addition was made, from his property in Wilt shire. In this lamentable condition she continued for several years; for she did not die till June or July, 1714, probably in the seventy-ninth year of her

After the estate of Canons-Ashby was devised by Sir Robert Dryden, in 1708, to his kinsınan, Edward Dryden, Esq., eldest son of Erasmus, our author's brother, Erasmus appears to have resided at Canons-Ashby, and to have received his son's rents. He appears to have also received the rents of the small estate in that neighbour. hood which had belonged to our author, and to have transmitted his widow's dower for her use. The following entries in his books of account, which nearly ascertain the time of her death, were obligingly communicated by Lady Dryden :

"March 26, 1713. Payd to my son, Mr. Edw. Dryden, the summe of tenn pounds, upon accompt of my Laday Dryden's rents, being for half a year, from Michaelmas, 1712, to Laday [day] 1713—ten pounds.”

"To my son Dryden for Mrs. Stooker, for the use of my Laday Dryden, which will be due 29th present September, St. Michael the Archangel, [1713] ten pounds. £.10. o. o."

March 25, 1714. Paid to my son Dryden, to Mrs. Stooker, for my Lady Dryden, ten pounds, in full to this day. £.10. 0. 0."

66

August 28th, 1714. Payd to my son Dryden five pounds, rests, due to my Lad. Eli. Dryden accompt, to Mrs. Stoker, in full of all demands to Midsummer, being "deceased."

Mrs. Stooker, or Stoker, was probably the nurse, or keeper, under whose care Lady Elizabeth Dryden was placed.

age. I have not been able to discover where she was buried.

Though in p. 290, to give full force to the notion there controverted, I have allowed that Lady Elizabeth Dryden might have been only fifty-three in 1698, the truth, I believe, is, that she was born in 1635, or not long afterwards, and consequently was then sixty-three. If Collins were correct in his account of her family in the PEERAGE, she must have been still older; for she is stated by him to have been the eldest of the four daugh. ters of Thomas Howard, Earl of Berkshire; and her sister, Frances, was born in 1623: but Elizabeth was in fact the youngest daughter, as appears from the Visitation of Lincolnshire made in 1634, and now in the College of Heralds, marked C. 23. Her maternal grandfather, William, Earl of Exeter, subscribes the pedigree there entered; in which not only his children, but his grandchildren, are enumerated. We there find eight sons of the Earl of Berkshire; Charles (then seventeen years old,) Thomas, Henry, William, Edward, ("the incomparable author of THE BRITISH PRINCES," who was born in 1624) Robert, Philip, and Algernon; and three daugh ters, Frances, Mary, and Diana; but not Elizabeth. It is extremely probable that she was born in the following year, or soon afterwards; for her eldest brother being born in 1617, her parents at this time must have been eighteen years married; and the children above enumerated were born in a regular succession between 1617 and 1633.

Her family in general were long-lived; for her father died in 1669, at ninety years of age; and her mother in. 1671, when she probably was seventy-five. Her brother, Sir Robert Howard, whose age none of the writers of EngLish biography have ascertained, was baptized Jan. 19,

By this lady, whom Dryden married in 1665; or before, he had three sons; Charles, John, and Erasmus-Henry; all of them, says a good judge, who knew them personally, "fine, ingenious, and accomplished gentleinen." Charles, the eldest, was born at Charlton, in the county of Wilts, the seat of his grandfather, Thomas, Earl of Berkshire, in 1666, and bred at Westminster School, where he was chosen a King's scholar in 1680; whence he was elected to Trinity College, in Cambridge, of which he was admitted a member in June, 1683.' In the next year, he wrote a paper of Latin Verses, addressed to Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, 'which were prefixed to that nobleman's ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE; and in 1685 contributed a Latin Poem to the Cambridge Collection of Verses published on the death of Charles the Second, and

1625-6, and was above seventy-two when he died, Sept. 3, 1698 her brother Thomas, who in 1679 became the third Earl, died in 1706, at the age of eighty-seven: and Philip, who had been a Colonel in the Guards in the time of Charles the Second, when he died in 1717, was eightyeight years old.

Mrs. Elizabeth Creed. See the APPENDIX, No. IV. "Carolus Dryden, natus Charlton. agro Wilton. fil. Johannis Dryden, Pocta Laurcati, quondam hujus collegii alumni, Westmonasteriensis, electus, ætatis 17, Jun. 26, 1683; Pensionarius. Mr. Smallwood, Tutor." Registr. Coll. Trin.

2

A translation of these verses, by Mr. Needler, is preserved in Nichols's Select Collection of Poems, vol. vi. p. 52.

the accession of James. In Dryden's SECOND MISCELLANY, which appeared in the same year, we find another Latin Poem, written by him, descriptive of Lord Arlington's Gardens. He also translated the Seventh Satire of Juvenal, which appeared in the version of that author published by his father in 1692. About that time he went to Italy, probably under the patronage of Cardinal Howard;' and was so well recommended to Pope Innocent XII.," who

3 This collection also contains Verses by Prior, of St. John's; and by G. Stepney and Charles Montague, (after. wards Lord Halifax,) both of Trinity College. In the production of Montague, (an English poem of one hun dred and fifty lines,) is the following little trait of Charles II.:

*!

"In the still gentle voice he lov'd to speak;

"But could with thunder harden'd rebels break."

They comprized the ground now occupied by Ar. lington-street, part of the Green-Park, and part of St. James's Park; Arlington-House standing where the Queen's House now does. Some does taking care of their fawns,a duck-pond, a green-house, stored with exotick plants, and a maze or wilderness,-furnish the principal topicks of these encomiastick verses.

Philip, the third son of Henry, Earl of Arundel, and brother to Thomas, the fifth Duke of Norfolk. He was Lord Almoner to Queen Catharine, wife of Charles II., and was made a Cardinal by Pope Clement X. in May, 1675. He is represented by Burnet as a good-natured, moderate, candid man. He died at Rome, June 16, 1694. Charles Dryden and Cardinal Howard were third cousins, by the half blood.

Antonio Pignatelli, a Neapolitan. He was born in

had succeeded to the Papal Chair in the preceding year, at the age of seventy-six, that he was appointed Chamberlain of his Household, in which station he had the good fortune to serve a Pontiff universally beloved for his disinterestedness and beneficence; for, instead of following the practice of many of his predecessors, whose inordinate care and aggrandisement of their kindred had long been distinguished by the opprobrious name of nepotism, he was used to call all those who were poor and distressed, his nephews, bestowing on them a revenue equal to that which former Popes had lavished on their own relations.-On his removal to Rome, along with other recommendations, our poet's son carried with him a genealogical history of his family, drawn up in Latin by his father; which, to do him the more credit, was lodged in the Vatican, and is said to have contained a more ample and accurate account of the families of Dryden and Howard, than is to be found elsewhere. At Rome, he wrote a poem in English, " on the Happiness of a Retired Life;" which being transmitted to England, was published in 1694, in Dryden's FOURTH MISCELLANY. From another periodical work we find, that he was

the year 1615, and died at Rome, greatly lamented, Sept.

27, 1700.

From Lady Dryden, who died in 1791.-If Rome were not now (Oct. 1799) in the hands of French rob. bers, who, it is to be feared, have destroyed or carried away all the manuscripts in the Vatican, I should have endeavoured to procure from thence a copy of this paper.