First line: ‘Thou Common Shore of this Poetic Town,’ Subscribed: ‘John Dryden 1677’.
Motto: ‘Quo liciat [sic] libris non licet ire mihi, | Turpiter huc illuc ingeniosus eo’ (an adaptation of Ovid, Amores, III. viii. 6, 8). First line: ‘Hear me, dull Prostitute, worse than a Wife’. The attribution to Dryden in the title is satirical.
First line: ‘To you who hang like Mecha’s Tomb’.
Headed ‘A Letter from Mr Dryden, to Sir George Etheridge.’ First line: ‘To you, who live in Chill Degree’.
(First line: ‘How Dull, and how Insensible a Beast’. Attributed to ‘Dreyden’ in the table of contents.)
First line: ‘Here lies a Creature of Indulgent Fate’.
A agrees to translate ‘with all the convenient speed from the Latin into English verse all the Eclogues Georgics and Eneid of Virgil and prepare them for the press with such notes preface or dedication as he shall think most fitting’. He agrees not to write, translate, or publish anything else until he has finished this work, except for the translation of ‘a little French Book of painting’ which he has agreed to make for ‘some Gentlemen Virtuoso’s and Painters’; the writing of any new original poem or book of prose not exceeding the price of 1s. when printed; and the publication of a comedy by his son John Dryden (The Husband his Own Cuckold), and the writing of the prologue, epilogue, or songs for that play. B will have the copyright in the translation of Virgil, and will pay A in return £200 in instalments when specified parts of it are complete. B will provide at his own costs all the brass cuts or plates formerly printed with Ogilby’s translation of Virgil in folio which can be obtained, buy so many more as are wanting to complete the number of one hundred (excluding Ogilby’s portrait and the frontispiece), and print them as directed by A. B agrees that he will endeavour to find as many people as there are cuts in the book to subscribe 5 guineas each (payable in instal-ments, as specified), to be paid to (A) for each of the books delivered to these persons. The names and arms of the subscribers will be engraved on their respective plates. Any money paid to B by any person over the said 5 guineas shall be paid to A, and A will give B a receipt for it, and B agrees to make oath before a Master in Chancery how much subscription money he has received, and to pay these sums to A on request. B will deliver to A as many books as he wants of the same, size, volume, letter, and paper, as the aforementioned hundred volumes, and including the same prints, for which A will pay as much above the selling price of the said books on common paper as the charge of printing on the best paper amounts to. Any difference between the parties on this point is to be left to the determination in writing of three persons to be chosen by them. There shall be no more copies printed on fine paper than those which are subscribed for, and B shall not make any proposals for printing a second edition until A has disposed of the books which are to be subscribed for. When A has completed the translation as far as Book VI of the Aeneid he may publish advertisements in the Gazette or elsewhere, giving notice that only subscribers can have books on fine paper, and advising the date on which subscriptions are to be received, and when A has completed his translation he will declare the number of books to be printed on fine paper, which B will print accordingly. If one hundred subscribers are not found by the time the translation of Book VI of the Aeneid is completed, A will return to B the subscription money he has received, and A shall be free to make a new agreement with B or any other person for the translation, and B will return to A as much of the translation as he has received. For the performance of this agreement the parties mutually bind themselves in £200.
(Transcript in an unidentified hand.)
(Dated Saturday. Probably written about the same time as O.13.1, No. 111.)
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Saturday
My Dear Sir!
The picture of my children 5 or 6 years ago, {1} but very like still, I sent, this morning; for you & Mrs T. to see. You can return it on monday; when I will beg you to lend Sophy another body-colour drawing, & Mary Anne another of Mortimer’s, w[hic]h I think Mrs T. was good enough to say she c[oul]d borrow. The bearer brings Mrs T.’s two, & their copies. Sophy has purposely made hers lighter, as I thought yours was too Penseroso; I being fond of the pleasant saddle honest Dryden mentions in his dedication of Virgil, “w[hic]h will be sure to amble, when {2} the world is upon the hardest trot”. Give me gay sunshine; or moonlight, w[hic]h does not add to the gloominess of scenes always gloomy enough.
Dont† forget, if we ever get a good day, to give Sophy a lesson in botany, at Downes’s garden, some morning; as {3} I expect she understands a little. When she leaves Yarmouth (in a fortnight or so, I imagine) she will, I am sure, be happy if Mrs T. can charge her with any commissions in Town. Tomorrow ev[enin]g I mean to come & sit with you.
Ever most truly y[ou]rs
H. Croft
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Letters missing from words abbreviated by superscript letters have been supplied in square brackets.
{1} Presumably the painting of his three daughters as cherubim, attributed to Lemuel Francis Abbott, now in the possession of the National Trust.
{2} This word, which is at the beginning of a line, is preceded by opening inverted commas.
{3} This word resembles ‘or’ more closely, but ‘as’ makes more sense.
† Sic.
(Unsigned.)
No English poet can honour Calderon with the true sympathy of a compatriot, but an elevated style would convey appropriate feelings: 'No modern Aesthetic & Philosophy of the Wordsworth-Arnold School [will] do for the People, I am sure'. Dryden's Alexander's Feats, 'immeasurably the finest ode in our Language' a suitable model. Why not abandon the competition and instead commission an ode from a master such as Swinburne?; with his talent he could learn enough of Spanish in a month to achieve a complete understanding of the task; open competition will yield very little of value; Swinburne is the very best man for the purpose. Postscript: 'Our old Alfred [Tennyson] has. I think, been out of the Question this long while'.
Wallington, Cambo, Morpeth (corrected from printed Northumberland'). - Has finished "Sisyphus" more quickly than he meant to, as it 'drew [him] on', but still read it carefully; liked the second act very much, and a large part of the third. As with 'all pieces of fancy', the difficulties come with the 'finishing up'; this is 'very marked' in [Dryden's] "Absalom and Achitophel" and many of [W. S.] Gilbert's pieces, and Sir George himself 'found it absolutely impossible' to continue the 'story [emphasised]' of his "Ladies in Parliament" and 'turned it off into political declamation'. Expects the last part of Sisyphus 'would do in a musical comedy'. They [he and Caroline] were much delighted by the photographs of 'dear little Paul' which Elizabeth has sent. Is glad is 'going in against the Lords', who 'began kicking us' three years before Sir George was born and 'have gone on with it ever since'. Agrees with Robert that the Lords are 'very likely to amend the budget, or to throw it out'.
1 folded sheet with W. D. Christie's notes; 1 folded sheet with 'Notes on Mr Christie's notes' by W. A. Wright.
c/o A[ubrey] Waterfield Esq., La Fortezza, Aulla, Lunigiana, Italy. - Was very interested in Everett's two essays; what he says about Shakespeare [in "Six Cleopatras", "The Atlantic Monthly" (February 1905) 252-263] seems 'very just', and if he knew the other Cleopatras would probably agree with Everett's thoughts on them too. Ashamed to say he has never read the Dryden ["All for Love or, the World Well Lost"] though he has long meant to; the version by Delphine Gay [de Girardin] also sounds interesting. Finds it harder to agree totally with Everett's paper on Catullus and Horace ["Catullus vs Horace", "Harvard Studies in Classical Philology" 12 (1901): 7-17]; glad to hear Horace praised, as he is 'often now unjustly deprecated', but obviously thinks more of Catullus than Everett does. Though he admits the faults Everett finds, nothing in Horace appeals to him 'personally in the way that the Attys and the first Epithalium [sic: of Catullus] do'. Responds to a few of Everett's criticisms in detail, and says he would 'be prepared to defend Catullus as one of the very greatest poets in the world'. Everett's 'comparison of [Sophocles'] "Ajax" with "Othello" is 'a very just one'; agrees in some respects with what Everett says about the play, though feels the 'repulsive and sordid elements' may be needed to relieve Othello's characters, which is 'essentially noble and beautiful'. Thanks Everett for sending him Mr [William?] Bradford's poems; was much interested in them but disappointed; did not care for the lyrics and, though the sonnets read well, he found htem 'lacking in real poetical quality'; seems to him a difficult genre of poetry to succeed in, though Wordsworth's "Extinction of the Venetian Republic" and sonnet about Toussaint L'Ouverture show what may be done. Is writing a 'lyrical drama on Ariadne and Theseus ["The Bride of Dionysus"]... intended as a libretto for a musical friend [Donald Tovey]". The last act 'will be the most difficult, and should be the best'.
(Oxford?)—Suggests further examples of books containing illustrations.
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Portraits 1660-1700 usw {1}
Cowley 1668
Ormida 1667(?)
Dryden 1700?
Temple 1720(?)
Clarendon 1701
Waller
[*To the right of the foregoing list is written:] Many of these are fine engravings by Faithorne {2} etc.
RWC
24/12/26
RBMcK
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{1} ‘und so weiter’ (German), i.e. ‘etc.’
{2} William Faithorne the elder.