Note 66 — DRYDEN’S LETTERS. LETTER I. TO THE FAIRE HANDS OF MADAME HONOR DRYDEN THESE CRAVE ADMITTANCE.56

Aubery de Vere, the twentieth and last Earl of Oxford, of that family. This nobleman seduced an eminent actress (said, by some authorities, to be Mrs Marshall, but conjectured, by Mr Malone, to have been Mrs Davenport,) to exchange her profession for his protection. The epithet, applied to him in the lines, renders it improbable that he imposed on her by a mock-marriage, though the story is told by Count Hamilton, and others.