Smith and Mr. Johnson, the
main pillars of it, were two such languishing gentlemen in their
conversation, that I could liken them to nothing but to their own
relations, those noble characters of men of wit and pleasure about the
town."--_Dedication to Juvenal_.
[14] The pains which Dryden bestowed on the character of Zimri, and the
esteem in which he held it, is evident from his quoting it as the
master-piece of his own satire. "The character of Zimri in my 'Absalom'
is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem: it is not bloody, but it is
ridiculous enough; and he, for him it was intended, was too witty to
resent it as an injury. If I had railed, I might have suffered for it
justly; but I managed my own work more happily, perhaps more
dexterously. I avoided the mention of great crimes, and applied myself
to the representing of blind-sides, and little extravagancies; to which,
the wittier a man is, he is generally the more obnoxious. It succeeded
as I wished; the jest went round, and he was laughed at in his turn who
began the frolic."
[15] In one of Cibber's moods of alteration, he combined the comic
scenes of these two plays into a comedy entitled, "The Comical Lovers."
[16]
"You are changed too, and your pretence to see
Is but a nobler name for charity;
Your own provisions furnish out our feasts,
While you, the founders, make yourselves the guests."--Vol. x.
[17]
"Some have expected, from our bills to-day,
To find a satire in our poet's ploy.
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