allow. In comedy I would not exceed twenty-four or thirty hours: for the plot, accidents, and persons of comedy are small, and may be naturally turned in a little compass: But in tragedy the design is weighty, and the persons great; therefore there will naturally 5 be required a greater space of time in which to move them. And this though Ben Johnson has not told us, yet it is manifestly his opinion: for you see that to his comedies he allows generally but twenty-four hours; to his two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, a 10 much larger time: though he draws both of them into as narrow a compass as he can: For he shews you only the latter end of Sejanus his favour, and the conspiracy of Catiline already ripe, and just breaking out into action.

15

But as it is an errour on the one side, to make too great a disproportion betwixt the imaginary time of the play, and the real time of its representation; so on the other side, it is an over-sight to compress the accidents of a play into a narrower compass than that 20 in which they could naturally be produced. Of this last errour the French are seldom guilty, because the thinness of their plots prevents them from it; but few Englishmen, except Ben Johnson, have ever made a plot with variety of design in it, included in 25 twenty-four hours, which was altogether natural. For this reason, I prefer The Silent Woman before all other plays, I think justly; as I do its author, in judg ment, above all other poets. Yet of the two, I think that errour the most pardonable, which in too straight 30 a compass crowds together many accidents; since it produces more variety, and consequently more

pleasure to the audience; and because the nearness of proportion betwixt the imaginary and real time, does speciously cover the compression of the accidents.

Thus I have endeavoured to answer the meaning 5 of his argument; for as he drew it, I humbly conceive that it was none; as will appear by his proposition, and the proof of it. His proposition was this.

If strictly and duly weighed, it is as impossible for one stage to present two rooms or houses, as two coun10 tries or kingdoms, &c. And his proof this: For all being impossible, they are none of them nearest the truth or nature of what they present.

Here you see, instead of proof or reason, there is only petitio principii: for in plain words, his sense is 15 this; Two things are as impossible as one another, because they are both equally impossible: but he takes those two things to be granted as impossible which he ought to have proved such, before he had proceeded to prove them equally impossible: he should 20 have made out first, that it was impossible for one stage to represent two houses, and then have gone forward to prove that it was as equally impossible for a stage to present two houses, as two countries.

After all this, the very absurdity to which he would 25 reduce me is none at all: for he only drives at this, That if his argument be true, I must then acknowledge that there are degrees in impossibilities, which I easily grant him without dispute: and if I mistake not, Aristotle and the School are of my opinion. For 30 there are some things which are absolutely impossible, and others which are only so ex parte; as it is absolutely impossible for a thing to be, and not be, at

the same time; but for a stone to move naturally upward, is only impossible ex parte materiæ; but it is not impossible for the first mover to alter the nature of it.

His last assault, like that of a Frenchman, is most feeble for whereas I have observed, that none have 5 been violent against verse, but such only as have not attempted it, or have succeeded ill in their attempt, he will needs, according to his usual custom, improve my observation to an argument, that he might have the glory to confute it. But I lay my observation at 10 his feet, as I do my pen, which I have often employed willingly in his deserved commendations, and now most unwillingly against his judgment. For his person and parts, I honour them as much as any man living, and have had so many particular obliga- 15 tions to him, that I should be very ungrateful, if I did not acknowledge them to the world. But I gave not the first occasion of this difference in opinions. In my Epistle Dedicatory before my Rival Ladies, I had said somewhat in behalf of verse, which he was pleased 20 to answer in his Preface to his plays: that occasioned my reply in my Essay; and that reply begot this rejoynder of his in his Preface to The Duke of Lerma. But as I was the last who took up arms, I will be the first to lay them down. For what I have here written, 25 I submit it wholly to him; and if I do not hereafter answer what may be objected against this paper, I hope the world will not impute it to any other reason, than only the due respect which I have for so noble an opponent.

NOTES.

Page 1. Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, author of the well-known song 'To all you ladies now on land,' and Lord Chamberlain to William III after the Revolution, was always a kind friend and patron to Dryden, and liberally assisted him when the loss of his office as poet-laureat, through his refusal to take the oaths to William, brought the poet to great distress. See the long dedication to Dryden's Essay on Satire (Yonge's edition).

2. 1. 17. The Tragedy of Pompey the Great, 'translated out of French by certain persons of honour': 4to. 1664. From Dryden's eulogium it appears that the fourth act was translated by Lord Buckhurst; the first was done by Waller. (Malone.) Sir Charles Sedley, Malone says in another place, had also a hand in this translation, which was from the Pompée of Corneille. The act translated by Waller is published among his works.

3. 6. See Valerius Maximus, 1. iv. c. 5. (Malone.)

8. Hor. Epod. xvi. 37.

13. To allow, in the last age, signified to approve. (Malone.) 3. 27. I have not, any more than former editors, succeeded in discovering from what French poet these lines are taken.

4. 13. These lines are found in a poem by Sir William Davenant, printed in 4to. in 1663, and republished in his works, fol. 1673, p. 268. (Malone.)

28. In the Dedication to The Rival Ladies [1664] (Malone); where Dryden argues very ably for the superiority of rhyme over blank verse.

5. 18. See Cicero's Letters to Atticus, xii. 40, and Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar, chap. 54.

7. 5. Dryden often uses adjectives as adverbs. In this

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