n-law
Shadwell had aggravated by accepting the capricious patronage of Lord
Rochester, by subsequently siding with the Whigs, and by aiding the
ambitious designs of Shaftesbury in play and pamphlet,--labors the
value of which is not to be measured by the contemptuous estimate of
the satirist. The first outburst of the retributive storm fell upon
the head of Shadwell. The second part of "Absalom and Achitophel,"
which appeared in the autumn of 1682, contains the portrait of
_Og_, cut in outlines so sharp as to remind us of an unrounded
alto-rilievo:--

Now stop your noses, readers, all and some,
For here's a tun of midnight work to come,
Og, from a treason-tavern rolling home;
Round as a globe, and liquored every chink,
Goodly and great he sails behind his link.
With all his bulk, there's nothing lost in Og,
For every inch that is not fool is rogue ....

The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull
With this prophetic blessing, Be thou dull!
Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk; do anything but write.
Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
Still thou mayst live, avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain;
For treason botched in rhyme will be thy bane ....

A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
For writing treason, and for writing dull...

I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
For who would read thy life who reads thy rhymes?
But of King David's foes be this the doom,
May all be like the young man Absalom!
And for my foes, may this their blessing be,
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee!

Of the multitudinous rejoinders and counterblasts provoked by this
thunder, Dryden, it is supposed, ascribed the authorship of one of the
keenest to Shadwell. We are to conceive some new and immediate
provocation as added to the old grudge, to call for a second attack so
soon; for it was only a month later that the "MacFlecknoe" appeared;
not in 1689, as Dr. Johnson states, who, mistaking the date, also errs
in assuming the cause of Dryden's wrath to have been the transfer of
the laurel from his own to the brows of Shadwell. "MacFlecknoe" is by
common consent the most perfect and perfectly acrid satire in English
literature. The topics selected, the foibles attacked, the ingenious
and remorseless ridicule with which they are overwhelmed, the
comprehensive vindictiveness which converted every personal
characteris