coincidence and coalition of the
tragic and comic plots. The grounds for this eminent critic's encomium
will be found to lie more deep than appears at first sight. It was,
indeed, a sufficiently obvious connection, to make the gay Lorenzo an
officer of the conquering army, and attached to the person of
Torrismond. This expedient could hardly have escaped the invention of
the most vulgar playwright, that ever dovetailed tragedy and comedy
together. The felicity of Dryden's plot, therefore, does not consist
in the ingenuity of his original conception, but in the minutely
artificial strokes, by which the reader is perpetually reminded of the
dependence of the one part of the play on the other. These are so
frequent, and appear so very natural, that the comic plot, instead of
diverting our attention from the tragic business, recals it to our
mind by constant and unaffected allusion. No great event happens in
the higher region of the camp or court, that has not some indirect
influence upon the intrigues of Lorenzo and Elvira; and the part which
the gallant is called upon to act in the revolution that winds up the
tragic interest, while it is highly in character, serves to bring the
catastrophe of both parts of the play under the eye of the spectator,
at one and the same time. Thus much seemed necessary to explain the
felicity of combination, upon which Dryden justly valued himself, and
which Johnson sanctioned by his high commendation. But, although
artfully conjoined, the different departments of this tragi-comedy are
separate subjects of critical remark.

The comic part of the Spanish Friar, as it gives the first title to
the play, seems to claim our first attention. Indeed, some precedence
is due to it in another point of view; for, though the tragic scenes
may be matched in All for Love, Don Sebastian, and else where, the
Spanish Friar contains by far the most happy of Dryden's comic
effusions. It has, comparatively speaking, this high claim to
commendation, that, although the intrigue is licentious, according to
the invariable licence of the age, the language is, in general, free
from the extreme and disgusting coarseness, which our author too
frequently mistook for wit, or was contented to substitute in its
stead. The liveliness and even brilliancy of the dialogue, shows that
Dryden, from the stores of his imagination, could, when he pleased,
command that essential requisite of comedy; and that, if he has seldom
succe