to the temporal greatness and wealth acquired by the sequestrators and
committee-men of that oppressive time, than to have aided him in
attaining the summits of Parnassus. For, according to the slight records
which Mr. Malone has recovered concerning Sir Gilbert Pickering's
character, it would seem, that, to the hard, precise, fanatical contempt
of every illumination, save the inward light, which he derived from his
sect, he added the properties of a fiery temper, and a rude and savage
address.[34] In what capacity Dryden lived with his kinsman, or to what
line of life circumstances seemed to destine the future poet, we are
left at liberty to conjecture. Shadwell, the virulent antagonist of our
author, has called him Sir Gilbert Pickering's clerk; and it is indeed
highly probable that he was employed as his amanuensis, or secretary.

The next step of advancement you began
Was being clerk to Noll's lord chamberlain,
A sequestrator and committee-man.

_The Medal of John Bayes_.

But I cannot, with Mr. Malone, interpret the same passage, by supposing
the third line of the triplet to apply to Dryden. Had he been actually a
member of a committee of sequestration, that circumstance would never
have remained in the dubious obscurity of Shadwell's poetry; it would
have been as often echoed and re-echoed as every other incident of the
poet's life which was capable of bearing an unfavourable interpretation.
I incline therefore to believe, that the terms _sequestrator_ and
_committee-man_ apply not to the poet, but to his patron Sir
Gilbert, to whom their propriety cannot be doubted.

Sir Gilbert Pickering was not our author's only relation at the court of