But when we come to compare what he wrote, regardless of
Minerva's averted face, with the spontaneous production of his happier
muse, we shall be inclined to think his example one of the strongest
cases against the theory in question. He began his dramatic career, as
usual, by rowing against the strong current of his nature, and pulled
only the more doggedly the more he felt himself swept down the stream.
His first attempt was at comedy, and, though his earliest piece of that
kind (the "Wild Gallant," 1663) utterly failed, he wrote eight others
afterwards. On the 23d February, 1663, Pepys writes in his diary: "To
Court, and there saw the 'Wild Gallant' performed by the king's house;
but it was ill acted, and the play so poor a thing as I never saw in my
life almost, and so little answering the name, that, from the beginning
to the end, I could not, nor can at this time, tell certainly which was
the Wild Gallant. The king did not seem pleased at all the whole play,
nor anybody else." After some alteration, it was revived with more
success. On its publication in 1669 Dryden honestly admitted its former
failure, though with a kind of salvo for his self-love. "I made the town
my judges, and the greater part condemned it.
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