"Who, like a tempest that outrides the wind,
Made a just battle, ere the bodies join'd.
"Pray, what does this honourable person mean by a 'tempest that outrides the wind?' a tempest that outrides itself. To suppose a tempest without wind, is as bad as supposing a man to walk without feet; for if he supposes the tempest to be something distinct from the wind, yet, as being the effect of wind only, to come before the cause is a little preposterous; so that, if he takes it one way, or if he takes it the other, those two ifs will scarce make one possibility." Enough of Settle.
Marriage à-la-mode, 1673, is a comedy dedicated to the earl of Rochester; whom he acknowledges not only as the defender of his poetry, but the promoter of his fortune. Langbaine places this play in 1673. The earl of Rochester, therefore, was the famous Wilmot, whom yet tradition always represents as an enemy to Dryden, and who is mentioned by him with some disrespect in the preface to Juvenal.
The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery, a comedy, 1673, was driven off the stage, "against the opinion," as the author says, "of the best judges." It is dedicated, in a very elegant address, to sir Charles Sedley; in which he finds an opportunity for his usual complaint of hard treatment and unreasonable censure.
Amboyna, 1673, is a tissue of mingled dialogue in verse and prose, and was, perhaps, written in less time than the Virgin Martyr; though the author thought not fit, either ostentatiously or mournfully, to tell how little labour it cost him, or at how short a warning he produced it. It was a temporary performance, written in the time of the Dutch war, to inflame the nation against their enemies; to whom he hopes, as he declares in his epilogue, to make his poetry not less destructive than that by which Tyrtaeus of old animated the Spartans. This play was written in the second Dutch war, in 1673.
Troilus and Cressida, 1679, is a play altered from Shakespeare; but so altered, that, even in Langbaine's opinion, "the last scene in the third act is a masterpiece." It is introduced by a discourse on the grounds of criticism in tragedy, to which I suspect that Rymer's book had given occasion.
The Spanish Fryar, 1681, is a tragicomedy, eminent for the happy coincidence and coalition of the two plots. As it was written against the papists, it would naturally, at that time, have friends and enemies; and partly by the popularity which it obtained at first, and partly by the real power both of the serious and risible part, it continued long a favourite of the publick.
It was Dryden's opinion, at least for some time, and he maintains it in the dedication of this play, that the drama required an alternation of comick and tragick scenes; and that it is necessary to mitigate, by alleviations of merriment, the pressure of ponderous events, and the fatigue of toilsome passions. "Whoever," says he, "cannot perform both parts, is but half a writer for the stage."
The Duke of Guise, a tragedy, 1683, written in conjunction with Lee, as Oedipus had been before, seems to deserve notice only for the offence which it gave to the remnant of the covenanters, and in general to the enemies of the court, who attacked him with great violence, and were answered by him; though, at last, he seems to withdraw from the conflict, by transferring the greater part of the blame or merit to his partner. It happened that a contract had been made between them, by which they were to join in writing a play; and "he happened," says Dryden, "to claim the promise just upon the finishing of a poem, when I would have been glad of a little respite. Two-thirds of it belonged to him; and to me only the first scene of the play, the whole fourth act, and the first half, or somewhat more, of the fifth."
This was a play written professedly for the party of the duke of York, whose succession was then opposed. A parallel is intended between the leaguers of France, and the covenanters of England: and this intention produced the controversy.