ly, chose, in the Prologue to the "Citizen turned Gentleman,"
acted at the Duke's House in 1672, to level some sneers at the heroic
drama, which affected particularly the "Conquest of Granada," then
acting with great applause. Ravenscroft's play, which is a bald
translation from the "_Bourgeois Gentilhomme_" of Moliere, was
successful, chiefly owing to the burlesque procession of Turks employed
to dub the Citizen a _Mamamouchi_, or Paladin. Dryden, with more
indignation than the occasion warranted, retorted, in the Prologue to
the "Assignation," by the following attack on Ravenscroft's jargon and
buffoonery:

"You must have Mamamouchi, such a fop
As would appear a monster in a shop;
He'll fill your pit and boxes to the brim,
Where, ramm'd in crowds, you see yourselves in him.
Sure there's some spell our poet never knew,
In _Hullibabilah de_, and _Chu, chu, chu_;
But _Marababah sahem_ most did touch you;
That is, Oh how we love the Mamamouchi!
Grimace and habit sent you pleased away;
You damned the poet, and cried up the play."

About this time, too, the actresses in the King's theatre, to vary the
amusements of the house, represented "Marriage a la Mode" in men's
dresses. The Prologue and Epilogue were furnished by Dryden; and in the
latter, mentioning the projected union of the theatres,--

"all the women most devoutly swear,
Each would be rather a poor actress here,
Than to be made a Mamamouchi there."

Ravenscroft, thus satirised, did not fail to exult in the bad success of
the "Assignation," and celebrated his triumph in some lines of a
Prologue to the "Careless Lovers," which was acted in the vacation
succeeding the ill fate of Dryden's play. They are thrown into the note,
that the reader may judge how very unworthy this scribbler was of the
slightest notice from the pen of Dryden.[26]

And with this _Te Deum_, on the part of Ravenscroft ended a petty
controversy, which gives him his only title to be named in the life of
an English classic.

From what has been detailed of these disputes we may learn that, even at
this period, the laureate's wreath was not unmingled with thorns; and
that if Dryden still maintained his due ascendancy over the common band
of authors, it was not without being occasionally under the necessity of
descending into the _arena_ against very inferior antagonists.

In the course of these controversies, Dryden was not idle, though he
cannot be said to have