Dean Lockier, it must be observed, was well acquainted with Dryden from 1685 to the time of his death; and appears to speak so positively that he would seem to have acquired his knowledge from Dryden's own information. His first introduction to that great poet arose from an observation made in Dryden's hearing about his Mac Fleckno; and it is therefore the more likely that he would be correctly informed as to the author's other satires. Dean Lockier was, it may be added, a good critic; and his opinions on literary subjects are so just, that it is to be regretted we have only very few of them. I confess I do not attach much weight to the argument arising from the lines on the Earl of Mulgrave himself contained in the poem. To transfer suspicion from himself, in so general a satire, it was necessary to include his own name amongst the rest; but, though the lines are somewhat obscure, it is, after all, as respects him, compared with the other persons mentioned, a very gentle flagellation, and something like what children call a make-believe. Indeed Rochester, in a letter to his friend Henry Saville (21st Nov. 1679), speaks of it as a panegyric. On the other hand, Mulgrave expressly denied Dryden's being the author, in the lines in his _Essay on Poetry_,-- "Tho' praised and punished for another's rhymes." and by inference claimed the poem, or at least the lines on Rochester, as his own. Dryden, in the Preface to his Virgil, praises the _Essay on Poetry_ in the highest terms; but says not a word to dispute Mulgrave's statement, though he might then have safely claimed the _Essay on Satire_, if his own; and though he must have been aware that, by his silence, he was virtually resigning his sole claim to its authorship. It was subsequently included in Mulgrave's works, and has ever since gone under the joint names of himself and Dryden. On the question of internal evidence critics differ. Your correspondent can see in it no hand but Dryden's; while Malone will scarcely allow that Dryden made even a few verbal alterations in it (Life, p. 130.); and Sir Walter Scott is not inclined to admit any further participation on the part of the great poet than "a few hints for revision," and denies its merit altogether--a position in which I think very few, who carefully peruse it, will agree with him. I am disposed to take a middle course between your correspondent and Dryden's two biographers, and submit that there is quite sufficient internal evidence of joint ownership. I cannot think such lines as-- "I, who so wise and humble seem to be, Now my own vanity and pride can't see;" or,-- "I, who have all this while been finding fault, E'en with my master who first satire taught, And did by that describe the task so hard, It seems stupendious, and above reward." or,-- "To tell men freely of their foulest faults, To laugh at their vain deeds and vainer thoughts:"