The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author

The Dramatic Works of John
Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of
the Author

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Vol. I.
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Title: The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. With a Life of the
Author
Author: Sir Walter Scott
Release Date: March 18, 2004 [EBook #11623]
Language: English
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THE
DRAMATIC WORKS
OF
JOHN DRYDEN
WITH A
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR
BY
SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
EDITED BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY
VOL. I.
EDINBURGH: WILLIAM PATERSON
1882

[Illustration: M' John Dryden.]

THE DRAMATIC WORKS
OF
JOHN DRYDEN

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

The best-edited book in the English language is, according to Southey,
Wilkin's edition of Sir Thomas Browne. If Sir Walter Scott's "Dryden"
cannot challenge this highest position, it certainly deserves the credit of
being one of the best-edited books on a great scale in English, save in
one particular,--the revision of the text. In reading it long ago, with no
other object than to make acquaintance with Dryden; again, more
recently and more minutely, for the purpose of a course of lectures
which I was asked to deliver at the Royal Institution; and again, more
recently and more minutely still, for the purposes of a monograph on
the same subject in Mr. Morley's series of _English Men of Letters_, I
have had tolerably ample opportunities of recognising its merits. It was
therefore with pleasure that I found, on being consulted by the
publisher of these volumes as to a re-issue of it, that Mr. Paterson was
as averse as I was myself to any attempt to efface or to mutilate Scott's
work. Neither the number, the order, nor the contents of Scott's
eighteen volumes will be altered in any way. The task which I propose
to myself is a sufficiently modest one, that of re-editing Scott's
"Dryden," as--putting differences of ability out of question--he might
have re-edited it himself had he been alive to-day; that is to say, to set
right errors into which he fell either by inadvertence or deficiency of
information, to correct the text in accordance with modern
requirements, and to add the results of the students of Dryden during
the last three quarters of a century in matter of text as well as of
comment.
The first part of the plan requires no further remarks, and the last not
much. No literary work of Dryden's of any great importance has been
discovered since Scott's edition appeared. A few letters will have to be
added, though I am sorry to say that I cannot promise my readers the
satisfaction which Dryden students chiefly desire,--the satisfaction of
reading, or at least knowing the contents of, the Knole correspondence.
In reply to a request of mine, Lord Sackville has positively, though
very courteously, refused to lift the embargo which his predecessors
have placed on this, nor have my inquiries succeeded as yet in
discovering any hitherto unpublished letters, though the present
collection will for the first time present those which have been
published in a complete form. I think that it may not be uninteresting

for readers to have an opportunity of comparing with the undoubted
work two plays, "The Mistaken Husband," and "The Modish Lovers,"
which good authorities have suspected to be possibly Dryden's. These
will accordingly be given in the last volume of the plays. A
bibliography of Dryden, and writers on Dryden, and a certain number
of _pieces justificatives_ of various kinds, will also be added, as well as
notes, and where the subject seems to demand them, appendices on
points of importance. These additional notes and appendices will be
bracketed and signed ED., Dryden's own notes, which are rare, will be
indicated by a D., and Scott's will stand without indication.
The principles upon which I have proceeded in re-editing the text
require somewhat fuller explanation. Dryden never superintended any
complete edition of his works, but on the other hand there is evidence
in his letters that he bestowed considerable pains on them when they
first passed through the press. The first editions have therefore in every
case been followed, though they have been corrected in case of need by
the later ones. But the adoption of this standard leaves unsettled the
problem of orthography, punctuation, etc. I have adopted a solution of
this which will not, I fear, be wholly