CONTENTS B. To the present Edition-(1) Hymns attributed to Dryden; (2) Dryden's Gallicisms; (3) Dryden and Swift; (4) Dryden and Jonson; (5) Profits of the Virgil; (6) Dryden and EDITOR'S POSTSCRIPT. I BEGIN the postface or postscript which I promised long ago to this revised edition of Sir Walter Scott's "Dryden," after a far longer interval than I had expected, and in a mood something the same as that of Sir Henry Taylor's hero when he surveyed the perilous shelf that nursed his infant courage. It must be almost unnecessary to assure the subscribers to the book of the extreme annoyance and regret which the delay in its completion has caused me. But I may not improperly give them the assurance that this delay has been due to causes which were not merely, as the common phrase goes, "beyond my control," but also quite independent of any action or failure to act on my part. With the exception of this last volume (which for obvious reasons could not be taken in hand till the others were through the press) the entire work was, so far as I was concerned, ready for that press more than ten years ago. I wish I could think that the annoyance of an apparent breach of faith with subscribers was the only harm which this delay has done. But a breach if not of faith, of continuity of this kind, occasions other inconveniences in the execution of a literary undertaking, which may not at once present themselves to the lay mind. In the case of those fortunate persons who can devote their time to whatsoever work or play they please, or whose avocations from literary employment consist only in regular academic engagements or fixed duties of any kind, during a given portion of each day, such a delay may be not only no disadvantage but a positive gain. It enables points which have been obscure to be cleared up, it matures the student's familiarity with the subject, and it gives Time and Chance, which are not always maleficent agencies, the opportunity of contributing windfalls of discovery. But things are very different when the worker has to write for a living, and must, if obstacles arise to his pursuing one task, lay it aside and turn to another. The thread is broken; the continuity of attention and atmosphere is loosed; and even a strong memory will hardly keep intact large stores of miscellaneous information, particularly when it is required to receive and hold ready other stores on quite different subjects from time to time. Not |