the collectors of old plays; a ballad on the same subject
is reprinted in Evans's collection; and our author mentions a French
novel on the adventures of Don Sebastian, to which Langbaine also
refers.

The situation of Dryden, after the Revolution, was so delicate as to
require great caution and attention, both in his choice of a subject,
and his mode of treating it. His distressed circumstances and lessened
income compelled him to come before the public as an author; while the
odium attached to the proselyte of a hated religion, and the partizan
of a depressed faction, was likely, upon the slightest pretext, to
transfer itself from the person of the poet to the labours on which
his support depended. He was, therefore, not only obliged to chuse a
theme, which had no offence in it, and to treat it in a manner which
could not admit of misconstruction, but also so to exert the full
force of his talents, as, by the conspicuous pre-eminence of his
genius, to bribe prejudice and silence calumny. An observing reader
will accordingly discover, throughout the following tragedy, symptoms
of minute finishing, and marks of accurate attention, which, in our
author's better days, he deigned not to bestow upon productions, to
which his name alone was then sufficient to give weight and privilege.
His choice of a subject was singularly happy: the name of Sebastian
awaked historical recollections and associations, favourable to the
character of his hero; while the dark uncertainty of his fate removed
all possibility of shocking the audience by glaring offence against
the majesty of historical truth. The subject has, therefore, all the
advantages of a historical play, without the detects, which either a
rigid coincidence with history, or a violent contradiction of known
truth, seldom fail to bring along with them. Dryden appears from his
preface to have been fully sensible of this; and he has not lost the
advantage of a happy subject by treating it with the carelessness he
sometimes allowed himself to indulge.

The characters in "Don Sebastian" are contrasted with singular ability
and judgment. Sebastian, high-spirited and fiery; the soul of royal
and military honour; the soldier and the king; almost embodies the
idea which the reader forms at the first mention of his name. Dorax,
to whom he is so admirable a contrast, is one of those characters whom
the strong hand of adversity has wrested from their natural bias; and
perhaps no equall