"She only whisper'd to me, as she promised, Yet never heard I any voice so loud: And though the words were gentler far than those That holy priests do speak to dying saints, Yet never thunder signified so much." The songs in this piece are all by Shadwell, except, as he declares, the last but one, which is Fountain's, and the only one not below mediocrity. Shadwell had also the impudence to alter and corrupt "Timon of Athens," and to produce the farrago on the stage as an improvement on the original. In the dedication he says, "It has the inimitable hand of Shakspeare in it; yet I can truly say, I have made it into a play." This "tun of man and kilderkin of wit" was admitted to a tomb in Westminster Abbey, an honour (?) said to have been denied to the remains of a noble poet, the author of "Don Juan." Yet Shadwell had also produced a "Don Juan." His tragedy of "The Libertine," the same hero, is ten times more indecent than the most objectionable parts of Byron's poem. But it is, indeed, also less noxious, for it has not a single attractive grace of fancy or feeling. A print of Shadwell, prefixed to Tonson's edition of his works, ludicrously bears out Dryden's description of the outer man. He looks like an alehouse Bacchus, or rather like one of those carnal cherubs whom the French call _anges bouffis_--his cheeks bulging out as if they were stuffed with apples from the forbidden tree. He died in December 1692, and was succeeded by Nahum Tate, the psalmodist. Every one knows what sort of poet he was, and how the harp of Israel is but a Jew's harp in the hands of Tate and Brady. Yet some passages in his second part of "Absolom and Achitophel" are not such feeble mimicries of the tone of his friend, Dryden, as might have been expected from so poor a performer. The praise of Asaph, glorious John himself, is pleasing. It concludes with these lines:-- "While bees in flowers rejoice, and flowers in dew, While stars and fountains to their course are true, While Judah's throne and Sion's rock stand fast, The song of Asaph, and the fame, shall last."