"
The publication of this criticism, the first that contained an express
attempt to regulate dramatic writing, drew general attention, and gave
some offence. Sir Robert Howard felt noways flattered at being made,
through the whole dialogue, the champion of unsuccessful opinions: and a
partiality to the depreciated blank verse seems to have been hereditary
in his family.[20] He therefore hasted to assert his own opinion against
that of Dryden, in the preface to one of his plays, called the "Duke of
Lerma," published in the middle of the year 1668. It is difficult for
two friends to preserve their temper in a dispute of this nature; and
there may be reason to believe, that some dislike to the alliance of
Dryden, as a brother-in-law, mingled with the poetical jealousy of Sir
Robert Howard.[21] The Preface to the "Duke of Lerma" is written in the
tone of a man of quality and importance, who is conscious of stooping
beneath his own dignity, and neglecting his graver avocations, by
engaging in a literary dispute. Dryden was not likely, of many men, to
brook this tone of affected superiority. He retorted upon Sir Robert
Howard very severely, in a tract, entitled, the "Defence of the Essay on
Dramatic Poesy," which he prefixed to the second edition of the "Indian
Emperor," published in 1668. In this piece, the author mentions his
antagonist as master of more than twenty legions of arts and sciences,
in ironical allusion to Sir Robert's coxcombical affectation of
universal knowledge, which had already exposed him to the satire of
Shadwell.
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