"Posterity will judge by my success, I had the Grecian poet's happiness, Who, waving plots, found out a better way,-- Some god descended, and preserved the play." It was probably by the influence of this royal favourite, that the "Wild Gallant" was more than once performed before Charles by his own command. But the author, his piece, and his poetical compliment, were hardly treated in a Session of the Poets, which appeared about 1670. Nor did Sir Robert Howard, his associate, escape without his share of ridicule: "Sir Robert Howard, called for over and over, At length sent in Teague with a packet of news, Wherein the sad knight, to his grief did discover How Dryden had lately robbed him of his Muse. Each man in the court was pleased with the theft, Which made the whole family swear and rant, Desiring, their Robin in the lurch being left, The thief might be punished for his 'Wild Gallant.' Dryden, who one would have thought had more wit, The censure of every man did disdain, Pleading some pitiful rhymes he had writ In praise of the Countess of Castlemaine." The play itself contained too many of those prize-fights of wit, as Buckingham called them, in which the plot stood absolutely still, while two of the characters were showing the audience their dexterity at repartee. This error furnishes matter for a lively scene in the "Rehearsal." The "Rival Ladies," acted in 1663, and published in the year following, was our author's next dramatic essay. It is a tragi-comedy; and the tragic scenes are executed in rhyme,--a style which Dryden anxiously defended, in a Dedication addressed to the Earl of Orrery, who had himself written several heroic plays. He cites against blank verse the universal practice of the most polished and civilised nations, the Spanish, the Italian, and the French; enumerates its advantages in restraining the luxuriance of the poet's imagination, and compelling him to labour long upon his clearest and richest thoughts: but he qualifies his general assertion by affirming, that heroic verse ought only to be applied to heroic situations and personages; and shows to most advantage in the scenes of argumentation, on which the doing or forbearing some considerable action should depend. Accordingly, in the "Rival Ladies," those scenes of the play which approach to comedy (for it contains none properly comic) are written in blank verse. The Dedication contains two remarkable errors: The author mistakes the title of "Ferrex and Porrex," a play written by Sackville Lord Buckhurst, and Norton; and he ascribes to Shakespeare the first introduction of blank verse. The "Rival Ladies" seems to have been well received, and was probably of some advantage to the author.