Speaking of Mr. Pope's Windsor-Forrest, he says, 'It is a wretched rhapsody, impudently writ in emulation of Cooper's-Hill. The author of it is obscure, is ambiguous, is affected, is temerarious, is barbarous.'
After these provocations, it is no wonder that Pope should take an opportunity of recording him in his Dunciad; and yet he had some esteem for our author's learning and genius. Mr. Dennis put his name to every thing he wrote against him, which Mr. Pope considered as a circumstance of candour. He pitied him as a man subject to the dominion of invidious passions, than which no severer sensations can tear the heart of man.
In the first Book of his Dunciad. line 103, he represents Dullness taking a view of her sons; and thus mentions Dennis,
She saw slow Philips creep like Tate's poor page,
And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.
He mentions him again slightly in his second Book, line 230, and in his third Book, line 165, taking notice of a quarrel between him and Mr. Gildon, he says,
Ah Dennis! Gildon ah! what ill-starr'd rage
Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age?
Blockheads, with reason, wicked wits abhor,
But fool with fool, is barbr'ous civil war,
Embrace, embrace, my sons! be foes no more!
Nor glad vile poets, with true critic's gore.
Our author gained little by his opposition to Pope, in which he must either have violated his judgment, or been under the influence of the strongest prejudice that ever blinded the eyes of any man; for not to admire the writings of this excellent poet, is an argument of a total deprivation of taste, which in other respects does not appear to be the case of Mr. Dennis.
We shall now take a view of our author in the light of a dramatist. In the year 1697 a comedy of his was acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, called A Plot and No Plot, dedicated to the Earl of Sunderland. The scope of this piece is to ridicule the credulity and principles of the Jacobites, the moral of which is this, 'That there are in all parties, persons who find it their interest to deceive the rest, and that one half of every faction makes a property in fee-simple of the other, therefore we ought never to believe any thing will, or will not be, because it is agreeable, or contrary to our humours, but because it is in itself likely, or improbable. Credulity in men, engaged in a party, proceeds oftner from pride than weakness, and it is the hardest thing in the world to impose upon a humble man.' In 1699 a tragedy called Rinaldo and Armida was acted at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, dedicated to the Duke of Ormond. Scene the top of a mountain in the Canaries. The hint of the chief characters is owing to Tasso's Gierusalemme, but the manners of them being by our author thought unequal in that great Italian, he has taken the liberty to change them, and form his characters more agreeable to the subject. The reasons for doing it are expressed in the preface and prologue to the play.
Our author's next tragedy was upon the subject of Iphigenia, daughter to Agamemnon King of Argos, acted at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn 1704. Iphigenia was to have been sacrificed by her father, who was deluded by the fraud of Calchas, who proclaimed throughout the Grecian fleet, that the offended gods demanded of Agamemnon the sacrifice of his daughter to Lucina, and till, that oblation was offered, the fleet would remain wind-bound. Accordingly, under pretence of marrying her to Achilles, she was betrayed from Argos, but her mother, Clytemnestra, discovering the cheat, by a stratagem prevented its execution, and effected her rescue without the knowledge of any one but her husband Agamemnon. A Grecian virgin being sacrificed in her place, Iphigenia is afterwards wrecked on the Coast of Scythia, and made the Priestess of Diana. In five years time her brother Orestes, and his friend Pylades, are wrecked on the same shore, but saved from slaughter by the Queen of Scythia, because she loved Orestes. Orestes, on the other hand, falls in love with the Priestess of Diana; they attempt an escape, and to carry off the image of the Goddess, but are prevented. The Queen then dooms Orestes to the altar, but Pylades, from his great friendship, personates Orestes, and disconcerts the design. The story and incidents of this play are interesting and moving, but Mr. Dennis has not wrought the scenes much in the spirit of a tragedian: This was a subject admirably suited for the talents of Otway. The discovery of Orestes's being the brother of Iphigenia is both surprizing and natural, and though the subject is not well executed, yet is this by far the most affecting tragedy of our author; it is almost impossible to read it without tears, though it abounds with bombast.
The fourth play introduced upon the stage by Mr. Dennis, 1704, was, a tragedy called Liberty Asserted, dedicated to Anthony Henley, esq; to whom he says he was indebted for the happy hint upon which it was formed. Soon after this he wrote another tragedy upon the story of Appius and Virginia, which Mr. Maynwaring, in a letter to Mr. Dennis, calls one of our best modern tragedies; it is dedicated to Sidney Earl of Godolphin.