lament the loss of Mr. Dryden very much. The honours paid to him have
done our countrymen no small service; for, next to having so
considerable a man of our own growth, 'tis a reputation to have known
how to value him; as patrons very often pass for wits, by esteeming
those that are so." And from another authority we learn, that the
engraved copies of Dryden's portrait were bought up with avidity on the
Continent.[3]

But it was in England where the loss of Dryden was chiefly to be felt.
It is seldom the extent of such a deprivation is understood, till it has
taken place; as the size of an object is best estimated, when we see the
space void which it had long occupied. The men of literature, starting
as it were from a dream, began to heap commemorations, panegyrics, and
elegies: the great were as much astonished at their own neglect of such
an object of bounty, as if the same had never been practised before; and
expressed as much compunction, as it were never to occur again. The
poets were not silent; but their strains only evinced their woful
degeneracy from him whom they mourned. Henry Playford, a publisher of
music, collected their effusions into a compilation, entitled, "Luctus
Britannici, or the Tears of the British Muses, for the death of John
Dryden;" which he published about two months after Dryden's death.[4]
Nine ladies, assuming each the character of a Muse, and clubbing a
funeral ode, or elegy, produced "The Nine Muses;" of which very rare
(and very worthless) collection, I have given a short account in the
Appendix; where the reader will also find an ode on the same subject, by
Oldys, which may serve for ample specimen of the poetical lamentations
over Dryden.

The more costly, though equally unsubstantial, honour of a monument, was
projected by Montague; and loud were the acclamations of the poets on
his generous forgiveness of past discords with Dryden, and the
munificence of this universal patron. But Montague never accomplished
his purpose, if he seriously entertained it. Pelham, Duke of Newcastle,
announced the same intention; received the panegyric of Congreve for
having done so; and having thus pocketed the applause, proceeded no
further than Montague had done. At length Pope, in some lines which were
rather an epitaph on Dryden, who lay in the vicinity, than on Rowe, over
whose tomb they were to be placed,[5] roused Dryden's original patron,
Sheffield, formerly Earl of Mulgrave, and now Duke of Buc