THE SATIRES OF DRYDEN EDITED WITH MEMOIR, INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES BY JOHN CHURTON COLLINS London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1893 [All rights reserved] gr. Macmilion and Co. PREFACE. A GRATEFUL confession of immense indebtedness to the labours of Sir Walter Scott and Mr. W. D. Christie is, and always must be, incumbent on any Editor of the Satires of Dryden. My own indebtedness to them is too great to be specified in detail, and I must therefore satisfy myself with this general acknowledgment. But if they did much they have also left much to be done. Those who have made Dryden a subject of special study will see that I have contributed something, in addition to what I have derived from those excellent commentators, towards the elucidation of obscure passages, and something also in the way of new illustrations and parallels. With two or three deviations Mr. Christie's text is adopted throughout, and as this edition is designed rather for students of literature and students of history than for those who are interested in textual criticism, I have not thought it necessary either to discuss or mark various readings. Dryden is not a classic in whose style minutiae of this kind are of importance. The notes on the Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel have been designedly curtailed; it would V 309341 |