Note 245 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Dryden's Aurengzebe:
The dregs and droppings of enervate love.—Steevens.
It has been suggested that he alludes to Wycherley.—Warton.
Whom else could the lines suit at that period, when Pope says, "Such bards we have?" If Wycherley was intended, what must we think of Pope, who could wound, in this manner, his old friend, for whom he professed so much kindness, and who first introduced him to notice and patronage.—Bowles.
The application was too obvious for Pope to have ventured on the lines unless he had designed to expose his former ally. The original reading of ver. 610 in the manuscript was,
But if incorrigible bards we view, Know there are mad, &c.
And the alteration turned an unappropriated description into a particular censure on living men. Wycherley would be the last person to detect the likeness, and relaxing, some months after the Essay appeared, in his indignation against Pope, "he praised the poem," according to a letter of Cromwell, dated Oct. 26, 1711, but which rests on the authority of Pope alone.