“Levi, thou art a load:  I’ll lay thee down
   And show rebellion bare, without a gown;
   Poor slaves in metre, dull and addle-pated
   Who rhime below e’en David’s psalms translated.”

Doeg is another enemy:—­

  “’Twere pity treason at his door to lay
   Who makes heaven’s gate a lock to its own key. 
   Let him rail on, let his invective muse
   Have four and twenty letters to abuse,
   Which, if he jumbles to one line of sense
   Indict him of a capital offence.”

This satire led to some replies, which Dryden crushed in his “Mac Flecnoe,” a poem named after an Irish priest—­an inferior poet—­who, but for this notice, would never have been known to posterity.  Shadwell was the man really aimed at; Mac Flecnoe exclaims:—­

  “Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he
   Who stands confirmed in full stupidity,
   The rest to some faint meaning make pretence
   But Shadwell never deviates into sense."[58]

After much in the same strain, he finishes with:—­

  “Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame
   In keen iambics, but mild anagram. 
   Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
   Some peaceful province in acrostic land,
   There thou mayest wings display and altars raise,
   And torture one poor world ten thousand ways.”

Dryden calls this kind of satire Varronian, as he weaves a sort of imaginary story into which he introduces the object of his attack.  He was under the impression that this was the first piece of ridicule written in heroics, and his claim seemed correct as far as England was concerned, but Boileau and Tassoni had preceded him.  Willmot says, “Dryden is wanting in the graceful humour of Tassoni, and exquisite power of Boileau.  His wit has more weight than edge—­it beat in armour, but could not cut gause.”  The greater part of Dryden’s satire could not cut anything, nor be distinguished from elaborate vituperation.  He wrote an essay on Satire, in which he shows a much better knowledge of history than of humour.  His best passages are in the “Spanish Friars,” but they are weak and mainly directed against the profligacy of the Church.  The servant says of the friar, “There’s a huge, fat religious gentleman coming up, Sir.  He says he’s but a friar, but he’s big enough to be a Pope; his gills are as rosy as a turkey-cock’s; his great belly walks in state before him like an harbinger, and his gouty legs come limping after it.  Never was such a ton of devotion seen.”

Samuel Butler affords one of the many examples of highly gifted literary men who have died in great poverty.  His works, recommended by Lord Dorset, were read largely, and even by the King himself; but there was then no great demand for books, and authors had to look to patrons, and eat the uncertain bread of dependence.  We may suppose, however, that he was an improvident man, for during his life he held several offices, and was at one time steward of Ludlow Castle.