His lady survived him fourteen years, and died insane. His eldest son
Charles was drowned in 1704 at Datchett, while seeking to swim across
the Thames. John died at Rome of a fever in 1701. Erasmus, who was
supposed to inherit his mother's malady, died in 1710; and the title
which he had derived from Sir Robert passed to his uncle, the brother of
the poet, and thence to his grandson. Sir Henry Edward Leigh Dryden, of
Canons-Ashby, is now the representative of the ancient family.

We reserve till our next volume a criticism on Dryden's genius and
works. As to his habits and manners, little is known, and that little is
worn threadbare by his many biographers. In appearance he became, in
his maturer years, fat and florid, and obtained the name of "Poet
Squab." His portraits show a shrewd, but rather sluggish face, with long
gray hair floating down his cheeks, not unlike Coleridge, but without
his dreamy eye, like a nebulous star. His conversation was less
sprightly than solid. Sometimes men suspected that he had "sold all his
thoughts to his booksellers." His manners are by his friends pronounced
"modest;" and the word modest has since been amiably confounded by his
biographers with "pure." Bashful he seems to have been to awkwardness;
but he was by no means a model of the virtues. He loved to sit at Will's
coffee-house, and be the arbiter of criticism. His favourite stimulus
was snuff, and his favourite amusement angling. He had a bad address, a
down look, and little of the air of a gentleman. Addison is reported to
have taught him latterly the intemperate use of wine; but this was said
by Dennis, who admired Dryden, and who hated Addison; and his testimony
is impotent against either party. We admire the simplicity of the
critics who can read his plays, and then find himself a model of
continence and virtue. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh;" and a more polluted mouth than Dryden's never uttered its
depravities on the stage. We cannot, in fine, call him personally a very