The Abbé Resnel says,--"L'illustre Dryden l'a porté comme _Poète du
Roy_," which rather reduces its academic dignity; and adds, "Le Sieur
Cyber, comédien de profession, est actuellement en possession du titre
de Poète Lauréate, et qu'il jouit en même tems de deux cens livres
sterling de pension, à la charge de présenter tous les ans, deux
pièces de vers à la famille royale."

I am afraid, however, the Abbé drew upon his imagination for the
amount of the salary; and that he would find the people were never so
hostile to the court as to sanction so heavy an infliction upon the
royal family, as they would have met with from the quit-rent ode, the
peppercorn of praise paid by Elkanah Settle, Cibber, or H.J. Pye.

The Abbé, however, is not so amusing in his mistake (if mistaken)
relative to this point, as I find another foreign author has been
upon two Poet Laureates, Dryden and Settle. Vincenzo Lancetti, in his
_Pseudonimia Milano_, 1836, tells us:--

"Anche la durezza di alcuni cognomi ha più volte consigliato
un raddolcimento, che li rendesse più facili a pronunziarsi.
Percio Macloughlin divenne Macklin; Machloch, Mallet; ed
Elkana Settle fu poi ---- John Dryden!"

--a metamorphose greater, I suspect, than any to be found in Ovid, and
a transmigration of soul far beyond those imagined by the philosophers
of the East.

S.H.

Athenæum.