the dates of his birth and death. The next aisle is the burial-place
of the Erskines of Shielhill and the Haigs of Bemersyde. On the south
side of the church, at a lower level, stand the cloisters, about 100 ft.
square, bounded on the west by the dungeons, on the south-west by the
cellars and refectory, in the west wall of which is an exquisite
ivy-clad rose window, and on the east by the chapter-house, on a still
lower level. The chapter-house, a lofty building with vaulted roof, is
the most complete structure of the group, and adjoining it on the south
are, first the abbot's parlour and then the library, the three
apartments communicating with each other, and constituting the oldest
portion of the abbey. In the grounds are many venerable trees, a yew
near the chapter-house being at least coeval with the abbey.

DRYDEN, JOHN (1631-1700), English poet, born on or about the 9th of
August 1631, at Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire, was of Cumberland stock,
though his family had been settled for three generations in
Northamptonshire, had acquired estates and a baronetcy, and intermarried
with landed families in that county. His great-grandfather, who first
carried the name south, and acquired by marriage the estate of Canons
Ashby, is said to have known Erasmus, and to have been so proud of the
great scholar's friendship that he gave the name of Erasmus to his
eldest son. The name Erasmus was borne by the poet's father, the third
son of Sir Erasmus Dryden. The leanings and connexions of the family
were Puritan and anti-monarchical. Sir Erasmus Dryden went to prison
rather than pay loan money to Charles I.; the poet's uncle, Sir John
Dryden, and his father Erasmus, served on government commissions during
the Commonwealth. His mother's family, the Pickerings, were still more
prominent on the Puritan side. Sir Gilbert Pickering, his cousin, was
chamberlain to the Protector, and was summoned to Cromwell's House of
Lords in 1657. A trustworthy tradition asserts that John Dryden was born
at the rectory of Aldwinkle All Saints, of which his maternal
grandfather, Henry Pickering, was rector.

Dryden's education was such as became a scion of these respectable
families of squires and rectors, among whom the chance contact with
Erasmus had left a certain tradition of scholarship. His father, whose
own fortune, added to his wife's, was not large, procured for the poet,
who was the eldest of fourteen children, admission to Westmins