’Notwithstanding I have been seized with a fever ever since I saw you last, I have this afternoon endeavoured to do myself the honour of obeying my Lady Chudleigh’s commands. My fever is still increasing, and I beg you to peruse the following verses, according to your own sense and discretion, which far surpasses mine in all respects. In a small time of intermission from my illness, I write these following: MADAM, How happy is our British isle, to bear Such crops of wit and beauty to the fair? A female muse each vying age has blest, And the last Phoenix still excels the rest: But you such solid learning add to rhymes, Your sense looks fatal to succeeding times; Which, raised to such a pitch, o’erflows like Nile, And with an after-dearth must seize our isle. Alone of all your sex, without the rules Of formal pedants, or the noisy schools, (What nature has bestowed will art supply?) Have traced the various tracts of dark philosophy. What happy days had wise Aurelius seen, If, for Faustina, you his wife had been! No jarring nonsense had his soul oppressed, For he with all he wished for had been blessed. ’Be pleased to tell me what you find amiss, or correct it yourself, and excuse this trouble from Your most humble and most obedient servant, CHAR. DRYDEN.’ _Easter-Eve._ “I have searched all our ecclesiastical offices for the will of Mr Dryden, but I find he did not make any; administration was granted to his son Charles (his wife, the Lady Elizabeth Howard, being a lunatic for some time before her death) in June 1700.” No. VI. MONUMENT IN THE CHURCH AT TICHMARSH. “In the middle of the north wall of the chapel within the parish church of Tichmarsh, in Northamptonshire, is a wooden monument, having the bust of a person at top, wreathed, crowned with laurel. Underneath, THE POET; and below, this inscription: