The Dramatic Works of John Dryden, Volume 1: With a Life of the AuthorScott, Walter
General
The Dramatic Works of John Dryden, Volume 1: With a Life of the Author
Scott, Walter
Dryden, John, 1631-1700
But beside the dispute about the notes in particular, and the various
advantages which Dryden suspected Tonson of attempting in the course of
the transaction, he seems to have been particularly affronted at a
presumptuous plan of that publisher (a keen Whig, and secretary of the
Kit-cat club) to drive him into inscribing the translation of Virgil to
King William. With this view, Tonson had an especial care to make the
engraver aggravate the nose of Aeneas in the plates into a sufficient
resemblance of the hooked promontory of the Deliverer's countenance;[12]
and, foreseeing Dryden's repugnance to this favourite plan, he had
recourse, it would seem, to more unjustifiable means to further it; for
the poet expresses himself as convinced that, through Tonson's means,
his correspondence with his sons, then at Rome, was intercepted.[13] I
suppose Jacob, having fairly laid siege to his author's conscience, had
no scruple to intercept all foreign supplies, which might have confirmed
him in his pertinacity. But Dryden, although thus closely beleaguered,
held fast his integrity; and no prospect of personal advantage, or
importunity on the part of Tonson, could induce him to take a step
inconsistent with his religious and political sentiments. It was
probably during the course of these bickerings with his publisher, that
Dryden, incensed at some refusal of accommodation on the part of Tonson,
sent him three well-known coarse and forcible satirical lines,
descriptive of his personal appearance:
"With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair,
And frowzy pores, that taint the ambient air."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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