Note 501 — Chapter IV · DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

One of the very earliest evidences of the interest in dramatic criticism felt in England, immediately after the Restoration, must be Pepys’ note that on September 1, 1660, when he was dining at the Bullhead, there “rose ... a dispute between Mr Moore and Dr Clerke—the former affirming that it was essential to a tragedy to have the argument of it true, which the Doctor denied.” The question, on the very English terms of another dinner and a bet, was to be settled by Pepys himself three days later. He does not tell us whether he read up for it; but on the 4th he decided for the Doctor (Diary, ed. Wheatley, i. 233).