The Dramatic Works of John Dryden, Volume 1: With a Life of the AuthorScott, Walter
General
The Dramatic Works of John Dryden, Volume 1: With a Life of the Author
Scott, Walter
Dryden, John, 1631-1700
[22] 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." [A rival tradition favours Oundle,
which had and has a grammar school of merit.--ED.]
[23] The date is not known. That of his admission to Trinity, _infra_,
should be May 18. He matriculated on July 16, and was not elected to his
scholarship till October 2.--ED.
[24] [More usually Busby.--ED.]
[25] "I remember (says Dryden, in a postscript to the argument of the
third satire of Perseus) 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."
[26] 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 crime in the hall, at dinner time, at the three
... fellowes table.
"His crime was, his disobedience to the vice-master, and his contumacy
in taking his punishment inflicted by him."
[27] Shadwell, in the Medal of John Bayes,
"At Cambridge Brat 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."
[28] He received this degree by dispensation from the Archbishop of
Canterbury.
[29] Prologue to the University of Oxford.
[30] 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.
[31] [This letter will be found in its proper place. It is the sole
personal utterance in prose, and almost the only biographical fact of
importance that we have for the first thirty years of Dryden's life.
Upon it, an entirely baseless romance has been built of disappointed
love and parental unkindness. There is absolutely no evidence that
Dryden ever seriously pretended to his cousin's hand, or that he was
rejected, or that this rejection was due to his uncle's influence.--ED.]
[32] Elegy on Lady Haddington, in Corbet's Poems, p. 121. Gilchrist's
edition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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