1659: it, however, was acted for the first time at the Duke's Theatre, in 1672; and it is extremely improbable that he should have had it ten or twelve years by him after the restoration of the theatres, at which time he was certainly in great want of money, living in the Temple, and consorting with such expensive companions as Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, &c. The Gentleman Dancing-Master was first acted in 1673; the Country Wife, in 1675; and the Plain Dealer, in 1677; at which time he was at least thirty-seven, perhaps thirtynine.-M.

Lord Rochester's character of Wycherly is quite wrong. He was far from being slow in general, and in particular wrote the Plain Dealer in three weeks.-Mr. Pope.

There are several verses of mine inserted in Mr. Wycherly's poems here and there, and particularly in those on Solitude, on a Life of Business, and on a Middle Life.Mr. Pope.

Wycherly used to read himself asleep o' nights, either in Montaigne, Rochefou

cault, Seneca, or Gratian, for these were his four favourite authors. He would read one or other of them in the evening, and the next morning perhaps write a copy of verses on some subject similar to what he had been reading, and have several of their thoughts, only expressed in a different turn; and that without knowing that he was obliged to them for any one thought in the whole poem. I have experienced this in him several times (for I visited him for a whole winter almost every evening and morning), and look upon it as one of the strangest phænomenons that ever I observed in the human mind.-The same.

The nobleman look.-Yes, I know very well what you mean-that look which noblemen should have, rather than what they have generally now.

The Duke of Buckingham was a genteel man, and had a great deal of the look you speak of. Wycherly was a very genteel man, and had the nobleman look as much as the Duke of Buckingham.-The same.

[He instanced it, too, in Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Peterborough, the late Lord Hinchinbroke, the Duke of Bolton, and two or three more.]

SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. Sheffield Duke of Buckingham's famous essay has certainly been cried up much more than it deserves, though corrected a good deal by Dryden.. It was this which set him up for a poet; and he has resolved to keep up that character, if he could, by any means fair or foul. Could any thing be more impudent than his publishing that satire, for writing which Dryden was beaten. in Rose-alley (and which was so remarkably known by the name of the Rose-alley Satire), as his own? Indeed, he made a few alterations in it; but these were only verbal, and generally for the worse.-Lockier.

The Duke of Buckingham was superficial in every thing, even in poetry, which was his forte.-Mr. Pope.

Mr. Pope altered some verses in the

Duke of Buckingham's Essay on Poetry, as he did several in Wycherly's poems.The same.

PRIOR.

Lord Bathurst * used to call Prior his verseman, and Lewis his proseman. Prior, indeed, was nothing out of verse, and was less fit for business even than Addison, though he piqued himself much upon his talents for it. What a simple thing was it to say upon his tombstone, that he was writing a history of his own times! He could not write in a style fit for history; and I dare say he never had set down a word toward any such thing.-The same.

He

Prior was not a right good man. used to bury himself for whole day's and nights together with a poor mean creature, and often drank hard. He turned from

* This is undoubtedly a mistake of Mr. Spence. Lord Oxford must have been the person here mentioned by Pope. Lewis was, I think, Lord Oxford's secretary. Bathurst had no particular connexion with Prior. Harley had; and was his constant patron.-M.

K

a strong Whig, which he had been when most with Lord Halifax, to a violent Tory, and did not care to converse with any Whigs after, any more than Rowe did with Tories.-The same.

Prior left most of his effects to the poor woman he kept company with, his Chloe. Every body knows what a wretch she was. I think she had been a little alehousekeeper's wife.-The same.

1730. Prior kept every thing by him, even to all his school-exercises. There's a MS. collection of this kind in his servant Drift's hands, which contains at least half as much as all his published works; and there are nine or ten copies of verses among them which I thought much better than several things he himself published: in particular, I remember there was a dialogue of about two hundred verses, between Apollo and Daphne, which pleased me as much as any thing of his I ever read.-The same.

There are also four dialogues in prose, between persons of a character very strongly opposed to one another, which I