"To the Disloyal Tories.
"To all, I mean, except the author of the Medal; for he being a Tory of two editions, it seems impossible to appropriate his genius more to King Charles than Oliver Cromwell. And if Noll was so kind, though a saucy tenant, to leave him as a heriot of the muses, unto whomsoever should possess Whitehall, let none admire that he, that could so deify an usurper, does afterwards endeavour to expiate that crime by Torifying the government of a legal monarch, &c. I have no more to say to him, and his Tory friends, by way of argument, but rather greet him, in conclusion, as poetically as he can pretend to deserve." The following introduction may suffice to shew how far the poetry was commensurate to the deserts of Dryden:
If nothing can the worth of men excuse,
Thus meanly blasted by a sculking muse;
If what's against humanity and sense,
Finds from the world a horrid complaisance;
If one must flout another's mould or face,
Because discretion there has ancient place;
Then let thy hireling verse such fictions raise,
As long may fatten thy desertless praise,