he could not imagine or appreciate, far less express or describe. He could pourtray a Cleopatra; but he could not conceive a Juliet. His ideas of our sex seem to have been formed from a profligate actress,[16] and a silly, wayward, provoking wife; and we have avenged ourselves,--for Dryden is not the poet of women; and, of all our English classics, is the least honoured in a lady's library. Dryden was the original of the famous repartee to be found, I believe, in every jest book: shortly after his marriage, Lady Elizabeth, being rather annoyed at her husband's very studious habits, wished herself _a book_, that she might have a little more of his attention.--"Yes, my dear," replied Dryden, "an almanack."--"Why an almanack?" asked the wife innocently.--"Because then, my dear, I should change you once a year." The laugh, of course, is on the side of the wit; but Lady Elizabeth was a young spoiled beauty of rank, married to a man she loved; and her wish, methinks, was very feminine and natural: if it was spoken with petulance and bitterness, it deserved the repartee; if with tenderness and playfulness, the wit of the reply can scarcely excuse its ill-nature. Addison married the Countess of Warwick. Poor man! I believe his patrician bride did every thing but beat him. His courtship had been long, timid, and anxious; and at length, the lady was persuaded to marry him, on terms much like those on which a Turkish Princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, "Daughter, I give thee this man to be thy slave."[17] They were only three years married, and those were years of bitterness. Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, married Lady Elizabeth Lee, the daughter of the Earl of Litchfield, and grand-daughter of the too famous, or more properly, infamous Duchess of Cleveland:--the marriage was not a happy one. I think, however, in the two last instances, the ladies were not entirely to blame. But these, it will be said, are the wives of poets, not the loves of the poets; and the phrases are not synonymus,--_au contraire_. This is a question to be asked and examined; and I proceed to examine it accordingly. But as I am about to take the field on new ground, it will require a new chapter. FOOTNOTES: [11] Daughter of the first Earl of Devonshire, of the Cavendish family. She was celebrated by Sidney Godolphin in some very sweet lines, which contain a lovely female portrait. Waller's verses on her sudden death are remarkable for a signal instance of the Bathos, That horrid word, at once like lightning spread, Struck all our ears,--_the Lady Rich is dead_! [12] See Waller, Carew, D'Avenant: the latter has paid her some exquisite compliments. [13] Sir Philip Sydney's Works, "Defence of Poesie." [14] Scott's Life of Dryden, p. 89. [15] With the exception of the dedication of his Palamon and Arcite to the young and beautiful Duchess of Ormonde (Lady Anne Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort.)