ABSTRACT
Aureng-Zebe was the last of D'. s rhymed heroic plays. In the Epistle Dedicatory he says: 'I desire to be no longer the Sisyphus of the Stage; to rowl up a Stone with endless labour and which is perpetually falling down again. A losing gamester, let him sneak away, He bears no ready money from the play. The fate which governs poets thought it fit He should not raise his fortunes by his wit. Meantime, your filthy foreigner will stare, and mutter to himself, 'Ha, gens barbarePAnd, Gad, 'tis well he mutters; well for him-Our butchers else would tear him limb from limb. 'Tis true, the time may come our sons may be infected with this French civility, but this in after-ages will be done: Our poet writes a hundred years too soon. This age comes on too slow, or he too fast, who would excel, when few can make a test betwixt indifferent writing and the best.
