Will is, that my daughter, Agnes, presume not to marry without her mother's consent;"" after which he proceeds to bequeath the several legacies already mentioned. He acted as a Justice of Peace," perhaps as a Committee-man, in the county of Northampton, during the Usurpation, and was probably a zealous presbyterian, as his elder brother, Sir John Driden, who desecrated the church of Canons-Ashby, certainly was. Being now his own master, and in possession of his patrimony, for he had nearly attained his twenty-fourth year, our author had the firmness and virtue to resist the blandishments of pleasure, and all the attractions which the metropolis holds out to youthful fancy, and to return to an academick life; in which situation, however ardent in the investigation, we shall, I fear, in vain endeavour to trace his haunts, or to discover his habits and pursuits. The early history and first flights of every literary man naturally engage our curiosity and attention; but at the distance of a century and a half are involved in such obscurity as cannot be easily dispelled. Having already sacrificed to the 7 To secure obedience to this injunction, which is extended to four of her sisters also, the testator directs that the portions of such of these five daughters as married without the consent of their mother, should be considerably reduced. 8 In one of the Vestry-books of Aldwinckle St. Peter's is an order made by Erasmus Driden in 1653, by which he gives his sanction, as a Justice of Peace, to the appointment of a parish-officer. Muses, he without doubt at this period wrote many verses which have perished; and his fancy was naturally inspired and animated by those charms, to which, even on the confines of his seventieth year, he was not insensible. But of these compositions, however numerous, a few lines only remain, addressed to his cousin-german, Honor Driden, in 1655; to whom at that time he seems to have paid his addresses in vain. Perhaps the name of Honoria, in one of his earliest plays, (THE RIVAL LADIES,) was adopted in consequence of his attachment to this inexorable beauty. Having received from this lady a present of a silver inkstand and other materials for writing, he returned her his thanks in a very gallant letter, (for so undoubtedly it was considered,) which "craved admittance to her fair hands," and which will be found at length in its proper place. As this epistle is the earliest prose composition of our author's 9 Honor Driden was one of the daughters of our author's uncle, Sir John Driden, the second Baronet in this family. The date of this letter, the original of which is yet extant, has been partly obliterated; but enough remains to shew that it was written in 1655, while Dryden was yet at college. The lady, who according to tradition was a celebrated beauty, was then probably about eighteen. Her father, who died in 1658, (not in 1664, as asserted in Collins's BARONETAGE,) by his Will, which is in the Prerogative-Office, (Wotton, qu. 595,) and is dated Jan. 13, 1656-7, (proved Nov. 11, 1658,) left her a very large portion for that time, two thousand five hundred pounds. She all her life remained single. now extant, and is intermingled with verse, the conclusion of it may not improperly be introduced here, and will at once furnish a specimen of his powers in either kind, at this early period of his life: "You, Madam, (says the youthful poet,) are such a deity, that commands worship by providing the sacrifice. You are pleased, Madam, to force me to write, by sending me materials, and compel me to my greatest happiness. Yet though I highly value your magnificent present, pardon me if I must tell the world they are but imperfect emblems of your beauty; for the white and red of wax and paper are but shadows of that vermilion and snow in your lips and forehead; and the silver of the inkhorn, if it presume to vie whiteness with your purer skin, must confess itself blacker than the liquor it contains. What then do I more than retrieve' your own gifts, and present you that paper adulterated with blots, which you gave spotless? "For since 'twas mine, the white hath lost its hue, "You, fairest nymph, are wax : O, may you be "Till fate and your own happy choice reveal, "Whom you so far shall bless, to make your seal." To retrieve was sometimes formerly used in the sense of-to retribute, or pay back. Coles, in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, 4to. renders it by-recupero, instauro, de integro restituere. It is but just to add, that for this cluster of forced conceits, and the indelicacy of one of the images, the age, rather than the writer, is answerable. Such conceits were at that time not merely pardoned, but admired; and with the allusion no reader of either sex, however fastidious, was likely to be offended. After residing seven years at Cambridge, about the middle of the year 1657 he removed to London.* One of the bitterest of his adversaries has asserted, that having traduced a nobleman's son in a libel, he was obliged to quit the University from an apprehension of being expelled.' But having excited 2 "Such," says one of our author's adversaries, "is the reasoning of a man of seven years' standing in Cambridge, and twice as many in Covent-Garden Coffeehouse."- "Notes and Observations on THE EMPRESS OF MOROCCO, revised, 4to. 1674.-This passage affords a confirmation of what has been already stated in p. 17; for there is probably no instance of any gownsman residing seven years in the University of Cambridge or Oxford, without taking a Master's degree. "At Cambridge first your scurrilous vein began, "Where saucily you traduced a nobleman; "Who for that crime rebuked you on the head, "And you had been expell'd, had you not fled." THE MEDAL OF JOHN BAYES, 4to. 1682. The author, who is supposed to have been Thomas Shadwell, observes in a note, that at the Universities, noblemen's sons are called noblemen. Granting for a moment that this improbable story was true, it is not very easy to discover on what ground our great animosity by his admirable poem of ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL, he was soon afterwards assailed by an host of enemies, and among others by the writer who produced this charge against him; and we are not, on the bare assertion of an enraged antagonist, not corroborated by any contemporary evidence, to give credit to an invective in which the writer was probably not so studious of truth, as eager by any means to blacken the character of the triumphant poet, by the wit and acrimony of whose melodious verses Shaftesbury and his partisans, yet writhing with smart and vexation, were held up to publick scorn. In our own time we have seen the most flagitious calumnies published by the basest of mankind against the purest characters: judging, therefore, of the last age by the present, we should without hesita-. tion at once reject all vague and unsupported charges of this kind, as unworthy of the slightest attention. In the instance before us, the lampooner probably did not know how long Dryden had remained at Cambridge. There is little occasion to inquire why he quits a University, who has resided there three years beyond the usual period. When he settled in London, he was not without author should have been expelled for the alleged libel. According to the account given, he had already beenpunished in a manner which ought rather to have produced some animadversion from the University on his noble opponent than himself. |