Mac Flecknoe Poem by John Dryden - Marketing Attention

All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey.
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was called to empire and had governed long;
In prose and verse was owned, without dispute,
Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute.
This aged prince now flourishing in peace,
And blest with issue of a large increase,
Worn out with business, did at length debate
To settle the succession of the state.
And pondering which of all his sons was fit
To reign and wage immortal war with wit,
Cried, “‘Tis resolved! for Nature pleads that he
Should only rule who most resembles me.
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dulness from his tender years:
Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
Besides, his goodly fabric fills the eye,
And seems designed for thoughtless majesty:
Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,
And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.
Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,
Thou last great prophet of tautology!
Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,
Was sent before but to prepare thy way;
And coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came
To teach the nations in thy greater name.
My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung,
When to King John of Portugal I sung,
Was but the prelude to that glorious day,
When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way,
With well-timed oars before the royal bar,
Swelled with the pride of theme and regulated war.
Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage;
Unprofitably kept at Heaven’s expense,
I live a rent-charge on His providence.
But you, whom every Muse and grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Behold where Shadwell, hoisted on the wings
Of fame, immortal Shadwell, Shadwell swings!
The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
The hoary prince in majesty appeared,
High on a throne of his own labours reared.
At his right hand our young Ascanius sat
Rome’s other hope, and pillar of the state.
His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace,
And lambent dullness played around his face.
As Hannibal did to the altars come,
Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome,
So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain,
That he till death true dulness would maintain;
And, in his father’s right and realm’s defense,
Ne’er to have peace with wit, nor truce with sense.
The king himself the sacred unction made,
As King by office, and as priest by trade.
In his sinister hand, instead of ball,
He placed a mighty mug of potent ale;
Love’s Kingdom to his right he did convey,
At once his sceptre and his rule of play.
His temples, last, with poppies were o’erspread,
That nodding seemed to consecrate his head.
Just at that point of time, if fame not lie,
On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly.
So Romulus, ’tis sung, by Tiber’s brook,
Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.
Th’ admiring throng loud acclamations make,
And omens of his future empire take.
The sire then shook the honours of his head,
And from his brows damps of oblivion shed
Full on the filial dullness: long he stood,
Repelling from his breast the raging flood;
At length burst out in this prophetic mood:
‘Heavens bless my son, from Ireland let him reign
To far Barbadoes on the western main;
Of his dominion may no end be known,
And greater than his father’s be his throne;
Beyond Love’s Kingdom let him stretch his pen!’
He paused, and all the people cried, ‘Amen!’
Then thus continued he: ‘My son, advance
Still in new impudence, new ignorance.
Success let others teach, learn thou from me
Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.
Let Virtuosos in five years be writ,
Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.
Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage,
Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage;
Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,
And in their folly show the writer’s wit.
Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defense,
And justify their author’s want of sense.
‘Let them be all by thy own model made
Of dulness, and desire no foreign aid;
That they to future ages may be known,
Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.
Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same,
All full of thee, and differing but in name;
But let no alien Sedley interpose,
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.
And when false flowers of rhetoric thou wouldst cull,
Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull;
But write thy best, and top; and, in each line,
Sir Formal’s oratory will be thine.
‘Nor let thy mountain-belly make pretence
Of likeness; thine’s a tympany of sense.
A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ,
But sure thou’rt but a kilderkin of wit.
Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep;
Thy tragic Muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep.
With whate’er gall thou sett’st thy self to write,
Thy inoffensive satires never bite.
In thy felonious heart, though venom lies,
It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.’
Thus, with a lean and hungry look, he spoke,
And, to the stalk, his six-foot sceptre broke.
Then sighing, thus he shook his hoary head,
And, as he shook, his awful curls he spread.
‘Now empress Fame shall fix me on the right,
And make my glory ever shine more bright.’