It is said that the family were Anabaptists, but great doubt hangs over the question. The destruction of a parish register leaves us to mere conjecture on the subject, and induces us to remark that those records have been so carelessly kept, even in later times, that much valuable information is lost by the wanton negligence evinced in the custody of what are the title-deeds of the humbler classes of the community. There is no doubt that the poet's early opinions were tinged with Puritanism, and that he had some hopes of patronage and promotion while that party was in power. Tichmarsh was the place which lays claim to being the scene of his childish days. He was thence removed to Westminster, where he was placed on the foundation. This justly famous school was then under the management of Dr. Busby of flogging notoriety.
We find that, as in the case of Ben Jonson and Camden, at the same place of education, the friendship between master and pupil was strengthened by time. Dryden sent his sons to Westminster; and a letter, in which he wrote to the Doctor to complain of some harsh treatment which one of them had received, is most respectful in its language. It was here that he gave an early proof of his talents for versifying and translation, for he tells us in his preface to "Persius," that he had, when a boy at Westminster, translated the third satire, as a Thursday night's exercise, for the head master; and he adds that the Doctor was still probably in possession of that and others of his earliest poetical essays. They are now, at the school, justly proud of "glorious John " as an "Old Westminster," and his name is still shown carved on a desk in the shell form, it is said, by his own hand.
When the choice came, it fell to Dryden's lot to go up as scholar to Trinity, Cambridge, and not Christ Church, Oxford. What his feelings were at the time, we have no
