Owing in part to the influence of the French theatre, which by this time had taken the place of the Spanish as the ruling drama of Europe, the separation between tragedy and comedy is clearly marked in post-Restoration plays. Comic scenes are still occasionally introduced into tragedies by some dramatists who adhered more closely to the Elizabethan models (such as Otway and Crowne), but the practice fell into disuse; while the endeavour to elevate comedy by pathetic scenes and motives is one of the characteristic marks of the beginning of another period in English dramatic literature. The successive phases through which English tragedy passed in the later Stuart times cannot be always kept distinct from one another; and the guidance offered by the theories put forth by some of the dramatists in support of their practice is often delusive. Following the example of Corneille, Dryden and his contemporaries and successors were fond of proclaiming their adherence to this or that principle of dramatic construction or form, and of upholding, with much show of dialectical acumen, maxims derived by them from French or other sources, or elaborated with modifications and variations of their own, but usually amounting to little more than what Scott calls "certain romantic whimsical imitations of the dramatic art." Students of the drama will find much entertainment and much instruction in these prefaces, apologies, dialogues and treatises. They will acknowledge that Dryden's incomparable vigour does not desert him either in the exposing or in the upholding of fallacies, while _le bon sens_, which he hardly ever fails to exhibit, and which is a more eclectic gift than common-sense, serves as a sure guide to the best intelligence of his age. Even Rymer,[210] usually regarded as having touched the nadir of dramatic criticism, will be found to be not wholly without grains of salt. But Restoration tragedy itself must not be studied by the light of Restoration criticism. So long as any dramatic power remained in the tragic poets--and it is absent from none of the chief among them from Dryden to Rowe--the struggle between fashion (disguised as theory) and instinct (tending in the direction of the Elizabethan traditions) could never wholly determine itself in favour of the former.