England by James IV. of Scotland, in which he hazarded and actually lost his own life, and the flower of his nobility, because the queen of France, who called him her knight, had commanded him to march three miles on English ground for her sake.

Less can be said to justify the extravagant language in which Almanzor threatens his enemies, and vaunts his own importance. This is not common in the heroes of romance, who are usually as remarkable for their modesty of language as for their prowess; and still more seldom does, in real life, a vain-glorious boaster vindicate by his actions the threats of his tongue. It is true, that men of a fervent and glowing character are apt to strain their speech beyond the modesty of ordinary conversation, and display, in their language, the fire which glows in their bosoms; but the subject of their effusions is usually connected not with their own personal qualities, or feats, but with some extraneous object of their pursuit, or admiration. Thus, the burst of Hotspur concerning the pursuit of honour paints his enthusiastic character; but it would be hard to point out a passage indicating that exuberant confidence in his own prowess, and contempt of every one else, so liberally exhibited by Almanzor. Instances of this defect are but too thickly sown through the piece; for example the following rant.

If from thy hands alone my death can be,
I am immortal, and a God to thee.

If I would kill thee now, thy fate's so low,
That I must stoop ere I can give the blow.
But mine is fixed so far above thy crown,
That all thy men,

Piled on thy back, can never pull it down.
But, at my ease, thy destiny I send,
By ceasing from this hour to be thy friend.
Like heaven, I need but only to stand still;
And, not concurring to thy life, I kill.
Thou canst no title to my duty bring;

I am not thy subject, and my soul's thy king.
Farewell! When I am gone,

There's not a star of thine dare stay with thee:
I'll whistle thy tame fortune after me;

And whirl fate with me wheresoe'er I fly,

As winds drive storms before them in the sky.

This curious passage did not escape the malicious criticism of Settle, who, besides noticing the extravagant egotism of the hero, questions, with some probability, whether Abdalla would have chosen to scale Almanzor's fate, at the risque of the personal consequences of having all his men piled on his own back. In the same scene, Almanzor is so unreasonable as to tell his rival,

Thou shalt not dare

To be so impudent as to despair.

And again,

What are ten thousand subjects, such as they?
If I am scorned, I'll take myself away.

Dryden's apology for these extravagancies seems to be, that Almanzor is in a passion. But, although talking nonsense is a common effect of passion, it seems hardly one of those consequences adapted to shew forth the character of a hero in theatrical representation.

It must be owned, however, that although the part of Almanzor contains these and other bombastic passages, there are many also which convey what the poet desired to represent---the aspirations of a mind so heroic as almost to surmount the bonds of society, and even the very laws of the universe, leaving us often in doubt whether the vehemence of the wish does not even disguise the impossibility of its accomplishment.

Good heaven! thy book of fate before me lay,
But to tear out the journal of this day.

Or, if the order of the world below

Will not the gap of one whole day allow,

Give me that minute when she made her vow.

That minute, even the happy from their bliss might give,

And those, who live in grief, a shorter time would live.

So small a link, if broke, the eternal chain

Would, like divided waters, join again.

It wonnot be; the fugitive is gone,

Pressed by the crowd of following minutes on:

That precious moment's out of nature fled,

And in the heap of common rubbish laid,

Of things that once have been, and now decayed.

In the less inflated parts, the ideas are usually as just, as ingenious and beautiful; for example.

No; there is a necessity in fate,

Why still the brave bold man is fortunate;
He keeps his object ever full in sight,

And that assurance holds him firm and right.
True, 'tis a narrow path that leads to bliss,

But right before there is no precipice:

Fear makes men look aside, and then their footing miss.

}

The character of Almanzor is well known as the original of Drawcansir, in "The Rehearsal," into whose mouth parodies of some of Dryden's most extravagant flights have been put by the duke of Buckingham. Shaftesbury also, whose family had smarted under

Dryden's satire, attempts to trace the applause bestowed on the "Conquest of Granada" to what he calls "the correspondence and relation between our Royal Theatre and popular Circus, or Bear-Garden. For, in the former of these assemblys, 'tis undeniable, that, at least, the two upper regions, or galleries, contain such spectators as indifferently frequent each place of sport. So that 'tis no wonder we hear such applause resounded on the victories of an Almanzor, when the same parties had possibly no later than the day before bestowed their applause as freely on the victorious Butcher, the hero of another stage." Miscellaneous Reflections. Miscell. 5.

The other personages of the drama sink into Lilliputians, beside the gigantic Almanzor, although the under plot of the loves of Ozmyn and Benzayda is beautiful in itself, and ingeniously managed. The virtuous Almahide is a fit object for the adoration of Almanzor; but her husband is a poor pageant of royalty. As for Lyndaraxa, her repeated and unparalleled treachery can only be justified by the extreme imbecility of her lovers.

The plot of the play is, in part, taken from history. During the last years of its existence, Granada, the poor remnant of the Moorish empire in Spain, was torn to pieces with intestine discord, and assailed without by the sword of the Christians. The history of the civil wars of Granada, affirmed to be translated into Spanish from the Arabian, gives a romantic, but not altogether fabulous, account of their discord. But a romance in the French taste, called Almahide, seems to have been the chief source from which our author drew his plot.

In the conduct of the story there is much brilliancy of event. The reader, or spectator, is never allowed to repose on the scene before him; and although the changes of fortune are too rapid to be either probable, or altogether pleasing, yet they arrest the attention by their splendour and importance, and interest us in spite of our more sober judgment. The introduction of the ghost of Almanzor's mother seems to have been intended to shew how the hero could support even an interview with an inhabitant of the other world. At least, the professed purpose of her coming might have been safely trusted to the virtue of Almahide, and her power over her lover. It afforded an opportunity, however, to throw in some fine poetry, of which Dryden has not failed to avail himself. Were it not a peculiar attribute of the heroic drama, it might be mentioned as a defect, that during the siege of the last possession of the Spanish Moors, by an enemy Lated for his religion, and for his success, the principle of patriotism is hardly once alluded to through the whole piece. The fate, or the wishes, of Almahide, Lyndaraxa, and Benzayda, are all that in

terest the Moorish warriors around them, as if the Christian was not thundering at their gates, to exterminate at once their nation and religion. Indeed, so essentially necessary are the encouragements of beauty to military achievement, that we find queen Isabella ordering to the field of battle a corps de reserve of her maids of honour, to animate the fighting warriors with their smiles, and counteract the powerful charms of the Moorish damsels. Nor is it an inferior fault, that, although the characters are called Moors, there is scarce any expression, or allusion, which can fix the reader's attention upon their locality, except an occasional interjection to Alha, or Mahomet.

If, however, the reader can abstract his mind from the qualities now deemed essential to a play, and consider the Conquest of Granada as a piece of romantic poetry, there are few compositions in the English language, which convey a more lively and favourable display of the magnificence of fable, of language, and of action, proper to that style of composition. Amid the splendid ornaments of the structure we lose sight of occasional disproportion and incongruity; and, at an early age particularly, there are few poems which make a more deep impression upon the imagination, than the Conquest of Granada.

The two parts of this drama were brought out in the same season, probably in winter, 1669, or spring, 1670. They were received with such applause, that Langbaine conceives their success to have been the occasion of Dryden's undervaluing his predecessors in dramatic writing. The Conquest of Granada was not printed till 1672.

ΤΟ

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE

DUKE*.

SIR,

HEROIC poesy has always been sacred to princes, and to heroes. Thus Virgil inscribed his Æneids to Augustus Cæsar; and of latter ages, Tasso and Ariosto dedicated their poems to the house of Este. It is indeed but justice, that the most excellent and most profitable kind of writing should be addressed by poets to such persons, whose characters have, for the most part, been the guides and patterns of their imitation; and poets, while they imitate, instruct. The feigned hero inflames the true; and the dead virtue animates the living. Since, therefore, the world is governed by precept and example, and both these can only have influence from those persons who are above us; that kind of poesy, which excites to virtue the greatest men, is of the greatest use to human kind.

* James Duke of York, afterwards James II.