arden behind his house in
Gerard-street, he was seized with a violent pain under the ball of the
great toe of his right foot; that, 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; and left behind him the
lady Elizabeth, his wife, and three sons. Lady Elizabeth survived him
eight years, four of which she was a lunatic; being deprived of her
senses by a nervous fever in 1704.

John, another of his sons, died of a fever at Rome; and Charles as has
been observed, was drowned in the Thames; there is no account when, or
at what place Harry his third son died.

Charles Dryden, who was some time usher to pope Clement II. was a young
gentleman of a very promising genius; and in the affair of his father's
funeral, which I am about to relate, shewed himself a man of spirit and
resolution.[7]

The day after Mr. Dryden's death, the dean of Westminster sent word to
Mr. Dryden's widow, that he would make a present of the ground, and all
other Abbey-fees for the funeral: The lord Halifax likewise sent to
the lady Elizabeth, and to Mr. Charles Dryden, offering to defray the
expences of our poet's funeral, and afterwards to bestow 500 l. on a
monument in the Abbey: which generous offer was accepted. Accordingly,
on Sunday following, the company being assembled, the corpse was put
into a velvet hearse, attended by eighteen mourning coaches. When they
were just ready to move, lord Jefferys, son of lord chancellor Jeffreys,
a name dedicated to infamy, with some of his rakish companions riding
by, asked whose funeral it was; and being told it was Mr. Dryden's, he
protested he should not be buried in that private manner, that he
would himself, with the lady Elizabeth's leave, have the honour of the
interment, and would bestow a thousand pounds on a monument in the Abbey
for him. This pu