what supernatural duplicity they could at the same moment sit on the ridge of the Palace and dance round the Fire. Another curious error may be quoted from Cymon and Iphigenia. The poet, in describing the effect of Love upon one whom he calls a 'Man-Beast', a human being Above, but just above, the Brutal kind, declares that Love made an active Progress through his Mind, So the lines appear in the first and only contemporary edition. The last word was afterwards corrupted into 'Breast'. This piece of nonsense with its absurd suggestion of tattooing is printed in Christie's text and consequently in Dr. Saintsbury's. Since Christie did not print Dryden's translations from the ancient poets, Dr. Saintsbury had here no help from his predecessors. He does indeed remark that liberties have been taken with the text and implies that he has taken pains' to note them singly'. That he has done so I cannot perceive except in one instance, and even there he leaves the error in his text. the errors which he has not corrected some are very unfortunate. Thus Ovid has a passage which Dryden correctly rendered: Nor cou'd thy Form, O Cyllarus, foreslow Of The regret that qualities, mental or physical, do not save one from death is a commonplace of ancient poetry. Yet here the editors unanimously change foreslow' into 'foreshow'. What sense the lines might then have would certainly not have been known to Dryden or to Ovid. In one of the versions from Lucretius there is a line which points the contrast between the brief life of Homer and the eternity of his Iliad. As Dryden wrote and printed it, the line ran : Th' immortal Work remains, the mortal author's gone. Will it be believed that the English editors print 'immortal ' instead of 'mortal'? Since the English editors have ignored Dryden's own texts, it can hardly be expected that they should have consulted the originals of his translations. Nor have they. They have so changed the text as to display their ignorance both of their poet and of his authorities. Dryden translated the Twenty-ninth Ode of the Third Book of Horace, and prefixt to it the correct title. His English editors, one and all, change 'third' into 'first'. One only remarks that 'first' ought to be third, and even he leaves the error in his text because he supposed it was Dryden's. When Juvenal wrote veniet cum signatoribus auspex, and Dryden wrote and printed The Publick Notaries and Auspex wait, the English editors print 'Haruspex', an emendation which makes the scansion harsh in Dryden and impossible in Juvenal. They seem to have desired to display their learning, since at a Roman marriage in Juvenal's time the augur did not use birds for divination. But their learning goes astray, for, as often happens, the old name outlived the change. Occasionally Dr. Saintsbury following Scott, who himself followed a bad text, has printed a reading other than Christie's. His variations are sometimes for the worse. Thus in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel, when Monmouth suggests that Shaftesbury's motives are self-interested, the Earl replies in effect that, if this be so, there is all the more reason why Monmouth should trust him, since his interest lies all in Monmouth's advancement. Royal Youth, fix here, Let Int'rest be the Star by which I Steer. ་ The lines may be Tate's but were at least passed by Dryden. Here it is plain that 'let' is used in the sense of assume'. An edition published after the deaths of both authors changed 'I' into 'you', taking 'let' in a hortative sense. This illogical reading is deliberately preferred by Dr. Saintsbury. In some forms used by Dryden his editors have made changes without system and without justification. He uses according to the sense and the sound either' them' or ''em'. The latter has sometimes been allowed to stand, and has sometimes been altered. It may be that Dryden was not always careful in his use, but there are clear cases where his choice was deliberate. He was doubtless not aware that the two words are etymologically different, but his choice must be respected. A line in the Epistle to John Driden is thus printed by most editors : Who, while thou shar'st their lustre, lend'st them thine. This is not what Dryden wrote, nor could he have been guilty of such a cacophony. Again, he chose to write ev'n', but Mr. Hooper invariably prints' e'en '. These restorations of the text are such as Dryden's editors might with reasonable industry have succeeded in making. There is, however, one problem of which they never suspected the existence. My friend, Mr. Henry B. Wheatley, discovered that what profess to be copies of the first edition of Absalom and Achitophel differ from one another. His discovery led me to the solution of a point which had much puzzled me. In Stanza 105 of Annus Mirabilis, the copy of the first edition which I first collated gave a text which has escaped the notice of all editors. An examination of other copies showed me why, for these copies did not give it. Moreover, these copies had a list of errata which the other had not. What must have happened is this. When Dryden came back from Wiltshire after the publication of the poem, he saw for himself, or was told by others, that his lines would give great offence and might even be accused of blasphemy. In those copies which had not been sold he was at the charge of cancelling a sheet in order to give an inoffensive version of the lines. Observing that there was a blank page at the end of the Preface, he printed on it a list of such errors as by mistaken words have corrupted' the text. Something of the same kind must have happened in the case of other poems, but it is obviously impossible to collate all existing copies. After the copy of the present text, together with the first draft of this Introduction, was in the hands of the press, there appeared at Cambridge, Massachusetts, the first scholarly edition of the poems. The editor, Dr. George Noyes, has made a complete collation of the original texts, and has removed by far the larger number of the defacing errors. Most of the cases in which he has overlooked an error are of small importance, as when in the line What is't to thee if he neglect thy Urn? he prints' neglects' for 'neglect ', or when in the line The Fiend, thy Sire, has sent thee from below, he prints' hath' for 'has'. There are, however, cases in which he has followed our predecessors in altering the original text without, as it seems to me, just cause. It may be that this deviation has not been intentional. Thus, when Dryden printed Not all the Wealth of Eastern Kings, said she, the Cambridge editor prints 'Has' for 'Have'. Here the assumption of a misprint seems highly improbable. The irregular construction, called by Dr. Abbott the confusion of proximity', is common and natural. It is paralleled by the taunt thrown at Antony by Cassius in Shakespeare's play : The posture of your blows are yet unknown. Another case in which a misprint has been unduly assumed occurs in Baucis and Philemon: Heav'ns Pow'r is infinite: Earth, Air, and Sea, The change of 'Manufacture' into 'Manufactur'd' may seem plausible, but before it can be accepted there must be some evidence that the verb or participle was used precisely in this sense. The New English Dictionary supplies no such evidence. The verb was new in Dryden's time, but the noun had been in use for some time, and sometimes had the sense, now obsolete, of handicraft. Its attributive use in the present passage may be harsh, but it can be justified by analogy, and in all probability the original text is right. Again, there are instances in the Translations where a reference to the translated work shows that the editor's silent alterations of the original text are mistaken. Thus when Dryden printed More grateful to the sight than goodly Planes, a reference to Ovid's platano conspectior alta' shows that the alteration of ' Planes into 'plains' is a clear error. Nor is it easy to see what sense the Cambridge editor attaches to a passage in Persius when in Dryden's There boast thy Horse's Trappings, and thy own: he substitutes 'Their ' for 'There'. This line is, as it happens, given correctly in most of the English editions. In the matter of spelling the Cambridge editor has occasionally introduced forms for which I find no warrant in the original texts. Thus he prints 'color'd' where the original gives colour'd'. Moreover, he seems to have made insufficient allowance for Dryden's love of his own Northamptonshire speech. In some cases his alterations obscure the rhyme. Thus when Dryden printed A Tuft of Daisies on a flow'ry Lay They saw, and thitherward they bent their way: there can be no justification for changing 'Lay' into 'lea though it is only natives who know that the word is still 'lay not lea', in Dryden's own village. Again, such a form as smoother'd' should not be ejected in favour of 'smother'd '. Yet again it is not easy to see why such phonetic forms as pact and 'tane' should give way to 'pack'd' and 'ta'en', the latter a bad representative of a monosyllable. I should add that on the other hand in finally revising the text, I have seen reason to abandon some original readings which I once thought capable of defence, and that I have occasionally corrected an error which I had at first overlooked.. The matter of spelling opens a difficult question. It must be admitted that Dryden was neither careful nor consistent. We cannot always tell whether the spelling was his own or his printer's. We may fairly ascribe to him certain letters which indicate a pronunciation. Usually he wrote 'salvage' rather than 'savage', with a sound in the first syllable such as we give to calves. It is not likely that here he was under Italian influence, for this would imply a theory, and of theory he was clearly guiltless. He wrote agen' when he wished to pronounce the word as we do, but, if he desired the diphthong, as poets sometimes do, he wrote again. Christie regarded some of Dryden's spellings as repulsive, for instance, 'eugh' for 'yew and 'ghess' for 'guess, though the form 'ghess' is more phonetic than our own. Dr. Saintsbury modernizes the spelling unless there be strong reason to the contrary, and sometimes when there is. Thus on the line The Theatres are Berries for the Fair he complains that Scott has obscured the sense for modern readers by printing' berries', which is Dryden's word, and himself prints burrows. This is worse than obscuring the sense, it is |