nary enough to starve
a vacation tailor, kept little company, went clad in homely drugget, and
drunk wine as seldom as a rechabite, or the grand seignior's confessor."
The old gentleman, who corresponded with the "Gentleman's Magazine," and
remembered Dryden before the rise of his fortunes, mentions his suit of
plain drugget, being, by the bye, the same garb in which he has clothed
Flecnoe, who "coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came."

[44] [Scott, by an evident slip, "Berkeley."--ED.]

[45] [Scott, "Cropley."--ED.]

[46] [This is a mistake. See "Amboyna."--ED.]

[47] Davenant alleges the advantages of a respite and pause between
every stanza, which should be so constructed as to comprehend a period;
and adds, "nor doth alternate rhyme, by any lowliness of cadence, make
the sound less heroic, but rather adapt it to a plain and stately
composing of music; and the brevity of the stanza renders it less subtle
to the composer, and more easy to the singer, which, in _stilo
recitativo_, when the story is long, is chiefly requisite."--_Preface
to Gondibert._

SECTION II.

_Revival of the Drama at the Restoration--Heroic Plays--Comedies of
Intrigue--Commencement of Dryden's Dramatic Career--The Wild Gallant--
Rival Ladies--Indian Queen and Emperor--Dryden's Marriage--Essay on
Dramatic Poetry, and subsequent Controversy with Sir Robert Howard--The
Maiden Queen--The Tempest--Sir Martin Mar-all--The Mock Astrologer--The
Royal Martyr--The Two Parts of the Conquest of Granada--Dryden's
Situation at this Period._

It would appear that Dryden, at the period of the Restoration, renounced
all views of making his way in life except by exertion of the literary
talents with which he was so eminently endowed. His becoming a writer of
plays was a necessary consequence; for the theatres, newly opened after
so long silence, were resorted to with all the ardour inspired by
novelty; and dramatic composition was the only line which promised
something like an adequate reward to the professors of literature. In
our sketch of the taste of the seventeenth century previous to the
Restoration, this topic was intentionally postponed.

In the times of James I. and of his successor, the theatre retained, in
some degree, the splendour with which the excellent writers of the
virgin reign had adorned it. It is true, that authors of the latter
period fell far below those gigantic poets, who flourished in the end of
the sixteenth and beginnin