Note 479 — EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS.
Reading edition
How literally Dryden's opponents adopted the licence here given, appears from the "Loyal Medal Vindicated," published in 1681, and addressed,
"To the Disloyal Tories.
"To all, I mean, except the author of the Medal; for he being a Tory of two editions, it seems impossible to appropriate his genius more to King Charles than Oliver Cromwell. And if Noll was so kind, though a saucy tenant, to leave him as a heriot of the muses, unto whomsoever should possess Whitehall, let none admire that he, that could so deify an usurper, does afterwards endeavour to expiate that crime by Torifying the government of a legal monarch, &c. I have no more to say to him, and his Tory friends, by way of argument, but rather greet him, in conclusion, as poetically as he can pretend to deserve." The following introduction may suffice to shew how far the poetry was commensurate to the deserts of Dryden:
If nothing can the worth of men excuse, Thus meanly blasted by a sculking muse; If what's against humanity and sense, Finds from the world a horrid complaisance; If one must flout another's mould or face, Because discretion there has ancient place; Then let thy hireling verse such fictions raise, As long may fatten thy desertless praise, But may heaven stay thy much licentious pen, When to spite faces thou shall write again, Lest thou thy sovereign's image next should stain, Since looks, and men, thou darest traduce for gain; And all to allow thy forehead so much brass, As stiles thee there a stigmatized ass.
Conclusion to Shaftesbury:
Fame must be posed, unless you shall admit To leave your image written by your wit; } { Yet still by you memoirs are so designed, { Your medal does oblige, in which we find { The outward graces of so firm a mind; Though, in this gift, best Protestants allow They're tempted even to superstition too, As hard 'tis such a patriot to admire, And not than common man to grant him higher.