mong Dryden's
patrons. He wrote a recommendatory copy of verses, which are
prefixed to "The Conquest of Granada." Mr Malone informs us, that
this accomplished nobleman died at Chelsea, on 16th January,
1712-13.

2. The great popish plot, that scene of mystery and blood, broke out
in August 1678.

3. Flecknoe was a Roman Catholic priest, very much addicted to
scribbling verses. His name has been chiefly preserved by our
author's satire of "Mack-Flecknoe;" in which he has depicted
Shadwell, as the literary son and heir of this wretched poetaster.
A few farther particulars concerning him may be found prefixed to
that poem. Flecknoe, from this dedication, appears to have been
just deceased. The particular passage referred to has not been
discovered; even Langbaine had never seen it: but Mr Malone points
out a letter of Flecknoe to the Cardinal Barberini, whereof the
first sentence is in Latin, and the next in English. Our author, in
an uncommon strain of self-depreciation, or rather to give a neat
turn to his sentence, has avouched himself to be a worse poet than
Flecknoe. But expressions of modesty in a dedication, like those of
panegyric, are not to be understood literally. As in the latter,
Dryden often strains a note beyond _Ela_, so, on the present
occasion, he has certainly sounded the very base string of
humility. Poor Flecknoe, indeed, seems to have become proverbial,
as the worst of poets. The Earl of Dorset thus begins a satire on
Edward Howard:

Those damned antipodes to common sense,
Those toils to Flecknoe, pr'ythee, tell me whence
Does all this mighty mass of dulness spring,
Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring?

4. There is a very flat and prosaic imitation of this sentiment in the
Duke of Buckingham's lines to Pope:

And yet so wondrous, so sublime a thing
As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing;
Except I justly could at once commend
A good companion, and as firm a friend;
One moral, or a mere well-natured deed,
Does all desert in sciences exceed.

Thus prose may be humbled, as well as exalted; into poetry.

PROLOGUE.

True wit has seen its best days long ago;
It ne'er looked up, since we were dipt in show;
When sense in doggrel rhimes and clouds was lost,
And dulness flourished at the actor's cost.
Nor st