spent in study; he
dined with his family, probably about two o'clock. After dinner he went
usually to Will's Coffeehouse, the famous rendezvous of the wits of the
time, where he had his established chair by the chimney in winter, and
near the balcony in summer, whence he pronounced, _ex cathedra_, his
opinion upon new publications, and, in general, upon all matters of
dubious criticism.[60] Latterly, all who had occasion to ridicule or
attack him, represent him as presiding in this little senate.[61] His
opinions, however, were not maintained with dogmatism; and we have an
instance, in a pleasing anecdote told by Dr. Lockier,[62] that Dryden
readily listened to criticism, provided it was just, from whatever
unexpected and undignified quarter it happened to come. In general,
however, it may be supposed, that few ventured to dispute his opinion,
or place themselves of his censure. He was most falsely accused of
carrying literary jealousy to such a length, as feloniously to encourage
Creech to venture on a translation of Horace, that he might lose the
character he had gained by a version of Lucretius. But this is
positively contradicted, upon the authority of Southerne.[63]

We have so often stopped in our narrative of Dryden's life, to notice
the respectability of his general society, that little need here be said
on the subject. Although no enemy to conviviality, he is pronounced by
Pope to have been regular in his hours in comparison with Addison, who
otherwise lived the same coffee-house course of life. He has himself
told us, that he was "saturnine and reserved, and not one of those who
endeavour to entertain company by lively sallies of merriment and wit;"
and an adversary has put into his mouth this couplet--

"Nor wine nor love could ever see me gay;
To writing bred, I knew not what to say."

_Dryden's Satire to his Muse._

But the admission of the author, and the censure of the satirist, must
be received with some limitation. Dryden was thirty years old before he
was freed from the fetters of puritanism; and if the habits of lively
expression in society are not acquired before that age, they are seldom
gained afterward. But this applies only to the deficiency of repartee,
in the sharp encounter of wit which was fashionable at the court of
Charles, and cannot be understood to exclude Dryden's possessing the
more solid qualities of agreeable conversation, arising from a memory
profoundly stocked with knowled