Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/284

 276 DRUZES fill all offices five years before the legal age, he acted as praetor in place of his brother Tiberius during the latter's absence in Gaul. In 15 he was made quaestor, and in this capacity he was sent against the Rhaetians, who were accused of having plundered sub- jects and allies of Rome, and whom he de- feated as they were about to make a descent upon the plains of Italy. He afterward joined his brother Tiberius, and in conjunction with him thoroughly subdued this formidable tribe. In 13 he was appointed governor of Gaul, and in the following year defeated the Sicam- brians, and afterward the Frisians, penetrating during this expedition as far as the German ocean, which he was the first Roman to reach. He is supposed to have dug a canal from the Rhine to the Yssel, and thus to have open- ed a way by the Zuyder Zee to the sea. Re- turning to Rome in 11, he was made praetor urbanus ; but in the spring he renewed his campaigns in Gaul, subdued the Usipetes and several other tribes, and again returning, was allowed a triumph by the senate. In 10 he won new victories over the German tribes, and in 9 he was elected consul. But even this of- fice could not keep him at Rome. He returned to Gaul, defeated the Oatti, Suevi, and Cherus- ci, and penetrated to the Elbe. Here he de- termined, ostensibly on account of certain por- tents and omens, to retreat. He set out, but between the Elbe and the Sala (probably the Thuringian Saale) he was killed by the falling of his horse. II. Drnsns C%sar, commonly called Drusus Junior, son of the emperor Tiberius by his first wife Vipsania, died A. D. 23. During the life of Germanicus the court was divided between the parties of Germanicus and Drusus, and Tiberius took care not to declare which should succeed him. Drusus had not the dis- simulation of his father, but he equalled him in impurity and in cruelty. He was quaestor in A. D. 10, and on his return from Pannonia in 15, whither he had been sent to quell a mutiny of the legions, he was made consul. He de- graded the dignity of his office by his excesses, and Tiberius sent him with the army to Illyri- cum to teach him the art of war and remove him from the dissipations of the city. He suc- cessfully interfered in affairs of neighboring Germanic tribes, and an ovation was decreed him by the senate. In 22 he was promoted to the tribunicia potestas, which indicated him as the successor to the empire. Regarding Sejanus as his rival, Drusus one day struck him in the face, and the former persuaded Livia, the wife of Drusus, whose affections he had seduced, to become his murderer. A poison was adminis- tered to him which terminated his life after a lingering illness, supposed at the time to be a result of his intemperate habits ; but the crime was confessed eight years afterward by the wife of Sejanus, who was privy to it. DRUZES. See DRUSES. DRYADS (Gr. <fy%, an oak,) wood nymphs in the Greek and Roman mythology. They are DRYDEN generally considered the same as the hama- dryads, and, being attached to particular trees, their life was limited by that of the tree in which they lived. Another account is that the dryads were the patrons of forests and trees in general, and were thus distinguished from the hamadryads, who inhabited each a particular tree. DRYANDER, Jonas, a Swedish naturalist, born in 1748, died in London, Oct. 19, 1810. He was educated at the university of Gothen- burg, and took his degree of doctor in philos- ophy at Lund in 1776. on which occasion he published a dissertation in opposition to the theory that fungi might be the production of animals. He became the friend and pupil of Linnaeus ; and visiting England as a private tutor, he resided with Sir Joseph Banks after 1782 as his librarian. He was also librarian of the royal and Linnaean societies, of the latter of which he was one of the founders. He wrote several papers on botanical sub- jects, and superintended the publication of the Hortus Kewensis and Roxburgh's " Plants of the Coast of Coromandel." He was an accomplished bibliographer, and his Catalogus BibliotJieccB ffistorico-Naturalis Josephi Banks, Baroneti (5 vols., London, 1796-1800), is a model of arrangement. DRYDEN, John, an English poet, born in the parish of Aldwinckle All Saints, Northamp- tonshire, Aug. 9, 1631, died May 1, 1700. He belonged to a respectable Puritan family, and his father was a magistrate under Cromwell. He was the eldest of 14 children, and received a good education at Tichmarsh and at West- minster school. At the latter he showed his poetical gifts in a translation of the third satire of Persius and an elegy on the accomplished young Lord Hastings. He graduated at Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1654, and remained there till 1657. He then went to London, where his relative, Sir Gilbert Pickering, a member of Cromwell's council, gave him a petty clerk- ship. He celebrated the death of the protector in his "Heroic Stanzas;" but his connection with the Puritan party was the result of cir- cumstances rather than sympathy. The res- toration called forth his Astrcea Redux in 1660, and the coronation of Charles II. an- other panegyrical poem. At this period he eked out the pittance from his paternal estate by writing prefaces and other occasional pieces for the booksellers. The patronage of Sir Robert Howard improved his fortunes, and he soon became known as a ready versifier and a stanch royalist. His first play, "The Wild Gallant," produced in 1662, was not success- ful. It was followed by "The Rival La- dies" and "The Indian Emperor;" but the plague and the great fire of London put a stop to all theatrical representations, and drove him to a less profitable employment. He busied himself in composing his "Essay of Dramatic Poesy," in which he defends the use of rhyme in tragedy. In 1663 he