[14] The pains which Dryden bestowed on the character of Zimri, and the esteem in which he held it, is evident from his quoting it as the master-piece of his own satire.  “The character of Zimri in my ‘Absalom’ is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem:  it is not bloody, but it is ridiculous enough; and he, for him it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury.  If I had railed, I might have suffered for it justly; but I managed my own work more happily, perhaps more dexterously.  I avoided the mention of great crimes, and applied myself to the representing of blind-sides, and little extravagancies; to which, the wittier a man is, he is generally the more obnoxious.  It succeeded as I wished; the jest went round, and he was laughed at in his turn who began the frolic.”

[15] In one of Cibber’s moods of alteration, he combined the comic scenes of these two plays into a comedy entitled, “The Comical Lovers.”

[16]
  “You are changed too, and your pretence to see
  Is but a nobler name for charity;
  Your own provisions furnish out our feasts,
  While you, the founders, make yourselves the guests.”—­Vol. x.

[17]
  “Some have expected, from our bills to-day,
  To find a satire in our poet’s ploy. 
  The zealous route from Coleman street did run. 
  To see the story of the Friar and Nun;
  Or tales yet more ridiculous to hear,
  Vouched by their vicar often pounds a-year,—­
  Nuns who did against temptation pray,
  And discipline laid on the pleasant way: 
  Or that, to please the malice of the town,
  Our poet should in some close cell have shown
  Some sister, playing at content alone. 
  This they did hope; the other side did fear;
  And both, you see, alike are cozened here.”

[18]
  “Bayes. I remember once, in a play of mine, I set off a scene,
  i’gad, beyond expectation, only with a petticoat and the belly-ache.

  Smith.  Pray, how was that, sir?

  Bayes.  Why, sir, I contrived a petticoat to be brought in upon
  a chair (nobody knew how), into a prince’s chamber, whose father was
  now to see it, that came in by chance.

  Johns.  God’s-my-life, that was a notable contrivance indeed!

  Smith.  Ay, but, Mr. Bayes, how could you contrive the
  belly-ache?

Bayes. The easiest i’ the world, i’gad:  I’ll tell you how; I made the prince sit down upon the petticoat, no more than so, and pretended to his father that he had just then got the belly-ache; whereupon his father went out to call a physician, and his man ran away with the petticoat.”—­Rehearsal.

[19] Not Matthew, but Martin, as it is correctly printed before.—­Ed.