Or, at the least, a dance of three hours long;

must refer to D'Avenant's opera, called the "Siege of Rhodes,"
acted in 1662; and that the expression, "in plays, he finds, you love
_mistakes_," alludes to the blunders of Teague, an Irish footman,
in Sir Robert Howard's play of the "Committee." The "Wild Gallant" was
revived and published in 1669, with a new prologue and epilogue, and
some other alterations, not of a nature, judging from the prologue, to
improve the morality of the piece. That the play had but indifferent
success in the action, the poet himself has informed us, with the
qualifying addition, that it more than once was the divertisement
of Charles II., by his own command. This honourable distinction it
probably acquired by the influence of the Countess of Castlemaine,
then the royal favourite, to whom Dryden addresses some verses on
her encouraging this play.--See Vol. XI p. 18.--The plot is borrowed
avowedly from the Spanish, and partakes of the unnatural incongruity,
common to the dramatic pieces of that nation, as also of the bustle
and intrigue, with which they are usually embroiled. Few modern
audiences would endure the absurd grossness of the deceit practised on
Lord Nonsuch in the fourth act; nor is the plot of Lady Constance, to
gain her lover, by marrying him in the disguise of a heathen divinity,
more grotesque than unnatural.--Yet, in the under characters, some
liveliness of dialogue is maintained; and the reader may be amused
with particular scenes, though, as a whole, the early fate of the play
was justly merited.

These passages, in which the plot stands still, while the spectators
are entertained with flippant dialogue and repartee, are ridiculed in
the scene betwixt Prince Prettyman and Tom Thimble in the Rehearsal;
the facetious Mr Bibber being the original of the latter personage.