ublican; that he
had written an elegy on Cromwell (which one wily adversary actually
reprinted); that he had been in poverty at the Restoration; that Lady
Elizabeth Dryden's character was tarnished by the circumstances
attending their nuptials; that Dryden had written the "Essay on Satire,"
in which the king was libelled; that he had been beaten by three men in
Rose-alley; finally, that he was a Tory, and a tool of arbitrary power.
This cuckoo song, garnished with the burden of _Bayes_ and _Poet
Squab_,[14] was rung in the ear of the public again and again, and with
an obstinacy which may convince us how little there was to be said, when
that little was so often repeated. Feeble as these attacks were, their
number, like that of the gnats described by Spenser,[15] seems to have
irritated Dryden to exert the power of his satire, and, like the blast
of the northern wind, to sweep away at once these clamorous and busy,
though ineffectual assailants. Two, in particular, claimed distinction
from the nameless crowd; Settle, Dryden's ancient foe, and Shadwell, who
had been originally a dubious friend.

Of Dryden's controversy with Settle we have already spoken fully; but we
may here add, that, in addition to former offences of a public and
private nature, Elkanah, in the Prologue to the "Emperor of Morocco,"
acted in March 1681-2, had treated Dryden with great irreverence.[16]
Shadwell had been for some time in good habits with Dryden; yet an early
difference of taste and practice in comedy, not only existed between
them, but was the subject of reciprocal debate, and something
approaching to rivalry.

Dryden, as we have seen, had avowed his preference of lively dialogue in
comedy to delineation of character, or, in other words, of wit and
repartee to what was then called humour. On this subject Shadwell early
differed from the laureate. Conscious of considerable powers in
observing nature, while he was deficient in that liveliness of fancy
which is necessary to produce vivacity of dialogue, Shadwell affected,
or perhaps entertained, a profound veneration for the memory of Ben
Jonson, and proposed him as his model in the representation of such
characters as were to be marked by _humour_, or an affectation of
singularity of manners, speech, and behaviour. Dryden, on the other
hand, was no great admirer either of Jonson's plays in general, or of
the low and coarse characters of vice and folly, in describing which lay
his chief e