Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 1.djvu/10

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ADVERTISEMENT.

logy, will publish it; but I do not yet know that my account is erroneous[1].

Dryden's Remarks on Rymer have been somewhere[2] printed before. The former edition I have not seen. This was transcribed for the press from his own manuscript.

As this undertaking was occasional and unforeseen, I must be supposed to have engaged in it with less provision of materials than might have been accumulated by longer premeditation. Of the later writers at least I might, by attention and enquiry, have gleaned many particulars, which would have diversified and enlivened my Biography. These omissions, which it is now useless to lament, have been often supplied by the kindness of Mr. Steevens and others; and great assistance has been given me by Mr. Spence's Collections, of which I consider the communication as a favour worthy of publick acknowledgement.

  1. Langbaine's authority will not support the dates assigned to Dryden's Plays. These are now rectified in the margin by reference to the original Editions, the only guides to be relied on.R.
  2. In the Edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, by Mr. Colman.R.
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