just the sphere in which he was most qualified to excel. The taste for these dramas, which owed most to France and something to Italy and Spain, had come in with the Restoration. Their chief peculiarities were the complete subordination of the dramatic to the rhetorical element, the predominance of pageant, and the substitution of rhymed for blank verse. Dryden's first experiment in this drama was the _Rival Ladies_, in which the tragic portions are composed in rhyme, blank verse being reserved for the parts approaching comedy. In his next play, the _Indian Queen_, written in conjunction with Howard, blank verse is wholly discarded. The dedication of the _Rival Ladies_ to Orrery is appropriate. Roger Boyle, Baron Broghill, and first Earl of Orrery, was at this time Lord President of Munster, and it was he who had revived these rhymed plays in his _Henry V._, which was brought out in the same year as Dryden's comedy. Whoever has read this drama and Orrery's subsequent experiments, _Mustapha_ (1665), the _Black Prince_ (1667), _Tryphon_ (1668), will be able to estimate Dryden's absurd flattery at its proper value. But these dramatic innovations were sure not to pass without protest, though the protest came from a quarter where it might least have been expected. Sir Robert Howard was the sixth son of Thomas, first Earl of Berkshire. He had distinguished himself on the Royalist side in the Civil War, and had paid the penalty for his loyalty by an imprisonment in Windsor Castle during the Commonwealth. At the Restoration he had been made an Auditor of the Exchequer. Dryden seems to have made his acquaintance shortly after arriving in London. In 1660 Howard published a collection of poems and translations, to which Dryden prefixed an address 'to his honoured friend' on 'his excellent poems.' Howard's rank and position made him a useful friend to Dryden, and Dryden in his turn was no doubt of much service to Howard. Howard introduced him to his family, and in December 1663 Dryden married his friend's eldest sister, the Lady Elizabeth Howard. In the following year Dryden assisted his brother-in-law in the composition of the _Indian Queen_. There had probably been some misunderstanding or dispute about the extent of the assistance which Dryden had given, which accounts for what follows. In any case Howard published in 1665, professedly under pressure from Herringman, four plays, two comedies, _The Surprisal_ and _The Committee_, and two tragedies, the _Vestal Virgin_ and _Indian Queen_; and to the volume he prefixed the preface, which is here reprinted. It will be seen that though he makes no reference to Dryden, he combats all the doctrines laid down in the preface to the _Rival Ladies_. He exalts the English drama above the French, the Italian, and the Spanish; and vindicates blank verse against rhymed, making, however, a flattering exception of Orrery's dramas. If Dryden was not pleased, he appears to have had the grace to conceal his displeasure. For he passed the greater part of 1666 at his father-in-law's house, and dedicated to Howard his _Annus Mirabilis_. But Howard was to have his answer. In the _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ he is introduced in the person of Crites, and in his mouth are placed all the arguments advanced in the _Preface_ that they may be duly refuted and demolished by Dryden in the person of Neander. At this mode of retorting Howard became really angry; and in the _Preface to the Duke of Lerma_, published in the middle of 1668, he replied in a tone