Settle, Elkanah, 1648-1724, English dramatist and poet. Thanks to the patronage of the earl of Rochester, Settle's heroic dramas for a time rivaled those of Dryden. His most successful play, the elaborate and bombastic Empress of Morocco (1671), provoked a long quarrel with Dryden, who satirized Settle as Doeg in Absalom and Achitophel.