into one
consecutive argument.

His first play, (a comedy,) "The Wild Gallant," was brought on the stage
in February 1662-3, and with indifferent success, though he has told us
that it was more than once the divertisement of Charles II. by his own
command, and a favourite with "the Castlemain." "The Rival Ladies" (a
tragi-comedy) was acted and published in the year following, and the
serious scenes are executed in rhyme. Of its success we know nothing in
particular; but Sir Walter thinks that the flowing verse into which some
part of the dialogue is thrown, with the strong point and antithesis
which all along distinguished his style, especially his argumentative
poetry, tended to redeem the credit of the author of the "Wild Gallant."
Up to this time Dryden, now in his thirty-third year, had not written
much; but in his "Heroic Stanzas on the death of Oliver Cromwell,"
"Astrea Redux, or Poem on the Happy Restoration and Return of his Sacred
Majesty," and "A Panegyric on his Coronation," he had not only shown his
measureless superiority to the Sprats and Wallers--poetasters of the
same class after all, though Sprat was always but a small fish, while
Waller was long thought like a whale--but manifested a vigour of thought
and expression that gave assurance of a veritable poet. In those noble
compositions he exults in his conscious power of numerous verse; and,
like an eagle in the middle element, sweeps along majestically on easy
wings. In "The Rival Ladies," the rhymed dialogue is exceedingly
graceful, the blank verse somewhat cumbrous; and, in his dedication to
the Earl of Orrery, he justifies himself "for following the new way; I
mean, of writing scenes _in verse_." It may here, once for all, be
remarked, that in all his disquisitions, by "verse" he usually means
rhyme as opposed to blank verse. "To speak properly," he says, "it is
not so much a new way amongst us, as an old way revived; for many years
before Shakspeare's plays was the tragedy of 'Queen Gorboduc,' in
English verse, written by that famous Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of
Dorset." Dryden here shows how little conversant he then was with the
old English drama. For the tragedy of "Ferrex and Porrex" was first
surreptitiously published under the title of "Gorboduc," who is not
Queen, but King of England; and it is not written in rhyme, but,
excepting the choruses, in blank verse; while Sackville's part of the
play comprehends only the two last acts, of th