262 DRYDEN. 



No better inscription can be written on the first page of his 

 works than that which he places over the gate in his 

 &quot; Assembly of Fowls,&quot; and which contrasts so sweetly with 

 the stern lines of Dante from which they were imitated : 



&quot; Through me men go into the blissful place 

 Of the heart s heal and deadly woundes&quot; cure ; 

 Through me men go unto the well of Grace, 

 Where green and lusty May doth ever endure, 

 This is the way to all good aventure ; 

 Be glad, thou Reader, and thy sorrow offcast, 

 All open am I, pass in, and speed thee fast ! &quot; 



DRYDEN* 



BEXVENUTO CELLINI tells us that when, in his boyhood, he 

 saw a salamander come out of the fire, his grandfather 

 forthwith gave him a sound beating, that he might the 

 better remember so unique a prodigy. Though perhaps in 

 this case the rod had another application than the auto- 

 biographer chooses to disclose, and was intended to fix in the 

 pupil s mind a lesson of veracity rather than of science, the 

 testimony to its mnemonic virtue remains. Nay, so 

 universally was it once believed that the senses, and 

 through them the faculties of observation and retention, 

 were quickened by an irritation of the cuticle, that in 

 France it was customary to whip the children annually at 

 the boundaries of the parish, lest the true place of them 



* The Dramatick Works of JOIIN DRYDEN, Esq. In six volumes. 

 London : Printed for Jacob Tonson, in the Strand. MDCCXXXV. 

 18mo. 



The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of JOHN DRYDEX, now 

 first collected. With Notes and Illustrations. An account of the 

 Life and Writings of the Author, grounded on Original and 

 Authentick Documents ; and a Collection of his Letters, the greatest 

 Part of which has never before been published. By EDMUND 

 MALONE, Esq. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, in the Strand. 

 4 vols. 8vo. 



The Poetical Works of JOHN DRYDEN. (Edited by MITFORD.) 

 London : W. Pickering. 1832. 5 vols. 18mo. 



