ch quick repartee is necessary, it is the last perfection of wit to
put it into numbers; and that, even where a trivial and common
expression is placed, from necessity, in the mouth of an important
character, it receives, from the melody of versification, a dignity
befitting the person that is to pronounce it. With this keen and
animated defence of a mode of composition, in which he felt his own
excellence, Dryden concludes the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy."

The publication of this criticism, the first that contained an express
attempt to regulate dramatic writing, drew general attention, and gave
some offence. Sir Robert Howard felt noways flattered at being made,
through the whole dialogue, the champion of unsuccessful opinions: and a
partiality to the depreciated blank verse seems to have been hereditary
in his family.[20] He therefore hasted to assert his own opinion against
that of Dryden, in the preface to one of his plays, called the "Duke of
Lerma," published in the middle of the year 1668. It is difficult for
two friends to preserve their temper in a dispute of this nature; and
there may be reason to believe, that some dislike to the alliance of
Dryden, as a brother-in-law, mingled with the poetical jealousy of Sir
Robert Howard.[21] The Preface to the "Duke of Lerma" is written in the
tone of a man of quality and importance, who is conscious of stooping
beneath his own dignity, and neglecting his graver avocations, by
engaging in a literary dispute. Dryden was not likely, of many men, to
brook this tone of affected superiority. He retorted upon Sir Robert
Howard very severely, in a tract, entitled, the "Defence of the Essay on
Dramatic Poesy," which he prefixed to the second edition of the "Indian
Emperor," published in 1668. In this piece, the author mentions his
antagonist as master of more than twenty legions of arts and sciences,
in ironical allusion to Sir Robert's coxcombical affectation of
universal knowledge, which had already exposed him to the satire of
Shadwell.[22] He is also described in reference to some foolish
appearance in the House of Commons, as having maintained a contradiction
_in terminis_, in the face of three hundred persons. Neither does Dryden
neglect to hold up to ridicule the slips in Latin and English grammar,
which marked the offensive Preface to the "Duke of Lerma." And although
he concludes, that he honoured his adversary's parts and person as much
as any man living, and had so many