John Dryden and the Earl of Mulgrave : a study in the literary patronage of the Restoration

Vita.Prom approximately 1675 until 1700, John Dryden and John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave were allied as poet and patron. Dryden received financial assistance as well as encouragement from his patron. More important, Dryden and Mulgrave shared similar ideas about satire, poetic composition, and the art of translation. For over twenty years, Dryden and Mulgrave were friends as well as collaborators who reflected the mainstream of thought of their day. The extent and nature of this patron-poet relationship is the subject of this investigation. In the 1670s, Dryden and Mulgrave were involved in literary rivalries. For a decade, Dryden and Mulgrave were satirized by poets such as Rochester, an enemy of Mulgrave's and a cast-off patron of Dryden's. Rochester was particularly piqued that Dryden and Mulgrave were allied; as a result, poems such as "My Lord All-Pride" and "An Allusion to Horace" rail at both Dryden and his patron. Dryden states a hope for support from Mulgrave in the 1675 Dedication to Aureng-Zebe, and calls Rochester an anti-patron in the 1677 Preface to All for Love. In the late 1670s, Dryden and Mulgrave wrote satires which reflected the impulse of a cynical age. Dryden's MacFlecknoe (1678) admonishes the faults of Shadwell, a rival of Dryden's, through raillery. Mulgrave, in An Essav on Satyre (1679), also uses raillery to illustrate the follies of Whig politicians, the king's mistresses, and court wits (including Rochester).