ny 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 Reftoration, 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 pleafc, and who perhaps knew that by his dexterity of versifi.cation 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 seems 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 eiteemed 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 interfperfed many critical obfervations, of which fome are common, and fome perhaps ventured without much consideration. He began, even now, to exercise the domination of confcious genius, by recommending his own performance: “I am fa"tisfied that as the Prince and General [Rupert and Monk] are incomparably the "beft fubjects I ever had, fo 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

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express those thoughts with elocution.”

It is written in quatrains, or heroic ftanzas of four lines; a meafure which he had learned from the Gondibert of Davenant, and which he then thought the most majestick that the English language affords. Of this ftanza he mentions the incumbrances, encreafed as they were by the exactness which the age required. It was, throughout his life, very much his custom to recommend his works, by representation of

the

the difficulties that he had encountered, without appearing to have sufficiently 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 cafily to be explained. Dryden, in his dedication to the Earl of Orrery, had defended dramatic 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 Animadverfions with great asperity, 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 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 fame year in which the Dialogue was pub

lifhed,

lished, 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 diftinguifhed, 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 Firít, from an hundred marks to one hundred pounds a year, and a tierce of wine; a revenue in those days not inadequate to the conveniences 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 represent the duke of Dorfet. This work seems 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 question, whether a poet can judge well of his own productions? and determines very juftly, 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

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.

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 plagiarifm; and obferves, that the. song is tranflated from Voiture, allowing however that both the fenfe and measure are exactly obferved.

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 no"thing was propofed to him in which he "could not fuddenly produce a thought

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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