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 have directed him to do.

Mr. Shadwell died the 19th of December 1692, in the fifty-second year of his age, as we are informed by the inscription upon his monument in Westminster Abbey; tho’ there may be some mistake in that date; for it is said in the title page of his funeral sermon preached by Dr. Nicholas Brady, that he was interred at Chelsea, on the 24th of November, that year.  This sermon was published 1693, in quarto, and in it Dr. Brady tells us, ’That our author was ’a man of great honesty and integrity, an inviolable fidelity and strictness in his word, an unalterable friendship wherever he professed it, and however the world maybe mistaken in him, he had a much deeper sense of religion than many who pretended more to it.  His natural and acquired abilities, continues the Dr. made him very amiable to all who knew and conversed with him, a very few being equal in the becoming qualities, which adorn, and fit off a complete gentleman; his very enemies, if he have now any left, will give him this character, at least if they knew him so thoroughly as I did.—­His death seized him suddenly, but he could not be unprepared, since to my certain knowledge he never took a dose of opium, but he solemnly recommended himself to God by prayer.’