Note xlii — THE ART of POLITICKS, In Imitation of HORACE's ART of POETRY.
Reading edition
line 4. John Banks was the author of The Unhappy Favourite; or the Earl of Essex (1681) and of The Island Queens, or the Death of Mary, Queen of Scotland (prohibited in 1684; a revision was produced in 1704). Bell says that although "written in the most contemptible language, yet they never fail to melt the audience into tears, merely by the force of judicious and well-arranged plots and incidents."