George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne PC (9 March 1666 – 29 January 1735), of Stowe , Cornwall, was an English Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1702 until 1712, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lansdown and sat in the House of Lords. He was Secretary at War during the Harley administration from 1710 to 1712. He was also a noted poet and made a name for himself with verses composed on the visit of Mary of Modena , then Duchess of York, while he was at Cambridge in 1677. He was also a playwright, following in the style of John Dryden .
65-515: Lord Lansdowne may refer to: George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735), English poet, playwright and politician Marquess of Lansdowne , a title in the Peerage of Great Britain William Petty, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne (1737–1805), former British prime minister Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845–1927),
130-557: A blast of wind, she rush'd away. Thus having pass'd the night in fruitless pain, I to my longing friends return again Dryden's translation is based on presumed authorial intent and smooth English. In line 790 the literal translation of haec ubi dicta dedit is "when she gave these words." But "she said" gets the point across, uses half the words, and makes for better English. A few lines later, with ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago , he alters
195-525: A committed admirer in George Saintsbury , and was a prominent figure in quotation books such as Bartlett's, but the next major poet to take an interest in Dryden was T. S. Eliot , who wrote that he was "the ancestor of nearly all that is best in the poetry of the eighteenth century", and that "we cannot fully enjoy or rightly estimate a hundred years of English poetry unless we fully enjoy Dryden." However, in
260-419: A dialogue in which four characters—each based on a prominent contemporary, with Dryden himself as 'Neander'—debate the merits of classical, French and English drama. The greater part of his critical works introduce problems which he is eager to discuss, and show the work of a writer of independent mind who feels strongly about his own ideas, ideas which demonstrate the breadth of his reading. He felt strongly about
325-709: A message from the ghost of his wife, Creusa. iamque vale et nati serva communis amorem. ' haec ubi dicta dedit, lacrimantem et multa volentem dicere deseruit, tenuisque recessit in auras. ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago, par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno. sic demum socios consumpta nocte reviso Dryden translates it like this: I trust our common issue to your care.' She said, and gliding pass'd unseen in air. I strove to speak: but horror tied my tongue; And thrice about her neck my arms I flung, And, thrice deceiv'd, on vain embraces hung. Light as an empty dream at break of day, Or as
390-439: A position of power which the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 allowed him to employ. With the help of his cousin, John Granville, an influential Tory leader, he was elected Member of Parliament for Fowey at the 1702 English general election . When his elder brother, Sir Bevill Granville, was appointed Governor of Barbados , Granville inherited his office as constable of Pendennis Castle in 1703. In Parliament, he operated in
455-415: A school for the children of the poor of the town. This became John Dryden's School, later The Orange School. Dryden was the dominant literary figure and influence of his age. He established the heroic couplet as a standard form of English poetry by writing successful satires, religious pieces, fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues, and plays with it; he also introduced the alexandrine and triplet into
520-615: A son and heir to the Catholic King and Queen on 10 June 1688. When, later in the same year, James II was deposed in the Glorious Revolution , Dryden's refusal to take the oaths of allegiance to the new monarchs, William and Mary , left him out of favour at court. Thomas Shadwell succeeded him as Poet Laureate, and he was forced to give up his public offices and live by the proceeds of his pen. Dryden translated works by Horace , Juvenal , Ovid , Lucretius , and Theocritus ,
585-512: A task which he found far more satisfying than writing for the stage. In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by subscription . The publication of the translation of Virgil was a national event and brought Dryden the sum of £1,400. Dryden translated the Aeneid into couplets , turning Virgil's almost 10,000 lines into 13,700 lines; Joseph Addison wrote
650-462: Is believed to be the first person to assert that English sentences should not end in prepositions because Latin sentences cannot end in prepositions. Dryden created the proscription against preposition stranding in 1672 when he objected to Ben Jonson 's 1611 phrase, 'The bodies that those souls were frighted from.' However, he did not provide the rationale for his preference. Dryden often translated his writing into Latin, to check whether his writing
715-467: Is believed to have originated in Dryden's 1686 poem The Hind and the Panther , referring to the throne of God as a "blaze of glory that forbids the sight." What Dryden achieved in his poetry was neither the emotional excitement of the early nineteenth-century romantics nor the intellectual complexities of the metaphysicals . His subject matter was often factual, and he aimed at expressing his thoughts in
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#1733086129752780-619: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne Granville was the son of Bernard Granville , the fourth son of Sir Bevil Grenville (1596-1643) of Bideford in Devon and Stowe in the parish of Kilkhampton in Cornwall, a heroic Royalist commander in the Civil War . (The family changed the spelling of its name in 1661 from "Grenville" to "Granville", following
845-479: Is for the passions; for (these) are begotten in the soul by showing the objects out of their true proportion.... A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth." While Dryden had many admirers, he also had his share of critics, Mark Van Doren among them. Van Doren complained that in translating Virgil's Aeneid , Dryden had added "a fund of phrases with which he could expand any passage that seemed to him curt." Dryden did not feel such expansion
910-438: Is likely that he received his first education. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar where his headmaster was Richard Busby , a charismatic teacher and severe disciplinarian. Having been re-founded by Elizabeth I , Westminster during this period embraced a very different religious and political spirit encouraging royalism and high Anglicanism . Whatever Dryden's response to this was, he clearly respected
975-689: The Earl of Rochester , a notorious womaniser. Rochester responded by hiring thugs who attacked Dryden whilst walking back from Will's Coffee House (a popular London coffee house where the Wits gathered to gossip, drink and conduct their business) to his house on Gerrard Street. At around 8 pm on 18 December 1679, Dryden was attacked in Rose Alley behind the Lamb & Flag pub , near his home in Covent Garden . Dryden survived
1040-536: The Jacobite Peerage of England, with remainder to his heirs male. On 3 November 1721 James created him "Duke of Albemarle", "Marquis Monck and Fitzhemmon", "Earl of Bath", "Viscount Bevel", and "Baron Lansdown of Bideford" in the Jacobite Peerage of England, which supposed titles had no legal validity in the Kingdom of Great Britain . One of these titles referred to his family's supposed descent (officially confirmed to
1105-618: The Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with Astraea Redux , an authentic royalist panegyric . In this work the Interregnum is illustrated as a time of chaos, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order. After the Restoration, as Dryden quickly established himself as the leading poet and literary critic of his day, he transferred his allegiances to the new government. Along with Astraea Redux , Dryden welcomed
1170-448: The (prose) prefaces for each book, and William Congreve checked the translation against the Latin original. His final translations appeared in the volume Fables Ancient and Modern (1700), a series of episodes from Homer , Ovid , and Boccaccio , as well as modernised adaptations from Geoffrey Chaucer interspersed with Dryden's own poems. As a translator, he made great literary works in
1235-557: The 1st Earl of Bath by warrant of King Charles II in 1661 ) from Richard I de Grenville (d.post 1142) of Neath Castle , one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan and a brother and follower of Robert FitzHamon the Norman conqueror of Glamorgan. The titles Monck and Albemarle referred to the fact that the 1st Earl of Bath had been granted reversion of his cousin Monck's Dukedom of Albemarle, should
1300-511: The Addition, I also hope, are easily deduc'd from Virgil's Sense. They will seem (at least I have the Vanity to think so), not struck into him, but growing out of him. (5:529) In a similar vein, Dryden writes in his Preface to the translation anthology Sylvae : Where I have taken away some of [the original authors'] Expressions, and cut them shorter, it may possibly be on this consideration, that what
1365-597: The Barony of Lansdowne became extinct. His Jacobite titles, such as they were, were inherited by his nephew Bernard Granville, son of his brother Bernard. The younger Bernard died in 1776, when the Jacobite peerages created on 3 November 1721 became extinct, while those created on 6 October 1721 passed to his heir male. John Dryden John Dryden ( / ˈ d r aɪ d ən / ; 19 August [ O.S. 9 August] 1631 – 12 May [ O.S. 1 May] 1700)
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#17330861297521430-624: The Court on the ‘place clause’ of the regency bill in February 1706. At the 1708 general election , he was returned again for Fowey. The height of his fame during the Godolphin - Marlborough administration came from his spirited defence of Henry Sacheverell in 1710. After the fall of the Godolphin government, Granville became MP for Cornwall at the 1710 British general election , and on 28 September 1710 he
1495-554: The Duke have died without male progeny. The title "Lansdown" referred to Lansdown Hill near Bath in Somerset where his grandfather Sir Bevil Grenville had met his heroic death at the Battle of Lansdown in 1643. The titles created on 3 November 1721 were with remainder to the heirs male of his body, whom failing to his brother, Bernard Granville, and the heirs male of his body. On 15 December 1711 in
1560-862: The War Office was marred by accusations of corruption and expensive contested elections. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1712. In 1714 Queen Anne was succeeded by the Hanoverian King George I , who favoured the Whigs. Almost all the Tories who held office under Anne were dismissed, including Lord Lansdown. Embittered, he began a secret correspondence with the Jacobite Old Pretender "James III" . On 6 October 1721 James, who refused to recognise his peerage "Baron Lansdown" bestowed by Queen Anne, created him "Lord of Lansdown"," Viscount [ ]" and "Earl of Bath" in
1625-468: The attack, offering £50 for the identity of the thugs placed in the London Gazette , and a Royal Pardon if one of them would confess. No one claimed the reward. Dryden's greatest achievements were in satiric verse: the mock-heroic Mac Flecknoe , a more personal product of his laureate years, was a lampoon circulated in manuscript and an attack on the playwright Thomas Shadwell . Dryden's main goal in
1690-586: The church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Westminster, London, he married (as her 2nd husband) Mary Villiers, the daughter of Edward Villiers, 1st Earl of Jersey (1656–1711) and the widow of Thomas Thynne (d. 1710). He died in London on 29 January 1735, his wife having predeceased him by a few days, and was buried with her in the Church of St Clement Danes on 3 February 1735. He left no male progeny, and thus at his death
1755-524: The consent of the parents is noted on the licence, although Lady Elizabeth was then about twenty-five. The couple met after 1660, when Dryden began lodging in London with her brother, Sir Robert Howard, son of the earl of Berkshire. The marriage lasted until his death, but there is little evidence about how they lived as a couple. A small estate in Wiltshire was settled upon them by her father. The lady's intellect and temper were apparently not good; her husband
1820-417: The dominant poetic form of the 18th century. Alexander Pope was heavily influenced by Dryden and often borrowed from him; other writers were equally influenced by Dryden and Pope. Pope famously praised Dryden's versification in his imitation of Horace 's Epistle II.i: "Dryden taught to join / The varying pause, the full resounding line, / The long majestic march, and energy divine." Samuel Johnson summed up
1885-598: The fifth Governor General of Canada, former Viceroy of India, former Secretary of State for War, and former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lord_Lansdowne&oldid=1142106030 " Category : Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1950-457: The form. In his poems, translations, and criticism, he established a poetic diction appropriate to the heroic couplet— Auden referred to him as "the master of the middle style " —that was a model for his contemporaries and for much of the 18th century. The considerable loss felt by the English literary community at his death was evident in the elegies written about him. Dryden's heroic couplet became
2015-571: The general attitude with his remark that "the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry." His poems were very widely read, and are often quoted, for instance, in Henry Fielding 's Tom Jones and Johnson's essays. Johnson also noted, however, that "He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic; and had so little sensibility of
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2080-520: The grant of the titles Baron Granville and Earl of Bath ). His uncle was John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath (1628-1701) whose half-first-cousin was George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle , who both played leading roles in the restoration of the monarchy to King Charles II in 1660. He was heir male of William Granville, 3rd Earl of Bath (1692-1711), the 19-year-old son of his first cousin Charles Granville, 2nd Earl of Bath (1661–1701), lord of
2145-525: The headmaster and would later send two of his sons to school at Westminster. As a humanist public school, Westminster maintained a curriculum which trained pupils in the art of rhetoric and the presentation of arguments for both sides of a given issue. This is a skill which would remain with Dryden and influence his later writing and thinking, as much of it displays these dialectical patterns. The Westminster curriculum included weekly translation assignments which developed Dryden's capacity for assimilation. This
2210-452: The literal translation "Thrice trying to give arms around her neck; thrice the image grasped in vain fled the hands," in order to fit it into the metre and the emotion of the scene. In his own words, The way I have taken, is not so streight as Metaphrase, nor so loose as Paraphrase: Some things too I have omitted, and sometimes added of my own. Yet the omissions I hope, are but of Circumstances, and such as wou'd have no grace in English; and
2275-475: The manors of Bideford in Devon and of Stowe, Kilkhampton , Cornwall. These connections guaranteed that Granville began life as a staunch Tory and Jacobite . Granville was sent to France at the age of ten, with his tutor, William Ellis, who was a proponent of passive resistance and later a servant of James II at St Germain. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1677. Among his productions while there were poems welcoming Mary of Modena when she visited
2340-475: The married state but also celebrations of the same. Thus, little is known of the intimate side of his marriage. Lady Elizabeth bore three sons, one of whom (Erasmus Henry) became a Roman Catholic priest. With the reopening of the theatres in 1660 after the Puritan ban , Dryden began writing plays. His first play The Wild Gallant appeared in 1663, and was not successful, but was still promising, and from 1668 on he
2405-414: The most precise and concentrated manner. Although he uses formal structures such as heroic couplets, he tried to recreate the natural rhythm of speech, and he knew that different subjects need different kinds of verse. In his preface to Religio Laici he says that "the expressions of a poem designed purely for instruction ought to be plain and natural, yet majestic... The florid, elevated and figurative way
2470-666: The nation rather than the self, and the Poet Laureate (as he would later become) is obliged to write a certain number of these per annum. In November 1662, Dryden was proposed for membership in the Royal Society , and he was elected an early fellow. However, Dryden was inactive in Society affairs and in 1666 was expelled for non-payment of his dues. On 1 December 1663, Dryden married the royalist sister of Sir Robert Howard —Lady Elizabeth. Dryden's works occasionally contain outbursts against
2535-462: The new regime with two more panegyrics: To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on his Coronation (1662) and To My Lord Chancellor (1662). These poems suggest that Dryden was looking to court a possible patron, but he was to instead make a living in writing for publishers, not for the aristocracy, and thus ultimately for the reading public. These, and his other nondramatic poems, are occasional—that is, they celebrate public events. Thus they are written for
2600-976: The older languages available to readers of English. Dryden died on 12 May 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later. He was the subject of poetic eulogies, such as Luctus Brittannici: or the Tears of the British Muses; for the Death of John Dryden, Esq. (London, 1700), and The Nine Muses . A Royal Society of Arts blue plaque commemorates Dryden at 43 Gerrard Street in London's Chinatown . He lived at 137 Long Acre from 1682 to 1686 and at 43 Gerrard Street from 1686 until his death. In his will, he left The George Inn at Northampton to trustees, to form
2665-438: The opinion of Samuel Johnson , Granville's non-dramatic poetry is slavishly imitative of Edmund Waller . However some of his poetry was popular in its day. Perhaps Granville's most useful act as regards poetry was the encouragement he gave to Alexander Pope , which Pope remembered with gratitude in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot . The death of Granville's parents and of his uncle the 1st Earl of Bath in 1701 placed Granville in
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2730-633: The originals. However, several of Wordsworth's contemporaries, such as George Crabbe , Lord Byron , and Walter Scott (who edited Dryden's works), were still keen admirers of Dryden. Besides, Wordsworth did admire many of Dryden's poems, and his famous "Intimations of Immortality" ode owes something stylistically to Dryden's " Alexander's Feast ". John Keats admired the Fables , and imitated them in his poem Lamia . Later 19th-century writers had little use for verse satire, Pope, or Dryden; Matthew Arnold famously dismissed them as "classics of our prose". He did have
2795-454: The posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and historiographer royal (1670). When the Great Plague of London closed the theatres in 1665, Dryden retreated to Wiltshire where he wrote Of Dramatick Poesie (1668), arguably the best of his unsystematic prefaces and essays. Dryden constantly defended his own literary practice, and Of Dramatick Poesie , the longest of his critical works, takes the form of
2860-453: The power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure." Readers in the first half of the 18th century did not mind this too much, but later generations considered Dryden's absence of sensibility a fault. One of the first attacks on Dryden's reputation was by William Wordsworth , who complained that Dryden's descriptions of natural objects in his translations from Virgil were much inferior to
2925-427: The relation of the poet to tradition and the creative process, and his best heroic play Aureng-zebe (1675) has a prologue which denounces the use of rhyme in serious drama. His play All for Love (1678) was written in blank verse, and was to immediately follow Aureng-Zebe . Dryden's poem "An Essay upon Satire" contained a number of attacks on King Charles II , his mistresses and courtiers, but most pointedly on
2990-458: The religious poems Religio Laici (1682), written from the position of a member of the Church of England; his 1683 edition of Plutarch's Lives Translated From the Greek by Several Hands in which he introduced the word 'biography' to English readers; and The Hind and the Panther , (1687) which celebrates his conversion to Roman Catholicism . He wrote Britannia Rediviva celebrating the birth of
3055-529: The result of influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering . At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell . Shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas (1659), a eulogy on Cromwell's death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display. In 1660 Dryden celebrated
3120-423: The same essay, Eliot accused Dryden of having a "commonplace mind". Critical interest in Dryden has increased recently, but, as a relatively straightforward writer ( William Empson , another modern admirer of Dryden, compared his "flat" use of language with Donne 's interest in the "echoes and recesses of words" ), his work has not occasioned as much interest as Andrew Marvell 's, John Donne 's or Pope's. Dryden
3185-455: The spectacle. In 1650 Dryden went up to Trinity College, Cambridge . Here he would have experienced a return to the religious and political ethos of his childhood: the Master of Trinity was a Puritan preacher by the name of Thomas Hill who had been a rector in Dryden's home village. Though there is little specific information on Dryden's undergraduate years, he would most certainly have followed
3250-509: The sphere of Harley , who was an indifferent patron at first. He was absent from the division on the Tack, becoming labelled a ‘Sneaker’. He was returned unopposed for Fowey at the 1705 English general election and with the help of Harley fended of an attempt to remove him from his post at Pendennis Castle. His aspiration to obtain a post led him to support the Court in voting for the Court candidate as Speaker on 25 October 1705, and he again supported
3315-488: The standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric, and mathematics. In 1654 he obtained his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year. In June of the same year Dryden's father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income, but not enough to live on. Returning to London during the Protectorate , Dryden obtained work with Oliver Cromwell 's Secretary of State, John Thurloe . This appointment may have been
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#17330861297523380-593: The university. In 1682, he went to Paris with his brother Sir Bevill Granville, where they studied fencing, riding, dancing, mathematics and military science. He stayed in France until 1687, accumulating a £500 debt. He then lived in England at his mother's house at Marr, near Doncaster. His early interests were literary and by the mid-1690s he had befriended John Dryden and begun to write plays. He wrote an undistinguished comedy of manners entitled The She-Gallants , which
3445-471: The work is to "satirize Shadwell, ostensibly for his offenses against literature but more immediately we may suppose for his habitual badgering of him on the stage and in print." It is not a belittling form of satire, but rather one which makes his object great in ways which are unexpected, transferring the ridiculous into poetry. This line of satire continued with Absalom and Achitophel (1681) and The Medal (1682). His other major works from this period are
3510-459: Was a fault, arguing that as Latin is a naturally concise language it cannot be duly represented by a comparable number of words in English. "He...recognized that Virgil 'had the advantage of a language wherein much may be comprehended in a little space' (5:329–30). The 'way to please the best Judges...is not to Translate a Poet literally; and Virgil least of any other' (5:329)." For example, take lines 789–795 of Book 2 when Aeneas sees and receives
3575-479: Was also to be exhibited in his later works. His years at Westminster were not uneventful, and his first published poem, an elegy with a strong royalist feel on the death of his schoolmate Henry, Lord Hastings, from smallpox, alludes to the execution of King Charles I , which took place on 30 January 1649, very near the school where Busby had first prayed for the King and then locked in his schoolboys to prevent their attending
3640-584: Was an English poet, literary critic , translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate . He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Romantic writer Sir Walter Scott called him "Glorious John". Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather
3705-619: Was beautiful in the Greek or Latin, would not appear so shining in the English; and where I have enlarg’d them, I desire the false Criticks would not always think that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are secretly in the Poet, or may be fairly deduc’d from him; or at least, if both those considerations should fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishman, they are such as he wou’d probably have written. On 1 December 1663, Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard (died 1714) at St Swithin's, London , and
3770-425: Was concise and elegant, Latin being considered an elegant and long-lived language with which to compare; then Dryden translated his writing back to English according to Latin-grammar usage. As Latin does not have sentences ending in prepositions, Dryden may have applied Latin grammar to English, thus forming the rule of no sentence-ending prepositions, subsequently adopted by other writers. The phrase "blaze of glory"
3835-574: Was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and 1670s, theatrical writing was his main source of income. He led the way in Restoration comedy , his best-known work being Marriage à la Mode (1673), as well as heroic tragedy and regular tragedy, in which his greatest success was All for Love (1678). Dryden was never satisfied with his theatrical writings and frequently suggested that his talents were wasted on unworthy audiences. He thus
3900-570: Was in recognition raised to the peerage on 1 January 1712 as Baron Lansdown of Bideford in the Peerage of Great Britain and vacated his seat in the House of Commons. He was one of Harley's Dozen created at once to change the political balance in the Whig-dominated Lord. He expended time and money in an ultimately futile effort to secure the title of Earl of Bath . Despite some success, his tenure in
3965-568: Was made Secretary at War. In this capacity, he oversaw the passage of important bills on munitions and recruitment. However, his experience in the Tory government was marked by family and legal strife. He was the heir male to the senior line of the Granville family following the death without progeny in 1711 of his cousin William Granville, 3rd Earl of Bath . He was not in succession to the earldom and
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#17330861297524030-501: Was making a bid for poetic fame off-stage. In 1667, around the same time his dramatic career began, he published Annus Mirabilis , a lengthy historical poem which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was a modern epic in pentameter quatrains that established him as the preeminent poet of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining
4095-459: Was staged unsuccessfully in 1695. His adult plays bear the marks of Dryden's influence. The Heroick Love is taken from the first book of Homer 's Iliad . Granville also followed Dryden in adapting Shakespeare and Granville's The Jew of Venice (1701) was a successful updating of The Merchant of Venice . Perhaps his greatest success was The British Enchanters (1705), a pseudo-operatic extravaganza staged by Thomas Betterton 's company. In
4160-417: Was the rector of All Saints . He was the eldest of fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary Pickering, paternal grandson of Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st Barone t (1553–1632), and wife Frances Wilkes, Puritan landowning gentry who supported the Puritan cause and Parliament. He was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift . As a boy, Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh , where it
4225-440: Was treated as an inferior by those of her social status. Both Dryden and his wife were warmly attached to their children. They had three sons: Charles (1666–1704), John (1668–1701), and Erasmus Henry (1669–1710). Lady Elizabeth Dryden survived her husband, but reportedly lost her wits after becoming a widow. Although some have historically claimed to be from the lineage of John Dryden, his three children, one of whom became
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