when he did recover his health, it was always very imperfect, and he continues still to be of a hectick disposition.

"You see here, (continued Lady Elsabeth,) the too true fulfilling of two of my dear husband's fatal predictions. But, alas! my friend, there is a third to come, which is, that in his thirty-third or thirty-fourth year, he or I shall die a violent death; but he could not say which would go first: I heartily pray it may be myself. But as I have ten thousand fears [from] the daily challenges Charles sends to Lord Jefferies, on his ungenerous treatment of my dear Mr. Dryden's corpse, and as he has some value for you, I beg, my dearest friend, that you would dissuade him as much as you can from taking that sort of justice on Lord Jefferies, lest it should fulfil his dear father's prediction.' "Thus far Lady Elsabeth's own words.

"This, if required, I can solemnly attest was long before Mr. Charles died: to the best of my remembrance it was in 1701 or 1702, I will not be positive, which. But in 1703, Lady Elsabeth was seized with a nervous fever, which deprived her of her memory and understanding, (which surely may be termed a moral death,) though she lived some years after. But Mr. Charles, in August, 1704, was unhappily drowned at Windsor, as before recited. He had, with another gentleman, swum twice over the Thames; but venturing a third time, it was supposed he was taken with the cramp, because he called out for help, though too late."

An observation made by Dr. Johnson on our author, is extremely applicable to Corinna: "Give her but matter for her words, and she never wants words for her matter." If the course of her narrative require a speech to be made, she is never at a loss, but always has one ready, and to the purpose. Whatever the age, situation, or other circumstances, of the parties concerned may be, whether they be children or at years of discretion, of sound mind or insane, they still are sure to talk rationally, and to say what is most proper for the occasion and so retentive was her memory, that it never failed to supply her with the very words they uttered.

On the absurd incongruities of her second tale a very few remarks will suffice.-It is clear from this narrative, that she conceived that. Charles Dryden, at the time of his death, was either thirtythree or thirty-four years old, and of course that he was born in 1670 or 1671: for she knew that he was drowned in the month of August, 1704. She knew also, it appears, that his birthday was in that month; and probably she had heard from his parents, that some accident had happened to him, when he was about eight years old; and that he had suffered some injury by a fall at Rome, in the year 1693 or 1694. On these data she constructed her tale of predictions wonderfully fulfilled; which a very slight examination will shew to have been her own clumsy amplification of a

few known facts, without even the semblance of consistency or probability.

She begins by informing us, that some extraor dinary incidents which evinced Dryden's great skill in judicial astrology, had been related to Lady Chudleigh at Bath, and that this Lady desired her to obtain from Lady Elizabeth Dryden the best information she could get concerning them : but immediately afterwards she says, that this tale of wonders was originally told to Lady Chudleigh at Bath in the year 1707, by Lady Elizabeth Dryden herself; notwithstanding which, she requested a gentlewoman, who appears to have been Corinna herself, to interrogate Lady Elizabeth Dryden particularly concerning these incidents; which she accordingly did; and then she subjoins a long narrative, taken from that Lady's own mouth, and. in her very words. Corinna had previously informed us, that our author's widow, in the year 1703, became insane, and never afterwards recovered her understanding. We will, however, wave this inconsistency, and suppose that her information was derived from Lady Elizabeth Dryden in 1702, before her mind became deranged, and two years before the death of her eldest son.

The age of eight being fixed on as the era of · the first incident, the year in which it happened, according to Corinna's reckoning, must have been either 1678 or 1679. In the summer then of one of those years, while the King was making a Pro

gress, we are to suppose that Dryden was invited to spend some months at Charlton, then the residence of his brother-in-law, Charles, the second Earl of Berkshire; but, says his Lady, "I was invited to pass the summer at my uncle Mordaunt's country-seat. This (she adds) was well enough:" meaning, doubtless, the being separated from her husband for some months!-In June, 1677, Henry Howard, the seventh Duke of Norfolk, was married to Mary," the only daughter of Henry Mordaunt, second Earl of Peterborough. Lady Elizabeth Dryden was second cousin, by the half blood, to Henry Frederick, Earl of Arundel, grandfather to this seventh Duke of Norfolk; and the Duke and her grandchild, if she had had one, would have been fourth cousins. On this

In 1685 her husband, the Duke of Norfolk, separated himself from her; and in November, 1693, having brought an action in the King's Bench against Sir John Germain, for criminal conversation with the Duchess, he obtained a verdict; but only one hundred marks, .66. 13. 4.) as damages. April 11th, 1700, they were divorced by act of parliament. Soon after the Duke's death, which happened in 1701, she married her gallant, Sir John Germain, a Dutch soldier of fortune, who had been made a Baronet by King William, in 1698. The Duchess of Norfolk died in 1705, and left him a large estate in Northamptonshire, which on his marriage afterwards with Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, (Swift's celebrated correspondent), was settled on her, and, on his death in 1718, became her property. The husband of that accomplished lady was so extremely ignorant, as the late Horace, Earl

solid ground it is, that, after his marriage, his ́ wife's father, Henry, Earl of Peterborough, became Lady Elizabeth Dryden's uncle. Unluckily, however, he could not, even by the courtesy of the last age, have been considered as any relation whatsoever of our poet's wife; though she and his daughter, in consequence of her marriage, according to the fashion of those days might have been accounted third, or rather fourth cousins.

Whether Charles the Second made any Progress in August 1678, or 1679, I shall not stay to inquire; though probably the inquiry would not add much credibility to this narrative. The age of Charles Dryden, alone, is fatal to it; for in either of those years, instead of being eight years old, he was either thirteen or fourteen; and not very long afterwards was elected a King's Scholar into Westminster School: so that whatever accident happened to him at that period of his life, can have no relation to Dryden's supposed prediction, which was to be fulfilled in his son's eighth year; and if, on the

of Orford, told me, that at one period of his life he conceived that St. Matthew's Gospel was written by Sir Matthew Decker; to whom by his will, which was proved December 12, 1718, (PRE. OFF. Tennison, 238,) he con. signed the distribution of £.200, which he bequeated to the poor of the Dutch Congregation in London.-This extraordinary instance of gross ignorance was communicated to Lord Orford by the Lady Viscountess Fitzwil-, liam, a very grave and sensible woman, who was Sir Matthew Decker's daughter.