ting the poet's income, during this period of prosperity, at L.600 or L.700 annually; a sum more adequate to procure all the comforts, and many of the luxuries, of life, than thrice the amount at present. We must, at the same time, recollect, that, though Dryden is no where censured for extravagance, poets are seldom capable of minute economy, and that Lady Elizabeth was by education, and perhaps by nature, unfitted for supplying her husband's deficiencies. These halcyon days, too, were but of short duration. The burning of the theatre, in 1670, greatly injured the poet's income from that quarter; his pension, like other appointments of the household establishment of Charles II., was very irregularly paid; and thus, if his income was competent in amount, the payment was precarious and uncertain.

Leaving Dryden for the present in the situation which we have described, and which he occupied during the most fortunate period of his life, the next Section may open with an account of the public taste at this time, and of the revolution in it which shortly took place.

SECTION III.

Heroic Plays-The Rehearsal-Marriage A-la-ModeThe Assignation-Controversy with Clifford-with Leigh with Ravenscroft-Massacre of Amboyna— State of Innocence.

THE rage for imitating the French stage, joined to the successful efforts of our author, had now carried the heroic or rhyming tragedy to its highest pitch of popularity. The principal requisites of such a drama are summed up by Dryden in the two first lines of the " Orlando Furioso,"

"Le Donne, i cavalier, l'arme, gli amori
Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese.”—

The story thus partaking of the nature of a romance of chivalry, the whole interest of the play necessarily turned upon love and honour, those supreme idols of the days of knight-errantry. The love introduced was not of that ordinary sort, which exists between persons of common mould; it was the love of Amadis and Oriana,

of Oroondates and Statira; that love which required a sacrifice of every wish, hope, and feeling unconnected with itself, and which was expressed in the language of prayer and of adoration. It was that love which was neither to be chilled by absence, nor wasted by time, nor quenched by infidelity. No caprice in the object beloved entitled her slave to emancipate himself from her fetters; no command, however unreasonable, was to be disobeyed; if required by the fair mistress of his affections, the hero was not only to sacrifice his interest, but his friend, his honour, his word, his country, even the gratification of his love itself, to maintain the character of a submissive and faithful adorer. Much of this mystery is summed up in the following speech of Almahide to Almanzor, and his answer; from which it appears, that a lover of the true heroic vein never thought himself so happy, as when he had an opportunity of thus shewing the purity and disinterestedness of his passion. Almanzor is commanded by his mistress to stay to assist his rival, the king, her husband. The lover very naturally asks,

"Almanz. What recompence attends me, if I stay?
Almah. You know I am from recompence debarr'd,

But I will grant your merit a reward;

Your flame's too noble to deserve a cheat,

And I too plain to practise a deceit.

I no return of love can ever make,
But what I ask is for my husband's sake;
He, I confess, has been ungrateful too,
But he and I are ruin'd if you go:

Your virtue to the hardest proof I bring ;

Unbribed, preserve a mistress and a king.

Almanz. I'll stop at nothing that appears so brave:

I'll do't, and now I no reward will have.
You've given my honour such an ample field,
That I may die, but that shall never yield.”

The king, however, not perhaps understanding this nice point of honour, grows jealous, and wishes to dismiss the disinterested ally, whom his spouse's beauty had enlisted in his service. But this did not depend upon him; for Almanzor exclaims,

ed

"Almanz. I wonnot go; I'll not be forced away:

I came not for thy sake; nor do I stay.

It was the queen who for my aid did send;

And 'tis I only can the queen defend :

I, for her sake, thy sceptre will maintain ;
And thou, by me, in spite of thee, shalt reign.”

The most applauded scenes in these plays turn

upon nice discussions of metaphysical passion, such as in the days of yore were wont to be agitated in the courts and parliaments of love. Some puzzling dilemma, or metaphysical abstraction, is argued between the personages on the stage, whose dialogue, instead of presenting a scene of natural passion, exhibits a sort of pleading, or combat of

logic, in which each endeavours to defend his own opinion by catching up the idea expressed by the former speaker, and returning him his illustration, or simile, at the rebound; and where the lover hopes every thing from his ingenuity, and trusts nothing to his passion. Thus, in the following scene between Almanzor and Almahide, the solicitations of the lover, and the denials of the queen, are expressed in the very carte and tierce of poetical argumentation:

"Almah. My light will sure discover those who talk.Who dares to interrupt my private walk?

Almanz. He, who dares love, and for that love must die, And, knowing this, dares yet love on, am I.

Almah. That love which you can hope, and I can pay,
May be received and given in open day :
My praise and my esteem you had before;
And you have bound yourself to ask no more.
Almanz. Yes, I have bound myself; but will
The forfeit of that bond, which force did make ?
Almah. You know
you are from
recompence debarr'd;
But purest love can live without reward.

you take

Almanz. Pure love had need be to itself a feast;

For, like pure elements, 'twill nourish least.

Almah. It therefore yields the only pure content;
For it, like angels, needs no nourishment.
To eat and drink can no perfection be;
All appetite implies necessity.

Almanz. 'Twere well, if I could like a spirit live;
But, do not angels food to mortals give ?
What if some demon should my death foreshow,
Or bid me change, and to the Christians go;
Will you not think I merit some reward,
When I my love above my life regard?