[iv]

in wrong years. I have followed Langbaine, as the best authority for his plays; and if I shall hereafter obtain a more correct chronology, will publish it; but I do not yet know that my account is erroneous.

It had been told me, that in the College of Physicians there is some memorial of Dryden's funeral, but the intelligence was not true; the story therefore wants the credit which fuch a teftimony would have given it. There is in Farquhar's Letters an indistinct mention of it, as irregular and disorderly, and of the oration which was then fpoken. More than this I have not difcovered.

Dryden's Remarks on Rymer have been fomewhere printed before. The former edition I have not seen. This was tranfcribed for the press from his own manufcript.

As this undertaking was occafional and unforeseen, I must be supposed to have engaged in it with less provifion of materials than might have been accumulated by longer premeditation. Of the later writers at least I might, by attention and enquiry, have gleaned many particulars, which would have diversified and enlivened my Biography. These omiffions, which it is now useless to lament, have been often supplied by the kindness of my friends; and great assistance has been given me by Mr. Spence's Collections, of which I confider the communication as a favour worthy of publick acknowledge