The tragedy of _All for Love_, which followed _Aurung-Zebe_, in 1678, and in which he falls back on blank verse, is pronounced by many critics to be the very best of all his dramas; and perhaps none of his plays has been more read than the _Spanish Friar_, written in 1680. Yet it may be doubted if in any of these plays Dryden achieved a degree of immediate success equal to that which had attended his _Tyrannic Love_ and his _Conquest of Granada_, written before his laureateship. This was not owing so much to the single blow struck at his fame by Buckingham's _Rehearsal_ as to the growth of that general spirit of criticism and disaffection which pursues every author after the public have become sufficiently acquainted with his style to expect the good, and look rather for the bad, in what he writes. Thus, we find one critic of the day, Martin Clifford, who was a man of some note, addressing Dryden, a year or two after his laureateship, in this polite fashion: "You do live in as much ignorance and darkness as you did in the womb; your writings are like a Jack-of-all-trades' shop; they have a variety, but nothing of value; and, if thou art not the dullest plant-animal that ever the earth produced, all that I have conversed with are strangely mistaken in thee." This onslaught of Mr. Clifford's is clearly to be regarded as only that gentleman's; but what young Rochester said and thought about Dryden at this time is more likely to have been what was said and thought generally by the critical part of the town.
"Well sir, 'tis granted: I said Dryden's rhymes Were stolen, unequal--nay, dull, many times. What foolish patron is there found of his So blindly partial to deny me this? But that his plays, embroidered up and down With wit and learning, justly pleased the town, In the same paper I as freely own. Yet, having this allowed, the heavy mass That stuffs up his loose volumes must not pass.
But, to be just, 'twill to his praise be found His excellencies more than faults abound; Nor dare I from his sacred temples tear The laurel which he best deserves to wear.
And may I not have leave impartially To search and censure Dryden's works, and try If these gross faults his choice pen doth commit Proceed from want of judgment or of wit, Or if his lumpish fancy doth refuse Spirit and grace to his loose slattern muse?"