420 ENGLISH LITERATURE 



civilizations remote either in space or time, in order to give to their 

 figures the dignity adequate to the character of their heroic poetry, 

 and at the same time to allow themselves a greater freedom in 

 composition. Besides classical antiquity, therefore, especially the 

 rulers and events of modern Oriental history were chosen as subjects 

 for novels and plays. 



The same holds good for England where the heroic play was intro- 

 duced from France. It was Davenant who, in his epoch-marking 

 opera, The Siege of Rhodes, in 1656, took the lead in the new fashion 

 of Oriental dramas in England, taking for his theme the famous 

 siege, in 1522, of the island of Rhodes by Soliman the Magnificent, 

 who finally succeeded in conquering the fortress which had long 

 been gallantly defended by the Hospitallers. Davenant's example 

 was followed by Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, in his drama Mustapha 

 (1665), based upon Madeleine de Scudery's Mustapha et Zeangir. 

 In Head's English Rogue (1665-80), a unique mixture of the picar- 

 esque and the traveling novel, the scene is also laid to a great extent 

 in the Orient. Then came the long series of Oriental dramas, both 

 ancient and recent, with which Elkanah Settle flooded the contem- 

 porary stage for thirty years (from about 1666 to 1694): _Cambyscs, 

 The Empress of Morocco, The Conquest of China by the Tartars, Ibra- 

 him the Illustrious Bassa (adapted from the English translation of 

 Mile, de Scudery's novel Ibrahim, ou I'lllustrc Bassa}, The Distressed 

 Innocence, or The Princes of Persia, The Heir of Morocco, a sequel to 

 The Empress of Morocco, etc. Dryden, too, wrote several dramas with 

 Oriental subjects : Almanzor and Almahide, or the Conquest of Granada 

 hy the Spaniards (1670), derived from Mile, de Scudery's Almahide; 

 Aurengzebc (1675), the Indian drama already referred to, and Don 

 Sebastian (1690). Crowne followed suit with Cambyses (1670) and 

 Darius (1688), Southern with The Royal Brother, or the Persian 

 Prince (1682), Banks with his Cyrus the Great (1696), on the model 

 of Mile, de Scudery's Artamene, ou le Grand Cyrus, Mary Pix with 

 Ibrahim, the 12th Emperor of the Turks (1696), and Ilowo, in his 

 Tamerlane (1702), tried his hand on the same subject which Marlowe 

 had handled before him. The title of Davenant's Siege of Rhodes 

 UTivo rise to several Oriental dramas or tales with similar titles: 

 Xcvil Payne's Siege of Constantinople (1675), Durfey's Siege of 

 Memphis (1676), Hughes's Siege of Damascus (1726), and, to con- 

 clude with the most famous, Byron's Siege of Corinth (1816). 



This list of heroic plays dealing with Oriental subjects aims by no 

 means at completeness, but it will sufficiently show how immensely 

 popular themes of this kind were in the days of Dryden. 



In the age of Pope. Oriental subjects disappear together with the 

 heroic drama. The Vision of Mirza and the Story of Sfialcm and 

 Hilpa, in the Spectator (no. 159, September 1. 1711 and nos. 584, 585, 



