An horrid ftillness first invades the ear, for which he was perfecuted with perpetual 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 firft editions be easily found, if even from them. could be obtained the neceffary information. The time at which his first play was exhibited is not certainly known, because it was not printed B 4 printed till it was fome years afterwards altered and revived; but if the plays are 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 poffeffion for many years; not indeed without the competition of rivals who fometimes prevailed, or the censure of criticks, which was often poignant and often juft; but with fuch a degree of reputation as made him at leaft fecure 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 recall 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; and indeed there is the lefs, as they do not appear in the collection to which this narration is annexed.. It will be fit however to enumerate them, and to take efpecial notice of those that are distinguished by any peculiarity intrinsick or concomitant; for the compofition and fate of eight and twenty dramas include too much of a poeti cal life to be omitted. In 1664 he published the Rival Ladies, which he dedicated to the Earl of Orrery, a man of high reputation both as a writer and 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 himfelf a writer of rhyming tragedies. He then joined with Sir Robert Howard in the Indian Queen, a tragedy in rhyme. The 10 DR Y DE N. 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, diftributed at the door; an expedient fuppofed to be ridiculed in the Rehearsal, when Bayes tells how many reams he has printed, to instill into the audience fome conception of his plot. In this play is the description 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 prefer 3 ence. ence: 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 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 most elaborate works. many It is addreffed to Sir Robert Howard by a letter, which is not properly a dedication; and, writing to a poet, he has interspersed 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, fo what I have written on them is "much better than what I have performed "'on |