ity, however, to throw in some fine poetry, of which Dryden
has not failed to avail himself. Were it not a peculiar attribute of
the heroic drama, it might be mentioned as a defect, that during the
siege of the last possession of the Spanish Moors, by an enemy hated
for his religion, and for his success, the principle of patriotism is
hardly once alluded to through the whole piece. The fate, or the
wishes, of Almahide, Lyndaraxa, and Benzayda, are all that interest
the Moorish warriors around them, as if the Christian was not
thundering at their gates, to exterminate at once their nation and
religion. Indeed, so essentially necessary are the encouragements of
beauty to military achievement, that we find queen Isabella ordering
to the field of battle a _corps de reserve_ of her maids of honour to
animate the fighting warriors with their smiles, and counteract the
powerful charms of the Moorish damsels. Nor is it an inferior fault,
that, although the characters are called Moors, there is scarce any
expression, or allusion, which can fix the reader's attention upon
their locality, except an occasional interjection to Alha, or Mahomet.

If, however, the reader can abstract his mind from the qualities now
deemed essential to a play, and consider the Conquest of Granada as a
piece of romantic poetry, there are few compositions in the English
language, which convey a more lively and favourable display of the
magnificence of fable, of language, and of action, proper to that
style of composition. Amid the splendid ornaments of the structure we
lose sight of occasional disproportion and incongruity; and, at an
early age particularly, there are few poems which make a more deep
impression upon the imagination, than the Conquest of Granada.

The two parts of this drama were brought out in the same season,
probably in winter, 1669, or spring, 1670. They were received with
such applause, that Langbaine conceives their success to have been the
occasion of Dryden's undervaluing his predecessors in dramatic
writing. The Conquest of Granada was not printed till 1672.

Footnote:
1. There is something ludicrous in the idea of a beauty, or a
gallant, of that gay and licentious court poring over a work of
five or six folio volumes by way of amusement; but such was the
taste of the age, that Fynes Morison, in his precepts to
travellers, can "think no book better for his pupils' discourse
than Amadis of Gaule; for the knight