f Dryden's most
extravagant flights have been put by the duke of Buckingham.
Shaftesbury also, whose family had smarted under Dryden's satire,
attempts to trace the applause bestowed on the "Conquest of Granada"
to what he calls "the correspondence and relation between our _Royal
Theatre_ and popular _Circus_, or _Bear-Garden_. For, in the former of
these assemblys, 'tis undeniable that, at least, the two upper
regions, or galleries, contain such spectators as indifferently
frequent each place of sport. So that 'tis no wonder we hear such
applause resounded on the victories of an _Almanzor_, when the same
parties had possibly no later than the day before bestowed their
applause as freely on the victorious _Butcher_, the hero of another
stage." _Miscellaneous Reflections. Miscell. 5._

The other personages of the drama sink into Lilliputians, beside
the gigantic Almanzor, although the under plot of the loves of
Ozmyn and Benzayda is beautiful in itself, and ingeniously managed.
The virtuous Almahide is a fit object for the adoration of
Almanzor; but her husband is a poor pageant of royalty. As
for Lyndaraxa, her repeated and unparalleled treachery can only be
justified by the extreme imbecility of her lovers.

The plot of the play is, in part, taken from history. During
the last years of its existence, Granada, the poor remnant of the
Moorish empire in Spain, was torn to pieces with intestine discord,
and assailed without by the sword of the Christians. The history
of the civil wars of Granada, affirmed to be translated into Spanish
from the Arabian, gives a romantic, but not altogether fabulous
account of their discord. But a romance in the French taste,
called Almahide, seems to have been the chief source from which
our author drew his plot.

In the conduct of the story there is much brilliancy of event. The
reader, or spectator, is never allowed to repose on the scene before
him; and although the changes of fortune are too rapid to be either
probable, or altogether pleasing, yet they arrest the attention by
their splendour and importance, and interest us in spite of our more
sober judgment. The introduction of the ghost of Almanzor's mother
seems to have been intended to shew how the hero could support even an
interview with an inhabitant of the other world. At least, the
professed purpose of her coming might have been safely trusted to the
virtue of Almahide, and her power over her lover. It afforded an
opportun