o him put into the mouth of
Achitophel, in these words:--

"Auspicious prince, at whose nativity
Some royal planet ruled the southern sky,
Thy longing country's darling and desire,
Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire,
Their second Moses, whose extended wand
Divides the seas and shows the promised land,
Whose dawning day in every distant age
Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage,
The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,
The young men's vision and the old men's dream,--
Thee savior, thee the nation's vows confess,
And never satisfied with seeing, bless."

Dryden followed up the attack upon Shaftesbury with a poem entitled
'The Medal.' This satire, which appeared in March 1682, was called
forth by the action of the partisans of the Whig leader in having a
medal struck commemorating his release from the Tower, after the grand
jury had thrown out the charge of treason which had been brought
against him. Both of these pieces were followed by a host of replies.
Some of them did not refrain from personal attack, which indeed had a
certain justification in the poet's own violence of denunciation. The
most abusive of these was a poem by Thomas Shadwell, entitled 'The
Medal of John Bayes.' Such persons as fancy Dryden's subsequent
punishment of that dramatist unwarranted in its severity should in
justice read this ferociously scurrilous diatribe, in which every
charge against the poet that malice or envy had concocted and rumor
had set afloat, was here industriously raked together; and to the
muck-heap thus collected, the intimacy of previous acquaintance was
doubtless enabled to contribute its due quota of malignant assertion
and more malignant insinuation. Shadwell was soon supplied, however,
with ample reason to regret his action. Dryden's first and best known
rejoinder is 'MacFlecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant
Poet T. S.' This production has always had the reputation in
literature of being the severest personal satire in the language; but
it requires now for its appreciation an intimate acquaintance with
Shadwell's plays, which very few possess. It is further disfigured in
places by a coarseness from which, indeed, none of the poet's writings
were certain to be free. Its general spirit can be indicated by a
brief extract from its opening paragraph. Flecknoe, it is to be said,
was a feeble poet who had died a few years before. He is here
represented as having long rei