which, while as yet the periodical press was not, afforded the best market and the readiest opportunity for literary talent. Dryden is said to have had a play ready soon after the Restoration, and it is difficult to understand, except from a certain inertness in his constitution, ever most readily responsive to the spur of necessity, why he should have so long delayed his appearance as a dramatist. The determining motive may ultimately have been his marriage (not, apparently, a very fortunate one) to Lady Elizabeth Howard, eldest daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, in December, 1663; for in that year he produced his first play, _The Wild Gallant_, and from that time we find him, for many years, sedulously at work to earn money by a description of literary activity notoriously uncongenial to him. Only one of his numerous plays, he tells us, was written to please himself. The long list includes, _The Indian Emperor_ (1665), in which, instead of reforming the weak blank verse of his day, which would have been a most important service, he fell in with the prevalent fashion of rhymed tragedy; _Tyrannic Love_ (1669), and _The Conquest of Granada_ (1672), in which he carries rhymed bombast as far as it would go, but at the same time displays surprising energy and vigour; _Aurengzebe_ (1675), also a rhyming play, but a great improvement; _All for Love_ (1678), and _Don Sebastian_ (1690), examples of a purer taste; and _The Spanish Friar_ (1683), and _Amphitryon_ (1690), his best comedies. These pieces, the chief landmarks of his dramatic career, will be subsequently considered.