But here are loyal subjects still, and foes,
Many to mourn, for many to oppose.
Shall thy great master, thy almighty Jove,
Whom thou to place above the gods bust strove,
Shall be from David's throne so early fall,
And laureate Dryden not one tear let fall;
Nor sings the bard his exit in one poor pastoral?
Thee fear confines, thee, Dryden, fear confines,
And grief, not shame, stops thy recanting lines.
Our Damon is as generous as great,
And well could pardon tears that love create,
Shouldst thou, in justice to thy vexed soul,
Not sing to him but thy lost lord condole.
But silence is a damning error, John;
I'd or my master or myself bemoan."
[29a] _Lord Jeffries, Baron of Wem._
[30] In the dedication of "Bury-Fair" to his patron the Earl of Dorset,
he claims the merit due to his political constancy and sufferings: "I
never could recant in the worst of times, when my ruin was designed, and
my life was sought, and for near ten years I was kept from the exercise
of that profession which had afforded me a competent subsistence; and
surely I shall not now do it, when there is a liberty of speaking common
sense, which, though not long since forbidden, is now grown current."
[31] See Cibber or Shiels's Life of Shadwell.
[32]
"These wretched poetitos, who got praise
For writing most confounded loyal plays,
With viler, coarser jests than at Bear-garden,
And silly Grub-street songs worse than Tom-farthing.
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