If we compute Dryden's share in the theatre at £300 annually, which is lower than it was rated by the actors in their petition;[31] if we make, at the same time, some allowance for those presents which authors of that time received upon presenting dedications, or occasional pieces of poetry; if we recollect, that Dryden had a small landed property, and that his wife, Lady Elizabeth had probably some fortune or allowance, however trifling, from her family,--I think we will fall considerably under the mark in computing the poet's income, during this period of prosperity, at £600 or £700 annually; a sum more adequate to procure all the comforts, and many of the luxuries of life, than thrice the amount at present. We must, at the same time, recollect that though Dryden is nowhere censured for extravagance, poets are seldom capable of minute economy, and that Lady Elizabeth was by education, and perhaps by nature, unfitted for supplying her husband's deficiencies. These halcyon days, too, were but of short duration. The burning of the theatre, in 1670,[32] greatly injured the poet's income from that quarter; his pension, like other appointments of the household establishment of Charles II., was very irregularly paid; and thus, if his income was competent in amount, it was precarious and uncertain. Leaving Dryden for the present in the situation which we have described, and which he occupied during the most fortunate period of his life, the next Section may open with an account of the public taste at this time, and of the revolution in it which shortly took place. FOOTNOTES: [1] Malone's "History of the Stage."