ct upon her government, and that she had commanded
Rymer to return to the charge, by a criticism on Dryden's plays. But the
breach does not appear to have become wider; and Dryden has elsewhere
mentioned Rymer with civility.

The Third Miscellany contained, of Dryden's poetry, a few songs, the
first book, with part of the ninth and sixteenth books of the
Metamorphoses, and the parting of Hector and Andromache, from the Iliad.
It was also to have had the poem of Hero and Leander, from the Greek;
but none such appeared, nor is it clear whether Dryden ever executed the
version, or only had it in contemplation. The contribution, although
ample, was not satisfactory to old Jacob Tonson, who wrote on the
subject a most mercantile expostulatory letter[8] to Dryden, which is
fortunately the minutiae of a literary bargain in the 17th century.
Tonson, with reference to Dryden having offered a strange bookseller six
hundred lines for twenty guineas, enters into a question in the rule of
three, by which he discovers, and proves, that for fifty guineas he has
only 1446 lines, which he seems to take more unkindly, as he had not
_counted_ the lines until he had paid the money; from all which Jacob
infers, that Dryden ought, out of generosity, at least to throw him in
something to the bargain, especially as he had used him more kindly in
Juvenal, which, saith the said Jacob, is not reckoned so easy to
translate as Ovid. What weight was given to this supplication does not
appear; probably very little, for the translations were not extended,
and as to getting back any part of the copy-money, it is not probable
Tonson's most sanguine expectation ever reached that point. Perhaps the
songs were thrown in as a make-weight. There was a Fourth Miscellany
published in 1694; but to this Dryden only gave a version of the third
Georgic, and his Epistle to Sir Godfrey Kneller, the requital of a copy
of the portrait of Shakespeare.[9]

In 1963, Dryden addressed the beautiful lines to Congreve, on the cold
reception of his "Double Dealer." He was himself under a similar cloud,
from the failure of "Love Triumphant," and therefore in a fit mood to
administer consolation to his friend. The epistle contains, among other
striking passages, the affecting charge of the care of his posthumous
fame, which Congreve did not forget when Dryden was no more.

But, independently of occasional exertions, our author, now retired from
the stage, had bent his thought