Book 12 — POEMS ASCRIBED TO DRYDEN.

In this last division of poetry, those poems are placed which have been ascribed to Dryden upon grounds more or less satisfactory, yet do not seem entitled to be classed with his acknowledged writings. To some of them he doubtless lent his assistance, either from friendship to the author, or to the cause in which they were written. But, even in these, the hand of Dryden is not so effectually distinguished from that of the inferior artist, as to entitle them to be removed from the apocryphal station which is here assigned. Others I would have discarded altogether, but from the consideration that they were not of great length, and that the first complete edition of Dryden should contain all that has hitherto been ascribed to our immortal Bard, even upon loose and uncertain grounds.