Note 521 — Chapter IV · DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.
Reading edition
His best deed was to elicit from Dryden, in Heads of an Answer to Rymer (Works, xv. 390), the memorable observation that "if Aristotle had seen ours [i.e., "our plays"] he might have changed his mind." One may add that, if Dryden had worked these “Heads” out, he might have solved the whole mystery of criticism as far as in all probability it ever can be solved, or at the very least as far as it could be solved with the knowledge of literature at his disposal.