[Footnote 17:] Fable for Critics, 1850.]
[Footnote 18:] This story rests on the authority of Thomas Betterton, the actor, who received it from Davenant.]
[Footnote 19:] Dedication of the Pastorals of Virgil, to Hugh, Lord Clifford, the son of Sir Thomas.]
[Footnote 20:] There were some indications that portions of the farce had been written while Davenant was living and had been intended for him. Mr. Bayes appears in one place with a plaster on his nose, an evident allusion to Davenant's loss of that feature. In a lively satire of the time, by Richard Duke, it is asserted that Villiers was occupied with the composition of The Rehearsal from the Restoration down to the day of its production on the stage:--
"But with playhouses, wars, immortal wars,
He waged, and ten years' rage produced a farce.
As many rolling years he did employ,
And hands almost as many, to destroy
Heroic rhyme, as Greece to ruin Troy.
Once more, says Fame, for battle he prepares,
And threatens rhymers with a second farce:
But, if as long for this as that we stay,
He'll finish Clevedon sooner than his play."
The Review]
[Footnote 21:] It is little to the credit of Dryden, that, having saved up his wrath against Flecknoe so long, he had not reserved it altogether. Flecknoe had been dead at least four years when the satire appeared.]
[Footnote 22:] Macaulay quotes Blackmore's Prince Arthur, to illustrate Dryden's dependence upon Dorset:--
"The poets' nation did obsequious wait
For the kind dole divided at his gate.
Laurus among the meagre crowd appeared,
An old, revolted, unbelieving bard,
Who thronged, and shoved, and pressed, and would be heard."Sakil's high roof, the Muse's palace, rung
With endless cries, and endless songs he sung.
To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first;
But Sakil's prince and Sakil's God he curst.
Sakil without distinction threw his bread,
Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed."
Laurus, of course, stands for Dryden, and Sakil for Dorset.]
[Footnote 23:] The Squire of Alsatia is said to have realized him £130.]