I confess freely to your Grace, I very much
admire all those other donations, but I much more love this; and I
cannot help it, if I am naturally more delighted with any thing that
is amiable, than with any thing that is wonderful.
Whoever shall censure me, I dare be confident, you, my Lord, will
excuse me for any thing that I shall say with due regard to a
gentleman, for whose person I had as just an affection as I have
an admiration of his writings. And indeed Mr Dryden had personal
qualities to challenge both love and esteem from all who were truly
acquainted with him.
He was of a nature exceedingly humane and compassionate; easily
forgiving injuries, and capable of a prompt and sincere reconciliation
with them who had offended him.
Such a temperament is the only solid foundation of all moral virtues
and sociable endowments. His friendship, where he professed it,
went much beyond his professions; and I have been told of strong and
generous instances of it by the persons themselves who received them,
though his hereditary income was little more than a bare competency.
As his reading had been very extensive, so was he very happy in a
memory, tenacious of every thing that he had read. He was not more
possessed of knowledge than he was communicative of it.
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