Notes

1] The first edition of Mac Flecknoe appeared in 1682 but the badness of the text makes it unlikely that it was authorized by Dryden. Consequently, the present text follows that of the "authorized edition" first published in Miscellany Poems, 1684.
The sub-title, "A Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T.S.", refers to Thomas Shadwell. In Dryden's text, the name of Shadwell is indicated throughout by Sh.., and although it is tempting to see a scatological reference in this abbreviation Dryden's metre gives the name the value of two syllables. The Shaftesbury plotters made much of being the "true-blue Protestant party," and armed their bullies with "Protestant flails." Dryden's satire on Thomas Shadwell (1642-1692) would appear to have been written as early as 1678, when the two dramatists were, on the surface at least, on fairly friendly terms. The particular occasion of their quarrel is unknown but it was probably brought about by personal dislike and jealousy aggravated by the political fever of the years following the Popish Plot. Shadwell was a staunch adherent of the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Dryden's dislike of his Whiggish opinions is sufficiently indicated in the title-page to this poem. Shadwell answered Dryden's attack on Shaftesbury in The Medall with an abusive satire entitled The Medal of John Bayes, published in May, 1682; Mac Flecknoe appeared in about October of the same year. Dryden also pilloried Shadwell in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel.
The idea of Mac Flecknoe was suggested by the death of the Irish priest and poet Richard Flecknoe (d. 1678). Dryden imagined Flecknoe, the monarch of the "Realms of Non-sense," immediately before death, appointing Shadwell as his worthy successor.

29] Thomas Heywood (d. 1650?) and James Shirley (1596-1666) were both voluminous dramatists but hardly deserving of this disparagement.

36] Flecknoe had lived in Lisbon for some years and been patronized by King John.

41] Shadwell published his play of Epsom Wells in 1673 but the phrase to which Dryden refers--"Such a fellow as he deserves to be tossed in a blanket"--occurs in another of Shadwell's plays, The Sullen Lovers.

43] In Greek legend the poet and lyrist Arion was borne across the sea on the backs of dolphins.

53] St. André: a popular dancing master.

54] Shadwell's verse opera of Psyche was elaborately produced in 1676.

57] Singleton, a singer, played the part of Villerius in Sir William D'Avenant's opera of The Siege of Rhodes.

64] Augusta: London.

67] The Barbican stood in Aldersgate Street, north of St. Paul's.

74] The Nursery, a theatrical school for training boys and girls for the stage, was established in 1662.

78] The hero of Dryden's Tyrannic Love is Maximin.

79-80] Buskins and socks are symbols respectively of tragedy and comedy, associated here with the Elizabethan playwrights John Fletcher and Ben Jonson.

81] Simkin: a character of a cobbler in an interlude.

83] Clinches (sometimes clenches): puns.

84] Panton: a celebrated punster.

87] Thomas Dekker (1570?-1632), dramatist and miscellaneous writer.

90] Psyche, The Miser, The Humourists: titles of Shadwell's plays. Raymond is a character in The Humourists, and Bruce a character in another of Shadwell's plays, The Virtuoso.

102] John Ogilby (1600-1676), the translator of Virgil.

105] Henry Herringman had been Dryden's publisher. Dryden gives in his text only the initial H....

108] Our young Ascanius: Shadwell. Ascanius was the son of Aeneas, the mythical founder of Rome.

112] Hannibal, the great Carthaginian leader, was solemnly sworn by his father, Hasdrubal, to eternal enmity towards Rome.

122] Flecknoe's pastoral tragi-comedy of Love's Kingdom was published in 1664.

151] Gentle Gorge: Sir George Etherege (1634?-1691), the admirable comic dramatist. The names in the two following lines are characters in his comedies.

163] Sir Charles Sedley (1639?-1701), dramatist, wit, and profligate, was supposed to have helped Shadwell in the composition of Epsom Wells. Dryden slightly disguises his name in the text as S--dl--y.

168] Sir Formal Trifle, an oratorical character in Shadwell's comedy of The Virtuoso.

170] A reference to Shadwell's dedications addressed to the Duke of Newcastle (1592-1676), himself a dramatist.

172] Shadwell was an eulogist of Ben Jonson, whose theory of drama, particularly his conception of "humours," he copied, and wished to be compared with him in ability and style.

179] Prince Nicander: a character in Shadwell's Psyche.

181] Cant catch-phrases used by Shadwell characters, the last by a character in The Virtuoso.

188] Shadwell sees himself as continuing Jonson's tradition of the "Comedy of Humours."

207] It was a fashion during the earlier years of the seventeenth century to write verses in such a variety of metres that their shapes on the printed page resembled, among other objects, wings and altars.

212] Bruce and Longeville, in Shadwell's The Virtuoso, dismiss Sir Formal Trifle by opening a trap-door while he is delivering a speech.

214] Drugget: a coarse cloth.

Other poems by John Dryden