n 



DRUSTJS. 



DRYDEN, JOHN. 



ia laid to havr constituted her chief attraction for him. 



Whoa the civil wmr broke oat, his political bias exposed him to 

 rieroos annoyance*, particularly that of bung compelled to supply 

 h quota of man to aerve agaiuat the Una. Thia, and regret for 

 Charles'* death, ihoftsoed and embittered his days, and he died at 

 Uawtborndeo, Deeenber 4, 1649. 



Southry hat observed that he was the firat Scotch poet who wrote 

 well in English. A comparison of his work* with thoee of hu pre- 

 diemoim, Douglaa and Dunbar, will show the progreea made, during 

 the 16th onitury towarda fixing and perfecting the language, a* well 

 in Scotland ae in England. Hii sonnet*, and indeed nearly all hia 

 poem*, mark strongly that indulgence in sorrow which cauaea it to 

 take the form of habit, and ai such conveys a feeling of passive pleasure 

 by lU exerciw. The resemblance which his versification present* to 

 that of Milton's minor poems is so striking at only to require mention 

 in order to be acknowledged; and few, we should think, could read 

 hi* poem on the death of Prince Henry without being reminded of 

 Lyeida*.' Beside* hi* poetical work*, he wrote a history of the five 

 Jameeea, king* of Scotland, several pamphlets and tracts, which, with 

 hia letters, were published at Edinburgh in 1711. But the work by 

 which he is moat commonly known now ia the ' Notes of Ben Jonson's 

 Conversations with William Drummond of Haw thorn Jen, January 

 1619.' The** note* though very brief contain a good deal of curious 

 and amusing matter, but the student of English literature should be 

 cautious not to trust them too implicitly. Hawthornden waa no 

 Boswrll : and his accuracy in repeating lien Jonson's opinions may 

 fairly be doubted, as he certainly ia often inaccurate in repeating his 

 statements of facts. An abstract of these notes was printed in the 

 edition of Drnmmond'i works published in 1711, but it is full of 

 inaccuracies. A correct text, with some useful notes, was for the first 

 time printed in 1842 by the Shakespeare Society under the editorial 

 care of Mr. David Laing, by whom the manuscript was discovered. 

 An edition of the poems of Drummond was published, with a life of 

 the author, by Mr. P. Cunningham, 8vo, Edin., 1852. 



DRUSUS, the son of Tiberias by Vipsania, daughter of Agrippa, 

 erred with distinction in Pannonia and the Illyricum, and was consul 

 with hi* father A.D. 21. In a quarrel he had with the favourite 

 Sejunns, he gave him a blow in the face ; Sejanus, in revenge, seduced 

 his wife Livia or Livilla, daughter of Drusus the elder and of Antonia, 

 and the guilty pair got rid of Drusus by poison, which was administered 

 by the eunuch Lygdn*. The crime remained a secret for eight years, 

 when it was discovered after the death of Sejanus, and Livia was put 

 to death. (Tacitus, 'Annal.') 



DRU8US, CLAU'DIUS NERO, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and 

 of Livta, wa* born in the year n.c. 38, three months after his mother's 

 marriage with Augustus. He served early in the army, and was sent 

 in B.C. 17, with his brother Tiberius, against the Rhtcti and Vindelici, 

 who had made an irruption into Italy. He defeated the invaders, 

 pursued tbern across the Alps, and reduced their country. Horace 

 celebrated this victory in one of his finest Odes (lib. ir. 4.) Drusus 

 married Antonia Minor, daughter of Antony and Octavia, by whom 

 be had Germanicua and Claudius, afterwards emperor, and Livia or 

 I .i villa. In B.C. 14, being sent to quell an insurrection in Oaul occa- 

 sioned by the extortion* of the Roman tax-gatherer*, he succeeded 

 by bis conciliatory address. In the following year he attacked the 

 Orrmans, and carrying the war beyond the Rhine, he obtained a series 

 of viotorie* over the Sicambri, Cherusci, Catti, and Tenotori, and 

 advanced a* far as the Visargia, or Weser, for which the senate 

 bertowed the surname of Germaniau* upon him and his posterity. 







:'. of DrunuK. 

 Actual >Ue. Copper. 



Weight 428J grain.. 



ID *,c. 9 Drums was made consul, with L. Quintius Crispinu*. He 

 wa* aoon after sent again by Augustus against the German*, crossed 

 the Vjaurgis, and advanced a* far a* the Albis or Elbe. He imposed 

 a moderate tribute on the Frisians, consisting of a certain quantity 

 of bid**, which, being afterwards aggravated by tlio extortion of his 

 Mceaaon, caused a rcrolt under the reign of Tiberius. (Tacitu*, 

 Ann., jr. '-.'.) He canned a canal to be cut, for the purpose of 

 uniting the Rhine to the Yssel, whkh wa* known long after by the 

 name of Fowa Drui ; and be alao began to raise dykes to prevent the 

 intwdaUoD* of the lihine, which were completed by Paulinu* Pompelui 

 under the reign of Kero. Drum* did not cross the Albis, probably 

 *eate he thought he had advanced already far enough : ho retired 



toward* the Rhine, bat before he reached that river ho died, at the 

 age of thirty, in oonseqoeno*, a* it wa* reported, of hi* hone falling 

 upon him and fracturing hi* leg. (Livy, 'Epitome.') Tiberiun, who 

 wa* aent for in haste, and found his brother expiring, accompanied 

 hi* body to Home, where hia funeral wa* performed with the greatest 

 solemnity. Both Augustus and Tiberiua delivered orations in bis 

 praise. Drusus waa much regretted both by the army and by the 

 Roman* in general, who had formed great expectations from hi* 

 manly and geucroua sentiments. One of hia grandsons, Drums, con 

 of Germanicua and of Agrippino, was starved to death by order of 

 Tiberiua, and Nero, the other, was put to death in the island of Ponaa, 



DRYDEN, JOHN, was born on the 9th of August 1631, at 

 Aldwinckle, in Northamptonshire. He wa* the eldest son of Eraamu* 

 llridrn, who wa* the third son of Sir Krasmua Driden of Canons 

 Ashby, in that county, created a baronet in 1619. The poet wa* 

 educated as a king's scholar at Westminster School under Dr. Busby, 

 where he wrote some poetic translations, which were much noticed, 

 and, in 1649, an 'Elegy on the Death of Lord Hastings,' and some 

 verses on the ' Divine Epigrams ' of John Hoddesdon, which were 

 published in 1620. He waa elected a Westminster scholar to Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, May 11, 1650. Almost the only notice whu 

 college archives give respecting him is one dated July 19th, 

 whereby he ia "put out of Commons for a fortnight at least," confined 

 to walls, and sentenced to read a confession of his crime at the fellows' 

 table during dinner-time. 



In 1654 his father's death put him in possession of an estate worth 

 about OO/. per annum (subject to hi* mother's life interest of a third). 

 He did not however leave Cambridge till three years afterwards, when, 

 having been admitted M.A. by dispensation from the Archbishop of 

 Canterbury, he waa introduced into a subordinate public office by bis 

 maternal relation Sir Gilbert Pickering. The stanzas on Cromwell's 

 death, his first poem of any importance, were written in the following 

 year, and in 1660 be signalised himself by 'Astnea Redux,' a congratu- 

 latory address on the Restoration. 



It seems scarcely worth while attempting to excuse this change of 

 views. Dryden was yet a young man, and had probably never before 

 been in a situation to express hi* own opinions, apart from the 

 influence of his kinsman ; and after all, the lines on Cromwell contain, 

 as Sir W. Scott has observed, little or nothing in the way of eulogy 

 which his worst enemies could have denied him. In the year 1683 

 Dryden began his dramatic career with 'The Wild Gallant' The 

 plague and fire of London soon interrupted him for a time, and he 

 employed himself upon his 'Essay on Dramatic Poesy,' a performance 

 containing much elegant writing, and worthy of notice as the earliest 

 work of the kind in our language. It would be easy to show the 

 deficiencies and mistakes of this composition, but they are fully coun- 

 terbalanced by the manly avowal the first since the Restoration 

 of the supremacy of Shakspere. In December 1663 he married a 

 daughter of the first Earl of Berkshire ; with her he received a settle- 

 ment of about 601. a year; and in 1670 he was appointed poet-laureate 

 and historiographer, with a salary of 2001. a year ; so that, allowing 

 for the then much greater value of money, he must have been in 

 receipt of for the times a very handsome income. On the revival of 

 stage plays, Dryden became one of the most active dramatic writers, 

 and soon acquired so much celebrity that he was engaged to nupply 

 the King's Theatre with three plays a year, for the annual sum 

 to 400t He did not however fulfil his share of the contract. Malono 

 ha* proved that the number really produced did not amount to more 

 than eighteen in sixteen years. 



Towards the end of 1671, tho celebrated attack on heroic drama* 

 called the ' Rehearsal* was produced on the stage. Its effect, though 

 sure, wa* not immediate ; except that Dryden exchanged tragedy for 

 comedy, and composed two comedies in 1072. A few years after- 

 ward* he took leave of rhyme; his last rhyming tragedy, called 

 ' Aureng-Zebe,' being brought out in 1675 ; but he continued to write 

 for the stage until 1681, when the struggle between the parties of the 

 duke* of Monmouth and York seemed drawing to a crisis, and there 

 appeared some need that the scurrilous abuse which hod been in every 

 way poured on the court party by means of epigram and satire should 

 be rebutted in timilar fashion. 



This Dryden effected by the famous satire called 'Absalom and 

 Achitophel,' wherein Monmouth figure* as Absalom. Moninouth is 

 treated with great levity, but all the vials of the poet's wrnth ure 

 poured out on Buckingham, the author of the ' Kchearsal,' as Ziinri, 

 and on Shaftesbury as Achitophel. The last-named nobleman bad 

 been committed to the Tower, not long before, under a charge of high 

 treason : he was however released upon the grand jury's refusal to 

 find a true bill against him, which the Whig party celebrated by a 

 medal struck for the occasion. This afforded I irycU-n a fresh subject, 

 and in March 1681 appeared ' Tho Medal,' a bitter lampoon ouShaftes- 

 bury, followed up in the next year by ' Mac Fleckuoe, and the second 

 part of ' Absalom and Acbitophd,' the larger part of which was written 

 by N. Tote, but revised by Dryden. Together these satire* gave the 

 finishing stroke to his old enemies Settle and Shadwell, be i 

 numerous host of petty satirists. With Settle he had quarrelled some 

 years before, whose chief supporter, Rochester, having become impli- 

 cated, and suspecting Drydeu of indulging anonymous revenge, caused 

 him, in 1679, to be attacked and beaten by hired ruffian*. 



