3. Flecknoe was a Roman Catholic priest, very much addicted to scribbling verses. His name has been chiefly preserved by our author's satire of "Mack-Flecknoe;" in which he has depicted Shadwell, as the literary son and heir of this wretched poetaster. A few farther particulars concerning him may be found prefixed to that poem. Flecknoe, from this dedication, appears to have been just deceased. The particular passage referred to has not been discovered; even Langbaine had never seen it: but Mr Malone points out a letter of Flecknoe to the Cardinal Barberini, whereof the first sentence is in Latin, and the next in English. Our author, in an uncommon strain of self-depreciation, or rather to give a neat turn to his sentence, has avouched himself to be a worse poet than Flecknoe. But expressions of modesty in a dedication, like those of panegyric, are not to be understood literally. As in the latter, Dryden often strains a note beyond _Ela_, so, on the present occasion, he has certainly sounded the very base string of humility. Poor Flecknoe, indeed, seems to have become proverbial, as the worst of poets. The Earl of Dorset thus begins a satire on Edward Howard: Those damned antipodes to common sense, Those toils to Flecknoe, pr'ythee, tell me whence Does all this mighty mass of dulness spring, Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring? 4. There is a very flat and prosaic imitation of this sentiment in the Duke of Buckingham's lines to Pope: And yet so wondrous, so sublime a thing As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing; Except I justly could at once commend A good companion, and as firm a friend; One moral, or a mere well-natured deed, Does all desert in sciences exceed. Thus prose may be humbled, as well as exalted; into poetry. PROLOGUE.