In flannel robes the coughing ghost does walk,

And his mouth moats like cleaner breech of hawk;

Corruption, springing from his cankered breast,

Furs up the channel, and disturbs his rest.

With head propt up, the bolstered engine lies;

If pillow slip aside, the monarch dies.


To these poems ascribed to Dryden, may be added the following; which, however, have so little mark of his hand, that the Editor thinks it most proper to degrade them into a note. Indeed Dryden could not have written the first of these without being guilty of gross ingratitude, a fault which was entirely inconsistent with his character.

Epitaph on the Earl of Rochester's being dismissed from the Treasury, in 1687.

Here lies a creature of indulgent fate,