But let no alien Sedley interpose,
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.—P. [438].
The first edition bears Sydney, which is evidently a mistake. Shadwell's comedy of "Epsom Wells" was very successful; which was imputed by his enemies to the assistance he received from the witty Sir Charles Sedley. This he attempts to refute in the following lines of the second prologue, spoken when the piece was represented before the king and queen at Whitehall:
If this for him had been by others done,
After this honour sure they'd claim their own.
But it is nevertheless certain, that Shadwell acknowledges obligations of the nature supposed, in the Dedication of the "True Widow" to Sir Charles Sedley. "No success whatever," he there says, "could have made me alter my opinion of this comedy, which had the benefit of your correction and alteration, and the honour of your approbation. And I heartily wish you had given yourself the trouble to have reviewed all my plays, as they came inaccurately, and in haste, from my hands: it would have been more to my advantage than the assistance of Scipio and Lelius was to Terence; and I should have thought it at least as much to my honour, since, by the effects, I find I cannot but esteem you as much above both of them in wit, as either of them was above you in place of the state."
There was a general opinion current, that Shadwell received assistance in his most successful pieces. A libel of the times, the reference to which I have mislaid, mentions with contempt the dulness of his "unassisted scenes."
Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill,
And does thy northern dedications fill.—P. [438].