This Essay was first published in 1668, or perhaps in the December preceding. Sixteen years afterwards, Dryden bestowed on it a thorough revisal; and having, in many places, altered and amended the expression with unusual care, he published a second edition in 1684, with the following dedication to Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 94: See the remarks on Dryden's dramatic criticism, subjoined to his Life, Vol. I] [Footnote 95: In an elegy on his death, and in a poem addressed to Captain Gibbon.--_Malone_, Vol. I. p. 63. For aught I know, an imperfect anagram may be intended; for the letters in the name of Dryden, with a very little aid, will make out the word _Neander_.] [Footnote 96: For Dryden's connection with this gay writer, see the dedication of the "Assignation," Vol. IV. p. 348. Lisideius is Sidleius, a little changed.] [Footnote 97: "The most eminent masters in their several ways appealed to his determination. Waller thought it an honour to consult him in the softness and harmony of his verse, and Dr Sprat in the delicacy and turn of his prose. Dryden determines by him, under the character of Eugenius, as to the laws of dramatic poetry." This occurs in Prior's dedication of his poems to Lionel, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, in which he gives his father's character at length, 8vo Edit. 1709.] [Footnote 98: The evening before the battle, he is said to have composed the lively song, beginning, To all you ladies now at land. Prior gives the following account of the matter. "In the first Dutch war, he went a volunteer with the Duke of York: his behaviour during that campaign was such, as distinguished the Sackvill, descended from that Hildebrand of the name, who was one of the greatest captains that came into England with the Conqueror. But his making a song the night before the engagement, and it is one of the prettiest that ever was made, carries with it so sedate a presence of mind, and such an unusual gallantry, that it deserves as much to be recorded as Alexander's jesting with his soldiers before he past the Granicus, or William the First of Orange giving order over night for a battle, and desiring to be called in the morning, lest he should happen to sleep too long."] TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE</sc> CHARLES, EARL OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX, LORD CHAMBERLAIN OF THEIR MAJESTIES' HOUSEHOLD, KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, &c. MY LORD,