Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
DRYDEN, JOHN, son of Erasmus Dryden, Titchmarsh, Northants., and Mary, dau. of Rev. Henry Pickering, Rector of Aldwincle All Saints, Northants.; b. 19 Aug 1631; adm.; KS; wrote while a KS an elegy on the death of Lord Hastings, published by R. B. in Lachrymae Musarum, 1649; elected head to Trinity Coll. Cambridge 1650, adm. pens. 18 May 1650, scholar 2 Oct 1650; “walled” for a fortnight and not allowed to go outside the college “excepting for sermons” Jul 1652, for disobedience to the Vice-Master (W. W. Rouse Ball, Cambridge Papers, 218-9); forfeited scholarship by non-residence and thus ineligible for a Fellowship; BA 1653/4; MA Lambeth 17 Jun 1668; mourned Cromwell’s death in Heroic Stanzas 1658; celebrated the Restoration in Astraea Redux 1660, and Charles II’s Coronation in a Panegyric 1661; one of original Fellows of Royal Society 20 May 1663; author, Annus Mirabilis 1667; Poet Laureate and Historiographer 18 Aug 1670 - 11 Dec 1688; Sir Martin Mar-All, one of his most successful plays, was produced in 1667, Aurungzebe, his finest rhymed tragedy, in 1675, and All for Love, his finest play, in 1678; his Absalom and Achitophel was published in 1681; defended Anglicanism in Religio Laici, 1682; Collector of Customs, Port of London 17 Dec 1683; a Roman Catholic convert 1686; author, The Hind and the Panther, 1687; translations by him of Juvenal and Persius were published in 1693, and of Livy in 1697; wrote Alexander’s Feast 1697 [check] and Fables Ancient and Modern, 1700; his complete works, with a life by Sir Walter Scott, were published in 1808; in a note to the third satire of Persius Dryden wrote “I remember I translated this satire when I was a King’s Scholar at Westminster School, for a Thurday-night exercise; and believe, that it, and many others of my exercises of the nature in English verse, are still in the hands of my learned master the Rev. Dr. Busby” (Works, xiii, 230); Dryden refers to Busby’s excessive use of the rod in a letter to Charles Montagu (ibid., xviii, 159-60) and to the curious custom of “custos” in Hall in a letter to Busby (ibid., xviii, 98); Dryden’s “form” was long preserved up School; m. 1 Dec 1663 Lady Elizabeth Howard, eldest dau. of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Effingham; d. 1 May 1700. His body lay in state at the College of Physicians for ten days, and he was buried in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. DNB.
Places
Legal status
Functions, occupations and activities
Mandates/sources of authority
Internal structures/genealogy
General context
Relationships area
Related entity
Identifier of related entity
Category of relationship
Type of relationship
Dates of relationship
Description of relationship
Related entity
Identifier of related entity
Category of relationship
Type of relationship
Dates of relationship
Description of relationship
Access points area
Place access points
Occupations
Control area
Authority record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) 2nd edition
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Prepared for import into AtoM by Westminster School Archive staff, 2019-2020
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
Users should note that the information recorded here that is not to be found in the first two volumes of the Record of Old Westminsters and its first Supplement has been assembled from various published and manuscript sources by Hugh Edmund Pagan MA FSA, and all new resulting text is his copyright, © 2014.
The Record of Old Westminsters: A biographical list of all those who are known to have been educated at Westminster School from the earliest times to 1927, Volumes 1 & 2, compiled by G. F. Russell Barker and Alan H. Stenning, London, 1928.