The Duke, whose Character had some Bluntness in it, said, _Sir, Is this the Way to encourage Learning: The Lady deserves well of your Majesty and the Publick, and if you will not reward her your self, suffer me to give her 100 Pistoles, I matter not whether I am paid again_: or Words to that Effect. This Learned Lady was far from being an Enemy to the Government as _Dryden_ was, and he did not stick to shew it upon all Occasions, even when he was pension'd by my Lord Chamberlain. The Truth is, he was like fond Fathers who can see no Faults in their Children; and as to his hasty Writing, 'tis pretty well known that as easy as his Verses appear to be, he came hard by them: He thought it a good Day's Work if he could finish 40 Verses a Day; and some learned _Antiquaries_, I suppose from a _MSS._ of _Virgil_'s Amanuensis, assure us, that _Maro_ wrote as many, and drawing them off the _Lee_ afterwards, in his Poetical Limbeck, reduced them to Ten. _Godeau_, Bishop of _Vence_, us'd to write 2 or 300 Verses a-day. I my self paid a Visit once to a Verse-maker in an Afternoon, and saw 200 political Verses on his Table, which he told me he had written since Dinner: By this Dispatch he soon furnish'd out a _Folio_. _Dryden_ was so far from spying Blemishes in his Works, that he often took them for Beauties, and particularly what the _Italians_ call _Concetti_. This noted Rant in the _Conq. Gran._ _I, alone am King of Me._ is happily imitated by him in his _State of Innocence_: _I my self am proud of Me_. But to criticise on _Dryden_'s Prefaces and Plays is a much greater Labour than to copy them all over, and equally ungenerous and impertinent: If any one will compare his _Fall of Man_ with _Milton_'s Paradise lost, he will quickly perceive to which of them it is that the _noble Genius_ is to be apply'd; and if it belongs to _Milton_, some other Epithet should be thought of for _Dryden_.