trouble in making, and which has since been made so free with, I have several others to add that have never appeared; and I will take care that they shall not be used in the same manner the former were.”
His own copy of the work, largely annotated, is now in the Bodleian. One of the additions is a notice of Dryden’s sister, second wife of Dr. Lawton, who died in December 1710. She had previously buried her only son. Dryden gave him an epitaph in Catworth Church characteristic of her extreme grief; and which not being included in his works, may find place here—
She always weeps who laid him here;
And will do till her race is run:
His father’s fifth, her only son.”[1]
Pope formed the next name on his list for a similar tribute of respect. Both, as we have said, were commenced about the same time, but the vein of information chanced to run deeper in one than the other. Probably also Dr. Joseph Warton informed him early of being engaged on that edition of the younger poet which came out in 1797, in nine
- ↑ Some additions to the facts of the life have been made by the diligence of Mr. Robert Bell, in his annotated edition of the British Poets, which supplies one of the wants of the age. These are chiefly from the family of the poet—letters from Honor and Ann Dryden; copy of his marriage licence at St. Swithin’s Church; letter of William Walsh on his poems; and besides others, an Exchequer warrant by which 100l. per annum was added to his salary as poet laureate in May 1684. This grant coming from Charles II., relieves him from the charge of changing his religion for a pension under his successor—the latter being, in fact, simply a confirmation of the previous gift. It is pleasant thus to be enabled to exonerate genius from imputed unworthy motives. Lord Macaulay, not always accurate, will therefore, no doubt, from this discovery of Mr. Bell, withdraw the charge against him of corrupt motives, however lightly he may otherwise think of the “renegade.” While this is passing through the press, his lordship’s death is announced.
