poser of heroic plays, than he wrote his " Essay of Dramatic Poesy," in which he assumes, that the drama was the highest department of poetry; and endeavours to prove, that rhyming or heroic tragedies are the most legitimate offspring of the drama.

The subject is agitated in a dialogue between Lord Buckhurst, Sir Charles Sedley, Sir Robert Howard, and the author himself, under the feigned names of Eugenius, Lisideius, Crites, and Neander. This celebrated Essay was first published in the end of 1667, or beginning of 1668. The author revised it with an unusual degree of care, and published it anew in 1684, with a Dedication to Lord Buckhurst.

In the introduction of the dialogue, our author artfully solicits the attention of the public to the improved versification, in which he himself so completely excelled all his contemporaries; and contrasts the rugged lines and barbarous conceits of Cleveland with the more modern style of composition, where the thoughts were moulded into easy and significant words, superfluities of expression retrenched, and the rhyme rendered so properly a part of the verse, that it was led and guided by the sense, which was formerly sacrificed in attaining it. This point being previously

settled, a dispute occurs concerning the alleged superiority of the ancient classic models of dramatic composition. This is resolutely denied by all the speakers, excepting Crites; the regulation of the unities is condemned, as often leading to greater absurdities than those they were designed to obviate; and the classic authors are censured for the cold and trite subjects of their comedies, the bloody and horrible topics of many of their tragedies, and their deficiency in painting the passion of love. From all this, it is justly gathered, that the moderns, though with less regularity, possess a greater scope for invention, and have discovered, as it were, a new perfection in writing. This debated point being abandoned by Crites, (or Howard,) the partizan of the ancients, a comparison between the French and English drama is next introduced. Sedley, the celebrated wit and courtier, pleads the cause of the French, an opinion which perhaps was not singular among the favourites of Charles II. But the rest of the speakers unite in condemning the extolled simplicity of the French plots, as actual bar renness, compared to the variety and copiousness of the English stage; and their authors' limiting the attention of the audience and interest of the piece to a single principal personage, is censured as

poverty of imagination, when opposed to the diversification of characters exhibited in the dramatis persona of the English poets. Shakespeare and Jonson are then brought forward, and contrasted with the French dramatists, and with each other. The former is extolled, as the man of all modern, and perhaps ancient, poets, who had the largest and most comprehensive soul, and intuitive knowledge of human nature; and the latter, as the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. But to Shakespeare, Dryden objects, that his comic sometimes degenerates into clenches, and his serious into bombast; to Jonson, the sullen and saturnine character of his genius, his borrowing from the ancients, and the insipidity of his latter plays. The examen leads to the discussion of a point, in which Dryden had differed with Sir Robert Howard. This was the use of rhyme in tragedy. Our author had, it will be remembered, maintained the superiority of rhyming plays, in the Introduction to the "Rival Ladies." Sir Robert Howard, the catalogue of whose virtues did not include that of forbearance, made a direct answer to the arguments used in the Introduction;* and while he studiously ex

* See the passage, vol. XV. p. 360, note. ›

tolled the plays of Lord Orrery, as affording an exception to his general sentence against rhyming plays, he does not extend the compliment to Dryden, whose defence of rhyme was expressly dedicated to that noble author. Dryden, not much pleased, perhaps, at being left undistinguished in the general censure passed upon rhyming plays by his friend and ally, retaliates in the Essay, by placing in the mouth of Crites the arguments urged by Sir Robert Howard, and replying to them in the person of Neander. To the charge, that rhyme is unnatural, in consequence of the inverted arrangement of the words necessary to produce it, he replies, that, duly ordered, it may be natural in itself, and therefore not unnatural in a play; and that, if the objection be further insisted upon, it is equally conclusive against blank verse, or measure without rhyme. To the objection founded on the formal and uniform recurrence of the measure, he alleges the facility of varying it, by throwing the cadence upon different parts of the line, by breaking it into hemistiches, or by running the sense into another line, so as to make art and order appear as loose and free as nature.* Dryden even contends, that, for

* Sandford, a most judicious actor, is said, by Cibber, cau

variety's sake, the pindaric measure might be admitted, of which Davenant set an example in the "Siege of Rhodes." But this license, which was probably borrowed from the Spanish stage, has never succeeded elsewhere, except in operas. Finally, it is urged, that rhyme, the most noble verse, is alone fit for tragedies, the most noble species of composition; that, far from injuring a scene, in which quick repartee is necessary, it is the last perfection of wit to put it into numbers; and that, even where a trivial and common expression is placed, from necessity, in the mouth of an important character, it receives, from the melody of versification, a dignity befitting the person that is to pronounce it. With this keen and animated defence of a mode of composition, in which he felt his own excellence, Dryden coneludes the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy."

The publication of this criticism, the first that contained an express attempt to regulate dramatic writing, drew general attention, and gave some offence. Sir Robert Howard felt noways flattered at being made, through the whole dialogue, the champion of unsuccessful opinions:

tiously to have observed this rule, in order to avoid surfeiting the audience by the continual recurrence of rhyme.