up the cause, and the House of Commons have gained an entire victory.* Though under the rose, I am of opinion, that much of the confidence is abated on either side, and that whensoever they meet next, it will give that House a farther occasion of encroaching on the prerogative and the Lords; for they, who beare the purse, will rule. The Parliament being risen, my cousin Driden will immediately be with you, and, I be.ieve, return his thanks in person. All this while I am lame at home, and have not stirr'd abroad this moneth at least. Neither my wife nor

• King William had made large grants of lands out of the forfeited estates in Ireland, to his foreign servants, Portland, Albemarle, Rochford, Galway, and Athlone, and to his favourite, Lady Orkney. The Commons, who now watched every step of their deli verer with bitter jealousy,appointed a commission to inquire into the value of these grants; and followed it with a bill for resuming and applying them to the payment of public debt;" and, in order to prevent the bill from being defeated in the House of Lords, they, by a form seldom used, and which very seldom should be used, tacked it to their bill of supply, so that the Lords could not refuse the one, without disappointing the other. The Lords, to secure themselves from that insignificancy, to which the form of the bill tended to reduce them, disputed, in some conferences with the Commons, the form of it with warmth; but the resumption which it contained with indifference. And in both houses, even the servants of the crown gave themselves little trouble to defeat it; partly to gain popularity, but more from national antipathy to foreigners, and envy at gifts in which themselves were no sharers. The King, making allowances for national weaknesses, and for those of human nature, passed the bill without any complaint in public, but with a generous indignation in private, which perhaps made the blow fall more heavy on his friends, when, in order to soften it, he said to them, that it was for his sake, and not for their own, they were suffering," -Dalrymple's Annals. William felt so deeply the unkindness offered to him, that he prorogued the Parliament without the usual ceremony of a speech from the throne.

Charles are well, but have intrusted their service in my hand. I humbly add my own to the unwilling High Sheriff, and wish him fairly at an end of his trouble.

The latter end of last week, I had the honour of a visite from my cousine, your mother, and my cousine Dorothy, with which I was much comforted. Within this moneth there will be play'd, for my profit, an old play of Fletcher's, call'd the "Pilgrim," corrected by my good friend Mr. Vanbrook; to which I have added a new masque; and am to write a new prologue and epilogue. Southern's tragedy, call'd the "Revolt of Capua, will be play'd at Betterton's house within this fortnight. I am out with that Company, and therefore, if I can help it, will not read it before 'tis acted, though the authour much desires I shou'd. Do not think I will refuse a present from fair hands; for I am resolved to save my bacon. I beg your pardon for this slovenly letter; but I have not health to transcribe it. My service to my cousin, your brother, who, I heare, is happy in your company, which he is not who most desires it, and who is, Madam, Your most obliged obedient

For Mrs. Stuart,

Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

Att Cotterstock, near Oundle,

in Northamptonshyre, These. To be left with the Postmaster of Oundle.

• Mr. Steward.

† More commonly called Vanbrugh. In Dryden's age, the spelling of proper names was not punctiliously adhered to.

1 Dryden died on the 1st of May, and this letter was written on the 11th of the preceding month. The prologue and epilogue were therefore composed within less than a month of his death.

له.