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162 making the attempt. "As," he writes, "I am no successor to Homer in his wit, so neither do I desire to be in his poverty. I can make no rhapsodies, nor go a begging at the Grecian doors, while I sing the praises of their ancestors. The times of Virgil please me better, because he had an Augustus for his Patron; and to draw the allegory nearer you, I am sure I shall not want a Mæcenas with him. 'Tis for your Lordship to stir up that remembrance in his Majesty, which his many avocations of business have caused him, I fear, to lay aside." But the patronage was not granted to him, and the subject which he would most probably have selected, was seized on and marred by Sir Richard Blackmore.

Since Dryden wrote "Aurungzebe," three years had elapsed, in which he had paid especial attention to the subject of versification, and made preparation for the work on English Prosody which he then contemplated writing. He, during this period, made Shakespeare his constant study, and this worked a most salutary change in his æsthetical and critical views. Notwithstanding, however, this revolution in his taste, he again set about what he had before attempted, an alteration of Shakespeare; but upon this occasion without a coadjutor, and with greater success. "All for Love, or the World well Lost," is an adaptation of "Antony and Cleopatra," and in some respects Dryden has improved it as an acting play. Sir W. Scott admits that, "in discarding a number of uninteresting characters, the plan of Dryden's play must unequivocally be preferred to that of Shakespeare in point of coherence, unity, and simplicity." But Sir Walter goes a step farther, in which we cannot follow him, and institutes a comparison, favourable to Dryden, between the two descriptions of the voyage of Cleopatra down the Cydnus.