the same time; but for a stone to move naturally upward, is only impossible ex parte materiæ; but it is not impossible for the first mover to alter the nature of it. 5 His last assault, like that of a Frenchman, is most feeble for whereas I have observed, that none have been violent against verse, but such only as have not attempted it, or have succeeded ill in their attempt, he will needs, according to his usual custom, improve my observation to an argument, that he might have the glory to confute it. But I lay my observation at 10 his feet, as I do my pen, which I have often employed willingly in his deserved commendations, and now most unwillingly against his judgment. For his person and parts, I honour them as much as any man living, and have had so many particular obliga- 15 tions to him, that I should be very ungrateful, if I did not acknowledge them to the world. But I gave not the first occasion of this difference in opinions. In my Epistle Dedicatory before my Rival Ladies, I had said somewhat in behalf of verse, which he was pleased 20 to answer in his Preface to his plays: that occasioned my reply in my Essay; and that reply begot this rejoynder of his in his Preface to The Duke of Lerma. But as I was the last who took up arms, I will be the first to lay them down. For what I have here written, 25 I submit it wholly to him; and if I do not hereafter answer what may be objected against this paper, I hope the world will not impute it to any other reason, than only the due respect which I have for so noble an opponent. 30 NOTES. Preface, ix, 3. Sir Robert Howard (1626-98) was Dryden's brother-in-law. His Poems were published in 1660, with verses from Dryden prefixed. In 1665 Four New Plays of Howard's were published in folio; viz. Surprisal and Committee (comedies), and Vestal Virgin and Indian Queen (tragedies). The preface of this volume led to Dryden's Essay (Ker). 6. [Sir Charles Sedley or Sidley (c. 1639-1701) was about the same age as Dryden. His plays are Antony and Cleopatra (1677), a rhyming tragedy, and four others, of which three were comedies. To Sedley is also due one of the most famous and beautiful 'openings' in English poetry : Love still has something of the sea From which his mother rose. He is less favourably known by the story of his wild and dissolute youth which Johnson has recorded in the Lives of the Poets.] 9. [The Greeks themselves appear to have had no association of novus homo with the name, which conveyed simply the notion of youth and courage. The Etymologicum Magnum has sub voc.: "Ονομα κύριον, ἐπεὶ νέος ἀνδρεύσατο ἢ νέος ὢν ἀνδρεῖος ἦν.] 1. Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, author of the well-known song 'To all you ladies now on land,' and Lord Chamberlain to William III after the Revolution, was always a kind friend and patron to Dryden, and liberally assisted him when the loss of his K office as poet-laureate, through his refusal to take the oaths to William, brought the poet to great distress. See the long dedication to Dryden's Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (ii. 15)1. 2. 17. The Tragedy of Pompey the Great, 'translated out of French by certain persons of honour': 4to 1664. From Dryden's eulogium it appears that the fourth act was translated by Lord Buckhurst; the first was done by Waller (Malone). Sir Charles Sedley, Malone says in another place, had also a hand in this translation, which was from the Pompée of Corneille. The act translated by Waller is published among his works. [Ibid. In the second edition of the Essay (which is the one here reprinted), Dryden has deliberately eliminated the detached (Sweet, p. 138), postponed (Mätzner, ii. 482), or pendent preposition. Instead of 'such arguments as the fourth act of Pompey will furnish me with,' he now writes, 'such arguments as those with which the fourth act of Pompey will furnish me.' That this change was deliberate appears from Dryden's theory as well as from his practice. In his Defence of the Epilogue he enumerates among the weaknesses of Ben Jonson's diction, 'the preposition in the end of the sentence; a common fault with him, and which I have but lately observed in my own writings' (ii. 168). Professor Ker's view is that 'in his revision of the Essay of Dramatic Poesy Dryden came to believe that he ought to put some restraint on his tendency to leave hanging phrases at the end of his sentences. As he tells us himself, he noted as a fault the preposition left at the end of a clause and belonging to a relative understood' (I. p. xxvii). The most common form of this colloquial use is, of course, that in which there is ellipse of the relative, with the preposition which really governs that relative thrown to the end; but Dryden in revising the Essay has also shown himself hostile to the 1 The references to other prose works of Dryden are to Prof. W. P. Ker's edition of the Essays of John Dryden, in 2 vols. (Clarendon Press, 1900). ordinary use of suffixed prepositions, which in words like 'allude to,' 'deal with,' 'give up,' 'reckon in,'' sum up,' 'tamper with,' form an integral part of the verbal phrase. The matter is important, as few among the formal points of style more affect the general character of a writer's prose than his fondness for, or avoidance of, these pendent prepositions. In conversation everybody uses them; everybody says 'the place he lived in,' no one says 'the place in which he lived.' But to use these pendent prepositions in writing as freely as they are used in speech is to leave an over-colloquial and unbraced effect. We all feel, for instance, that that considerable though careless writer, Mrs. Oliphant, was ill advised when she penned such a phrase as, ... an offensive hospitality which often annoyed her, and which the Marchioness, for example, scarcely hesitated to show her contempt of' (At His Gates, chap. xxvii). On the other hand, to avoid them altogether is perhaps to be over-formal, and to make the gap too wide between the spoken and the written word. In any case, it is interesting to watch the deliberate practice of such a master as Dryden in the following cases, all taken from the Essay :— First Edition. P. 14, 1. 25, 'The age I live in.' P. 30, 1. 23, whom all the story is built upon.' P. 47, 1. 30, 'tumult which we P. 60, 1. 18, 'end he aimed at.' moonbeams played upon.' Second Edition. 'tumult to which we are sub- Iend at which he aimed.' Apart from these relatival clauses Dryden got rid of the pendent preposition in p. 14, 1. 9, where 'hardly dealt with' gives way in the second edition to 'had hard measure'; p. 48, 1. 23, where 'all the actor can persuade us to,' becomes 'all the actor can insinuate into us'; p. 52, l. 12, where the second edition eliminates the superfluous 'of' in 'expect to hear of in a sermon'; p. 64, 1. 15, where 'thrusts him in |