FOR VERNOR AND HOOD; CUTHELL AND MARTIN; J. WALKER; THE EDITOR, TO THE READER. WHETHER, by my humble and inglorious labor in preparing this edition for the press, I have performed any useful service, is a question which I leave to be decided by the judicious and impartial critic. However that point may be determined, every reader who has examined either the early or the more recent copies of Dryden's Virgil-and, more particularly, the classic reader, who has compared the English version with the Latin original-must certainly allow that the translation, as heretofore presented to the public, stood in very great need of attentive revision and correction. Nor is this at all surprising, if we for a moment consider the circumstances of the case At the time when the first edition was published -in the year 1697-Dryden had nearly reached age of seventy-an age, at which (to say nothing of his anxious and eager haste to gratify the impatient wishes of his subscribers, after a three years' the |