difficulty of affigning to Death a dart and the power of ftriking?

In fettling the order of his works there is fome difficulty; for, even when they are important enough to be formally offered to a patron, he does not commonly date his dedication; the time of writing and publishing is not always the fame; nor can the first editions be eafily found, if even from them could be obtained the neceffary information*.

The time at which his firft play was exhibited is not certainly known, because it was not printed till it was, some years afterwards, altered and revived; but fince the plays are faid to be printed in the order in which they were written, from the dates of fome, thofe of others may be inferred; and thus it may be collected, that in 1663, in the thirty-fecond year of his life, he commenced a writer for the ftage; compelled undoubtedly by neceffity, for he appears never to have loved that exercife of his genius, or to have much pleased himself with his own dramas.

Of the stage, when he had once invaded it, he kept poffeflion for many years; not indeed without the competition of rivals who fometimes prevailed, or the cenfure of criticks, which was often poignant and often juft; but with such a degree of reputation as made him at least secure of being heard, whatever might be the final determination of the publick.

His first piece was a comedy called the Wild Gallant. He began with no happy auguries; for his performance was fo much difapproved, that he was compelled to recal it, and change it from its imperfect state to the form in which it now appears, and which is yet fufficiently defective to vindicate the criticks.

I wish that there were no neceffity of following the progrefs of his theatrical fame, or tracing the meanders of his mind through the whole series of his dramatick performances; it will be fit, however, to enumerate them, and to take espe

The order of his plays has been acourately afcertained by Mr. Malone. C.

cial notice of those that are distinguished by any peculiarity, intrinfick or concomitant; for the compofition and fate of eight-and-twenty dramas include too much of a poetical life to be omitted.

In 1664, he publifhed the Rival Ladies, which he dedicated to the Earl of Orrery, a man of high reputation both as a writer and as a statesman. In this play he made his effay of dramatick rhyme, which he defends, in his dedication, with fufficient certainty of a favourable hearing; for Orrery was himself a writer of rhyming tragedies.

He then joined with Sir Robert Howard in the Indian Queen, a tragedy in rhyme. The parts which either of them wrote are not diftinguished.

The Indian Emperor was published in 1667. It is a tragedy in rhyme, intended for a fequel to Howard's Indian Queen. Of this connection notice was given to the audience by printed bills, distributed at the door; an expedient supposed to be ridiculed in the Rehearsal, where Bayes 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 those of all other poets.

The practice of making tragedies in rhyme was introduced foon after the Restoration, as it seems 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 dramatic 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 may be efteemed one of his most 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 interfperfed 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 that as the Prince and General [Rupert and "Monk] are incomparably the best subjects I ever had, so "what I have written 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 ex"prefs thofe thoughts with elocution."

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

There seems to be, in the conduct of Sir Robert Howard and Dryden towards each other, fomething that is not now eafily 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 almott 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 first edition of the play, but was added when it was afterwards reprinted; and as the Duke of Lerma did not appear till 1668, the same 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 First, 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. This work feems to have given Addison a model for his Dialogues upon Medals.

Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen (1668), is a tragi-comedy. 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 disposition, and all that can be reduced to principles of fcience, the author may depend upon his own opinion; but that, in those parts where fancy predominates, felf-love may easily deceive. He might have observed, that what is good only because it pleases, cannot be pronounced good till it has been found to please.

Sir Martin Marr-all (1668) is a comedy, published without preface or dedication, and at firft without the name of the author. Langbaine charges it, like most of the rest, with plagiarism; and obferves, that the fong is tranflated from

* He did not obtain the Laurel till August 18, 1670, but, Mr. Malone informs us, the patent had a retrofpect, and the falary commenced from the Midfummer after D'Avenant's death. C.

Voiture, allowing however that both the fenfe and measure are exactly observed.

The Tempest (1670) is an alteration of Shakspeare's play, made by Dryden in conjunction with Davenant; "whom," fays he, "I found of fo quick a fancy, that nothing was pro"pofed to him in which he could not fuddenly produce a "thought extremely pleasant and surprising; and those first "thoughts of his, contrary to the Latin proverb, were not "always the leaft happy; and as his fancy was quick, fo like"wife were the products of it remote and new. He bor`"rowed not of any other; and his imaginations were such as "could not easily enter into any other man."

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

About this time, in 1673, Dryden seems to have had his quiet much disturbed by the fuccefs of the Empress of Morocco, a tragedy written in rhyme by Elkanah Settle; which was so much applauded, as to make him think his supremacy of reputation in fome danger. Settle had not only been profperous on the stage, but, in the confidence of fuccefs, had published his play, with sculptures and a preface of defiance. Here was one offence added to another; and, for the laft blaft of inflammation, it was acted at Whitehall by the courtladies.

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

Of Settle he gives this character: "He's an animal of a "most deplored understanding, without reading and conver"fation. His being is in a twilight of sense, and some glim"mering of thought which he can never fashion into wit or "English. His ftyle is boisterous and rough-hewn, his

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