be reprinted in the Second Edition of 'Gondibert,'"
1653. Two years after appeared a brother volume, entitled "The
Incomparable Poem of Gondibert vindicated from the Wit-Combats of Four
Esquires; Clinias, Dametas, Sancho and Jack Pudding;"[326] with these
mottoes:

~Koteei kai aoidos aoido~.
Vatum quoque gratia, rara est.
Anglice,
One wit-brother
Envies another.

Of these rare tracts, we are told by Anthony Wood and all subsequent
literary historians, too often mere transcribers of title-pages, that
the second was written by our author himself. Would not one imagine
that it was a real vindication, or at least a retort-courteous on
these obliging friends. The irony of the whole volume has escaped
their discovery. The second tract is a continuation of the satire: a
mock defence, where the sarcasm and the pretended remonstrance are
sometimes keener than the open attack. If, indeed, D'Avenant were the
author of a continuation of a satire on himself, it is an act of _felo
de se_ no poet ever committed; a self-flagellation by an iron whip,
where blood is drawn at every stroke, the most penitent bard never
inflicted on himself. Would D'Avenant have bantered his proud labour,
by calling it "incomparable?" And were it true, that he felt the
strokes of their witty malignity so lightly, would he not have secured
his triumph by finishing that "Gondibert," "the monument of his mind?"
It is too evident that this committee of wits hurt the quiet of a
great mind.

As for this series of literary satires, it might have been expected,
that since the wits clubbed, this committee ought to have been more
effective in their operations. Many of their papers were, no doubt,
more blotted with their wine than their ink. Their variety of attack
is playful, sarcastic, and malicious. They were then such exuberant
wits, that they could make even ribaldry and grossness witty. My
business with these wicked trifles is only as they concerned the
feelings of the great poet, whom they too evidently hurt, as well as
the great philosopher who condescended to notice these wits, with wit
more dignified than their own.

Unfortunately for our "jeered Will," as in their usual court-style
they call him, he had met with "a foolish mischance," well known among
the collectors of our British portraits. There was a feature in his
face, or rather no feature at all, that served as a perpetual
provocative: there was no pre