[Ocaml-lib-devel] Othes were hung on lines to dry. Lucy, the maid, evidently was there, for one; i

[Barreda <pi...@vs...>]

Ed successively by a rival he despised and a friend who had deserted
him, and in its apparently hopeless degradation perhaps found
consolation for its loss. Thomas Shadwell was the Poet-Laureate after
Dryden, assuming the wreath in 1689. We have referred to his origin;
Langbaine gives 1642 as the date of his birth; so that he must have set
up as author early in life, and departed from life shortly past
middle-age. Derrick assures us that he was lusty, ungainly, and coarse
in person,--a description answering to the full-length of _Og_. The
commentators upon "MacFlecknoe" have not made due use of one of
Shadwell's habits, in illustration of the reason why a wreath of poppies
was selected for the crown of its hero. The dramatist, Warburton informs
us, was addicted to the use of opium, and, in fact, died of an overdose
of that drug. Hence "His temples, last, with poppies were o'er-spread,
That nodding seemed to consecrate his head." A couplet which Pope echoes
in the "Dunciad":-- "Shadwell nods, the poppy on his brows." A similar
allusion may be found in the character of _Og_:-- "Eat opium, mingle
arsenic in thy drink," etc. That the Laureate was heavy-gaited in
composition, taking five years to finish one comedy,--that he was, on
the other hand, too swift, trusting Nature rather than elaborate
Art,--that he was dull and unimaginative,--that he was keen and
remarkably sharp-witted,--that he affected a profundity of learning of
which he gave no evidences,--that his plays were only less numerous than
Dryden's, are other particulars we gather from conflicting witnesses of
the per