nor, with a present of _six broad pieces_; and his
grace deemed it a point of civility to press the acceptance of the same
gratuity upon the member of parliament for the city, by whom it was
delivered to him.[41] We may therefore believe, that Dryden received
some compliment from the king and chancellor; and I am afraid the same
premises authorise us to conclude that it was but trifling. Meantime,
our author having no settled means of support, except his small landed
property, and having now no assistance to expect from his more wealthy
kinsmen, to whom, probably, neither his literary pursuits, nor his
commencing them by a panegyric on the restoration, were very agreeable,
and whom he had also offended by a slight change in spelling his
name,[42] seems to have been reduced to narrow and uncomfortable
circumstances. Without believing, in its full extent, the exaggerated
account given by Brown and Shadwell,[43] we may discover from their
reproaches, that, at the commencement of his literary career, Dryden was
connected, and probably lodged, with Herringman the bookseller, in the
New Exchange, for whom he wrote prefaces, and other occasional pieces.
But having, as Mr. Malone has observed, a patrimony, though a small one,
of his own, it seems impossible that our author was ever in that state
of mean and abject dependence, which the malice of his enemies
afterwards pretended. The same malice misrepresented, or greatly
exaggerated, the nature of Dryden's obligations to Sir Robert Howard,
with whom he became acquainted probably about the time of the
Restoration, whose influence was exerted in his favour, and whose good
offices the poet returned by literary assistance.

Sir Robert Howard was a younger son of Thomas Earl of Berkshire,[44]
and, like all his family, had distinguished himself as a royalist,
particularly at the battle of Cropredy[45] Bridge. He had recently
suffered a long imprisonment in Windsor Castle during the usurpation.
His rank and merits made him, after the Restoration, a patron of some
consequence; and upon his publishing a collection of verses very soon
after that period, Dryden prefixed an address "to his honoured friend"
on "his excellent poems." Sir Robert Howard understood the value of
Dryden's attachment, introduced him into his family, and probably aided
in procuring his productions that degree of attention from the higher
world, for want of which the most valuable efforts of genius have often
sunk i