shroud himself under
authority of others, is seldom resorted to by Dryden when a cause is
otherwise tenable. In this preface also he justified himself from the
charge of plagiarism by showing that the mere story is the least part
either of the labour of the poet, or of the graces of the poem; quoting
against his critics the expression of the king, who had said, he wished
those, who charged Dryden with theft, would always steal him plays like
Dryden's.

The "Royal Martyr" was acted in 1668-9, and printed in 1670. It is, in
every respect, a proper heroic tragedy, and had a large share of the
applause with which those pieces were then received. It abounds in
bombast, but is not deficient in specimens of the sublime and of the
tender. The preface is distinguished by that tone of superiority, which
Dryden often assumed over the critics of the time. Their general
observations he cut short, by observing, that those who make them
produce nothing of their own, or only what is more ridiculous than any
thing they reprehend. Special objections are refuted, by an appeal to
classical authority. Thus the couplet,

"And he, who servilely creeps after sense,
Is safe, but ne'er will reach an excellence,"

is justified from the "_serpit humi tutus_" of Horace; and, by a
still more forced derivation, the line,

"And follow fate which does too fast pursue,"

is said to be borrowed from Virgil,

"_Eludit gyro interior sequiturque sequentem_."

And he concludes by exulting, that, though he might have written
nonsense, none of his critics had been so happy as to discover it. These
indications of superiority, being thought to savour of vanity, had their
share in exciting the storm of malevolent criticism, of which Dryden
afterwards so heavily complained. "Tyrannic Love" is dedicated to the
Duke of Monmouth; but it would seem the compliment was principally
designed to his duchess. The Duke, whom Dryden was afterwards to
celebrate in very different strains, is however compared to an Achilles,
or Rinaldo, who wanted only a Homer, or Tasso, to give him the fame due
to him.

It was in this period of prosperity, of general reputation, of
confidence in his genius, and perhaps of presumption, (if that word can
be applied to Dryden,) that he produced those two very singular plays,
the First and Second Parts of the "Conquest of Granada." In these models
of the pure heroic drama, the ruling sentiments of love and honour are
carried to t