lose sight of occasional disproportion and incongruity; and, at an
early age particularly, there are few poems which make a more deep
impression upon the imagination, than the Conquest of Granada.

The two parts of this drama were brought out in the same season,
probably in winter, 1669, or spring, 1670. They were received with
such applause, that Langbaine conceives their success to have been the
occasion of Dryden's undervaluing his predecessors in dramatic
writing. The Conquest of Granada was not printed till 1672.


Footnote:
1. There is something ludicrous in the idea of a beauty, or a
gallant, of that gay and licentious court poring over a work of
five or six folio volumes by way of amusement; but such was the
taste of the age, that Fynes Morison, in his precepts to
travellers, can "think no book better for his pupils' discourse
than Amadis of Gaule; for the knights errant and the ladies of
court do therein exchange courtly speeches."




TO

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE

DUKE[1].