“Muley Zeydan is as ingenious a man as his brother Muley Moloch; as
  where he hints at the story of Castor and Pollux: 

    May we ne’er meet;
    For, like the twins of Leda, when I mount,
    He gallops down the skies.

“As for the Mufti, we will suppose that he was bred up a scholar, and not only versed in the law of Mahomet, but acquainted with all kinds of polite learning.  For this reason he is not at all surprised when Dorax calls him a Phaeton in one place, and in another tells him he is like Archimedes.

“The Mufti afterwards mentions Ximenes, Albornoz, and cardinal Wolsey, by name.  The poet seems to think, he may make every person, in his play, know as much as himself, and talk as well as he could have done on the same occasion.  At least, I believe, every reader will agree with me, that the above-mentioned sentiments, to which I might have added several others, would have been better suited to the court of Augustus than that of Muley Moloch.  I grant they are beautiful in themselves, and much more so in that noble language, which was peculiar to this great poet.  I only observe, that they are improper for the persons who make use of them.”

The catastrophe of the tragedy may be also censured, not only on the grounds objected to that of “OEdipus,” but because it does not naturally flow from the preceding events, and opens, in the fifth act, a new set of persons, and a train of circumstances, unconnected with the preceding action.  In the concluding scene, it was remarked, by the critics, that there is a want of pure taste in the lovers dwelling more upon the pleasures than the horrors of their incestuous connection.

Of the lighter scenes, which were intended for comic, Dr Johnson has said, “they are such as that age did not probably commend, and as the present would not endure.”  Dryden has remarked, with self-complacency, the art with which they are made to depend upon the serious business.  This has not, however, the merit of novelty; being not unlike the connection between the tragic and comic scenes of the “Spanish Friar.”  The persons introduced have also some resemblance; though the gaiety of Antonio is far more gross than that of Lorenzo, and Morayma is a very poor copy of Elvira.  It is rather surprising, that when a gay libertine was to be introduced, Dryden did not avail himself of a real character, the English Stukely; a wild gallant, who, after spending a noble fortune, became the leader of a band of Italian Condottieri, engaged in the service of Sebastian, and actually fell in the battle of Alcazar.  Collier complains, and with very good reason, that, in the character of the Mufti, Dryden has seized an opportunity to deride and calumniate the priesthood of every religion; an opportunity which, I am sorry to say, he seldom fails to use with unjustifiable inveteracy.  The rabble scenes were probably given, as our author himself says of that in Cleomenes, “to gratify the more barbarous part of the audience.”  Indeed, to judge from the practice of the drama at this time, the representation of a riot upon the stage seems to have had the same charms for the popular part of the English audience, which its reality always possesses in the streets.