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ESSAYS OF JOHN DRYDEN KER W. P. HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OFOXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK ESSAYS OF JOHN DRYDEN SELECTED AND EDITED BY W. P. KER, M.A. FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE HON.LL.D.GLASGOW ; PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON VOLUME I AT THE CLARENDON PRESS i900 jtfotfc PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY - MAR 1 PREFACE THE present work is a collection of Dryden's principal Essays on literary subjects, with a short commentary, and an introduction intended to explain his position as a critic. It is not a com- plete edition of Dryden's prose. The more pon- derous works have been left out, and those not concerned with literature, such as the History of the League also some of the lighter Prefaces ; and Dedications, chiefly complimentary in their substance. This selection is not meant to take the place of Scott or of Malone, but may serve as a convenient book forreference, to be used especially by such readers as are interested in criticism and the history of criticism, and who may be glad to have Dryden's critical opinions put before them in a form adapted for ready consultation and comparison. The text has been throughout collated with the original editions except in one case, the Trans- vi Preface lationsfrom Ovid(i6Qo\ where the earliest edition accessible was the third, of 1683. In the Essay ofDramatic Poesy the text is that ofthe first edition (1668), without the grammatical amendments introduced by Dryden in his revision The excuse for this choice of a text is that (1684). the edition of 1668 gives Dryden's own authentic mode of speech at that epoch of his life, and is therefore preferable in a collection which presents the essaysin order oftime as theywere composed. Besides, the revised version has been often re- printed, and is easily accessible, e.g. in Mr. Arnold's edition in this series, while the text of 1668 has only once been re-published, in the edition of Mr. W. H. Low. The spelling has been modernized. It would have been a pleasure to give the essays in old spelling, but the difficulties were too great. It is hardly possible to separate the old spelling from the old type and from the original shape of the page ; it comes to be an alternative between fac- simile reproduction and modern spelling. If the original spelling had been kept, it would have represented, not Dryden's own way of writing, but the caprices of various printers between 1664 and 1700. An appearance of quaintness and con- fusion would have been the result, and this was not convenient; Dryden, who was absolutely without concern in such matters, did not seem to be a Preface vii good subject for this sort of antiquarian curiosity. It might have been possible to frame a conventional uniform seventeenth century spelling forthe whole book but it was easier to adopt the modern ; convention, which will be found to have been recognized in most points somewhere or other in Dryden's works. Thus, the principal differences between the old and the newspellings are exempli- fied in the title An Essay of Dramatick Poesie ; but there is nothing in the spelling Dramatic Poesy which Dryden would have disapproved. The Preface to Troilus and Cressida, 1679, which is printed in italics, and in the Italian manner, with few capitals, is generally modern in spelling, and Dramatic not nor gives Poetry, critic, critique critick, choleric, phlegmatic, virtuous not vertuous. Extream is the common spelling in Dryden's time, but extremeis allowed so ishorrorbesides horrour. ; Shock'd is the spelling in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy so that there is no need to recall to active ; service the experimental chocqu'd of the Indian Emperor. Then for than is common in the earlier books, but than is used as well ; and so it is possible to find authority for most modern ways of spelling in Dryden. Modernization of course must stop short of organic change in the word. Dryden's word is interessd, not interested, and he does not recognize the spelling fund for his fond. viii Preface The punctuation is generally careless and irra- tional in the original editions. ' The printer has enough to answer for in false pointings,' says the author himself in the Second Miscellany. It is not always easyto find the best correction ofthe points. The colon is often used forthe end ofa sentence, (:) the next phrase after the colon beginning with a capital letter. The full stop is not infrequently used, especially in Tonson's books, the Virgil, for example, where a colon or semicolon would be more suitable. One instance of difficult punctuation maybe noted at the beginning ofthe Dramatic Essay (p. 28, 1. 6). All the three original editions are agreed about the first period ; inall,thesecond sentence begins at While, with a capital. But this has not hitherto been permitted to stand by any editor, except Mr. Low. A list of Dryden's writings is given it was ; not necessary to write another biography of Dryden. After Johnson, Malone, and Scott, after Mr. Saintsbury's Dryden in the English Men of Letters, after Mr. Churton Collins's essay on Dryden(EssaysandStudies, 1895), andMr.Christie's biographical notices in the Globe Edition, and in the Selected Poems for the Clarendon Press, there is little room and little need for another account of Dryden's life without fresh materials and docu- ments. What his quality as a critic was, the Introduction makes fin attempt to explain; it is