(17.) Who was the author of Peniteas cito? And is it not evident that the impression at Cologne by Martinus de Werdena, in 1511, is considerably later than that which is adorned on the title-page with a different woodcut, and which exhibits the following words proceeding from the teacher: "Accipies tanti doctoris dogmata sancta?"
R.G.
DRYDEN'S "ESSAY UPON SATIRE."
On what evidence does the statement rest, that the Earl of Mulgrave was the author of the Essay upon Satire, and that Dryden merely corrected and polished it? As at present advised, I have considerable doubt upon the point: and although, in modern editions of Dryden's Works, I find it headed An Essay upon Satire, written by Mr. Dryden and the Earl of Mulgrave, yet in the State Poems, vol. i. p. 179., originally printed in the lifetime of Dryden, it is attributed solely to him—"An Essay upon Satyr. By J. Dryden, Esq." This gets rid of the assertion in the note of "D.," in the Aldine edition of Dryden (i. 105.), that "the Earl of Mulgrave's name has been always joined with Dryden's, as concerned in the composition." Was it not first published without notice that any other person was concerned in it but Dryden?
The internal evidence, too, is strong that Dryden was the author of it. I do not here refer to the
free, flexible, and idiomatic character of the versification, so exactly like that of Dryden; but principally to the description the Essay upon Satire contains of the Earl of Mulgrave himself, beginning,
"Mulgrave had much ado to scape the snare,
Though learn'd in those ill arts that cheat the fair;
For, after all, his vulgar marriage mocks,