other; first, the "MacFlecnoe," filling originally only a sheet and a half, and sold for two-pence, in which he ridiculed the poetical character of his victim; while as Og, in the second part of "Absalom and Achitophel," Shadwell's abilities as a political writer are held up for perpetual reprobation.
The literary quarrels of those times were waged with an animus, and were attended with effects which in our day we find it hard to credit. Hunt, who assisted Shadwell in his attack on "The Duke of Guise," was obliged to fly the country; while the latter, in the dedication of his "Bury Fair" to the Earl of Dorset, refers to "those worst of times, when his ruin was designed and his life was sought, and for near ten years he was kept from the exercise of that profession which had afforded him a competent subsistence."
Dryden, the greatest of the poets who have worn the laurel, was the only one who was forcibly deprived of it, when the Revolution of 1688 transferred it to the brows of Shadwell. On its being represented to the Earl of Dorset, through whose influence the appointment, as well as that of historiographer was conferred, that there were other authors whose merits better entitled them to the honour; that discriminating nobleman replied that "he did not pretend to determine how great a poet Shadwell might be, but was sure he was an honest man;" honesty being then literally synonymous with Whiggism. Even with this justification, the appointment was hardly fair, as if such was the qualification for the office, there were many men in Church and State who had shown more zealotry in the cause even than Shadwell. He did not long enjoy his honours, as he died suddenly at Chelsea, in November, 1692, in the fifty-second year of his age. The report that his death was caused by an over-dose of laudanum, was authoritatively contradicted by Brady, who preached his funeral sermon.
