Dryden invented this. Spenser has the verb, though in a different and peculiar sense of "entertain."

Page 66, note. The ED. has been omitted in printing this

note.

Page 99. Note Lyndaraxa's "obleege" rhyming to "siege."

Page 106. The same rhyme occurs on this page, together with one of the ea and a class, "deal" and "sale."

Page 113. "Stock," it is perhaps just desirable to remind the reader="capital."

Page 357. The scenic division of this play is very imperfect. There ought to be a new scene at the top of this page.

Page 366. By a printer's error the introduction was begun on this page instead of leaving it free for the usual note of full title, which I here supply:

[The Assignation; or, Love in a Nunnery. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal. Written by John Dryden, Servant to His Majesty, Successum dea dira negat.-Virg. London: Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman, and are to be sold at the Anchor, in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange. 1673.]

VOL. V.

Page 118. For illiso read illisa.

Page 185. Since this volume passed through the press some considerable additions to the bibliography of Aurengzebe have been made. Valuable editions of Tavernier (ed. V. Ball, 2 vols., London 1889) and Bernier (in Constable's Oriental Miscellany, vol. i., London 1891) have been issued, while in this latter series Aurengzebe itself has been reprinted (1892).

Page 195. In the first line of the quotation at foot disposita should be disposta.

Page 287. In Zayda's speech "without you leave" is misprinted for "without your leave."

Page 291. In Morat's reply to Nourmahal "condemned" should be "contemned."

VOL. VI.

(Reverse of title page of Limberham).

By an oversight the note giving full title was not inserted. It is as follows:[The Kind Keeper; or, Mr. Limberham: a Comedy; as it was acted at the Duke's Theatre by His Royal Highness's Servants. Written by John Dryden, Servant to His Majesty. Kv μe φάγῃς ἐπὶ ῥίζαν, ὁμῶς ἔτι καρποφορήσω. ̓Ανθολογία Δευτέρα. Hic nuptarum insanit amoribus; hic meretricum: Omnes hi metuunt versus; odere poetas. Horat. London: Printed for R. Bentley and M. Magnes in Russel Street in Covent Garden, 1680].

Page 130, note. I am disposed, after yet another reading of Edipus ten years later, to think my criticism of it inclining to the harsher side of justice.

Page 214. "Wistly," the equivalent of "wistfully," is here used in the less usual but not positively rare sense of the latter, i.e. not "desiringly" or "regretfully," but "thoughtfully," "attentively."

Page 217, note. See note below on page 477.

Page 229. The passage about the palace of Death is a fine adaptation of several, probably many originals, some pretty close to the text in English. Raleigh has in the History of the World, "The House of Death whose doors lie open at all hours and to all persons ;" and there is a verse-parallel in one of Marston's plays, to which at the moment I cannot give the exact reference.

Page 477. The use of "assassinate " here shows that I was wrong, supra, note page 217, in supposing that Dryden had merely overlooked a solecism of Lee's. The word, however, is quite indefensible. It was used earlier and not wrongly by Jonson and others as = assassination": and either mere blunder or the usual catachresis of abstract for concrete seems to have extended it as here.

VOL. VII.

Page 20. The date in the note instead of 1632 should, as indeed the context makes evident, be 1682.

Page 142. The verse of the poem given on this page seems to me too good for Shadwell. Nowhere else that I know of did

Og compose twenty heroic couplets with hardly one line that can be called doggrel-hardly a phrase that is utterly flat.

Page 170, note. There should be no inverted commas to "in the stage sense."

Page 320. In line 9 of the Prologue "at last" should evidently be "at least."

Page 332. "Barnus." This early form (which is passed over in most dictionaries) for the garment generally now spelt burnous may deserve that attention should be called to it.

VOL. VIII.

Page 10, note. Songs in the Prophetess. Vol. xv., in which I had promised to insert these songs, did not appear (for reasons referred to in Postscript, ante) till nearly ten years after the promise was made, and it was then thought better not to increase the number of the attributed poems. I therefore give these songs here, as I have given the hymns elsewhere promised in the Appendix.

The first song, which occurs in the second Act, is certainly not much like Dryden's work:

Chorus.

Second Song by
a Woman.

Chorus.

Great Diocles the boar has killed

Which did infest the land;

What heart is not with rapture filled?

Who can his joys command?

Down, down the bloody villain falls,

Hated, contemned of all:

And now the mighty spirit calls

For rites of funeral.

(Sing Ios, praise the thundering Jove,
Pallas and Venus share ;

Since the all-charming queen of love
Inspires the god of war.

Charon the peaceful shade invites,
He hastes to waft him o'er :

Give him all necessary rites

To land him on the shore.
Sound all your instruments of war,
Fifes, trumpets, timbrels play;
Let all mankind the pleasure share
And bless this happy day.

Sound all your instruments, etc.

This is followed after a short dialogue by more lyrics, ushered by this stage direction :

While they invest him with the imperial robes this martial song is sung; trumpets and ho-boys (sic) joining with them.

Let the soldiers rejoice

With a general voice,

Amid the senate new honours decree 'em ;

Who at his army's head

Struck the fell monster dead,

And so boldly and bravely did free 'em.

Chorus. Rejoice, rejoice, etc.

To Mars let 'em raise,

And their Emperor's praise,

A trophy of the army's own making:
To Maximinian, too,

Some honours are due,

Who joyed [joined ?] in the brave undertaking.

Chorus. Rejoice, rejoice, etc.

With flowers let 'em strew

The way as they go,

Their statues with garlands adorning :

Who from tyranny's night,

Drove the mists in their sight

And gave 'em a glorious morning.

Chorus. Rejoice, rejoice, etc.

Then a symphony of flutes in the air and after this song:

Since the toils and the hazards of war's at an end,
The pleasures of love should succeed 'em ;
The fair should present what the senators send,
And complete what they have decreed 'em.
With dances and songs, with tambours and flutes,
Let the maids show their joy as they meet him,
With cymbals and harps, with viols and lutes,
Let the husbands and true lovers greet him.

Chorus.

Let the priest with processions the hero attend
And statues erect to his glory;

Let the smoke from the altars to heaven ascend,
All sing great Diocles' story.

The third Act has a single song, which is very much more like
Dryden than anything yet given. The stage direction is:

Enter MAXIMINIAN.

He stands gazing on the Princess all the time of the song:

What shall I do to show how much I love her?
How many millions of sighs will suffice?
That which wins other hearts never can move her,
These common methods of love she'll despise.

I will love more than man e'er loved before me,
Gaze on her all the day, melt all the night;
Till for her own sake at last she'll implore me
To love her less to preserve our delight.

Since gods themselves cannot ever be loving,
Men must have breathing recruits for new joys;
I wish my love could be always improving,
Though eager love more than sorrow destroys.

In fair Aurelia's arms leave me expiring,

To be embalmed by the sweets of her breath;
To the last moment I'll still be desiring,

Never had hero so glorious a death.

For the apparent oscillation between dactylic and iambic rhythm here compare the Nereid's song in Albion and Albanius. Nor is that in the fourth Act quite impossibly Dryden's:

The fifth Act ends (save for a very short coda of dialogue) with the following masque, which in parts is not unDrydenish.