their splendour and importance, and interest us in spite of our more
sober judgment. The introduction of the ghost of Almanzor's mother
seems to have been intended to shew how the hero could support even an
interview with an inhabitant of the other world. At least, the
professed purpose of her coming might have been safely trusted to the
virtue of Almahide, and her power over her lover. It afforded an
opportunity, however, to throw in some fine poetry, of which Dryden
has not failed to avail himself. Were it not a peculiar attribute of
the heroic drama, it might be mentioned as a defect, that during the
siege of the last possession of the Spanish Moors, by an enemy hated
for his religion, and for his success, the principle of patriotism is
hardly once alluded to through the whole piece. The fate, or the
wishes, of Almahide, Lyndaraxa, and Benzayda, are all that interest
the Moorish warriors around them, as if the Christian was not
thundering at their gates, to exterminate at once their nation and
religion. Indeed, so essentially necessary are the encouragements of
beauty to military achievement, that we find queen Isabella ordering
to the field of battle a _corps de reserve_ of her maids of honour to
animate the fighting warriors with their smiles, and counteract the
powerful charms of the Moorish damsels. Nor is it an inferior fault,
that, although the characters are called Moors, there is scarce any
expression, or allusion, which can fix the reader's attention upon
their locality, except an occasional interjection to Alha, or Mahomet.

If, however, the reader can abstract his mind from the qualities now
deemed essential to a play, and consider the Conquest of Granada as a
piece of romantic poetry, there are few compositions in the English
language, which convey a more lively and favourable display of the
magnificence of fable, of language, and of action, proper to that
style of composition. Amid the splendid ornaments of the structure we