Pages 100, 108 (App.) 371. Satires on Gondibert.
See Additional Note in this vol. [§ 3, post], for a few words on D’Avenant. Since printing M. D. C., we have been enabled (thanks to W. F. Fowle, Esq., possessor of) to consult the very rare Second Satire, 1655, mentioned on p. 371. It is entitled, “The Incomparable Poem Gondibert Vindicated from the Wit-Combats of Four Esquires, Clinias, Dametas, Sancho, and Jack Pudding.” [With this three-fold motto:—]
Χοτέει καὶ ἀοίδ τω ἀοίδω.
Vatum quoque gratia rara est.
Anglicè,
One Wit-Brother || Envies another.
Printed in the year 1655.” It begins on p. 3, with a poetical address to Sir Willm. Davenant, asking pardon beforehand in case his “yet-unhurt Reputation” should suffer more through the champion than from the attack made by the four “Cyclops, or Wit-Centaurs,” two of whom he unhesitatingly names as “Denham and Jack Donne,” or “Jack Straw.” But even thus early we notice the sarcasm against D’Avenant himself: when in reference to the never-forgotten “flaws” in his face, the Defender writes:—
Will shew thy face (be’t what it will),
We’l push ’um yet a quill for quill.