John Dryden was a British poet. He was born in 1631 at Aldwinkle All-Saints, Northamptonshire and died in 1700. He was was descended from an ancient family, his grandfather being Sir Erasmus Dryden of Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire. He was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster under the celebrated Dr. Busby, whence he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, being here elected to a scholarship.
After university he appears to have settled at London in 1657, where he acted as secretary to his cousin Sir Gilbert Pickering, a favourite of Oliver Cromwell; and on the death of the Protector he wrote his Heroic Stanzas on that event. At the Restoration, however, he hailed the return of Charle II in Astraea Redux, and from that time his devotion to the Stuarts knew no decay.
In 1661 he produced his first play, The Duke of Guise; but the first that was performed was The Wild Gallant, which appeared in 1663 and was not a success. This was followed by The Rival Ladies, and The Indian Queen, a tragedy on Montezuma in heroic verse, written in collaboration with Sir Robert Howard, whose sister, Lady Elizabeth Howard, John Dryden married in 1663. He followed up The Indian Queen with The Indian Emperor, which at once raised John Dryden to the highest pitch of public estimation, an elevation which he retained until his death.
The great fire of London put a stop for some time to theatrical exhibitions. In the interval John Dryden published the Annus Mirabilis, an historical account of the events of the year 1666, one of the most elaborate of his productions. In 1668 he also published his celebrated Essay on Dramatic Poesy - the first attempt to regulate dramatic writing. In 1668 the Maiden Queen, a tragi-comedy, was represented. This was followed in 1670 by the Tempest, an alteration from William Shakespeare, in which he was assisted by Sir William Davenant. It was received with general applause, notwithstanding the very questionable taste and propriety of the added characters.
John Dryden was shortly afterwards appointed to the offices of royal historiographer and poet-laureate, with a salary of 200 pounds a year. He now became professionally a writer for the stage, and produced many pieces, some of which have been strongly censured for their licentiousness and want of good taste. The first of his political and poetical satires, Absalom and Achitophel (Monmouth and Shaftesbury), was produced in 1681, and was followed by The Medal, a satire against sedition; and MacFlecknoe, a satire on the poet Shadwell.
On the accession of James in 1685 John Dryden became a Roman Catholic, a conversion the sincerity of which has been not unreasonably regarded with suspicion, considering the time at which it occurred. At court the new convert was received with open arms, a considerable addition was made to his pension, and he defended his new religion at the expense of the old one in a poem, The Hind and the Panther. Among his other services to the new king were a savage reply to an attack by Stillingfleet, and panegyrics on Charles and James under the title of Britannia Rediviva.
At the Revolution John Dryden was deprived of the offices of poet-laureate and historiographer, and of the certain income which these offices secured him. During the remaining ten years of his life he produced some of his best work, including his admirable translations from the classics. He published, in conjunction with Congreve, Creech, and others, a translation of Juvenal, and one of Persius entirely by himself. About a third part of Juvenal was translated by John Dryden, who wrote an essay on satire which was prefixed to the whole. His poetic translation of Virgil appeared in 1697, and, soon after that masterpiece of lyric poetry, Alexander's Feast, his Fables, etc.
He died on May the 1st, 1700, at the age of sixty-nine, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. John Dryden is unequalled as a satirist among English poets, and the best of his tragedies are unsurpassed by any since written. His poetry as a whole is more remarkable for vigour and energy than beauty, but he did much to improve English verse. He was also an admirableprosewriter. Personally he waa modest and kindly. The whole of his works, edited by Sir Walter Scott, were published in 1818 they were later re-published with additional notes, etc, by George Saintsbury. Research John Dryden
Sir William Davenant was an English poet and dramatist. He was born in 1605 at Oxford and died in 1668. His father kept the Crown Inn, a public house at which William Shakespeare used to stop on his journeys between London and Stratford. He was introduced into court life early in life, through his service with the Duchess of Richmond and LordBrooke; and having produced several plays and court masques, he succeeded Ben Jonson in the laureateship in 1637.
During the English Civil War he fought on the royal side, was made a lieutenant-general, and received the honour of knighthood. On the decline of the royal cause he retired to France; but attempting to sail for Virginia his ship was captured, and he escaped death through the good offices of John Milton, a kindness he was able to repay after the Restoration.
Under Charles II William Davenant flourished in the dramatic world. His works consist of dramas, masques, addresses, and the epic Gondibert, which was never finished; but he is remembered chiefly by the travesty of William Shakspeare's Tempest, made in conjunction with Dryden. He was buried in WestminsterAbbey. Research William Davenant
William Walsh was an English writer and statesman. He was born in 1663 at Abberley and died in 1708. He was MP for Worcestershire from 1698 to 1702 and for Richmond in 1705. He steadily advocated the Protestant succession. He was the author of elegies and love poems. In 'Delia', one of five pastorals, he eulogises Mrs tempest, the subject of Pope's fourth pastoral. He was a dramatic collaborator with Congreve and Vanbrugh, and in prose he wrote 'Dialogue concerning Women, being a Defence of the Sex', in 1691. The Works of William Walsh appeared in 1736 and his biography in ' Lives' by Johnson and Cibber in 1753. Research William Walsh
Aeneas was a Trojan hero. According to Homer, he was, next to Hector, the bravest of the warriors of Troy. When that town was taken and set on fire, Aeneas, according to the narrative of Virgil, with his father, son, and wife Creusa, fled, but the latter was lost in the confusion of the flight. Having collected a fleet he sailed for Italy, but after numerous adventures he was driven by a tempest on the coast of Africa, where Queen Dido of Carthage received him kindly, and would have married him. Jupiter, however, sent Mercury to Aeneas, and commanded him to sail for Italy. Whilst the deserted Dido ended her life on the funeral pile Aeneas set sail with his companions, and after further adventures by land and sea reached the country of King Latinus, in Italy. The king's daughter Lavinia was destined by an oracle to a stranger, this stranger being Aeneas, but was promised by her mother to Turnus, king of the Rutuli. This occasioned a war, after the termination of which, Turnus having fallen by his hand, Aeneas married Lavinia. His son by Lavinia, Aeneas Sylvius, was the ancestor of the kings of Alba Longa, and of Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome. Research Aeneas
The Webley Tempest was a British air pistol developed specifically as a low cost training weapon for all hand gun users. The Webley Tempest was produced in .177 and .22 calibres, had a 175 mm long barrel and had a muzzle velocity of 128 (.177 calibre) and 100 (.22 calibre) metres per second. Research Webley Tempest
Tempest (Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Surveillance Technology) is the US Government program for evaluation and endorsement of electronic equipment that is safe from eavesdropping. Tempest certification refers to the equipment having passed a testing phase and agreeing to emanations rules specified in the government document NACSIM 5100A (Classified). This document sets forth the emanation levels that the US Government believes equipment can give off without compromising the information it is processing. Computers and other electronic equipment release interference to their surrounding environment. You may observe this by placing two video monitors close together. The pictures will behave erratically until you space them apart. What is important for an observer is the emission of digital pulses (1s and 0s) as these are used in computers. The channel for this radiation is in two arrangements, radiated emissions and conducted emissions. Radiated emissions are assembled when components in electrical devices form to act as antennas.
Conducted emissions are formed when radiation is conducted along cables and wires. Although most of the time these emissions are simply annoyances, they can sometimes be very helpful. If someone wants to see what project a person is working on they can sit in a van outside the target's office and use sensitive electronic equipment to attempt to pick up and decipher the radiated emissions from the target's video monitor. These emissions normally exist at around 55-245 Mhz and can be picked up as far as one kilometre away. A monitoring device can distinguish between different sources emitting radiation because the sources emanating the radiation are made up of dissimilar elements and so this coupled with other factors varies the emitted frequency. For example different electronic components in VDUs, different manufacturing processes involved in reproducing the VDUs, different line syncs, etc. Research Tempest
The Hawker Fury I was a British single-seater fighter aircraft of the Second World War developed from the Hawker Tempest. The Hawker Fury I was powered by a Bristol Centaurus XVIII engine providing a top speed of 736 kmh and a range of 1860 km with auxiliary drop tanks. Armaments consisted of four 20 mm cannons and either two 1000 lb bombs or six pairs of rockets carried under the wings. A folding wing version was produced for the Royal Navy and known as the Hawker Sea Fury. Research Fury I
The Hawker Tempest was a British single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber monoplane of the Second World War. It was developed as a progression of the Typhoon in 1941, and the first prototype was flown in September 1942. The Tempest had a maximum speed of 696 kmh and was armed with four 20 mm British Hispano cannons in the wings, and was fitted with eight rocket projectiles or two 500 lb or 100 lb bombs under the wings. Research Hawker Tempest
Abbreviations
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