Dryden is his own best critic: 'The Character of _Zimri_ in my
_Absalom_, is, in my Opinion, worth the whole Poem: 'Tis not bloody,
but 'tis ridiculous enough. And he for whom it was intended, was
too witty to resent it as an injury. If I had rail'd, I might have
suffer'd for it justly: But I manag'd my own Work more happily,
perhaps more dextrously. I avoided the mention of great Crimes
and apply'd my self 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 wish'd.' ('Discourse concerning
Satire' prefixed to Dryden's Juvenal, 1693, p. xlii.)
Burnet's prose character again furnishes the best commentary.
Page 236, ll. 28 ff. Compare Butler: 'He is as inconstant as the Moon,
which he lives under ... His Mind entertains all Things very freely,
that come and go; but, like Guests and Strangers they are not
welcome, if they stay long ... His Ears are perpetually drilled with
a Fiddlestick. He endures Pleasures with less Patience, than other Men
do their Pains.'
72.