have been found to contain the record of our poet's baptism.1 Dryden seems to have received the rudiments of his education at Tichmarsh,2 and was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster, under the tuition of the celebrated Dr Bushby, for whom he ever afterwards entertained the most sincere veneration. One of his letters to his old master is addressed, "Honoured Sir," and couched in terms of respect, and even humility, fully sufficient for the occasion. Another, written by Dryden, when his feelings were considerably irritated by a supposed injustice done to his son, is nevertheless qualified by great personal deference to his old preceptor. It may be readily supposed, that such a scholar, under so able a teacher, must have made rapid progress in classical learning. The bent of the juvenile poet, even at this early period, distinguished itself. He translated the third satire of Persius, as a Thursday night's task, and executed 1" And though no wit can royal blood infuse, Poetical Reflections, &c. See [Scorr's Edition Another opponent of our author calls him "A bristled baptist bred, and then thy strain The Laureat, [Ibid.] vol. x., p. 105. 2 Upon a monument, erected by Elizabeth Creed to the poet's memory in the church at Tichmarsh, are these words: "We boast that he was bred and had his first learning here." many other exercises of the same nature, in English verse, none of which are now in existence.1 During the last year of his residence at Westminster, the death of Henry Lord Hastings, a young nobleman of great learning, and much beloved, called forth no less than ninety-eight elegies, one of which was written by our poet, then about eighteen years old. They were published in 1650, under the title of "Lachrymæ Musarum.” Dryden, having obtained a Westminster scholarship, was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, on the 11th May, 1650, his tutor being the reverend John Templer, M.A., a man of some learning, who wrote a Latin Treatise in confutation of Hobbes, and a few theological tracts and single sermons. While at college, our author's conduct seems not to have been uniformly regular. He was subjected to slight punishment for contumacy to the vice-master, and seems, according to the statement of an obscure libeller, to have been engaged in some public and notorious dispute with a noble 2 1 "I remember," says Dryden, in a postscript to the argument of the third satire of Persius, "I translated this satire when I was a king's scholar at Westminster school, for Thursday night's exercise; and believe, that it, and many other of my exercises of this nature in English verse, are still in the hands of my learned master, the Rev. Dr Bushby." 2 The following order is quoted, by Mr Malone, from the Conclusion-book, in the archives of Trinity College, p. 221."July 19, 1652. Agreed, then, That Dryden be put out of Comons, for a fortnight at least; and that he goe not out of the colledg, during the time aforesaid, excepting to sermons, without express leave from the master, or vice-master; and that, at the end of the fortnight, he read a confession of his man's son, probably on account of the indulgence of his turn for satire.' He took, however, the degree of Bachelor, in January 1653-4, but neither became Master of Arts, nor a fellow of the university, and certainly never retained it much of 2 that veneration usually paid by an English scholar to his Alma Mater. He often celebrates Oxford, but only mentions Cambridge as the contrast of the sister university in point of taste and learning: "Oxford to him a dearer name shall be Thebes did his green, unknowing youth engage; A preference so uncommon, in one who had studied at Cambridge, probably originated in those slight disgraces, or perhaps in some other cause of disgust, which we may now search for in vain. In June 1654, the death of his father, Erasmus Dryden, proved a temporary interruption to our author's studies. He left the university, on this occasion, to take possession of his inheritance, con - fellowes crime in the hall, at dinner-time, at the three "At Cambridge first your scurrilous vein began, 2 He received this degree by dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury. 3 Prologue to the University of Oxford, [Dryden's Works.] vol. x., p. 385. sisting of two-thirds of a small estate near Blakesley, in Northamptonshire, worth, in all, about sixty pounds a-year. The other third part of this small property was bequeathed to his mother during her life, and the property reverted to the poet after her death in 1676. With this little patrimony our author returned to Cambridge, where he continued until the middle of the year 1657. 1 Although Dryden's residence at the university was prolonged to the unusual space of nearly seven years, we do not find that he distinguished himself, during that time, by any poetical prolusions, excepting a few lines prefixed to a work, entitled, "Sion and Parnassus; or Epigrams on several Texts of the Old and New Testaments," published in 1650, by John Hoddesden. Mr Malone conjectures, that our poet would have contributed to the academic collection of verses, entitled, " Oliva Pacis,” and published in 1654, on the peace between England and Holland, had not his father's death interfered at that period. It is probable we lose but little by the disappearance of any occasional verses which may have been produced by Dryden at this 1 Jonathan Dryden, elected a scholar from Westminster into Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1656, of which he became fellow in 1662, was author of some verses in the Cambridge Collections in 1661, on the death of the Duke of Gloucester, and the marriage of the Princess of Orange; and in 1662, on the marriage of Charles II., which have been imputed to our author. An order, quoted by Mr Malone, for abatement of the commencement-money paid at taking the Bachelor's degree, on account of poverty, applies to Jonathan, not to John Dryden.-MALOne, vol. i., p. 17, note. time. The elegy on Lord Hastings, the lines prefixed to "Sion and Parnassus," and some complimentary stanzas which occur in a letter to his cousin Honor Driden,' would have been enough to assure us, even without his own testimony, that Cowley was the darling of his youth; and that he imitated his points of wit, and quirks of epigram, with a similar contempt for the propriety of their application. From these poems, we learn enough to be grateful, that Dryden was born at a later period in his century; for had not the road to fame been altered in consequence of the Restoration, his extensive information and acute ingenuity would probably have betrayed the author of the " Ode to St Cecilia," and the father of English poetical harmony, into rivalling the metaphysical pindarics of Donne and Cowley. The verses, to which we allude, display their subtlety of thought, their puerile extravagance of conceit, and that structure of verse, which, as the poet himself says of Holyday's translations, has nothing of verse in it except the worst part of it—the rhyme, and that far from being unexceptionable. The following lines, in which 1 [According to Mitford, p. 6, Honor was wealthy as well as beautiful, and her poetical cousin was an unsuccessful suitor for her hand. She died unmarried after 1707. The verses alluded to in the text are given in Scott's Dryden, vol. xviii., p. 86, where the Editor calls them "a woful sample of the gallantry of the time, alternately coarse and pedantic." "You, fairest nymph, are waxe. Oh! may you be As well in softnesse as in puritye! Till fate, and your own happy choice reveale Whom you so farre shall blesse to make your seale." &c.] |