to each wave,
but remained buoyant amid the tempest. The Rye-house plot is then
presented in allegory,--an unfit subject for exultation, since the
dark intrigues of the interior conspirators were made the instruments
of the fall of Sidney and Russell. The return of the Duke of York,
with his beautiful princess, and the rejoicings which were supposed to
take place, in heaven and earth, upon Charles' attaining the pinnacle
of uncontrolled power, was originally the intended termination of the
opera; which, as first written, consisted of only one act,
introductory to the drama of "King Arthur." But the eye and the ear of
Charles were never to be regaled by this flattering representation: he
died while the opera was in rehearsal. A slight addition, as the
author has himself informed us, adapted the conclusion of his piece to
this new and unexpected event. The apotheosis of Albion, and the
succession of Albanius to the uncontrouled domination of a willing
people, debased by circumstances expressing an unworthy triumph over
deceased foes, was substituted as the closing scene. Altered as it
was, to suit the full-blown fortune of James, an ominous fatality
attended these sugared scenes, which were to present the exulting
recapitulation of his difficulties and triumph. While the opera was
performing, for the sixth time only, news arrived that Monmouth had
landed in the west, the audience dispersed, and the players never
attempted to revive a play, which seemed to be of evil augury to the
crown.

Our author appears to have found it difficult to assign a name for
this performance, which was at once to address itself to the eye, the
ear, and the understanding. The ballad-opera, since invented, in which
part is sung, part acted and spoken, comes nearest to its description.
The plot of the piece contains nothing brilliantly ingenious: the
deities of Greece and Rome had been long hacknied machines in the
masks and operas of the sixteenth century; and it required little
invention to paint the duchess of York as Venus, or to represent her
husband protected by Neptune, and Charles consulting with Proteus. But
though the device be trite, the lyrical diction of the opera is most
beautifully sweet and flowing. The reader finds none of these harsh
inversions, and awkward constructions, by which ordinary poets are
obliged to screw their verses into the fetters of musical time.
Notwithstanding the obstacles stated by Dryden himself, every lin