The wits easily confederated against him, as Dryden, whose favour
they almost all courted, was his professed adversary. He had,
besides, given them reason for resentment, as, in his preface to
"Prince Arthur," he had said of the dramatic writers almost all that
was alleged afterwards by Collier; but Blackmore's censure was cold
and general, Collier's was personal and ardent; Blackmore taught his
reader to dislike what Collier incited him to abhor.

In his preface to "King Arthur" he endeavoured to gain at least one
friend, and propitiated Congreve by higher praise of his "Mourning
Bride" than it has obtained from any other critic.

The same year he published a "Satire on Wit," a proclamation of
defiance which united the poets almost all against him, and which
brought upon him lampoons and ridicule from every side. This he
doubtless foresaw, and evidently despised; nor should his dignity of
mind be without its praise, had he not paid the homage to greatness
which he denied to genius, and degraded himself by conferring that
authority over the national taste, which he takes from the poets,
upon men of high rank and wide influence, but of less wit and not
greater virtue.

Here is again discovered the inhabitant of Cheapside, whose head
cannot keep his poetry unmingled with trade. To hinder that
intellectual bankruptcy which he affects to fear he will erect a
"Bank for Wit." In this poem he justly censured Dryden's
impurities, but praised his powers, though in a subsequent edition
he retained the satire, and omitted the praise. What was his
reason, I know not; Dryden was then no longer in his way. His head