preciate him, he was nick-named-Poet Squab. From an epigram written soon after his death, we Sir Godfrey Kneller appears to have painted several portraits of Dryden. That which was presented by our author to his kinsman of Chesterton, was a half-length, and finely painted. In this portrait the poet wears a wig, and holds a sprig of laurel in his hand. It is not known where it now is. See p. 326, n. 2. In p. 327, I have supposed that this picture was presented by our author to his kinsman, in consequence of the present made by Mr. John Driden in return for the poem addressed to him; but a letter which has since come to my hands, shews, that could hardly have been the case; for his kinsman's donation appears to have been made only about a month before the poet's death. From another portrait, also in a wig, an engraving was made immediately after Dryden's death; and prefixed to LUCTUS BRITANNICI. Neither the painter, nor engraver, is known. Here the poet holds the laurel in his right hand in the two following portraits in his left. It was copied for Nichols's Select Collection of Poems, in eight volumes. I know not where this picture now is. The portrait of him painted by Kneller, in his gray hair, from which Edelinck made an engraving at Paris in 1700, belonged to Jacob Tonson, and is now in the Collection of William Baker, Esq. Member of Parliament for Hertfordshire. It was painted, I believe, in 1698. Edelinck's print, from which No. 3, prefixed to this volume, is copied, is unquestionably the finest engraving of Dryden that has hitherto appeared. A bad copy of it was made in 1702, by S. Coignard. Either the portrait from which Edelinck's print was done, or that above mentioned, (which also may have been painted by Kneller,) is highly commended for its spirit and truth, by B. Buck learn, that he wanted that vivid eye was distinguished.* for which Pope ridge, the Continuator of De Piles: see LUCTUS BRITANNICI, p. 48. From another portrait also by Kneller, formerly in the possession of Edward, Earl of Oxford, an engraving was made by Vertue in 1730; and Houbraken, in 1743, made another engraving from the same picture, which is among the ILLUSTRIOUS HEADS. The picture which Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, saw in the possession of the late James West, Esq., (See p. 431,) was, I suspect, that which had belonged to Lord Oxford; which probably fell into Mr. West's hands, on the sale of that nobleman's fine collection of books and pictures in the year 1742. A writer in the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for April, 1792, vol. 62, part i. p. 293, says, that "there is an original portrait of Dryden, by Kneller, in the possession of Ralph Sneyd, Esq. of Kiel, in Staffordshire, one of whose ancestors [William Sneyd] married Frances, daughter of Sir John Driden, in the year 1666; and that this picture was brought by her from Canons-Ashby at the time of her marriage, and has been in Mr. Sneyd's family ever since."―That there is a portrait of Dryden at Kiel-Hall is very probable; but if it was brought from Canons. Ashby in 1666, it unquestionably was not painted by Kneller, who came into England in 1674.—It is not likely that Sir Robert Driden, the brother of Frances, should have been possessed of a portrait of the poet. If the picture at Kiel-Hall be Kneller's, it was probably painted at a much later period, and given to Mrs, Frances Sneyd by her brother, John Driden, of Chesterton. There is another original portrait of Dryden at Bilton, near Rugby, in Warwickshire, which belonged to Addison, and, together with a large estate, was possessed by his only child, Mrs. Charlotte Addison, for near seventy years; A very erroneous notion has prevailed concerning Dryden's want of property, and uniform distress who in that long period, though extremely affluent, did not erect any memorial to her father in WestminsterAbbey, where he was buried, and yet remains without a tomb. This portrait, on her death in March, 1797, with the estate of Bilton, became the property of the Hon. John Bridgeman Simpson, second son of Lord Bradford. A crayons drawing of Dryden, which long remained in the mansion-house of Sir Gilbert Pickering, Bart. at Tichmarsh, was purchased about twenty years ago, when all the furniture of that house was sold. This drawing, which appears to have been made when he was about fifty, was esteemed by the Pickering family a very strong likeness. It is now in the possession of William Walcot, Jun. of Oundle, Esq. The initial letters of the artist's name by whom it was done, are, J. P. The late Horace, Earl of Oxford, was possessed of a small whole-length portrait of our author, sitting, by Maubert, who died in 1746, and is said to have painted Wycherley, Congreve, and Pope, from the life. A duplicate of this portrait is in the possession of Charles Bedford, of Brixton Causeway, Esq. It is extraordinary, that Lord Orford (Description of Strawberry-Hill, p. 7.) should have supposed that his mother was great niece to Dryden. The truth is, his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Philipps, the wife of John Shorter, Esq., was second cousin to the poet's sons. Dryden's great grandson and Lord Orford would have been fourth cousins. The origin of his errour was, the supposing Elizabeth Dryden, the wife of Sir Richard Philipps, to have been sister, when in fact she was aunt, to the poet. A head of Dryden drawn by Fab. Steele, (I know not whether an original or a copy,) was formerly in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Bilston, Chaplain of All-Souls throughout his life. "He is reported (says Dr. Johnson,) by his last biographer, Derrick, to have College, in Oxford, (M. A. in 1723,) and now belongs to the Rev. Mr. Cruttwell, author of a work entitled "The Concordance of Parallels," intended to serve as a Concordance to the Bible in any language. An engraving from a copy of this head was given in THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for 1791; vol. lxi. p. 321. All the prints of our author, not here mentioned, are, I believe, copies of some or other of the engraved portraits above enumerated. * In "Epigrams on the Paintings of the most eminent Masters," by J. E. [John Elsum] Esq. 8vo. 1700, I find the following lines: "The Effigies of Mr. DRYDEN, by Closterman. "A sleepy eye he shews, and no sweet feature, "With Virgil's force, in him concenter'd were. In a note on the word feature, in the first of these verses, which the writer is pleased to call an Epigram, he observes that "feature is but a stroke or part of the countenance, but is here by synecdoche used for the whole." Another particularity of his countenance was, a large mole on his right cheek, which all his portraits exhibits inherited from his father an estate of two hundred a year. Such a fortune ought to have secured him from that poverty which seems always to have oppressed him; or, if he had wasted it, to have made him ashamed of publishing his necessities. But though he had many enemies, who undoubtedly examined his life with a scrutiny sufficiently malicious, I do not remember that he was ever charged with waste of his patrimony." Dr. Johnson therefore rightly concluded, that Derrick's account was erroneous. In another place, con sidering the same subject, he observes, that "the persecution of criticks was not the worst of his vexations; he was much more disturbed by the importunities of want. His complaints of poverty are so frequently repeated, either with the dejection of weakness, sinking in helpless misery, or the indignation of merit claiming its tribute from mankind, that it is impossible not to detest the age which could impose on such a man the necessity of such solicitations, or not to despise the man who could submit to such solicitations without necessity." Dryden certainly did not submit to these solicitations without necessity; and the age, or rather the Ministers of King William the Third do deserve to be detested for their neglect of so great a poet: yet it is not true that he was always conflicting with want; nor is the representation just, which ascribes to the whole period of his life that distress, which clouded only a part of it; and |