THOMAS SHADWELL.

This celebrated poet laureat was descended of a very antient family in
Staffordshire; the eldest branch of which has enjoyed an estate there
of five-hundred pounds per ann. He was born about the year 1640, at
Stanton-Hall in Norfolk, a seat of his father's, and educated at Caius
College in Cambridge[1], where his father had been likewise bred; and
then placed in the middle Temple, to study the law; where having
spent some time, he travelled abroad. Upon his return home he became
acquainted with the most celebrated persons of wit, and distinguished
quality, in that age; which was so much addicted to poetry and polite
literature, that it was not easy for him, who had no doubt a native
relish for the same accomplishments, to abstain from these the
fashionable studies and amusements of those times. He applied himself
chiefly to the dramatic kind of writing, in which he had considerable
success. At the revolution, Mr. Dryden, who had so warmly espoused the
opposite interest, was dispossessed of his place of Poet Laureat, and
Mr. Shadwell succeeded him in it, which employment he possessed till his
death. Mr. Shadwell has been illustrious, for nothing so much as the
quarrel which subsisted between him and Dryden, who held him in the
greatest contempt. We cannot discover what was the cause of Mr.
Dryden's aversion to Shadwell, or how this quarrel began, unless it was
occasioned by the vacant Laurel being bellowed on Mr. Shadwell: But it
is certain, the former prosecuted his resentment severely, and, in
his Mac Flecknoe, has transmitted his antagonist to posterity in no
advantageous light. It is the nature of satire to be biting, but it
is not always its nature to be true: We cannot help thinking that Mr.
Dryden has treated Shadwell a little too unmercifully, and has