would have required much more action to detail them intelligibly.  Even the language has an abridged appearance, and favours the idea, that the tragic intrigue was to have been extended into a proper heroic play, instead of occupying a spare corner in a comedy.  But to make amends, the comic scenes are executed with spirit, and in a style resembling those in the “Maiden Queen."[15] They contained much witty and fashionable raillery; and the character of Melantha is pronounced by Cibber to exhibit the most complete system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady.  It was admirably acted by Mrs. Montfort, afterwards Mrs. Verbruggen.  The piece thus supported was eminently successful; a fortunate circumstance for the King’s Company, who were then in distressful circumstances.  Their house in Drury-lane had been destroyed by fire, after which disaster they were compelled to occupy the old theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, lately deserted by the rival company for a splendid one in Dorset Gardens.  From a prologue which our author furnished, to be spoken at the opening of this house of refuge, it would seem that even the scenes and properties of the actors had been furnished by the contributions of the nobility.[16] Perhaps their present reduced situation was an additional reason with Dryden for turning his attention to comedy, which required less splendour of exhibition and decoration than the heroic plays.

“Marriage a la Mode” was inscribed to Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in strains of adulation not very honourable to the dedicator.  But as he expresses his gratitude for Rochester’s care, not only of his reputation but of his fortune; for his solicitude to overcome the fatal modesty of poets, which leads them to prefer want to importunity; and, finally, for the good effects of his mediation in all his concerns at court; it may be supposed some recent benefit, perhaps an active share in procuring the appointment of poet-laureate, had warmed the heart of the author towards the patron.  The dedication was well received, and the compliment handsomely acknowledged as we learn from a letter from Dryden to Rochester, where he says, that the shame of being so much overpaid for an ill dedication made him almost repent of his address.  But he had shortly afterwards rather more substantial reasons for regretting his choice of a patron.

The same cause for abstaining from tragic composition still remaining in force, Dryden, in 1672, brought forward a comedy, called “The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery.”  The plot was after the Spanish model.  The author seems to have apprehended, and experienced, some opposition on account of this second name; and although he deprecates, in the epilogue, the idea of its being a party play, or written to gratify the Puritans with satire at the expense of the Catholics;[17] yet he complains, in the dedication, of the number of its enemies, who came prepared to damn it on account of the title.  The Duke of York