_Don Sebastian_ (1690) is generally regarded as Dryden's dramatic masterpiece. It did not please upon its first appearance, owing to its excessive length. Dryden ingenuously confesses that he was obliged to sacrifice twelve hundred lines, which he restored when the play was printed. Mr. Saintsbury more than hints a preference for _All for Love_, which we entirely share. Were even the serious part of the respective dramas of equal merit, the scale would be turned in favour of _All for Love_ by the wretchedness of the comic scenes which constitute so large a portion of the rival drama. They are at best indifferent farce, and cannot be even called excrescences on the main action, inasmuch as they do not grow out of it at all. In unity of action, therefore, and uniformity of literary merit, _All for Love_ excels its competitor, and its personages are more truthful and more interesting. Sebastian, though a gallant, chivalrous figure, takes no such hold on the imagination as Antony and Ventidius; and Almeyda, one of the least interesting of Dryden's heroines, is a sorry exchange for Cleopatra. Muley Moloch and Benducar are wholly stagey. Nothing, then, remains but Dorax, and his capabilities are chiefly evinced in one great scene. Even this is in some respects inartificially conducted. The spectator is insufficiently prepared for it. The special ground of Dorax's resentment comes upon us as a surprise; and his repentance is too hasty and sudden. A similar defect may be alleged against the whole of the tragic action. The centre of interest is gradually shifted, not intentionally, but from the author's omission to foreshadow the events to come after the fashion of a masterpiece he must have studied, the _Oedipus Tyrannus_. At first all our interest is enlisted for Sebastian's life, and it is with a sort of puzzlement that we feel ourselves at last listening to a story of incest. Muley Moloch and Benducar have disappeared, and their place is occupied by a new character, Alvarez. In every respect, therefore, regarded as a work of art, _Don Sebastian_ fails to sustain comparison with _All for Love_, and there is no countervailing superiority in the diction, whose general nobility and spirit occasionally swell into bombast. The worst fault remains to be told: Dorax's ludicrous escape from death by reason of being poisoned by two enemies at once. If either the Emperor or the Mufti would have let him alone he would never have lived to be reconciled to Sebastian, but the fiery drug of the one is neutralized by the icy bane of the other, and _vice versâ_. Dryden thinks it sufficient excuse that a similar incident is vouched for by Ausonius, but really there is nothing so farcical in the _Rehearsal_. On the whole, we cannot but consider _Don Sebastian_ a very imperfect play, redeemed from mediocrity by the general vigour and animation of the diction, and the loftiness of soul which seldom forsakes Dryden, except when he wilfully panders to the popular taste.