readiness and courtesy, however, with which my inquiries have been met in all quarters, have enabled me to enrich a short notice of the life of the poet with several hitherto unpublished letters, and at least one new and very material fact. To Sir Henry E. L. Dryden, Bart., of CanonsAshby, Northamptonshire, the representative of the poet's family, my first acknowledgments are due, for the kindness with which he afforded me access to the family papers and letters in his possession, and the liberality with which he placed them at my discretion. From the sources thus opened to me, I derived the letters of Honor and Ann Driden, and the letter of John Dryden to his friend William Walsh, of Abberly, Worcestershire, containing strictures on that gentle man's poems. This last letter was not at CanonsAshby when Mr. Malone was in communication with Lady Dryden, and the former letters he does not appear to have seen. I am under a similar obligation to Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., of Middlehall, Broadway, Worcestershire, for the promptitude with which he gave me permission to publish five inedited letters of Dryden's, forming part of a collection of sixteen autograph letters of the poet, which are bound together in a volume in his possession. Of these sixteen letters, eleven passed through the hands of Malone, who published them in the Miscellaneous Prose Works, where they will be found under the Nos. XXV., XXVI., XXVIII., XXX., XXXI., XXXV., XXXVIII., and XL. The remaining five are now printed for the first time. Charles Beville Dryden, Esq., the youngest son of the Lady Dryden with whom Mr. Malone corresponded, has also rendered me essential services. To that gentleman I am indebted for additional information on the subject of portraits, and for some interesting personal details; but, principally, for the discovery of an Exchequer Warrant, dated in 1684, the importance of which, in reference to the most memorable passage in the life of the poet, cannot be over-rated. JOHN DRYDEN. 1631—1700. THE earliest record of the Dryden family traces them to the County of Cumberland, where they were possessed of the estate of Staffhill, in the sixteenth century. At that time the name was spelt Driden.* The subsequent alteration in the orthography was introduced by the poet, an innovation which gave great offence to some of his relations, but which has been since adopted by all the surviving branches.† The first of the family residing at Staffhill, of whom we have any account, was the great-great-grandfather of the poet. He was married to a lady of the name of Nicholson. His son John (said to have been a schoolmaster‡) migrated into Northamptonshire, where he acquired the estate of Canons * Old Anthony Wood, who was intimate with some members of the family, and Aubrey in his Lives, both spell it Dreyden. In other places, the name is spelt Dreydon. † A recent examination of the family papers at Canons-Ashby, for free access to which I am indebted to the liberal courtesy of Sir Henry Dryden, Bart., enables me to state that the altered orthography was also adopted at a very early date by one of the poet's cousins. In a collection of MS. letters from and to Sir John Driden, ranging between 1640 and 1658, there are three letters written by Erasmus Dryden, son of Sir John, and brother to John Driden of Chesterton, bearing the several dates of 25th September and 21st October, 1656, and 1st Jan. 1657-8, in which the name is spelt Dryden, both in the signature and superscription. Malone, I presume, had never seen these letters. Fasti Oxoniensis. Bridges, in his History of Northamptonshire (quoted by Bliss), doubts Wood's information on this point, as he thinks it improbable Sir John Cope would have married his daughter to a person in low circumstances.' Scott, who seems to have entertained a similar opinion of schoolmasters, adopts the doubt. I. DRYDEN. 2 |