"Alas! how cruel is a poet's fate!
Or who indeed would be a laureate,
That must or fall or turn with every change of state?
Poor bard! if thy hot zeal for loyal Wem[29a]
Forbids thy tacking, sing his requiem;
Sing something, prithee, to ensure thy thumb;
Nothing but conscience strikes a poet dumb.
Conscience, that dull chimera of the schools,
A learned imposition upon fools,
Thou, Dryden, art not silenced with such stuff,
Egad thy conscience has been large enough.
But here are loyal subjects still, and foes,
Many to mourn, for many to oppose.
Shall thy great master, thy almighty Jove,
Whom thou to place above the gods bust strove,
Shall be from David's throne so early fall,
And laureate Dryden not one tear let fall;
Nor sings the bard his exit in one poor pastoral?
Thee fear confines, thee, Dryden, fear confines,
And grief, not shame, stops thy recanting lines.
Our Damon is as generous as great,
And well could pardon tears that love create,
Shouldst thou, in justice to thy vexed soul,
Not sing to him but thy lost lord condole.
But silence is a damning error, John;
I'd or my master or myself bemoan."
[29a] Lord Jeffries, Baron of Wem.
[30] In the dedication of "Bury-Fair" to his patron the Earl of Dorset, he claims the merit due to his political constancy and sufferings: "I never could recant in the worst of times, when my ruin was designed, and my life was sought, and for near ten years I was kept from the exercise of that profession which had afforded me a competent subsistence; and surely I shall not now do it, when there is a liberty of speaking common sense, which, though not long since forbidden, is now grown current."
[31] See Cibber or Shiels's Life of Shadwell.
[32]
"These wretched poëtitos, who got praise
For writing most confounded loyal plays,
With viler, coarser jests than at Bear-garden,
And silly Grub-street songs worse than Tom-farthing.
If any noble patriot did excel,
His own and country's rights defending well,
These yelping curs were straight loo'd on to bark,
On the deserving man to set a mark.
These abject, fawning parasites and knaves,
Since they were such, would have all others slaves.
'Twas precious loyalty that was thought fit
To atone for want of honesty and wit.
No wonder common-sense was all cried down,
And noise and nonsense swaggered through the town.
Our author, then opprest, would have you know it,
Was silenced for a nonconformist poet;
In those hard times he bore the utmost test,
And now he swears he's loyal as the best.
Now, sirs, since common-sense has won the day,
Be kind to this, as to his last year's play.
His friends stood firmly to him when distressed;
He hopes the number is not now decreased.
He found esteem from those he valued most;
Proud of his friends, he of his foes could boast."
Prologue to Bury-Fair.
[33] Vol. xi.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Introduct. to "Spanish Friar," vol. vi.
[36] Vol. vii.
[37] "A play well-dressed, you know, is half in half, as a great writer says. The Morocco dresses when new, formerly for 'Sebastian,' they say, enlivened the play as much as the 'pudding and dumpling' song did Merlin."—The Female Wits, a comedy by Mountfort.