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ingratiating himself with the new court, he produced, first, a Poem entitled Astræa redux, and afterwards a panegyric to the King on his coronation. In 1662, he addressed a Poem to the Lord Chancellor Hyde, presented on New-Year's Day; and in the same year a Satire on the Dutch. In 1668 appeared his Annus Mirabilis, which was an historical Poem, in celebration of the Duke of York's victory over the Dutch. These pieces at length obtained him the favour of the crown; and Sir William D'Avenant dying the same year, Mr. Dryden was appointed to succeed him as Poet Laureat. About the same time he engaged himself by contract to write four Plays in each year, which, notwithstanding the assertions of some writers, he never executed.

Soon after the accession of King James II. he changed his religion for that of the church of Rome, and wrote two pieces in vindication of the Romish tenets, viz. À Defence of the Papers written by the late King, of blessed memory, found in his strong box; and the celebrated Poem, afterwards answered by Lord Halifax and Prior, entitled The Hind and the Panther. By this extraordinary step he not only engaged himself in controversy, and incurred much censure and ridicule from his contemporary wits, but on the completion of the revolution, being, on account of his newly-chosen religion, disqualified from bearing any office under the government, he was stripped of the laurel, which, to his still greater mortification, was bestowed on Shadwell, a man to whom he had a most settled aversion. This circumstance occasioned his writing the very severe Poem, called Mac Flecknoe.

Mr. Dryden's circumstances had never been affluent; but now, being deprived of this little support, he found himself reduced to the necessity of writing for mere bread. We consequently find him from this period engaged in performances of labour as well as genius, viz. in translating works of others; and to this necessity perhaps our nation stands indebted for some of the best translations extant. In the year he lost the laurel, he published the life of St. Francis Xavier, from the French. In 1693, came out a translation of Juvenal and Persius, in the first of which he had a considerable hand, and of the latter the entire execution. In 1595 was published his prose version of Fresnoy's Art of Painting; and the year 1697 gave the world that translation of Virgil's

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Works entire, which still does, and perhaps ever will, stand foremost among the attempts made on that author. The petite pieces of this eminent writer, such as Prologues, Epilogues, Epitaphs, Elegies, Songs, &c. are too numerous to be specified here. They have been collected into volumes, and are now incorporated in his works among the English Poets. His Fables, the last work he published, consist of many of the most interesting stories in Homer, Ovid, Boccace, and Chaucer, translated or modernized in the most elegant and poetical manner, together with some original pieces, among which is the Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.

Dryden married the Lady Elizabeth Howard, sister to the Earl of Berkshire, who survived him eight years, though for the last four of them she was a lunatic, having been deprived of her senses by a nervous fever. By this lady he had three sons, who all survived him. Their names were Charles, John, and Henry.

Dryden departed this life on the first of May, 1701, and was interred in Westminster-Abbey. On the 19th of April he had been very bad with the gout and erisipelas in one leg; but he was then somewhat recovered, and designed to go abroad; on the Friday following he eat a partridge for his supper, and going to take a turn in the little garden behind his house in Gerard-street, he was seized with a violent pain under the ball of the great toe of his right foot; unable to stand, he cried out for help, and was carried in by his servants, when, upon sending for surgeons, they found a small black spot in the place affected; he submitted to their present applications, and when gone called his son Charles to him, using these words: "I know this black spot is a mortification: I know also that it will seize my head, and that they will attempt to cut off my leg; but I command you, my son, by your filial duty, that you do not suffer me to be dismembered:" as he foretold, the event proved; and his son was too dutiful to disobey his father's commands. On the Wednesday morning following he breathed his last, under the most excruciating pains, in the 69th year of his

age.

WILLIAM WYCHERLY.

THIS eminent comic poet, who was born about the year 1640, was the eldest son of Daniel Wycherly, of Cleve,

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in Shropshire, Esq. When he was about fifteen years of age, he was sent to France, where he became a Roman Catholic; but on his return to England, and being entered a Gentleman-Cominoner of Queen's College in Oxford, he was reconciled to the Protestant religion. He afterwards entered himself in the Middle Temple; but, making his first appearance in town in the loose reign of Charles II. when wit and gaiety were the favourite distinctious, he soon quitted the dry study of the law, and pursued things more agreeable to his own genius, as well as to the taste of the age. As nothing was likely to take better than dramatic performances, especially comedies, he applied himself to this species of writing. On the appearance of his first play, he became acquainted with several of the first-rate wits, and likewise with the Duchess of Cleveland, with whom, according to the secret history of those times, he was admitted to the last degree of intimacy. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, had also the highest esteem for him, and, as Master of the Horse to the King, made him one of his Equerries; as Colonel of a regiment, CaptainLieutenant of his own company, resigning to him at the same time his own pay as Captain, with many other advantages. King Charles likewise shewed him signal marks of favour; and once gave him a proof of his esteem, which perhaps never any Sovereign Prince before had given to a private gentleman. Mr. Wycherly being ill of a fever at his lodgings in Bow-street, the King did him the honour of a visit. Finding him extremely weakened, and his spirits miserably shattered, he commanded him to take a journeyto the south of France, believing that the air of Montpelier would contribute to restore him, and assured him, at the same time, that he would order him 500l. to defray the charges of the journey, Mr. Wycherly accordingly went into France, and, having spent the winter there, returned to England, entirely restored to his former vigour. The King, shortly after his arrival, told him that he had a son, who he was resolved should be educated like the son of a King, and that he could not choose a more proper man for his governor than Mr. Wycherly; for which service 1500/. per annum should be settled upon him.

Mr. Wycherly, however, such is the uncertain state of all human affairs, lost the favour of the King by the following means:-Immediately after he had received the gracious offer above mentioned, he went down to Tun

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