of Scott's remarks as to Davenant's poetical position and his influence
on Dryden, but the reader might draw a mistaken inference from those
remarks as to the date of the poem.--ED.]

[41] "The Duke of Monmouth returned on Saturday from New-Market. To-day
I waited on him, and first presented him with your letter, which he read
all over very attentively; and then prayed me to assure you, that he
would, upon all occasions, be most ready to give you the marks of his
affection, and assist you in any affairs you should recommend to him. I
then delivered him the six broad pieces, telling him, that I was deputed
to blush on your behalf for the meanness of the present, etc.; but he
took me off, and said he thanked you for it, and accepted it as a token
of your kindness. He had, before I came in, as I was told, considered
what to do with the gold; and but that I by all means prevented the
offer, or I had been in danger of being reimbursed with it."--ANDREW
MARVELL'S _Works_, vol. i. p. 210; _Letter to the Mayor of Hull_.

[42] From Driden to Dryden.

[43] Shadwell makes Dryden say, that after some years spent at the
university, he came to London. "At first I struggled with a great deal
of persecution, took up with a lodging which had a window no bigger than
a pocket looking-glass, dined at a three-penny ordinary enough to starve
a vacation tailor, kept little company, went clad in homely drugget, and
drunk wine as seldom as a rechabite, or the grand seignior's confessor."
The old gentleman, who corresponded with the "Gentleman's Magazine," and
remembered Dryden before the rise of his fortunes, mentions his suit of
plain drugget, being, by the bye, the same garb in which he has clothed
Flecnoe, who "coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came."