he desired you to do, was done for him by Mr. Dagge when in London. Mr. Nash (though I wrote to him since) has never once wrote or sent to me. I received a letter from my sister t, and one from my niece, the very post after my writing to you. My sister's I answered in a long letter of three sides of paper. I am amazed at not hearing from you that she has received my answer; surely Mr. Pyne would not dare to intercept it. I take it very kind that you called on her. I directed mine to her exactly according to her own direction; and would not, on any consideration, it should miscarry. Mr. Crozier is dead, and his widow will not renew her action against me. As for Madam Wolf Bitch, the African monster, Mr. Dagge, unknown to me, offered her, before he went to London, three guineas to release me. She asked time to consider of it; and, at his return to Bristol, sent him word, that she was determined to keep me in confinement a twelvemonth: however, she will soon be perhaps sick of her resolution. Through Mr. Ward's means, I was last cour-day but one sent for up by habeas corpus to the Guildhall, where a rule, on my appearance there, was entered, to force her to proceed to execution; which if she does not by the next court-day, her action will be superseded; and if she does, then Madam Wolf Bitch must allow the two shillings and fourpence per week §. However, as I was standing at our door in the street (which I am allowed to do alone whenever I please,) who should be passing by one evening but Mr. Becket? He was reduced so thin by a fever, which lasted him ten weeks, that I scarce knew him. In Beau Nash gave him five guineas when first taken into custody, and promised to promote a subscription for him at Bath with all his interest. N. + Who and what were this sister and niece of Savage? N. He was arrested for eight pounds at the suit of a Mrs. Read, who kept a coffee-house. N. This confirms what we are told by Dr. Johnson, that "he took care to enter his name according to the forms of the court, that the creditor might be obliged to make him some allowance, if he was continued a prisoner." N. he came, and we drank in Mr. Dagge's parlour one negus and two pints of wine. He told me, the city were highly exasperated at my Satire*, and that some of the merchants would, by way of revenge, subscribe the two and four-pence to confine me still. But this I looked on as bravado, and treated it with contempt. One day last week Mr. Dagge, finding me at the door, asked me to take a walk with him, which I did a mile beyond Baptist Mill, in Gloucestershire; where, at a public-house, he treated me with ale and toddy. Baptist Mill is the pleasantest walk near this city. I found the smell of the new-mown hay very sweet, and every breeze was reviving to my spirits. I had forgot, when I mentioned Crozier, to tell you, that, when he was alive, Mr. Dagge offered him to take the note he charged me with, in lieu of a debt which Crozier owed him, in order that the said Crozier might have been no bar to my release, had Madam Wolf Bitch been pleased to consent to it as far as it related to her ladyship. This Mr. Dagge offered of his own accord, which made it still a more generous action. When I appeared at the Guildhall, the court paid me great deference and respect. Is the devil always to possess that worthless fellow Saunders? can he never open his mouth in conversation, but out of it must issue a lie? can he never set to writing a letter, but immediately a lie must drop from his pen upon the paper? I have a copy of what I wrote to him, taken by Mr. Weaver; and I shewed the original to the two reverend gentlemen, Mr. Price and Mr. Davies, before I sent it, who can all three attest that I have not mentioned you as my author for one of those facts for which the dog says I have mentioned you. As for the impudent manner in which he says I wrote to him, those words shall cost him dear, unless he retracts them, and asks my pardon under his own hand-writing. He sent me an answer to mine, stuffed with prevarication, poor weak reasoning, and false facts; beginning in the haughty style of an emperor, and ending in the low fawning, fearful air of a spaniel. I intend very shortly to expose him in print, as he deserves, and paste him up at the Tolzey, as he has done Mr. Hooke before: and I shall let him know by a message he may depend upon this, unless he pays you the note he owes you, with legal interest and asks of me forgiveness. Mr. Davies is frequently here. Mr. Price visits me in a friendly manner, and not long ago sent me a present of *«London and Bristol delineated." |