Reduced at last to hiss in my own dragon.
Avert it, heaven! that thou, my Cibber, e'er
Should'st wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair!
In the close of life, this veteran scribbler found admission to the Charter-house; and in that hospital, in the year 1724, died the rival of Dryden.
In person, Elkanah Settle was tall, red-faced, and wore a satin cap over his short black hair.
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.—P. [333.]
Our author had very shortly before the publication of the second part of "Absalom and Achitophel," made his enemy, Shadwell, the subject of a separate and cutting personal satire, called "Mac Flecnoe." That poem, as we have noticed in the introductory remarks, has reference principally to the literary character of his adversary; while, in the lines which follow, he considers him chiefly as a political writer, and factionary of the popular party. Shadwell's corpulence, his coarse and brutal debauchery, his harsh and clumsy style of poetry, fell under the lash on both occasions; and it is astonishing, with what a burning variety of colours these qualities are represented. The history of his literary disputes with Dryden may be perused in the introduction to "Mac Flecnoe." In the "Vindication of the Duke of Guise," Dryden has also given a severe flagellation to his corpulent adversary, in which he says, "that although Shadwell has often called him an atheist in print, he believes more charitably of his antagonist, and that he only goes the broad way, because the other is too narrow for him."