one great bard may be admitted to balance his presumption in manufacturing a new drama out of the labours of another.[76] Upon the 20th August 1704, Charles Dryden was drowned, in an attempt to swim across the Thames, at Datchet, near Windsor.  I have degraded into the Appendix, the romantic narrative of Corinna, concerning his father’s prediction, already mentioned.  It contains, like her account of the funeral of the poet, much positive falsehood, and gross improbability, with some slight scantling of foundation in fact.

John Dryden, the poet’s second son, was born in 1667, or 1668, was admitted a King’s Scholar in Westminster in 1682, and elected to Oxford in 1685.  Here he became a private pupil of the celebrated Obadiah Walker, Master of University College, a Roman Catholic.  It seems probable that young Dryden became a convert to that faith before his father.  His religion making it impossible for him to succeed in England, he followed his brother Charles to Rome, where he officiated as his deputy in the Pope’s household.  John Dryden translated the fourteenth Satire of Juvenal, published in his father’s version, and wrote a comedy entitled, “The Husband his own Cuckold,” acted in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1696; Dryden, the father, furnishing a prologue, and Congreve an epilogue.  In 1700-1, he made a tour through Sicily and Malta, and his journal was published in 1706.  It seems odd, that in the whole course of his journal, he never mentions his father’s name, nor makes the least allusion to his very recent death.  John Dryden, the younger, died at Rome soon after this excursion.

Erasmus Henry, Dryden’s third son, was born 2d May 1669, and educated in the Charterhouse, to which he was nominated by Charles II., shortly after the publication of “Absalom and Achitophel."[77] He does not appear to have been at any university; probably his religion was the obstacle.  Like his brothers, he went to Rome; and as both his father and mother request his prayers, we are to suppose he was originally destined for the Church.  But he became a Captain in the Pope’s guards, and remained at Rome till John Dryden, his elder brother’s death.  After this event, he seems to have returned to England, and in 1708 succeeded to the title of Baronet, as representative of Sir Erasmus Driden. the author’s grandfather.  But the estate of Canons-Ashby, which should have accompanied the title, had been devised by Sir Robert Driden, the poet’s first cousin, to Edward Dryden, the eldest son of Erasmus, the younger brother of the poet.  Thus, if the author had lived a few years longer, his pecuniary embarrassments would have been embittered by his succeeding to the honours of his family, without any means of sustaining the rank they gave him.  With this Edward Dryden, Sir Erasmus Henry seems to have resided until his death, which took place at the family mansion of Canons-Ashby in 1710.  Edward acted as a manager of his cousin’s affairs; and Mr. Malone sees