That the Laureate was heavy-gaited in composition, taking five years to finish one comedy,—­that he was, on the other hand, too swift, trusting Nature rather than elaborate Art,—­that he was dull and unimaginative,—­that he was keen and remarkably sharp-witted,—­that he affected a profundity of learning of which he gave no evidences,—­that his plays were only less numerous than Dryden’s, are other particulars we gather from conflicting witnesses of the period.  Certainly, no one of the Laureates, Cibber excepted, was so mercilessly lampooned.  What Cibber suffered from the “Dunciad” Shadwell suffered from “MacFlecknoe.”  Incited by Dryden’s example, the poets showered their missiles at him, and so perseveringly as to render him a traditional butt of satire for two or three generations.  Thus Prior:—­

  “Thus, without much delight or grief,
  I fool away an idle life,
  Till Shadwell from the town retires,
  Choked up with fame and sea-coal fires,
  To bless the wood with peaceful lyric: 
  Then hey for praise and panegyric;
  Justice restored, and nations freed,
  And wreaths round William’s glorious head.”

And Parnell:—­

  “But hold! before I close the scene,
  The sacred altar should be clean. 
  Oh, had I Shadwell’s second bays,
  Or, Tate! thy pert and humble lays,—­
  Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow
  I never missed your works till now,—­
  I’d tear the leaves to wipe the shrine,
  That only way you please the Nine;
  But since I chance to want these two,
  I’ll make the songs of Durfey do.”

And in a far more venomous and violent style, the noteless mob of contemporary writers.

Shadwell, after all, was very far from being the blockhead these references imply.  His “Third Nights” were probably far more profitable than Dryden’s.[23] By his friends he was classed with the liveliest wits of a brilliant court.  Rochester so classed him:—­

  “I loathe the rabble:  ’tis enough for me,
  If Sedley, Shadwell, Shephard, Wycherley,
  Godolphin, Butler, Buckhurst, Buckingham,
  And some few more, whom I omit to name,
  Approve my sense:  I count their censure fame."[24]

And compares him elsewhere with Wycherley:—­

  “Of all our modern wits, none seem to me
  Once to have touched upon true comedy,
  But hasty Shadwell and slow Wycherley. 
  Shadwell’s unfinished works do yet impart
  Great proofs of force of nature, none of art;
  With just, bold strokes, he dashes here and there,
  Showing great mastery with little care,
  Scorning to varnish his good touches o’er
  To make the fools and women praise them more. 
  But Wycherley earns hard whate’er he gains;
  He wants no judgment, and he spares no pains,” etc.

And, not disrespectfully, Pope:—­