Whether we judge of the rank which Dryden held in society by the splendour of his titled and powerful friends, or by his connections among men of genius, we must consider him as occupying at this time, as high a station in the very foremost circle as literary reputation could gain for its owner. Independent of the notice with which he was honoured by Charles himself, the poet numbered among his friends most of the distinguished nobility. The great Duke of Ormond had already begun that connection which subsisted between Dryden and three generations of the house of Butler; Thomas Lord Clifford, one of the Cabal ministry, was uniform in patronising the poet, and appears to have been active in introducing him to the king's favour; the Duke of Newcastle, as we have seen, loved him sufficiently to present him with a play for the stage; the witty Earl of Dorset, then Lord Buckhurst, and Sir Charles Sedley, admired in that loose age for the peculiar elegance of his loose poetry, were his intimate associates, as is evident from the turn of the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy," where they are speakers; Wilmot Earl of Rochester (soon to act a very different part) was then anxious to vindicate Dryden's writings, to mediate for him with those who distributed the royal favour, and was thus careful, not only of his reputation, but his fortune. In short, the first author of what was then held the first style of poetry, was sought for by all among the great and gay who wished to maintain some character for literary taste; a description which included all of the court of Charles whom nature had not positively incapacitated from such pretension. It was then Dryden enjoyed those genial nights described in the dedication of the "Assignation," when discourse was neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant, and for the most part instructive; the raillery neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious upon the absent; and the cups such only as raised the conversation of the night, without disturbing the business of the morrow. He had not yet experienced the disadvantages attendant on such society, or learned how soon literary eminence becomes the object of detraction, of envy, of injury, even from those who can best feel its merit, if they are discouraged by dissipated habits from emulating its flight, or hardened by perverted feeling against loving its possessors.