ndred pounds per ann. He was born about the year 1640, at
Stanton-Hall in Norfolk, a seat of his father's, and educated at Caius
College in Cambridge[1], where his father had been likewise bred; and
then placed in the middle Temple, to study the law; where having
spent some time, he travelled abroad. Upon his return home he became
acquainted with the most celebrated persons of wit, and distinguished
quality, in that age; which was so much addicted to poetry and polite
literature, that it was not easy for him, who had no doubt a native
relish for the same accomplishments, to abstain from these the
fashionable studies and amusements of those times. He applied himself
chiefly to the dramatic kind of writing, in which he had considerable
success. At the revolution, Mr. Dryden, who had so warmly espoused the
opposite interest, was dispossessed of his place of Poet Laureat, and
Mr. Shadwell succeeded him in it, which employment he possessed till his
death. Mr. Shadwell has been illustrious, for nothing so much as the
quarrel which subsisted between him and Dryden, who held him in the
greatest contempt. We cannot discover what was the cause of Mr.
Dryden's aversion to Shadwell, or how this quarrel began, unless it was
occasioned by the vacant Laurel being bellowed on Mr. Shadwell: But it
is certain, the former prosecuted his resentment severely, and, in
his Mac Flecknoe, has transmitted his antagonist to posterity in no
advantageous light. It is the nature of satire to be biting, but it
is not always its nature to be true: We cannot help thinking that Mr.
Dryden has treated Shadwell a little too unmercifully, and has
violated truth to make the satire more pungent. He says, in the piece
abovementioned,

Others to some saint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.

Which is not strictly true. There are high authorities in favour of many
of his Comedies, and the best wits of the age gave their testimony for
them: They have in them fine strokes of humour, the characters are often
original, strongly mark'd, and well sustained; add to this, that he had
the greatest expedition in writing imaginable, and sometimes produced
a play in less than a month. Shadwell, as it appears from Rochester's
Session of the Poets, was a great favourite with Otway, and as they
lived, in intimacy together, it might perhaps be the occasion of
Dryden's expressing so much contempt for Otway; which his cooler
judgment could never