ving lamented the exuberance of false wit and the deficiency of true, he proposes that all wit should be re-coined before it is current, and appoints masters of assay who shall reject all that is light or debased.
'Tis true, that when the coarse and worthless dross
Is purg'd away, there will be mighty loss;
Ev’n Congreve, Southern, manly Wycherley.
When thus refin'd, will grievous sufferers be;
Into the melting pot when Dryden comes,
What horrid stench will rise, what noisome fumes!
How will he shrink, when all his lewd allay,
And wicked mixture, shall be purg’d away!
Thus stands the passage in the last edition; but in the original there was an abatement of the censure, beginning thus:
But what remains will be so pure, 'twill bear
Th’ examination of the most severe.
Blackmore, finding the censure resented, and the civility disregarded, ungenerously omitted the softer part. Such variations discover a writer who consults his passions more than his virtue; and it may be reasonably supposed that Dryden imputes his enmity to its true cause.
