Dryden, whom some have styled "The True Father of English Poetry," was fond of a _college life_, as especially "favourable to the habits of a student." He was bread at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he resided seven years, during which he is said never, like Milton and others, to have "wooed the muses." What were his college habits is not known. The only notice of him at Trinity (where his bust and portrait are preserved, the first in the Library, the second in the Hall,) whilst an undergraduate, is the following entry in the College Register, made about two years after his admission:--"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 College during the time aforesaid, excepting to Sermons, without express leave from the Master or Vice-master (disobedience to whom was his fault,) and that, at the end of the fortnight, he read a confession of his crime in the Hall at the dinner-time, at the three fellows' table." His contemporary, Dennis the Critic, seems to have been less fortunate at Cambridge. The author of the "Biographia Dramatica" asserts that he was EXPELLED FROM CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. Which is denied by Dr. Kippis, in the "Biographia Britannica," and "when Doctors disagree, who shall decide?" In this case a third doctor steps in for the purpose, in the person of the celebrated Master of Emmanuel College, Dr. Richard Farmer, who, in a humorous letter, printed in the European Magazine for 1794, says, on turning to the _Gesta Book_ of Caius College, under the head, "Sir Dennis sent away," appears this entry: "March 4, 1680. At a meeting of the Master and Fellows, Sir Dennis mulcted 3_l._; his scholarship taken away, and he _sent out of the college_, for assaulting and wounding Sir Glenham with a sword." * * * * * PRIOR LAID OUT THE WALKS OF ST. JOHN'S College, Cambridge, as I have been told, where he was educated, and lived and died a Fellow. After he became French Ambassador, and was distinguished by his sovereign, he was urged to resign his fellowship. His reply was (probably not having much faith in the longevity of _princes' favours_,) "Should I need it, it will always insure me _a bit of mutton and a clean shirt_!" But it ought also to be added, to his honour, that the celebrated Thomas Baker, the antiquary, having been ejected from his fellowship in the same college, for refusing to take the oaths to William and Mary, Prior generously allowed him the proceeds of his.