Ashby (the residence of the present representative of the family) by his marriage with Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir John Cope, of that place. From that period we hear no more of the Dridens of Cumberland.

Erasmus,* the son of John Driden, of Canons-Ashby, who inherited the estate, was born on the 20th of December, 1553. He filled the office of High Sheriff of the County, under Queen Elizabeth, and was created a Baronet in 1619. This gentleman married the second daughter and coheiress of William Wilkes, of Hodwell, in Warwickshire,† by whom he had six children. Of these there were three sons, John, afterwards second Baronet, married to the daughter of Sir John Beville, of Chesterton, in Huntingdonshire; William, who had an estate at Farndon; and Erasmus, the father of the poet, who possessed a small property at the village of Blakesley, about three miles from Canons-Ashby, in the neighbourhood of Tichmarsh. This gentleman married Mary, the daughter of the Rev. Henry Pickering, a puritan minister,

* The name of Erasmus, transmitted through many members of the family, is stated by Wood to have been derived from the famous Erasmus of Rotterdam, who, he says, stood godfather for the son of John Driden. But an examination of dates will show that this must be an error. The name was more probably, as Baker suggests, derived from Erasmus, the son of Sir John Cope, who may himself, perhaps, have enjoyed the sponsorial honour conferred by Wood on his nephew. † Aubrey, in his article on Spenser, tells us that the author of the Faerie Queen was intimate with Sir Erasmus. The whole passage is curious and interesting:-' He (Spenser) was an acquaintance and frequenter of Sir Erasmus Dreyden. His mistress, Rosalind, was a kinswoman of Sir Erasmus's lady. The chamber there, at Sir Erasmus's, is still called Mr. Spenser's chamber. Lately, at the college [Pembroke Hall, Cambridge], taking down the wainscot of his chamber, they found an abundance of cards with stanzas of the Faerie Queen written on them.'-Lives, &c., ii. 541. This anecdote about the cards appears, by a note attached to it, to have been derived from J. Dreyden, Esq., Poete Laureate.' It would have been pleasant to have found the name of Spenser still associated with the seat of the Dryden family, but local tradition is silent respecting him. There is no room at Canons-Ashby now known as Mr. Spenser's chamber.

The Chesterton property descended to John Driden, the second son of Sir John, and cousin-german of the poet. It afterwards devolved on Robert Pigott, nephew of John Driden, and was sold to Mr. Waller about 1777. The house at Chesterton was pulled down thirty years ago.

and youngest son of Sir Gilbert Pickering. It appears that their families were doubly related by intermarriage, John, the eldest son of Sir Gilbert Pickering, who succeeded to the title, having married the youngest daughter of Sir Erasmus Driden. The other daughters were married into 'very honourable families;' the eldest to Sir John Phillips, and the second to Sir John Hartop.

Erasmus and Mary Driden had fourteen children, ten daughters, and four sons. Of this numerous issue, John Dryden, the poet, born on the 9th of August, 1631, in the parsonage-house* of Oldwincle All-Saints, was the eldest.† Mr. Malone has traced, with his usual industry, the fortunes of nearly all the children of this marriage. Two of the daughters married in the country; a third became the wife of a clergyman, in Huntingdon; a fourth married a merchant of London, and a fifth a tobacconist in Newgate-street. The second son, who afterwards inherited the estate of CanonsAbbey, through failure of issue in the direct line, was a grocer in King-street, Westminster; the third went to Jamaica, where he died; and the fourth was a tobacconist in London.

There are two small parishes in Northamptonshire, lying close together, called Aldwincle, or Oldwincle All-Saints, and Oldwincle St. Peter's. In neither of these is there any record of the baptism of the poet. The absence of such evidence, if the registers were perfect, would tend to confirm the imputation cast upon him by some of his contemporaries, that his

* The parsonage-house is still standing, and a particular room in it is still known as 'Dryden's Room.' A very touching circumstance occurred there a few years ago, when a young lady who was dangerously ill in the house, desired to be removed into Dryden's Room' to die. Her wish was complied with, and her death took place in the chamber with which the name of the poet is traditionally connected. It is a small room, such as in country houses is usually appropriated as a writing-room.

From the order in which the bequests are enumerated in his father's will, Malone thinks it probable that some of Dryden's sisters were senior to him. This of course is pure conjecture; but there is no doubt that he was the eldest son.

family were anabaptists, and that he never was christened; but the registry of Oldwincle All-Saints does not extend farther back than 1650, the early period, including the year of Dryden's birth, having long since disappeared. The register of Oldwincle St. Peter's has been preserved entire, but it contains no entry whatever relating to the family. The reasonable inference therefore is, that the poet was baptized at the Church of Oldwincle All-Saints, especially as such was the local tradition when Malone was collecting materials for his life.* The circumstance of the birth having taken place at the parsonage-house of Oldwincle, and not at the residence of Erasmus Driden, at Blakesley (where it is quite certain he was not born),† is accounted for on the supposition that the mother of the poet was then on a visit to her father, who may probably have been the curate of the parish, to the benefice of which he was presented some years afterwards.

John Dryden received the rudiments of his education at Tichmarsh, or at the neighbouring school at Oundle. We boast,' says the inscription at Tichmarsh, that he was bred and had his first learning here, where he has often made us happie by his kind visits and most delightful conversation.'‡ He was afterwards admitted a king's scholar at Westminster School, under Dr. Busby, for whom he contracted a warm and

*I am informed by Mr. Charles Beville Dryden, to whom I am under other obligations, which will be duly acknowledged in the proper place, that upon a recent visit to the locality he found that the honour of having given birth to the poet was claimed with equal confidence by both parishes.

This fact is placed beyond doubt by the inscription on the monument at Tichmarsh, erected by his relative, Mrs. Creed. We learn also from the same inscription that Mr. Erasmus Dryden was a justice of the peace of the county, and that he married the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Pickering, ' of Aldwinkle,' which seems to imply that Dr. Pickering was residing there at the time of the marriage.

Dryden kept up his relations with Northamptonshire all through his life; and several allusions to his visits to Tichmarsh, Oundle, &c., will be found in his letters, from one of which we learn that he had taken his seat in the Oundle coach nearly a week in advance; that the journey from Oundle to London occupied two days; and that his friends Southerne and Congreve were to meet him on the road, within four miles of town. This was in 1695.

lasting regard.* That eminent person appears to have been the first to discover and cultivate his poetical talent; but of his performances in this way at Westminster the only record we have is, that he translated the third Satire of Persius, which was prescribed to him as a Thursday night's exercise. Other pieces of a similar kind were produced, and remained in the hands of Dr. Busby, but have never been recovered. Here also, in 1649, he wrote an Elegy on the Death of Lord Hastings, and some commendatory verses on the Divine Epigrams of his friend, John Hoddesdon, both of which were published in the following year.

On the 11th of May, 1650, Dryden was elected to a scholarship in Trinity College, Cambridge, under the Rev. John Templer ; took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in January, 1653-4; and was made Master of Arts in 1657, by dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of his career in college nothing is known, except that he was put out of commons for a fortnight, in 1652, for disobedience to the vice-master, and 'contumacy in taking his punishment inflicted by him.' The story, circulated by Shadwell, that he was obliged to fly from college for calumniating a 'nobleman,'+

He was not insensible, however, to that severity in the use of the rod with which the Doctor's name is familiarly identified. Dryden never forgot the scenes of that kind he had witnessed at Westminster; and in the year before his death, writing to Mr. Montagu about some verses (the epistle to his cousin) upon which he had bestowed an unusual amount of correction, he says-'I am now in fear I have purged them out of their spirit; as our Master Busby used to whip a boy so long, till he made him a confirmed blockhead.' Notwithstanding, however, this rigorous discipline, Dryden was so strongly impressed with Busby's high moral character and excellent system of tuition, that he placed two of his sons under him. On one occasion, as appears from a letter of Dryden's, the strictness with which Busby acted towards his son Charles put the poet's attachment to his old master to a hard trial.

+ The accusation occurs in the pasquinade entitled The Medal of John Bayes:

'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 expelled had you not fled.'

The word 'nobleman' is obviously employed to make up measure, for

is contradicted by the fact, that he not only remained long enough in the University to take his degree, but lived there for three years beyond the usual term. It is certain, however, that he never became a Fellow of the College, and that, from whatever cause his antipathy may have proceeded, he always entertained feelings of aversion for Cambridge, which he did not hesitate to avow in the Prologues he wrote many years afterwards for delivery at Oxford.

In June, 1654, he was called home from the University by the death of his father. This event put his character to a severe test, at a period of life when the judgment is generally overruled by the passions; and his conduct at this crisis exhibited early proofs of that discretion by which his after-life was regulated.

The whole annual value of the little estate at Blakesley was sixty pounds per annum. Two-thirds of this devolved upon him as the eldest son, the remainder falling to his mother, with reversion to him on her death. He determined at once upon the course which, under these circumstances, it was most prudent for him to pursue; and after having arranged his mother's affairs, he returned to the University, where he remained for three years longer. His income of forty pounds a year, estimated to be equal to at least one hundred and twenty pounds of the money of the present day, would have been sufficient for all his personal necessities, had he been disposed to consult his immediate pleasure, instead of looking with forethought to the future. But he preferred the scholastic self-denial, which enabled him to lay the secure foundations of a career of honourable labour.

During this period he appears to have devoted himself closely to study; and having read Polybius when he was only

we are informed in a note, that at the universities noblemen's sons are called noblemen; so that the offence, after all, becomes reduced to a quarrel between two young men, in which the original transgressor appears to have violated the discipline of the college much less flagrantly than his opponent.