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 few theological tracts and
single sermons. While at college, our author's conduct seems not to have
been uniformly regu