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MVSEVM BRITAN NICVM

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BRITISH

MUSEUM

DRYDEN.

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F the great poet whofe life I am about to delineate, the curiofity which his reputation must excite, will require a dif play more ample than can now be given. His contemporaries, however they reverenced his genius, left his life unwritten; and nothing therefore can be known beyond what cafual mention and uncertain tradition have fupplied.

JOHN DRYDEN was born Auguft 9, 1631, at Aldwinkle near Oundle, the son of Erafmus Dryden of Tichmerth; who was the third fon of Sir Erafmas Dryden, Baronet, of Canons Afhby. All these places are in NorVOL. II. thamptonshire;

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thamptonshire; but the original stock of the family was in the county of Huntingdon.

He is reported by his laft biographer, Derrick, to have inherited from his father an eftate of two hundred a year, and to have teen bred, as was faid, an Anabaptift. For either of these particulars no authority is given. Such a fortune ought to have fecured him from that poverty which feems always to have oppreffed him; or, if he had wafted it, to have made him afhamed of publishing his neceffities. But though he had many enemies, who undoubtedly examined his life with a fcrutiny fufficiently malicious, I do not remember that he is ever charged with wafte of his patrimony. He was indeed fometimes reproached for his first religion. I am therefore inclined to believe that Derrick's intelligence was partly true, and partly erroneous.

From Weftminfter School, where he was inftructed as one of the king's fcholars by Dr. Bufby, whom he long after continued. to reverence, he was in 1650 elected to

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