The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost.—P. [434].
This seems to be in ridicule of the following elegant expression which Shadwell puts in the mouth of a fine lady: "Such a fellow as he deserves to be tossed in a blanket." This, however, does not occur in "Epsom-Wells," but in another of Shadwell's comedies, called "The Sullen Lovers."
Methinks I see the new Arion sail,
The lute still trembling underneath thy nail.—P. [434].
Shadwell appears to have been a proficient in music, and to have himself adjusted that of his opera of "Psyche," which Dryden here treats with such consummate contempt. Indeed, in the preface of that choice piece he affected to value himself more upon the music than the poetry, as appears from the following passage in the preface: "I had rather be author of one scene of comedy, like some of Ben Jonson's, than of all the best plays of this kind, that have been, or ever shall be written; good comedy requiring much more wit and judgment in the writer, than any rhiming, unnatural plays can do. This I have so little valued, that I have not altered six lines in it since it was first written, which (except the songs at the marriage of Psyche, in the last scene) was all done sixteen months since. In all the words which are sung, I did not so much take care of the wit or fancy of them, as the making of them proper for music; in which I cannot but have some little knowledge, having been bred, for many years of my youth, to some performance in it.
"I chalked out the way to the composer, (in all but the song of Furies and Devils, in the fifth act,) having designed which line I would have sung by one, which by two, which by three, which by four voices, &c. and what manner of humour I would have in all the vocal music."
Not even the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme,