In 1678 Dryden’s next play, a comedy, entitled “Limberham,” was acted at Dorset-garden theatre, but was endured for three nights only.  It was designed, the author informs us, as a satire on “the crying sin of keeping;” and the crime for which it suffered was, that “it expressed too much of the vice which it decried.”  Grossly indelicate as this play still is, it would seem, from the Dedication to Lord Vaughan, that much which offended on the stage was altered, or omitted, in the press;[30] yet more than enough remains to justify the sentence pronounced against it by the public.  Mr. Malone seems to suppose Shaftesbury’s party had some share in its fate, supposing that the character of Limberham had reference to their leader.  Yet surely, although Shaftesbury was ridiculous for aiming at gallantry, from which his age and personal infirmity should have deterred him, Dryden would never have drawn the witty, artful politician, as a silly, henpecked cully.  Besides, Dryden was about this time supposed even himself to have some leaning to the popular cause; a supposition irreconcilable with his caricaturing the foibles of Shaftesbury.

The tragedy of “Oedipus” was written by Dryden in conjunction with Lee; the entire first and third acts were the work of our author, who also arranged the general plan, and corrected the whole piece.  Having offered some observations[31] elsewhere upon this play, and the mode in which its celebrated theme has been treated by the dramatists of different nations, I need not here resume the subject.  The time of the first representation is fixed to the beginning of the playing season, in winter 1678-9, although it was not printed until 1679.[32] Both “Limberham” and “Oedipus” were acted at the Duke’s theatre; so that it would seem that our author was relieved from his contract with the King’s house, probably because the shares were so much diminished in value, that his appointment was now no adequate compensation for his labour.  The managers of the King’s company complained to the Lord Chamberlain, and endeavoured, as we have seen, by pleading upon the contract, to assert their right to the play of “Oedipus."[33] But their claim to reclaim the poet and the play appears to have been set aside, and Dryden continued to give his performances to the Duke’s theatre until the union of the two companies.

Dryden was now to do a new homage to Shakespeare, by refitting for the stage the play of “Troilus and Cressida,” which the author left in a state of strange imperfection, resembling more a chronicle, or legend, than a dramatic piece.  Yet it may be disputed whether Dryden has greatly improved it even in the particulars which he censures in his original.  His plot, though more artificial, is at the same time more trite than that of Shakespeare.  The device by which Troilus is led to doubt the constancy of Cressida is much less natural than that she should have been actually inconstant; her vindication by