n out, was, like a besieged garrison, forced to obey the call to
arms, and defend reputation even with the very last exertion of the
vital spirit.

The approach of death was not, however, so gradual as might have been
expected from the poet's chronic diseases. He had long suffered both by
the gout and gravel, and more lately the erysipelas seized one of his
legs. To a shattered frame and a corpulent habit, the most trifling
accident is often fatal. A slight inflammation in one of his toes,
became, from neglect, a gangrene. Mr. Hobbes, an eminent surgeon, to
prevent mortification, proposed to amputate the limb; but Dryden, who
had no reason to be in love with life, refused the chance of prolonging
it by a doubtful and painful operation.[50] After a short interval, the
catastrophe expected by Mr. Hobbes took place, and, Dryden not long
surviving the consequences, left life on Wednesday morning, 1st May
1700, at three o'clock. He seems to have been sensible till nearly his
last moments, and died in the Roman Catholic faith, with submission and
entire resignation to the divine will; "taking of his friends," says
Mrs. Creed, one of the sorrowful number, "so tender and obliging a
farewell, as none but he himself could have expressed."

The death of a man like Dryden, especially in narrow and neglected
circumstances, is usually an alarum-bell to the public. Unavailing and
mutual reproaches, for unthankful and pitiless negligence, waste
themselves in newspaper paragraphs, elegies, and funeral processions;
the debt to genius is then deemed discharged, and a new account of
neglect and commemoration is opened between the public and the next who
rises to supply his room. It was thus with Dryden: His family were
preparing to bury him with the decency becoming their limited
circumstances, when Charles Montague, Lord Jefferies, and other men of
quality, made a subscription for a public funeral. The body of the poet
was then removed to the Physicians' Hall, where it was embalmed, and lay
in state till the 13th day of May, twelve days after the decease. On
that day, the celebrated Dr. Garth pronounced a Latin oration over the
remains of his departed friend; which were then, with considerable
state, preceded by a band of music, and attended by a numerous
procession of carriages, transported to Westminster Abbey, and deposited
between the graves of Chaucer and Cowley.

The malice of Dryden's contemporaries, which he had experienced thro