Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/79

Dryden Bolingbroke) found Dryden one morning in great agitation, for which he accounted by saying that he had sat up all night writing the ode. The subject had so impressed him that he had finished it at a sitting. It would be easy to suggest modes of harmonising these statements, but the facts must remain uncertain. It is equally uncertain whether the society did or did not pay him 40l., as Derrick reports on the authority of Walter Moyle, while Dryden tells his son the task was ‘in no way beneficial.’ The ode was published separately in 1697. Malone (p. 477) preserves the tradition that Dryden confirmed the compliment of a young man (afterwards Chief-justice Marlay) by saying ‘A nobler ode never was produced nor ever will be.’ Dryden was now breaking in health. A few traditions remain as to his later years. Friends and admirers had gathered round him. He was to be seen at Will's coffee-house, where (the only fact recovered by ‘old Swiney’ for Johnson's use) he had a chair by the fire in winter and by the window in summer. Ward tells us (London Spy, pt. 10) how the young wits coveted the honour of a pinch from Dryden's snuff-box. Dryden spent his evenings at the coffee-house. A few scraps of his talk carefully collected by Malone (pp. 498–510) are, it is to be hoped, unfair specimens of his powers. Fletcher's ‘Pilgrim’ was performed for the benefit of his son Charles in the beginning of 1700. It was revised by Vanbrugh for the occasion, and Dryden contributed an additional scene, together with a prologue and epilogue (vigorously attacking Blackmore, who had provoked his wrath by an assault in the ‘Satire against Wit’), and a ‘Secular Masque.’ George Granville (afterwards Lord Lansdowne) prepared an adaptation of the ‘Merchant of Venice,’ to be performed for his benefit. His death caused the profits to be transferred to his son Charles. He had a correspondence with enthusiastic young ladies, especially Mrs. Thomas, to whom he gave the name Corinna; he was courted by John Dennis, then a critic of reputation, as well as by some of higher and in some cases more permanent fame, such as Congreve, Addison, Southerne, Vanbrugh, Granville, and Moyle. Pope, then a boy in his twelfth year, managed to get a sight of him, and he held the post of literary dictator, previously assigned to Ben Jonson, and afterwards to Addison, Pope, and Samuel Johnson. He often visited his relations in the country, and anecdotes show that he played bowls and was fond of fishing. During March and April 1700 he was confined to the house by gout. A toe mortified, and he declined to submit to amputation, which was advised by a famous surgeon, Hobbs. He died with great composure, 1 May 1700, at his house in Gerrard Street. He had lived from 1673 to 1682 in Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, where the house, pulled down in 1887, had a tablet in commemoration, and from 1682 to 1686 in Long Acre (, Lives (Cunningham), i. 320). A tablet affixed to 43 Gerrard Street, Soho, states that he also resided there. He left no will, and his widow having renounced, his son Charles administered to his effects on 10 June. A private funeral was proposed, and Montagu offered to pay the expenses, which explains Pope's famous allusion in the character of Bufo—

Some of Dryden's friends, including Lord Jeffreys, son of the chancellor, objected. The body was embalmed, and upon Garth's application was allowed to be deposited in the College of Physicians until the funeral on 13 May. On that day Garth pronounced a Latin oration, Horace's ‘Exegi monumentum’ was sung to music, and the body was buried by the side of Chaucer and Cowley in the ‘Poets' Corner’ of Westminster Abbey. Dryden's friends filled fifty carriages, and fifty more followed. Farquhar speaks of the ceremony as incongruous and burlesque, ‘fitter for Hudibras than him.’ The grave remained unmarked until 1720, when a simple monument was erected by the Duke of Buckinghamshire (stirred, it is said, by Pope's inscription upon Rowe, where allusion was made to the ‘rude and nameless stone’ which covered Dryden). The Duchess of Buckinghamshire substituted the bust by Scheemakers in 1731 for an inferior bust placed upon the first monument.

Mrs. Thomas (Corinna) fell into distress and became one of Curll's authors. She supplied him with a fictitious account of Dryden's funeral addressed to the author of Congreve's life, in which it was published. It was founded, according to Malone, on Farquhar's letter and a poem of Tom Brown's called ‘A Description of Mr. D—n's Funeral.’ Corinna's misstatements are sufficiently confuted by Malone (pp. 355–82), though they long passed current as genuine.

Lady Elizabeth Dryden, who (according to doubtful traditions recorded by Malone, p. 395) was on distant terms with her husband and his relations in later years, became insane soon after his death, and survived till the summer of 1714. They had three sons. , born at Charlton in 1666, was educated at Westminster, elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1683, and wrote some poems, one of which, in Latin, appeared in