a fall, and his health, in consequence, being much injured, his father prognosticated he would begin to recover in the month of September 1697. The issue did no great credit to the prediction ; for young Dryden returned to England in 1698 in the same indifferent state of health, as is obvious from the anxious solicitude with which his father always mentions Charles in his correspondence. Upon the poet's death, Charles, we have seen, administered to his effects on 10th June, 1700, Lady Elizabeth, his mother, renouncing the succession. In the next year, Granville conferred on him the profits arising from the author's night of an alteration of Shakspeare's « Merchant of Venice; and his liberality to the son of one great bard may be admitted to balance his presumption, in manufacturing a new drama out of the labours of another. Upon the 20th 'The prologue was spoken by the ghosts of Shakspeare and Dryden; from which Mr Malone selects the following curious quotation:- Mr Bevil Higgons, the writer of it, ventured to make the representative of our great dramatic poet speak these lines! " These scenes in their rough native dress were mine; But now, improved, with nobler lustre shine: The first rude sketches Shakspeare's pencil drew, But all the shining master-strokes are now. << I long endeavour'd to support the stage, August, 1704, Charles Dryden was drowned, in an attempt to swim across the Thames, at Datchet, near Windsor. I have degraded into the Appendix, the romantic narrative of Corinna, concerning his father's prediction, already mentioned. It contains, like her account of the funeral of the poet, much positive falsehood, and gross improbability, with some slight scantling of foundation in fact. John Dryden, the poet's second son, was born in 1667, or 1668, was admitted a King's Scholar in Westminster in 1682, and elected to Oxford in 1685. Here he became a private pupil of the celebrated Obadiah Walker, Master of University College, a Roman Catholic. It seems probable that young Dryden became a convert to that faith before his father. His religion making it impossible for him to succeed in England, he followed his brother Charles to Rome, where he officiated as his deputy in the Pope's household. John Dryden translated the fourteenth Satire of Juvenal, published in his father's version, and wrote a comedy entitled. «The Husband his own Cuckold,» acted in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields in 1696; Dryden, the father, furnishing a prologue, and Congreve an epilogue. In 1700-1, They starved me living; nay, denied me fame, And scarce, now dead, do justice to my name. you repent? Be to my ashes kind; Indulge the pledges I have left behind. » MALONE. he made a tour through Sicily and Malta, and his journal was published in 1706. It seems odd, that in the whole course of his journal, he never mentions his father's name, nor makes the least allusion to his very recent death. John Dryden, the younger, died at Rome soon after this excursion. I Erasmus-Henry, Dryden's third son, was born 2d May, 1669, and educated in the Charter-House, to which he was nominated by Charles II., shortly after the publication of << Absalom and Achitophel.» He does not appear to have been at any university; probably his religion was the obstacle. Like his brothers, he went to Rome; and as both his father and mother request his prayers, we are to suppose he was originally destined for the church. But he became a captain in the Pope's guards, and remained at Rome till John Dryden, his elder brother's death. After this event, he seems to have returned to England, and in 1708 succeeded to the title of Baronet, as representative of Sir Erasmus Driden, the author's grandfather. But the estate of Canons-Ashby, which should have accompanied and supported the title, had been devised by Sir Robert Driden, the poet's first cousin, to Edward Dryden, the eldest son of Erasmus, the younger brother of the poet. Thus, if the author had lived a few years longer, his pecuniary embarrassments would have been embittered by his succeeding to the honours of his family, without any means of sustaining the rank they gave him. With this Edward Dryden, Sir Erasmus-Henry seems to have resided until his death, which took place at the family mansion of Canons-Ashby in 1710. Edward acted as a manager of his cousin's affairs; and Mr Malone sees reason to think, from their mode of accounting, that Sir Erasmus-Henry had, like his mother, been visited with mental derangement before his death, and had resigned into Edward's hands the whole management of his concerns. Thus ended the poet's family, none of his sons surviving him above ten years. The estate of Canons-Ashby became again united to the title, in the person of John Dryden, the surviving brother.' 1 Mr Malone says, « Edward Dryden, the eldest son of the last Sir Erasmus Dryden, left by his wife, Elizabeth Allen, who died in London in 1761, five sons; the youngest of whom, Bevil, was father of the present Lady Dryden. Sir John, the eldest, survived all his brothers, and died without issue, at Canons-Ashby, March 20, 1770.» SECTION VIII. The State of Dryden's Reputation at his Death, and afterwards-The general Character of his Mind-His Merit as a Dramatist—As a Lyrical Poet-As a Satirist—As a Narrative Poet-As a Philosophical and Miscellaneous Poet-As a Translator-As a Prose Author-As a Critic. IF Dryden received but a slender share of the gifts of fortune, it was amply made up to him in reputation. Even while a poet militant upon earth, he received no ordinary portion of that applause, which is too often reserved for the «dull cold ear of death." He combated, it is true, but he conquered; and, in despite of faction, civil and religious, of penury, and the contempt which follows it, of degrading patronage, and rejected solicitation, from 1666 to the year of his death, the name of Dryden was first in English literature. Nor was his fame limited to Britain. Of the French literati, although Boileau, with unworthy 1 I Life and Works of Arthur Maynwaring, 1715, p. 17. |