After all this, the very absurdity, to which he would 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 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 to be at the same time:  But for a stone to move naturally upward, is only impossible ex parte materiae; 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 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 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 obligations 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 to answer in his preface to his plays.  That occasioned my reply in my essay; and that reply begot this rejoinder of his, in his preface to the “Duke of Lenna.”  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, 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.

THE INDIAN EMPEROR.

The Indian Emperor is the first of Dryden’s plays which exhibited, in a marked degree, the peculiarity of his stile, and drew upon him the attention of the world.  Without equalling the extravagancies of the Conquest of Granada, and the Royal Martyr, works produced when our author was emboldened, by public applause, to give full scope to his daring genius, the following may be considered as a model of the heroic drama, A few words, therefore, will not be here misplaced, on the nature of the kind of tragedies, in which, during the earlier part of his literary career, our author delighted and excelled.