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 concludes 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.

and a partiality to the depreciated blank verse seems to have been hereditary in his family.* He therefore hasted to assert his own opinion against that of Dryden, in the preface to one of his plays, called the "Duke of Lerma," published in the middle of the year 1668. It is difficult for two friends to preserve their temper in a dispute of this nature; and there may be reason to believe, that some dislike to the alliance of Dryden, as a brother-in law, mingled with the poetical jealousy of Sir Robert Howard. The Preface to the " Duke of Lerma" is written in the tone of a man of quality and importance, who is conscious of stooping beneath his own dignity, and neglecting his graver avocations, by engaging in a literary dispute. Dryden was not likely, of many men, to brook this tone of affected superiority. He retorted upon Sir Robert Howard very severely, in a tract, entitled,

*The honourable Edward Howard, Sir Robert's brother, expresses himself in the preface to the "Usurper," a play published in 1668, "not insensible to the disadvantage it may receive passing into the world upon the naked feet of verse, with other works that have their measures adorned with the trappings of rhime, which, however they have succeeded in wit or design, is still thought music, as the heroic tone now goes; but whether so natural to a play, that should most nearly imitate, in some cases, our familiar converse, the judicious may easily determine.”

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the "Defence of the Essay on Dramatic Poesy," which he prefixed to the second edition of the "Indian Emperor," published in 1678. In this piece, the author mentions his antagonist as master of more than twenty legions of arts and sciences, in ironical allusion to Sir Robert's coxcomical affectation of universal knowledge, which had already exposed him to the satire of Shadwell.* He is also described in reference to some foolish appearance in the House of Commons, as having maintained a contradiction in terminis, in the face of three hundred persons. Neither does Dryden neglect to hold up to ridicule the slips in Latin and English grammar, which marked the offensive Preface to the "Duke of Lerma." And although he concludes, that he honoured his adversary's parts and person as much as any man living, and had so many particular obligations to him, that he should be very ungrateful not to acknowledge them to the world, yet the personal and contemptuous severity of the whole piece must have cut to

* Who drew Sir Robert in the character of Sir Positive Atall in the "Sullen Lovers ;" a foolish knight, that pretends to understand every thing in the world, and will suffer no man to understand any thing in his company; so foolishly positive, that he will never be convinced of an error, though never so gross." This character is supported with great humour.