He
often celebrates Oxford, but only mentions Cambridge as the contrast of
the sister university in point of taste and learning:
"Oxford to him a dearer name shall be
Than his own mother-university:
Thebes did his green unknowing youth engage,
He chooses Athens in his riper age."[29]
A preference so uncommon, in one who had studied at Cambridge, probably
originated in some cause of disgust, which we may now search for in
vain.
In June 1654, the death of his father, Erasmus Dryden, proved a
temporary interruption to our author's studies. He left the university,
on this occasion, to take possession of his inheritance, consisting of
two-thirds of a small estate near Blakesley, in Northamptonshire, worth,
in all, about sixty pounds a year. The other third part of this small
property was bequeathed to his mother during her life, and the property
reverted to the poet after her death in 1676. With this little patrimony
our author returned to Cambridge, where he continued until the middle of
the year 1657.
Although Dryden's residence at the university was prolonged to the
unusual space of nearly seven years, we do not find that he
distinguished himself during that time by any poetical prolusions
excepting a few lines prefixed to a work, entitled, "Sion and Parnassus;
or Epigrams on several Texts of the Old and New Testament," published in
1650, by John Hoddesdon.[30] Mr.
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