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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=419833" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Mac Flecknoe: A Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">All human things are subject to decay, <br> And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:<br> This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young<br> Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:<br> In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute<br> Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.<br> This aged prince now flourishing in peace,<br> And blest with issue of a large increase,<br> Worn out with business, did at length debate<br> To settle the succession of the State:<br> And pond'ring which of all his sons was fit<br> To reign, and wage immortal war with wit;<br> Cry'd, 'tis resolv'd; for nature pleads that he<br> Should only rule, who most resembles me:<br> Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,<br> Mature in dullness from his tender years.<br> Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he<br> Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.<br> The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,<br> But Shadwell never deviates into sense.<br> Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,<br> Strike through and make a lucid interval;<br> But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,<br> His rising fogs prevail upon the day:<br> Besides his goodly fabric fills the eye,<br> And seems design'd for thoughtless majesty:<br> Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,<br> And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.<br> Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,<br> Thou last great prophet of tautology:<br> Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,<br> Was sent before but to prepare thy way;<br> And coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came<br> To teach the nations in thy greater name.<br> My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung<br> When to King John of Portugal I sung,<br> Was but the prelude to that glorious day,<br> When thou on silver Thames did'st cut thy way,<br> With well tim'd oars before the royal barge,<br> Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge;<br> And big with hymn, commander of an host,<br> The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets toss'd.<br> Methinks I see the new Arion sail,<br> The lute still trembling underneath thy nail.<br> At thy well sharpen'd thumb from shore to shore<br> The treble squeaks for fear, the basses roar:<br> Echoes from Pissing-Alley, Shadwell call,<br> And Shadwell they resound from Aston Hall.<br> About thy boat the little fishes throng,<br> As at the morning toast, that floats along.<br> Sometimes as prince of thy harmonious band<br> Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing hand.<br> St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time,<br> Not ev'n the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme:<br> Though they in number as in sense excel;<br> So just, so like tautology they fell,<br> That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore<br> The lute and sword which he in triumph bore<br> And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more.<br> Here stopt the good old sire; and wept for joy<br> In silent raptures of the hopeful boy.<br> All arguments, but most his plays, persuade,<br> That for anointed dullness he was made.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind,<br> (The fair Augusta much to fears inclin'd)<br> An ancient fabric, rais'd t'inform the sight,<br> There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight:<br> A watch tower once; but now, so fate ordains,<br> Of all the pile an empty name remains.<br> From its old ruins brothel-houses rise,<br> Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys.<br> Where their vast courts, the mother-strumpets keep,<br> And, undisturb'd by watch, in silence sleep.<br> Near these a nursery erects its head,<br> Where queens are form'd, and future heroes bred;<br> Where unfledg'd actors learn to laugh and cry,<br> Where infant punks their tender voices try,<br> And little Maximins the gods defy.<br> Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,<br> Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear;<br> But gentle Simkin just reception finds<br> Amidst this monument of vanish'd minds:<br> Pure clinches, the suburbian muse affords;<br> And Panton waging harmless war with words.<br> Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known,<br> Ambitiously design'd his Shadwell's throne.<br> For ancient Decker prophesi'd long since,<br> That in this pile should reign a mighty prince,<br> Born for a scourge of wit, and flail of sense:<br> To whom true dullness should some Psyches owe,<br> But worlds of Misers from his pen should flow;<br> Humorists and hypocrites it should produce,<br> Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Now Empress Fame had publisht the renown,<br> Of Shadwell's coronation through the town.<br> Rous'd by report of fame, the nations meet,<br> From near Bun-Hill, and distant Watling-street.<br> No Persian carpets spread th'imperial way,<br> But scatter'd limbs of mangled poets lay:<br> From dusty shops neglected authors come,<br> Martyrs of pies, and reliques of the bum.<br> Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay,<br> But loads of Shadwell almost chok'd the way.<br> Bilk'd stationers for yeoman stood prepar'd,<br> And Herringman was Captain of the Guard.<br> The hoary prince in majesty appear'd,<br> High on a throne of his own labours rear'd.<br> At his right hand our young Ascanius sat<br> Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state.<br> His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace,<br> And lambent dullness play'd around his face.<br> As Hannibal did to the altars come,<br> Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome;<br> So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain,<br> That he till death true dullness would maintain;<br> And in his father's right, and realm's defence,<br> Ne'er to have peace with wit, nor truce with sense.<br> The king himself the sacred unction made,<br> As king by office, and as priest by trade:<br> In his sinister hand, instead of ball,<br> He plac'd a mighty mug of potent ale;<br> Love's kingdom to his right he did convey,<br> At once his sceptre and his rule of sway;<br> Whose righteous lore the prince had practis'd young,<br> And from whose loins recorded Psyche sprung,<br> His temples last with poppies were o'er spread,<br> That nodding seem'd to consecrate his head:<br> Just at that point of time, if fame not lie,<br> On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly.<br> So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook,<br> Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.<br> Th'admiring throng loud acclamations make,<br> And omens of his future empire take.<br> The sire then shook the honours of his head,<br> And from his brows damps of oblivion shed<br> Full on the filial dullness: long he stood,<br> Repelling from his breast the raging god;<br> At length burst out in this prophetic mood:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Heavens bless my son, from Ireland let him reign<br> To far Barbadoes on the Western main;<br> Of his dominion may no end be known,<br> And greater than his father's be his throne.<br> Beyond love's kingdom let him stretch his pen;<br> He paus'd, and all the people cry'd Amen.<br> Then thus, continu'd he, my son advance<br> Still in new impudence, new ignorance.<br> Success let other teach, learn thou from me<br> Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.<br> Let Virtuosos in five years be writ;<br> Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.<br> Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage,<br> Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage;<br> Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,<br> And in their folly show the writer's wit.<br> Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence,<br> And justify their author's want of sense.<br> Let 'em be all by thy own model made<br> Of dullness, and desire no foreign aid:<br> That they to future ages may be known,<br> Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.<br> Nay let thy men of wit too be the same,<br> All full of thee, and differing but in name;<br> But let no alien Sedley interpose<br> To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.<br> And when false flowers of rhetoric thou would'st cull,<br> Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull;<br> But write thy best, and top; and in each line,<br> Sir Formal's oratory will be thine.<br> Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill,<br> And does thy Northern Dedications fill.<br> Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame,<br> By arrogating Jonson's hostile name.<br> Let Father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise,<br> And Uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.<br> Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part;<br> What share have we in Nature or in Art?<br> Where did his wit on learning fix a brand,<br> And rail at arts he did not understand?<br> Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein,<br> Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain?<br> Where sold he bargains, whip-stitch, kiss my arse,<br> Promis'd a play and dwindled to a farce?<br> When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin,<br> As thou whole Eth'ridge dost transfuse to thine?<br> But so transfus'd as oil on waters flow,<br> His always floats above, thine sinks below.<br> This is thy province, this thy wondrous way,<br> New humours to invent for each new play:<br> This is that boasted bias of thy mind,<br> By which one way, to dullness, 'tis inclin'd,<br> Which makes thy writings lean on one side still,<br> And in all changes that way bends thy will.<br> Nor let thy mountain belly make pretence<br> Of likeness; thine's a tympany of sense.<br> A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ,<br> But sure thou 'rt but a kilderkin of wit.<br> Like mine thy gentle numbers feebly creep,<br> Thy Tragic Muse gives smiles, thy Comic sleep.<br> With whate'er gall thou sett'st thy self to write,<br> Thy inoffensive satires never bite.<br> In thy felonious heart, though venom lies,<br> It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.<br> Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame<br> In keen iambics, but mild anagram:<br> Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command<br> Some peaceful province in acrostic land.<br> There thou may'st wings display and altars raise,<br> And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.<br> Or if thou would'st thy diff'rent talents suit,<br> Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.<br> He said, but his last words were scarcely heard,<br> For Bruce and Longvil had a trap prepar'd,<br> And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.<br> Sinking he left his drugget robe behind,<br> Born upwards by a subterranean wind.<br> The mantle fell to the young prophet's part,<br> With double portion of his father's art.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Dryden">John Dryden</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=419833" data-title="Mac Flecknoe: A Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T de John Dryden" data-description="All human things are subject to decay, 
 And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:
 This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
 Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:
 In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
 Through all the rea..."></div>
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