ing and his royal
highness; from both of which I have since received confirmations of
their good-liking of it, and encouragement to proceed. And it is to him,
I must, in all gratitude, confess, I owe the greatest part of my good
success in this and on whose indulgency I extremely build my hopes of a
next." Accordingly, next year, Otway's play of "Titus and Berenice" is
inscribed to Rochester, "his good and generous patron."

[16]
"Tom Otway came next, Tom Shailwell's dear zany,
And swears for heroics he writes best of any;
'Don Carlos' his pockets so amply had filled,
That his mange was quite cured, and his lice were all killed.
But Apollo had seen his face on the stage,
And prudently did not think fit to engage
The scum of a playhouse for the prop of an age."

[17] "Though a certain writer, that shall be nameless (but you may guess
at him by what follows), being ask'd his opinion of this play, very
gravely cock't, and cry'd, _I'gad_ he knew not a line in it he would be
authour of. But he is a fine facetious witty person, as my friend Sir
Formal has it; and to be even with him, I know a comedy of his, that has
not so much as a quibble in it which I would be authour of. And so,
reader, I bid him and thee farewell." The use of Dryden's interjection,
well known through Bayes's employing it, ascertains him to be the poet
meant.

[18]
"Well, sir, 'tis granted; I said Dryden's rhymes
Were stolen, unequal, nay dull many times;
What foolish patron is there found of his,
So blindly partial to deny me this?
But that his plays, embroidered up and down
With learning, justly pleased the town,
In the same paper I as freely own.
Yet, having this allowed, the heavy mass,
That stuffs up his loose volumes, must not pass;
For by that rule I might as well admit
Crowne's tedious scenes for poetry and wit.
'Tis therefore not enough when your false sense
Hits the false judgment of an audience
Of clapping fools assembling, a vast crowd,
Till the thronged playhouse cracked with the dull load;
Though even that talent merits, in some sort,
That can divert the rabble and the court;
Which blundering Settle never could obtain,
And puzzling Otway labours at in vain."

He afterwards mentions Etherege's seductive poetry, and adds:

"Dryden in vain tried this nice way of wit;
For he, to be a tearing blade, thought fit
To give the ladies a dry bawdy bob;
And thus he got the name