Angry he was; and unfortunately he
determined to shew the world that he did well in being so. With this
view, in conjunction with Shadwell and Crowne, two brother-dramatists,
equally jealous of Settle's success, he composed a pamphlet, entitled
"Remarks upon the Empress of Morocco." This piece is written in the same
tone of boisterous and vulgar raillery with which Clifford and Leigh had
assailed Dryden himself; and little resembles our poet's general style
of controversy. He seems to have exchanged his satirical scourge for the
clumsy flail of Shadwell, when he stooped to use such raillery as the
following description of Settle: "In short, he is an animal of a most
deplored understanding, without reading and conversation: his being is
in a twilight of sense, and some glimmering of thought, which he can
never fashion either into wit or English. His style is boisterous and
rough-hewn; his rhyme incorrigibly lewd, and his numbers perpetually
harsh and ill-sounding."
Settle, nothing dismayed with this vehement attack, manfully retorted
the abuse which had been thrown upon him, and answered the insulting
clamour of his three antagonists with clamorous insult.[10] It was
obvious that the weaker poet must be the winner by this contest in
abuse; and Dryden gained no more by his dispute with Settle, than a
well-dressed man who should condescend to wrestle with a
chimney-sweeper. The feud between them was carried no further, until,
after the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel," party animosity added
spurs to literary rivalry.
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