ADVERTISEMENT.

TH

HE Bookfellers having determined to publish a Body of English Poetry, I was perfuaded to promise them a Preface to the Works of each Author; an undertaking, as it was then prefented to my mind, not very tedious or difficult.

My purpofe was only to have allotted to every Poet an Advertifement, like thofe which we find in the French Mifcellanies, containing a few dates and a general character; but I have been led beyond my intention, I hope, by the

VOL. I.

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honeft

honeft defire of giving useful pleafure.

In this minute kind of Hiftory, the fucceffion of facts is not easily difcovered; and I am not without fufpicion that I have placed some of Dryden's works in wrong years. I have followed Langbaine, as the best authority for his plays; and if I fhall hereafter obtain a more correct chronology, will publifh it; but I do not yet know that my account is erroneous.

I had been told, that in the College of Physicians there is fome memorial of Dryden's funeral, but my intelligence was not true; the story therefore wants the credit which fuch a teftimony would have given