Dryden's influence was greater than would be thought possible from a study of any one of his dramas. As a playwright he did not consider himself wholly a success, and expressed his dislike and contempt of the stage more than once. Of certain of his plays he said, "I knew they were bad enough to please, even when I wrote them." He had no sense of the ridiculous, nor any conception of a natural, sincere portrayal of human nature. Ranting and absurd imagery often lie beside passages of real beauty. Dr. Johnson described his style as a "false magnificence." One comedy, The Spanish Fryar, and one tragedy, All for Love, deserve to be remembered. Far more interesting than the plays, however, are Dryden's discussions of dramatic questions. Like George Bernard Shaw, he had the habit of writing long prefaces and comments as an accompaniment to the text. In these dissertations are to be found many sound principles, including the idea that dramatic rules should be deduced from a study of plays rather than from abstract speculation. [This article was originally published in A Short History of the Theatre. Martha Fletcher Bellinger. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927. pp. 252-3.]