dictionary.  But their Goth and Vandal had the fortune to be grafted on a Roman stock; ours has the disadvantage to be founded on the Dutch[4].  We are full of monosyllables, and those clogged with consonants, and our pronunciation is effeminate; all which are enemies to a sounding language.  It is true, that to supply our poverty, we have trafficked with our neighbour nations; by which means we abound as much in words, as Amsterdam does in religions; but to order them, and make them useful after their admission, is the difficulty.  A greater progress has been made in this, since his majesty’s return, than, perhaps, since the conquest to his time.  But the better part of the work remains unfinished; and that which has been done already, since it has only been in the practice of some few writers, must be digested into rules and method, before it can be profitable to the general.  Will your lordship give me leave to speak out at last? and to acquaint the world, that from your encouragement and patronage, we may one day expect to speak and write a language, worthy of the English wit, and which foreigners may not disdain to learn?  Your birth, your education, your natural endowments, the former employments which you have had abroad, and that which, to the joy of good men you now exercise at home, seem all to conspire to this design:  the genius of the nation seems to call you out as it were by name, to polish and adorn your native language, and to take from it the reproach of its barbarity.  It is upon this encouragement that I have adventured on the following critique, which I humbly present you, together with the play; in which, though I have not had the leisure, nor indeed the encouragement, to proceed to the principal subject of it, which is the words and thoughts that are suitable to tragedy; yet the whole discourse has a tendency that way, and is preliminary to it.  In what I have already done, I doubt not but I have contradicted some of my former opinions, in my loose essays of the like nature; but of this, I dare affirm, that it is the fruit of my riper age and experience, and that self-love, or envy have no part in it.  The application to English authors is my own, and therein, perhaps, I may have erred unknowingly; but the foundation of the rules is reason, and the authority of those living critics who have had the honour to be known to you abroad, as well as of the ancients, who are not less of your acquaintance.  Whatsoever it be, I submit it to your lordship’s judgment, from which I never will appeal, unless it be to your good nature, and your candour.  If you can allow an hour of leisure to the perusal of it, I shall be fortunate that I could so long entertain you; if not, I shall at least have the satisfaction to know, that your time was more usefully employed upon the public.  I am,

  MY LORD,

    Your Lordship’s most Obedient,
      Humble Servant,
        JOHN DRYDEN.