three or four hundred pounds, communibus annis. Either, however, the players became sensible, that, by urging their pensioner to continued drudgery, they in fact lessened the value of his labour, or Dryden felt himself unequal to perform the task he had undertaken; for the average number of plays which he produced was only about half that which had been contracted for. The company, though not without grudging, paid the poet the stipulated share of profit; and the curious document, recovered by Mr Malone, not only establishes the terms of the bargain, but that the players, although they complained of the laziness of their indented author, were jealous of their right to his works, and anxious to retain possession of him, and of them.' It would

1 It seems to have been a memorial addressed to the Lord Chamberlain for the time, and was long in the possession of the Killigrew family. It was communicated by the learned Mr Reed to Mr Malone, and runs as follows:

"Whereas, upon Mr Dryden's binding himself to write three playes a-yeere, he, the said Mr Dryden, was admitted, and continued as a sharer, in the King's Playhouse for diverse years, and received for his share and a quarter, three or four hundred pounds, communibus annis; but though he received the moneys, we received not the playes, not one in a yeare. After which, the House being burnt, the Company, in building another, contracted great debts, so that the shares fell much short of what they were formerly. Thereupon, Mr Dryden complaining to the Company of his want of proffit, the Company was so kind to him, that they not only did not presse him for the playes which he so engaged to write for them, and for which he was paid beforehand, but they did also, at his earnest request, give him a third day for his last new play, called All for Love;' and at the receipt of the money of the said third day, he acknowledged it as a guift, and a particular kindnesse of the Company. Yet, notwith

have been well for Dryden's reputation, and perhaps not less productive to the company, had the number of his plays been still farther abridged; for, while we admire the facility that could produce five or six plays in three years, we lament to find it so often exerted to the sacrifice of the more essential qualities of originality and correctness.

Dryden had, however, made his bargain, and was compelled to fulfil it the best he might. As his last tragic piece, the " Indian Emperor,” had been eminently successful, he was next to show the public, that his talents were not limited to the buskin;

standing this kind proceeding, Mr Dryden has now, jointly with Mr Lee, (who was in pension with us to the last day of our playing, and shall continue,) written a play, called 'Edipus,' and given it to the Duke's Company, contrary to his said agreement, his promise, and all gratitude, to the great prejudice and almost undoing of the Company, they being the only poets remaining to us. Mr Crowne, being under the like agreement with the Duke's House, writt a play, called the 'Destruction of Jerusalem,' and being forced, by their refusall of it, to bring it to us, the said Company compelled us, after the studying of it, and a vast expense in scenes and cloathes, to buy off their clayme, by paying all the pension he had received from them, amounting to one hundred and twelve pounds paid by the King's Company, besides neere forty pounds he, the said Mr Crowne, paid out of his owne pocket. "These things considered, if, notwithstanding Mr Dryden's said agreement, promise, and moneys, freely given him for his said last new play, and the many titles we have to his writings, this play be judged away from us, we must submit.

and accordingly, late in 1667, was represented, the "Maiden Queen," a tragi-comedy, in which, although there is a comic plot separate from the tragic design, our author boasts to have retained all that regularity and symmetry of parts which the dramatic laws require. The tragic scenes of the "Maiden Queen" were deservedly censured, as falling beneath the " Indian Emperor." They have neither the stately march of the heroic dialogue, nor, what we would be more pleased to have found in them, the truth of passion, and natural colouring, which characterised the old English drama. But the credit of the piece was redeemed by the comic part, which is a more light and airy representation of the fashionable and licentious manners of the time than Dryden could afterwards exhibit, excepting in " Marriage a-la-Mode." The king, whose judgment on this subject was unquestionable, graced the "Maiden Queen" with the title of his play; and Dryden insinuates that it would have been dedicated to him, had he had confidence to follow the practice of the French poets in like cases. At least, he avoided the solecism of inscribing the king's own play to a subject; and, instead of a dedication, we have a preface, in which the sovereign's favourable opinion of the piece is studiously insisted upon. Neither was the praise of Charles conferred without critical consideration; for he justly censured the concluding scene, in which Celadon and Florimel treat of their marriage in very light terms in presence of the Queen, who stands by, an idle spectaThis insult to Melpomene, and preference of

tor.

her comic sister, our author acknowledges to be a fault, but seemingly only in deference to the royal opinion; for he instantly adds, that, in his own judgment, the scene was necessary to make the piece go off smartly, and was, in the estimation of good judges, the most diverting of the whole comedy.

Encouraged by the success of the "Maiden Queen," Dryden proceeded to revive the " Wild Gallant;" and, in deference to his reputation, it seems now to have been more favourably received than at its first representation.

The "Maiden Queen" was followed by the "Tempest," an alteration of Shakspeare's play of the same name, in which Dryden assisted Sir William Davenant. It seems probable that Dryden furnished the language, and Davenant the plan of the new characters introduced. They do but little honour to his invention, although Dryden has highly extolled it in his preface. The idea of a counterpart to Shakspeare's plot, by introducing a man who had never seen a woman, as a contrast to a woman who had never seen a man, and by furnishing Caliban with a sister monster, seems hardly worthy of the delight with which Dryden says he filled up the characters so sketched. In mixing his tints, Dryden did not omit that peculiar colouring, in which his age delighted. Miranda's simplicity is converted into indelicacy, and Dorinda talks the language of prostitution before she has ever seen a man. But the play seems to have succeeded to the utmost wish

of the authors. It was brought out in the Duke's house, of which Davenant was manager, with all the splendour of scenic decoration, of which he was inventor. The opening scene is described as being particularly splendid, and the performance of the spirits, "with mops and mows," excited general applause. Davenant died before the publication of this piece, and his memory is celebrated in the preface.

Our author's next play, if it could be properly called his, was "Sir Martin Mar-all." This was originally a translation of "L'Etourdi" of Moliere, executed by the Duke of Newcastle, famous for his loyalty, and his skill in horsemanship. Dryden availed himself of the noble translator's permission to improve and bring "Sir Martin Mar-all" forward for his own benefit. It was attended with the most complete success, being played four times at court, and above thirty times at the theatre in Lincoln's-Inn Fields; a run chiefly attributed to the excellent performance of Nokes, who represented Sir Martin. The "Tempest" and "Sir

1 Cibber, with his usual vivacity, thus describes the comic powers of Nokes in this admired character; and many of the traits remind us strongly of our own excellent Liston:

"In the ludicrous distresses, which, by the laws of comedy, folly is often involved in, he sunk into such a mixture of piteous pusillanimity, and a consternation so ruefully ludicrous and inconsolable, that when he had shook you to a fatigue of laughter, it became a moot point, whether you ought not to have pity'd him. When he debated any matter by himself, he would shut up his mouth with a dumb studious powt, and roll his full eye into such a vacant amazement, such palpable ignorance of what to think of it, that his silent perplexity