Third Edition now ready, extra foolscap 8vo, price 3s. 6d. (90c.)

Revised by WILLIAM T. ARNOLD, M.A.

DRYDEN

AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY

EDITED WITH NOTES

BY

THOMAS ARNOLD, M. A.

LATE OF UNIV. COLL., OXFORD

AND FELLOW OF THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

LONDON: HENRY FROWDE

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AMEN CORNER, E.C.

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.

My father was actually engaged upon the revision of this book at the time of his death (November, 1900), and his working-copy contains a number of 'n's' in the margin, over against the passages on which he intended to write new notes. Some, at all events, of those notes were actually written, but they have unfortunately not been found. In these circumstances I have done my best to carry out his intentions so far as I could divine them. My task has been a good deal facilitated by the appearance of Prof. W. P. Ker's scholarly edition of the Essays of John Dryden (2 vols., Clarendon Press, 1900), and I have also to acknowledge obligations to Dr. A. W. Ward, whose History of English Dramatic Literature has been constantly at my elbow, and who has moreover rendered to his late friend and kinsman the service of piety involved in his allowing me to consult him upon special points. Perhaps the most prominent feature of my revision is the copiousness of quotation from Corneille. In no other way did it seem possible to bring home to the reader the greatness of Dryden's debt-extending not only to ideas and arguments, but even phrases-to It should be added that the his French contemporary. New English Dictionary, which is now far advanced and which, it is already evident, will considerably lighten the labours of future annotators on English classics, has The longer of my own notes been fairly drawn upon. are printed in square brackets.

WILLIAM T. ARNOLD.