Oh, had I Shadwell's second bays,
Or, Tate! thy pert and humble lays,--
Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow
I never missed your works till now,--
I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine,
That only way you please the Nine;
But since I chance to want these two,
I'll make the songs of Durfey do."
And in a far more venomous and violent style, the noteless mob of contemporary writers.
Shadwell, after all, was very far from being the blockhead these references imply. His "Third Nights" were probably far more profitable than Dryden's.<a href="#1.23">[23]</a> By his friends he was classed with the liveliest wits of a brilliant court. Rochester so classed him:--
"I loathe the rabble: 'tis enough for me,
If Sedley, Shadwell, Shephard, Wycherley,
Godolphin, Butler, Buckhurst, Buckingham,
And some few more, whom I omit to name,
Approve my sense: I count their censure fame."<a href="#1.24">[24]</a>
And compares him elsewhere with Wycherley:--
"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 proofs 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.
But Wycherley earns hard whate'er he gains;
He wants no judgment, and he spares no pains," etc.
And, not disrespectfully, Pope:--
"In all debates where critics bear a part,
Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's art,
Of Shakspeare's nature, and of Cowley's wit;
How Beaumont's judgment checked what Fletcher writ;
How Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow;
But for the passions, Southerne, sure, and Rowe!
These, only these, support the crowded stage,
From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age."<a href="#1.25">[25]</a>
Sedley joined him in the composition of more than one comedy. Macaulay, in seeking illustrations of the times and occurrences of which he writes, cites Shadwell five times, where he mentions Etherege, Wycherley, and Congreve once.<a href="#1.26">[26]</a> From his last play, "The Stockjobbers," performed in November, 1692, while its author was on his death-bed, the historian introduces an entire scene into his text.<a href="#1.27">[27]</a> Any one, indeed, who can clear his mind from the unjust prejudice produced by Dryden's satire, and read the comedies of Shadwell with due consideration for the extemporaneous haste of their composition, as satires upon passing facts and follies, will find, that, so far from never deviating into sense, sound common-sense and fluent wit were the Laureate's staple qualities. If his comedies have not, like those of his contemporaries just named, enjoyed the good-fortune to be collected and preserved among the dramatic classics, the fact is primarily owing to the ephemeral interest of the hits and allusions, and secondarily to "MacFlecknoe."
[To be continued.]
<a name="1.1">[Footnote 1:</a> SPENSER: Faery Queen. See also the Two Cantos of Mutability, Cant. VII.:--
"That old Dan Geffrey, in whose gentle spright
The pure well-head of poesie did dwell."]
<a name="1.2">[Footnote 2:</a> MILTON: Il Penseroso.]
<a name="1.3">[Footnote 3:</a> WORDSWORTH: Poems of Later Years.]
<a name="1.4">[Footnote 4:</a> CHAUCER: Clerke's Tale, Prologue.]
<a name="1.5">[Footnote 5:</a> WARTON: Ode on his Majesty's Birthday, 1787]
<a name="1.6">[Footnote 6:</a> Tyrwhitt's Chaucer: Historical Notes on his Life.]
<a name="1.7">[Footnote 7:</a> Masque of the Fortunate Islands]
<a name="1.8">[Footnote 8:</a> History of English Poetry, Vol. II. pp. 335-336, ed. 1840.]
<a name="1.9">[Footnote 9:</a> WARTON: Birthday Ode, 1787.]
<a name="1.10">[Footnote 10:</a> See his British Poets, from Chaucer to Jonson, Art. Daniel. Southey contemplated a continuation of Warton's History, and, in preparing for that labor, learned many things he had never known of the earlier writers.]
<a name="1.11">[Footnote 11:</a> Jonson's classification. See his Poetaster.]
<a name="1.12">[Footnote 12:</a> Lamb's Works, and Life, by Talfourd, Vol. IV. p. 89.]
<a name="1.13">[Footnote 13:</a> Hesperides, Encomiastic Verses.]
<a name="1.14">[Footnote 14:</a> Herrick, ubi supra.--To the haunts here named must be added the celebrated Mermaid, of which Shakspeare was the Magnus Apollo, and The Devil, where Pope imagines Ben to have gathered peculiar inspiration:--
"And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,
He swears the Muses met him at The Devil."
Imitation of Horace, Bk. ii. Epist. i.]
<a name="1.15">[Footnote 15:</a> Election of a Poet-Laureate, 1719, Works, Vol. II.]
<a name="1.16">[Footnote 16:</a> Feast of the Poets, 1814.]
<a name="1.17">[Footnote 17:</a> Fable for Critics, 1850.]
<a name="1.18">[Footnote 18:</a> This story rests on the authority of Thomas Betterton, the actor, who received it from Davenant.]
<a name="1.19">[Footnote 19:</a> Dedication of the Pastorals of Virgil, to Hugh, Lord Clifford, the son of Sir Thomas.]
<a name="1.20">[Footnote 20:</a> There were some indications that portions of the farce had been written while Davenant was living and had been intended for him. Mr. Bayes appears in one place with a plaster on his nose, an evident allusion to Davenant's loss of that feature. In a lively satire of the time, by Richard Duke, it is asserted that Villiers was occupied with the composition of The Rehearsal from the Restoration down to the day of its production on the stage:--
"But with playhouses, wars, immortal wars,
He waged, and ten years' rage produced a farce.
As many rolling years he did employ,
And hands almost as many, to destroy
Heroic rhyme, as Greece to ruin Troy.
Once more, says Fame, for battle he prepares,
And threatens rhymers with a second farce:
But, if as long for this as that we stay,
He'll finish Clevedon sooner than his play."
The Review]
<a name="1.21">[Footnote 21:</a> It is little to the credit of Dryden, that, having saved up his wrath against Flecknoe so long, he had not reserved it altogether. Flecknoe had been dead at least four years when the satire appeared.]
<a name="1.22">[Footnote 22:</a> Macaulay quotes Blackmore's Prince Arthur, to illustrate Dryden's dependence upon Dorset:--
"The poets' nation did obsequious wait
For the kind dole divided at his gate.
Laurus among the meagre crowd appeared,
An old, revolted, unbelieving bard,
Who thronged, and shoved, and pressed, and would be heard."Sakil's high roof, the Muse's palace, rung
With endless cries, and endless songs he sung.
To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first;
But Sakil's prince and Sakil's God he curst.
Sakil without distinction threw his bread,
Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed."
Laurus, of course, stands for Dryden, and Sakil for Dorset.]
<a name="1.23">[Footnote 23:</a> The Squire of Alsatia is said to have realized him £130.]
<a name="1.24">[Footnote 24:</a> An Allusion to the Tenth Satire of the First Book of Horace.--The word "censure" will, of course, be understood to mean judgment, not condemnation.]
<a name="1.25">[Footnote 25:</a> Imitation of Horace, Bk. ii. Epist. i.]
<a name="1.26">[Footnote 26:</a> See the History of England, Vol. IV., Chapter 17, for reference to Shadwell's Volunteers.]
<a name="1.27">[Footnote 27:</a> History of England, Chapter 19.]
