of

CONCERNING

THIS

EDITION

2

O F

t

DRYDEN'S WORKS.

HILE editions of Chaucer, Spencer,

W Shakespear, Milton, and many writers

of a much inferior clafs, have been prefented to the world complete, is it not surprising that Dryden, equal in almost every refpect to all of them, fcarcely inferior to any, has remained till now a fingle folitary exception? The thin folio of his poetical works printed in 1701, was extremely imperfect; and the two volumes in twelves, published in 1742, were far from being fufficiently comprehensive.

To remedy thefe defects, and to unite the whole of his original poems and tranflations (the plays and his Virgil excepted) has been the bufinefs of the prefent editor. As the former of thefe confift of fatires, politics, and private hiftory, which in a few years would become almoft unintelligible, the occafions of them being removed to such vast distance, he has added notes in every place that feemed to demand them, which, while they illuftrate the text, he has endeavoured to make as entertaining as truth, the invariable guide of his inquiry, would admit.

Over fome paffages, indeed, time has let fall a veil of obfcurity, which his utmost industry has not been able to penetrate.

In his fearch he was fully convinced, that he could not be too fpeedy in rendering this fignal service to one of the greatest writers that ever adorned these kingdoms; as the people best acquainted with the transactions, to which most of his pieces relate, are almost all deceased, confequently the materials for fuch a work are daily diminishing; so that shortly these inimitable writings must have remained wholly without a key.

He should think himself ungrateful did he not here acknowledge, that he owes much to the communication of David Mallet, Efq; whofe polite writings are an ornament to the age; to the learned and accurate Dr. Birch, fecretary to the Royal Society; and to the candour and ingenuity of the reverend Mr. Walter Harte, one of the canons of Windfor.

He begs leave to obferve to the inquiring critic, that he has no where prefumed to enter the lifts with his author as a difputant; neither has he exhausted his paper in tedioufly praising or impertinently cenfuring him. Such a proceeding he would look upon as an infult to the underftanding of his readers; by prefcribing bounds to their judgment, like the virtuofo who infifted that no body could fee well but through his glass. He has confined himself meerly to the explain

ing what relates principally to the author, his friends and enemies; the fituations of times, and occafions of writing; neither does he pretend to burthen the reader's attention with heaps of quotations from learned authors. Some remarkable imitations he has indeed pointed out; and for the reft, he leaves the reader to employ his own application; which may perhaps be thought on both fides moft eligible.

The editor was a good deal difappointed at not being able, with all his industry, to obtain any effential materials relating to our author's life or his works, though he applied to the prefent Sir John Dryden, through the means of a friend, who has a confiderable fortune in his neighbourhood. He alfo addreffed himself on this head in perfon to a defcendant of our poet's, near Berkley-fquare; but cannot fay he met with any information that gave him fatisfaction.

He has with his utmost care been able only to recover two of Dryden's manuscript letters, one to Wilmot, Earl of Rochefter; the other to Mrs. Thomas, otherwife known by the name of Fair Corinna; and for thefe there did not appear any proper place in these four volumes. It has been faid that many of his letters are in the hands of one of the Saville family; if the report be true, it is to be hoped that the poffeffor will be public-fpirited enough to communicate fuch a treasure to the world, as, from the specimens we have by us, we are perfuaded

a collection of his letters would be the most agreeable that ever came from the prefs; and the bequeathing them to pofterity would make the memory of the donor immortal.

In the arranging of the larger of our author's original pieces, we have paid a strict regard to the times in which they were written; beginning firft with the earlieft. The dedication of the Annus Mirabilis to the city of London, is added from the first edition of that poem in 4to; and we have given the entire fecond part of Abfalom and Achitophel, though a good deal of it was written by Tate, because the whole narration is rendered thereby more perfect and uniform. We have alfo reprinted Soam's tranflation of the Art of Poetry, as Dryden had a very confiderable hand in it, and permitted his name to be inferted in the title-page in his own lifetime.

We have been very exact in arranging the epiftles according to chronological order, which was never done before, and have retained that to Julian, because we find it in the fixth volume of the Mifcellanies; and therefore, though we have not the highest opinion of its value, we cannot fuppofe it to be an impofition. We have paid the fame regard to the elegies and epitaphs, two of which are not in the edition of 1742 ; neither are the first fong in this collection, entituled the Fair Stranger,nor the Secular Mafque, nor yet the prologue to the Miftakes; the epilogue to the Hufband his own Cuckold, and the prologue and epilogue to the Pilgrim. The

prologues and epilogues are, as nearly as we could prove, here printed in their order of time; and for the dates of many of them we are particularly obliged to Mr. Garrick, who with great civility gave us the ufe of his fine collection of old 4to plays.

The third volume of this edition may now, more properly than ever, be called Dryden's Fables, as it contains fuch of the Tales of Chaucer as he has modernized; his tranflations from Boccace, and fuch of the Metamorphofes as he tranflated: all difpofed in their respective places. We were a good deal mortified to find ourfelves obliged to run part of the latter into our fourth volume, otherwife our third would have fwelled beyond all fize; and this we had the more reason to lament, as it broke in the uniformity which we flattered ourselves we fhould have been able in this edition to preferve. At the fame time, for reafons of a fimilar nature, we were under a neceflity of adding "the translations from Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace, to the end of the fecond volume.

upon

;

In our fourth volume we have added the 19th elegy of the fecond book of Ovid's Amours and Dryden's fine dedication of Juvenal, together with fuch of the fatires as he tranflated, and the whole of his Perfius, none of them in the edition of 1742.

Thus we think we have collected all his loofe pieces; and if this edition fhould meet that encouragement from the public, which the merits