[50] Charles Blount, the son of Sir Henry, and brother to Sir Edward Pope Blount. He early appeared as a defender and admirer of Dryden, by publishing an answer to Leigh’s “Censure of the Rota in the Conquest of Granada.” It was entitled, “Mr Dryden vindicated, in Reply to the Friendly Vindication of Mr Dryden, with Reflections on the Rota.” Mr Blount distinguished himself as a friend to civil liberty during the crisis preceding the Revolution; but was still better known by the deistical tracts entitled “_Anima Mundi_,” “Life of Appolonius Tyaneus,” “Diana of the Ephesians,” and the “_Religio Laici_,” which last he published anonymously in 1683, and inscribed to our author. The death of Blount was voluntary. Having lost his wife, the daughter of Sir Timothy Tyrrel of Shotover, he fell in love with her sister, and being unable to remove her scruples upon the lawfulness of their union, shot himself in a fit of despair, in August 1693. His miscellaneous works were published by Galden in 1695. He was a man of deep and extensive reading, and probably better qualified, in point of learning, to translate Lucian, than most of his coadjutors. [51] This and two or three other passages shew, that this life was written hastily, and that it had not been carefully revised by the author. MALONE. [52] Ferrand Spence, who published a translation of Lucian’s Dialogues in four volumes, 8vo, in 1684. [53] Francis Hickes published a translation of Select Dialogues from Lucian, 4to, 1634. [54] Vol XVII. p. 1. [55] Mr Malone substitutes _lost_ for _left_. [56] The lady to whom this letter is addressed was our author’s first cousin, one of the daughters of his uncle, Sir John Dryden. She probably was born, (says Mr Malone,) about the year 1637, and died, unmarried, some time after 1707. The seal, (he adds,) under which runs a piece of blue ribband, is a crest of a demi-lion, on a wreath, holding in his paws an armillary sphere at the end of a stand. The letter seems in reply to one from the fair lady, with a present of writing materials. It is a woeful sample of the gallantry of the time, alternately coarse and pedantic. [57] Person _quasi_ parson, which word was originally so spelled. The custom of preaching by an hour-glass has been before noticed. [58] A copy of this letter is in the Museum, MSS. Harl. 7003. The Dedication alluded to, must have been that of “Marriage A-la-Mode,” to which Rochester had replied by a letter of thanks; and we have here Dryden’s reply. (See Vol. I. p. 181, and Vol. IV. p. 235.) The date is supplied by Mr Malone from internal evidence. [59] Lord Rochester translated some part of Lucretius.