fe of the
author. This, as revised and corrected by G. Saintsbury (18 vols.,
Edinburgh, 1882-1893), remains the standard edition. _His Critical and
Miscellaneous Prose Works_ (4 vols., 1800) were edited by Edmund
Malone, who collected industriously the materials for a life of
Dryden. Convenient partial modern editions are the _Poetical Works_
(Globe edition, 1870) edited by W. D. Christie with an excellent
"life"; _The Best Plays of John Dryden_ (Mermaid series, 2 vols.),
edited by G. Saintsbury; and _Essays of John Dryden_ (2 vols., 1900,
Oxford), edited by W. P. Ker. Besides the critical and biographical
matter in these editions see Dr Johnson's _Lives of the Poets; Dryden_
(English Men of Letters series, 1881), by G. Saintsbury; A. Beljame,
_Le Public et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre 1660-1744_ (2nd ed.
Paris, 1897); A. W. Ward, _History of English Dramatic Literature_
(new ed. 1899), vol. iii. pp. 346-392; J. Churton Collins, _Essays and
Studies_; W. J. Courthope, _History of English Poetry_, vol. iv.
(1903), chap, xiv., and L. N. Chase, _The English Heroic Play_ (New
York, 1903). See also ENGLISH LITERATURE. (W. M.; M. BR.)

DRYOPITHECUS (Gr. [Greek: drys], oak, [Greek: pithekos], ape, "the ape
of the oak-woods"), the name of an extinct ape or monkey from Miocene
deposits of France, believed to be allied to the baboons, but perhaps
with some affinity to the higher apes.

DRY ROT, a fungoid disease in timber which occasions the destruction of
its fibres, and reduces it eventually to a mass of dry dust. It is
produced most readily in a warm, moist, stagnant atmosphere, while
common or wet rot is the result of the exposure of wood to repeated
changes of climatic conditions. The most formidable of the dry rot fungi
is the species _Merulius lacrymans_, which is particularly destructive
of coniferous wood; other species are _Polyporus hybridus_, which
thrives in oak-built ships, and _P. destructor_ and _Thelephora
puteana_, found in a variety of wooden structures.

The felling of trees when void of fresh sap, as a means of obviating the
rotting of timber, is a practice of very ancient origin. Vitruvius
directs (ii. cap. 9) that, to secure good timber, trees should be cut to
the pith, so as to allow of the escape of their sap, which by dying in
the wood would injure its quality; also that felling should take place
only from early autumn until the end of winter. The