my judgment being not a little altered since the writing of it; but whether for the better or the worse, I know not:  neither indeed is it much material, in an essay, where all I have said is problematical.  For the way of writing plays in verse, which I have seemed to favour, I have, since that time, laid the practice of it aside, till I have more leisure, because I find it troublesome and slow:  but I am no way altered from my opinion of it, at least with any reasons which have opposed it; for your lordship may easily observe, that none are very violent against it, but those who either have not attempted it, or who have succeeded ill in their attempt."[25] Thus cautious was Dryden in not admitting a victory, even in a cause which, he had surrendered.

But although the poet had admitted, that, with powers of versification superior to those possessed by any earlier English author, and a taste corrected by the laborious study both of the language and those who had used it, he found rhyme unfit for the use of the drama, he at the same time discovered a province where it might be employed in all its splendour.  We have the mortification to learn, from the Dedication of “Aureng-Zebe,” that Dryden only wanted encouragement to enter upon the composition of an epic poem, and to abandon the thriftless task of writing for the promiscuous audience of the theatre,—­a task which, rivalled as he had lately been by Crowne and Settle, he most justly compares to the labour of Sisyphus.  His plot, he elsewhere explains, was to be founded either upon the story of Arthur, or of Edward the Black Prince; and he mentions it to Mulgrave in the following remarkable passage, which argues great dissatisfaction with dramatic labour, arising perhaps from a combined feeling of the bad taste of rhyming plays, the degrading dispute with Settle, and the failure of the “Assignation,” his last theatrical attempt:—­“If I must be condemned to rhyme, I should find some ease in my change of punishment.  I desire to be no longer the Sisyphus of the stage; to roll up a stone with endless labour, which, to follow the proverb, gathers no moss; and which is perpetually falling down again.  I never thought myself very fit for an employment, where many of my predecessors have excelled me in all kinds; and some of my contemporaries, even in my own partial judgment, have outdone me in comedy.  Some little hopes I have yet remaining (and those too, considering my abilities, may be vain), that I may make the world some part of amends for my ill plays, by an heroic poem.  Your lordship has been long acquainted with my design; the subject of which you know is great, the story English, and neither too far distant from the present age, nor too near approaching it.  Such it is in my opinion, that I could not have wished a nobler occasion to do honour by it to my king, my country, and my friends; most of our ancient nobility being concerned in the action.  And your lordship has one particular reason