Encouraged by the revival of his popularity, Dryden now ventured to bring forward the opera of "King Arthur," originally designed as an entertainment to Charles II; "Albion and Albanius" being written as a sort of introductory masque upon the occasion.[39] When we consider the strong and even violent political tendency of that prefatory piece, we may readily suppose, that the opera was originally written in a strain very different from the present; and that much must have been softened, altered, and erased, ere a play, designed to gratulate the discovery of the Rye-house Plot, could, without hazard, be acted after the Revolution. The odious, though necessary, task of defacing his own labours, was sufficiently disgusting to the poet, who complains, that "not to offend the present times, nor a government which has hitherto protected me, I have been obliged so much to alter the first design, and take away so many beauties from the writing, that it is now no more what it was formerly, than the present ship of the Royal Sovereign, after so often taking down and altering is the vessel it was at the first building." Persevering in the prudent system of seeking patrons among those whose patronage was rendered effectual by their influence with the prevailing party, Dryden prefixed to "King Arthur" a beautiful dedication to the Marquis of Halifax, to whose cautious and nice policy he ascribes the nation's escape from the horrors of civil war, which seemed impending in the latter years of Charles II; and he has not failed, at the same time, to pay a passing tribute to the merits of his original and good-humoured master. The music of "King Arthur" being composed by Purcel, gave Dryden occasion to make that eminent musician some well-deserved compliments which were probably designed as a peace-offering for the injudicious preference given to Grabut in the introduction to "Albion and Albanius."[40] The dances were composed by Priest; and the whole piece was eminently successful. Its good fortune, however, was imputed, by the envious, to a lively song in the last act,[41] which had little or nothing to do with the business of the piece. In this opera ended all the hopes which the world might entertain of an epic poem from Dryden on the subject of King Arthur.