bills, diftributed at the door; an expedient fuppofed to be ridiculed in the Rehearsal, when Bays tells how many reams he has printed, to inftill into the audience fome conception of his plot.

In this play is the defcription of Night, which Rymer has made famous by preferring it to thofe of all other poets.

The practice of making tragedies in rhyme was introduced foon after the Restoration, as it feems, by the earl of Orrery, in compliance with the opinion of Charles the Second, who had formed his tafte by the French theatre; and Dryden, who wrote, and made no difficulty of declaring that he wrote, only to please, and who perhaps knew that by his dexterity of verfification he was more likely to excel others in rhyme than without it, very readily adopted his master's preference. He therefore made rhyming tragedies, till, by the prevalence of manifeft propriety, he feems to have grown afhamed of making them any longer.

To this play is prefixed a very vehement defence of dramatick rhyme, in confutation of the preface to the Duke of Lerma, in which Sir Robert Howard had cenfured it.

In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis, the Year of Wonders, which feems to be one of his moft elaborate works.

It is addreffed to Sir Robert Howard, by a letter, which is not properly a dedication; and, writing to a poet, he has interfpersed many critical obfervations, of which fome are common, and fome perhaps ventured without much confideration. He began, even now, to exercife the domination of confcious genius, by recommending his own performance:

"I am "fatisfied

"fatisfied that as the Prince and General [Rupert and Monk] are incomparably the " beft fubjects I ever had, fo what I have writ

ten on them is much better than what I "have performed on any other. As I have "endeavoured to adorn my poem with noble thoughts, fo much more to express those "thoughts with elocution."

It is written in quatrains, or heroick stanzas of four lines; a measure which he had learned from the Gondibert of Davenant, and which he then thought the most majestick that the English language affords. Of this stanza he mentions the encumbrances, encreased as they were by the exactnefs which the age required. It was, throughout his life, very much his cuftom to recommend his works, by reprefentation of the difficulties that he had encountered, without appearing to have fufficiently confidered, that where there is no difficulty there is no praise.

There feems to be in the conduct of Sir Robert Howard and Dryden towards each other, fomething that is not now easily to be explained. Dryden, in his dedication to the earl of Orrery, had defended dramatick rhyme; and Howard, in the preface to a collection of plays, had cenfured his opinion. Dryden vindicated himself in his Dialogue on Dramatick Poetry; Howard, in his Preface to the Duke of Lerma, animadverted on the Vindication; and Dryden, in a Preface to the Indian Emperor, replied to the Animadversions with great afperity, and almost with contumely. The dedication to this play is dated the year in which the Annus Mirabilis was published. Here appears a strange inconfiftency;

but Langbaine affords fome help, by relating that the answer to Howard was not published in the edition of the play, but was added when it was afterwards reprinted; and as the Duke of Lerma did not appear till 1668, the fame year in which the Dialogue was published, there was time enough for enmity to grow up between authors, who, writing both for the theatre, were naturally rivals.

He was now fo much diftinguished, that in 1668 he fucceeded Sir William Davenant as poet-laureat. The falary of the laureat had been raised in favour of Jonfon, by Charles the Firft, from an hundred marks to one hundred pounds a year, and a tierce of wine; a revenue in those days not inadequate to the conveniencies of life.

The fame year he published his Effay on Dramatick Poetry, an elegant and inftructive dialogue; in which we are told by Prior, that the principal character is meant to reprefent the duke of Dorfet. The work feems to have given Addison a model for his Dialogues upon

Medals.

Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen, is a tragicomedy. In the preface he difcuffes a curious queftion, whether a poet can judge well of his own productions: and determines very justly, that, of the plan and difpofition, and all that can be reduced to principles of science the author may depend upon his own opinion; but that, in thofe parts where fancy predominates, felf-love may eafily deceive. He might have obferved, that what is good only because it pleases, cannot be pronounced good till it has been found to please.

2

Sir

Sir Martin Marall is a comedy, published without preface or dedication, and at first without the name of the author. Langbaine charges it, like most of the rest, with plagiarifm; and obferves that the fong is tranflated from Voiture, allowing however that both the sense and measure are exactly observed.

The Tempest is an alteration of Shakespeare's play, made by Dryden in conjunction with Davenant," whom, fays he, I found of fo quick a fancy, that nothing was proposed

to him in which he could not fuddenly pro"duce a thought extremely pleafant and furprifing; and those first thoughts of his, contrary to the Latin proverb, were not always the leaft happy: and as his fancy was quick, fo likewife were the products of it << remote and new. He borrowed not of any "other, and his imaginations were fuch as "could not eafily enter into any other man.'

The effect produced by the conjunction of these two powerful minds was, that to Shakefpeare's monfter Caliban is added a sister-monfter Sicorax; and a woman, who, in the original play, had never feen a man, is in this brought acquainted with a man that had never feen a woman.

About this time, in 1673,Dryden feems to have had his quiet much difturbed by the success of the Empress of Morocco, a tragedy written in rhyme by Elkanah Settle; which was fo much applauded, as to make him think his fupremacy of reputation in fome danger. Settle had not only been profperous on the ftage, but in the confidence of fuccefs had published his play, with fculptures and a preface of defiance.

Here was one offence added to another; and, for the last blast of inflammation, it was acted at Whitehall by the court-ladies.

Dryden could not now reprefs these emotions, which he called indignation, and others jealousy; but wrote upon the play and the dedication fuch a criticifm as malignant impatience could pour out in hafte.

Of Settle he gives this character.

"He's

an animal of a moft deplored understanding, without converfation. His being is in "a twilight of sense, and fome glimmering "of thought, which he can never fashion in

"

to wit or English. His ftile is boisterous "and rough-hewn, his rhyme incorrigibly lewd, and his numbers perpetually harsh and ill-founding. The little talent which he has "is fancy. He fometimes labours with a thought; but, with the pudder he makes to bring it into the world, 'tis commonly ftillborn; fo that, for want of learning and elocution, he will never be able to express any thing either naturally or juftly!" This is not very decent; yet this is one of the pages in which criticism prevails most over brutal fury. He proceeds. "He has a heavy "hand at fools, and a great felicity in writ"ing nonfenfe for them. Fools they will be "in fpite of him. His King, his two Em

preffes, his villain, and his fub-villain, nay "his hero, have all a certain natural caft of "the father-their folly was born and bred "in them, and fomething of the Elkanah will "be vifible."

This is Dryden's general declamation; I will not withhold from the reader a particular

remark.