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TO THE EDITION OF 1783.

HE Bookfellers having determined to publish a

TH

was

Body of English Poetry, I was perfuaded to promise them a Preface to the Works of each Author; an undertaking, as it was then prefented to my mind, not very extensive or difficult.

My purpose was only to have allotted to every Poet an Advertisement, like thofe which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates and a general character; but I have been led beyond my intention, I hope, by the honeft defire of giving ufeful pleasure.

In this minute kind of Hiftory, the fucceffion of facts is not easily discovered; and I am not without fufpicion that fome of Dryden's works are placed in wrong years. I have followed Langbaine, as the bestauthority for his plays; and if I fhall hereafter obtain a more correct chronology, will publifh it; but I do not yet know that my account is erroneous.

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

As this undertaking was occafional and unforeseen, I must be fuppofed to have engaged in it with less provifion of materials than might have been accumulated by longer premeditation. Of the later writers at leaft I might, by attention and enquiry, have gleaned many particulars, which would have diverfified and enlivened my Biography. Thefe omiffions, which it is now ufelefs to lament, have been often fupplied by the kindness of Mr. STEEVENS and others ; and great affiftance has been given me by Mr. SPENCE'S Collections, of which I confider the communication as a favour worthy of publick acknowledgement.

COWLEY.

COWLEY.

HE Life of Cowley, notwithstanding the penury

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of English biography, has been written by Dr. Sprat, an author whofe pregnancy of imagination and elegance of language have defervedly fet him high in the ranks of literature; but his zeal of friendship, or ambition of eloquence, has produced a funeral oration rather than a history: he has given the character, not the life of Cowley; for he writes with fo little detail, that scarcely any thing is diftinctly known, but all is fhewn confused and enlarged through the mift of panegyrick.

ABRAHAM COWLEY was born in the year one thousand fix hundred and eighteen. His father was a grocer, whofe condition Dr. Sprat conceals under the general appellation of a citizen; and, what would probably not have been lefs carefully fuppreffed, the omiffion of his name in the register of St. Dunftan's parish, gives reafon to fufpect that his father was a fectary. Whoever he was, he died before the birth of his fon, and confequently left him to the care of his mother; whom Wood reprefents as ftruggling carneftly to procure him a literary education, and who,

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