other; first, the "MacFlecnoe," filling originally only a sheet and a half, and sold for two-pence, in which he ridiculed the poetical character of his victim; while as Og, in the second part of "Absalom and Achitophel," Shadwell's abilities as a political writer are held up for perpetual reprobation.

The literary quarrels of those times were waged with an animus, and were attended with effects which in our day we find it hard to credit. Hunt, who assisted Shadwell in his attack on "The Duke of Guise," was obliged to fly the country; while the latter, in the dedication of his "Bury Fair" to the Earl of Dorset, refers to "those worst of times, when his ruin was designed and his life was sought, and for near ten years he was kept from the exercise of that profession which had afforded him a competent subsistence."

Dryden, the greatest of the poets who have worn the laurel, was the only one who was forcibly deprived of it, when the Revolution of 1688 transferred it to the brows of Shadwell. On its being represented to the Earl of Dorset, through whose influence the appointment, as well as that of historiographer was conferred, that there were other authors whose merits better entitled them to the honour; that discriminating nobleman replied that "he did not pretend to determine how great a poet Shadwell might be, but was sure he was an honest man ;" honesty being then literally synonymous with Whiggism. Even with this justification, the appointment was hardly fair, as if such was the qualification for the office, there were many men in Church and State who had shown more zealotry in the cause even than Shadwell. He did not long enjoy his honours, as he died suddenly at Chelsea, in November, 1692, in the fifty-second year of his age. The report

that his death was caused by an over-dose of laudanum, was authoritatively contradicted by Brady, who preached his funeral sermon.

He was corpulent and unwieldy in person, addicted to sensual indulgence, a boon companion, and a clever conversationalist. Lord Rochester said that "if Shadwell had burnt all he wrote, and printed all he spoke, he would have had more wit and humour than any other poet." His plays denote much observation of life, quickness in perceiving foibles, and skill in depicting them, the characters are well sustained, and they will even now amuse in the perusal.

Brady, in his funeral panegyric says of him, that "he was a man of great honesty and integrity, and inviolable fidelity and strictness in his word; an unalterable friendship wherever he professed it, and however the world might be mistaken in him, he had a much deeper sense of religion than many who pretended more to it. His natural and acquired abilities made him very amiable to all who conversed with him, a very few being equal in the becoming qualities which adorn and set off a complete gentleman his very enemies, if he has now any left, will give him this character, at least if they knew him so thoroughly as I did."

We will conclude this memoir with the following extracts from the satires of Dryden; and the reverse of the medal from the epilogue to Shadwell's play of "The Volunteers," which came out after his death, leaving to the reader the task of adjusting the due proportions of blame and praise; premising, however, that all the talent is exerted in deepening the lines of the unfavourable side.

Flecnoe addressing Shadwell, says:

"Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dullness from his tender years;
Shadwell alone of all my sons is he,
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity,
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense;

Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.

"But let no alien Sedley interpose,

To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.

"Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part-
What share have we in nature or in art?

When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin,
As thou whole Etheridge dost transfuse to thine?
But so transfused, as oil and waters flow,
His always floats above, thine sinks below.

"A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ,

But sure thou'rt but a kilderkin of wit;
Like mine, thy gentle members feebly creep,

Thy tragic muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep."

In the person of Og, Shadwell's political merits are descanted upon.

"Now stop your noses, readers, all and some,
For here's a tun of midnight work to come,

Og from a treason-tavern rolling home.
When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God, but God before cursed him;
And if man could have reason, none has more

That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.

"But though Heaven made him, poor, with reverence speaking,
He never was a poet of God's making.

The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing:-Be thou dull.
Drink, swear, and roar: forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk-do anything but write.
Eat opium, mingle arsenic with thy drink,
Still thou may'st live, avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,
For treason, botched in rhyme, may be thy bane.
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.

"A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
For writing treason, and for writing dull.
To die for faction is a common evil,

But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.

"I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,

For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes ?
But of King David's foes be this the doom,
May all be like the young man, Absalom.*
And for my foes, may this their blessing be,
To talk like Doeg,† and to write like thee."

The following is an extract from the Epilogue.

"Shadwell, the great support o' the comic stage,
Born to expose the follies of the age.
To whip prevailing vices, and unite
Mirth with Instruction, Profit with Delight.
For large ideas and a flowing pen,

First of our times, and second but to Ben.
Shadwell, who all his lines from Nature drew,
Copied her out and kept her still in view;
Who ne'er was bribed by Title or Estate,
To fawn and flatter with the Rich and Great.
To let a gilded vice or folly pass,

But always lash'd the villain and the ass.

"Crown you his last performance with applause, Who love like him our liberties and laws.

Let but the honest' party do him right,

And their loud claps shall give him fame, in spite
Of the faint hiss of grumbling Jacobite."

NAHUM TATE.

Ir is amusing, if not edifying, to observe the manner in which all works of general reference, save a very few, repeat in regular succession the idlest inventions, and the clumsiest distortions of fact. In literary history this is especially the case, and we can trace in dictionary after dictionary, life after life, note upon note, some blunder copied with slight variations by book-makers, who lacked the honest industry to investigate, or the ingenuity to detect falsehood.

So because Tate was put into the "Dunciad," and Warburton sought to crush him, he has ever since been treated as a malefactor and impostor. In "The Pictorial History of England" he is described as "the author of the worst alteration of Shakespeare, the worst version of the Psalms of David, and the worst continuation of a great poem." Now it nevertheless does so happen, that his alteration of "King Lear" kept possession of the stage for nearly a century, and that Dr. Johnson admits that when an attempt was made to play the tragedy as Shakespeare wrote it, the public decided in favour of Tate; that in