[49] Defence of an Essay on Dramatick Poesy.
[50] "The favor which heroick plays have lately found upon our theatres has been wholly derived to them from the countenance and approbation they have received at Court." (Dedication of "Indian Emperor" to Duchess of Monmouth.)
[51] Dedication of "Rival Ladies."
[52] Defence of the Essay. Dryden, in the happiness of his illustrative comparisons, is almost unmatched. Like himself, they occupy a middle ground between poetry and prose,—they are a cross between metaphor and simile.
[53] Discoveries.
[54] What a wretched rhymer he could be we may see in his alteration of the "Maid's Tragedy" of Beaumont and Fletcher:—
"Not long since walking in the field,
My nurse and I, we there beheld
A goodly fruit; which, tempting me,
I would have plucked: but, trembling, she,
Whoever eat those berries, cried,
In less than half an hour died!"
What intolerable seesaw! Not much of Byron's "fatal facility" in
these octosyllabics!
[55] In more senses than one. His last and best portrait shows him
in his own gray hair.
[56] Essay on Dramatick Poesy.