There are few or no internal difficulties in the attribution
except the improbability (which it must be admitted is a some-
what grave one) that there should have been neither any con-
temporary claim to the assistance of such a "pre-eminent hand,"
nor any traditional assertion of it. That this Primer appeared



APPENDIX. B. 271

in 1706, six years after Dryden's death, is neither pro nor con.
The next earlier recension of mark had been that of 1685, which
■was compiled while Dryden was still a member of the Church
of England, and could not therefore have enjoyed the benefit of
his services.
The strongest part of the argument — for which as a whole
the reader, who is curious for more than is given here, may
refer to the Dublin Review for October 1884, to the Satur-
day Review for August and September in that year, to Mr.
