There were several other pieces which Sir William introduced upon this stage of the same kind, which met with as much success, as could be expected from the nature of the performances themselves, and the temper and disposition of the audience.  Being thus introduced, he at last grew a little bolder, and not only ventured to write, but to act several new plays, which were also somewhat in a new taste; that is, they were more regular in their structure, and the language generally speaking, smoother, and more correct than the old tragedies.  These improvements were in a great measure owing to Sir William’s long residence in France, which gave him an opportunity of reading their best writers, and hearing the sentiments of their ablest critics upon dramatic entertainments, where they were as much admired and encouraged, as at that time despised in England.  That these were really improvements, and that the public stood greatly indebted to Sir William Davenant as a poet, and master of a theatre, we can produce no less an authority than that of Dryden, who, beyond any of his predecessors, contemporaries, or those who have succeeded him, understood poetry as an art.  In his essay on heroic plays, he thus speaks, “The first light we had of them, on the English theatre (says he) was from Sir William Davenant.  It being forbidden him in the religious times to act tragedies or comedies, because they contained some matter of scandal to those good people, who could more easily dispossess their lawful sovereign, than endure a wanton jest, he was forced to turn his thoughts another way, and to introduce the examples of moral virtue written in verse, and performed in recitative music.  The original of this music, and of the scenes which adorned his works, he had from the Italian opera’s; but he heightened his characters, as I may probably imagine, from the examples of Corneille, and some French poets.  In this condition did this part of poetry remain at his Majelty’s return, when grown bolder as now owned by public authority, Davenant revived the Siege of Rhodes, and caused it to be acted as a just drama.  But as few men have the happiness to begin and finish any new project, so neither did he live to make his design perfect.  There wanted the fulness of a plot, and the variety of characters to form it as it ought; and perhaps somewhat might have been added to the beauty of the stile:  all which he would have performed with more exactness, had he pleased to have given us another work of the fame nature.  For myself and others who came after him, we are bound with all veneration to his memory, to acknowledge what advantage we received from that excellent ground work, which is laid, and since it is an easy thing to add to what is already invented, we ought all of us, without envy to him, or partiality to ourselves, to yield him the precedence in it.”