Note 1152 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Dryden's charge, in The Medal, of "bartering his venal wit for sums of gold" during the Rebellion, is pure figment. It is an established fact that even as Councillor of State, to which office there was attached a salary of £1,000, Shaftesbury, then Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, received no salary at all. See note to Mr. Christie's (Globe) ed. of Dryden's poems, pp. 127, 128.