He altered Shakespear's Merry Wives of Windsor, and brought it on the stage under the title of The Comical Gallant. Prefixed to this, is a large account of Taste in Poetry, and the Causes of its Degeneracy addressed to the Hon. George Granville, Esq; afterwards Lord Lansdowne.
Our author's next dramatic production was Coriolanus, the Invader of his Country, or the Fatal Resentment, a Tragedy; altered from Shakespear, and acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. This piece met with some opposition the first night; and on the fourth another play was given out. The second night's audience was very small, though the play was exceedingly well acted. The third night had not the charges in money; the fourth was still worse, and then another play was given out, not one place being taken in the boxes for any ensuing night. The managers were therefore obliged to discontinue it.
This usage Mr. Dennis highly resented; and in his dedication to the duke of Newcastle, then lord chamberlain, he makes a formal complaint against the managers. To this play Mr. Colley Cibber took the pains to write an epilogue, which Mrs. Oldfield spoke with universal applause, and for which poor peevish, jealous Dennis, abused them both.
Mr. Dennis happened once to go to the play, when a tragedy was acted, in which the machinery of thunder was introduced, a new artificial method of producing which he had formerly communicated to the managers. Incensed by this circumstance, he cried out in a transport of resentment, 'That is my thunder by G—d; the villains will play my thunder, but not my plays.' This gave an alarm to the pit, which he soon explained. He was much subject to these kind of whimsical transports, and suffered the fervor of his imagination often to subdue the power of his reason; an instance of which we shall now relate.
After he was worn out with age and poverty, he resided within the verge of the court, to prevent danger from his creditors. One Saturday night he happened to saunter to a public house, which he discovered in a short time was out of the verge. He was sitting in an open drinking room, and a man of a suspicious appearance happened to come in. There was something about the man which denoted to Mr. Dennis that he was a Bailiff: this struck him with a panic; he was afraid his liberty was now at an end; he sat in the utmost solicitude, but durst not offer to stir, lest he should be seized upon. After an hour or two had passed in this painful anxiety, at last the clock struck twelve, when Mr. Dennis, in an extasy, cried out, addressing himself to the suspected person, 'Now sir, Bailiff, or no Bailiff, I don't care a farthing for you, you have no power now.' The man was astonished at this behaviour, and when it was explained to him, he was so much affronted with the suspicion, that had not Mr. Dennis found his protection in age, he would have smarted for his mistaken opinion of him.
In the year 1705 a comedy of Mr. Dennis's called Gibraltar, or The Spanish Adventure, was acted unsuccessfully at Drury-Lane Theatre. He was also author of a masque called Orpheus and Euridice.
Mr. Dennis, considered as a dramatic writer, makes not so good a figure as in his critical works; he understood the rules of writing, but it is not in the power of every one to carry their own theory into execution. There is one error which he endeavoured to reform, very material for the interest of dramatic poetry. He saw, with concern, that love had got the entire possession of the tragic stage, contrary to the authority of the ancients, and the example of Shakespear. He resolved therefore to deviate a little from the reigning practice, and not to make his heroes such whining slaves in their amours, which not only debases the majesty of tragedy, but confounds most of the principal characters, by making that passion the predominant quality in all. But he did not think it safe at once to shew his principal characters wholly exempt from it, lest so great and sudden a transition should prove disagreeable. He rather chose to steer a middle course, and make love appear violent, but yet to be subdued by reason, and give way to the influence of some other more noble passion; as in Rinaldo, to Glory; in Iphigenia, to Friendship; and in Liberty Asserted, to the Public Good. He thought by these means an audience might be entertained, and prepared for greater alterations, whereby the dignity of tragedy might be supported, and its principal characters justly distinguished.
Besides the works which we have already mentioned, Mr. Dennis is author of the following pieces, mostly in the Pindaric way.
Upon our Victory at Sea, and burning the French Fleet at La Hogne in 1692.