y, by repeated, although impotent, attacks
upon the fame of Dryden, everywhere scattered through his works. With
the exception of Swift, no author of eminence, whose labours are still
in request, has ventured to assail the poetical fame of Dryden.

Shortly after the Revolution, Dryden had translated several satires of
Juvenal; and calling in the aid of his two sons, of Congreve, Creech,
Tate, and others, he was enabled, in 1692, to give a complete version
both of that satirist, and of Persius. In this undertaking he himself
bore a large share, translating the whole of Persius, with the first,
third, sixth, tenth, and sixteenth satires of Juvenal. To this version
is prefixed the noted Essay on Satire, inscribed to the Earl of Dorset
and Middlesex. In that treatise, our author exhibits a good deal of that
sort of learning which was in fashion among the French critics; and, I
suspect, was contented rather to borrow something from them, than put
himself to the trouble of compiling more valuable materials. Such is the
disquisition concerning the origin of the word _Satire_, which is
chiefly extracted from Casaubon, Dacier, and Rigault. But the poet's own
incidental remarks upon the comparative merits of Horace, Juvenal, and
Persius, his declamation against the abuse of satire, his incidental
notices respecting epic poetry, translation, and English literature in
general, render this introduction highly valuable.

Without noticing the short prefaces to Walsh's "Essay upon Woman," a
meagre and stiff composition, and to Sir Henry Shere's wretched
translation of Polybius, published in 1691 and 1692, we hasten to the
elegy on the Countess of Abingdon, entitled Eleonora. This lady died
suddenly, 31st May 1691, in a ball-room in her own house, just then
prepared for an entertainment. The disconsolate husband, who seems to
have been a patron of the Muses,[5] not satisfied with the volunteer
effusions of some minor poets, employed a mutual friend to engage Dryden
to compose a more beautiful tribute to his consort's memory. The poet,
it would seem, neither knew the lord nor the lady, but was doubtless
propitiated upon the mournful occasion;[6] nor was the application and
fee judged more extraordinary than that probably offered, on the same
occasion, to the divine who was to preach the Countess's funeral sermon.
The leading and most characteristic features of the lady's character
were doubtless pointed out to our author as subjects for