DRYDEN.

F the great poet whofe life I am

about to delineate, the curiofity which his reputation must excite, will require a display 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 9th, 1631, at Aldwincle near Ounb

dle,

dle, the fon of Erafmus Dryden of Tichmerfh; who was the third fon of Sir Erafmus Dryden, Baronet, of Canons Afhby. All these places are in Northamptonshire; 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 estate of two hundred a year, and to have been bred, as was faid, an Anabaptift. For either of thefe 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 wasted it, to have made him afhamed of publishing his neceffities. But though he had

many

many enemies, who undoubtedly examined his life with a fcrutiny fufficiently malicious, I do not remember that he is ever charged with waste of his patrimony, or confidered as a deferter from another religion. I am therefore inclined to believe that Derrick was mifinformed.

From Westminster School, where he was inftructed as one of the king's fcholars by Dr. Busby, whom he long after continued to reverence, he was in 1650 elected to one of the Westminster scholarships at Cambridge.

Of his fchool performances has appeared only a poem on the death of Lord Haftings, compofed with great ambition of fuch conceits as, notwithstanding

b 2

standing the reformation begun by Waller and Denham, the example of Cowley ftill kept in reputation. Lord Haftings died of the fmall-pox, and his poet has made of the puftules first rosebuds, and then gems; at laft exalts them into ftars; and fays,

No comet need foretell his change drew

on,

Whofe corps might feem a conftellation.

At the university he does not appear to have been eager of poetical diftinction, or to have lavished his early wit either on fictitious fubjects or publick occafions. He probably confidered that he who purposed to be an author, ought firft to be a student. He obtained, whatever was the reafon, no fellowship