POETICAL WORKS

OF

JOHN DRYDEN.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

WITH THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

Hear how Timotheus' vary'd lays surprises
And bid alternate passions fall and rise...
The pow'r of music all our hearts allow,
And what Timotheus was is DRY DEN now.

POPE.
Behold where DRYDEN's less presumptuous car
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear
Two coursers of ethereal race,
wi:h necks in thunder cloth'd, and loog-resounding pace.
Haik, his hands the iyre explore !
Bright ey'd Fancy hov'ring o'er,
Scatters from her pictur'd urn
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
But ah! 'tis heard no inore... -

GRAY

LONDON:

PRINTED AT THE Apollo Press, BY GEORGE CAWTHORN, NO. 132, STRAND, BOOKSELLER & PRINTER TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE PRINCESS OF WALES.

POETICAL WORKS

OF

JOHN DRYDEN.

VOL, I.

CONTAINING HIS

ASTRÆA REDUX,

RELIGIO LAICI, ANNUS MIRABILIS,

THRENOD. AUGUSTALIS, BRITANNIA REDIVIVA, STANZAS TO CROMWELL,

&c. &c. &c.

But see where artful DRYDEN next appears,
Grown old in thyme, but charming ev'n in years !
Great DRYDEN next! whose tuneful Musc affords
The sweetest numbers and the fictest words.
Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs
She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears.
If satire or heroic str Ds she writes,
Her hero pleases, and her satire bites.
From her no harsh unartful numbers fall;
She wears all dresses, and she charms in all.

ADDISON.

LONDON:

PRINTED AT THE Apollo Press, BY GEORGE CAWTHORN, NO. 132, STRAND; BOOKSELLER AND PRINTER TO RER ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE PRINCESS OF WALES,

JOHN DRYDEN.

This illustrious Poet was son of Erasmus Dryden of Ticmerish in Northamptonshire, third son of Sir Erasmus Dryden of Canons-Ashby, in the same county, Baronet, and born at Aldwincle, near Oundle, 1631. * He had his education in grammar learning at Westminster-school, under the famous Dr. Busby, and was from thence elected, in 1650, a scholar of Trinity, College in Cambridge,

We have no account of any extraordinary indications of genius given by this great Poet while in his earlier days; and he is one instance how little regard is to be paid to the figure a boy makes at school, Mr. Dryden was turned of thirty before he introduced any play upon the stage; and his first, called The Wild Gallants, met with a very indifferent reception; so that if he had not been impelled by the force of genius and propension, he had never again attempted the stage; a circumstance which the lovers of drama, tic poetry must ever have regretted, as they would in this case have been deprived of one of the greatest or naments that ever adorned the profession.

The year before he left the University, he wrote a

• Athen. Oxon.