nformation, 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discovering any hitherto unpublished letters, though the present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 agreeable to some of
my friends. Capital letters, apostrophes, and the like, will be looked
for in vain. It would, I need hardly say, have been much less