"The Amorous Bigot," with the Second Part of "Teague O'Divelly," dedicated to the Earl of Shrewsbury.
"The Scourers," borrowed in part from a play of Sir George Etheredge.
"The Volunteers, or the Stock-Jobbers." A comedy, dedicated by his widow to the Queen.
Shadwell is now principally remembered as the antagonist of Dryden, and the consequent object of some of the most bitter satire in the English language. He was to the author of "MacFlecnoe" what Cibber was to Pope. In both cases the quarrel arose, as far as we can judge, from the most insignificant causes; a heedless piece of satire, or a momentary qualm of jealousy, which gradually strengthened into disgust, and was inflamed by opposition into the most rancorous hostility: while in Dryden's case "political hatred gangrened a wound inflicted by literary rivalry."
Now the actors are dust, how petty to us appear those fierce contentions which once formed a prominent topic of popular interest. Dryden and Shadwell; Pope and Cibber; Bentley and Boyle; the list might be indefinitely multiplied. The struggle, which, when some great principle of politics or morals is the subject of the strife, ennobles in our eyes the unflinching combatants, only degrades when the violence and the rancour result from the soreness of wounded vanity, or the malice of blighted anticipation. Infinitely grander in this respect stands out the character of Sir Walter Scott, who envied not the success of contemporaries, nor slighted rising talent, nor heeded attacks forgotten now because then unheeded, nor handled the weapon of satire, which is as dangerous to the offended as the offender.
Dryden and Shadwell were once on friendly terms, as, in 1676, in the preface to "The Humorists," the former
