[20] Vol. x.
[21]
"The laurel makes a wit, a brave, the sword;
And all are wise men at the Council board:
Settle's a coward, 'cause fool Otway fought him,
And Mulgrave is a wit, because I taught him."
The Tory Poets, 4to, 1682.
[22] Jonson is described as wearing a loose coachman's coat, frequenting the Mermaid tavern, where he drunk seas of Canary, then reeling home to bed, and, after a profuse perspiration, arising to his dramatic studies. Shadwell appears, from the slight traits which remain concerning him, to have followed, as closely as possible, the same course of pleasure and of study. He was brutal in his conversation, and much addicted to the use of opium, to which indeed he is said finally to have fallen a victim.
[23] [I have inserted the word "first" because Scott's language is ambiguous. In the list of the bookseller's collection in 3 vols. 4to, advertised in Amphitryon (1690), "Mac-Flecknoe" and the Cromwell poem do not appear. The later plays, however, soon gave material for another volume, and in this 4-vol. edition, advertised in Love Triumphant, 1694, both poems figure.—ED.]
[24] Vol. x.
[25] See some specimens of these poems, vol. ix.
[26] Vol. vi.; vol. x
[27] In a satire against Settle, dated April 1682, entitled, "A Character of the True-blue Protestant Poet," the author exclaims, "One would believe it almost incredible, that any out of Bedlam should think it possible, a yesterday's fool, an errant knave, a despicable coward, and a prophane atheist, should be to-day by the same persons, a Cowley, a man of honour, an hero, and a zealous upholder of the Protestant cause and interest."
[28] In the "Deliverance," an address to the Prince of Orange, published about 9th February 1689:—
"Alas! the famous Settle, Durfey, Tate,
That early propped the deep intrigues of state,
Dull Whiggish lines the world could ne'er applaud,
While your swift genius did appear abroad:
And then, great Bayes, whose yet unconquered pen
Wrote with strange force as well of beasts as men,
Whose noble genius grieved from afar,
Because new worlds of Bayes did not appear,
Now to contend with the ambitious elf,
Begins a civil war against himself," etc.