Wycherly is full as competent an arbitrator; he

has been a bachelor, and marryed man, and is now

a widower. Virgil says of Ceneus,



■ Nunc vir, nunc fxmina, Ceneus,



Rursus et in veteremfato revoluta figuram.
Yet I suppose he will not give any large com-
mendations to his middle state : nor, as the sailer
said, will be fond after a shipwrack to put to sea
again.* If my friend will adventure after this, I
can but wish him a good wind, as being his, and,

My dear Mr. Dennis,

Your most affectionate

and most faithful Servant,

JoHK Dryden.
* Dryden's evil opinion of the state of matrimony never fails
to glance forth upon such occasions as the present.
1 20 PEYDEN S LETTERS.
LETTER XII. y

TO MR. JACOB TONSON.
The copy money for translating the ^neid loas fifty pounds
for each Book. The rising of the second subscription seems to
allude to the practice affixing a day, after which no subscriptions
were to be received except on payment of an advanced price. The
first subscribers to Dryden's Virgil paid five guineas ; a plate
was dedicated to each of them, and ornamented with his arms.
A second class paid two guineas only, and were not so honoured.
In the subsequent letters there occur several allusions to these
arrangements, and to the transference of names from the higher
to tJie lower class.
Wednesday morning.
