[In this essay, Child emphasizes William Davenant's role in the development of heroic drama.]

Holzhausen, in his sketch of the rise and development of the heroic play (Englische Studien, 13. 416 n.), says, with reference to Ohlsen's Dryden as a Dramatist and Critic (Altona progr., no. 263, 1883),

Ueber dies passiren ihm allerhand seltsame schnitzer. So nennt er aus s. IV kurzweg Davenant als denjenigen, welcher die heroic plays in England eingeführt habe, was, wenn auch nicht ganz falsch, so doch entschieden schief ist. Denn Davenant's thätigkeit … hat allerdings der neuen gattung in England verschiedenen ingredienzien zugeführt; der eigentliche begründer des heroischen dramas in England ist dagegen Lord Orrery gewesen.

Later (ib. 422), after instancing the French romances, classical French tragedy, the Italian epic, the taste of the Court, and the taste for conceit due to the ‘metaphysical poets,’ as factors in its development, Holshausen continues,

Was nun die zahlreichen gesänge, die eingestreuten lyrischen partien, die tänze und balletaufführungen anbelangt, die uns fast in jedem der heroischen dramen des dichters begegnen, so wurde dieser dramatische firlefanz auf der englischen bühne durch Davenant eingeführt.

He goes on to explain the nature of Davenant's operas, by which “wurde das englische drama gewissermassen noch einmal in seinem embryonalem zustand zur zeit der ‘Dumb Shows’ und ‘Interludes’ zurückversetzt,” and remarks that the Siege of Rhodes, originating in these musical and spectacular entertainments and written in part, but only in part, in heroic couplets,

ist in gewissem sinne das erste heroische drama der Engländer. Der begründer des regelrechten heroischen dramas in England war dagegen Lord Orrery, welcher sowohl in seiner behandlung der heroischen gefühle, wie auch in seinem zurückgreifen auf die Scudéry-romane, unserem Dryden den weg zeigte.

Several errors are included in these statements. The first of these is in regard to the part which the Siege of Rhodes played in the establishment of the heroic play and the determination of its characteristics. Ohlsen should not have been taken to task for a statement that rests on Dryden's own authority in the well-known passage in his essay “Of Heroick Playes”: “The first light we had of them on the English Theatre was from the late Sir William D' Avenant: it being forbidden him in the Rebellious times to act Tragedies and Comedies … he was forc'd to turn his thoughts another way: and to introduce the examples of moral virtue, writ in verse, and perform'd in Recitative Musique. The Original of this Musick and of the Scenes which adorn'd his work, he had from the Italian Opera's: but he heightened his Characters (as I may probably imagine) from the examples of Corneille and some French Poets. In this Condition did this part of Poetry remain at His Majesties return. When growing bolder, as being now own'd by a publick Authority, he review'd his Siege of Rhodes and caus'd it to be acted as a just Drama, but as few men have the happiness to begin and finish any new project, so neither did he live to make his design perfect … For myself and others, who come after him, we are bound, with all veneration to his memory, to acknowledge what advantage we receiv'd from that excellent groundwork which he laid: and, since it is an easie thing to add to what already is invented, we ought all of us, without envy to him, or partiality to our selves, to yield him the precedence in it.”

This declaration has perhaps been too currently received without detailed examination of the nature of Davenant's contribution, but how little it accords on its face value with Holzhausen's view appears in Dryden's specific reference to an “excellent ground-work,” his indebtedness and that of others (Orrery and Howard) to Davenant, and his additions to what was “already invented.” What these additions were, we learn later: “Having done him this justice, as my guide; I may do my self so much, as to give an account of what I have perform'd after him. I observ'd then, as I said, what was wanting to the perfection of his Siege of Rhodes: which was Design and variety of Characters.”

The Siege of Rhodes need not be examined here in detail to disprove Holzhausen's statement. His reference to ‘Dumb Shows’ and ‘Interludes,’ unless humorously intended, is little less than extraordinary. The plot of the Siege of Rhodes is fairly elaborate and the dramatic interest sufficiently sustained. Holzhausen says it is written in part, but only in part, in heroic couplets, but omits to note that this measure is characteristically used for the more purely dramatic portions, that the use of other measures is simply incidental to its operatic form, and that, when these occur, the heroic conception quite as markedly dominates both characterization and sentiment. Moreover, to cite evidence not hitherto advanced, Davenant in his Prefatory Address, omitted after the first edition (Works, 1873, 3: 232-235), declares he has observed “the Ancient Dramatic distinctions made for time,” and remarks that the story is “Heroical” and (anticipating Dryden's “patterns of virtue”) “notwithstanding the continual hurry and busy agitations of a hot Siege, is (I hope) intelligibly convey'd to advance the characters of Virtue in the shapes of valour and conjugal Love.” Further, Davenant in the edition of 1663, in the Dedication, specifically uses the term “Heroic Plays” before Dryden took up the mode and before Orrery's plays appeared. Further, on every page the heroic note is unmistakable. The theme of honor won by valor is repeated indefinitely, and with it that of valor inspired by love; so also “virtue's pattern” appears, conquering beauty, rivalry in nobility of soul, the use of trains of equivoque, and even, in a minor relation, the conflict between love and honor. Such a point as that Roxolana is the direct ancestress of the long line of wicked empresses and emperors tailing out into the eighteenth century hardly needs to be referred to. The important fact to be noted is not merely that this is genuine heroic material and that the treatment is heroic, but that the forced, strained, romantically enthusiastic spirit of the sentiment and diction is precisely that which appears in Dryden. Further, it as definitely does not appear in Orrery, who, while representing transcendent virtue and using a story romantic enough, has plainly as his ideal, and succeeds in reproducing in some measure, the tone and spirit of the French classical drama. Also—a point of importance in considering the question of relative influence—Dryden straightforwardly follows Davenant in presenting his characters in scenes diversified as much as possible by bustle and confusion and the alarums of war.

It seems scarcely possible that any one could read Dryden and Orrery side by side in connection with the Siege of Rhodes without having these facts appear as self-evident, save if only the judgment of the reader were prejudiced by his holding a special brief for Orrery. Holzhausen was probably led astray by another error, leading him to claim more for Orrery in every regard than was justified. This error is not so self-evident. In maintaining that Orrery was the originator of the true heroic play, he says it was Orrery who led Dryden to the French romances, and caused the introduction into the drama of their ideals and sentiment with respect to love and honor. But these appear definitely in Davenant, and where else than in the French romance could he have got them? The matter does not rest on such mere assertion; it is susceptible of specific explication. Holzhausen, in claiming for Orrery the use of the French romance as dramatic material, has reference, of course, to his Mustapha, the fable of which he drew from Mlle. de Scudéry's Ibrahim—the only play of his, by the way, taken from the romances. But Davenant, years before him, used Ibrahim in the same manner. Orrery took the history of Mustapha et Zéangir. He discarded the Persian princesses, Feliciana and Axiamira, which figure in that story, and changed the scene, turning to Knolles's History of the Turks and using Solyman's occupation of Hungary (ed. 1620, p. 713 a), introducing as minor characters the Queen of Hungary and her young son, the King. Davenant, something like eight years before (the precise time cannot be stated, as one does not know during what attack of gout Mustapha was written), turning to Ibrahim, drew from it his types of character, motives of dramatic action, heroic sentiment, and the rest. Solyman he took bodily, making him even more of a pattern of virtue. On Ibrahim he modeled his hero, Alphonso. His fable represents an adaptation or derivation of the story of Ibrahim. In the romance, Solyman, out of his affection for Ibrahim and under the influence of Roxolana's machinations, sends for, and carries off by violence, Isabella, the Princess of Monaco. She is present in his court, and he conceives a passion for her, which only his nobility enables him ultimately to control, thus permitting the final happiness of the lovers. Davenant, like Orrery later, goes outside the romance to Knolles for his scene, taking the siege of Rhodes. For dramatic effectiveness he places his hero in Rhodes and causes the lady to seek him out and put herself in Solyman's power to win Alphonso's safety. This was, also, in part a necessary consequence of his use of the siege of Rhodes, to which he was led not only by its picturesque effectiveness for scenic purposes, but also as enabling him to bring in, in connection with the concourse of nations at Rhodes, patriotic references to the transcendency of the English arms. A conclusive point, as regards Davenant's use of the romance is the character of Solyman. He is emphatically not the bloody tyrannic Solyman of Knolles; he is the Solyman of Ibrahim, though made still more superior to all human weakness.

Apart from specific proof, no one who has read what Malone somewhere calls the somniferous romances of that venerable spinster, Mlle. de Scudéry—despite which, the Ibrahim is a fine book and an interesting, though portentously long—can doubt for a moment whence Davenant drew the ideals and coloration of his play. The reason why Davenant's indebtedness for these, and for the characters and fable of his play, to Mlle. de Scudéry has never been noted is because it is natural to think of her as coming too late to render it possible. The fact is Ibrahim was published in 1641 and the first part of the Siege of Rhodes dates 1656. This leads to the further and final argument. Davenant was involved in a royalist conspiracy, and saved himself by flight to France in the year 1641, the precise year in which Mlle. de Scudéry, under her brother Philip's name, published the Ibrahim. It is impossible that he was ignorant of the work, impossible in view of the argument above that he did not draw from it for the Siege of Rhodes. It is also impossible that Dryden did not recognize the fact, as anyone who reads Ibrahim must necessarily recognize it. Orrery cannot be said, with Holzhausen, to have been the cause of leading Dryden to the romances. Dryden followed Davenant in his use of his sources, as he did in the manner of his treatment of the material thence drawn. What Orrery did was to make the heroic play fashionable—give it standing and aid in ensuring it success.

It is of the highest importance that Davenant should receive full credit as the true originator of the heroic play in every essential characteristic, or a further point of paramount importance will not clearly appear—the development of the heroic play out of the earlier romantic drama. Professor Schelling has suggested to me their fundamental similarity, instancing Fletcher in particular and the characteristics displayed even in so early a play as Philaster. The pertinency of the comparison is at once evident, as soon as it is pointed out, but has never been indicated and emphasized. While, however, it at once brings the heroic play, as a product of decadent romanticism, into relation with the earlier ultra-romantic drama, the heroic drama is formally so well-defined and singular, that one would at first be disposed to doubt any definite organic connection in development. Long before the heroic play, this or that dramatist transcended nature more or less beyond measure in the intensification of traits of character, or the forcing of situation, or the like. It is inherent in romanticism that the temptation will come to achieve ever heightened effects by transcending nature to a degree or in a manner productive of an infraction of the canon of nature. This generally, however, has, in the earlier dramatists such as Fletcher or Massinger the quality of generous aspiration, a noble ambition; the result is not inflation or extravagance. It is not only a question of degree, but also of manner and purpose. At the very beginning of the artistic drama, there is, in Marlowe, as a consequence of his individual temperament, a prodigious enlargement of the proportions, properties, passions, and possessions of his heroes, which so far from suggesting violence to nature, or leading to the bombastic or preposterous, creates an illusion, possesses an impressiveness, akin to the supernatural. But all this seems at first far removed from the prescribed formulas and fixed and rigid forms, and superimposed artificialities, of the heroic play. Granting that its romanticism was decadent while that of the earlier romanticists was verging on or prophetic of decadence only, one would still be inclined to believe that the heroic play was a separate and special development due to particular influences. But as soon as Davenant's responsibility for the development of the heroic play is justly apprehended and appraised, a further consequence follows. Upon examination, it proves to be the case that a distinct connection can be traced; that is, that in him the process of perversion of Fletcherian romanticism can be distinctly traced.

The evidence may be found in Davenant's play, licensed in 1634, under the title The Courage of Love. Alvaro and Evandra are heroical characters. Alvaro in his rebuke to Prospero for the capture of Evandra uses the unmistakeable language of the heroic hero in the making. Had he captured her, he says, he would have taught his steed the motion of a lamb, put her upon him,

                                                                      Whist I, her slave,
Walk'd by, marking what hasty flowers sprung up,
Invited by her eyebeams from their cold roots;
And this would each true soldier do, that had
Refin'd his courage with the sober checks
Of sweet philosophy.

Alvaro in lamenting to Evandra the action of Prospero says

                                                                      Sure, Evandra, thou
Art strongly pitiful, that dost so long
Conceal an anger that would kill us both.

Alvaro later exclaims

Danger! How noble lovers smile at such
A thought. 'Tis love that only fortifies
And gives us mighty vigor to attempt
On other's force, and suffer more than we
Inflict. Would all the soldiers, that I lead
In active war, were lovers too, though lean,
Feebled, and weakened with their ladies' frowns
How, when their valour's stirred, would they march strong,
Through hideous gulphs, through numerous herds
Of angry lions, and consuming fire?

Alvaro charges Prospero in the presence of Evandra:

ALV.
I charge thee by our love, by all my care
That bred thee from thy childhood to a sense
Of honour, and the worthiest feats of war,
Thou keep Evandra safe, till happier days
Conspire to give her liberty. Use her
With such respective holiness as thou
Would'st do the reliques of a saint enshrin'd,
And teach thy rougher manners tenderness
Enough to merit her society.
PROS.
What need this conjuration, sir? I mean
To die for her, that I may save your life.
A brave design! disswade me not. Though I
Fail oft in choice of fitting enterprise,
I know this is becoming, sir, and good.
ALV.
Thou die for her? Alas, poor Prospero!
That will not satisfy, the shaft aims here;
Or if it would, I do not like thou should'st
Thus press into a cause that I reserve
To dignify my self. Urge it no more.
PROS.
What am I fit for then, if not to die?
EVAN.
How am I worthy of this noble strife.

The interest of the play turns chiefly on generous rivalry between the principal characters as to who shall succeed in performing an act of heroic self-sacrifice, which incidentally imposes upon Leonell a conflict between his love and honor. Melora and Evandra both yield themselves to the Duke, who, not being able to determine the true Evandra, decrees they both shall die. Alvaro and Prospero challenge Leonell to acknowledge his love for Evandra, and when he does so, to the intense astonishment of the reader, Alvaro expresses the “prompt and warm delight” their similarity of feeling affords him, and the three seal a friendship “good and inviolate, lasting as truth.” The three lovers see Evandra and Melora passing on the upper stage, their place of confinement, and a passage of heroic hyperbole follows. Leonell exclaims:

Would I were in a cannon charg'd, then st[r]aight
Shot out to batter it, and be no more.
PROS.
Would all the stones might be ordain'd my food,
Till I could eat their passage out.

Alvaro remarks that these “angry exaltations show but poor,” but has one not less exalted to suggest. Have they not grief enough, he asks, to die without their swords?

Let us with fix'd and wat'ry eyes behold
These ladies suffer, but with silence still,
Calmly like pinion'd doves; and when we see
The fatal stroke is given, swell up our sad
And injur'd hearts until they break.

These citations, though brief, will sufficiently evidence the heroic tone of the play. A later play, The Unfortunate Lovers, licensed in 1638, does not display the heroic note so markedly, though it appears in such paragons of beauty and fidelity as Arthiopa and Amaranta, in the overwhelming conquests their beauty instantly effects, and in the vow of Ascoli. The fact that this play is less markedly extravagant is negligible for this reason. These two plays are the last Davenant wrote before the Civil War. After Davenant had been in France and had learned to know the French romance, in the year 1649 he prepared the Courage of Love for the press, and published it, but not, it is significant to note, under the title it bore in 1634. The title he now gave it was Love and Honour, that is to say, he used the very words that later became the shibboleth and structural formula of the heroic play. Whether or no he added or intensified the heroic passages at this time is immaterial, for this play with its significant title and its heroic features antedates the Siege of Rhodes seven years and Orrery's first play, Mustapha, some fifteen years.

A point which may be briefly referred to here is that these and others of Davenant's plays reflect the cult of Platonic love adopted by England from France, recently treated so helpfully and delightfully by Professor Fletcher (“Précieuses at the Court of Charles I,” Journal of Comparative Literature, Vol. 1). Professor Fletcher, in treating the love-dialogue in poetry affected by this cult, has not noted that the use of these sentimental Amoebics passed through Davenant into the heroic play of Dryden, where they became a minor characteristic feature. The cult also contributed to the heroic play some part of its metaphysics and casuistry in dealing with questions of love and honor. The vogue of the heroic in France followed and in part grew out of the Platonic cult, and England followed France, though in a different literary mode and after a considerable interval of time.

It may also be suggested here that the extent of the debt of the heroic play through Davenant to Fletcher may be gathered by a reference to Professor Thorndyke's chapter on the characteristics of the romances of Beaumont and Fletcher in his Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere. The points he makes might repeatedly be applied as well to the heroic play as to the plays he is treating. The difference is that the elements and features noted have in the heroic play been artificialized and rendered extravagant. Health in the one has given place to a diseased condition in the other. Davenant, the link between Fletcher and Dryden, displays the process of decadence in operation. He represents the appropriation and the perversion of the Fletcherian romanticism on the one hand, and the development of the formal and other individual characteristics of the heroic play on the other, as well as the earliest use of the source from which its most characteristic material was derived.

It remains to run somewhat rapidly over the remainder of the genetic period of the heroic play till Dryden appears. In 1651 (Geneste, 2:161) appeared the Rebellion of Naples, dated mdcii (read mdcli). This I have not seen, but, so far as I can gather, it is not heroic. It is to be expected, as was the case, that Beaumont and Fletcher would be popular during the period after the Restoration, and this already appears when Philaster was acted in 1651 or 1652 (see the edition of 1652). The statement is made in the address, in the fifth impression be it noted, of this edition: “This play so affectionately taken and approved by the Auditors, or hearing Spectators … hath received (as appears by the copious vent of four Editions) no less acceptance with improvement of you likewise the Readers.”

In 1653 Hemming's Fatal Contract was printed. A few lines of rime appear, and the play is violent in a way that suggests the later heroic mode, but it is not definitely heroic. Settle's revision, Love and Revenge, in 1675, made it very definitely so in parts; it was also printed in 1687 as the Eunuch.

I have not seen Sir Robert Stapleton's Royal Choice (Geneste, S. R. 29 Nov. 1653). In 1656 the first part of Davenant's Siege of Rhodes was acted and printed. Both parts were played in 1661 and Pepys speaks of the scene as “very fine and magnificent.” In 1661 or 1662 Love and Honour was given. Pepys saw it, “being the first time of their acting it: is a good plot and very well done”; also later, “and a very good play it is.” Porter's Villain, after a production, probably in 1662, was printed in 1663. It is wholly in blank verse and not heroic.

The year 1662 saw the production of Sir Samuel Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours, a confessed adaptation of a play attributed then and often now to Calderon, but really by Coello, Los Empeños de Seis Horas. This play won the highest praise from Pepys and the public generally. It is somewhat surprising, considering its source, to find that it contains indubitable heroic elements, and even frequent use of rime. It was revised in some particulars and some additions made in 1669, but it seems quite impossible that all the heroic elements should be due to revision. I have seen only the edition of 1712, but Collier's comments in Dodsley, and Tuke's own references to his revisions in his preface, seem to make it clear that they were not considerable in number or amount. The passages in rime are numerous. The following examples will serve to illustrate the heroic nature of the play.

PORCIO.
The Man I love, is forc'd to fly my sight
And like a Parthian, kills me in his flight.
One whom I never saw, I must embrace,
Or else destroy the honour of my Race.
A Brother's Care, more cruel than his Hate,
O how perplext are the intrigues of Fate.

Note the following passage also of neat argument and repartee, so characteristic one would refer it to revision, had not Davenant already provided an exemplar:

HEN.
They by their violence the Laws invade.
CAR.
But you, by your Revenge, the Laws degrade.
HEN.
Honour obliges me to take Revenge.
CAR.
Honour's Justice, rightly understood;
Your Idol Honour's only heat of Blood.
HEN.
Honour's Opinion, which rules all the World.
CAR.
Opinion, Henrique, only governs fools;
Reason the Wise, and Truly Valiant rules.
HEN.
Reason's Opinion, for every one,
Stamps Reason on his own Opinion.
CAR.
Then by your argument, when People joyn
In making Laws, because they all Opine,
Laws are Reasonable, and bind us all.
HEN.
Curse on your Sophistry, to treat a Friend
With Figures that's raging in a Fever.

Octavio says in Act V.

My Life and Death was uniform; as I
Liv'd firm to Love and Honour, so I die.

Similarly characteristic is the following elocutionary passage on friendship in Act V:

Friendship's a specious Name, made to deceive
Those, whose good Nature tempts them to believe;
The traffique of good Offices 'mongst Friends
Moves from our selves, and in our selves it ends.
When Competition brings us to the test,
Then we find Friendship in self-interest.

Antonio says

                                        it must ne'er be said
That passion could deturn Antonio
From the strict Rules of Honour.

Again,

ANT.
Henrique, 'tis true, but finding in my Breast
An equal strife 'twixt Honour and Revenge,
I do in just compliance with them both
Preserve him from your Sword, to fall by mine.
CAR.
Brave Man, how nicely he does Honour weigh!
Justice her self holds not the Scales more even.
HEN.
My Honour suffers more, as yet, than yours,
And I must have my share in the Revenge.
ANT.
My Honour, Sir, is so sublim'd by Love,
'Twill not admit Comparison or Rival.

Though I was not able to compare the later edition, revised in the heyday of the heroic period, with the first edition of 1663, it seems worth while to indicate here the possibility that Tuke anticipated Orrery and Dryden; if the heroic elements of the play prove to be due to revision, it remains as an interesting example of a piece refashioned to suit a prevailing taste and may be added in any case to the list of plays which are heroic or partly so. The possibility that the original version was heroic is the more interesting when it is considered that Tuke was a royalist and exile, and therefore familiar with current French literary modes, and further for the reason that it was written expressly by command of the King and adapted to his taste. Tuke's literary activity by the way, was not confined to play writing. His biographers tell us that he wrote a character of Charles I, and a treatise on the ordering and generation of green Colchester oysters.

In 1663 both parts of the Siege of Rhodes were printed. Stapleton's Step-mother, t. c., licensed December 26 and also produced according to Downes, I have not seen. An important question rises here regarding the possible production in this year of Orrery's Mustapha. This is Geneste's conclusion on the ground that Downes says Mrs. Davenport acted Roxolana, and this would have been possible only in this year, because of her betrayal. Downes, it is true, also says the play was new in 1665, but Geneste is inclined to credit the statement regarding Mrs. Davenport, and to believe that Downes has erred in supposing the production in 1665 to be the first production, though it would seem as if he might as readily have erred in regard to the person taking the part of Roxolana. The point is worth examining, as, if Mustapha was not produced before 1665 in accordance with the usual view, he was not the first to produce a genuine heroic play with spoken dialogue. Some additional evidences, of a sort, can be adduced in support of Geneste's conclusion. Orrery's Henry V was acted in 1664. If Mustapha was first produced in 1665, Henry V would be the first play of Orrery's to have public representation. But Dryden, in the Essay of Dramatick Poesy, speaking of the public acceptance of rimed plays, says that “no serious plays written since the king's return have been more kindly received by them, than The Siege of Rhodes, the Mustapha, The Indian Queen, and Indian Emperor.” The order is significant as presumably one of time, and the Mustapha is placed before the Indian Queen given in 1664. Had Henry V been the first of Orrery's performed, Dryden, one would suppose, would have mentioned it in place of Mustapha, for he is speaking of plays acted and receiving public acceptance, and the use of a chronologic order would appear inevitable. If mere courtesy or deference dictated placing a play of Orrery's before a play written by his brother-in-law and himself and one of his own, Henry V would have served as well, and would have been in proper chronologic order. There is no apparent reason for passing over Henry V for a play more recent, the Mustapha, for Henry V was extremely successful. “To the new play, at the Duke's house, of ‘Henry the Fifth;’” writes Pepys, August 13th, 1664, “a most noble play written by my Lord Orrery; wherein Betterton, Harris, and Ianthe's parts are most incomparably wrote and done, and the whole play the most full of height and raptures of wit and sense that ever I heard.” Dr. Clerke did not think highly of it together with others selected by Davenant (see Pepys, February 13, 1666-7), but he had an unrepresented play of his own in his pocket. Compare also Pepys, Aug. 10, 1667. The great success of Mustapha, the fact that it was presented before the Court, may of course have counted with Dryden, but one finds it difficult not to regard the list as chronologic.

Also, when Dryden dedicated the Rival Ladies to Orrery in 1664, he indicates knowledge of more than one play of Orrery's in saying that he is fortified in his use of rime by Orrery's own use of it. It is not of course certain that the plays referred to included Mustapha, as Henry V certainly was, but it is probable. Such a reference does not, of course, imply necessarily public performance, and it is certainly strange, if Mustapha had actually been performed the year before in 1663, that Dryden should not have made a complimentary reference to the actual presentation, unless possibly some mischance attended the performance. Dryden does make what seems to be a reference to public presentation as follows: “Where my reasons cannot prevail, I am sure your Lordship's example must.” This can have force only if it refers to public presentation and its effect on the public. But the remark may refer merely to Henry V. This was given August 13th, and if Dryden's Rival Ladies was printed before that date, its reference would be to the forthcoming production, and it would be easy to understand why no specific compliment was paid in regard to its success.

The point is raised simply because of Geneste's suggestion. On the whole the evidence in support of it has little weight. The likelihood is that Downes was in error regarding Mrs. Davenport's having played Roxolana. Assuming the usual view then to be correct, it follows that the first heroic play publicly produced after the operatic Siege of Rhodes was the Indian Queen of Howard and Dryden which was played in January some months before Orrery's Henry V in August. This fact has certainly an important bearing on the question of Orrery's influence. Howard and Dryden may certainly have been familiar with Orrery's plays before production; nothing would have been more likely. But why force the facts and suppose they were led by his plays to produce a play some seven months before Orrery produced his first play? Why further suppose their play to have been influenced by his play or plays when nothing in it can be shown to be due to his influence—when, on the contrary, it bears the closest resemblance to the Siege of Rhodes in treatment, sentiment, effort to attain spectacular effect, and derives therefrom its use of operatic interludes? Holzhausen's claim for Orrery proves, in view of these facts, wholly untenable. All that he did was to lend his support to popular acceptance of the heroic mode.

In 1664 was also given according to Pepys (September 28th) the General, “Lord Broghill's second play.” His authorship of this play is doubtful; it was never acknowledged. Falkland's Marriage Night was printed, to be acted later in 1667; it is in blank verse and not heroic. Flecknoe's Love's Kingdom, pastoral t. c., was acted and printed, which Geneste calls a good play. According to Langbaine, this was a slight revision of Love's Dominion, published in 1653. Pompey the Great was translated by ‘certain Persons of Honour,’ including apparently Waller, Tuke, and the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex.

In 1665, Howard published his Foure New Playes, containing, in addition to the Indian Queen, another heroic play, the Vestal Virgin, in which rime and repartee in couplets are frequently used. Crowne published a romance, Pandion and Amphigenia, or the History of the Coy Lady of Thessalia. In April Orrery's Mustapha was given, to be repeated at Court in October of the following year. And in May, the Indian Emperor, Dryden's independent work, was acted with enthusiastic applause, and the reign of the heroic play, in the hands of its great master, had begun.