witn the first example of the revival of antient English writers by modernising their language. Yet those readers who can master Chaucer's phraseology, and have an ear so practised as to catch the tune of his verse, will like him better in the simplicity of his native garb than in the elaborate splendour of his borrowed costume.

Dryden was a voluminous writer in prose as well as in verse, and quite as great a master of the English language in the former as in the latter. His performances in prose consist of Dedications, Prefaces, and controversial pieces; the Lives of Plutarch and Lucian, prefixed to the translations of those authors by several hands; the Life of Polybius, prefixed to the translation of that historian by Sir Henry Shears; and the Preface to Walsh's Dialogue concerning Women.

Dryden died at his house in Gerard Street, at threeo'clock on the morning of Wednesday, the 1st of May, 1700. There is a confused story respecting some vexatious and tumultuary incidents occurring at his funeral, which rests on no satisfactory authority; and, even if true, would occupy more room in the detail than would square either with our limits or its own importance.

His wife, Lady Elizabeth Dryden, survived till the summer of 1714, when she died at the age of seventynine, having been for the last four years insane. He had three sons by this lady; Charles, John, and Erasmus-Henry. Charles, his father's favourite, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and he is the author of the Seventh Satire of Juvenal, published in his father's version, and of several original pieces of verse both in English and Latin; he went to Rome, in 1692, and was appointed Chamberlain of the Household to Pope Innocent XII. ; but he returned home in 1698, in ill health, and was drowned in an attempt to swim across the Thames, at Datchet, near Windsor, on the 28th of August, 1704. John, the second son, studied at University College, Oxford, and is the author of a comedy, and of the Fourteenth Satire in his father's translation of Juvenal; he followed his brother Charles

to Rome, where he officiated as his deputy in the Pope's household, and died at Rome before Charles. The poet's third son, Erasmus-Henry, after having been educated at the Charter-House, also went to Rome, where he became a captain in the Pope's guards; but after the death of his brother John he returned to England, and in 1708 succeeded to the title of Baronet, as representative of his great-grandfather, but without the estate of Canons Ashby, which had been devised to his cousin, who also succeeded him in the baronetcy upon his death in 1710.

Dryden was the father of English criticism; and his Essay on Dramatic Poetry is the first regular and judicious treatise in our language on the art of writing. Although, after so many valuable discourses have been delivered to the public on the same subjects during the century and a half which has elapsed since his original attempts, his prose works may now be read more for the charm of their pure idiomatic English, than for their novelty or instructive matter, yet the merits of a discoverer must not be underrated because his discoveries have been extended, or his inventions improved upon. Before his time, those who wished to arrive at just principles of taste, or a rational code of criticism, if they were unacquainted with the works of the ancients and the modern languages of Italy and France, had no guides to lead them on their way. Dryden communicated to his own learning, which, though not deep nor accurate, was various and extensive, the magic of his style and the popular attraction of his mother-tongue: the Spectator followed his lead, in essays less diffusive, and therefore more within the reach of the million in our day such is the accumulation of material, and so cheap and copious the power of circulating knowledge, that the poorest man who can read may inform his mind on subjects of general literature, to the enlargement of his understanding, and the improvement of his morals. But we must not forget our obligations to those who began that hoard, whence we have the privilege of drawing at will.

With respect to those prose works of our author which

are devoted to controversy, their interest has quite passed away, farther than as they may evince his powers in argument, or command of language. Dr. Johnson gives a just estimate of his general character. "He appears to have a mind very comprehensive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compositions are the effects of a vigorous genius, operating upon large materials."

Dryden's works have been constantly before the public in various shapes and successive editions. Those best deserving a place in the library are, his Prose Works in four volumes, edited by Mr. Malone; his Poetical Works, in four volumes, with notes, by Dr. Joseph Warton, and his son, the Rev. John Warton; and the whole of his Works in eighteen volumes octavo, by Sir Walter Scott. The earlier authorities for his Life are Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses; the Biographia Britannica; and a Life by Derrick, poorly executed, prefixed to Tonson's edition, in 1760. Johnson's admirable Essay on this subject is in the hands of every reader, and is one of the most masterly among his 'Lives of the Poets.' He was peculiarly well qualified to appreciate a writer in whom, to use his own words, "strong reason rather predominated than quick sensibility." Scott also has written a copious Life, occupying the first volume of his edition of Dryden's Works.

THIS Prince descended from an ancient and illustrious German house, which, very early, distinguished itself throughout Europe in the cause of Protestantism and Civil Liberty. The Counts of Nassau, then settled on the Rhine, acquired great power during the middle ages: at one period they disputed the pre-eminence with the House of Austria; in 1292 Adolphus of Nassau was elected Emperor of Germany, or as it was styled-of the Holy Roman Empire; and five ecclesiastical electors of the family of Nassau figured then among the princes of the Empire.

"From Didier and imperial Adolph trace
The glorious offspring of the Nassau race,
Devoted lives to public liberty;

The chief still dying, or the country free."*

*Matthew Prior. Carmen Seculare, addressed to King William III., A.D. 1700.

These magnates were famed as a valorous, taciturn, cautious race: and in few historical families have the original characteristics been so long and so perfectly preserved.

Early in the sixteenth century the Nassaus obtained, through marriage and bequest, the French principality of Orange in Provence, from which their most celebrated title has been derived: but the possession of several large domains and hereditary dignities in the Netherlands had meanwhile numbered the Counts of Nassau among the great and almost royal vassals whom the House of Austria gained by the marriage of Maximilian with Mary of Burgundy: and William I. of Nassau, Prince of Orange, the true founder of the political importance and glories of his race, was the subject of the Emperor Charles V. This William I. of Orange, greatgrandfather to our William III., was born at Dillenburg in Nassau, in 1533, during the latter part of the reign of our Henry VIII. His father having embraced the Lutheran doctrines, he was, at first, educated as a Protestant; but the Emperor Charles V. removed the promising boy to his court, and caused him to be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. In the words of Cardinal Bentivoglio, the ultra-Catholic historian of the Wars of Flanders," He was born a heretic in Germany, but being called into Flanders, when a child, to immense property, paternal and maternal, he became a Catholic; and was ever held in great favour by the emperor.' Charles, who is said to have foreseen the great statesman in the boy, kept him very constantly about his person, gave him practical lessons in the business of government, allowed him to be present when he gave audience to foreign ambassadors, and honoured him with a confidence far above his years. William merited this extraordinary favour by a discretion and a taciturnity which had already obtained for him his famous surname of "The Silent;" and the great Emperor did not blush to avow publicly that to so young a man he had often been indebted for suggestions, in matters of state, which had escaped his own sagacity and long experience. In the last solemn