For the first time since 1695, a complete text of De Arte Graphica as Dryden himself wrote it is available to readers. In all, Volume XX presents six pieces written during Dryden's final decade, each of them either requested by a friend or commissioned by a publisher. Two are translations, three introduce translations made by others, and the sixth introduces an original work by one of Dryden's friends.
The most recent version of De Arte Graphica, Saintsbury's late nineteenth-century reissue of Scott's edition, based the text of the translated matter on an edition that was...