se, to make that which
is ordinary in itself pass for excellent with less examination. For that
which most regulates the fancy, and gives the judgment its busiest
employment, is like to bring forth the richest and clearest thoughts.
The poet examines that most which he produces with the greatest leisure,
and which he knows must pass the severest test of the audience, because
they are aptest to have it ever in the memory. In conclusion, he winds
up skilfully by applying all he has said to "a fit subject"--that is, an
Heroic Play. For neither must the argument alone, but the characters and
persons, be great and noble, otherwise rhymed verse would be out of
place, which, for the reasons assigned, is manifestly suited for the
utterance of lofty sentiments, and for occasions of dignity and
importance. Heroic Plays were then all the rage, and Dryden was
meditating to enter on that career which for many years occupied his
genius, not essentially dramatic, to the exclusion of other kinds of
poetry in which he afterwards excelled all competitors.

Sir Robert Howard's Heroic Play, the "Indian Queen," "part of which was
written by Dryden," and the whole revised and corrected no doubt,
especially in the article of versification, was acted in 1664 with great
applause. "It presented," says Sir Walter, "battles and sacrifices on
the stage, aerial demons singing in the air, and the god of dreams
ascending through a trap, the least of which has often saved a worse
tragedy." Evelyn, in his Memoirs, has recorded, that the scenes were the
richest ever seen in England, or perhaps elsewhere, upon a public stage.
Dryden, by its reception, was encouraged to engraft on it another drama
called the "Indian Emperor"--a continuation of the tale--which had the
most ample success, and, till a revolution in the public taste, retained
possession of the stage. Soon after its publication, Sir Robert Howard,
in a peevish Preface to some plays of his, chose to answer what Dryden
had said in behalf of verse in his Epistle Dedicatory to his "Rival
Ladies," and not only without any mention of his name, but without any
allusion to the "Indian Emperor," while he bestowed the most extravagant
eulogies on the heroic plays of my Lord of Orrery--"in whose verse the
greatness of the majesty seems unsullied with the cares, and the
inimitable fancy descends to us in such easy expressions, that they seem
as if neither had ever been added to the other, but both together