As a critic, Dryden is of the highest rank. Himself familiar with contemporary French critics, he did much to introduce their ideas into England. Hence Dr. Johnson terms him °the father of English criticism, the writer who first taught us to determine upon prin ciples the merit of composition." Yet, though the founder of English dogmatic criticism, Dry den was himself no dogmatist; continually shifting his point of view, he can be classed as a disciple of no one school. Unlike his suc cessors, he distinctly recognized that literary ideas are necessarily modified by changing con ditions 'of time and country. A lover of all the great English poets, he has left appreciations of Shakespeare and Chaucer that in their way have never been surpassed.
In person Dryden was short and plump; he retained his rosy cheeks until past middle life. He was a man of kindly nature, whom his com panions loved, and whom his enemies hated rather because of literary and political rivalry than for any personal reasons. He is best remembered not as a successful writer of in decent comedies or as a fierce controversialist, but as a genial old man, enthroned in his great chair at Will's Coffee House as °judge of wit.* See ABSOLOM AND ACHITOPHEL ; ALEXANDER'S FEAST; HIND AND THE PANTHER, THE; MAC FLECK NOE ; ALL FOR LOVE.
Editions: The only com plete edition of Dryden's works is that of Sir Walter Scott (18 vols., Edinburgh 1808 and 1821), re-edited by Professor Saintsbury (Edin burgh 1882-93). Saintsbury retains all Scott's material and makes numerous corrections and additions, but is not always trustworthy in de tails. Of the poems aside from the dramas, there are four easily accessible editions. The most complete is the Cambridge edition, edited by G. R. Noyes (1 Vol., Boston 1909) ; it con tains all Dryden's poems and poetical transla tions, together with about half of his prose es says. The Aldine edition (5 vols., London) omits the 'Virgil,' and the Globe edition, edited by W. D. Christie (1 vol. London 1870, and often reprinted) omits all the translations from the Greek and Roman poets. These three edi tions are all in modernized spelling; they con tain good notes and biographical introductions: the Cambridge edition includes the essentials of the commentary contributed by Scott and Christie. The Oxford edition, edited by John
Sargeaunt (1 vol., Oxford 1910), reprints in the original spelling the poems and poetical translations, except the (Virgil,) but contains no memoir or explanatory notes. The (Virgil) is included in the World's Classics series (1 vol., London 1903). Saintsbury has edited eight of the best dramas in the Mermaid series (2 vols., London 1904). G. R. Noyes has edited five of the best dramas, with Buckingham's (Rehearsal,) in (Selected Dramas of John Dryden) (Chi cago 1910). W. P. Ker has edited the most important prose works in (Essays of John Dryden) (Oxford 1900). The text of most of these is also given in Everyman's Library, No. 568. Biography: Sir Walter Scott's of Dryden,) in the first volume of his edition, remains the best. Dr. Johnson's (in his (Lives of the is still valuable for its admirable criticism. It is best read in the edi tion of G. B. Hill (3 vols., Oxford 1905), the notes to which correct Johnson's frequent errors as to matters of fact. Malone carefully investigated all details of Dryden's life and published the results in the first volume of his edition of Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden) (London 1800). His work, itself unreadable, is the foundation of all later biographies. Saintsbury's account of Dryden in the English Men of Letters series contains good literary criticism. Criticism: There are notable essays on Dryden by Macaulay, Lowell(in My Book)) and J. C. Collins (in (Essays and Studies,' London 1895). Beljame, in his (Le Public et les Horn mes de Lettres en Angleterre au dixhuitieme siecle) (Paris 1883), gives an invaluable ac count of the poet's work as conditioned by his environment. See also Frye, (Dryden and the Critical Canons of the Eighteenth (Lincoln, Neb., 1907). A bibliography finds a place in the (Cambridge History of English Literature) (New York 1912).