SHAD'WELL, THOMAS (c.1640-92). An Eng lish dramatist and poet laureate, now little re membered except as the MacFlecknoe of Dryden's satire. Ile was born in Norfolk and was for a time a student at Cambridge. Entered at the Middle Temple in London, he found the law little to his taste and left it for a period of foreign travel and the pursuit of literature.
1G68 he brought out his first comedy, The Stillest Layers. This was a success, and was followed by a series of similar ones, many of them written either in avowed imitation of Ben Janson or in more or less free adaptation from the French. Perhaps his best-known piece is The Squire of Alsatia, which was produced in 1688. Ilis col lected plays were brought out in four volumes by his eldest son in 1720. With Dryden he was at first on friendly terms, but an unfortunate satiric effort of Shadweil's brought down upon him the scathing ridicule of ilach`lecknoe, where his name is forever fixed in the judgment of old Fleeknoe: "Shadwell alone, of all my s,ms. is he
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity. The rest to come faint meaning make pretense, But Shadwell never deviates into sense." He is the Og, too, of Absalom and Achitophel. Nevertheless, when Dryden had to resign the laureateship in 1688 Shadwell was his successor, and his comic wit, though coarse, was often vig orous and effective. He died on November 19, 1692; according to report, from an overdose of opium. Consult the biography prefixed to the edition of Shadwell's Works (already referred to) ; also, Ward, Ilistory of English Dramatic Literature (London, 1875) ; Austin and Ralph, The Lives of the Poets Laureate (ib., 1853).