us, 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 partisan 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 barrenness, 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 personae_ 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 h