owing. I will, therefore, my Lord, detain you no
longer by this epistle; and only entreat you to believe, that it is
addressed to your Grace from no other motive than a sincere regard to
the memory of Mr Dryden, and a very sensible pleasure which I take
in applauding an action, by which you are so justly and so singularly
entitled to a dedication of his labours, though many years after his
death, and even though most of them were produced by him many years
before you were born. I am, with the greatest respect,

MY LORD,

Your Grace's most obedient,

And most humble servant,

WILLIAM CONGREVE.

THE
WILD GALLANT,
A COMEDY.

THE WILD GALLANT.

The Editor may be pardoned in bestowing remarks upon Dryden's plays,
only in proportion to their intrinsic merit, and to the attention
which each has excited, either at its first appearance, or when the
public attention has been since directed towards them. In either point
of view, little need be said on the "Wild Gallant." It was Dryden's
first theatrical production, and its reception by no means augured
his future pre-eminence in literature; nor was it more than tolerated,
when afterwards revived under the sanction of his increasing fame.
It was brought upon the stage in February 1662-3, according to the
conjecture of Mr Malone, who observes, that the following lines in the
prologue.

It should have been but one continued song;
Or, at the least, a dance of three hours long;

must refer to D'Avenant's opera, called the "Siege of Rhodes,"
acted in 1662; and that the expression, "in plays, he finds, you love
_mistakes_," alludes to the blunders of Teague, an Irish footman,
in Sir Robert Howard's play of the "Committee." The "Wild Gallant" was
revived and published in 1669, with a new prologue and epilogue, and
some other alterations, not of a nature, judging from the prologue, to
improve the morality of the piece. That the play had but indifferent
success in the action, the poet himself has informed us, with the
qualifying addition, that it more than once was the divertisement
of Charles II., by his own command. This honourable distinction it
probably acquired by the influence of the Countess of Castlemaine,
then the royal favourite, to whom Dryden addresses some verses on
her encouraging this play.--See Vol. XI p. 18.--The plot is borrowed
avowedly from the Spanish, and partakes of the unnatural incongruity,
common to the dramatic pieces of that nation,