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    THE

    WORKS

    OF

    JOHN DRYDEN,

    NOW FIRST COLLECTED

    _IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES_.

    ILLUSTRATED

    WITH NOTES,

    HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,

    AND

    A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

    BY

    WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.

    VOL. VIII.

    LONDON:

    PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,

    BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.

    1808.




CONTENTS

OF

VOLUME EIGHTH.


                                                                 PAGE.
    Amphitryon, or the Two Sosias, a Comedy,                        1

    Epistle Dedicatory to Sir William Leveson Gower, Bart.          7

    King Arthur, or the British Worthy, a Dramatic Opera,         107

    Epistle Dedicatory to the Marquis of Halifax,                 113

    Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy,                       181

    Epistle Dedicatory to the Earl of Rochester,                  191

    Preface,                                                      196

    The Life of Cleomenes, translated from
    Plutarch by Mr Thomas Creech,                                 207

    Love Triumphant, or Nature will prevail, a Tragi-comedy,      331

    Epistle Dedicatory to the Earl of Salisbury,                  337

    Prologue, Song, Secular Masque, and Epilogue, written for
    the Pilgrim, revived for Dryden's benefit in 1700,            437




AMPHITRYON:

OR

THE TWO SOSIAS.

A COMEDY.

    _Egregiam verò laudem, et spolia ampla refertis,
    Una dolo <DW37>ûm si fæmina victa duorum est._      VIRG.




AMPHITRYON.


Plautus, the venerable father of Roman comedy, who flourished during
the second Punic war, left us a play on the subject of Amphitryon,
which has had the honour to be deemed worthy of imitation by Moliere
and Dryden. It cannot be expected, that the plain, blunt, and
inartificial stile of so rude an age should bear any comparison with
that of authors who enjoyed the highest advantages of the polished
times, to which they were an ornament. But the merit of having devised
and embodied most of the comic distresses, which have excited laughter
throughout so many ages, is to be attributed to the ancient bard,
upon whose original conception of the plot his successors have made
few and inconsiderable improvements. It is true, that, instead of a
formal _Prologus_, who stepped forth, in the character of Mercury,
and gravely detailed to the audience the plot of the play, Moliere
and Dryden have introduced it in the modern more artificial method,
by the dialogue of the actors in the first scene. It is true, also,
that with great contempt of one of the unities, afterwards deemed so
indispensible by the ancients, Plautus introduces the birth of Hercules
into a play, founded upon the intrigue which occasioned that event.
Yet with all these disadvantages, and that of the rude flatness of
his dialogue,--resting frequently, for wit