THE

CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

PROSE WORKS

OF

JOHN DRYDEN,

NOW FIRST COLLECTED:

WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE AUTHOR,

GROUNDED ON

ORIGINAL AND AUTHENTICK DOCUMENTS;

AND

A COLLECTION OF HIS LETTERS,

THE GREATER PART OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEFORE
BEEN PUBLISHED.

BY EDMOND MALONE, Esq.

VOLUME THE SECOND.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY H. BALDWIN AND SON, NEW BRIDGE-STREET,

FOR T. CADELL, JUN. AND W. DAVIES, IN THE STRAND.

M.DCCC.

ENOX LIBRARY

NEW YORK

DEDICATION

OF

ALL FOR LOVE,

OR, THE WORLD WELL LOST.'

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THOMAS, EARL OF DANBY,

VISCOUNT LATIMER, AND BARON OSBORNE OF KIVETON, IN YORKSHIRE;

LORD HIGH TREASURER OF ENGLAND, ONE OF HIS

MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL,

AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, &c. 2

MY LORD,

THE gratitude of poets is so troublesome a

virtue to great men, that you are often in danger of your own benefits; for you are threatened with some Epistle, and not suffered to do good in quiet, or to compound for their silence whom you have

'ALL FOR LOVE was represented at the Theatre Royal, and first printed in 1678. Our author has told us, that it is the only play he wrote for himself: the rest were given to the people. "It is (says Dr. Johnson) by

universal consent accounted the work in which he has admitted the fewest improprieties of style or character."

2 Of the rise and character of this nobleman, who was born in 1631, and died in his 81st year in 1712, Burnet