In 1682 or thereabouts the English poet John Dryden’s famous mock-epic, “MacFlecknoe,” was published (perhaps without the author’s consent). In it Dryden butchers his contemporary, the comparatively less talented Thomas Shadwell (who nonetheless became Poet Laureate later on), a man with whom Dryden had a series of disagreements (artistic, religious and political). The premise of the poem is that the