meant to have turned the "Iliad" into blank verse; but, after all,
translated the only book of it which he published into rhyme. But, in
fine, he determined to modernise some of the fine old tales of Boccacio
and Chaucer; and in March 1699-1700, appeared his brilliant "Fables,"
with some other poems from his pen, for which he received £300 at
Jonson's hands.

This was his last publication of size, although he was labouring on when
death surprised him, and within the last three weeks of his life had
written the "Secular Margin," and the prologue and the epilogue to
Fletcher's "Pilgrim,"--productions remarkable as showing the ruling
passion strong in death,--the squabbling litterateur and satirist
combating and kicking his enemies to the last,--Jeremy Collier, for
having accused him of licentiousness in his dramas; Milbourne, for
having attacked his "Georgics;" and poor Blackmore for having doubted
the orthodoxy of "Religio Laici," and the decency of "Amphitryon" and
"Limberham."

He had now to go a pilgrimage himself to a far country. He had long been
troubled with gout and gravel; but next came erysipelas in one of his
legs; and at last mortification, superinduced by a neglected
inflammation in his toe, carried him off at three o'clock on Wednesday
morning the 1st of May 1700. He died a Roman Catholic, and in "entire
resignation to the Divine will." He died so poor, that he was buried by
subscription, Lords Montague and Jeffries delaying the interment till
the necessary funds were raised. The body, after lying embalmed and in
state for ten days in the College of Physicians, was buried with great
pomp in Westminster Abbey, where now, between the graves of Chaucer and
Cowley, reposes the dust of Dryden.