28 Albanius’, in einer Einleitung mit beiden Fiirsten in Verbindung setzen und ihm eine allegorische Beimisckung geben wollte. Doch die erhoffte Unterstiizung wurde Dryden nicht zu teil. Er spricht sicli hieriiber deutlich und sehr bitter in der Yorrede zu seiner ‘Juvenaliibersetzung’ an den Earl von Dorset aus. ‘Thus, my Lord, I have, as brieflv as 1 could, given your Lordship, and by you the World, a rude Draught of wliat I have been long labour- ing in my Imagination, and what I had intended to have put in Prac- tice; (though far unable for the attempt of such a Poem); and to have left the Stage, to which my Genius never much inclin’d me, for a Work which would have taken up my Life in the Performance of it. This, too, I had intended chiefly for the Honor of my native Country, to which a poet is particularly oblig’d. Of two Subjects, both relating to it, I was doubtful whether 1 should choose that of king Arthur, conquering the Saxons, which, being farther distant in Time, gives the greater Scope to my Invention; or that of Edward the Black Prince, in subduing Spain (wherein, after Virgil and Spenser, I would have taken Occa- siou to represent my living Eriends and Patrons of the noblest Families, and also shadowed the Events of future Ages in the Succesion of our Imperial Line) — witli these helps, and those of the machines which I have mentioned. I might perhaps have done as well as some of my Prede- cessors, or at least chalked out a Way for others to amend my errors in a like design; but being encouraged only with fair Words by king Charles II, my little Salary ill paid, and no Prospect of a future Subsistence, I was then discouraged in the Beginning of my Attempt; and now Age has overtaken me, and Want, a more insufferable Evii, through the Change of the Times, has wliolly disabled me’. 1692 ist dies geschrieben. Geht hieraus schon deutlich hervor, dass er den Plan, ein Epos von Konig Arthur zu schreiben, aufgegeben hatte, so wird dies nock mehr bestatigt, dadurch dass er bereits 1691 eine Oper ‘King Arthur’ veroffentlicht hatte. Von einer Oper durfte er sich den meisten Geldgewinn versprechen. Ein Vorspiel dazu bildete ‘Albion and Albanius’,