The Duke
of Buckingham attacked the system of rhyming plays from the foundation;
Leigh [Transcriber's note: Print unclear], Clifford, and other
scribblers, wrote criticisms [Transcriber's note: Print unclear] upon
those of our author in particular; and Elkanah Settle was able to form a
faction heretical enough to maintain, that he could write such
compositions better than Dryden.
The witty farce of the "Rehearsal" is said to have been meditated by its
authors (for it was the work of several hands) so early as a year or two
after the Restoration, when Sir William Davenant's operas and tragedies
were the favourite exhibitions. The ostensible author was the witty
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham whose dissipation was marked with
shades of the darkest profligacy. He lived an unprincipled statesman, a
fickle projector, a wavering friend, a steady enemy; and died a
bankrupt, an outcast, and a proverb. The Duke was unequal to that
masculine satire, which depends for edge and vigour upon the conception
and expression of the author.[6] But he appears to have possessed
considerable powers of discerning what was ludicrous, and enough of
subordinate humour to achieve an imitation of colloquial peculiarities,
or a parody upon remarkable passages of poetry,--talents differing as
widely from real wit as mimicry does from true comic action. Besides,
Buckingham, as a man of fashion and a courtier, was master of the
_persiflage_, or jargon, of the day, so essentially useful as the medium
of conveying light humour.
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