45

"At thy well-sharpened thumb from shore to shore
"The treble squeaks for fear, the basses roar ;*
"Echoes from Pissing-alley Shadwell call,
"And Shadwell they resound from Aston-hall.
"About thy boat the little fishes throng,
"As at the morning toast that floats along.+
"Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band,
"Thou wieldst thy papers in thy threshing hand.
"St. André's feet ne'er kept more equal time,
"Not even the feet of thy own 'Psyche's'§ rhyme:
"Though they in number as in sense excel,
"So just, so like tautology, they fell
"That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore
"The lute and sword which he in triumph bore,
"And vowed he ne'er would act Villerius more."||
Here stopped the good old sire and wept for joy,
In silent raptures of the hopeful boy.
All arguments, but most his plays, persuade
That for anointed dulness he was made.

50

55

60

Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind,
(The fair Augusta much to fears inclined,)¶
An ancient fabric raised to inform the sight
There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight;
A watch-tower once, but now, so fate ordains,
Of all the pile an empty name remains ;
From its old ruins brothel-houses rise,
Scenes of lewd loves and of polluted joys,
Where their vast courts the mother-strumpets keep,
And, undisturbed by watch, in silence sleep.

65

70

**

* Shadwell was a musician as well as poet. In the Preface to his opera of "Psyche" he says that he guided the composing of the music for the songs, and claims to be allowed to have some knowledge of music, as he says that he had been bred to it during many years of his youth. This line was substituted in the second edition for the following, which is in the first:

"And gently waft thee over all along."

↑ St. André was a celebrated French dancing-master. He is similarly alluded to by Dryden in the "Kind Keeper," act 3, sc. I.

"St. André never moved with such a grace."

OLDHAM, Imitation of Horace.

"Psyche" was an opera in rhyme by Shadwell, produced in 1674.

Singleton was a singer of the time. Villerius, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, was a principal character in Davenant's opera of "The Siege of Rhodes," where there is a long lyrical dialogue between Villerius and Solyman, the two opposed generals, which had been ridiculed in "The Rehearsal" as a combination of "lute and sword;" and Dryden here does not disdain to follow in the wake of his adversary.

A political reference to the fears of the King and Popery which prevailed in the city of London. A parody of two lines near the opening of the First Book of Cowley's "Davideis:"

**

"Where their vast court the mother-waters keep

And, undisturbed by moons, in silence sleep."

And the lines 76-7 are fashioned after another couplet of the same passage of the "Davideis:"

"Beneath the dens where unfletcht tempests lie,

And infant winds their tender voices try."

L

Near these a Nursery erects its head,"

Where queens are formed and future heroes bred,
Where unfledged actors learn to laugh and cry,
Where infant punks their tender voices try,
And little Maximinst the gods defy.
Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,
Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear;
But gentle Simkin just reception finds
Amidst this monument of vanished minds;
Pure clinches the suburbian muse affords
And Panton waging harmless war with words.
Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known,
Ambitiously designed his Shadwell's throne.
For ancient Decker § prophesied long since
That in this pile should reign a mighty prince,
Born for a scourge of wit and flail of sense,

To whom true dulness should some "Psyches" owe,
But worlds of "Misers" from his pen should flow;
"Humourists" and Hypocrites it should produce,
Whole Raymond families and tribes of Bruce.||

Now empress Fame had published the renown
Of Shadwell's coronation through the town.
Roused by report of fame, the nations meet
From near Bunhill and distant Watling-street.
No Persian carpets spread the imperial way,
But scattered limbs of mangled poets lay;
From dusty shops neglected authors come,
Martyrs of pies and relics of the bum.

*The Nursery was a Theatre for the training of boys and girls for the stage, established under royal letters patent (1662, which prohibited "obscene, scandalous, or offensive passages," and restricted the performances to "what may consist with harmless and inoffensive delights and recreations." Shakespeare Society Papers, iii. 162.) The plays performed there were suited for the young. Oldham mentions it in the warning of Spenser's ghost against poetry. The modern editors of Oldham have spoilt the second line of the following passage by printing bridge for badge:

"Mayest thou go on unpitied, till thou be
Brought to the parish-badge and beggary,
Till urged by want, like broken scribblers, thou
Turn poet to a booth, a Smithfield show,

And write heroic verse for Bartholomew;

Then slighted by the very Nursery,

Mayest thou at last be forced to starve like me."

In "The Rehearsal" Bayes, representing Dryden, is made to vow vengeance on the actors by devoting himself henceforth to the Nursery: "I'll tell you, Mr. Johnson, I vow to gad I have been so highly disobliged by the peremptoriness of these fellows that I'm resolved hereafter to bind my thoughts wholly for the service of the Nursery, and mump your proud players, I gad" (act 2, sc. 2). Maximin, the chief character of Dryden's play of "Tyrannic Love," who defies the gods in

death.

Clinch, also spelt clench; a pun:

"Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes."

POPE, Dunciad, i. 63.

§ Decker was a former City poet, the contemporary of Ben Jonson. "Psyche," "The Miser," and "The Humourists" are plays by Shadwell. Raymond is a character in "The Humourists," a gentleman of wit and honour," and Bruce "a gentleman of wit and sense" in "The Virtuoso." The word "Hypocrite" has no special reference.

Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay,*
But loads of Shadwell almost choked the way.
Bilked stationers for yeomen stood prepared
And Herringman+ was captain of the guard.
The hoary prince in majesty appeared,
High on a throne of his own labours reared.
At his right hand our young Ascanius sat,
Rome's other hope ‡ and pillar of the state.
His brows thick fogs instead of glories grace,
And lambent dulness played around his face.
As Hannibal did to the altars come,
Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome;

105

ΠΟ

So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain,

That he till death true dulness would maintain;

115

And, in his father's right and realm's defence,

Ne'er to have peace with wit nor truce with sense. §

The king himself the sacred unction made,

As king by office and as priest by trade.

In his sinister hand, instead of ball,

120

He placed a mighty mug of potent ale;

Ogleby, originally a dancing-master, translated Homer, Virgil, and Æsop, and was the author of other poems and of a History of China.

"Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great."

POPE, Dunciad, i. 141.

The works of Shirley, here mentioned again with Heywood, were clearly in disrepute at this time. Oldham also mentions his works as drugs in the market, in the Satire in which he introduces Spenser's ghost to warn against the poet's calling. Oldham died in December 1683: and this Satire of his, if not written before, must have been written immediately after "Mac Flecknoe." It is interesting to compare Oldham's list of the despised with Dryden's:

Have grown contemptible, and slighted since,
As Pordage, Flecknoe, or the British Prince.'
Quarles, Chapman, Heywood, Wither had applause,
And Wild and Ogilby in former days;

But now are damned to wrapping drugs and wares
And cursed by all their broken stationers,

And so mayest thou, perchance, pass up and down
And please awhile the admiring court and town,
Who after shalt in Duck-lane shops be thrown
To mould with Silvester and Shirley there,
And truck for pots of ale next Stourbridge fair."

+ Herringman was the chief publisher during the greater part of Charles II.'s reign; he had published for Dryden till within the last few years, when Jacob Tonson took his place. Shadwell, in his "Medal of John Bayes," had called Dryden Herringman's journeyman:

"He turned a journeyman to a bookseller,
Writ prefaces to books for meat and drink,
And, as he paid, he would both write and think."

A note was added to these lines by Shadwell: "Mr. Herringman, who kept him at his house for this purpose."

"Et juxta Ascanius, magnæ spes altera Romæ."

VIRG. En. xii. 168

In place of this line the first edition had:

"Would bid defiance unto wit and sense."

"Love's Kingdom"* to his right he did convey,
At once his sceptre and his rule of sway;
Whose righteous lore the prince had practised young
And from whose loins recorded "Psyche" sprung.
His temples, last, with poppies were o'erspread,
That nodding seemed to consecrate his head.
Just at that point of time, if fame not lie,
On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly.
So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook,
Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.
The admiring throng loud acclamations make
And omens of his future empire take.
The sire then shook the honours of his head,
And from his brows damps of oblivion shed
Full on the filial dulness: long he stood,
Repelling from his breast the raging God;
At length burst out in this prophetic mood:

125

130

135

"Heavens bless my son! from Ireland let him reign

"To far Barbadoes on the western main;

140

Beyond 'Love's Kingdom' let him stretch his pen!"
He paused, and all the people cried "Amen."
Then thus continued he: "My son, advance
"Still in new impudence, new ignorance.

145

"Success let others teach, learn thou from me
"Pangs without birth and fruitless industry.
"Let Virtuosos' in five years be writ,

Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.t

150

"Love's Kingdom" was a play by Flecknoe.

While Dryden accuses Shadwell of slowness in composition, Rochester attributes his faults to haste. Dryden, of course, in his anger is not just to Shadwell. Rochester depreciated Dryden, and raised Shadwell.

'Well, sir, 'tis granted, I said Dryden's rhymes

Were stolen, unequal, nay dull many times;

What foolish patron is there found of his

So blindly partial to deny me this?

But that his plays, embroidered up and down
With wit and learning, justly pleased the town,

In the same paper I as freely own.

Yet having this allowed, the heavy mass
That stuffs up his loose volumes must not pass.

Of all our modern wits none seem to me
Once to have touched upon true comedy
But hasty Shadwell and slow Wycherley.
Shadwell's unfinished works do yet impart
Great proof of force of nature, none of art:
With just bold strokes he dashes here and there,
Showing great mastery with little care,

Scorning to varnish his good touches o'er

To make the fools and women praise them more."

Allusion to Tenth Satire of First Book of Horace

Kochester died in 1680, before this feud; but he had a quarrel of his own with Dryden.

"Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage,*
"Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage;
"Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,
"And in their folly show the writer's wit.
"Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence
"And justify their author's want of sense.
"Let them be all by thy own model made
"Of dulness and desire no foreign aid,
"That they to future ages may be known,
"Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.
"Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same,
"All full of thee and differing but in name.
"But let no alien Sedley + interpose

"To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.

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160

"And when false flowers of rhetoric thou wouldst cull, 165

"Trust nature, do not labour to be dull;

"Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein T
"Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain ?

180

*

"Gentle George" is Sir George Etherege, a man of wit and fashion, a light poet, and writer of comedies which were very popular. He was Minister Resident for many years at Ratisbon. Dryden addressed to him there his poetical epistle. Dryden wrote the Epilogue for his play, "The Man of Mode," acted in 1676. The names in the two lines which follow are names of characters in Etherege's plays.

+ Sir Charles Sedley had written the Prologue for Shadwell's play "Epsom Wells," produced in 1672. Dryden here insinuates that Sedley helped Shadwell in composition, and he accuses him in line 184 of wholesale pillage from Etherege. This is an old accusation of others; for Shadwell complains in the dedication of his "Psyche" (1675) of its having been represented to the King by his enemies that the best parts of his plays were written by others: and again the two following lines occur in a Prologue composed by himself for his "Epsom Wells," when acted at Whitehall before their majesties: "If this for him had been by others done,

After this honour sure they claim their own."

Shadwell dedicated his "True Widow" to Sedley, 1679; and mentioning that that play had had the benefit of Sedley's revision, he takes occasion to say that he wishes all his plays had had the same advantage.

Sir Formal Trifle is a vain, florid, oratorical talker in Shadwell's "Virtuoso."

§ By the "northern dedications," is meant Shadwell's frequent dedications to the Duke of Newcastle; he dedicated also to the Duchess, and to their son, the Earl of Ogle. In the "Vindication of the Duke of Guise," where Dryden again lashes Shadwell, he calls him "the northern dedicator."

Ben Jonson was a constant theme with Shadwell for eulogy; and his praises seem sometimes to insinuate a comparison of himself with Jonson, while they were likely to nettle living authors, like Dryden, who are treated as altogether inferior.

Prince Nicander is a character in Shadwell's "Psyche."