This epilogue bears chiefly reference to the violent controversy, which, about this time, arose between the favourers of the drama and Jeremy Collier, who, in 1698, published "A short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage;"—"I believe," says Johnson, "with no other view, than religious zeal, and honest indignation.[76] He was formed for a controvertist; with sufficient learning, with diction vehement and pointed, though often vulgar and incorrect, with unconquerable pertinacity, with wit in the highest degree keen and sarcastic, and with all those powers exalted and invigorated by just confidence in his cause.

"Thus qualified, and thus incited, he walked forth to battle, and assailed, at once, most of the living writers, from Dryden to Durfey. His onset was violent. Those passages which, while they had stood single, had passed with little notice, when they were accumulated and exposed together, excited horror. The wise and the pious caught the alarm; and the nation wondered why it had so long suffered irreligion and licentiousness to be openly taught at the public charge."—Life of Congreve.

Dryden had his personal share of rough treatment in this indiscriminate attack upon dramatic profligacy. But it is creditable to him, that, whatever his feelings of resentment might be, he was too much conscience-struck to attempt a defence of what was really indefensible. "I shall say the less of Mr Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one." Preface to the Fables.

This candid avowal, and the coincidence of their political sentiments, (for Collier was a rigid Non-juror,) did not save Dryden from some oblique thrusts in an Answer published by Collier to the Vindications of Congreve and Vanburgh, who, less patient or prudent than our poet, had stepped forward to assert the correctness of their dramatic writings. These passages in the "Defence of the Short View," which was published in 1699, seem to have incited our poet to put himself upon his defence, or at least to offer the best apology he could, by throwing upon the gay court of Charles the scandal of importing the open profligacy, which the poet insists had corrupted the stage, instead of being derived from thence. Lord Lansdowne, in a prologue to the "Jew of Venice," when revived, took the freedom to dissent from Dryden and Collier; and, by exculpating both the theatre and court, to throw the whole blame upon the public at large:

There is, in every case of this kind, much partial accusation. The court, stage, and public at large, have a mutual action and re-action on the manners of each other. If the habits of a court be licentious, the poet will hardly venture to paint them noble and innocent; but it will depend upon the extent which that licence has attained amongst his audience at large, whether he represents the courtly vices in gay, or in disgusting and odious colours. In any case, the dramatist, who degrades himself by indecency, has little personal apology; for, if he has condescended to blot his pages with filth, it avails but little where he has gathered it.

Collier's attack on the stage was attended with good consequences, which that active disputant lived to witness: indecencies were no longer either fashionable or tolerated; and, by degrees, the ladies began to fill the boxes at a new play, without either the necessity of wearing masks, or the risk of incurring censure. Later times have carried this laudable restraint still farther; till, at last, if we have lost almost all the wit of our predecessors, we at least have retained none of their licentiousness.

The following verses appear upon Dryden's death, in the "State Poems," vol. iii. founded upon his controversy with Sir Richard Blackmore and Collier, which so immediately preceded that event: