a season before him as its hero. Sometimes he looked up with
an ambitious eye to Homer, and we see his hand "pawing" like the hoof of
the war-horse in Job, as he smelled his battle afar off, and panted to
do for Achilles and Hector what he had done for Turnus and AEneas. He
meant to have turned the "Iliad" into blank verse; but, after all,
translated the only book of it which he published into rhyme. But, in
fine, he determined to modernise some of the fine old tales of Boccacio
and Chaucer; and in March 1699-1700, appeared his brilliant "Fables,"
with some other poems from his pen, for which he received L300 at
Jonson's hands.

This was his last publication of size, although he was labouring on when
death surprised him, and within the last three weeks of his life had
written the "Secular Margin," and the prologue and the epilogue to
Fletcher's "Pilgrim,"--productions remarkable as showing the ruling
passion strong in death,--the squabbling litterateur and satirist
combating and kicking his enemies to the last,--Jeremy Collier, for
having accused him of licentiousness in his dramas; Milbourne, for
having attacked his "Georgics;" and poor Blackmore for having doubted
the orthodoxy of "Religio Laici," and the decency of "Amphitryon" and
"Limberham."

He had now to go a pilgrimage himself to a far country. He had long been
troubled with gout and gravel; but next came erysipelas in one of his
legs; and at last mortification, superinduced by a neglected
inflammation in his toe, carried him off at three o'clock on Wednesday
morning the 1st of May 1700. He died a Roman Catholic, and in "entire
resignation to the Divine will." He died so poor, that he was buried by
subscription, Lords Montague and Jeffries delaying the interment till
the necessary funds were raised. The body, after lying embalmed and in
state for ten days in the College of Physicians, was buried with great
pomp in Westminster Abbey, where now, between the graves of Chaucer and
Cowley, reposes the dust of Dryden.

His lady survived him fourteen years, and died insane. His eldest son
Charles was drowned in 1704 at Datchett, while seeking to swim across
the Thames. John died at Rome of a fever in 1701. Erasmus, who was
supposed to inherit his mother's malady, died in 1710; and the title
which he had derived from Sir Robert passed to his uncle, the brother of
the poet, and thence to his grandson. Sir Henry Edward Leigh Dryden, of
Canons-Ashby, is now the represe