It is but fair, however, to remark, that clever and effective as this poem is, it is in its application to Flecknoe utterly unjust. Flecknoe was the author of several plays, only one of which, Love's Dominion, printed in 1654, was acted. This piece was republished in 1674, as Love's Kingdom, a Pastoral Trage-Comedy. This was not the play as acted, but as re-written and corrected. His minor pieces, though possessing no great merit in the matter of versification, nevertheless contain many happy turns of thought and felicities of expression. His Damoiselles à la Mode, printed in 1677, and addressed to the duke and duchess of Newcastle, and Sir W. Davenant's Voyage to the Other World, are a witty exposure of the literary and dramatic foibles of the day. The characters of the first named, he says in his preface, are “like so many precious stones I have brought out of France, and as a lapidary set in one jewel to adorn our English stage.” They are adaptations from Molière. His unpopularity among the players, and the satire of Dryden, upon whom, nevertheless, Flecknoe composed a witty and graceful epigram, must have been in a great measure owing to his attacks on the immorality and general worthlessness of the English stage. An interesting but almost unknown production of Flecknoe’s is The Idea of His Highness Oliver late Lord Protector, &c., London, 1659,—an appreciative estimate of Cromwell’s character, as evidenced in his parliamentary career and his achievements as soldier and statesman. Flecknoe died in 1678.

His principal remaining works are— Ermina, or the Chaste Lady; The Marriage of Oceanus and Britannia; Epigrams and Enigmatical Characters, 1670, in 8vo; Miscellanea, or poems of all sorts, with divers other pieces, 1653, in 12mo; Diarium, or the Journal, divided into twelve Jornadas, in burlesque verse, London, 1656, in 12mo. See also his Discourse of the English Stage, first published in the volume for 1869 of the Boxburgh Library, edited by Mr W. C. Hazlitt.