[43] Shadwell makes Dryden say, that after some years spent at the university, he came to London. "At first I struggled with a great deal of persecution, took up with a lodging which had a window no bigger than a pocket looking-glass, dined at a three-penny ordinary enough to starve a vacation tailor, kept little company, went clad in homely drugget, and drunk wine as seldom as a rechabite, or the grand seignior's confessor." The old gentleman, who corresponded with the "Gentleman's Magazine," and remembered Dryden before the rise of his fortunes, mentions his suit of plain drugget, being, by the bye, the same garb in which he has clothed Flecnoe, who "coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came." [44] [Scott, by an evident slip, "Berkeley."--ED.] [45] [Scott, "Cropley."--ED.] [46] [This is a mistake. See "Amboyna."--ED.] [47] Davenant alleges the advantages of a respite and pause between every stanza, which should be so constructed as to comprehend a period; and adds, "nor doth alternate rhyme, by any lowliness of cadence, make the sound less heroic, but rather adapt it to a plain and stately composing of music; and the brevity of the stanza renders it less subtle to the composer, and more easy to the singer, which, in _stilo recitativo_, when the story is long, is chiefly requisite."--_Preface to Gondibert._ SECTION II. _Revival of the Drama at the Restoration--Heroic Plays--Comedies of Intrigue--Commencement of Dryden's Dramatic Career--The Wild Gallant-- Rival Ladies--Indian Queen and Emperor--Dryden's Marriage--Essay on Dramatic Poetry, and subsequent Controversy with Sir Robert Howard--The Maiden Queen--The Tempest--Sir Martin Mar-all--The Mock Astrologer--The Royal Martyr--The Two Parts of the Conquest of Granada--Dryden's Situation at this Period._ It would appear that Dryden, at the period of the Restoration, renounced all views of making his way in life except by exertion of the literary talents with which he was so eminently endowed. His becoming a writer of plays was a necessary consequence; for the theatres, newly opened after so long silence, were resorted to with all the ardour inspired by novelty; and dramatic composition was the only line which promised something like an adequate reward to the professors of literature. In our sketch of the taste of the seventeenth century previous to the Restoration, this topic was intentionally postponed.