portion of this interval at Charlton, the seat of the Earl of Berkshire, Sir Robert's father. Here Dryden met, wooed, and married Lady Elizabeth, his friend's sister. There is no evidence to show in what light the family viewed the match. Lampoons written long after, dictated by the virulence of political hatred, asserted that the alliance took place under circumstances not very creditable to either party. As no proof whatever was adduced in support of these ill-natured statements, all his biographers have consented to discredit or overlook them. The slander may have been suggested by the seeming inequality in the circumstances of the two. But a moment's reflection will show that there was no vast disproportion between them. Dryden was of good and old, though not noble family. He had been educated at Westminster and Cambridge; his prospects had been excellent before the Restoration; and he had proved himself, by the verses he had published, and his successes on the stage, a man of genius and promise. As regards his personal qualifications, we need not wonder at Lady Elizabeth's choice, for if his portrait can be trusted, he must as a young man have possessed much manly beauty.
It was not his first passion. While at Cambridge, he had paid his addresses to his cousin, Honor Dryden, who was an heiress as well as a beauty. There is still remaining one love letter of his written to her from Cambridge. It is replete with figure and conceits, and with quite as much affectation, and not a tithe of the elegance of the early letters of Pope. She rejected him at the time; but lived to regret her obduracy, for she died single, and was very proud, when Dryden had become famous, to show the love letter he had written her from the University.
Previous to his marriage, he had also an amour with a pretty actress, Mrs. Reeves, who was for some time under
