04), _Liberty Asserted_ (1704), _Appius
and Virginia_ (1709), and a comedy called _A Plot and No Plot_ (1697)
were brought upon the stage. _Liberty Asserted_, which was received with
applause due to the violence of its attacks upon the French, although
called a tragedy, does not end tragically. The heroine's patriotism is
so fervid that she professes herself willing, while loving one man, to
marry another whom she does not love, if her country deems him the more
worthy.

Among other poetical attempts, Dennis addressed a Pindaric Ode to
Dryden, and the great poet, with the flattery which he was always ready
to lavish on his well-wishers, called him 'one of the greatest masters'
in that kind of verse. 'You have the sublimity of sense as well as
sound,' he wrote, 'and know how far the boldness of a poet may lawfully
extend.'

It may be added that Dennis on one occasion successfully opposed one of
the ablest controversialists of the age. In _The Absolute Unlawfulness
of Stage Entertainments fully demonstrated_, William Law attacked
dramatic representations, not on account of the evils at that time
associated with them, but as 'in their own nature grossly sinful.' 'To
suppose an innocent play,' Law says, 'is like supposing innocent lust,
sober rant, or harmless profaneness,' and throughout the pamphlet this
strain of fierce hostility is maintained.

'Law,' says his biographer,'measured his strength with some of the very
ablest men of his day, with men like Hoadly and Warburton, and Tindal
and Wesley; and it may safely be said that he never came forth from the
contest defeated. But, absurd as it may sound, it is perfectly true that
what neither Hoadly nor Warburton, nor Tindal, nor Wesley could do, was
done by John Dennis.... "Plays," wrote Law, "are contrary to Scripture
as the devil is to God, as the worship of images is to the second
commandment." To this Dennis gave the obvious and unanswerable retort
that "when St. Paul was at Athens, the very source of dramatic poetry,
he said a great deal publicly against the idolatry of the Athenians, but
not one word against their stage. At Corinth he said as little against
theirs. He quoted on one occasion an Athenian dramatic poet, and on
others Aratus and Epimenides. He was educated in all the learning of the
Grecians, and could not but have read their dramatic poems; and yet, so
far from speaking a word against them, he makes use of them for the
instruction and conversion of m