George Villiers (1) (1628–1687)

wikipedia: The Rehearsal was a satirical play aimed specifically at John Dryden and generally at the sententious and overly ambitious theater of the Restoration tragedy. The play was staged in 1671 and published anonymously in 1672, but it is certainly by George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and others. Several people, including Samuel Butler of Hudibras fame, have been suggested as collaborators.
In the preface to the printed version of The Conquest of Granada, Dryden scolds his fellow dramatists for having immoral heroes and low sentiments, and he proposes a new type of theater, the "heroic drama." Buckingham's play is, in a sense, the old theater biting him back. In The Rehearsal, a director/author attempts to put on a new play, and he lectures his actors and critics with impossible and absurd instructions on the importance of what they are doing.
The Rehearsal infuriated Dryden, and it is not possible to see the satire without some political cause or effect. (Dryden would not forget the satire, and he made Buckingham into the figure of Zimri in his Absalom and Achitophel.) However, for readers and viewers what was most delightful was the way that Buckingham effectively punctures the puffed up bombast of Dryden's plays. By taking Dryden's own words out of context and pasting them together, Buckingham disrupts whatever emotions that might have gone with them originally and exposes their inherent absurdity.… (meer)