Dryden, whom some have styled "The True Father of English Poetry," was
fond of a _college life_, as especially "favourable to the habits of a
student." He was bread at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he resided
seven years, during which he is said never, like Milton and others, to
have "wooed the muses." What were his college habits is not known. The
only notice of him at Trinity (where his bust and portrait are
preserved, the first in the Library, the second in the Hall,) whilst
an undergraduate, is the following entry in the College Register, made
about two years after his admission:--"July 19, 1652. Agreed, then,
that Dryden be put out of Comons, for a fortnight at least, and that
he goe not out of the College during the time aforesaid, excepting to
Sermons, without express leave from the Master or Vice-master
(disobedience to whom was his fault,) and that, at the end of the
fortnight, he read a confession of his crime in the Hall at the
dinner-time, at the three fellows' table."
His contemporary, Dennis the Critic, seems to have been less fortunate
at Cambridge. The author of the "Biographia Dramatica" asserts that he
was