The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author | Page 9

by any person of
distinction. David Driden, or Dryden, married the daughter of William
Nicholson of Staff-hill, in the county of Cumberland and was the

great-great-grandfather of our poet. John Dryden, eldest son of David,
settled in Northamptonshire, where he acquired the estate of
Canons-Ashby, by marriage with Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir
John Cope of that county. Wood says, that John Dryden was by
profession a schoolmaster, and honoured with the friendship of the
great Erasmus, who stood godfather to one of his sons.[15] He appears,
from some passages in his will, to have entertained the puritanical
principles, which, we shall presently find, descended to his family.[16]
Erasmus Driden, his eldest son, succeeded to the estate of
Canons-Ashby, was high-sheriff of Northamptonshire in the fortieth
year of Queen Elizabeth, and was created a knight baronet in the
seventeenth of King James I. Sir Erasmus married Frances, second
daughter and co-heiress of William Wilkes of Hodnell, in
Warwickshire by whom he had three sons, first, Sir John Driden, his
successor in the title and estate of Canons-Ashby; second, William
Driden of Farndon, in Northamptonshire; third, Erasmus Driden of
Tichmarsh, in the same county. The last of these was the father of the
poet.
Erasmus Driden married Mary, the daughter of the reverend Henry
Pickering, younger son of Sir Gilbert Pickering, a person who, though
in considerable favour with James I., was a zealous puritan, and so
noted for opposition to the Catholics that the conspirators in the
Gunpowder Treason, his own brother-in-law being one of the
number,[17] had resolved upon his individual murder, as an episode to
the main plot; determined so to conduct it, as to throw the suspicion of
the destruction of the Parliament upon the puritans.[18] These
principles, we shall soon see, became hereditary in the family of
Pickering. Mr. Malone's industry has collected little concerning our
author's maternal grandfather, excepting, that he was born in 1584;
named minister of Oldwinkle All-Saints in 1647; and died in 1657.
From the time when he attained this preferment, it is highly probable,
that he had been recommended to it by the puritanical tenets which he
doubtless held in common with the rest of his family.
Of the poet's father, Erasmus, we know even less than of his other
relations. He acted as a justice of peace during the usurpation, and was

the father of no less than fourteen children; four sons and ten daughters.
The sons were John, Erasmus, Henry, and James; the daughters, Agnes,
Rose, Lucy, Mary, Martha, Elizabeth, Hester, Hannah, Abigail, Frances.
Such anecdotes concerning them as my predecessors have recovered,
may be found in the note.[19]
JOHN DRYDEN, the subject of this memoir, was born at the
parsonage house of Oldwinkle All-Saints, on or about the 9th day of
August 1631.[20] The village then belonged to the family of Exeter, as
we are informed by the poet himself in the postscript to his Virgil. That
his family were Puritans may readily be admitted; but that they were
Anabaptists, although confidently asserted by some of our author's
political or poetical antagonists, appears altogether improbable.
Notwithstanding, therefore, the sarcasm of the Duke of Buckingham,
the register of Oldwinkle All-Saints parish, had it been in existence,
would probably have contained the record of our poet's baptism.[21]
Dryden seems to have received the rudiments of his education at
Tichmarsh,[22] and was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster,[23]
under the tuition of the celebrated Dr. Bushby,[24] for whom he ever
afterwards entertained the most sincere veneration. One of his letters to
his old master is addressed, "Honoured Sir," and couched in terms of
respect, and even humility, fully sufficient for the occasion. Another
written by Dryden, when his feelings were considerably irritated by a
supposed injustice done to his son, is nevertheless qualified by great
personal deference to his old preceptor. It may be readily supposed, that
such a scholar, under so able a teacher, must have made rapid progress
in classical learning. The bent of the juvenile poet, even at this early
period, distinguished itself. He translated the third satire of Persius, as a
Thursday night's task, and executed many other exercises of the same
nature, in English verse, none of which are now in existence.[25]
During the last year of his residence at Westminster, the death of Henry
Lord Hastings, a young nobleman of great learning, and much beloved,
called forth no less than ninety-eight elegies, one of which was written
by our poet, then about eighteen years old. They were published in
1650, under the title of "Lachrymae Musarum."

Dryden, having obtained a Westminster scholarship was admitted to
Trinity College, Cambridge on the 11th May 1650, his tutor being the
reverend John Templer, M.A., a man of some learning, who wrote a
Latin Treatise in confutation of Hobbes, and a