When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat,

Yet fooled with hope, men favour the deceit,
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay:
To-morrow's falser than the former day,

Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain,
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.
I'm tired of waiting for this chymic gold,

Which fools us young and beggars us when old.'

To one of Dryden's plays, the Second Part of 'The Conquest of Granada,' we owe—

Forgiveness to the injured does belong,

But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.'

To another play, 'All for Love,' we owe—

Men are but children of a larger growth:
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,

And full as craving too, and full as vain.'

It is Almanzor in the First Part of 'The Conquest of Granada' who exclaims, addressing the King Boabdallin

• Obeyed as sovereign by thy subjects be,
But know that I alone am king of me:
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,

When wild in woods the noble savage ran.'

Candiope, in 'The Maiden Queen,' describes the retired courtier longing to return to court

Those who like you have once in courts been great,
May think they wish, but wish not, to retreat.
They seldom go but when they cannot stay;
As losing gamesters throw the dice away.
E'en in that cell where you repose would find,
Visions of court will haunt your restless mind;
And glorious dreams stand ready to restore,
The pleasing shades of all you had before.'

Maximin says, in 'Tyrannic Love,'

'Fate's dark recesses we can never find,

But Fortune at some hours is always kind;
The lucky have whole days, which still they choose,
The unlucky have but hours, and these they lose.'

These are a few specimens of many passages of power and beauty in Dryden's little-read and generally inferior plays. His faculty of placing words is wonderful, and conspicuous in prose as well as in poetry. He was specially fitted for a translator. The faults of his translation of Virgil are mostly faults of haste and carelessness. Wanting money, he finished in three years what he rightly told Tonson that it would require seven years to do well.

We learn from Pope, through Dean Lockier, that Dryden made Will's coffee-house, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, the great resort of all the wits in London, and that some years after his death Addison carried the wits away from Will's to another coffee-house in the same street, and on the opposite side of it, Button's". Pope, who was but twelve years old when Dryden died, had been taken once to Will's in Dryden's last year to get a sight of the poet. Addison succeeded to Dryden's critical chair, and the mantle of the poet fell in a little time on Pope, who regarded Dryden as his teacher of versification, and whose first poems, the Pastorals, were published nine years after Dryden's death.

Notices of the early editions of the poems comprised in this volume are subjoined, as important in connexion with the history of the text :

Heroic Stanzas on Oliver Cromwell. The date on the title-page of the first edition is 1659, but it was doubtless published before the end of 1658. There are two editions of 1659. The first was probably published with two other

■ Spence's Anecdotes, p. 113.

e

poems on the same subject by Waller and Sprat, the volume having the title, 'Three Poems upon the Death of his late Highness, Oliver, Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland, written by Mr. Edm. Waller, Mr. Jo. Dryden, Mr. Sprat of Oxford: London, Printed by William Wilson, and are to be sold in Well-yard, near Little St. Bartholomew's Hospital: 1659.' Dryden's poem is printed first in this collection, with the separate heading of 'Heroic Stanzas consecrated to the Glorious Memory of his Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver, late Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, &c. Written after the celebration of his Funeral.' In the other edition of 1659 Dryden's poem is printed alone; it has the same publisher. There is considerable difference of spelling and punctuation between the two, but none of words. During the reigns of Charles the Second and James the Second, Dryden did not republish this poem, or include it in any list of his works; but it was reprinted in 1682 by a political foe. In the reign of William, Jacob Tonson, Dryden's publisher and friend, republished the poem in 1695 from the separate edition of 1659. It was afterwards printed in the first volume of the 'State Poems,' with several corruptions of the text; and this corrupt reprint was reproduced in the edition of the 'Miscellany Poems' in 1716. Several later editors followed this corrupt copy. The editions of 1659 contain the correct text.

Astræa Redux. This was originally published in 1660 in folio, by Henry Herringman. Dryden's name is printed Driden on the title-page. The poem was republished in 1688, in quarto, by Tonson, together with the Panegyric on Charles the Second at the Coronation, the Address to Lord Chancellor Clarendon on New Year's Day, 1662, and the Annus Mirabilis; and then in 1688. The spelling Driden was preserved on the title-page of 'Astræa Redux.' The text of the folio edition of 1660 is perfectly to be trusted.

Annus Mirabilis. The first edition of 1667 is a little volume in small octavo, ‘printed by Henry Herringman at the Anchor of the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1667.'

Dryden, who was not in the habit of careful correction of the press, printed a list of errata on this occasion, with the following notice :

'TO THE READERS.

'Notwithstanding the diligence which has been used in my absence, some faults have escaped the press; and I have so many of my own to answer for, that I am not willing to be charged with those of the printer. I have only noted the gravest of them, not such as by false stops have confounded the sense, but such as by mistaken words have corrupted it.'

This little volume, which Sir Walter Scott does not appear to have seen, contains the best text. Tonson's reprint, in quarto, 1688, contains several changes of text, which are generally changes for the worse; a few, however, may be accepted as improvements. The text of 1688 was literally followed in the edition of the 'Miscellany Poems' of 1716. The poem is printed in this volume, as also in the Globe edition, with the title-page of the first edition, which has not been generally given by modern editors, and also with Dryden's own marginal indications, which have been often omitted.

Absalom and Achitophel. The first edition was in folio, published by Jacob Tonson in November 1681. A second edition appeared in quarto before the end of December, with several minor changes, and two considerable additions. This second edition is authoritative for the text. Seven more editions were published in Dryden's lifetime. That in the folio volume of Dryden's poems, published by Tonson after Dryden's death in 1701, is there called the tenth edition.

Religio Laici. The first edition is in quarto, published in November 1582; there was a second edition in the same year, and a third in 1683. The poem was not again reprinted till it appeared in Tonson's folio edition of Dryden's poems of 1701.

The Hind and the Panther. This poem was first published in quarto in April 1687, and a second edition was published in the same year. The Revolution of 1688 stopped

the demand for the poem. The reprint in Tonson's folio volume of 1701 is called there the third edition. There are several errors in this last reprint; the correct text is to be sought in either of the two editions of 1687.

A bibliographical notice of the 'Miscellany Poems,' edited by Dryden, is added, much confusion arising out of the continued connexion of his name with volumes of the series and with whole collections published after his death. The first volume of 'Miscellanies' was published by Dryden in 1684; there is a second edition of this volume, 1692, and a third, 1702. There is no important difference between the first and second editions, but the third is considerably different. The second volume of Dryden's 'Miscellanies' was called 'Sylvæ,' and published in 1685. A third edition of this volume was published in 1702. The third volume of Dryden's series of 'Miscellanies' was called 'Examen Poeticum,' and appeared in 1693; there was a second edition in 1706. The fourth and last of Dryden's volumes is called 'Annual Miscellany for the year 1694'; and there is a second edition of 1708.

After Dryden's death a fifth volume was published by Jacob Tonson in 1704, and a sixth in 1709, with neither of which Dryden had anything to do. Pope's Pastorals were first published in the sixth volume.

An edition of 'Miscellany Poems,' in six volumes was published by Tonson in 1716. This is quite different, both by addition and omission, from the previous sets of six volumes, and has no just title to the name, by which it goes, of Dryden's Miscellany Poems. There are later reprints of these socalled Dryden's Miscellany Poems of 1716.