He could bestow commendation on the offender; and was always ready to break off into some enthusiastic strain of verse or reflection. The famous satire on Shadwell entitled Mac Flecnoe (that is to say, Flecnoe's son) is, for the most part, so coarse, that I can only quote a few lines from it, which I have accordingly put in this place. But they are the best. They are comprised in the exordium. Flecnoe, the bad poet indicated by Marvel, (see p. 238), is supposed to abdicate the throne of Dulness in favour of its heir-apparent Shadwell. Shadwell had repeatedly intimated his own superiority compared with Dryden, as a writer of plays; and he was newly appointed laureate to King William, who had ousted James the Second and his greater laureate; so that Dryden had every provocation against him, political and poetical. All human things are subject to decay, And when fate summons, monarchs must obey; Shadwell alone my perfect image bears; Mature in dulness from his tender years: Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity. The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, Heywood and Shirley were dramatic writers of the past age, both superior to what Dryden here intimates of them; but he saw their tediousness and commonplace, and did not feel their sentiment. Shadwell was a great fat debauchee, who mistook will for genius; and because he enjoyed the humour of Ben Jonson, and was not indeed altogether destitute of humour himself, poured forth a profusion of shallow dialogue, which was the very dotage of pertness. As to his "poetry," the reader may see a specimen of it in “ Imagination and Fancy," p. 44. It is a curious oversight of Dryden's in this satire, that he should put the best wit of it into the mouth of Flecnoe himself. CHARACTER OF LORD SHAFTESBURY,' From the poem of "ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. This plot which fail'd for want of common sense,† For as when raging fevers boil the blood, Some by their friends, more by themselves, thought wise, Some had in courts been great, and, thrown from thence, Like friends were harden'd in impenitence. Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown, From pardon'd rebels, kinsmen to the throne, Were rais'd in power, and public office high; And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay. * "Absalom and Achitophel" is a satire, under Jewish names, upon the intrigues of Lord Shaftesbury and the Duke of Monmouth against the Catholic and Court interest. + The Popish Plot, real or pretended, which was sworn to by the infamous Titus Oates. A daring pilot in extremity, Pleas'd with the danger when the waves went high, Would steer too nigh the sands to show his wit. And thin partitions do their bounds divide;2 And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke; How safe is treason, and how sacred ill, Where none can sin against the people's will! Since in another's guilt they see their own. Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin* With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean; Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress; Swift of despatch, and easy of access. * A Jewish word for judge. Shaftesbury had been Lord Chan cellor. N Oh! had he been content to serve the crown Or had the rankness of the soil been freed 1 "Character of Lord Shaftesbury."-Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury, a mercurial and ambitious man, not very well principled where power was to be obtained, but not indisposed to be just and patriotic when possessed of it. Even the famous reply which he is said to have made to a banter of Charles the Second, contained a sort of impudent aspiration, which must have at once disconcerted and delighted the merry monarch; for it implied that his majesty and he stood in a very remarkable state of relationship. The King. Shaftesbury, I believe thou art the wickedest dog in \my dominions. Shaftesbury (with a bow). May it please your majesty, of a subject I believe I am." 2 "Great wits to madness surely are allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide." The truth of this striking couplet may seem to be exemplified in the history of Swift and others; but it is not the greatness of the wit that is allied to the madness; it is the weakness or violence of the will. Rabelais was no madman, Molière was none, Sterne was none, Butler none, Horace, Aristophanes, Ari |