There are more besides him, that make themselves
transgressors by building again the things which they once destroyed."
Quoted by Mr. Malone from a rare pamphlet in his collection entitled "A
Second Narrative of the late Parliament, 1658."
[35] Like Sir Gilbert Pickering, he was a member of the Northamptonshire
committee of sequestration, and his deeds are thus commemorated in
Walker's "Sufferings of the Clergy:"--"Sir J---- D----n was never noted
for ability or discretion; was a puritan by tenure, his house (Canons
Ashby) being an ancient college, where he possessed the church, and
abused most part of it to profane uses: the chancel he turned to a barn;
the body of it to a corn-chamber and storehouse, reserving one side
aisle of it for the public service of prayers, etc. He was noted for
weakness and simplicity, and never put on any business of moment, but
was very furious against the clergy."
[36] In a satire called "The Protestant Poets," our author is thus
contrasted with Sir Roger L'Estrange. In levelling his reproaches, the
satirist was not probably very solicitous about genealogical accuracy;
as, in the eighth line, I conceive Sir John Dryden to be alluded to,
although he is termed our poet's grandfather, when he was in fact his
uncle. Sir Erasmus Dryden was indeed a fanatic, and so was Henry
Pickering, Dryden's paternal and maternal grandfather; but neither were
men of mark or eminence:
"But though he spares no waste of words or conscience,
He wants the Tory turn of thorough nonsense,
That thoughtless air, that makes light Hodge so jolly;--
Void of all weight, _he_ wantons in his folly.
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