re on the
immorality of the stage, after the Restoration, terms "Dryden, the
greatest master of dramatic poesy, a monster of immodesty and of
impurity of all sorts." The expression called forth the animated defence
of Granville, Lord Lansdowne, our author's noble friend. "All who knew
him," said Lansdowne, "can testify this was not his character. He was so
much a stranger to immodesty, that modesty in too great a degree was his
failing: he hurt his fortune by it, he complained of it, and never could
overcome it. He was," adds he, "esteemed, courted, and admired, by all
the great men of the age in which he lived, who would certainly not have
received into friendship a monster abandoned to all sorts of vice and
impurity. His writings will do immortal honour to his name and country,
and his poems last as long, if I may have leave to say it, as the
Bishop's sermons, supposing them to be equally excellent in their
kind."[59]

The Bishop's youngest son, Thomas Burnet, in replying to Lord Lansdowne,
explained his father's last expressions as limited to Dryden's plays,
and showed, by doing so, that there was no foundation for fixing this
gross and dubious charge upon his private moral character.

Dryden's conduct as a father, husband, and master of a family, seems to
have been affectionate, faithful, and, so far as his circumstances
admitted, liberal and benevolent. The whole tenor of his correspondence
bears witness to his paternal feelings; and even when he was obliged to
have recourse to Tonson's immediate assistance to pay for the presents
he sent them, his affection vented itself in that manner. As a husband,
if Lady Elizabeth's peculiarities of temper precluded the idea of a warm
attachment, he is not upbraided with neglect or infidelity by any of his
thousand assailants. As a landlord, Mr. Malone has informed us, on the
authority of Lady Dryden, that "his little estate at Blakesley is at
this day occupied by one Harriots, grandson of the tenant who held it in
Dryden's time; and he relates, that his grandfather was used to take
great pleasure in talking of our poet. He was, he said, the easiest and
the kindest landlord in the world, and never raised the rent during the
whole time he possessed the estate."

Some circumstances, however, may seem to degrade so amiable a private,
so sublime a poetical character. The licence of his comedy, as we have
seen, had for it only the apology of universal example, and must be
lament