made any difficulty of affigning to Death a dart and the power of striking?

In fettling the order of his works, there is fome difficulty; for, even when they are important enough to be formally offered to a patron, he does not commonly date his dedication; the time of writing and publifhing is not always the fame; nor can the first editions be eafily found, if even from them could be obtained the necessary information.

The time at which his firft play was exhibited is not certainly known, becaufe it was not printed till it was fome years afterwards altered and revived; but if the plays are printed in the order in which they were written, from the dates

dates of fome, thofe of others may be inferred; and thus it may be collected that in 1663, in the thirty-fecond year of his life, he commenced a writer for the stage; compelled undoubtedly by neceffity, for he appears never to have loved that exercife of his genius, or to have much pleased himself with his own dramas.

Of the ftage, when he had once invaded it, he kept poffeffion for many years; not indeed without the competition of rivals who fometimes prevailed, or the cenfure of criticks, which was often poignant and often juft; but with fuch a degree of reputation as made him at least fecure of being heard, whatever

might be the final determination of the

publick.

His firft piece was a comedy called the Wild Gallant. He began with no happy auguries; for his performance was fo much difapproved, that he was compelled to recall it, and change it from its imperfect ftate to the form in which it now appears, and which is yet fufficiently defective to vindicate the criticks.

I wish that there were no neceffity of following the progrefs of his theatrical fame, or tracing the meanders of his mind through the whole feries of his dramatick performances; and indeed there is the lefs, as they do not appear in the collection to which this narration

is to be annexed. It will be fit however to enumerate them, and to take especial notice of thofe that are diftinguished

by any peculiarity intrinfick or concomitant; for the compofition and fate of eight and twenty dramas include too much of a poetical life to be omitted.

In 1664 he publifhed the Rival Ladies, which he dedicated to the earl of Orrery, a man of high reputation both as a writer and a statefman. In this play he made his effay of dramatick rhyme, which he defends in his dedication, with fufficient certainty of a favourable hearing; for Orrery was himfelf a writer of rhyming tragedies.

He then joined with Sir Robert Howard in the Indian Queen, a tragedy

1

in

in rhyme. The parts which either of them wrote are not diftinguished.

The Indian Emperor was published in 1667. It is a tragedy in rhyme, intended for a fequel to Howard's Indian Queen. Of this connection notice was given to the audience by printed bills, diftributed at the door; an expedient fuppofed to be ridiculed in the Rehearfal, when Bays tells how many reams he has printed, to inftill into the audience fome conception of his plot.

In this play is the defcription of Night, which Rymer has made famous by preferring it to thofe of all other poets.

The practice of making tragedies in rhyme was introduced foon after the Refto