This is exactly in the tone of Bishop Corbet's invective against the
same disease:

"Oh thou deformed unwoman-like disease,
Thou plough'st up flesh and blood, and there sow'st pease;
And leav'st such prints on beauty that dost come,
As clouted shoon do on a floor of loam.
Thou that of faces honey-combs dost make,
And of two breasts two cullenders, forsake
Thy deadly trade; now thou art rich, give o'er,
And let our curses call thee forth no more."[32]

After leaving the university, our author entered the world, supported by
friends, from whose character, principles, and situation, it might have
been prophesied, with probability, that his success in life, and his
literary reputation, would have been exactly the reverse of what they
actually proved. Sir Gilbert Pickering was cousin-german to the poet,
and also to his mother; thus standing related to Dryden in a double
connection.[33] This gentleman was a staunch puritan, and having set out
as a reformer, ended by being a regicide, and an abettor of the tyranny
of Cromwell. He was one of the judges of the unfortunate Charles; and
though he did not sit in that bloody court upon the last and fatal day,
yet he seems to have concurred in the most violent measures of the
unconscientious men who did so. He had been one of the parliamentary
counsellors of state, and hesitated not to be numbered among the godly
and discreet persons who assisted Cromwell as a privy council. Moreover
he was lord chamberlain of the Protector's court, and received the
honour of his mock peerage.

The patronage of such a person was more likely to have elevated Dryden