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. Ixi. 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, 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 check, which all his portraits exhibit. 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 znalicious, I do not remember that he was ever charged with waste of his patrimony." Dr. Johnson therefore rightly concluded, that Derrick's In another place, con account was erroneous. 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 accounts for the imperfection of his plays by attri buting their defects to the unceasing indigence of their author.' In a letter from Swift to Mr. Thomas Beach, merchant in Denbighshire, dated Dublin, April 11, 1735. (printed by Nichols, in his Supplement to Swift's Works, vol. ii. p. 458,) is the following passage: "I read your poem several times, and shewed it to three or four judicious friends, who all approved of it, but agreed with me, that it wanted some corrections. Upon which I took the number of lines, which are in all 299, the odd number being occasioned by what they call a triplet; which was a vicious way of rhyming, wherewith Mr. Dryden abounded, and was imitated by all the bad versifiers in Charles the Second's reign. Dryden, though my near relation, is one I have often blamed, as well as pitied. He was poor, and in great haste to finish his plays, because by them he chiefly supported his family, and this made him so very incorrect; he likewise brought in the Alexandrine verse at the end of his triplets. I was so angry at these corruptions, that, above twenty-four years ago, I banished them all by one triplet with the Alexandrine, upon a very ridiculous subject [A City Shower]. I absolutely did prevail with Mr. Pope and Gay, and Dr. Young, and one or two more, to reject them. Mr. Pope never used them till he translated Homer, which was too long a work to be so very exact in; and I think in one or two of his last poems, he hath, out of laziness, done the same thing, though very seldom.-I now proceed to what I would have corrected in your poem," If our author, from the year 1668 to 1689, during which period he produced above two-thirds of his dra matick compositions, independently of any emoluments derived from the theatre was possessed of a revenue of Under his father's will, which has been already mentioned, in 1654, when he was in his twentythird year, he became possessed of two-thirds of a small landed estate in Northamptonshire, near a village called Blakesley,' about three miles at least three hundred pounds a year, (as I shall shew he was,) which may be estimated equal to nine hundred a year now, the defects of his plays, whatever they may bc, cannot justly be ascribed to his poverty. 4 Sec p. 21. The devise to our poct and his mother, in his father's will, runs thus: I give my sonne, John, two partes of my land in Blakesley. I give my wife one third parte of Blakesley, during her life natturall, to receive the rent thereof quarterly." Our poet is not mentioned in any other part of this will. This estate, on the failure of Dryden's issue, having devolved to his brother Erasmus, descended to his grand. son, Sir John Dryden; and, under his will, is now the property of Lady Dryden, with remainder to her eldest son, Sir Edward Turner Dryden, Bart. It consists, as Lady Dryden has informed me, of one hundred and eightysix acres of land, and is now let' for £.182. 125. od. a year. Being a very cold soil, timber trees and hedges thrive ill there; and it is chiefly valuable for agriculture. From an epitaph on Mr. William Watts, who died June 16, 1614, preserved in Bridges's History of Northamptonshire, vol. i. p. 233, it appears, that it was in the last age called BLAXLEY, as the name of our great dra matick poct, in like manner, was unquestionably pronounced Shaxpeare. Browne Willis, the antiquary, who was a friend of Sir John Dryden's, and was often a visitor at Canons-Ashby, said, that it was originally called BlackObsely, from the river Ooze taking its rise there. distant from Canons-Ashby and four from Tow. cester; consisting of one hundred and eightysix acres, which were then part of a common field or unenclosed land, and were let for sixty pounds a year: the other third part of this estate was devised to his mother during her life. At his first outset in London, therefore, he began the world with a revenue of forty pounds a year; an income which, the value of money and the modes of life being jointly considered, may be fairly estimated as equal to one hundred and twenty pounds a year at this day. While therefore he remained a single man, though not affluent, he certainly was The precise rent of the estate of Blakesley, in our author's time, is ascertained by the extracts from the account-books of his brother, Sir Erasmus Dryden, already given, and by the following entry in the year 1712: "September y 29th, 1712. Allowed to my sonn Mr. Edward Dryden, upon my Laday Dryden's accompt, being for thirds, tenn pounds, for halfe a yeare, from Ladayday, 1712, to Michaelmas, 1712.-This accompt of Laday Dryden's is made up to Michaelmas, 1712, all receipts in Mr. Shaw's name."-John Shaw, Esq., the person here meant, was Clerk of the Poultry in the King's kitchen, a department of the Board of Green Cloth. He was married to Sir Erasmus Dryden's daughter, Mary; and appears to have received Lady Elizabeth Dryden's dower, and to have paid it, for her use, to Mrs. Stoker, her attendant. The number of acres in the poet's Northamptonshire estate being 186, and the rent sixty pounds per annum, the land, it appears, was let at somewhat under six shillings and sixpence an acre. |