Of his first play, _The Duke of Guise_, which was
unsuccessful, he tells us: "I undertook this as the fairest way which the
Act of Indemnity had left us, as setting forth the rise of the great
rebellion, and of exposing the villanies of it upon the stage, to
precaution posterity against the like errors;"--a rebellion the
master-spirit of which he had eulogized upon his bier!
His second play, _The Wild Gallant_, may be judged by the fact that it won
for him the favor of Charles II. and of his mistress, the Duchess of
Cleveland. Pepys saw it "well acted;" but says, "It hath little good in
it." It is not our purpose to give a list of Dryden's plays; besides their
occasional lewdness, they are very far inferior to his poems, and are now
rarely read except by the historical student. They paid him in ready
money, and he cannot ask payment from posterity in fame.
On the 13th of January, 1667-8, (we are told by Pepys,) the ladies and the
Duke of Monmouth acted _The Indian Emperour_ at court.
The same chronicler says: _The Maiden Queene_ was "mightily commended for
the regularity of it, and the strain and wit;" but of the _Ladys a la
Mode_ he says it was "so mean a thing" that, when it was announced for the
next night, the pit "fell a laughing, because the house was not a quarter
full.
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