4.  Women’s Conquest, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at the Duke’s Theatre 1677.

Besides these plays, Mr. Howard has published an Epic Poem in octavo, called the British Princes, which the earl of Rochester likewise handled pretty severely.  There is likewise ascribed to him another Book of Poems and Essays, with a Paraphrase on Cicero’s Laelius, or Tract of Friendship, printed in 8vo.  The Earl of Dorset, who was called by cotemporary writers, the best good man, with the worst natured Muse, has dedicated a few lines to the damnation of this extraordinary epic production of Mr. Howard’s.

The Spectator observes, that this epic piece is full of incongruity, or in other words, abounds with nonsense.  He quotes the two following lines,

  A coat of mail Prince Vortiger had on,
  Which from a naked pict his grandsire won.

Who does not see the absurdity of winning a coat from a naked man?

The earl of Dorset thus addresses him;

To Mr. Edward Howard, on his incomparable, incomprehensible poem called the British princes.

  Come on, ye critics, find one fault who dare,
  For, read it backward like a witch’s prayer,
  ’Twill do as well; throw not away your jests
  On solid nonsense that abides all tests. 
  Wit, like tierce-claret, when’t begins to pall,
  Neglected lies, and’s of no use at all,
  But, in its full perfection of decay,
  Turns vinegar, and comes again in play. 
  Thou hast a brain, such as it is indeed;
  On what else mould thy worm of fancy feed? 
  Yet in a Filbert I have often known
  Maggots survive when all the kernel’s gone. 
  This simile shall stand, in thy defence,
  ’Gainst such dull rogues as now and then write sense. 
  Thy style’s the same, whatever be thy theme,
  As some digestion turns all meat to phlegm. 
  He lyes, dear Ned, who says, thy brain it barren,
  Where deep conceits, like vermin breed in carrion. 
  Thy stumbling founder’d jade can trot as high
  As any other Pegasus can fly. 
  So the dull Eel moves nimbler in the mud,
  Than all the swift-finn’d racers of the flood. 
  As skilful divers to the bottom fall,
  Sooner than those that cannot swim at all,
  So in the way of writing, without thinking,
  Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking. 
  Thou writ’st below ev’n thy own nat’ral parts,
  And with acquir’d dulness, and new arts
  Of studied nonsense, tak’st kind readers hearts. 
  Therefore dear Ned, at my advice forbear,
  Such loud complaints ’gainst critics to prefer,
  Since thou art turn’d an arrant libeller: 
  Thou sett’st thy name to what thyself do’st write;
  Did ever libel yet so sharply bite?

* * * * *

Mrs. Aphra Behn,