FLECKNOE, RICHARD, is said to have been an Irish Roman Catholic priest. He was a minor poet and wit in the time of Dryden, and would have been long since forgotten had not that writer used his name as the title of a severe satire against Shadwell, and therein proclaims that he Of course his name was transmitted to posterity with the same ignominy that has accompanied the heroes of Pope's Dunciad,' The reader of satires should not however take too much for granted, nor be ton ready to admit as a fact that all objects of ridicule and invective are such fools and knaves as they are represented. Party feeling and private animosity may have occasioned the attacks directed by a powerful opponent, rather than a cool judgment and a rational inquiry into merits. In the case of the satires of Pope and Dryden, the satires themselves are ie the bands of every gentleman possessing a, moderate library, while the works of the persons satirised are utterly unknown, excepting to those who take an active interest in studying the literature of the period. Hence a vast number of persons are by name familiar to the mass of readers, on account of their having been by our great satirists denounced as the writers of unredeemed trash, without any opportunity being given of examining the justice of the sentence. Flecknoe, in particular, ie a victim to these partial views.
There is no doubt that the mere readers of Dryden take it for granted that Flecknoe was an almost unqualified idiot, yet it is a fact that though he did not possess what can be called genius, and was sadly defective in his versification, he still possessed much fancy, and wrote some small pieces which for happy turns of thought would not mar an eminent name. Flecknoe wrote some plays of no value : his 'Demoiselle,' a comedy, was printed in 1667, but not played. Love's Dominion' (1654), 'The Marriage of Oceanus and Britannia,' and 'Ermine, or the Chaste Lady,' are the titles of some of his other dramatic pieces. The date of Flecknoe's birth is nowhere stated ; be is believed to have died somewhere about 1678.