ABSTRACT
Lines from (a) Thomas Southerne’s ‘To Mr. Congreve’ and (b) Bevil Higgons’s ‘To Mr. Congreve on … The Old Batchelor’, prefixed to the 1693 edition of the play. Southerne engaged Dryden in favour of The Old Batchelour: he ‘sayd he never saw such a first play in his life … the stuff was rich indeed, it wanted only the fashionable cutt of the town. To help that Mr Dryden, Mr Arthur Manwayring, and Mr Southerne red it with great care, Mr Dryden putt it in the order it was playd’ (see Congreve, Complete Plays (1967), ed. Herbert Davis, pp. 24-5). For Congreve’s repayment of his debt to Dryden, see No. 66.
