: "I have frequently heard him (Dryden) own with pleasure,
that if he had any talent for English prose it was owing to his having
often read the writings of the great Archbishop Tillotson."--Congreve's
Dedication of Dryden's Plays.]

[Footnote 89: I have taken Davenant's estimate, which is a little lower
than King's.]

[Footnote 90: Evelvn's Diary, June 27. 1654; Pepys's Diary, June 13.
1668; Roger North's Lives of Lord Keeper Guildford, and of Sir Dudley
North; Petty's Political Arithmetic. I have taken Petty's facts, but, in
drawing inferences from them, I have been guided by King and Davenant,
who, though not abler men than he, had the advantage of coming after
him. As to the kidnapping for which Bristol was infamous, see North's
Life of Guildford, 121, 216, and the harangue of Jeffreys on the
subject, in the Impartial History of his Life and Death, printed with
the Bloody Assizes. His style was, as usual, coarse, but I cannot reckon
the reprimand which he gave to the magistrates of Bristol among his
crimes.]

[Footnote 91: Fuller's Worthies; Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 17,1671; Journal
of T. Browne, son of Sir Thomas Browne, Jan. 1663-4; Blomefield's
History of Norfolk; History of the City and County of Norwich, 2 vols.
1768.]

[Footnote 92: The population of York appears, from the return of
baptisms and burials in Drake's History, to have been about 13,000 in
1730. Exeter had only 17,000 inhabitants in 1801. The population of
Worcester was numbered just before the siege in 1646. See Nash's History
of Worcestershire. I have made allowance for the increase which must be
supposed to have taken place in forty years. In 1740, the population of
Nottingham was found, by enumeration, to be just 10,000. See Dering's
History. The population of Gloucester may readily be inferred from the
number of houses which King found in the returns of hearth money,
and from the number of births and burials which is given in Atkyns's
History. The population of Derby was 4,000 in 1712. See Wolley's MS.
History, quoted in Lyson's Magna Britannia. The population of Shrewsbury
was ascertained, in 1695, by actual enumeration. As to the gaieties of
Shrewsbury, see Farquhar's Recruiting Officer. Farquhar's description
is borne out by a ballad in the Pepysian Library, of which the burden is
"Shrewsbury for me."]

[Footnote 93: Blome's Britannia, 1673; Aikin's Country round Manchester;
Manchester Directory, 1845: Baines, History of the Cotton Manufa