PART I.

----_Si proprius stes Te capiet magis_----

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

The following poem has been uniformly and universally admired, not only as one of Dryden's most excellent performances, but as indisputably the best and most nervous political satire that ever was written. It is said to have been undertaken at the command of Charles; and if so, no king was ever better obeyed. The general state of parties in England during the last years of the reign of Charles II. has been often noticed, particularly in the notes on "The Duke of Guise," Vol. VI. Shaftesbury, dismissed from the administration, had bent his whole genius for intrigue, to effect the exclusion of the Duke of York from the crown of England, even at the risque of a civil war. Monmouth had thrown himself into the arms of the same party, flattered by the prospect of occupying that place from which his uncle was to be excluded. Every thing seemed to flatter his ambition. The pretensions of the Duke's daughters must necessarily have been compromised by the exclusion of their father. At any rate, they were not likely to be supported by a powerful party, while Monmouth, by his own personal influence, and that of Shaftesbury, was at the head of all, whom zeal for religion, disappointed ambition, restlessness of temper, love of liberty, or desire of licentiousness, had united in opposition to the measures of the court. Every engine which judgement or wit could dictate, was employed by either party to place their cause in the most favourable light, and prejudice that of their adversaries. Among these, the poem which follows was the most powerful, and the most successful. The time of its appearance was chosen with as much art, as the poem displays genius. Shaftesbury had been committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason on the 2d July, and the poem was published a few days before a bill of indictment was presented against him. The sensation excited by such a poem, at such a time, was intense and universal.

It has been hitherto generally supposed, that the idea of applying to Charles and Monmouth the apt characters and story of Absalom and Achitophel, and indeed the general plan of drawing a poetical parallel from scriptural history to modern times, was exclusively our author's. This appears to be a mistake. So far back as 1679, some favourer of Lord Stafford and of the Catholic cause ventured to paraphrase the story of Naboth's vineyard, and to apply it to the condemnation of that unfortunate nobleman for the Catholic plot. In that piece, the scripture names and characters are given to the objects of the poet's satire, precisely on the plan adopted by Dryden in "Absalom and Achitophel,"[208] as the reader will perceive from the extracts in the note. Not only had the scheme of a similar poem been conceived, but the very passage of Scripture, adopted by Dryden as the foundation of his parable, had been already applied to Charles and his undutiful son. There appeared, in 1680, a small tract, called "Absalom's Conspiracy, or the Tragedy of Treason," which, as it seems to have furnished the general argument of Dryden's poem, and has been unnoticed by any former commentator, I have subjoined to these introductory remarks. (See p. 205.)

In a "Letter also to his grace the duke of Monmouth, this 15 July 1680, by a true lover of his person and the peace of the kingdom," the same adaptation is thus warmly urged.

"These are the men (speaking of Monmouth's advisers) that would, with Joab, send for the wise woman to persuade king David to admit of a return for Absalom his son; and when they had effected it, leave him to himself, till anger and passion had set fire to the field of Joab. These are the men, that would have advised Absalom to make chariots, and to take fifty men to run before him, and appoint his time and station beside the way of the gate, to enquire of the tribes of Israel, that came up to the king for justice, what their controversies and matters were. These are the men, that would have advised young Absalom, that since David had appointed no one to hear their grieveances (which was a political lye), and relieve their oppressions, to wish, "Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man that hath any suit or cause might come to me, and I would do him justice!" In short, these unprincipled men were they that set on Absalom to steal away the hearts of the people from the king; these are they, that advised him to go to Hebron to pay his vow; and these are the men, that led him into actual rebellion against his father, and to be destroyed by some of the very hands that had assisted him in those pernicious counsels." _Somers' Tracts_, p. 111.

The parallel, from its aptness to the circumstances, appears to have become popular; for Shaftesbury was distinguished by the nickname of Achitophel[209] before the appearance of the following poem.

On the merits of Dryden's satire, all critics have been long agreed. "If it be considered," says Dr Johnson, "as a poem political and controversial, it will be found to comprise all the excellencies of which the subject is susceptible; acrimony of censure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of character, variety and vigour of sentiment, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to such a height as can scarcely be found in any other English composition." The more deeply we examine the plan of the piece, the more reason we will find to applaud the exquisite skill of the author. In the character of Absalom, particularly, he had a delicate task to perform. He was to draw the misguided and offending son, but not the hardened reprobate; for Charles, notwithstanding his just indignation, was to the end of his reign partial to this unfortunate prince, and anxious to detach him from his desperate counsellors. Dryden has, accordingly, liberally transferred all the fouler part of the accusation to the shoulders of Achitophel, while he is tender of the fame of Absalom. We may suppose, that, in doing so, the poet indulged his own feelings: the Duchess of Buccleuch had been his most early patroness, and he had received personal favours from Monmouth himself,[210] These recollections must have had weight with him, when engaged in composing this party poem; and we may readily believe him, when he affirms, that David could not be more tender of the young man's life, than he would be of his reputation. In many of the other characters, that of Buckingham in particular, a certain degree of mercy is preserved, even amid the severity of satire. The follies of Zimri are exposed to ridicule; but his guilt, (and the age accused him of most foul crimes,) is left in the shade. Even in drawing the character of Achitophel, such a degree of justice is rendered to his acute talents, and to his merits as a judge, that we are gained by the poet's apparent candour to give him credit for the truth of the portrait in its harsher features. It is remarkable, that the only considerable additions made to the poem, after the first edition, have a tendency rather to mollify than to sharpen the satire. The following additional passage, in the character of Achitophel, stands in this predicament:

So easy still it proves in factious times, With public zeal to cancel private crimes. How safe is treason, and how sacred ill, Where none can sin against the people's will? Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known, Since in another's guilt they find their own? Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean, Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress; Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.

A report was circulated, and has crept into the "_Biographia Britannica_," that this addition was made in consequence of Shaftesbury's having conferred a favour upon Dryden, and his family,[211] in the interval between the first and second edition of "Absalom and Achitophel;" but this Mr Malone has refuted in the most satisfactory manner.

A passage, expressive of kind wishes towards Monmouth, was also added in the second addition:

But oh that yet he would repent and live! How easy 'tis for parents to forgive; With how few tears a pardon might be won, From nature pleading for a darling son!

These, and other passages, in which Dryden has softened the severity of his muse, evince not only the poet's taste and judgment, but that tone of honourable and just feeling, which distinguishes a true satire from a libellous lampoon.

It was not consistent with Dryden's subject to introduce much imagery or description into "Absalom and Achitophel;" but, though Dr Johnson has remarked this as a disadvantage to the poem, it was, I think, amply compensated by the good effects which the restraint produced on our author's style of composition. The reader has already seen in how many instances Dryden gave way to the false taste of his age, which, indeed, furnished the strongest temptation to a vigorous mind, naturally delighting to exert itself in working out an ingenious parallel between remote and dissimilar ideas. A fiery horse is taught his regular paces by the restraining discipline of the manege; and, in the same way, the subject of "Absalom and Achitophel," which confined the poet to the expression of sentiment and character, and left no room for excursions into the regions of metaphysical poetry, probably had the effect of restraining his exertions within the bounds of true taste, whose precincts he would be less likely to overleap, even when again turned loose upon a more fanciful theme. It is certain that "Absalom and Achitophel" is as remarkable for correctness of taste, as for fire and spirit of composition; nor ought the reader, amidst so many appropriate beauties, to regret those flights of imagination, which could not have been indulged without impropriety.

Another objection, stated to this poem, has been the abrupt and unsatisfactory nature of the conclusion. The factions, and their leaders, are described; and, when our expectation is at the highest, the danger is at once dispelled by a speech from the throne. "Who," says Johnson, "can forbear to think of an enchanted castle, with a wide moat, and lofty battlements, which vanishes at once into air, when the destined knight blows his horn before it." Yet, with great deference to such authority, it may be considered as somewhat hard to expect the merit of a well-conducted story in a poem merely intended as a designation of various living characters. He, who collects a gallery of portraits, disclaims, by the very act of doing so, any intention of presenting a series of historical events. Each separate style of poetry has its merits and disadvantages, but we should not expect a historical work to contain the poignancy of a satire, or a satire to exhibit the majestic and interesting story of an epic poem. Besides, there had actually been an important crisis, and highly favourable to the court, produced by the king's behaviour at Oxford, and by the sudden dissolution of that parliament, which, according to Shaftesbury, was to have rendered the Duke of York as abandoned an exile as the first murderer Cain. This stroke of power was executed so unexpectedly, that the Commons had not the slightest suspicion of what was intended, till they were summoned by the Black Rod to attend the king. Oxford, so lately crowded with the armed factionaries and partizans of royalty and democracy, was at once deserted, and left to its usual stillness and seclusion. The blow was fatal to the country party, as it dispersed that body in which they had knit up their strength, and which alone could give their proceedings the sanction of law.

The success of "Absalom and Achitophel" was unexampled. Dr Johnson's father, a bookseller, told him, it was exceeded by nothing in his remembrance, excepting that of Sacheverel's Sermon. The allusions which it contained became universally known; and the allegorical names seemed to be inalienably entailed upon the persons to whom Dryden had assigned them. Not only were they in perpetual use amongst the court poets of the day,[212] but the parable was repeatedly inculcated and preached upon from the pulpit,[213] and echoed and re-echoed in all the addresses of the time.[214]

The poem was at first published without a name, a circumstance which must have added to the curiosity of the public; there were, however, few writers, save the author, who could be suspected even for a moment, and it is probable he did not remain long concealed. The poem was published on the 17th November, 1681,[215] and, as early as the 10th of December, Dryden is attacked as the author, in a miserable Grubstreet poem, called "Towser the Second," supposed to be written by Henry Care.[216] Then came forth, on the 14th, His Grace of Buckingham's "Poetical Reflections," which are amply analysed in our notes. A non-conformist clergyman (name unknown) advanced to the charge on the 25th, with a pamphlet termed, "A Whip for the Fool's Back;" and followed it up with the "Key with the Whip, to open the mystery and iniquity of the poem called Absalom and Achitophel." Then Samuel Pordage published "Azariah and Hushai;" and, finally, our author's old antagonist, Elkanah Settle, brought up the heavy rear with a ponderous pamphlet entitled, "Absalom Senior; or, Achitophel Transposed, a Poem." All these laborious and indignant vindications and rebutters served only to shew how much the faction was hurt by this spirited satire, and how unable they were to make an effectual retort. Were we to judge of their strength in other respects, from the efforts of their writers, we should esteem them very unworthy of Dryden's satire, and exclaim, as Tybalt does to Benvolio,

What dost thou, drawn, among these heartless hinds?

Accordingly, Dryden takes but slight and contemptuous notice of any of his antagonists, save Shadwell and Settle, on whom he inflicts a severe flagellation in the Second Part. On the other hand, Nahum Tate, and other tory poets, came forth with congratulatory verses, the inferiority of which served to shew that Dryden's force did not lie in the principles and subject which he had in common with these poetasters, but in the incommunicable resources of his own genius.

The first part of "Absalom and Achitophel" is in folio, "Printed for J. T. (Jacob Tonson) and are to be sold by W. Davis, in Amen corner, 1681." A second edition was issued before the end of December, which was followed by many more. Mr Malone believes that the edition which appeared in the Miscellanies was the sixth; and a quarto copy, now before me, dated 1692, calls itself "the Seventh Edition, augmented and revised." Two Latin versions of "Absalom and Achitophel" were executed; one by the famous Atterbury, afterwards bishop of Rochester, the other by Dr Coward.

* * * * *

"Absalom's Conspiracy: or, the Tragedy of Treason." London, printed in the year 1680. Folio, containing two pages. Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany.

"There is nothing so dangerous either to societies in general, or to particular persons, as ambition; the temptations of sovereignty, and the glittering lustre of a crown, have been guilty of all the fearful consequences that can be within the compass of imagination. For this, mighty nations have been drowned in blood, populous cities have been made, desolate, laid in ashes, and left without inhabitants; for this, parents have lost all the sense and tenderness of nature; and children, all the sentiments of duty and obedience; the eternal laws of good and just, the laws of nature and of nations, of God and religion, have been violated; men have been transformed into the cruelty of beasts, and into the rage and malice of devils.

"Instances, both modern and ancient, of this, are innumerable; but this of Absalom is a tragedy, whose antiquity and truth do equally recommend it as an example to all posterity, and a caution to all mankind, to take care how they embark in ambitious and unlawful designs; and it is a particular caveat to all young men, to beware of such counsellors as the old Achitophel, lest, while they are tempted with the hopes of a crown, they hasten on their own destiny, and come to an untimely end.

"Absalom was the third son of David by Maachah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, who was one of David's concubines; he, seeing his title to the crown upon the score of lawful succession would not do, resolved to make good what was defective in it by open force, by dethroning his father.

"Now the arts he used to accomplish his design were these. First, he studied popularity; he rose up early, he was industrious and diligent in his way; he placed himself in the way of the gate; and when any man came for judgment, he courteously entered into discourse with him. This feigned condescension was the first step of his ambition. Secondly, he depraved his father's government: the king was careless, drowned in his pleasures; the counsellors were evil; no man regarded the petitioners: Absalom said unto him,--See, thy matters are good and right, it is but reason that you petition for; but there is no man that will hear thee from the king; there is no justice to be found, your petitions are rejected. Thirdly, he insinuates what he would do if he were in authority; how easy access should be to him; he would do them justice; he would hear and redress their grievances, receive their petitions, and give them gracious answers:--Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man might come unto me, and I would do him justice! And, when any man came to do him obeysance, he put forth his hand, and took him and kissed him; and thus he stole away the hearts of the people from their lawful king, his father and sovereign.

"But all this would not do; he therefore joins himself to one Achitophel, an old man of a shrewd head, and discontented heart. This Achitophel, it seems, had been a great counsellor of David's; but was now under some disgrace, as appears by Absalom's sending for him from Gilo, his city, whither he was in discontent retreated, because David had advanced Hushai into his privy-council; and no doubt can be made, but he was of the conspiracy before, by his ready joining with Absalom as soon as the matters were ripe for execution.

"Absalom having thus laid his train, and made secret provision for his intended rebellion, dispatches his emissaries abroad, to give notice by his spies, that all the confederates should be ready at the sound of the trumpet, and say, Absalom reigneth in Hebron; and immediately a great multitude was gathered to him; for the conspiracy was strong; some went out of malice, and some in their simplicity followed him, and knew not any thing.

"David is forced to fly from his son, but still he had a loyal party that stuck close to him. Achitophel gave devilish counsel, but God disappointed it strangely; for Hushai, pretending to come over to their party, put Absalom upon a plausible expedient, which proved his ruin. So impossible is it for treason to be secure, that no person who forms a conspiracy, but there may be some, who, under pretence of the greatest kindness, may insinuate themselves, only to discover their secrets, and ruin their intentions, either by revealing their treason, or disappointing it; and certainly, of all men, traitors are least to be trusted; for they who can be perfidious to one, can never be true to any.

"The matter comes at last to the decision of the sword. Absalom's party are defeated, and many slain, and Absalom himself, seeking to save himself by flight in the wood, is entangled in a tree by his own hair, which was his pride; and his mule going from under him, there left him hanging till Joab came, and, with three darts, made at once an end of his life and the rebellion. Thus ended his youthful and foolish ambition, making him an eternal monument of infamy, and an instance of the justice of divine vengeance, and what will be the conclusion of ambition, treason, and conspiracy, against lawful kings and governors: A severe admonition to all green heads, to avoid the temptations of grey Achitophels.

"Achitophel, the engineer of all this mischief, seeing his counsel despised, and foreseeing the event, prevented the hand of the executioner, and, in revenge upon himself, went home and hanged himself; give fair warning to all treacherous counsellors, to see what their devilish counsels will lead them to at last; mischievous counsel ever falling in conclusion upon the heads where first it was contrived, as naturally as dirty kennels fall into the common-sewer.

"Whatsoever was written aforetime, was written for our instruction: for holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 208: "Naboth's Vineyard, or the Innocent Traitor, copied from the original Holy Scriptures, in Heroic Verse, printed for C. R. 1679."

"Since holy scripture itself is not exempt from being tortured and abused by the strainings and perversions of evil men, no great wonder were it if this small poem, which is but an illustration of a single, yet remarkable, passage thereof, be also subject to the like distortions and misapplications of the over-prying and underwitted of one side, and of the malicious on the other: But all ingenious and ingenuous men (to whose divertisement only this poem offers itself) will be guarantees for the author, that neither any honourable and just judge can be thought concerned in the character of Arod, nor any honest and veracious witness in that of Malchus: And as, by the singular care and royal goodness of his Majesty, whom God long preserve, our benches in this nation are furnished with persons of such eminent integrity and ability, that no character of a corrupt judge can, with the least shadow of resemblance, belong to them; so it is to be wished, that also, in all our courts of judicature, a proportionable honesty and veracity were to be found in all witnesses, that so justice and peace might close in a happy kiss."

In this piece, Scroggs is described under the character of Arod, an ambitious judge and statesman:

The chief was Arod, whose corrupted youth Had made his soul an enemy to truth; But nature furnished him with parts and wit For bold attempts, and deep intriguing fit. Small was his learning, and his eloquence Did please the rabble, nauseate men of sense; Bold was his spirit, nimble and loud his tongue, Which more than law or reason takes the throng, Him, part by money, partly by her grace, The covetous queen raised to a judge's place; And as he bought his place, he justice sold, Weighing his causes, not by law, but gold. He made the justice-seat a common mart; Well skilled was he in the mysterious art Of finding varnish for an unsound cause, And for the sound, imaginary flaws.

MALCHUS--OATES.

Malchus, a puny Levite, void of sense And grace, but stuff'd with noise and impudence, Was his prime tool; so venomous a brute, That every place he lived in spued him out. Lies in his mouth, and malice in his heart, By nature grew, and were improved by art; Mischief his pleasure was, and all his joy, To see his thriving calumny destroy Those, whom his double heart, and forked tongue, Surer than vipers' teeth, to death had stung.

NABOTH--STAFFORD.

Naboth, among the tribes, the foremost place, Did, with his riches, birth, and virtue grace, A man, whose wealth was the poor's common stock; The hungry found their market in his flock. His justice made all law contentions cease; He was his neighbours' safeguard, and their peace: The rich by him were in due bounds contained; The poor, if strong, employed; if weak, maintained. Well had he served his country and his king, And the best troops in all their wars did bring; Nor with less bravery did he lead them on, Warding his country's danger with his own. ]

[Footnote 209: The following lines occur in "The Badger in the Fox-trap," published, as appears from Mr Luttrell's jotting, about 9th July, 1681, four months before the appearance of Dryden's poem:

Besides, my titles are as numerous As all my actions various, still, and humourous. Some call me Tory, some _Achitophel_, Some Jack-a-Dandy, some old Machiavel; Some call me Devil, some his foster-brother, And Turncoat rebel all the nation over.

An accidental anticipation of the names imposed on Shaftesbury and the King occurs, where the author seems to have been inspired with prophecy at least, if not with poetry; namely, in "Verses on the blessed and happy Coronation of Charles II. King of England, &c. printed at the hearty desires of Persons of Quality; by John Rich, Gentleman:"

Preserve thy David; and he that rebells, Confound his councells, like Achitophell's. ]

[Footnote 210: See the Dedication of "Tyrannic Love," addressed to Monmouth, Vol. III. p. 346; and the "Vindication of the Duke of Guise," where Dryden says, "The obligations I have had to him were those of his countenance, his favour, his good word, and his esteem, all of which I have likewise had in a greater measure from his excellent Duchess, the patroness of my poor unworthy poetry." Vol. VII. p. 162.]

[Footnote 211: By recommending, it is said, his son to the charter-home, of which Shaftesbury is said to have been a governor. But, from the records of the foundation, it appears that Erasmus Henry Dryden, the third son of the poet, to whom, if to any, the story must apply, was not admitted a scholar till more than a year after the publication of the second edition of the poem, containing the additional lines above quoted, to which the said admission is stated to have given occasion. There are, besides, two admirable reasons for believing that Shaftesbury had no hand in this matter, since, first, young Dryden was admitted on the recommendation of the king himself; secondly, Shaftesbury happened to be dead at the time. See _Malone's Dryden_, Vol. I. p. 148. The following is the note of admissions referred to by Mr. Malone:

"October 6th, 1681, [six weeks before the publication of 'Absalom and Achitophel'] Samuel Weaver, admitted for the Lord Shaftesbury.

"Feb. 5th, 1682-3, Erasmus-Henry Dryden, admitted _for his majesty_ (in the room of Orlando Bagnall); aged 14 years, 2d of May next.

"Nov. 2d, 1685, Erasmus Dryden and Richard Tubb left the house.

"Elected to the University."]

[Footnote 212: Of this it would be endless to quote proofs: The following four extracts from the libels of the time are more than sufficient.

"A Congratulatory Poem upon the Happy Arrival of his Royal Highness James Duke of York, at London, April 8th, 1682:"

And Absalom, thou piece of ill-placed beauty, As happy be as fair, and know thy duty; For somewhat in that noble frame I saw, Which, or a father, or a king can awe.

"The Norwich Loyal Litany:"

But may the beauteous youth come home, And do the thing that's fit, Or I must tell that Absalom, He has more hair than wit.

May he be wise, and soon expell The old fox, th' old fawning elf; The time draws near, Achitophel Shan't need to hang himself.

"His Royal Highness the Duke of York's Welcome to London, a congratulatory Poem:"

So let it mourn, and Ignoramus find How unsuccessfully it spared its kind, When sneaking, trembling, false Achitophel Hath refuge to the cunning Hangman's spell; And by one fatal tie, those numerous knots Dissolves, of all his rogueries, shams, and plots.

"Good News in Bad Times; or Absalom's Return to David's Bosom. 30th Nov. 1683."]

[Footnote 213: Mr Malone quotes two instances of sermons upon this topic; one entitled, "Achitophel's Policy Defeated;" preached on the thanksgiving after the Rye-house conspiracy, and another on the same subject, with nearly the same title, Vol. III. p. 293.]

[Footnote 214: An address from Liverpool assures Charles, that "the councils of your faithful Hushais shall ever prevail against the united force of all-aspiring Absaloms, and the desperate advice of all pestilent Achitophels." Another, from Morpeth, denounces "all mutinous Corahs, rebellious Absaloms, and perfidious Achitophels."]

[Footnote 215: This appears by a note upon Mr Luttrell's copy, "17th November, _ex dono amici Jacobi Tonson_." He has further labelled it "An excellent Poem against the Duke of Monmouth, Earl of Shaftesbury, and that party, and in vindication of the king and his friends."]

[Footnote 216: "Towser the second, a bull-dog, or a short reply to Absalom and Achitophel;"

In pious times, when poets were well banged For sawcy satire, and for sham plots hanged, A learned bard, that long commanded had The trembling stage in chief, at length ran mad.

* * * * *

For, since he has given o'er to plague the stage With the effects of his poetic rage, Like a mad dog he runs about the streets, Snarling and biting every one he meets: The other day he met our royal Charles, And his two mistresses, and at them snarls; Then falls upon the numbers of state, Treats them all _a-la-mode de Billinsgate_. ]

TO THE READER.

It is not my intention to make an apology for my poem; some will think it needs no excuse, and others will receive none. The design I am sure is honest; but he who draws his pen for one party, must expect to make enemies of the other. For wit and fool, are consequents of Whig and Tory;[217] and every man is a knave or an ass to the contrary side. There is a treasury of merits in the fanatic church, as well as in the popish; and a pennyworth to be had of saintship, honesty, and poetry, for the lewd, the factious, and the blockheads; but the longest chapter in Deuteronomy has not curses enough for an Anti-Bromingham.[218] My comfort is, their manifest prejudice to my cause will render their judgment of less authority against me. Yet, if a poem have genius, it will force its own reception in the world; for there is a sweetness in good verse, which tickles even while it hurts; and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleases him against his will. The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted. But I can be satisfied on more easy terms; if I happen to please the more moderate sort, I shall be sure of an honest party, and, in all probability, of the best judges; for the least concerned are commonly the least corrupt. And I confess I have laid in for those, by rebating the satire, where justice would allow it, from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly, as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced, at their own cost, that I can write severely, with more ease than I can gently. I have but laughed at some men's follies, when I could have declaimed against their vices; and other men's virtues I have commended, as freely as I have taxed their crimes. And now, if you are a malicious reader, I expect you should return upon me, that I affect to be thought more impartial than I am; but if men are not to be judged by their professions, God forgive you commonwealth's-men for professing so plausibly for the government! You cannot be so unconscionable as to charge me for not subscribing my name; for that would reflect too grossly upon your own party, who never dare, though they have the advantage of a jury to secure them. If you like not my poem, the fault may possibly be in my writing; though it is hard for an author to judge against himself: but more probably it is in your morals, which cannot bear the truth of it. The violent on both sides will condemn the character of Absalom, as either too favourably or too hardly drawn. But they are not the violent whom I desire to please. The fault on the right hand is to extenuate, palliate, and indulge; and, to confess freely, I have endeavoured to commit it. Besides the respect which I owe his birth, I have a greater for his heroic virtues; and David himself could not be more tender of the young man's life, than I would be of his reputation. But since the most excellent natures are always the most easy, and, as being such, are the soonest perverted by ill counsels, especially when baited with fame and glory, it is no more a wonder that he withstood not the temptations of Achitophel, than it was for Adam not to have resisted the two devils, the serpent and the woman. The conclusion of the story I purposely forbore to prosecute, because I could not obtain from myself to shew Absalom unfortunate. The frame of it was cut out but for a picture to the waist; and if the draught be so far true, it is as much as I designed.

Were I the inventor, who am only the historian, I should certainly conclude the piece, with the reconcilement of Absalom to David. And who knows but this may come to pass? Things were not brought to an extremity where I left the story; there seems yet to be room left for a composure; hereafter there may be only for pity. I have not so much as an uncharitable wish against Achitophel, but am content to be accused of a good-natured error, and to hope with Origen, that the devil himself may at last be saved. For which reason, in this poem, he is neither brought to set his house in order, nor to dispose of his person afterwards as he in wisdom shall think fit. God is infinitely merciful; and his vicegerent is only not so, because he is not infinite.

The true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction. And he, who writes honestly, is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease; for those are only in order to prevent the chirurgeon's work of an _Ense rescindendum_, which I wish not to my very enemies. To conclude all; if the body politic have any analogy to the natural, in my weak judgment, an act of oblivion were as necessary in a hot distempered state, as an opiate would be in a raging fever.

RECOMMENDATORY VERSES.

The following Recommendatory Verses, Dryden thought worthy of being prefixed to the later editions of his "Absalom and Achitophel," for which reason they are here retained. It will be observed, that they all mention the author as unknown. This, however, we are not to understand literally; since it is obvious, from the contemporary libels, that Dryden was well known for the author. But, till he placed his name in the title page, his friends were not to affect to know more than that told them; as it is impolite to recognize a person who affects a disguise.

TO THE UNKNOWN AUTHOR OF THIS EXCELLENT POEM.

Take it as earnest of a faith renewed, Your theme is vast, your verse divinely good: Where, though the Nine their beauteous stroaks repeat, } And the turned lines on golden anvils beat, } It looks as if they strook them at a heat. } So all serenely great, so just refined, } Like angels love to humane seed enclined, } It starts a giant, and exalts the kind. } 'Tis spirit seen, whose fiery atoms roul, So brightly fierce, each syllable's a soul. 'Tis miniature of man, but he's all heart; 'Tis what the world would be, but wants the art; To whom even the Phanatics altars raise, Bow in their own despite, and grin your praise. As if a Milton from the dead arose, Filed off the rust, and the right party chose. Nor, Sir, be shocked at what the gloomy say, Turn not your feet too inward, nor too splay. 'Tis gracious all, and great; push on your theme, Lean your grieved head on David's diadem. David, that rebel Israel's envy moved, David, by God and all good men beloved. The beauties of your Absalom excell; But more the charms of charming Annabel; Of Annabel, than May's first morn more bright, Chearfull as summer's noon, and chast as winter's night. Of Annabel the muses dearest theme, Of Annabel the angel of my dream. Thus let a broken eloquence attend, And to your master-piece these shadows send.

TO THE UNKNOWN AUTHOR OF THIS ADMIRABLE POEM.

I thought,--forgive my sin,--the boasted fire Of poets' souls did long ago expire; Of folly or of madness did accuse The wretch that thought himself possest with muse; Laughed at the God within, that did inspire With more than human thoughts the tuneful quire; But sure 'tis more than fancy, or the dream Of rhimers slumbring by the muses stream. Some livelier spark of heaven, and more refined From earthly dross, fills the great poet's mind. Witness these mighty and immortal lines, Through each of which th' informing genius shines. Scarce a diviner flame inspired the king, Of whom thy muse does so sublimely sing. Not David's self could in a nobler verse His gloriously offending son rehearse, Though in his breast the prophet's fury met The father's fondness, and the poet's wit. Here all consent in wonder and in praise, And to the unknown poet altars raise. Which thou must needs accept with equal joy, As when Ænæas heard the wars of Troy, Wrapt up himself in darkness and unseen, Extolled with wonder by the Tyrian Queen. Sure thou already art secure of fame, Nor want'st new glories to exalt thy name; What father else would have refused to own So great a son as god-like Absalon? R. D.

TO THE CONCEALED AUTHOR OF THIS INCOMPARABLE POEM.

Hail heaven-born muse! hail every sacred page! The glory of our isle and of our age. The inspiring sun to Albion draws more nigh, } The north at length teems with a work to vie } With Homer's flame and Virgil's majesty. } While Pindus lofty heights our poet sought, } (His ravisht mind with vast ideas fraught,) } Our language failed beneath his rising thought; } This checks not his attempt, for Maro's mines, } He drains of all their gold t'adorn his lines; } Through each of which the Mantuan Genius shines. } The rock obeyed the powerful Hebrew guide, Her flinty breast, dissolved into a tide; Thus on our stubborn language he prevails, And makes the Helicon in which he sails. The dialect, as well as sense, invents, And, with his poem, a new speech presents. Hail then thou matchless bard, thou great unknown, That give your country fame, yet shun your own! In vain--for every where your praise you find, And not to meet it, you must shun mankind. Your loyal theme each loyal reader draws, } And even the factious give your verse applause, } Whose lightning strikes to ground their idol cause. } The cause for whose dear sake they drank a flood Of civil gore, nor spared the royal-blood; The cause whose growth to crush, our prelates wrote In vain, almost in vain our Heroes fought. Yet by one stab of your keen satyr dies; Before your sacred lines their shattered Dagon lies. Oh! If unworthy we appear to know The sire, to whom this lovely birth we owe; Denyed our ready homage to express, And can at best but thankfull be by guess; This hope remains,--May David's god-like mind, (For him 'twas wrote) the unknown author find; And, having found, shower equal favours down, On wit so vast as could oblige a crown. N. T.

Some scribbler of the day also, thinking Dryden's meaning not sufficiently clear, wrote "Absalon's ix worthies, or a key to a late book, or poem, entitled AB, and AC," marked by Mr Luttrell, as bought, 10 March 1682-3. It concludes with the following address.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THAT INCOMPARABLE POEM ABOVE MENTIONED.

Homer, amazed, resigns the hill to you, And stands i'the crowd, amidst the panting crew; Virgil and Horace dare not shew their face, And long admired Juv'nal quits his place; For this one mighty poem hath done more Than all those poets could have done before. Satyr, or statesman, poet, or divine, Thou any thing, thou every thing thats fine, Thy lines will make young Absalon relent; And, though 'tis hard, Achitophel repent; And stop--as thou has done---- Thus once thy rival muse, on Cooper's hill, With the true story would not Fatme[220] kill. No politics exclude repentance quite; Despair makes rebels obstinately fight; 'Tis well when errors do for mercy call; Unbloody conquests are the best of all. Methinks I see a numerous mixed croud Of seduced patriots crying out aloud For grace, to royal David. He, with tears, Holds forth his sceptre, to prevent their fears, And bids them welcome to his tender breast: Thus may the people, thus the king be blest. Then tunes his harp, thy praises to rehearse, Who owes his son and subjects to thy verse.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 217: These famous expressions of party distinction were just coming into fashion. Whig, a contraction of Whigamore, is a word used by the peasantry in the west of Scotland in driving their horses, and gave a name to those fanatics who were the supporters of the Covenant in that part of Scotland. It was first used to designate an insurrection of these people in 1648, called the Whigamore's road. It has been less accurately derived from the sour-milk used by these people, called whig. But the former use of the word was much more likely to afford a party appellation.--The Tories owe their distinctive epithet to the Irish banditti, who used the word Toree, or "give me," in robbing passengers. Hence, in the old translation of Buchanan's History, the followers of Buccleuch are called the Tories of Teviotdale. As, from religion and other motives, the Irish were almost all attached to the Duke of York, the word Tory was generally applied to his party by the opposite faction, who, on the other hand, were called Whigs, as having embraced the fanatical and rebellious principles of the Scottish covenanters. The Duke of York's followers are supposed to be thus described by his Grace himself, in a lampoon called "Popish Politics unmasked:"

I have my teagues and _tories_ at my beck, Will wring their heads off like a chicken's neck.

* * * * *

Others wo'nt serve you but on constant pay, My hounds will hunt and live upon their prey; A virgin's haunch, or well-baked ladies breast, To them is better than a ven'son feast; Babes pettitoes cut large, with arms and legs, They far prefer to pettitoes of pigs.

One of the first applications of the word Tory to a party purpose, occurs in "a True Relation of a late Barbarous Assault committed on Robert Pye, Esq." in which one John Bodnam, of Brunguin, in the county of Hereford, "an obstinate and violent papist," is said by the author to have defended himself against the constable and his assistants "so well, or rather so ill," that they were forced to retire and leave him "than which a _Toree_ or an Outlaw could have done no more." Finally, the justice having appeared in person, Mr Bodnam, "in good earnest let fly at his head with a hedge-bill," which, the author says, is "no bad argument for the truth of the black bills prepared for the papists in Ireland." This paper is dated 1681.]

[Footnote 218: Birmingham was already noted for base and counterfeit coinage. In a Panegyrick on their Royal Highnesses congratulating their return from Scotland, 1682, mention is thus made of Shaftesbury's medal:

The wretch that stamped it got immortal fame; 'Twas coined by stealth, like groats at Birmingham.

Tom Brown also alluded to the same practice; "I coined heroes as fast as Brumingham groats."[219] The affected zeal of the country party for the Protestant religion, led them to be called Birmingham Protestants, while the pretensions of Monmouth to legitimacy led his adversaries to compare him to a spurious impression of the king's coin; and thus _Birmingham_ became a term of reproach for him, his assumed title, and his faction in general. There are numerous allusions to this in the libels of the age. Thus, in "Old Jemmy, an excellent new Ballad,"

Old Jemmy is the top, And cheef among the princes; No mobile gay fop With Bromingham pretences.

In another ballad bearing the same title, the same phrase occurs:

Let Whig and Bremingham repine, They shew their teeth in vain; The glory of the British line, Old Jemmy's come again.

These are in Mr Luttrell's collection; where there is another Tory song, entitled, "A proper new Birmingham ballad, to the tune of Hey Boys Up Go We."

In another Grubstreet performance, entitled, "a Medley on the plot, by Mathew Taubman:"

Confound the hypocrites, Birminghams royal, Who thinks allegeance a transgression; Since to oppose the king is counted loyal, And to rail high at the succession.

* * * * *

Let them boast of loyal Birminghams, and true, And with these make up their kirk of separation; We have honest Tory Tom, Dick, and Hugh, Will drink on, and do more service for the nation.

North, however, gives rather a different derivation. He says, that the loyalists, becoming anxious to retort some nickname in return for that of tories with which they had been branded, first called their "adversaries _true blues_; because such were not satisfied to be Protestants as the churchmen were, but must be true Protestants, implying the others to be false ones, just not Papists. Then they went on, and stiled the adversary _Birmingham_ Protestants, alluding to the false groats struck at that place. This held a considerable time; but the word was not fluent enough for hasty repartee, and after divers changes, the lot fell on the word whig, which was very significative, as well as ready, being vernacular in Scotland, whence it was borrowed, for sour and corrupted whey. Immediately the train took, and, upon the first touch of the experiment, it ran like wild fire, and became general." _Examen. p. 321_.

By the phrase of Anti-Brominghams, used in the text, Dryden therefore means those who opposed the duke of Monmouth's pretensions, and were execrated for doing so by his fanatical followers.]

[Footnote 219: _Reasons for Mr Bayes' changing his Religion_, p. 14.]

[Footnote 220: A character in sir John Denham's Sophy.]

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin; When man on many multiplied his kind, Ere one to one was cursedly confined; When nature prompted, and no law denied, Promiscuous use of concubine and bride; Then Israel's monarch[221] after heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did variously impart To wives and slaves; and, wide as his command, Scattered his Maker's image through the land. Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear,[222] A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care. Not so the rest; for several mothers bore To god-like David several sons before. But since like slaves his bed they did ascend, No true succession could their seed attend. Of all the[223] numerous progeny was none So beautiful, so brave, as Absalon;[224] Whether inspired by[225] by some diviner lust, His father got him with a greater gust; Or that his conscious destiny made way, By manly beauty, to imperial sway. Early in foreign fields he won renown, With kings and states, allied to Israel's crown; In peace the thoughts of war he could remove, And seemed as he were only born for love. Whate'er he did, was done with so much ease, In him alone twas natural to please; His motions all accompanied with grace, And paradise was opened in his face. With secret joy indulgent David viewed His youthful image in his son renewed; To all his wishes nothing he denied, And made the charming Annabel his bride.[226] What faults he had,--for who from faults is free? His father could not, or he would not see. Some warm excesses, which the law forbore, Were construed youth that purged by boiling o'er; And Amnon's murder, by a specious name, Was called a just revenge for injured fame.[227] Thus praised and loved, the noble youth remained, While David undisturbed in Sion reigned. But life can never be sincerely blest; Heaven punishes the bad, and proves the best. The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murmuring race, As ever tried the extent and stretch of grace; God's pampered people, whom, debauched with ease, No king could govern, nor no God could please; Gods they had tried of every shape and size, That godsmiths could produce, or priests devise; These Adam-wits, too fortunately free, Began to dream they wanted liberty; And when no rule, no precedent was found, Of men, by laws less circumscribed and bound; They led their wild desires to woods and caves, And thought that all but savages were slaves. They who, when Saul[228] was dead, without a blow, Made foolish Ishbosheth[229] the crown forego; Who banished David[230] did from Hebron[231] bring, And with a general shout proclaimed him king; Those very Jews, who at their very best, Their humour more than loyalty exprest, Now wondered why so long they had obeyed An idol monarch, which their hands had made; Thought they might ruin him they could create, Or melt him to that golden calf,--a state. But these were random bolts; no formed design, Nor interest made the factious crowd to join: The sober part of Israel, free from stain, Well knew the value of a peaceful reign; And, looking backward with a wise affright, Saw seams of wounds dishonest to the sight; In contemplation of whose ugly scars, They curst the memory of civil wars. The moderate sort of men, thus qualified, Inclined the balance to the better side; And David's mildness managed it so well, The bad found no occasion to rebel. But when to sin our biassed nature leans, The careful devil is still at hand with means, And providently pimps for ill desires; The good old cause, revived, a plot requires. Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths, and ruin kings. The inhabitants of old Jerusalem[232] Were Jebusites[233]; the town so called from them; And theirs the native right.---- But when the chosen people grew more strong, The rightful cause at length became the wrong; And every loss the men of Jebus bore, They still were thought God's enemies the more. Thus worn or[234] weakened, well or ill content, Submit they must to David's government; Impoverished and deprived of all command, Their taxes doubled as they lost their land; And, what was harder yet to flesh and blood, Their gods disgraced, and burnt like common wood. This set the heathen priesthood in a flame; For priests of all religions are the same. Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be, Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree, In his defence his servants are as bold, As if he had been born of beaten gold. The Jewish rabbins, though their enemies, In this conclude them honest men and wise; For 'twas their duty, all the learned think, To espouse his cause, by whom they eat and drink. From hence began that plot, the nation's curse, Bad in itself, but represented worse;[235] Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried; With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied; Not weighed nor winnowed by the multitude, But swallowed in the mass, unchewed and crude. Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies, To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise. Succeeding times did equal folly call, Believing nothing, or believing all. The Egyptian rites the Jebusites embraced, Where gods were recommended by their taste. Such savoury deities must needs be good, As served at once for worship and for food.[236] By force they could not introduce these gods,-- For ten to one in former days was odds,-- So fraud was used, the sacrificer's trade; Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade. Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews, And raked for converts even the court and stews; Which Hebrew priests the more unkindly took, Because the fleece accompanies the flock. Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay By guns, invented since full many a day: Our author swears it not; but who can know How far the devil and Jebusites may go?[237] This plot, which failed for want of common sense, Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence; For as, when raging fevers boil the blood, The standing lake soon floats into a flood, And every hostile humour, which before Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er; So several factions, from this first ferment, Work up to foam, and threat the government. Some by their friends, more by themselves thought wise, Opposed the power to which they could not rise; Some had in courts been great, and, thrown from thence, Like fiends, were hardened in impenitence; Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne, Were raised in power and public office high; Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie. Of these the false Achitophel[238] was first; A name to all succeeding ages curst: For close designs, and crooked counsels fit; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfixed in principles and place; In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace; A fiery soul, which, working out its way, } Fretted the pigmy-body to decay, } And o'er-informed the tenement of clay; } A daring pilot in extremity; Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit. Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide; Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please; Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease? And all to leave what with his toil he won, To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son;[239] Got, while his soul did huddled notions try; And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy. In friendship false, implacable in hate; Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state. To compass this the triple bond he broke; } The pillars of the public safety shook; } And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke;[240] } Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame, Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.[241] So easy still it proves in factious times, With public zeal to cancel private crimes. How safe is treason, and how sacred ill, Where none can sin against the people's will? Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known, Since in another's guilt they find their own? Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin[242] With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean, Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress; Swift of dispatch, and easy of access. Oh! had he been content to serve the crown, With virtue only proper to the gown; Or had the rankness of the soil been freed From cockle, that oppressed the noble seed; David for him his tuneful harp had strung, And heaven had wanted one immortal song. But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand, And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land. Achitophel, grown weary to possess A lawful fame, and lazy happiness, Disdained the golden fruit to gather free, And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree. Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since, He stood at bold defiance with his prince; Held up the buckler of the people's cause Against the crown, and skulked behind the laws.[243] The wished occasion of the plot he takes; Some circumstances finds, but more he makes; By buzzing emissaries, fills the ears Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears, Of arbitrary counsels brought to light, And proves the king himself a Jebusite. Weak arguments! which yet, he knew full well, Were strong with people easy to rebel. For, governed by the moon, the giddy Jews Tread the same track when she the prime renews; And once in twenty years their scribes record, By natural instinct they change their lord. Achitophel still wants a chief, and none Was found so fit as warlike Absalon. Not that he wished his greatness to create, For politicians neither love nor hate; But, for he knew his title not allowed, Would keep him still depending on the crowd; That kingly power, thus ebbing out, might be Drawn to the dregs of a democracy. Him he attempts with studied arts to please, And sheds his venom in such words as these. Auspicious prince, at whose nativity Some royal planet ruled the southern sky; Thy longing country's darling and desire; Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire; Their second Moses, whose extended wand Divides[244] the seas, and shews the promised land; Whose dawning day, in every distant age, Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage; The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, The young men's vision, and the old men's dream! Thee, Saviour, thee the nation's vows confess, And, never satisfied with seeing, bless; Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim, And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name. How long wilt thou the general joy detain, Starve and defraud the people of thy reign; Content ingloriously to pass thy days, Like one of virtue's fools that feed on praise; 'Till thy fresh glories, which now shine so bright, Grow stale, and tarnish with our daily sight? Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be Or gathered ripe, or rot upon the tree. Heaven has to all allotted, soon or late, Some lucky revolution of their fate; Whose motions if we watch and guide with skill, (For human good depends on human will,) Our fortune rolls as from a smooth descent, And from the first impression takes the bent; But, if unseized, she glides away like wind, And leaves repenting folly far behind. Now, now she meets you with a glorious prize, And spreads her locks before you as she flies. Had thus old David, from whose loins you spring, Not dared, when fortune called him, to be king, At Gath[245] an exile he might still remain, And heaven's anointing oil had been in vain. Let his successful youth your hopes engage; But shun the example of declining age: Behold him setting in his western skies, The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise. He is not now, as when, on Jordan's[246] sand, } The joyful people thronged to see him land, } Covering the beach and blackening all the strand; } But, like the prince of angels, from his height Comes tumbling downward with diminished light; Betrayed by one poor plot to public scorn, Our only blessing since his curst return; Those heaps of people which one sheaf did bind, Blown off and scattered by a puff of wind. What strength can he to your designs oppose, Naked of friends, and round beset with foes? If Pharaoh's[247] doubtful succour he should use, A foreign aid would more incense the Jews; Proud Egypt[248] would dissembled friendship bring; Foment the war, but not support the king: Nor would the royal party e'er unite With Pharaoh's arms, to assist the Jebusite; Or, if they should, their interest soon would break, And with such odious aid make David weak. All sorts of men, by my successful arts Abhorring kings, estrange their altered hearts From David's rule; and 'tis their general cry, Religion, commonwealth, and liberty. If you, as champion of the public good, Add to their arms a chief of royal blood, What may not Israel hope, and what applause Might such a general gain by such a cause? Not barren praise alone, that gaudy flower Fair only to the sight, but solid power; And nobler is a limited command, Given by the love of all your native land, Than a successive title, long and dark, Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.[249] What cannot praise effect in mighty minds, When flattery sooths, and when ambition blinds? Desire of power, on earth a vicious weed, Yet, sprung from high, is of celestial seed; In God 'tis glory; and when men aspire, 'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire. The ambitious youth, too covetous of fame, Too full of angel's metal in his frame, Unwarily was led from virtue's ways, Made drunk with honour, and debauched with praise. Half loath, and half consenting to the ill,-- For royal blood within him struggled still,-- He thus replied.--And what pretence have I To take up arms for public liberty? My father governs with unquestioned right, The faith's defender, and mankind's delight; Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws; And heaven by wonders has espoused his cause. Whom has he wronged in all his peaceful reign? Who sues for justice to his throne in vain? What millions has he pardoned of his foes, Whom just revenge did to his wrath expose? Mild, easy, humble, studious of our good, Inclined to mercy, and averse from blood. If mildness ill with stubborn Israel suit, His crime is God's beloved attribute. What could he gain his people to betray, Or change his right for arbitrary sway? Let haughty Pharaoh curse with such a reign His fruitful Nile, and yoke a servile train. If David's rule Jerusalem displease, The dog-star heats their brains to this disease. Why then should I, encouraging the bad, Turn rebel, and run popularly mad? Were he a tyrant, who by lawless might Oppressed the Jews, and raised the Jebusite, Well might I mourn; but nature's holy bands Would curb my spirits, and restrain my hands: The people might assert their liberty; But what was right in them were crime in me. His favour leaves me nothing to require, Prevents my wishes, and out-runs desire. What more can I expect while David lives? All but his kingly diadem he gives; And that--But there he paused; then sighing, said-- Is justly destined for a worthier head; For, when my father from his toils shall rest, And late augment the number of the blest, His lawful issue shall the throne ascend, Or the collateral line, where that shall end. His brother, though oppressed with vulgar spite,[250] Yet dauntless, and secure of native right, Of every royal virtue stands possest; Still dear to all the bravest and the best. His courage foes, his friends his truth proclaim; His loyalty the king, the world his fame. His mercy even the offending crowd will find; For sure he comes of a forgiving kind. Why should I then repine at heaven's decree, Which gives me no pretence to royalty? Yet oh that fate, propitiously inclined, Had raised my birth, or had debased my mind; To my large soul not all her treasure lent, And then betrayed it to a mean descent! I find, I find my mounting spirits bold, And David's part disdains my mother's mould. Why am I scanted by a niggard birth? My soul disclaims the kindred of her earth; And, made for empire, whispers me within, Desire of greatness is a god-like sin. Him staggering so, when hell's dire agent found, While fainting virtue scarce maintained her ground, He pours fresh forces in, and thus replies: The eternal God, supremely good and wise, Imparts not these prodigious gifts in vain. What wonders are reserved to bless your reign! Against your will your arguments have shown, Such virtue's only given to guide a throne. Not that your father's mildness I contemn; But manly force becomes the diadem. 'Tis true, he grants the people all they crave; And more, perhaps, than subjects ought to have; For lavish grants suppose a monarch tame, And more his goodness than his wit proclaim: But when should people strive their bonds to break, If not when kings are negligent, or weak? Let him give on till he can give no more, The thrifty sanhedrim shall keep him poor; And every shekel, which he can receive, Shall cost a limb of his prerogative. To ply him with new plots shall be my care, Or plunge him deep in some expensive war; Which when his treasure can no more supply, He must, with the remains of kingship, buy. His faithful friends, our jealousies and fears Call Jebusites, and Pharaoh's pensioners; Whom when our fury from his aid has torn, He shall be naked left to public scorn. The next successor, whom I fear and hate, My arts have made obnoxious to the state; Turned all his virtues to his overthrow, And gained our elders to pronounce a foe.[251] His right, for sums of necessary gold, Shall first be pawned, and afterwards be sold; 'Till time shall ever-wanting David draw, To pass your doubtful title into law: If not, the people have a right supreme To make their kings; for kings are made for them. All empire is no more than power in trust, Which, when resumed, can be no longer just. Succession, for the general good designed, In its own wrong a nation cannot bind; If altering that the people can relieve, Better one suffer than a nation grieve. The Jews well know their power; ere Saul[252] they chose, God was their king, and God they durst depose. Urge now your piety, your filial name, A father's right, and fear of future fame;-- The public good, that universal call, To which even heaven submitted, answers all. Nor let his love enchant your generous mind; 'Tis nature's trick to propagate her kind. Our fond begetters, who would never die, Love but themselves in their posterity. Or let his kindness by the effects be tried, Or let him lay his vain pretence aside. God said, he loved your father; could he bring A better proof, than to anoint him king? It surely shewed he loved the shepherd well, Who gave so fair a flock as Israel. Would David have you thought his darling son? What means he then to alienate the crown? The name of godly he may blush to bear; Is't[253] after God's own heart to cheat his heir? He to his brother gives supreme command, To you a legacy of barren land; Perhaps the old harp, on which he thrums his lays, Or some dull Hebrew ballad in your praise. Then the next heir, a prince severe and wise, Already looks on you with jealous eyes;[254] Sees through the thin disguises of your arts, And marks your progress in the people's hearts; Though now his mighty soul its grief contains, He meditates revenge who least complains; And like a lion, slumbering in the way, Or sleep dissembling, while he waits his prey, His fearless foes within his distance draws, Constrains his roaring, and contracts his paws; 'Till, at the last, his time for fury found, He shoots with sudden vengeance from the ground; The prostrate vulgar passes o'er and spares, But with a lordly rage his hunters tears. Your case no tame expedients will afford; Resolve on death, or conquest by the sword, Which for no less a stake than life you draw; And self defence is nature's eldest law. Leave the warm people no considering time; For then rebellion may be thought a crime. Avail[255] yourself of what occasion gives, But try your title while your father lives; And that your arms may have a fair pretence, Proclaim you take them in the kings defence; Whose sacred life each minute would expose To plots, from seeming friends, and secret foes. And who can sound the depth of David's soul?[256] Perhaps his fear his kindness may controul. He fears his brother, though he loves his son, For plighted vows too late to be undone. If so, by force he wishes to be gained; Like women's lechery to seem constrained. Doubt not; but, when he most affects the frown, Commit a pleasing rape upon the crown. Secure his person to secure your cause; They, who possess the prince, possess the laws. He said, and this advice, above the rest, With Absalom's mild nature suited best; Unblamed of life, ambition set aside, Not stained with cruelty, not puft with pride. How happy had he been, if destiny Had higher placed his birth, or not so high! His kingly virtues might have claimed a throne, And blest all other countries but his own; But charming greatness since so few refuse, 'Tis juster to lament him than accuse. Strong were his hopes a rival to remove, With blandishments to gain the public love; To head the faction while their zeal was hot, And popularly prosecute the plot. To further this, Achitophel unites The malcontents of all the Israelites; Whose differing parties he could wisely join, For several ends, to serve the same design. The best,--and of the princes some were such, Who thought the power of monarchy too much; Mistaken men, and patriots in their hearts; Not wicked, but seduced by impious arts. By these the springs of property were bent, And wound so high, they cracked the government. The next for interest sought to embroil the state, To sell their duty at a dearer rate, And make their Jewish markets of the throne; Pretending public good, to serve their own. Others thought kings an useless heavy load, Who cost too much, and did too little good. These were for laying honest David by, On principles of pure good husbandry.[257] With them joined all the haranguers of the throng; That thought to get preferment by the tongue. Who follow next a double danger bring, Not only hating David, but the king; The Solymæan rout; well versed, of old, In godly faction, and in treason bold; Cowring and quaking at a conqueror's sword, But lofty to a lawful prince restored; Saw with disdain an Ethnic plot begun, And scorned by Jebusites to be outdone. Hot Levites[258] headed these; who, pulled before From the ark, which in the judges' days they bore,[259] Resumed their cant, and, with a zealous cry, Pursued their old beloved theocracy; Where sanhedrim and priest enslaved the nation, And justified their spoils by inspiration. For who so fit to reign as Aaron's race, If once dominion they could found in grace? These led the pack; though not of surest scent, Yet deepest mouthed against the government. A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed, Of the true old enthusiastic breed; 'Gainst form and order they their power employ, Nothing to build, and all things to destroy. But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much. These out of mere instinct, they knew not why, Adored their fathers' God, and property; And, by the same blind benefit of fate, The devil and the Jebusite did hate; Born to be saved, even in their own despite. Because they could not help believing right. Such were the tools; but a whole Hydra more Remains of sprouting heads too long to score. Some of their chiefs were princes of the land: In the first rank of these did Zimri[260] stand; A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was every thing by starts, and nothing long; But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fidler, statesman, and buffoon; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman, who could every hour employ, With something new to wish, or to enjoy! Railing and praising were his usual themes; And both, to shew his judgment, in extremes; So over violent, or over civil, That every man with him was God or devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert. Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late; He had his jest, and they had his estate. He laughed himself from court; then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief; For, spite of him, the weight of business fell On Absalom, and wise Achitophel; Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft, He left not faction, but of that was left. Titles and names 'twere tedious to rehearse Of lords, below the dignity of verse. Wits, warriors, commonwealths-men, were the best; Kind husbands, and mere nobles, all the rest. And therefore, in the name of dulness, be The well-hung Balaam and cold Caleb free; And canting Nadab let oblivion damn,[261] Who made new porridge for the paschal lamb. Let friendship's holy band some names assure; Some their own worth, and some let scorn secure. Nor shall the rascal rabble here have place, Whom kings no titles gave, and God no grace: Not bull-faced Jonas,[262] who could statutes draw To mean rebellion, and make treason law. But he, though bad, is followed by a worse, The wretch, who heaven's anointed dared to curse; Shimei,[263]--whose youth did early promise bring Of zeal to God, and hatred to his king,-- Did wisely from expensive sins refrain, And never broke the sabbath but for gain: Nor ever was he known an oath to vent, Or curse, unless against a government. Thus heaping wealth, by the most ready way Among the jews, which was--to cheat and pray; The city, to reward his pious hate Against his master, chose him magistrate. His hand a vase of justice did uphold; His neck was loaded with a chain of gold. During his office treason was no crime; The sons of Belial had a glorious time: For Shimei, though not prodigal of pelf, Yet loved his wicked neighbour as himself. When two or three were gathered to declaim } Against the monarch of Jerusalem, } Shimei was always in the midst of them: } And, if they cursed the king when he was by, Would rather curse than break good company. If any durst his factious friends accuse, He packed a jury of dissenting jews;[264] Whose fellow-feeling in the Godly cause Would free the suffering saint from human laws: For laws are only made to punish those Who serve the king, and to protect his foes. If any leisure time he had from power,-- Because 'tis sin to misemploy an hour,-- His business was, by writing, to persuade, That kings were useless, and a clog to trade:[265] And, that his noble style he might refine, No Rechabite more shunned the fumes of wine. Chaste were his cellars, and his shrieval board The grossness of a city-feast abhorred. His cooks, with long disuse, their trade forgot; Cool was his kitchen, though his brains were hot. Such frugal virtue malice may accuse; But sure 'twas necessary to the Jews: For towns, once burnt, such magistrates require, As dare not tempt God's providence by fire. With spiritual food he fed his servants well, But free from flesh, that made the Jews rebel: And Moses' laws he held in more account, For forty days of fasting in the mount. To speak the rest, (who better are forgot,) Would tire a well-breathed witness of the plot. Yet Corah,[266] thou shalt from oblivion pass; Erect thyself, thou monumental brass, High as the serpent of thy metal made, While nations stand secure beneath thy shade! What though his birth were base, yet comets rise From earthy vapours, ere they shine in skies. Prodigious actions may as well be done By weaver's issue, as by prince's son. This arch-attestor for the public good By that one deed ennobles all his blood. Who ever asked the witnesses high race, Whose oath with martyrdom did Stephen grace? Ours was a Levite, and, as times went then, His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen. Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud:[267] Sure signs he neither choleric was, nor proud: His long chin proved his wit; his saint-like grace A church vermillion, and a Moses' face. His memory, miraculously great, Could plots, exceeding man's belief, repeat; Which therefore cannot be accounted lies, For human wit could never such devise. Some future truths are mingled in his book; But where the witness failed the prophet spoke: Some things like visionary flight appear; The spirit caught him up,--the Lord knows where, And gave him his rabinical degree, Unknown to foreign university.[268] His judgment yet his memory did excel; Which pieced his wonderous evidence so well, And suited to the temper of the times, Then groaning under Jebusitic crimes. Let Israel's foes suspect his heavenly call, And rashly judge his writ apocryphal; Our laws for such affronts have forfeits made: He takes his life, who takes away his trade. Were I myself in witness Corah's place, The wretch, who did me such a dire disgrace, Should whet my memory, though once forgot, To make him an appendix of my plot. His zeal to heaven made him his prince despise, And load his person with indignities. But zeal peculiar privilege affords, Indulging latitude to deeds and words: And Corah might for Agag's[269] murder call, In terms as coarse as Samuel used to Saul. What others in his evidence did join, The best that could be had for love or coin, In Corah's own predicament will fall: For witness is a common name to all. Surrounded thus with friends of every sort, Deluded Absalom forsakes the court; Impatient of high hopes, urged with renown, And fired with near possession of a crown. The admiring crowd are dazzled with surprise, And on his goodly person feed their eyes. His joys concealed,[270] he sets himself to show; On each side bowing popularly low: His looks, his gestures, and his words he frames, And with familiar ease repeats their names. Thus formed by nature, furnished out with arts, He glides unfelt into their secret hearts. Then with a kind compassionating look, And sighs, bespeaking pity ere he spoke, Few words he said; but easy those and fit, More slow than Hybla-drops, and far more sweet. I mourn, my countrymen, your lost estate; Though far unable to prevent your fate: Behold a banished man, for your dear cause Exposed a prey to arbitrary laws! Yet oh! that I alone could be undone, Cut off from empire, and no more a son! Now all your liberties a spoil are made; } Egypt and Tyrus[271] intercept your trade, } And Jebusites your sacred rites invade. } My father,--whom with reverence yet I name-- Charmed into ease, is careless of his fame; And, bribed with petty sums of foreign gold, Is grown in Bathsheba's embraces old;[272] Exalts his enemies, his friends destroys, And all his power against himself employs. He gives,--and let him give,--my right away: But why should he his own and yours betray? He, only he, can make the nation bleed, And he alone from my revenge is freed. Take then my tears,--with that he wiped his eyes,-- 'Tis all the aid my present power supplies: No court-informer can these arms accuse; These arms may sons against their fathers use: And 'tis my wish, the next successor's reign May make no other Israelite complain. Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail; But common interest always will prevail; And pity never ceases to be shown To him who makes the people's wrongs his own. The crowd, that still believe their kings oppress, With lifted hands their young Messiah bless: Who now begins his progress to ordain With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train:[273] From east to west his glories he displays, And, like the sun, the promised land surveys. Fame runs before him as the morning-star, And shouts of joy salute him from afar; Each house receives him as a guardian god, And consecrates the place of his abode. But hospitable treats did most commend Wise Issachar, his wealthy western friend.[274] This moving court, that caught the people's eyes, And seemed but pomp, did other ends disguise: Achitophel had formed it, with intent To sound the depths, and fathom, where it went, The people's hearts, distinguish friends from foes, And try their strength before they came to blows. Yet all was coloured with a smooth pretence Of specious love, and duty to their prince. Religion, and redress of grievances, (Two names that always cheat, and always please,) Are often urged; and good king David's life, Endangered by a brother and a wife.[275] Thus in a pageant-shew a plot is made; And peace itself is war in masquerade. Oh foolish Israel! never warned by ill! Still the same bait, and circumvented still! Did ever men forsake their present ease, In midst of health imagine a disease, Take pains contingent mischiefs to foresee, Make heirs for monarchs, and for God decree? What shall we think? Can people give away, Both for themselves and sons, their native sway? Then they are left defenceless to the sword Of each unbounded, arbitrary lord: And laws are vain, by which we right enjoy, If kings unquestioned can those laws destroy. Yet if the crowd be judge of fit and just, And kings are only officers in trust, Then this resuming covenant was declared When kings were made, or is for ever barred. If those, who gave the sceptre, could not tie, By their own deed, their own posterity, How then could Adam bind his future race? How could his forfeit on mankind take place? Or how could heavenly justice damn us all, Who ne'er consented to our father's fall? Then kings are slaves to those whom they command, And tenants to their people's pleasure stand. Add, that the power, for property allowed, Is mischievously seated in the crowd; For who can be secure of private right, If sovereign sway may be dissolved by might? Nor is the people's judgment always true: The most may err as grossly as the few; And faultless kings run down by common cry, For vice, oppression, and for tyranny. What standard is there in a fickle rout, Which, flowing to the mark, runs faster out? Nor only crowds but Sanhedrims may be Infected with this public lunacy, And share the madness of rebellious times, To murder monarchs for imagined crimes. If they may give and take whene'er they please, Not kings alone, the Godhead's images, But government itself, at length must fall To nature's state, where all have right to all. Yet, grant our lords, the people, kings can make, What prudent men a settled throne would shake? For whatsoe'er their sufferings were before, That change they covet makes them suffer more. All other errors but disturb a state; But innovation is the blow of fate. If ancient fabrics nod, and threat to fall, To patch their flaws, and buttress up the wall, Thus far 'tis duty: but here fix the mark; For all beyond it is to touch the ark. To change foundations, cast the frame anew, Is work for rebels, who base ends pursue; At once divine and human laws controul, And mend the parts by ruin of the whole. The tampering world is subject to this curse, To physic their disease into a worse. Now what relief can righteous David bring? How fatal 'tis to be too good a king! Friends he has few, so high the madness grows; Who dare be such must be the people's foes. Yet some there were, even in the worst of days; Some let me name, and naming is to praise. In this short file Barzillai[276] first appears; Barzillai, crowned with honour and with years. Long since, the rising rebels he withstood In regions waste beyond the Jordan's flood:[277] Unfortunately brave to buoy the state; But sinking underneath his master's fate: In exile with his godlike prince he mourned; For him he suffered, and with him returned. The court he practised, not the courtier's art: Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart, Which well the noblest objects knew to choose, The fighting warrior, and recording muse. His bed could once a fruitful issue boast; Now more than half a father's name is lost. His eldest hope, with every grace adorned, By me, so heaven will have it, always mourned, And always honoured, snatched in manhood's prime By unequal fates, and providence's crime:[278] Yet not before the goal of honour won, } All parts fulfilled of subject and of son: } Swift was the race, but short the time to run. } Oh narrow circle, but of power divine, Scanted in space, and perfect in thy line! By sea, by land, thy matchless worth was known, Arms thy delight, and war was all thy own: Thy force infused the fainting Tyrians[279] prop'd, And haughty Pharaoh found his fortune stop'd. Oh ancient honour! Oh unconquered hand, Whom foes unpunished never could withstand! But Israel was unworthy of his name:[280] Short is the date of all immoderate fame.[281] It looks as heaven our ruin had designed, And durst not trust thy fortune and thy mind. Now, free from earth, thy disencumbered soul Mounts up, and leaves behind the clouds and starry pole: From thence thy kindred legions may'st thou bring, To aid the guardian angel of thy king. Here stop, my muse; here cease thy painful flight; No pinions can pursue immortal height: Tell good Barzillai thou canst sing no more, And tell thy soul she should have fled before: Or fled she with his life, and left this verse To hang on her departed patron's hearse? Now take thy steepy flight from heaven, and see If thou canst find on earth another he: Another he would be too hard to find; See then whom thou canst see not far behind. Zadoc the priest,[282] whom, shunning power and place, His lowly mind advanced to David's grace. With him the Sagan[283] of Jerusalem, Of hospitable soul, and noble stem; Him of the western dome,[284] whose weighty sense Flows in fit words, and heavenly eloquence. The prophet's sons, by such example led, To learning and to loyalty were bred: For colleges on bounteous kings depend, And never rebel was to arts a friend. To these succeed the pillars of the laws; Who best can plead, and best can judge a cause. Next them a train of loyal peers ascend; Sharp-judging Adriel,[285] the muses friend, Himself a muse: in Sanhedrim's debate, True to his prince, but not a slave of state: Whom David's love with honours did adorn, That from his disobedient son were torn. Jotham, of piercing wit, and pregnant thought,[286] Endued by nature, and by learning taught, To move assemblies, who but only tried The worse a-while, then chose the better side: Nor chose alone, but turned the balance too; So much the weight of one brave man can do. Hushai, the friend of David in distress; In public storms, of manly stedfastness;[287] By foreign treaties he informed his youth, And joined experience to his native truth. His frugal care supplied the wanting throne; Frugal for that, but bounteous of his own: 'Tis easy conduct when exchequers flow, But hard the task to manage well the low; For sovereign power is too depressed or high, When kings are forced to sell, or crowds to buy. Indulge one labour more, my weary muse, For Amiel; who can Amiel's praise refuse?[288] Of ancient race by birth, but nobler yet In his own worth, and without title great: The Sanhedrim long time as chief he ruled, Their reason guided, and their passion cooled: So dexterous was he in the crown's defence, So formed to speak a loyal nation's sense, That, as their band was Israel's tribes in small, So fit was he to represent them all. Now rasher charioteers the seat ascend, Whose loose careers his steady skill commend: They, like the unequal ruler of the day, Misguide the seasons, and mistake the way; While he, withdrawn, at their mad labours smiles, And safe enjoys the sabbath of his toils. These were the chief; a small but faithful band } Of worthies, in the breach who dared to stand, } And tempt the united fury of the land. } With grief they viewed such powerful engines bent, To batter down the lawful government. A numerous faction, with pretended frights, In Sanhedrims to plume the legal rights; The true successor from the court removed; The plot, by hireling witnesses, improved. These ills they saw, and, as their duty bound, They shewed the king the danger of the wound; That no concessions from the throne would please, But lenitives fomented the disease: That Absalom, ambitious of the crown, Was made the lure to draw the people down: That false Achitophel's pernicious hate Had turned the plot to ruin church and state: The council violent, the rabble worse; That Shimei taught Jerusalem to curse. With all these loads of injuries opprest, And long revolving in his careful breast The event of things, at last, his patience tired, Thus, from his royal throne, by heaven inspired, The god-like David spoke; with awful fear His train their Maker in their master hear.[289] Thus long, have I by native mercy swayed, My wrongs dissembled, my revenge delayed; So willing to forgive the offending age; So much the father did the king assuage. But now so far my clemency they slight, The offenders question my forgiving right.[290] That one was made for many, they contend; But 'tis to rule; for that's a monarch's end. They call my tenderness of blood, my fear; Though manly tempers can the longest bear. Yet since they will divert my native course, 'Tis time to shew I am not good by force. Those heaped affronts, that haughty subjects bring, Are burdens for a camel, not a king. Kings are the public pillars of the state, Born to sustain and prop the nation's weight: If my young Sampson will pretend a call To shake the column, let him share the fall:[291] But oh, that yet he would repent and live! How easy 'tis for parents to forgive! With how few tears a pardon might be won From nature, pleading for a darling son! Poor, pitied youth, by my paternal care Raised up to all the height his frame could bear! Had God ordained his fate for empire born, He would have given his soul another turn: Gulled with a patriot's name, whose modern sense Is one that would by law supplant his prince; The people's brave, the politician's tool; Never was patriot yet, but was a fool. Whence comes it, that religion and the laws Should more be Absalom's than David's cause? His old instructor, ere he lost his place, Was never thought endued with so much grace. Good heavens, how faction can a patriot paint! My rebel ever proves my people's saint. Would they impose an heir upon the throne? Let Sanhedrims be taught to give their own. A king's at least a part of government; And mine as requisite as their consent: Without my leave a future king to chuse, Infers a right the present to depose. True, they petition me to approve their choice; But Esau's hands suit ill with Jacob's voice. My pious subjects for my safety pray; Which to secure, they take my power away. From plots and treasons heaven preserve my years, But save me most from my petitioners![292] Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave; God cannot grant so much as they can crave. What then is left, but with a jealous eye To guard the small remains of royalty? The law shall still direct my peaceful sway, And the same law teach rebels to obey: Votes shall no more established power controul,-- Such votes, as make a part exceed the whole No groundless clamours shall my friend remove, Nor crowds have power to punish ere they prove; For Gods and god-like kings their care express, Still to defend their servants in distress Oh, that my power to saving were confined! } Why am I forced, like heaven, against my mind, } To make examples of another kind? } Must I at length the sword of justice draw? Oh curst effects of necessary law! How ill my fear they by my mercy scan! Beware the fury of a patient man. Law they require, let law then shew her face; They could not be content to look on grace, Her hinder parts, but with a daring eye, To tempt the terror of her front, and die. By their own arts 'tis righteously decreed, Those dire artificers of death shall bleed. Against themselves their witnesses will swear,[293] 'Till, viper like, their mother-plot they tear; And suck for nutriment that bloody gore, Which was their principle of life before. Their Belial with their Beelzebub will fight; Thus on my foes, my foes shall do me right: Nor doubt the event; for factious crowds engage, In their first onset, all their brutal rage. Then let them take an unresisted course; Retire, and traverse, and delude their force: But when they stand all breathless, urge the fight, And rise upon them with redoubled might: For lawful power is still superior found; When long driven back, at length it stands the ground. He said; the Almighty, nodding, gave consent, And peals of thunder shook the firmament. Henceforth a series of new time began, The mighty years in long procession ran; Once more the god-like David was restored, And willing nations knew their lawful lord.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 221: Charles II. See note I.]

[Footnote 222: Queen Catherine. See note II.]

[Footnote 223: First edit. _this_.]

[Footnote 224: Duke of Monmouth. See note III.]

[Footnote 225: First edit. _with_.]

[Footnote 226: Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. See note IV.]

[Footnote 227: Note V.]

[Footnote 228: Cromwell.]

[Footnote 229: Richard Cromwell.]

[Footnote 230: Charles II.]

[Footnote 231: Here, Flanders or Holland; afterwards Scotland.]

[Footnote 232: London.]

[Footnote 233: Roman Catholics.]

[Footnote 234: First edit. _and_.]

[Footnote 235: Note VI.]

[Footnote 236: A sneer at the doctrine of transubstantiation, which our author afterwards attempted to defend.]

[Footnote 237: Note VII.]

[Footnote 238: Shaftesbury. See note VIII.]

[Footnote 239: Note IX.]

[Footnote 240: Note X.]

[Footnote 241: First edit. _A patron's_. The next twelve lines were added after the first edition. See Introduction.]

[Footnote 242: Note XI.]

[Footnote 243: Note XII.]

[Footnote 244: First edit. _Shuts up_.]

[Footnote 245: The land of exile, more particularly Brussels, where Charles long resided.]

[Footnote 246: Dover.]

[Footnote 247: King of France.]

[Footnote 248: France.]

[Footnote 249: Note XIII.]

[Footnote 250: James Duke of York, whose exclusion, as a Catholic, was warmly urged in the House of Commons.]

[Footnote 251: Note XIV.]

[Footnote 252: The allusion is to the Republic, who acknowleged God alone for their king, but were dispossessed by Cromwell, here, as formerly, called Saul.]

[Footnote 253: First edit. _'Tis_.]

[Footnote 254: Note XV.]

[Footnote 255: First edit. _Prevail_.]

[Footnote 256: Note XVI.]

[Footnote 257: A thrifty and frugal doctrine, not forgotten by the reformers of our own day.]

[Footnote 258: Note XVII.]

[Footnote 259: The dissenting clergymen, expelled by the Act of Conformity.]

[Footnote 260: The Duke of Buckingham. See note XVIII.]

[Footnote 261: Balaam, the earl of Huntingdon; Caleb, lord Gray of Wark; Nadab, lord Howard of Escrick. Note XIX. XX. XXI.]

[Footnote 262: Sir William Jones. See note XXII.]

[Footnote 263: Slingsby Bethel, one of the sheriffs of London. See note XXIII.]

[Footnote 264: Note XXIV.]

[Footnote 265: He wrote a treatise on the Interest of Princes.]

[Footnote 266: Titus Oates. See note XXV.]

[Footnote 267: Note XXVI.]

[Footnote 268: Oates pretended to have taken his degree of doctor at Salamanca. See note XXVII. Also vol. VII. p. 164.]

[Footnote 269: Sir Edmondbury Godfrey. See Note XXVIII.]

[Footnote 270: First edit.--Dissembling joy.]

[Footnote 271: France and Holland.]

[Footnote 272: Duchess of Portsmouth, mistress to Charles II.]

[Footnote 273: Note XXIX.]

[Footnote 274: Thomas Thynne, Esq. See note XXX.]

[Footnote 275: Note XXXI.]

[Footnote 276: The Duke of Ormond. See note XXXII.]

[Footnote 277: In Ireland.]

[Footnote 278: The Earl of Ossory. See note XXXIII.]

[Footnote 279: Alluding to Lord Ossory's services in the Dutch war against the French.]

[Footnote 280: First edit, _birth_.]

[Footnote 281: First edit, _worth_.]

[Footnote 282: Note XXXIV.]

[Footnote 283: Note XXXV.]

[Footnote 284: Note XXXVI.]

[Footnote 285: Note XXXVII.]

[Footnote 286: Note XXXVIII.]

[Footnote 287: Note XXXIX.]

[Footnote 288: Note XL.]

[Footnote 289: Note XLI.]

[Footnote 290: Note XLII.]

[Footnote 291: The four following lines were added after the first edition. See Introduction.]

[Footnote 292: Note XLIII.]

[Footnote 293: Note XLIV.]

NOTES ON ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

Note I.

_Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear, A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care._--P. 217.

Queen Catherine of Portugal, the wife of Charles II., resembled the daughter of Saul in the circumstance mentioned in the text. She was plain in her person, and consequently possessed little influence over her gallant husband. She was, however, always treated by him with decent civility; and indeed, when persecuted by the popular party, experienced his warmest protection. Her greatest fault was her being educated a Catholic; her greatest misfortune, her bearing the king no children; and her greatest foible an excessive love of dancing. It might have occurred to the good people of these times, that loving a ball was not a capital sin, even in a person whose figure excluded her from the hopes of gracing it; that a princess of Portugal must be a Catholic, if she had any religion at all; and, finally, that to bear children, it is necessary some one should take the trouble of getting them. But these obvious considerations did not prevent her being grossly abused in the libels of the times,[294] and very nearly made a party in Dr Titus Oates' Appendix to his Original Plot.

Note II.

_Not so the rest; for several mothers bore To god-like David several sons before._--P. 217.

Charles left a numerous family of illegitimate children by his various mistresses. Besides the Duke of Monmouth to be presently mentioned, he had a daughter by Lady Shannon, and the Earl of Plymouth by Mrs Catherine Pegge; by the Duchess of Cleveland he had the Dukes of Cleveland, Gratton, and Northumberland, and three daughters; by Mrs Eleanor Gwyn he had the Duke of St Alban's, and James Beauclerk; the Duchess of Portsmouth bore him the Duke of Richmond and Lennox: with a daughter by Mrs Mary Davies, the king's children amounted to the number of eight sons and five daughters.

Note III.

_Of all the numerous progeny, was none So beautiful, so brave, as Absalon._--P. 217.

James Stuart, Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch, was born at Rotterdam, 9th April, 1649, in the very heat of the civil wars. He was the son of Charles II. and Mrs Lucy Walters, or Waters, otherwise called Barlow, a beautiful young lady, of a good Welch family. He was educated privately in Holland, under the assumed name of James Crofts; and the respect with which his mother and he were treated by the cavalier, afforded a foundation for the argument of his adherents, who afterwards contended, that the king had been privately married to that lady. After the Restoration, the king sent for this young gentleman to court, where the royal favour and his own personal and acquired accomplishments soon made him very remarkable. Of his outward appearance, Count Hamilton, the gay recorder of the gaieties of the court of Charles, has given us a most interesting description, which is not belied by portraits which are still preserved. "Nature," says the count, "perhaps never formed any thing so perfect as the external graces of his person." His face was beautiful; but it was a masculine beauty, unmixed with any thing weak or effeminate: each feature had its own peculiar and interesting turn of expression. He had admirable address in all active exercises, an attractive manner, and an air of princely majesty. Yet his mental qualities did not altogether support this prepossessing exterior; or rather his fate plunged him into scenes where more was necessary than the mind and manners which, in more regular times, would have distinguished him as an accomplished cavalier in peace and war. He was married, by the king's interference, to Anne Scott, Countess of Buccleuch, sole surviving child of Francis, Earl of Buccleuch, and heiress of the extensive estate which the powerful family she represented had acquired on the frontiers of Scotland. The young prince had been previously created Duke of Orkney, a title now changed for that of Monmouth; and the king, upon his marriage, added to his honours the dukedom of Buccleuch. Thus favoured at home, he was also fortunate enough to have an opportunity of acquiring military fame, by serving two campaigns as a volunteer in Louis XIV.'s army against the Dutch. He particularly distinguished himself at the siege of Maestricht, where he led the storming party, took possession of the counterscarp, and made good his quarters against the repeated and desperate attempts of the besieged to dislodge him. Monmouth also served a campaign with the Dutch against the French, in 1678, and is on all hands allowed to have displayed great personal bravery; especially in the famous attack on the Duke of Luxemburgh's line before Mons, when the Prince of Orange, whose judgment can hardly be doubted, formed that good opinion of his military skill, which he stated when he offered to command the forces of his father-in-law against the Duke on his last unfortunate expedition. With that renown which is so willingly conferred upon the noble and the beautiful, the Duke returned to England, and met with a distinguished reception from Charles, by whom he was loaded with favours, as will appear from the following list of his titles and offices.

He was Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch; Earl of Doncaster and Dalkeith; Lord Scott of Tinedale, Whichester, and Eskdale; Lord Great Chamberlain of Scotland, Lord-Lieutenant of the east Riding of Yorkshire; Governor of the town and citadel of Kingston upon Hull; Chief Justice in Eyre of all his Majesty's forests, chases, parks, and warrens on the south side of the Trent; Lord-General of all his Majesty's land forces; Captain of his Majesty's Life-guards of horse; Chancellor of the university of Cambridge; Master of horse to the King; one of the Lords of the Privy Council, and Knight of the order of the Garter.

Thus highly distinguished by rank, reputation, and royal favour, he appears for some time to have dedicated himself chiefly to the pleasures of the court, when an unfortunate quarrel with the Duke of York, in the rivalry of an intrigue,[295] laid the foundation for that difference, which was one great means of embroiling the latter years of Charles's reign, and finally cost Monmouth his head. When his quarrel with his uncle, whose unforgiving temper was well known, had become inveterate and irreconcileable, the Duke of Monmouth was led to head the faction most inimical to the interests of York, and speedily became distinguished by the name of the Protestant Duke, the dearest title that his party could bestow. The prospect which now opened itself before Monmouth was such as might have turned the head of a man of deeper political capacity. The heir apparent, his personal enemy, had become the object of popular hatred to such a degree, that the bill, excluding him from the succession, seemed to have every chance of being carried through the House of Lords, as it had already passed the Commons. The rights of the Queen were not likely to interest any one; and it seems generally to have been believed, however unjustly as it proved, that Charles was too fond of Monmouth, too jealous of his brother, and too little scrupulous of ways and means, to hesitate at declaring this favourite youth his legitimate successor.

Under such favourable circumstances, it is no wonder that Monmouth gave way to the dictates of ambition; and while he probably conceived that he was only giving his father an opportunity to manifest his secret partiality, he became more and more deeply involved in the plots of Shaftesbury, whose bustling and intriguing spirit saw at once the use to be made of Monmouth's favour with the king, and popularity with the public. From that time, their union became close and inseparable; even while Shaftesbury was yet a member of the king's administration. Their meetings were conducted with a secrecy and mystery which argued their importance. According to Carte, they were held at Lord Shaftesbury's and Charleton's houses, both parties coming in private, and in hackney coaches. Some of Monmouth's partizans had even the boldness to assert the legitimacy of their patron, to prepare for his supplanting the Duke of York. When the insurrection of the Covenanters broke out in Scotland, Monmouth was employed against them, a duty which he executed with fidelity and success. He completely defeated the insurgents in the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and returned to the court in all the freshness of his laurels. This was in the year 1679, and Monmouth's good fortune had then attained its summit. He was beloved by the people, general of all the forces both in England and Scotland; London was at the devotion of Shaftesbury, the Duke of York banished to Brussels, and universally detested on account of his religion. At this important moment Charles fell ill of a fever at Windsor. Had he died it is very probable that Monmouth would have found himself in a condition to agitate successfully a title to the crown. But either the king's attachment to the Catholic religion, in the profession of which he finally died, or his sense of justice and hereditary right occasioned an extraordinary alteration of measures at this momentous crisis. The Duke of York was summoned from abroad, arrived at Windsor, and by his presence and activity at once resumed that ascendance over Charles, which his more stern genius had always possessed, and animated the sunken spirit of his own partizans. By a most sudden and surprising revolution, York was restored to all his brother's favour. For although he was obliged to retire to Scotland to avoid the fury of the exclusionists, yet a sharper exile awaited his rival Monmouth, who, deprived of all his offices, was sent into the foreign banishment from which his uncle had just been recalled. Accordingly he retired to Holland, where he was courteously received by the States; and where Charles himself appears to have been desirous, that his darling son should find an honourable asylum. Meanwhile the factions waxed still more furious; and Shaftesbury, whose boast it was to "ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm," utterly embroiled the kingdom, by persuading Monmouth to return to England without licence from his father, and to furnish an ostensible head to that body of which the wily politician was himself the soul. This conduct deeply injured Monmouth in his father's favour, who refused to see him; and, by an enquiry and subsequent declaration made openly in council, and published in the Gazette, endeavoured to put an end to his hopes, by publicly declaring his illegitimacy. Wonderful as it may seem, this avowal was ascribed to the king's fear for his brother; and two daring pamphlets were actually published, to assert the legitimacy of Monmouth, against the express and solemn declaration of his father.[296] Monmouth himself, by various progresses through the kingdom, with an affectation of popularity which gained the vulgar but terrified the reflecting, above all, by a close alliance with the Machiavel, Shaftesbury, shewed his avowed determination to maintain his pretensions against those of the lawful successor. This was the state of parties in 1681, when "Absalom and Achitophel" first appeared.

The permission of so sharp a satire against the party of Monmouth, though much qualified as to his individual person, plainly shewed the king's intention to proceed with energy against the country party. Monmouth, in the midst of one of those splendid journies which he had made to display his strength, was arrested at Stafford, September 20, 1682, and obliged to enter bail for his peaceable deportment and appearance when called on, to answer any suit against him by the king. In the mean while, the dubious and mysterious cabal, called the Rye-house Plot, was concocted by two separate parties, moving in some degree towards the same point, but actuated by very different motives, adopting different modes of conduct, and in their mutual intrigues but slightly connected with each other. It appears certain, that Monmouth utterly abominated the proposal of Rumbold, and those who made the assassination of the King and Duke of York the groundwork of their proposed insurrection. It is equally certain, that, with Sidney and Russell, he engaged in plans of reformation, or revolution, of that dubious description, which might have turned out good or evil, according to their power of managing the machine they were about to set in motion; a power almost always over-rated till the awful moment of experiment. Upon the discovery of these proceedings, Monmouth absconded, but generously signified to Lord Russell his determination to surrender himself if it could serve his friend; an offer which Russell, with the same generosity, positively rejected.

Notwithstanding the discovery which involved perhaps a charge of high treason, the king was so much convinced of Monmouth's innocence, so far as the safety of his person was concerned, that the influence of Halifax, who always strove to balance the power of the Duke of York by that of his nephew, procured him an opportunity of being restored to the king's favour, for which the minister had little thanks from the heir of the crown.[297] But Monmouth, by an excess of imprudence, in which, however, he displayed a noble spirit, forfeited the advantages he might have obtained at this crisis. Although he signed an acknowledgment of his guilt, in listening to counsels which could not be carried into effect, without a restraint on the king's person; he would not, on reflection, authorize the publication of a declaration, which must have had a fatal influence on the impending trial of his friends. He demanded it back, and received it; but accompanied with an order to leave the kingdom. He obeyed, and remained in honourable banishment in Holland, till after the accession of James II. to the throne. There is room to believe, that Monmouth would never have disturbed his uncle, had James not evinced a desire to follow him with vengeance even into his retreat. Wellwood has published a letter from him, in which he says, ambition is mortified within him, and expresses himself determined to live in retirement. But when the King insisted on the Prince of Orange driving him out of Holland, and proceeded to take measures to exclude him from Brussels, he appears to have become desperate. Even yet he prepared to retire to Sweden, but he was surrounded by fugitives from England and Scotland, who, as is always the case, represented the nation as agitated by their passions, and feeling for their individual oppression: Argyle, in particular, and the Scottish exiles, fired by the aggressions on their liberty and religion, anticipated a more warm support than they afterwards experienced.

Monmouth, thus driven upon his fate, set sail with three ships; landed at Lyme with hardly an hundred followers; and, such was the magic of his popularity, soon found himself at the head of a considerable force. He baffled the Duke of Albemarle who attempted to coop him up at Lyme, and, advancing to Taunton took upon him fatally the title of King. At length, he surprised the Earl of Feversham, James's general, in his entrenchments near Bridgewater; and the native stubborn valour of his followers nearly proved too much for the discipline of the veterans, whom they attacked. The cowardice of Lord Grey,[298] who fled with the cavalry, led to a total defeat and much slaughter among Monmouth's forces. Still more fell a sacrifice to the bloody zeal of the brutal Jefferies. The Duke himself was taken in his flight; and, depressed by fatigue and disappointment, shewed some symptoms of weakness, inconsistent with his former character. He solicited his life by submissive letters to James, and, at length, obtained an interview with the king. But James forgot the noble, though homely popular saying,

A king's face Should give grace.

With the natural sternness of his character, he only strove to extort from Monmouth a disavowal of his legitimacy, and a confession of his accomplices. To the former the Duke submitted; but, when urged to the latter, rose from the posture of supplication, and retorted with dignity the reproaches of James. When he returned to the Tower, he wrote a letter to the king, supposed to contain a secret, the revealing of which might have purchased his life. This letter he intrusted to Captain Scott of Dumbarton's regiment, a descendant of the family of Harden, and, consequently, related to the Duchess of Monmouth. The famous Blood is said to have compelled Scott to deliver up the letter, and carried it to Sunderland, who destroyed it.[299]

The Duke of Monmouth, finding all efforts to procure a pardon ineffectual, met death with great resolution. He smiled on the guards who surrounded the scaffold, and whom in his better days he had commanded; bowed to the populace, who expressed by sighs and tears their interest in his fate; and submitted to his doom. His death was cruelly prolonged by the hesitation of the executioner, who, after several ineffectual strokes of the axe, threw it down, and could scarcely be prevailed on to finish his bloody work. The execution took place on the 15th of July, 1685.

It would be difficult, were it here necessary, to draw a character of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. His qualities and accomplishments were fitted for times more gentle than those in which he lived, where he might be compared to a pleasure barge struggling against a hurricane. In gentler times, he had proved a successful leader in war; and in peace, what the reviver of tragedy has aptly stiled, "An honoured courtly gentleman." _Count Basil_. Act I. Scene II.

Note IV.

_And made the charming Annabel his bride._--P. 218.

Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, a lady of high spirit, great beauty, and unimpeachable honour. We have had repeated occasion to mention her in the course of these notes. She was reckoned the richest heiress in Europe; as, upon the death of her elder sister, Anne Countess of Buccleuch, wife of Walter Earl of Tarras, she succeeded to the extensive land estate of that family. Charles made this advantageous match for his son, by the intervention of the young lady's mother, the Countess of Wemyss. The Duchess of Buccleuch was a distinguished protectress of poetical merit, and evinced her discriminating taste, by early selecting Dryden as the object of her patronage; she cultivated the friendship of the Duke of York, and established an intimacy between him and her husband, which paved the way for the advancement of the latter.[300] When by an occasional rivalry they quarrelled, and became irreconcileable enemies, she still opposed her prudence to the precipitate counsels of Monmouth's worse advisers. It is probable her influence saved his life, by determining him to make a timely confession, concerning all he knew of the Rye-house conspiracy, upon condition, it was not to be used against his friends. When he imprudently retracted that confession, her advice prevailed on him to offer a renewal of it.[301] Their last interview before the Duke's execution, is thus narrated in a MS. now before me.

"His behaviour all the time was brave and unmoved, and, even during the last conversation and farewell with his lady and children, which was the movingest scene in the world, and which no bye-standers could see without melting in tears, he did not shew the least concerndness. He declared before all the company, how averse the duchess had been to all his irregular courses, and that she had never been uneasy to him on any occasion whatsoever, but about women, and his failing of dutie to the late king. And that she knew nothing of his last designe, not having heard from himself a year before, which was his own fault, and noe unkindness in her, because she knew not how to direct her letters to him. In that, he gave her the kyndest character that could be, and begged her pardon of his many failings and offences to her, and prayed her to continue her kyndness and care to her poore children. At this expression she fell down on her knees, with her eyes full of teares, and begged him to pardon her if ever she had done any thing to offend and displease him; and embracing his knees, fell into a swoon, out of which they had much adoe to raise her up in a good while after. A little before, his children were brought to him, all crying about him; but he acquitted himself of these last adewes with much composure, shewing nothing of weakness and unmanliness." _Account of the Actions and Behaviour of the Duke of Monmouth, from the time he was taken to his Execution, in a letter, dated July 16, 1685, MS_., in the Duke of Buccleuch's library.

The Duchess of Monmouth's turn of mind, and her aversion to her husband's political intrigues, lead me to imagine, that Dryden sketched out her character under that of Marmoutiere in "the Duke of Guise;" whose expostulations with her lover apply exactly to the situation of this noble pair. If the Duke of Monmouth entertained a causeless jealousy of the intimacy of York with his lady, as the Duke of Buckingham seems to hint,[302] something like an allusion to this circumstance may be traced in the suspicions of Guise, and vindication of Marmoutiere.[303]

The Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth survived the catastrophe of her husband many years; during which she was resolute in asserting her right to be treated as a princess of the blood. She had two surviving sons by Monmouth; one of whom carried on the line of Buccleuch, and the other was created Earl of Deloraine. She was married a second time, in 1688, to Lord Cornwallis, by whom she had two surviving daughters. The Duchess died in 1732, in the eighty-first year of her life. King James made her Grace and her family a gift of all her original property, so far as forfeited by the Duke of Monmouth's condemnation.

Note V.

_And Amnon's murder, by a specious name, Was called a just revenge for injured fame._--P. 218.

There is a libel among the State Poems, relating to some obscure fray, in which the duke of Monmouth and some of his brothers appear to have been concerned. This was probably one of the youthful excesses alluded to.[304] But Amnon's murder seems to refer to the more noted assault upon sir John Coventry, which the reader may take in the words of Andrew Marvell.

"But an accident happened, which had like to have spoiled all. Sir John Coventry having moved (in the house of commons) for an imposition on the play houses, sir John Berkenhead, to excuse them, said they had been of great service to the king. Upon which, sir John Coventry desired that gentleman to explain "whether he meant the men or women players?"[305] Hereupon it is imagined, that the house adjourning from Tuesday, before, till Thursday after Christmas day, on the very Tuesday night of the adjournment, twenty-five of the duke of Monmouth's troop,[306] and some few foot, laid in wait from ten at night, till two in the morning, and as he returned from the Cock, where he supped, to his own house, they threw him down, and with a knife cut off almost all the end of his nose; but company coming, made them fearful to finish it; so they marched off. Sir Thomas Sands, lieutenant of the troop, commanded the party, and Obrian, the earl of Inchequin's son, was a principal actor. The court hereupon sometimes thought to carry it with a high hand, and question sir John for his words, and maintain the action; sometimes they flagged in their councils. However, the king commanded sir Thomas Clarges, and sir W. Pulteney, to release Wroth, and Lake, who were two of the actors, and taken. But the night before the house met, they surrendered (to) him again. The house being but sullen the next day, the court did not oppose adjourning for some days longer, till it was filled. Then the house went upon Coventry's business, and voted that they would go upon nothing else whatever, till they had passed a bill, as they did, for Sands, Obrian, Parry, and Reeves, to come in by the sixteenth of February, or else be condemned, and never to be pardoned, but by an express act of parliament, and their names therein inserted, for fear of being pardoned in some general act of grace. Farther, all such actions, for the future, on any man, felony without clergy; and who shall otherwise strike or wound any parliament man, during his attendance, or going or coming, imprisonment for a year, treble damages, and incapacity. The bill having in some few days been despatched to the lords, the house has since gone on in grand committee upon the first 800,000l. bill, but are not yet half way. But now the lords, instead of the sixteenth of February, put twenty-five days after the king's royal assent, and that registered in their journal; they disagree in several other things, but adhere in that first which is material. So that, in this week, the houses will be in danger of splitting, without much wisdom or force. For, considering that sir Thomas Sands was the very person sent to Clarges and Pulteney, that Obrian was concealed in the duke of Monmouth's lodgings, that Wroth and Lake were bailed at sessions, by order from Mr Attorney, and, that all persons and things are perfectly discovered, that act will not be passed without great consequence." Letter from Andrew Marvel, to William Romsden, in _Marvel's Works_, Vol. I. p. 413.

This aggression led to what, from the name of the sufferer, is called the Coventry act, making cutting, and maiming the person, with intent to disfigure it, felony without benefit of clergy. A satirical ballad on this subject, called the Haymarket Hectors, was written by Andrew Marvel, which may be found in his works, and, with some variations, in the third vol. of the State poems. It has very little wit, to atone for a great deal of grossness.

Note VI.

_From hence began that plot, the nation's curse; Bad in itself, but represented worse: Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried; With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied._--P. 220.

The Papist plot, like every criminal and mysterious transaction, where accomplices alone can give evidence, is involved in much mystery. It is well known, that the zeal for making proselytes, with all its good and all its evil consequences, is deeply engrafted upon the catholic faith. There can be no doubt, from Coleman's correspondence, that there was in agitation, among the Catholics, a grand scheme to bring about the conversion of the British kingdoms to the Romish religion. Much seemed to favour this in the reign of Charles II. The king, though a latitudinarian, was believed addicted to the religion of those countries which had afforded him refuge in his adversity, and the Duke of York was an open and zealous Papist. From the letters of his secretary Coleman, it is obvious, that hopes were entertained of eradicating the great northern heresy; and the real existence of intrigues carried on with this purpose, unfortunately gave a colour to the monstrous and absurd falsehoods which the witnesses of the plot contrived to heap together. It is probable, that Oates, by whom the affair was first started, knew nothing, but by vague report and surmise, of the real designs of the Roman catholic party; since he would otherwise have accommodated his story better to their obvious interests. The catholics might gain much by the life of Charles; but a plot to assassinate him, would have been far from placing them an inch nearer their point, even supposing them to escape the odium of so horrible a crime. The Duke, it was true, was nearest in blood; but his succession to the throne, had the king been taken off by those of his sect, would have been a very difficult matter, since the very suspicion of such a catastrophe had nearly caused his exclusion. But when the faction involved the king also in the plot, which Oates positively charges upon him in his last publication, and thereby renders him an accessory before the fact to an attempt on his own life, the absurdity is fully completed. Even according to the statement of those who suppose that Charles had irritated the Roman catholics, by preferring his ease and quiet to their interest and his own religious feelings, his situation appears ludicrously distressing. For, on the one hand, he incurred the hatred of those who called themselves the Protestant party, for his obstinacy in exposing himself to be murdered by the papists; and, on the other hand, he was to be assassinated by the catholics, for not doing what, according to this supposition, he himself most wished to do. It would be far beyond our bounds, to notice the numberless gross absurdities to which Oates and the other witnesses deposed upon oath. It may appear almost incredible, in the present day, how such extravagant fictions should be successfully palmed upon the deluded public; but at that time there was not the same ready communication by the press, which now allows opportunity to canvass an extraordinary charge as soon as it is brought forward. The public at large had no means of judging of state matters, but from the bribed libellers of faction, and the haranguers in coffee-houses, who gave what colour they pleased to the public news of the day.[307] Besides, the catholics had given an handle against themselves, by their own obscure intrigues; and it was impossible to forget the desperate scheme of the Gunpowder Plot, by which they had resolved to cut off the heresy in the time of King James. The crime of the fathers was, in this case, visited on the children; for no person probably would, or could, have believed in the catholic plot of 1678, had not the same religious sect meditated something equally desperate in 1606. It is true, the gunpowder conspiracy was proved by the most unexceptionable testimony; and the plot in Charles' time rested on the oaths of a few boldfaced villains, who contradicted both themselves and each other; but still popular credulity was prepared to believe any thing charged on a sect, who had shown themselves so devoted to their religious zeal, and so little scrupulous about means to gratify it. Another main prop of the Catholic plot was the mystery in which it was involved. If inconsistencies were pointed out, or improbabilities urged, the answer was, that the discovery had not yet reached the bottom of the plot. Thus the disposition of the vulgar to believe the atrocious and the marvellous, was heightened by the stimulus of ungratified curiosity, and still impending danger. "Every new witness," says North, "that came in, made us start--now we shall come to the bottom. And so it continued from one witness to another, year after year, till at length it had no bottom but in the bottomless pit."[308] Thus, betwixt villainy and credulity, the spirits of the people were exasperated and kept afloat, till the bloodhounds of the plot, like those formerly used in pursuit of marauders, had drenched their scent, and annihilated their powers of quest in the best blood in the kingdom.

The unfortunate victims, whose lives were sworn away by Oates and his accomplices, died averring their innocence; but the infuriated people for some time gave little credit to this solemn exculpation; believing that the religion of the criminals, or at least the injunctions of their priests, imposed on them the obligation of denying, with their last breath, whatever, if confessed, could have prejudiced the catholic cause. As all high wrought frenzies are incapable of duration, that of the Roman catholic plot decayed greatly after the execution of the venerable Stafford. The decent and manly sobriety of his demeanour on the scaffold, the recollection of how much blood had been spilled, and how much more might be poured out like water, excited the late and repentant commiseration of the multitude: His protestations of innocence were answered by broken exclamations of "God bless you, my lord! we believe you." And after this last victim, the Popish plot, like a serpent which had wasted its poison, though its wreaths entangled many, and its terrors held their sway over more, did little effectual mischief. Even when long lifeless, and extinguished, this chimera, far in the succeeding reigns, continued, like the dragon slain by the Red-cross Knight, to be the object of popular fear, and the theme of credulous terrorists:

Some feared, and fled; some feared, and well it fained. One, that would wiser seem than all the rest, Warned him not touch; for yet, perhaps, remained Some lingering life within his hollow breast; Or, in his womb might lurk some hidden nest Of many dragonettes, his fruitful seed; Another said, that in his eyes did rest Yet sparkling fire, and bade thereof take heed; Another said, he saw him move his eyes indeed.

Note VII.

_Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay By guns, invented since full many a day._--P. 221.

The author alludes to the wonderful project to assassinate the king by Pickering and Groves, to which Oates bore testimony. Pickering, a man in easy circumstances, and whom religious zeal alone induced to murder his sovereign, was to have 30,000 masses; and Groves, a more mercenary ruffian, was to be recompensed with a sum, which, reckoning at a shilling a mass, should be an equivalent in money. But this scheme misgave, because, according to the evidence, the conscientious and opulent Mr Pickering had furnished himself for the exploit with an old pistol, the cock whereof was too loose to hold a flint. Another time they were to come to Windsor, to execute their bloody purpose with sword and dagger; but could find no better conveyance than miserable hack horses, one of which became lame, and disconcerted the expedition. Such at least was the apology made by Oates for their not appearing, when a party were, upon his information, stationed to apprehend them.

Note VIII.

_Of these, the false Achitophel was first._--P. 222.

Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the principal heroes of this poem, was in the Tower when it was published, and very soon after was served with a bill of indictment for high treason; which was thrown out by the grand jury, who returned a verdict of _Ignoramus_. This gave rise to our author's next poem, "The Medal," and in the notes is contained some account of his lordship's life, to which the reader is referred for further information. We have already stated, that he was the counsellor of Monmouth, and the very soul of his party. Nothing can be more exquisitely satirical than the description which Dryden has here given of this famous statesman.

Note IX.

_And all to leave what with his toil he won, To that unfeathered, two-legged thing, a son; Got while his soul did huddled notions try, And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy._--P. 222.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, second Earl of Shaftesbury, and son of the great statesman, whom Dryden has dubbed his Achitophel. The contemptuous language used towards him, is said not to have reference to his outward appearance; for the portraits which remain represent him at uncommonly handsome. Nay, so much was his personal beauty an object of his attention, that he is said to have hastened his decease by his solicitude to remove, by violent means, an excrescence which disfigured his face. But the authority, from which these circumstances are quoted, seems to admit, that he was of a very insignificant character, at least not at all distinguished by mental abilities. _Biographia Britannica_, Vol. IV. p. 266. His want of capacity was a standing joke among the Tories. In an ironical pamphlet, called "A modest Vindication of the Earl of Shaftesbury, in a letter to a friend concerning his being elected King of Poland," we have, among the list of his officers of the crown, "Prince Prettyman Perkinoski (_i.e._ Monmouth), our adopted heir, because a little wiser than our own son, and designed to be offered to the diet as our successor."

It often happens, that men are more jealous of their own, or their ancestors' reputation for talents, than for virtue. The third Earl of Shaftesbury, author of the "Characteristics," is said to have resented more deeply this occasional attack on his father's understanding, than the satire against his grandfather, in which Dryden has poured forth his whole energy. This passage is alleged to have been the occasion of his mentioning Dryden disrespectfully in several places of his works; a revenge more dishonourable to his Lordship's taste than to the object of his spleen.[309]

Note X.

_To compass this, the triple bond he broke, The pillars of the public safety shook, And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke._--P. 222.

The Earl of Shaftesbury is allowed to have been a principal adviser of the Dutch war in 1672; by which the triple alliance between England, Sweden, and Holland, the _chef d'œuvre_ of Sir William Temple's negociation, by which France and Spain were forced into the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, was for ever broken. It was he who applied to Holland the famous saying, _Delenda est Carthago_; and who, with all his wit and eloquence, furthered a closer connection with France, to the destruction of our natural ally. But when the success of the Dutch war was inferior to the expectations of this ardent statesman, when he found himself rivalled by Clifford and others in the favour of Charles, and when he perceived that the king, to preserve his quiet, would not hesitate to sacrifice an obnoxious minister, he chose to make what some of his biographers have called _a short turn_; and, by going over to the popular party, to escape the odium attached to the measures he had himself recommended.

Note XI.

_In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean; Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress, Swift of dispatch, and easy of access._--P. 223.

In 1672, the seals were given to the Earl of Shaftesbury, on the resignation of the Lord Keeper, Sir Orlando Bridgeman; and he was invested with the office of Lord High Chancellor. In the judicial part of his duty, he appears to have merited the eulogium so elegantly expressed in the text. One of his biographers uses the following strong expressions: "With what prudence and candour, honour, and integrity, he acquitted himself in that great and weighty employment, the transactions of the Court of Chancery, during the time of his chancellorship, will best testify. Justice, then, ran in an equal channel; so that the cause of the rich was not suffered to swallow up the rights of the poor, nor was the strong or cunning oppressor permitted to devour the weak or unskilful opposer: but the abused found relief suitable to their distress; and those by whom they were abused, a severe reprehension, answerable to their crimes. The mischievous consequences, which commonly arise from the delays and other practices of that court, were, by his ingenious and judicious management, very much abated, and every thing weighed and determined with such an exact judgment and equity, that it almost exceeds all possibility of belief."[310] Yet even in this high situation, Shaftesbury could not help displaying something of a temper more lively and freakish than was consistent with the gravity of his place. His dress was an odd mixture of the courtier and lawyer; being an ash-coloured gown, silver-laced, with pantaloons garnished with ribbons; nothing being black about him, save, peradventure, his hat, which North, though he saw him, cannot positively affirm to have been so.[311] Besides, he occasioned much dismay and discomfiture upon the first day of the term, which succeeded his appointment, by obliging the judges, law officers, &c. who came, as usual, to attend the great seal to Westminster-hall, to make this solemn procession on horseback, according to ancient custom. As long as the cavalcade was in the open street, this did well enough; but when they came to strait passages and interruptions, "for want of gravity in the beasts, and too much in the riders, there happened some curvetting, which made no small disorder. Judge Twisden, to his great affright, and the consternation of his grave brethren, was laid all along in the dirt; but all at length arrived safe, without loss of life or limb in the service."[312] This whimsical fancy of setting grave judges on managed horses, with hazard both of damage and ridicule, to say nothing of bodily distress and terror, is a curious trait of the mercurial Earl of Shaftesbury.

Note XII.

_And proves the king himself a Jebusite._--P. 223.

As it was pretty well understood that Charles was friendly to the Catholic religion, which indeed he had secretly embraced, no pains were spared to point out this tendency to the people, who connected with the faith of Rome all the bugbear horrors of the plot, as well as the real reasons which they had to dread its influence. Dryden probably alludes to the language held by Colledge, which was that of his party. Smith deposed against him, that, while he was carrying him to dine with one Alderman Willcox, he told him, "He was a man as true as steel, and a man that would endeavour to root out Popery.'--Says I, 'That may be easily done, if you can but prevail with the king to pass the bill against the duke of York.'--'No, no, (said he) now you are mistaken, for Rowley is as great a papist as the duke of York is, (now he called the king, Rowley,) and every way as dangerous to the Protestant interest, as is too apparent by his arbitrary ruling."--_State Trials_, Vol. iii. p. 359.

Note XIII.

_And nobler is a limited command, Given by the love of all your native land, Than a successive title, long and dark, Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark._--P. 226.

The legitimacy of the duke of Monmouth, though boldly and repeatedly asserted by his immediate partizans, did not receive general credit even in the popular faction. It was one of Shaftesbury's principal advantages, to have chosen, for the ostensible head of his party, a candidate, whose right, had he ever attained the crown, must have fluctuated betwixt an elective and hereditary title. The consciousness of how much he was to depend upon Shaftesbury's arts, for stating and supporting so dubious a claim, obliged the duke to remain at the devotion of that intriguing politician. It seems to have been shrewdly suspected by some of Monmouth's friends, that Shaftesbury had no real intention of serving his interest. A poem, written by one of Monmouth's followers, called "Judah Betrayed, or the Egyptian Plot turned on the Israelites," expresses their fears, and very plainly intimates this suspicion: and the reader may bear with some bad poetry, to be convinced how far this faction was from being firmly united together:

For depth in politics, and statesman's brain, Draw Hushai[313] next, attended by a train Of peevish votaries, heart-sick with pride, Too numerous for an apostate guide; The odious name of patriot he does own, And prophecies the downfall of a throne: Forms in his aged fancy, robbed of health, The strange ideas of a Commonwealth, Then gains the proselyte dissenting Jews, And arguments from liberty does use: So treason veiled for liberty may go, And traitors' heads like royalists may show. All Judah's people had united been, Had not he interposed, and stept between; David in's subjects love had held his reign, Had not he cut the fastening bond in twain, And fatal discord sown in sanhedrin, The much lamented hasty Judah's sin. When either faction does produce their right To succession, they tacitly do slight The present king, and silent reasons bring That he is not, or should not be, a king.-- We need not care; for heaven ne'er will own Egyptian heir on Israelitish throne; Nor will it ere auspiciously defend Hushai, that only strives for's private end. He wheedles Absalon with hopes of king, And glistering toys of crowns does 'fore him fling; Thus does he sooth to overthrow a crown, And Absalon's the tool to beat it down; And easy Absalon, by gentleness drawn, (Though he has courage paralleled by none,) The loss of crowns to come he now does dread, Can heaven place them on a nobler head? So great a soul as his 'twill never own Should rule on any thing beneath a throne; Or ere see Judah plagued or robbed of health, By that unbounded thing a Commonwealth.

Note XIV.

_The next successor, whom I fear and hate, My arts have made obnoxious to the State; Turned all his virtues to his overthrow, And gained our elders to pronounce a foe._--P. 229.

In 1679, when the antipathy to popery had taken the deepest root in men's minds, the House of Commons passed a vote, "That the Duke of York's being a papist, and the hopes of his coming to the crown, had given the highest countenance to the present conspiracies and designs of the papists, against the king and the protestant religion." Charles endeavoured to parry the obvious consequences of this vote, by proposing to the council a set of limitations, which deprived his successor, if a catholic, of the chief branches of royalty. Shaftesbury, then president of the council, argued against this plan as totally ineffectual; urging, that when the future king should find a parliament to his mind, the limitations might be as effectually taken off as they could be imposed. When the bill was brought in, for the total exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession, Shaftesbury favoured it with all his influence. It passed the Lower House by a very large majority, but was rejected by the House of Lords, where Halifax opposed it with very great ability. Shaftesbury, who had taken so decided a part against the Duke of York in his dearest interests, was now irreconcilable with him, and could only look for safety in his ruin.

Note XV.

_'Till time shall ever-wanting David draw, To pass your doubtful title into law: If not, the people have a right supreme To make their kings; for kings are made for them._--P. 229.

If we can believe the honourable Roger North, Lord Shaftesbury made a fair experiment, for the purpose of ascertaining whether Charles's love of ease and affection for Monmouth would induce him to consent to an alteration of the succession in his favour, to the prejudice of the Duke of York. He quotes a pamphlet, called, "The Earl of Shaftesbury's expedient to settle the nation, discoursed with his Majesty at Oxford, 24 March, 1681," which gives the following account of the transaction; and, as it was published at the time, and remained uncontradicted, either by Shaftesbury, or the king, probably contains some essential truth. The Earl of Shaftesbury having received, or pretended to receive, an unsigned letter, in a disguised hand, bustled away to court, "as hard," says the pamphleteer, "as legs, stick, and man could carry him." When he arrived there, the Lord Chamberlain conceiving the Duke of Monmouth might be in the secret, applied to him to know what the great concern was. His grace answered, with an appearance of hesitation, that it was something relating to himself, in which, as in other affairs of his, Lord Shaftesbury took a deeper concern than he desired. Meanwhile. Shaftesbury was introduced to the audience he solicited with the king, and produced the letter, containing, as he said, a plan for settling the interests of religion and state, which proved to be a proposal for calling the Duke of Monmouth to the succession. The king answered, he was surprized such a plan should be pressed upon him, after all the declarations he had made on the subject, and that, far from being more timorous, he became more resolute the nearer he approached his grave. Shaftesbury expressing great horror at such an expression, the king assured him he was no less anxious for his own preservation, than those who pretended to so much concern for the security of his person; and yet, that he would rather lay down his life than alter the true succession of the crown, against both law and conscience. For that, said the earl, let us alone; we will make a law for it. To which the king replied, that, if such was his lordship's conscience, it was not his; and that he did not think even his life of sufficient value to be preserved with the forfeiture of his honour, and essential injury to the laws of the land.--_North's Examen_, p. 100. 123.

Note XVI.

_Then the next heir, a prince severe and wise, Already looks on you with jealous eyes._--P. 230.

Before James went to Flanders, he had testified a jealousy of Monmouth. "The Duke of York, before he went abroad," says Carte, "was concerned to see that the king could observe his frequent whispers at court to the Lord Shaftesbury, without being moved or expressing his dislike of it, but was much more alarmed at hearing of their frequent and clandestine meetings, without any apparent dissatisfaction expressed by his Majesty." p. 493. vol. II.

Note XVII.

_The Solymæan rout---- ---- Saw with disdain an Ethnic plot begun, And scorned by Jebusites to be outdone._--P. 232.

The royalists recriminated upon the popular party, the charge of plots and machinations against the government. There is no doubt that every engine was put in motion, to secure the mob of London, "the Solymean rout" of Dryden, to Shaftesbury's party. Every one has heard of the 30,000 brisk boys, who were ready to follow the wagging of his finger. The plots, and sham-plots, charged by the parties against each other, form a dismal picture of the depravity of the times. Settle thus ridicules the idea of the protestant, or fanatical plot for seizing the king at Oxford.

This hellish Ethnick plot the court alarms; The traytors, seventy thousand strong, in arms, Near Endor town lay ready at a call, And garrisoned in airy castles all: These warriors, on a sort of coursers rid, Ne'er lodged in stables, or by man bestrid. What though the steel, with which the rebels fought, No forge ere felt, or anvil ever wrought; Yet this magnetick plot for black designs, Can raise cold iron from the very mines; To this, were twenty under plots contrived By malice, and by ignorance believed; Till shams met shams, and plots with plots so crost, That the true plot amongst the false was lost. _Absalom Senior._

Note XVIII.

_In the first rank of these did Zimri stand; A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome._--P. 233.

This inimitable description refers, as is well known, to the famous George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, son of the favourite of Charles I., who was murdered by Felton. The Restoration put into the hands of the most lively, mercurial, ambitious, and licentious genius, who ever lived, an estate of 20,000l a-year, to be squandered in every wild scheme which the lust of power, of pleasure, of licence, or of whim, could dictate to an unrestrained imagination. Being refused the situation of President of the North, he was suspected of having favoured the disaffected in that part of England, and was disgraced accordingly. But, in 1666, he regained the favour of the king, and became a member of the famous administration called the Cabal, which first led Charles into unpopular and arbitrary measures, and laid the foundation for the troubles of his future reign. Buckingham changed sides about 1675, and, becoming attached to the country party, made a most active figure in all proceedings which had relation to the Popish plot; intrigued deeply with Shaftesbury, and distinguished himself as a promoter of the bill of exclusion. Hence, he stood an eminent mark for Dryden's satire; which, we may believe, was not the less poignant, that the poet had sustained a personal affront, from being depicted by his grace under the character of Bayes in the Rehearsal. As Dryden owed the Duke no favour, he has shewn him none. Yet, even here, the ridiculous, rather than the infamous part of his character, is touched upon; and the unprincipled libertine, who slew the Earl of Shrewsbury while his adulterous countess held his horse in the disguise of a page, and who boasted of caressing her before he changed the bloody cloaths in which he had murdered her husband,[314] is not exposed to hatred, while the spendthrift and castle-builder are held up to contempt. So just, however, is the picture drawn by Dryden, that it differs little from the following sober historical character.

"The Duke of Buckingham was a man of great parts, and an infinite deal of wit and humour; but wanted judgement, and had no virtue, or principle of any kind. These essential defects made his whole life one continued train of inconsistencies. He was ambitious beyond measure, and implacable in his resentments; these qualities were the effects, or different faces of his pride; which, whenever he pleased to lay aside, no man living could be more entertaining in conversation. He had a wonderful talent in turning all things into ridicule; but, by his own conduct, made a more ridiculous figure in the world, than any other he could, with all his vivacity of wit, and turn of imagination, draw of others. Frolick and pleasure took up the greatest part of his life; and in these he neither had any taste, nor set himself any bounds; running into the wildest extravagancies, and pushing his debaucheries to a height, which even a libertine age could not help censuring as downright madness. He inherited the best estate which any subject had at that time in England; yet, his profuseness made him always necessitous; as that necessity made him grasp at every thing that would help to support his expences. He was lavish without generosity, and proud without magnanimity; and, though he did not want some bright talents, yet, no good one ever made part of his composition; for there was nothing so mean that he would not stoop to, nor any thing so flagrantly impious, but he was capable of undertaking."[315]

A patron like Buckingham, who piqued himself on his knowledge of literature, and had the means, if not the inclination, to be liberal, was not likely to want champions, such as they were, to repel the sharp attack of Dryden. Elkanah Settle compliments him with the following lines in his "Absalom Senior," some of which are really tolerable.

But who can Amiel's charming wit withstand, The great state-pillar of the muses' land; For lawless and ungoverned had the age The nine wild sisters seen run mad with rage; Debauched to savages, till his keen pen Brought their long banished reason back again; Driven by his satyrs into reason's fence, And lashed the idle rovers into sense.

* * * * *

Amiel, whose generous gallantry, while fame Shall have a tongue, shall never want a name; Who, whilst his pomp his lavish gold consumes, Moulted his wings to lend a throne his plumes; Whilst an ungrateful court he did attend, Too poor to pay, what it had pride to spend.

Another poet, at a period when interest could little sway his panegyrick, has apologized for the versatility and extravagance of the then deceased Duke of Buckingham:

What though black envy, with her ran'crous tongue, And angry poets in embittered song, While to new tracks thy boundless soul aspires, Charge thee with roving change, and wandring fires? Envy more base did never virtue wrong: Thy wit, a torrent for the bank too strong, In twenty smaller rills o'erflowed the dam, Though the main channel still was Buckingham.[316]

Buckingham himself, smarting under the severity of Dryden's satire, strove to answer it in kind. He engaged in this work with more zeal and anger, than wit or prudence. It is one thing to write a farce, and another to support such a controversy with such an author. The Duke's pamphlet, however, sold at a high price, and had a celebrity, which is certainly rather to be imputed to the rank and reputation of the author, than to the merit of the performance. As it is the work of such an applauded wit, is exceedingly scarce, and relates entirely to the poem which I am illustrating, I shall here insert the introduction, and some extracts from the piece itself.

It is entitled "Poetic Reflections on a late Poem, entituled, Absalom and Achitophel, by a Person of Honour. London, printed for Richard Janeway, 1682. (14 December.)"

To the Reader.--"To epitomize which scandalous pamphlet, unworthy the denomination of poesy, no eye can inspect it without a prodigious amazement, the abuses being so gross and deliberate, that it seems rather a capital or national libel, than personal exposures, in order to an infamous detraction. For how does he character the King, but as a broad figure of scandalous inclinations, or contrived into such irregularities, as renders him rather the property of parasites and vice, than suitable to the accomplishment of so excellent a prince. Nay, he forces on king David such a royal resemblance, that he darkens his sanctity, in spite of illuminations from holy writ.

"Next, to take as near our king as he could, he calumniates the Duke of Monmouth, with that height of impudence, that his sense is far blacker than his ink, exposing him to all the censures that a murderer, a traitor, or what a subject of most ambitious evil can possibly comprehend.

"As to my Lord Shaftesbury, in his collusive Achitophel, what does he other than exceed malice itself, or that the more prudent deserts of that Peer were to be so impeached before hand by his impious poem, as that he might be granted more emphatically condign of the hangman's axe, and which his muse does in effect take upon her to hasten.

"And if the season be well observed when this adulterate poem was spread, it will be found purposely divulged near the time when this lord, with his other noble partner, were to be brought to their trial; and, I suppose this poet thought himself enough assured of their condemnation, at least that his genius had not otherwise ventured to have trampled on persons of such eminent abilities and interest in the nation; a consideration, I confess, incited my pen, its preceding respect being paid to the duke of Monmouth, to vindicate their reputations where I thought it due.

When late Protector-ship was cannon proof, And, cap-a-pe, had seized on Whitehall roof; And next on Israelites durst look so big, That, Tory-like, it loved not much the Whig; A poet there starts up of wondrous fame, Whether Scribe, or Pharisee, his race doth name, Or more to intrigue the metaphor of man, Got on a muse by father Publican;[317] For 'tis not harder much if we tax nature, That lines should give a poet such a feature, Than that his verse a hero should us show,[318] Produced by such a feat, as famous too; His mingle such, what man presumes to think, But he can figures daub with pen and ink. A grace our mighty Nimrod late beheld, When he within the royal palace dwelled; And saw 'twas of import, if lines could bring His greatness from usurper to be king;[319] Or varnish so his praise, that little odds Should seem 'twixt him and such called earthly gods; And though no wit can royal blood infuse, No more than melt a mother to a muse, Yet much a certain poet undertook, That men and manners deals in without book, And might not more to gospel truth belong, Than he if christened does by name of John.

* * * * *

Fame's impious hireling, and mean reward, The knave that in his lines turns up his card; Who, though no Raby thought in Hebrew writ, He forced allusions that can closely fit; To Jews, or English, much unknown before, He made a talmud on his muses score; Though hoped few critics will its genius carp, So purely metaphors king David's harp; And, by a soft encomium, near at hand, Shews Bathsheba embraced throughout the land.

After much unintelligible panegyric on Shaftesbury, his Grace comes to Seymour:[320]

For Amiel, Amiel, who cannot endite, Of his then value wont disdain to write; The very _him_, with gown and mace did rule The Sanhedrim, when guided by a fool; The _him_ that did both sense and reason shift. That he to gainful place himself might lift; The very _him_, that did adjust the seed Of such as did their votes for money breed; The mighty _him_, that frothy notions vents, In hope to turn them into presidents; The _him_ of _hims_, although in judgment small, That fain would be the biggest at Whitehall; The _he_, that does for justice coin postpone, As on account may be hereafter shown.

The noble author, with what cause the reader is now enabled to determine, piqued himself especially upon the satirical vigour of these last verses. "As to the character of Amiel, I confess my lines are something pointed: the one reason being, that it alludes much to a manner of expression of this writer's, as may be seen by the marginal notes; and a second will soon be allowed. The figure of Amiel has been so squeezed into paint, that his soul is seen in spite of the varnish." As these verses were written on an occasion, when personal indignation must have fired his Grace's wit, they incline us to believe, with Mr Malone, that his friends, Clifford and Sprat, had the greatest share in the lively farce of "The Rehearsal."

Buckingham's death was as awful a beacon as his life. He had dissipated a princely fortune, and lost both the means of procuring, and the power of enjoying, the pleasures to which he was devoted. He had fallen from the highest pinnacle of ambition, into the last degree of contempt and disregard. His dying scene, in a paltry inn in Yorkshire, has been immortalized by Pope's beautiful lines:

In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung; On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed, Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies! alas, how changed from him! That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim; Gallant and gay, in Cliefden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love; Or just as gay at council, in a ring Of mimicked statesmen, and a merry king; No wit to flatter left of all his store, No fool to laugh at, which he valued more; There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends!

Note XIX.

_------Balaam._--P. 234.

The Earl of Huntington. A coarse reason is given by Luttrel in his MS. notes, for the epithet by which he is distinguished in the text.[321] He was one of the seventeen peers who signed a petition, beseeching Charles to have recourse to the advice of his parliament; and he himself presented it at Whitehall, on the 7th of December, 1679, in the name of the other lords subscribing. This advice was received very coldly by the king, who answered, "That he would consider of what they had offered, and could heartily wish, that all other people were as solicitous for the peace and good of the nation, as he would ever be." The Earl of Huntington also subscribed the petition and advice, presented by fifteen peers to the king, against removing the parliament to Oxford; where they stated, "Neither Lords nor Commons can be in safety, but will be daily exposed to the swords of the Papists, and their adherents, of whom too many are crept into your majesty's guards." Yet Lord Huntington did not go all the lengths of the Whig party. He became a privy councillor, was admitted to the honour of kissing the king's hand, and was stated in the Public Intelligencer, of the 25th of October, 1681, to have then confessed, that he had found by experience, "That they who promoted the bill of exclusion, were for the subversion of monarchy itself." Monmouth, Grey, and Herbert, state, in a paper published on this occasion, that Lord Huntington had denied the utterance of the said words; but, from the stile of their manifesto, it is obvious, they no longer regarded him as attached to their party. _Ralph's History_. Vol. I. p. 657. 709. Note.

Note XX.

_------Cold Caleb._--P. 234.

Ford, Lord Grey of Wark, described among Absalom's IX worthies as

Chaste Caleb next, whose chill embraces charm Women to ice, was yet in treason warm; Of the ancient race of Jewish nobles come, Whose title never lay in Christendom.

He appears to have been a man of very great indifference to his domestic concerns; as the Duke of Monmouth, under whose banners he enlisted himself, was generally believed to have an intrigue with Lady Grey. In an account of a mock apparition, which that lady is supposed to witness, she is made to state, "That on Saturday, the 29th of January, 1680, being alone in her closet about nine o'clock at night, she heard a voice behind her, which mildly said, _sweetheart_. At which she was at first not at all frightened, supposing it to be an apparition, which she says has often of late appeared to her _in the absence of her lord_, in the shape of a _bright star and blue garter_, but without hurting, or so much as frightening her." Lord Grey, ignorant or indifferent about these scandalous reports, went step for step with Monmouth in all his projects. He was a man of a restless temper, and lively talents, which he exercised in the service of the popular party. He was deep in the Rye-house Plot, and probably engaged in the very worst part of it; at least, Lord Howard deposed, that Grey was full of expectation of some great thing to be attempted on the day of the king's coming from Newmarket, which was that fixed by the inferior conspirators for his assassination. Upon the trial of Lord Russel, Howard was yet more particular, and said, that upon a dark intimation of an attempt on the king's person, the Duke of Monmouth, "with great emotion, struck his breast, and cried out, 'God so! kill the king! I will never suffer them.' That Lord Grey, with an oath, also observed upon it, that if they made such an attempt, they could not fail." Ramsey charged Lord Grey with arguing with Ferguson, on the project of the rising at Taunton. Grey, on the first discovery of this conspiracy, was arrested, but, filling the officers drunk, he escaped in a boat, and fled into Holland. He was afterwards very active in pushing on Monmouth to his desperate expedition in 1685. He landed with the duke at Lyme, and held the rank of general of horse in his army. Like many other politicians, his lordship proved totally devoid of that courage in executing bold plans, which he displayed in forming or abetting them. At the first skirmish at Bridport he ran away, although the troops he commanded did not follow his example, but actually gained a victory, while he returned on the gallop to announce a total defeat. Monmouth, much shocked, asked Colonel Mathews what he should do with him? who answered, he believed there was not another general in Europe would have asked such a question. Lord Grey, however, fatally for Monmouth, continued in his trust, and commanded the horse at the battle of Sedgemore. There he behaved like a poltroon as formerly, fled with the whole cavalry, and left the foot, who behaved most gallantly, to be cut to pieces by the horse of King James, who, without amusing themselves with pursuit, wheeled, and fell upon the rear of the hardy western peasants. So infamous was Grey's conduct, that many writers at the time, thinking mere cowardice insufficient to account for it, have surmised, some, that he was employed by the king to decoy Monmouth to his destruction; and others, that jealousy of the domestic injury he had received from the duke, induced him to betray the army.[322] This caitiff peer was taken in the disguise of a shepherd, near Holt Lodge, in Dorsetshire; and confessed, that "since his landing in England, he had never enjoyed a quiet meal, or a night's repose." He was conveyed to London, and would probably have been executed, had it not been discovered, that his estate, which had been given to Lord Rochester, was so strictly entailed, that nothing could be got by his death. He, therefore, by the liberal distribution, it is said, of large sums of money, received a pardon from the king, and appeared as a witness on the trial of Lord Delamere; and was ready to do so on that of Hampden; yet he is supposed to have kept some secrets with respect to the politics of the Prince of Orange, in reward of which, he was raised to the rank of an Earl after the Revolution.--_Dalrymple's Memoirs_, Vol. I. p. 185.

Notwithstanding the attribute which Dryden has ascribed to Lord Grey in this poem, he afterwards proved a man of unprincipled gallantry; and 23d of November, 1682, was tried in the King's Bench for debauching lady Henrietta Berkeley, daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, to whose sister, lady Mary, he was himself married. See _State Trials_, Vol. III. p. 519.

Note XXI

_And canting Nadab let oblivion damn, Who made new porridge for the paschal lamb._--P. 234.

Lord Howard of Escricke, although an abandoned debauchee, made occasional pretensions to piety. He was an intimate of Shaftesbury and of Monmouth, but detested by Russel on account of the infamy of his character. Plots, counter-plots, and sham-plots, were at this time wrought like mine and countermine by each party, under the other's vantage-ground. One Fitzharris had written a virulent libel against the court party, which he probably intended to father upon the whigs; but being seized by Sir William Waller, he changed his note, and averred, that he had been employed by the court to write this libel, and to fix it upon the exclusionists; and to this probable story he added, _ex mera gratia_, a new account of the old Popish Plot. The court resolved to make an example of Fitzharris; they tried and convicted him of treason, for the libel fell nothing short of it. When condemned, finding his sole resource in the mercy of the crown, he retracted his evidence against the court, and affirmed, that Treby, the recorder, and Bethel and Cornish, the two sheriffs, had induced him to forge that accusation; and that Lord Howard was the person who drew up instructions, pointing out to him what he was to swear, and urging him so to manage his evidence, as to criminate the Queen and the Duke of York. The confession of Fitzharris did not save his life, although he adhered to it upon the scaffold. Lord Howard, as involved in this criminal intrigue, was sent to the Tower, where he uttered and published a canting declaration, asserting his innocence, upon the truth of which he received the sacrament. He is said, however, to have taken the communion in _lamb's wool_, (_i. e._ ale poured on roasted apples and sugar,) to which profanation Dryden alludes, with too much levity, in the second line above quoted. The circumstance is also mentioned in "Absalom's IX Worthies:"

Then prophane Nadab, that hates all sacred things, And on that score abominateth kings; With Mahomet wine he damneth, with intent To erect his Paschal-lamb's-wool-sacrament.

Lord Howard was at length set at liberty from the Tower, upon finding bail, when he engaged under Shaftesbury, and ran into all the excesses of the party. Being deeply involved in the Rye-house Plot, he fled upon the discovery of that affair, and was detected in his shirt, covered with soot, in a chimney; a sordid place of concealment, which well suited the spirit of the man. A tory ballad-maker has the following strain of prophetic exultation on Howard's commitment:

Next valiant and noble Lord Howard, That formerly dealt in lambs-wool; Who knowing what it is to be towered, By impeaching may fill the jails full. _The Conspiracy, or the Discovery of the Fanatic Plot._

Accustomed to tamper with evidence, Howard did not hesitate to contaminate the noblest name in England, by practising the meannesses and villainies he had taught to others. For the sake of his shameful life, he bore witness against Russel and Sidney to all he knew, and probably to a great deal more. The former had always hated and despised Howard, and had only been induced to tolerate his company by the persuasions of Essex: The recollection, that, by introducing his best friend to the contagion of such company, he had, in fact, prepared his ruin, was one of the reasons assigned for that unfortunate peer's remorse and suicide.

Note XXII.

_Not bull-faced Jonas, who could statutes draw To mean rebellion, and make treason law._--P. 234.

Sir William Jones was an excellent lawyer, and, in his private character, an upright, worthy, and virtuous man; in his religion he had some tendency to nonconformity, and his political principles were of the popular cast. He was the king's attorney-general, and as such conducted all the prosecutions against those concerned in the Popish plot. He was, or affected to be, so deeply infected by the epidemic terror excited by this supposed conspiracy, that he had all his billets removed from his cellar, lest the Papists should throw in fire-balls, and set his house on fire. He closed, nevertheless, with the court, in an attempt to prohibit coffee-houses, on account of the facility which they afforded in propagating faction and scandal; for this, he was threatened by the country party with an impeachment in parliament. Sir William Jones shortly after resigned his office under government, and went into open opposition. He distinguished himself particularly, by supporting the bill of exclusion, and by a violent speech in the Oxford parliament, on the subject of the clerk's mislaying the Bill for repealing the 35th of Elizabeth, an act against dissenters. He was on his legs, as the phrase is, in the same house, arguing vehemently on the subject of Fitzharris, when the Black Rod knocked at the door, to announce the sudden and unexpected dissolution of the parliament. A well written pamphlet, entitled, "Advice to Grand Juries," which appeared on the eve of the presentment against Shaftesbury, is said to have had some effect in producing the ignoramus verdict, on that bill.

Sir William Jones is said to have regretted the share he took in the prosecutions on account of the plot; which is extremely probable, as his excellent talents, and sound legal principles, could not fail, when clamour and alarm were over, to teach him how far he had been misled. His anxiety for the situation of the country is supposed to have accelerated his death, which took place in 1682, at Mr Hampden's house, in Buckingham-shire.

Note XXIII.

_Shimei, whose youth did early promise bring Of zeal to God, and hatred to his king._--P. 235.

Slingsby Bethel was son of Sir Walter Bethel, knight, by Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Slingsby of Scriven, in Yorkshire, and sister to Sir Henry Slingsby, a steady loyalist, who was condemned by Cromwell's high court of justice, and beheaded on Towerhill in 1655. Bethel was early attached to the fanatical interest, both by religious and political tenets; he was even a member of the Committee of Safety. But he was a staunch republican, and no friend to the Protector; being, it is believed, the author of that famous treatise, entitled "The World's Mistake in Oliver Cromwell." He was elected sheriff, with Cornish, on Midsummer-day 1680, and the choice was, in many respects, disadvantageous to the popular party. In the first place, they were both Independents; and, before taking upon them their offices, they conformed, and took the sacrament according to the church of England's ritual. It was believed, that nothing but the necessity of qualifying themselves to serve their party in this office, could have prevailed on them to have done so, and this gave advantages against their whole party. Besides, Cornish was a downright, plain-spoken republican, and Bethel had expressed himself very bluntly in justification of the execution of Charles I.; and was, therefore, obnoxious to every slur which the royalists could bring against him, as ill-disposed to monarchy. Further still, Bethel's extreme and sordid meanness gave great disgust to the citizens, who were accustomed to consider the exercise of a splendid and ostentatious hospitality as the principal part of a sheriff's duty. He kept no table, lived in a chop-house, and, long afterwards, whoever neglected to entertain during his shrievalty, was said to "_Bethel_ the city." Bethel is mentioned among the subjects of deprecation in "The Loyal Litany:"

From serving great Charles, as his father before; And disinheriting York, without why or wherefore; And from such as Absalom has been, or more; Libera nos, &c.

From Vulcan's treasons, late forged by the fan; From starving of mice to be parliament-man; From his copper face, that out-face all things can; Libera nos, &c.

These two sheriffs first set the example of packing juries, when persons were to be tried for party offences; for they took the task of settling the pannels for juries out of the Compters into their own hands, and left the secondaries of the Compters, who had usually discharged that duty, only to return the lists, thus previously made up. In Middlesex, they had the assistance of Goodenough, the under-sheriff, a bustling and active partizan, who very narrowly escaped being hanged for the Rye-house Plot. By this selection of jurymen, the sheriffs insured a certainty of casting such bills as might be presented to the Grand Jury against any of their partizans. This practice was so openly avowed, that Settle has ventured to make it a subject of eulogy:

Next Hethriel write Baal's watchful foe, and late Jerusalem's protecting magistrate; Who, when false jurors were to frenzy charmed, And, against innocence, even tribunals armed, Saw depraved justice ope her ravenous maw, And timely broke her canine teeth of law.

The Earl of Shaftesbury himself reaped the advantage of this manœuvre; which, from the technical word employed in the return of these bills, was called _Ignoramus_. Stephen Colledge, the Protestant joiner, also experienced the benefit of a packed jury, though concerned in all the seditious practices of the time. He was afterwards tried, condemned, and executed at Oxford, where he was out of the magic circle of the sheriff's protection; and, though I believe the man deserved to die, he certainly at last met with hard measure. His death was supposed to have broke the talisman of Ignoramus, and was considered as a triumph by the Tories, who, for a long time, had been unable to persuade a jury to find for the king.[323] When Lord Stafford was most unjustly condemned, Bethel and his brother sheriff affected a barbarous scruple, whether the king was entitled to commute the statutory punishment of high treason into simple decapitation. The House of Commons ordered that the king's writ be obeyed. This hard-hearted conduct was an indulgence of their republican humour. Shortly after, Mr Bethel was found guilty of a riot and assault upon one of the king's watermen at the election of members of parliament for Southwark, 5th October, 1681. This person being active in the poll, Mr Bethel caned him, and told him he would have his coat (the king's livery) stripped over his ears. For this he was fined five merks. Bethel, notwithstanding his violence, was so fortunate as to escape the business of the Rye-house Plot. His brother sheriff, Cornish, was not so fortunate: He was a plain republican, and highly esteemed by Lord Russell, for having treated with indifference the apprehension of the Tower firing on the city, saying, they could only demolish a few chimneys. He was executed as an accomplice in the Rye-house conspiracy, upon the evidence of that very Goodenough, who had been his tool in packing the illegal juries; so that his death seemed a retribution for dishonouring and perverting the course of justice. James II. was afterwards satisfied that Cornish had been unjustly executed, and restored his estate to his family.

Note XXIV.

_Yet Corah, thou shalt from oblivion pass; Erect thyself, thou monumental brass, High as the serpent of thy metal made, While nations stand secure beneath thy shade!_--P. 236.

Titus Oates, once called and believed the Saviour of his country, was one of the most infamous villains whom history is obliged to record. He was the son of an anabaptist ribbon-weaver, received a tolerably good education, and, having taken orders, was preferred to a small vicarage in Kent. Here the future protestant witness was guilty of various irregularities, for which he was at length silenced by the bishop, and by the Duke of Norfolk deprived of his qualification as chaplain. At this pinching emergency he became a papist, either for bread, or, as he afterwards boasted, for the purpose of insinuating himself into the secrets of the Jesuits, and betraying them.[324]

The Jesuits setting little store by their proselyte, whose talents lay only in cunning and impudence, he skulked about St Omers and other foreign seminaries in a miserable condition. Undoubtedly he had then the opportunity of acquiring that list of names of the order of Jesus with which he graced his plot, and might perhaps hear something generally of the plans, which these intriguing churchmen hoped to carry through in England by means of the Duke of York. Of these, however, he must have had a very imperfect suspicion; for the scheme which is displayed in the letters of Coleman, the duke's secretary, does not at all quadrate with the doctor's pretended discovery. When confronted with Coleman, he did not even know him personally. When the king asked him about the personal appearance of Don John of Austria, he described him, at a venture, as a tall thin black man, being the usual Spanish figure and complexion; but, unfortunately, he was little, fair, and fat. In a word, it was impossible such a villain could have obtained a moment's credit, but for the discovery of Coleman's actual intrigues, the furious temper of the times, and the mysterious death of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey. On that last occasion he displayed much dexterity. There was some difficulty in managing the evidence, whether to bring the assassination to the conspiracy, or the conspiracy to the assassination; but Oates contrived the matter with such ingenuity, that the murder became a proof, and the plot became a proof of the murder, to the universal conviction of the public. As to Oates' other qualities, he was, like every renegade, a licentious scoffer at religion, and, in his manners, addicted, it is said, to the most foul and unnatural debaucheries. When we consider his acts and monuments, it is almost impossible to believe, how so base a tool should have ever obtained credit and opportunity to do such mighty mischief.[325]

As for his family, to which Dryden alludes a little below, "he would needs," says North, "be descended of some ancient and worshipful stock; but there were not so many noble families strove for him, as there were cities strove for the _parentele_ of Homer. However, the heralds were sent for, to make out his pedigree, and give him a blazon. They were posed at the first of these, but they made good the blazon for him in a trice, and delivered it _authenticamente_, and it was engraved on his table and other plate; for he was rich, set up for a solemn housekeeper, and lived up to his quality."[326]

Dryden compares Oates to the brazen serpent raised up in the wilderness, by looking on which, the Israelites were cured of the bites of the fiery snakes. Sprat had applied the same simile, in a favourable sense, to Oliver Cromwell:

Thou, as once the healing serpent rose, Was lifted up, not for thyself, but us.

Note XXV.

_Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud; Sure signs he neither choleric was, nor proud: His long chin proved his wit; his saint-like grace A church vermilion, and a Moses' face._--P. 236.

North has left us some specimens of Oates' peculiar mode of pronounciation. Bedloe, his brother-witness in the plot, had been taken ill at Bristol, and, on his death-bed, held some conference with the Lord Chief-Justice North, then upon a circuit, who took down his examination, concerning which numerous reports went forth. It proved, however, to be the same story he had formerly told. Even Dr Oates himself was disappointed; and was heard to say aloud, as the Lord Chief-Justice passed through the court on a council-day, at all which times he was a diligent attendant, "Maay Laird Chaife-Jaistaice, whay this baisness of Baidlaw caims to naithaing." But his Lordship walked on without attending to his discourse.[327]

In personal appearance North informs us, that "he was a low man, of an ill-cut very short neck; and his visage and features were most particular. His mouth was the centre of his face, and a compass there would sweep his nose, forehead, and chin, within the perimeter. _Cave quos Deus ipse notavit._"[328] An engraving of the doctor, now before me, bears witness to this last peculiarity, and does justice to the cherubic plenitude of countenance and chin mentioned in the text. It is drawn and engraved by Richard White, and bears to be "the true originall, taken from the life, done for Henry Brome and Richard Chiswel; all others are counterfeit."

As the doctor's portrait is not now quite so common as when the lady, mentioned in the Spectator, wore it upon her fan, gloves, and handkerchief, the curious reader may be pleased to be informed, that this "true original" is prefixed to "The Witch of Endor, or the Witchcrafts of the Roman Jezebel, by Titus Oates, D. D. folio 1679." It is dedicated to the Earl of Shaftesbury, &c.; "the Publisher's affectionate good friend, and singular good Lord."

Note XXVI.

_And gave him his rabinical degree, Unknown to foreign university._--P. 237.

Oates pretended to have taken his doctor's degree at Salamanca, where it is shrewdly suspected he never was; at least where he certainly never took orders. The Tory libels of the time contain innumerable girds concerning this degree. There is, in the Luttrel Collection, "An Address from Salamanca to her (unknown) offspring, Dr T. O." Dryden often alludes to the circumstance; thus, in the epilogue to "Mithridates," acted 1681-2,

Shall we take orders? that will parts require; Our colleges give no degrees for hire.-- Would Salamanca were a little nigher!

Note XXVII.

_And Corah might for Agag's murder call, In terms as coarse as Samuel used to Saul._--P. 237.

In the first book of Samuel, chap. xv., the reader will find the reproaches with which that prophet loaded Saul, for sparing, contrary to God's commandment, Agag, king of the Amalekites; concluding with the awful denunciation, that for his disobedience the Lord had rejected him from being king over Israel.

Agag's murder is to be understood of the mysterious death of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey. This gentleman was an active justice of peace, and had been knighted by Charles II., on account of his exertions during the fire of London. In other respects, he was low-spirited, and rather a timorous man, and, in the exercise of his office, favourable to the Catholics. Oates, finding the information he had lodged with the ministers concerning the Popish plot rather less ardently listened to than he expected, chose to utter before this magistrate a full declaration on the subject upon oath. His intention was probably to make the matter as public as possible. Godfrey expressed much unwillingness to have any thing to do with the matter at all; and when he had heard the story out, expressed to his friends his fear that he should have no thanks for his pains, but would probably be the first martyr. This strange, and one would think absurd, boding proved too true; after having been missing for several days, this unfortunate man was found lying in a ditch, near Primrose-hill. There were marks of strangling round his neck; and although his own sword was thrust through his body, yet it turned out to have been done after death. His money and rings were safe; robbery was therefore out of the question. This murder ever will remain among the riddles of history. Three opinions have been entertained: 1st, North does not hesitate to affirm, that the contrivers and abettors of the plot murdered this poor man, to give some colour to the story of the bloody machinations of the Papists: But this seems too strange and desperate a course to be imputed to the opposition party at large without some positive proof; and as for Oates and his brother witnesses, (whom we will not injure by suspecting them capable of remorseful, or compunctious visitings,) their steps were, at this time, too much the object of observation to admit of their executing so bloody a plan with the necessary degree of secrecy. 2d, It has been thought that Godfrey, a man of a melancholy temperament, whose dark and cloudy spirit had been just agitated by a strange tale of blood and mystery, may have been wrought up to take that time to commit suicide. It is even positively asserted, that he hanged himself at home, and that his brothers conveyed the body to the place where it was found, to avoid the shame and other consequences of his fate becoming public. There is something plausible in this account; but it is entirely unsupported by proof of any kind. 3d, The grand solution, and indeed the only one which would go down at the time, was, that Godfrey had fallen by the papists. There were probably enough of fanatics in that sect to have executed such a deed, had it been of consequence to the progress of their religion: But there appears no adequate motive for taking off Godfrey, who had merely taken down a deposition which he could not refuse to receive, and who had besides endeavoured to serve the accused parties, by transmitting to Coleman an account of the affidavit; while Oates and his companions, the depositaries of the supposed secret, and whose death would stifle the plot for ever, were suffered to walk about, even unattempted. Positive evidence was however obtained, to silence all hypothetical reasoning on the subject. One Bedlow, a very infamous character, amid a thousand dreadful stories of fires raised by the Jesuits from 1666 downwards, charged the Catholics, and particularly Miles Prance, a silver-smith, with the death of Godfrey[329]. This man was imprisoned in Newgate; and, after much communing with Shaftesbury and Buckingham, in which, it is said, neither threats, promises, nor actual tortures were spared, confessed himself an accomplice in the murder.[330] He retracted this confession before the privy-council; but being remanded to prison, new terrors, promises, and sufferings, induced him to retract that retractation. His story was a tissue of improbabilities; and he and Bedlow, when adduced as evidence on the trial of three poor men, whom they charged with strangling Godfrey, concealing the body in Somerset-House, and afterwards disposing of it on Primrose-hill, contradicted each other, and contradicted themselves. All was in vain: the three innocent victims of perjury were condemned and executed, and the witnesses promoted and rewarded, not with money only, but, strange to say, with universal respect and regard; although their merit, supposing it to be real, was that of murderers and incendiaries, who had turned evidence for the crown against their accomplices.

The outcry raised about Godfrey's murder at the time, and for long after, gave the plot its surest foundation and support. When his funeral rites were performed, the crowd was prodigious, and the papists were sufficiently cautious to keep within doors, or some might have been offered up as an oblation to the manes of Justice Godfrey. While the clergyman preached the funeral sermon of the protestant victim, two robust divines stood by him in the pulpit, lest, while rendering this last duty to the murdered magistrate, he should _in facie ecclesiæ_ be murdered by the papists. At the formal pope-burnings of the party, Sir Edmondbury, supported on a steed by his murderers, was a principal figure in the procession, preceded by a harbinger, who rung a bell, and admonished the people to remember Justice Godfrey. In short, this unfortunate gentleman's death, however it came about, continued long to be the watch-word and war-cry of those, who called themselves the true protestant party.

Note XXVIII.

_The crowd, that still believe their kings oppress, With lifted hands their young Messiah bless; Who now begins his progress to ordain, With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train._--P. 239.

"In August, 1680, the Duke of Monmouth went into the country to divert himself, visiting several gentlemen in the west of England, by whom he was received and entertained with a gallantry suitable to the greatness of his birth, and the relation he stood in to his majesty; incredible numbers of people flocking from all the adjacent parts to see this great champion of the English nation, who had been so successful against both the Dutch, French, and Scots. He went first into Wiltshire, and was pleased to honour the worthy esquire Thynne with his company for some days. From thence he went to Mr Speak's, in Somersetshire, in which progress he was caressed with the joyful acclamations of the country people, who came from all parts; twenty miles about the lanes and hedges being every where lined with men, women, and children, who, with incessant shouts, cried, "God bless King Charles and the Protestant Duke!" In some towns and parishes which he passed through, they strewed the streets and highways where he was to pass with herbs and flowers, especially at Ilchester and Pithyton; others presenting him with bottles of wine. When he came within ten miles of Mr Speak's, he was met by two thousand persons on horseback, whose numbers still increased as they drew nearer to Mr Speak's, and when they arrived there, they were reputed to be twenty thousand; wherefore they were forced to break down several pearch of his park pales to enlarge their passage to the house, where his grace and all this numerous company were entertained and treated, in an extraordinary manner.

"On the 26th, he went to Brompton; being met on the road by a great company of gentry and country people, who conducted him to Sir J. Sydenham's, where he was entertained at a noble and splendid dinner. The next day he went to Barrington, where he was pleased to honour Mr William Stroud with his company at dinner; the entertainment being nothing inferior to what his Grace had met with in all other places. After dinner he went to Chard, where he arrived about five in the afternoon, attended with a train of five thousand horsemen; and there he was met and welcomed by a crowd of men, women, and children, who had not a mute among them, but were almost all of them made deaf by their own shouts and acclamations of joy. His Grace lay there that night, being treated at a very splendid supper; he lodged at the house of M. Prideaux.[331] The next day, having been entertained at a sumptuous dinner, he rid to Ilminster, and in the afternoon he went to Whitelackindon, where he lay that night; and the day following, which was Sunday, his grace observed the Sabbath with a religious care, and went to Ilminster church. On the 30th, he went to Calliton, where he was entertained by Sir Walter Young. The next day he went to Overton, where he was entertained, and lodged by Mr Dukes. From thence he went to Exeter, and was met by the citizens and the people of all the adjacent parts, to the number of twenty thousand persons; but that which was more remarkable, was the appearance of a brave company of brisk, stout young men, all clothed in linen waistcoats and drawers, white, and harmless, having not so much as a stick in their hands; they were in number about nine hundred or a thousand; they went three miles out of the city to meet his Grace, where they were drawn up all on a little hill, and divided into two parts, in which order they attended the Duke's coming, who rid up first between them, and then round each company; after which they united, and went hand in hand in order before, where he was no sooner arrived, but a universal shout from all parts echoed forth his welcome; the numerous concourse of people, the incredible and amazing acclamations, and the universal joy which then filled the whole city, far exceeding my pen to describe.[332]

"From thence he returned to Mr Speake's, where the whole country flocked again to see and admire him, not being enough satisfied with their former sight. From thence he went the next day to Mr Harvie's, near Yeovil, where he dined, and in the afternoon he rid to Esquire Thynne's; people flocking from all the towns and villages thereabout to Howden-hill, where they attended the Duke's coming; and after they had, by loud acclamations, proclaimed his welcome amongst them, and expressed their joy for his safe return, they took their leave of him, returning his Grace their humble and hearty thanks for that kind visit, and for his having condescended to accept of their plain, but true-hearted entertainment. From thence he returned to London, wonderfully pleased with the noble and generous entertainment he met with at the several places where he came; every place striving to out-vye each other."[333]

At Tunbridge Wells. "Abundance of country people rudely crowded, after their rustic manner, to see the eldest son of their king and sovereign, every one extolling him to the skies, crying to one another, 'O what a brave man he is!' Some admired the beauty and make of his person; some the majesty and port of his carriage; and others, who had seen the king, the exact resemblance he bare to his majesty; affirming, they never, in all their lives, saw a son resemble a father more than the duke did the king; but all admired his affable and courteous disposition."[334]

These assemblies were chiefly made under pretence of cock-matches, horse-races, and other popular amusements; pretexts the more dangerous, as they were the well-known signals of rendezvous at which the cavaliers were wont to concert their plots against Cromwell. See the tract called "Killing no Murder." Foot races, wrestling matches, and other country pastimes, were also resorted to as an ostensible cause of meeting. These gave Monmouth an opportunity to display his personal agility and liberality. He wrestled, he ran, and carried off the prize, in both exercises; he then ran in his boots against the peasants in their shoes, and still obtained the victory. The prizes which he gained were freely distributed among his competitors. All these arts of popularity became the derision of his enemies, when he was forced into exile; as, for example, in the following verses:

Monmouth, for wit, who was able To make to a crown a pretence; The head and the hope of the rabble, A loyal and politic prince: But now he's gone into Holland To be a king of no land, Or else must be monarch of Poland; Was ever son so loyal as he? Lord Gray, and Armstrong the bully, That prudent and politic knight, Who made of his grace such a cully, Together have taken their flight, Is this your races, horse-matches, His grace's swift dispatches, From shire to shire, Under the hatches? Now above deck you dare not appear. _The Conspiracy, or the Discovery of the Fanatic Plot._

These ostentatious progresses were devised by Shaftesbury, as a mode of manifesting the strength of Monmouth's party, and increasing his partizans and popularity. Among the higher ranks, they carried an air of defiance which rather hurt his cause; for reflecting and cautious men were slow to join in what seemed to be a preliminary for civil war. It was different with the lower orders, who, always biassed by what is more immediately addressed to their eye-sight, were led by these showy processions, and by the courtesy, activity, and fine presence of Monmouth, to doat on him to an incredible degree. Not only did the western peasantry, on his landing in 1685, crowd to join him in multitudes beyond what he could arm, but their attachment survived even his defeat and death; and they long believed, with fond credulity, that another person had been executed in his stead, and that their beloved protestant prince was still alive.

The arts of Absalom, in stealing the hearts of Israel from his father, form an exact parallel to the language which Dryden puts in the mouth of Monmouth.

"And it came to pass after this, that Absalom prepared him chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him. And Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate: and it was so, that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him, and said, Of what city art thou? And he said, Thy servant is one of the tribes of Israel. And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee. Absalom said moreover, Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man, which hath any suit or cause, might come unto me, and I would do him justice! And it was so, that when any man came nigh unto him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took him, and kissed him. And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel, that came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel." 2d Sam. chap. xv. v. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Note XXX.

_But hospitable treats did most commend Wise Issachar, his western wealthy friend._--P. 239.

Thomas Thynne, esquire, of Longleat-hall, called, from his great wealth, _Tom of Ten Thousand_. He had been formerly a friend of the Duke of York, but, upon some quarrel between them, he attached himself warmly to Monmouth. Mr Thynne was one of those gentlemen, who petitioned for the speedy meeting of parliament, after it was prorogued in 1679, on account of the heat with which the house pursued the Exclusion Bill. The king received the intimation very ill; told Mr Thynne, he was surprised at persons of property countenancing such proceedings, and that he wished they would mind their own affairs, and leave him to attend to his. When Monmouth made his progress through the west of England, as mentioned in the last note, Mr Thynne received him at his country-seat with all the splendour and liberality of ancient English hospitality. This gentleman's tragical fate is well known. He was married to the Lady Ogle, sole heiress of the Northumberland estate; but, his bride going abroad, the marriage was never consummated. Count Konigsmark met the lady, fell in love with her person, or with her fortune, and could see no better road to both than by assassinating her husband. Accordingly, three foreigners, hired by the count, or dependents upon him, waylaid Mr Thynne's carriage, as it passed through Pall-Mall, and shot him with a blunderbuss, in the manner represented on his tombstone in Westminster Abbey.[335] The Duke of Monmouth had left the carriage about an hour before the murder; and sir John Reresby received the thanks of the king for his activity in apprehending the assassins, without which, suspicions might have arisen that the attempt was intended against Monmouth by the court party.[336] Monmouth himself remained all night with his dying friend, and distinguished himself by his zeal and assiduity in furthering the search after the murderers. At length, Count Konigsmark was taken by Gibbons, one of Monmouth's attendants, who seized him, as he was going on ship-board. When apprehended, Gibbons charged him with the fact, and added, that he had like to have killed his master, the Duke of Monmouth; to which the Count answered, "they would not have killed _him_." The three actual assassins were condemned to death; but, by some foul play,[337] Konigsmark, who had employed them, and who came over to England expressly to see that they executed their bloody commission, was acquitted. Monmouth went to see these subaltern villains executed. Stern, at the gallows, complained that he died for a man's fortune whom he never spoke to, for a woman whom he never saw, for a dead man whom he never had a view of. _True Narrative of the Horrid Plot, &c._ fol. 1679. p. 64. _State Trials_, Vol. II. p. 503.

Note XXXI.

_------Good King David's life, Endangered by a brother and a wife._--P. 239.

The accusations against York and the Queen were no part of Oate's original plot. On the contrary, in the summary of his "True Narrative," he informs us, that the "Royal family of the Stuarts are condemned to be cut off, root and branch, and namely, the King, Duke of York, and Prince of Orange, because that family have not answered their expectation, nor have they any hopes that any of them will comply fully with this their bloody design, when fully discovered to them." And on the next page, it is again affirmed, that notwithstanding the Duke of York's zeal for the Catholic religion, "they design to dispose of him as is aforesaid." But when the public belief in the plot had taken root, and Shaftesbury had grafted upon it his doctrine of exclusion, Oates, by degrees, charged the Duke, first with being the innocent and blind tool of the Catholics whom they intended to succeed his brother, though he knew nothing of their designs; and finally, with being at the very depth of all the villainy, and the immediate author of the Fire of London. As for the queen, her barrenness was a reason, for all the exclusionists desiring she should be removed, that the king might have a chance of legitimate issue, to the exclusion of the Duke of York. Animated by a belief, that this would be agreeable to the king, Oates had the boldness, at the bar of the House of Commons, to utter these words, in his affected phraseology, "Aye, Taitus Oates, accause Catherine, Quean of England, of haigh traison!" The grounds of his accusation are stated in the trial of Wakeman, the queen's physician, who, he alleged, was bribed with 15,000l to poison the king, in case he should escape the poniard of a Jesuit, named Coniers, and the pistols of Pickering and Groves. Oates then swore, that three Jesuits carried him with them to Somerset-house, where they were summoned to attend the Queen; that he remained in an anti-chamber when they were ushered into her presence; that he heard a female voice say, she would assist Sir George Wakeman in his project, and would no longer bear these repeated violations of her bed. When the fathers came out, he desired to see the queen, and when admitted into the anti-chamber, whence the female voice had proceeded, he saw the queen, who smiled graciously on him, and there was no other woman present. These impudent stories, with some blunders into which the best-breathed witness may fall, saved Wakeman's life.

The King immediately saw the tendency of this charge, and observed, "They think I have a mind for a new wife; but for all that, I will not see an innocent woman abused;" and certainly, had he given way to it, the Queen would have been in great danger.

Note XXXII.

_In this short file Barzillai first appears, Barzillai, crowned with honour and with years; Long since the rising rebels he withstood, In regions waste, beyond the Jordan's flood,_ &c. P. 241.

James Butler, Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Ormond, Earl of Ossory and Brecknock, &c. &c. was as illustrious for his talents, as for his rank, and distinguished by virtues superior to both. In the difficult and dangerous situation of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he had to maintain the cause of Charles I. in that kingdom, with very slender means, at once against the confederated Irish Catholics, and the parliamentary forces, the more formidable, though less numerous, enemies of the royal cause. In 1649, he was able, through consummate skill, both as a politician and general, to boast that he had reduced almost all Ireland under the royal authority, excepting the cities of Dublin and Londonderry. But Cromwell's arrival, with 8000 disciplined and veteran forces, effectually changed the scene. His first exploit was the storm of Tredagh, or Drogheda, where the besiegers put the whole garrison to the sword, and committed the most dreadful excesses of barbarity. After this terrible example of severity, hardly any of the royal garrisons could be prevailed on to make such a defence, as might expose them to the same extremity. Wexford, and New Ross, both very strong places, surrendered without a blow; all the forces under Lord Inchiquin revolted to the side of the parliament; and, at length, in 1650, Ormond saw himself under the necessity of abandoning the kingdom, which he had so long and valiantly defended. From Ireland he retreated to France, and accompanied King Charles during his exile. He was much trusted by that prince; and was charged with the task of withdrawing the Duke of Gloucester from the family of the queen mother, Henrietta, who was making every possible attempt to induce him to change his religion. This delicate commission he executed with dexterity and success. He had afterwards the satisfaction to forward a reconciliation between the king and his mother, who had been on bad terms on account of the queen's imprudent interference with her son's religious tenets. At the Restoration, the Marquis of Ormond, for such was then his title, was liberally rewarded, in lands and honours, for his steady attachment to the royal party. He was created Duke of Ormond in Ireland, and appointed steward of the household, groom of the stole, and privy counsellor for the three kingdoms. In 1661, he was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. As the duke was a steady friend of the great Clarendon, his services, and faithful zeal for the king's real interests, did not prevent his sharing in the disgrace of the chancellor. He had quarrelled with Lady Castlemaine, then the favourite mistress, who gave vent to her rage in the most abusive reproaches, and finally told the duke, she hoped to see him hanged; to which he made the memorable reply, that, far from wishing her ladyship's days shortened in return, his greatest desire was _to see her grow old_. When Clarendon was banished, the prevailing party, and especially the Duke of Buckingham, entertained a design of impeaching the Duke of Ormond, and succeeded so far as to deprive him of the lieutenancy of Ireland. The profligate Buckingham agitated a still darker project, and is supposed to have hired the famous Blood to attempt the assassination of his rival, in which the ruffian had nearly succeeded. When Blood was afterwards taken in his attempt to steal the regalia, the king being desirous to spare his life, sent to Ormond to intimate his wish, that his grace would consent to the proposed pardon. Ormond nobly answered, if his majesty could forgive him the stealing of his crown, he might easily pardon the assault on his life. The gallant Earl of Ossery,[338] who guessed whence the attempt originally proceeded, seeing the Duke of Buckingham shortly afterwards in the presence, charged him with being the author of the intended assassination; and added, "if his father came to a violent end, he should be at no loss to know the author, should consider Buckingham as the murderer, and pistol him, if he stood behind the king's chair: this" he boldly added, "I tell you in the king's presence, that you may be sure I shall keep my word." It does not appear that this spirited speech met either a retort from Buckingham, or a check from the king. Although the Duke of Ormond escaped the more open, as well as the more secret practices of his enemies, he experienced much coldness from the king, partly on account of his disliking the French intrigues, and partly because he disdained to pay court to the royal mistresses. Yet he would not throw up the staff, which he held as lord-steward of the household, but continued his attendance on court with as much punctuality as if in the highest favour. This mode of conduct greatly embarrassed the good-natured, though unprincipled Charles, to whom Ormond's silent and unreproachful attentions were the most cutting memento of his own ingratitude. On one occasion, the king appeared so much confused, that the Duke of Buckingham asked him, whether he had lost the Duke of Ormond's favour, or Ormond had lost his, since, of the two, his majesty seemed most out of countenance?--In this neglected situation, the duke used good-humouredly to compare himself to an old neglected rusty clock; "yet, even that," said he, "points right once in the twelve hours, and so perhaps may I." On another occasion, when Colonel Cary Dillon pressed him for his interest with the king, and said, he had no friend at court, save God and his grace,--"Alas! poor Cary," said the duke, "thou couldst not have two friends who have so little influence there, and are so much neglected." During all the king's coldness, the duke never altered his political principles, although Charles carried his estrangement to the pitch of not even speaking to him. His opinion of Shaftesbury, and his party, may be learned from an incident which happened during his disgrace at court. "The day that the Earl of Shatesbury was declared lord-chancellor, the king broke through his ordinary rule (of not addressing the duke) and either in doubt about the wisdom of the step he had taken, or out of curiosity to know the Duke of Ormond's sentiments of it, went up to him, and, taking him aside to a window, asked what he thought of his giving the seals to Lord Shaftesbury, whether he had done prudently or not? His grace replied, you have doubtless acted very prudently in so doing, if you know how to get them from him again." _Carte_, Vol. II. p. 462. At length, after the duke had attended court for a year without receiving a civil word from his sovereign, he suddenly received a message, that the king meant to sup with him. At the entertainment, no word of explanation took place, although the ancient cordiality between the king and his subject seemed to be fully restored. The next day, when the duke came to the court, as usual, the king observed, "Yonder comes Ormond; I have done all I can to disoblige him, and render him as discontented as others; but he will be loyal in spite of my teeth: I must even take him in again, as the fittest man to govern Ireland." Accordingly, the duke was restored to his office of lord-lieutenant in 1677.

He held this high situation during the ferment occasioned by the Popish plot; and although, according to Oates and Bedloe's information, one branch of that conspiracy was the murder of the duke, yet he did not escape suspicion of being accessary to it any more than the king, who was in the same predicament. Lord Shaftesbury, in the parliament of 1679, insinuated an accusation against the duke, on account of the alleged favour he shewed to Papists. From this charge he was vindicated by the Earl of Ossory, with an uncommon degree of spirited eloquence. Alter pleading his father's services against the Roman Catholic rebels, the danger of assassination from them which he had repeatedly escaped, and the active share he had in preventing the perversion of the Duke of Gloucester from the Protestant faith, he thus retorted upon Shaftesbury; "Having spoke of what he has done, I presume with the same truth to tell your lordship what he has not done. He never advised the breaking the triple league; he never advised the shutting up of the exchequer; he never advised the declaration for a toleration; he never advised the falling out with the Dutch, and the joining with France; he was not the author of that most excellent position, _Delenda est Carthago_; that Holland, a Protestant country, should, contrary to the true interest of England, be totally destroyed. I beg your lordship will be so just, as to judge of my father, and of all men, according to their actions and counsels."[339] Shaftesbury, abashed at this summary of his former political conduct, so different from that he was now pursuing, retracted his accusation with some symptoms of confusion. It remained, however, a capital object with the Whigs, to remove, if possible, the Duke of Ormond from the management of Ireland, at least to put in such a council as should trammel his measures. The King's firmness disconcerted both these plans. At the momentous period when Shaftesbury was committed to the Tower, the Duke of Ormond was sent for to England, that his presence might add respectability and weight to the king's councils. He entered the city with great pomp; and was every where received with the veneration due to his rank, his age, and his services. He had never linked himself to any political faction; contented to serve the crown upon the old cavalier principles, which he always asserted. He was thought, however, to go too great lengths in advising the king to maintain his authority by harsh measures; nor were his experience and authority sufficient to prevent much confused jarring in the king's councils, betwixt Halifax, who was for holding the scales even between the factions, and the high-flying Tories, who were posting towards arbitrary power. Yet, as a steady supporter of the interests of the crown, particularly in the course of the city elections, he deserved the honour which Dryden has assigned him, of standing the first in the file of the king's friends.

The King was pleased to reward the services of Ormond by giving him the rank of an English Duke, in 1682. After having been so long threatened with removal, as a favourer of the Papists, he was actually deprived of the lieutenancy of Ireland, in 1684, for not being disposed to second James II. in the countenance which he meant to afford that sect. The great Duke of Ormond, to which epithet he has a just title, died on the 21 July, 1688, without witnessing the second banishment of the house of Stewart.

This great statesman was a particular patron of Dryden, as is evident from the dedication of "Plutarch's Lives;" where our author again expresses his respect for the father, and his regret for the son. After the death of both, our poet continued to enjoy the countenance of their successor, James, second Duke of Ormond, son of the gallant Ossory, to whom he has dedicated the Fables.

Note XXXIII.

_His bed could once a fruitful issue boast; Now more than half a father's name is lost. His eldest hope, with every grace adorned, By me, so heaven will have it, always mourned, And always honoured, snatched, in manhood's prime, By unequal fates, and providence's crime._--P. 242.

The Duke of Ormond had eight sons, and two daughters. Six of those sons were dead in 1681, when this poem was published. He, over whom Dryden pours forth this lamentation, was the gallant Thomas, Earl of Ossory, whom, in the last note, we have exhibited as the guardian of his father's life and reputation. At the age of twenty-one, his external appearance and accomplishments are thus described by one who knew him well:[340] "He is a young man, with a very handsome face, a good head of hair, a pretty big voice, well set, and a good round leg. He pleaseth me exceedingly; being very good-natured, asking many questions, and humouring the answers. He rides the great horse very well, is a good tennis player, fencer, and dancer. He understands music, and plays on the guittar and lute; speaks French eloquently, reads Italian fluently; is a good historian, and so well versed in romances, that, if a gallery be full of pictures, or hangings, he will tell the story of all that are there described. He shuts up his door at eight o'clock in the evening, and studies till midnight. He is temperate, courteous, and excellent in all his behaviour." When the Duke of Ormond went into exile, his son was imprisoned by Cromwell, but, being afterwards released, he went abroad. In 1659, he married the daughter of Beverwaert, governor of Sluys, a leading man in the States-General. Upon the Restoration, he was promoted in the army, which did not prevent his exerting his gallantry on another element; for, during the desperate action of four days in 1666, upon hearing the sound of the cannon, he contrived to get off from Harwich, and to get on board the Duke of Albemarle, to whom he brought the first news, that Prince Rupert was recalled to support him. He distinguished himself by his bravery during the battle in Southwold Bay, and by his liberality to the wounded seamen after the action. In 1673 he was made rear-admiral of the blue squadron; and, in the great battle in which Sir Edward Spragge was killed, he lay by to defend and bring off that admiral's disabled vessel. He is said to have formed a plan for revenging the surprise at Chatham, by a descent at Helvoetsluys; when he averred he would burn the Royal Charles, which the Dutch preserved as a trophy, and the whole Dutch fleet, with a half-penny candle, or consent, in case of failure, that his head should be placed beside Cromwell's on Westminster-Hall. But the scheme was not attempted; being prevented, it is said, by the envious interposition of Buckingham. In November 1674, the Earl of Ossory had the honour to be intrusted with the charge of arranging the match between the Prince of Orange and the Lady Mary. He served under the prince against the French with great credit, particularly in the famous battle of Mons, fought 1678, where, with the British regiments under his command, he executed with glory the desperate service of beating the French out of their entrenchments. In April 1680, he was designed Governor of Tangiers, an appointment with which he was highly pleased; for his courage, being of a romantic and wild nature, delighted in the prospect of being opposed to such uncommon adversaries as the Moors. But, while he was busily preparing for his departure, he was seized with a malignant fever, during the delirium of which his mind was observed constantly to be occupied with his intended exploits against the besiegers of Tangiers.[341] He died on the 30th July, 1680, aged forty-six years. The lamentation for his loss was general and excessive; the noble reply of his venerable father, to those who offered him consolation, is well known: "Since he had borne the death of his king, he could support," he said, "that of his child; and would rather have his dead son, than any living son in Christendom."

The Earl of Ossory was a patron of learning; and was mourned, both in verse and prose, by many other writers, as well as Dryden. Settle, who then seems to have been in the Tory interest, published a heroic poem on his death. Flatman wrote a pindaric ode on the same occasion; for which he received, from the Duke of Ormond, a diamond ring of 100 guineas value.--See WOOD'S _Athenæ Oxon_. There is another ode written by K. C., perhaps Katherine Cockburn; finally, one bard, resolving to amuse the nation's mourning by his own, dedicates to Ossory's memory some exquisite stanzas, beginning thus: "Upon the Earl of Ossory, who died of a fever, 30th July, 1680."

The best sized pillar of the fairest pile, That has of late been built on Ireland's isle, Is fallen; some were too short, others too long, Some are too old, and others much too young.

* * * * *

Who knew him well, could not believe that ever He meant to die thus tamely of a fever.

After lamenting, in similar strains, that the subject of his muse had not

---- ----fallen down a scaling ladder; First by grenadoes rent, or, what is sadder, Some royal ship his coffin should have been;

he complains, "weeps, and frets," that

---- ----the king, the nation, Ireland, his house, and the whole confederation Of worthy men, his children, and his wife, Were all trepanned and cozen'd of his life; For he (who fire and hail was proof) with ice Was burned, and with a peach shot in a trice.

It is curious, and not quite useless, to see how admirably such a poet can succeed in turning into farce the most lofty subject.

Note XXXIV.

_Zadoc the priest, whom, shunning power and place, His lowly mind advanced to David's grace._--P. 243.

Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, was, in principle and practice, a rigid high-church man. He even harboured notions favourable to the celibacy of the clergy, and other ascetic doctrines of the church of Rome. Burnet says, "that he was a man of solemn deportment, sullen gravity, and some learning." He made profession of the old cavalier faith and principles of loyalty, which rendered him acceptable to the court and the high-church party in general, although his temper was austere and reserved, and his manners dry and distant. Yet the Archbishop, though so harshly described by his brother of Sarum, displayed, on one urgent occasion, a becoming readiness to assert the doctrine of the church of England against those of Rome; and on another, the steadiness of his own political principles, although his adherence, in both instances, exposed him to persecution from those in power. While the head of the high-church party, this primate was the first to encourage the bishops and clergy to a refusal to read the king's declaration of indulgence; he concerted also, and signed the memorable petition, for which, with six other prelates, he suffered imprisonment and trial, by one of the most imprudent exertions of power which an infatuated monarch ever attempted. On the 16th of July, 1688, this primate recommended a set of articles to the bishops within his metropolitan jurisdiction, inculcating residence and attention to parochial duties; but especially, that the clergy should take heed of Romish emissaries, who, like the old serpent, _insidiantur calcaneo_, and besiege the beds of dying persons, to unsettle their faith. He also recommends a tender regard to their "brethren, the protestant dissenters," and an union with them against the church of Rome. At the Revolution, the Archbishop was one of those privy counsellors who invited the Prince of Orange to take charge of the government; but as his principles did not permit him to accede to any step for removing King James from the throne, he declined sitting in the Convention of the estates. In conformity to the same principles, he refused to take the oaths of allegiance to the Revolution government; and was, in consequence, first suspended, and finally deprived of his dignity, in which he was succeeded by the famous Tillotson. He was regarded by the high-church party as a confessor, if not a martyr, for the doctrine of passive obedience. Sancroft died in 1693.

Note XXXV.

_With him the Sagan of Jerusalem, Of hospitable soul, and noble stem._--P. 243.

Compton, Bishop of London, was youngest son of the late, and brother to the then Earl of Northampton. He had been a soldier until he was thirty and upwards, when he exchanged the sword for the gown. He is said by Burnet to have been a great hater of Popery, and exact in performing the duties of his diocese; but unlearned, weak, and wilful. He was a high-church man, and held some reputation in the party, from his personal rank, and the dignity of his situation. In other respects, the bishop seems to have been good-tempered and hospitable, but much at the devotion of the Earl of Danby, who had early assisted him with his patronage. Although the Duke of York hated Compton, yet the charge of the education of the Princesses Mary and Anne devolved upon him. In the reign of James II., he distinguished himself in the House of Peers, by a severe rebuff to the insolence of Jefferies, the Chancellor. Soon after, the Bishop was cited before the illegal court, called the Ecclesiastical Commission, to answer for having refused to obey the king's command, by suspending Sharpe, a clergyman, who had preached a sermon against Popery. He requested a copy of their commission; but Jefferies, with his usual violence, told him, he might have it for a penny in any coffeehouse, and he might believe, in the mean while, that they were not such fools as to sit there without an effectual one. After some delay, he was suspended from his function, until the news of the Prince of Orange's intended expedition, when his suspension was removed. The credit which the bishop acquired by this persecution, amounted to what Mulgrave called a "reverential popularity, which," his lordship adds, "he of all the bishops would have found it most difficult to have acquired otherwise." This led to the Bishop of London playing what, considering his age and situation, was rather a remarkable part in the Revolution; when Prince George of Denmark went over to the Prince of Orange, and the princess, his wife, afterwards Queen Anne, either fearing the resentment of her father, or determined by the councils of Lady Churchill, (afterwards the famous Duchess of Marlborough,) resolved to leave Whitehall, and abandon her father's party. The Bishop acted as her escort on this occasion; and, the time and circumstances reviving his military habits, he rode before her coach to Northampton, with pistols at his saddle, and a drawn sword in his hand. It may easily be believed, that Dryden did not greatly approve of this last exploit of his hospitable and noble Sagan; and he has left a pretty strong testimony of his latter opinion, if the verses called "_Suum Cuique_" are really written by him:

I should admit the booted prelate now, But he is even for lampoon too low; The scum and outcast of a royal race, The nation's grievance, and the gown's disgrace. None so unlearned did e'er at London sit; This driveller does the holy chair b----. I need not brand the spiritual parricide, Nor draw the weapon dangling by his side; The astonished world remembers that offence, And knows he stole the daughter of his prince. 'Tis time enough, in some succeeding age, To bring this mitred captain on the stage.

Note XXXVI.

_Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words, and heavenly eloquence._--P. 243.

Dolben, Bishop of Rochester, and Dean of Westminster, had borne arms in his youth for Charles I., who made him a major. He was, according to Burnet, an excellent preacher, but a man of more spirit than discretion, and imprudent in his behaviour. He is unanimously allowed to have been a good-natured easy man, of most amiable manners. In 1683, he was promoted to the see of York, and made a very good archbishop. Dolben died in 1686.

Settle attempts to droll upon the praises bestowed by Dryden on these three bishops, and assures us,

Not David's lyre could more his touch obey; As their princes breathe and strike, they play. 'Gainst royal will they never can dispute; } But, by a strange tarantula struck mute, } Dance to no other tune but absolute: } Besides, they've sense of honour and who knows How far the gratitude of priestcraft goes?

* * * * *

And what if now, like old Elisha fed, To praise the sooty bird that brought them bread, In pure acknowledgment, though in despite Of their own sense, they paint the raven white? _Absalom Senior._

Note XXXVII.

_Sharp-judging Adriel, the muses friend, Himself a muse._--P. 243.

Adriel is the Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards Marquis of Normanby and Duke of Buckingham. He was one of Dryden's most early and effectual patrons. The "Essay upon Satire" was their joint composition, and Dryden inscribed to him his play of "Aureng-Zebe." The praise bestowed by Dryden is, as usual, discriminating and appropriate. Mulgrave exhibits his "sharp judgement" in his "Essay on Poetry," which contains some good critical remarks; but of his lordship's poetical talents we have spoken sufficiently elsewhere.[342] His political principles were those of a staunch Tory, which he maintained through his whole life; and was zealous for the royal prerogative, although he had no small reason to complain of Charles II., who, to avenge himself of Mulgrave, for a supposed attachment to the Princess Anne, sent him to Tangiers, at the head of some troops, in a leaky vessel, which it was supposed must have perished in the voyage. Though Mulgrave was apprized of the danger, he scorned to shun it; and the Earl of Plymouth, a favourite son of the king, generously insisted upon sharing it along with him. This ungenerous attempt to destroy him, in the very act of performing his duty, with the refusal of a regiment, made a temporary change in Mulgrave's conduct. He connected himself for a time with the country party;[343] but he soon returned to his original principles, and continued steadily to support the court during the progress of the Exclusion Bill, and in all the stormy debates of the troubled period to which Dryden's poem refers. Yet he evinced, that he was not a "slave of state;" for, although James II. made him Lord High Chamberlain, he withstood all the measures which that ill-advised prince adopted in behalf of the Catholic religion. He silenced a priest, who was labouring for his conversion, and had begun with the doctrine of transubstantiation, by the famous repartee, that "though he believed God made man, he could not believe that man was quits by making God in return." But he stood gallantly by King James to the very last, and had the courage to insist upon the council taking measures for the safety of that unfortunate monarch's person, when, after his first flight, he was seized by the sailors at Feversham.

Dryden says, Adriel was adorned with the "honours torn from his disobedient son;" because, when Monmouth was deprived of the government of Hull and lieutenancy of Yorkshire, the king conferred them upon the Earl of Mulgrave.

Note XXXVIII.

_Jotham, of piercing wit, and pregnant thought, Endued by nature, and by learning taught, To move assemblies, who but only tried The worse awhile, then chose the better side: Nor chose alone, but turned the balance too; So much the weight of one brave man, can do._--P. 243.

Sir George Saville, Viscount, Earl, and at length Marquis of Halifax, was the prime minister of Charles during the last years of his reign. He was a man of fine genius and lively imagination; but, as a politician, was guided rather by a desire to display the full extent of artful and nice management of parties, than by any steady or consistent principle of his own. He was at the head of the small party called Trimmers, who affected a sort of neutrality between the Whig and Tory factions, and were, of course, suspected and hated by both. He originally made a figure in opposition to the court, particularly upon the great debates concerning the test, which he keenly opposed. He voted at first for the bill of Exclusion; and used the jocular argument against hereditary government, that no man would chuse a man to drive his carriage, merely because his father had been a good coachman. But when that great question came finally to be debated in the House of Lords, on the 15th November, 1680, Halifax had changed his opinion; and he even conducted the opposition to the bill, and displayed an extent of capacity and eloquence, equally astonishing to friends and foes, and which, perhaps, never was surpassed in that assembly. Even Shaftesbury sank before this versatile orator; and there seems little doubt, that his eloquence had a great effect in deciding the issue of that day's famous debate, by which the Exclusion Bill was thrown out for ever. The House of Commons was so much incensed against Halifax, that they voted an address for his removal from the king's councils. The king, however, found his own advantage in the fine and balancing policy of Halifax; and, far from consenting to his disgrace, promoted him to the rank of Marquis, and office of Privy Seal, which was hardly more displeasing to the Whigs than to the Duke of York. To the over-bearing measures of this prince, Halifax was secretly a determined opponent; it was his uniform object to detach Monmouth so far from the violent councils and party of Shaftesbury, that the interest which he still retained in the king's affections might be employed as a counterbalance to that of his brother. He prevailed upon the king to see Monmouth, after the discovery of the Rye-house Plot; and, had the duke then proved more practicable, it is possible, that, backed with the interest of Halifax, he might have regained his place in the king's favour. Upon this occasion, the Duke of York was not consulted, and made open show of his displeasure. Indeed Halifax told Sir John Reresby, that the Duke would never forgive him.[344] It is even said, that, immediately before the death of Charles, there was a scheme in agitation, under the management of Halifax, for recalling Monmouth, sending York to Scotland, calling a parliament, and totally changing the violent measures of the last two years.[345] If so, it was prevented by the king's sudden death, and left Halifax exposed to the resentment of his successor. For some time, James, in consideration of his great services during the dependence of the Bill of Exclusion, treated him with seeming confidence; but finding him unwilling to go the lengths he proposed in religious matters, and particularly in the proposed repeal of the test acts, he was totally disgraced. Alter this period, the Marquis of Halifax engaged with those lords who invited over the Prince of Orange; and joined so cordially in the Revolution, that he was made Keeper of the Seals by King William. He died in April 1695.

Amidst the various political changes of this thorough-paced statesman, it ought not to be forgotten, that, though he sided with the court during the last years of King Charles, his councils were a salutary check on the arbitrary measures urged by the Duke of York; and that he probably merited the praise, which Dryden elsewhere bestows on him, "of preventing a civil war, and extinguishing a growing fire, which was just ready to have broken forth."[346]

Note XXXIX.

_Hushai, the friend of David in distress; In public storms, of manly stedfastness; By foreign treaties he informed his youth, And joined experience to his native truth._--P. 244.

Laurence Hyde, second son to the great Earl of Clarendon, created Earl of Rochester by Charles II. Even after his father's fall, he contrived to retain the confidence of Charles, and in 1676 was employed on an embassy to Poland. He was also one of the plenipotentiaries at the treaty of Nimeguen, and for some time ambassador in Holland; to which diplomatic situations Dryden alludes in the text. He was named one of the commissioners of the treasury in 1679, and had very considerable influence, by which the poet reaped some advantage; for, notwithstanding the exhausted state of the exchequer, he acknowledges, that, contrary to the famous comparison of Cowley, Gideon's fleece had been moistened, when all the ground around was parched. Rochester was a steady opposer of the Bill of Exclusion, for which, in 1681, he was voted a public enemy by the House of Commons. Indeed, that measure must have materially affected the interests of the Duke of York's daughters, to whom Rochester stood in the relation of maternal uncle. For the same reason, as well as from political principle, he as keenly withstood the Duke of Monmouth s pretensions; for which he is stigmatised by Settle, in lines of which the following is a specimen:

Of these, than subtile Caleb none more great; Caleb, who shines where his lost father set.

* * * * *

Caleb, who does that hardy pilot make, Steering in that hereditary track, Blind to the sea-mark of a father's wrack.

Notwithstanding the compliments bestowed by Dryden on Rochester for his management of the exchequer, he was, when in the high situation of Lord Treasurer, 1682, accused of peculation by his rival Halifax, who so far prevailed, that Rochester was removed to the more honourable but less important office, of President of the Council; on which occasion his witty adversary first applied the since well-known phrase, of "his lordship's being kicked up stairs." After the accession of King James, Rochester was again made Lord Treasurer, but soon lost the staff for his repugnance to enter into the violent measures of that monarch. He had consented to be present at a conference between some Catholic and Protestant divines, but treated the arguments of the former with a contempt which James could not forgive. At the Revolution he observed a sullen neutrality; and, though uncle to Queen Mary, never heartily acquiesced in her title to the crown, or reaped any benefit from its being occupied by so near a relation. King William never could forgive his once having passed through the Low Countries without waiting upon him.

He was a particular patron of Dryden, who inscribed to him the "Duke of Guise" and "Cleomenes," with expressions of great gratitude and respect. See Vol. VII. p. 13. Vol. VIII. p. 191.

Note XL.

_Indulge one labour more, my weary muse, For Amiel; who can Amiel's praise refuse? Of ancient race by birth, but nobler yet In his own worth, and without title great: The Sanhedrim long time as chief he ruled, Their reason guided, and their passion cooled._--P. 244.

Edward Seymour, afterward Sir Edward Seymour, Bart., was descended of the elder branch of the illustrious family of that name, and was ancestor of the present Duke of Somerset. He is said to have attached great importance to his high birth, and to have been esteemed the proudest commoner in England. He was speaker of the House of Commons under the Earl of Danby's administration; a post which he filled with a mixture of dexterity and dignity. Burnet says, he knew the House and every man of it so well, that at one glance he could tell the fate of every motion. This he used as a means of serving the court; contriving usually to protract the debate when their party were not assembled in strength. It was alleged by his enemies, that he was the channel through which gratuities were distributed to the court members; which charge is grossly urged in Settle's poem called "Absalom Senior."[347] These charges seem to be exaggerated; at least it is certain, that Seymour's conduct as speaker was not uniformly, or servilely, guided by devotion to the court; and that he was acceptable to the Commons, for the Parliament, in 1679, chose him speaker anew, in opposition to Mr Meres, who was proposed by the court party. But when Seymour was next day presented as speaker to the king, he refused to receive him as such, and said, he had indispensable occasion for his services in another capacity. At this time the crown claimed a voice in the nomination of the speaker, and the dispute became very warm, till it was terminated by the king conceding, that the right of election was in the House, upon their passing from the election of Mr Seymour, and chusing Mr Sergeant Gregory. He was afterwards made Treasurer of the Navy, and was in that office in 1680, when an impeachment was moved against him for corruption and mal-administration. But the House of Lords repelled the impeachment; which seems only to have been founded in party clamour. In the following year he was voted a public enemy, for opposing the Bill of Exclusion. In the slavish parliament of 1685, Seymour had the boldness to deliver a speech on the irregularity of the elections, which had been much biassed by the crown. He told the House, that many doubted whether they were the true representatives of the people; and that little justice was expected on petitions, where too many were guilty to judge justly and impartially. He said, it concerned the House to look to this; for, if the nation saw no equity was to be expected from them, they might take means to make the members suffer that justice which they would not grant. No one among the astonished members had been aware of Seymour's intentions, so none were prepared either to second or answer this bold harangue. This statesman was a friend to the Revolution; he joined the Prince of Orange at Exeter, and was the first to propose that an association should be signed, without which, he observed, the insurgents were as a rope of sand. On this occasion, the Prince, meaning a compliment, asked Seymour if he was not of the Duke of Somerset's family? "No, please your royal highness," was the reply; "the Duke is of mine." This gave the Prince the first idea of the conscious dignity of an English commoner. William placed Devonshire under his government. In the parliament of 1700-1, Sir Edward Seymour was active in detecting the corrupt practices of elections, and received the thanks of the House for having protected its constitution.

Note XLI.

_Thus, from his royal throne, by heaven inspired, The godlike David spoke, &c._--P. 245.

Spence, on the authority of a priest whom he often met at Mr Pope's, has stated, that the king _obliged_ Dryden to put his speech to the Oxford Parliament into verse, and insert it at the close of "Absalom and Achitophel." Mr Malone has extracted the following parallel passages, which give some countenance to the tradition; although Dryden is just as likely to have versified them of his own accord as by the royal command; for this speech was the talisman by which he was to extricate David from all his difficulties.[348]

"The unwarrantable proceedings of the last House of Commons were the occasion of my parting with the last parliament; for I, who will never use arbitrary government myself, am resolved not to suffer it in others. ---- I am unwilling to mention particulars, because I am desirous to forget faults; but whoever shall calmly consider what offers I have formerly made, and what assurances I made to the last Parliament,----and then shall reflect upon the strange unsuitable returns made to such propositions by men who were called together to _consult_, perhaps may wonder more that I had patience so long, than that at last I grew weary of their proceedings. ---- I conclude with this one advice to you, that the rules and measures of all your votes may be the known and established laws of the land, which neither can nor ought to be departed from, nor changed, but by act of Parliament; and I may the more reasonably require, that you make the laws of the land your rule, because I am resolved they shall be mine."

Note XLII.

_The offenders question my forgiving right._--P. 245.

In the case of the Earl of Danby, the King's power of granting him a pardon was warmly disputed; it being supposed, that the crown had no power to remit the penalty of high treason. So far was this notion stretched, that, as we have already seen, the sheriffs, Bethel and Cornish, contested, in the case of Lord Stafford, the king's right to exchange the statutory punishment of hanging, drawing, and quartering, for that of beheading. They applied by petition to the House of Commons to have their scruples removed, and, _proh pudor!_ received the countenance of Lord Russell in this brutal scruple. The king did not forget this circumstance when the writ was issued for Russell's execution: "He shall find," said Charles, in appointing the commutation of punishment, "that I have the privilege which he was pleased to deny in the case of Lord Stafford."

The petitioners, mentioned immediately afterwards, are those who called upon the king by petition to summon the parliament. These applications were highly displeasing to Charles, whose followers, to balance them, made equally violent addresses, expressing their abhorrence of tumultuary petitions. Almost every county and town was thus divided into petitioners, and addressers, or abhorrers, as they were sometimes called. The former experienced, on occasion of presenting their petitions, the royal frowns; while the latter were in a very summary manner committed, by the House of Commons, to the custody of their serjeant. This arbitrary course was ended by the refusal of one Stowel to submit to the arrest, which contempt the House were fain to pass over, by voting that he was indisposed.

Note XLIV.

_By their own arts 'tis righteously decreed, Those dire atificers of death shall bleed. Against themselves their witnesses will swear, Till, viper-like, their mother-plot they tear._--P. 247.

This is rather an imprudent avowal of what was actually the policy of the court faction at this time. They contrived to turn against Shaftesbury and his party, many of those very witnesses by whom so many Catholics had been brought to execution. Dugdale, Turberville, Haynes, and Smith, all of whom had been witnesses of the plot, now came as readily forward to convict Colledge, Howard, and Shaftesbury himself, of high treason. Such infamous traffic ought to have deprived them of credit on all sides; but it was the misfortune of the time, that, swear what they would one day, and the exact contrary the next, they, on each occasion, found a party to countenance, believe, and reward them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 294: See a very scurrilous one, entitled, "The Queen's Ball," in the _State Poems_, Vol. III. p. 74, beginning,

Reform, great queen, the errors of your youth, And hear a thing you never heard, called Truth. Poor private balls content the Fairy Queen; You must dance, and dance damnably, to be seen. Ill-natured little goblin, and designed For nothing but to dance and vex mankind, What wiser thing could our great monarch do, Than root ambition out, by showing you? You can the most aspiring thoughts pull down. ]

[Footnote 295: Sheffield Duke of Buckingham's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 296: "A Letter to a Person of Honour concerning the Black-box." "A Letter to a Person of Honour concerning the King's disavowing the having been married to the Duke of Monmouth's Mother."]

[Footnote 297: Sir John Rereby's Memoirs, p. 170.]

[Footnote 298: See note XX.]

[Footnote 299: Sir John Dalrymple narrates this anecdote, Vol. I. p. 187. 8vo edit. The Editor has often heard it mentioned by his father, who was curious in historical antiquities, and who gave it on the report of his grandfather, to whom Captain Scott had told the story. According to this last authority, which the relationship between the parties renders probable, the intercepted letter contained some details concerning the Prince of Orange's intrigues with Monmouth, and the duplicity of Sunderland. It is more than probable, if that wise prince encouraged Monmouth in his enterprise, it could only be with the purpose of hastening his destruction.]

[Footnote 300: Sheffield Duke of Buckingham's Memoirs, p. 12.]

[Footnote 301: Cartes' Life of the Duke of Ormond. Vol. II. pp. 531, 533.]

[Footnote 302: Memoirs, p. 12.]

[Footnote 303: Vol. VII. p. 80.]

[Footnote 304: It is entitled, "On the three Dukes killing the Beadle on Sunday morning, February 26th 1670-1." The moral runs thus:

See what mishaps dare even invade Whitehall; This silly fellow's death puts off the ball; And disappoints the Queen, poor little chuck, I warrant 'twould have danced it like a duck: The fidlers voices entries all the sport; And the gay show put off, where the brisk court Anticipates in rich subsidy coats, All that is got by mercenary votes; Yet shall Whitehall, the innocent, the good, See these men dance all daubed with lace and blood. ]

[Footnote 305: Alluding to the king's well known intrigue with Nell Gwyn.]

[Footnote 306: The Duke was then captain of the king's horse guards.]

[Footnote 307: The first effectual step taken by the court to defend themselves against popular clamour, was in the "Observator," and other periodical or occasional publications of L'Estrange, which had a great effect on the public mind. But during the first clamorous outcry after the Popish plot was started, nothing of this kind was, or probably could be, attempted; while, on the other hand, the press teemed with all manner of narratives of the plot, every one stuffed with more horrid circumstances than those which preceded it; and the sale of which was no inconsiderable part of the recompence of the various witnesses by whom they were composed, sworn to, and published.]

[Footnote 308: _Examen_, p. 204.]

[Footnote 309: Thus, to instance the "pedantic manner, vanity, defiance of criticism, rhodomontade and poetical bravado" of modern poets, he gives some extracts from the preface of "Don Sebastian," and adds, "who can after this say of the Rehearsal author, that his picture of our poet was over charged?"--_Miscellany 5_. Chap. 2. His lordship also glances repeatedly at Dryden in his _Advice to an Author_.]

[Footnote 310: RALEIGH'S _Redivivus_, p. 53.]

[Footnote 311: NORTH'S _Examen_, p. 60.]

[Footnote 312: _Ibid._ p. 57.]

[Footnote 313: _Shaftesbury_.]

[Footnote 314: This horrid story is alluded to by the author of Absalom's IX Worthies:

Next Zimri, banckrupt of wit and pence, Proved Jew by's circumcised evidence; T' enjoy his Cosbi, he her husband killed; The rest o' the story waits to be fullfilled. ]

[Footnote 315: Cartes' life of the Duke of Ormond, vol. II. p. 345.]

[Footnote 316: To the memory of the illustrious Prince, George Duke of Buckingham. (25 May, 1637.)]

[Footnote 317: A committee man.]

[Footnote 318: Sir Denzil Hollis. Luk's _Annus Mirabilis_.--(His Grace mistakes; it is Sir _Frescheville_ Hollis.)]

[Footnote 319: See his poem on Cromwell.]

[Footnote 320: See his poem, p. 27, 28.]

[Footnote 321: In "Absalom's nine Worthies" he is thus commemorated:

The next Priapus Balaam, of whom 'tis said, His brains did lie more in his tail than's head, Sprouted of royal stem, in ancient days; 'Tis an ill bird that his own nest bewrays. ]

[Footnote 322:

Next, Monmouth came in with an army of fools, Betrayed by his cuckold, and other dull tools, Who painted the turf of green Sedgemore with gules. ]

[Footnote 323:

_The Riddle of the Roundhead_.

Perkin makes fine legs to the shouting rabble, Who to make him king he thinks are able; But the bauble Is only shewed for use: The silly ideot serves but for a tool still, For knaves to work their feats; And will remain a dull mistaken fool still, For all their damned cabals, and Wapping treats.

* * * * *

Oxford loyal youths, who scorn to sham us With a perjured bill of Ignoramus, Or name us For loyal traitors known; Soon found a flaw i'the bottom of the joyner, By justice, and the laws, Of church and commonwealth an underminer, Who fell a martyr in the good old cause. ]

[Footnote 324: He protested to Burnet, that God and his holy angels could witness, he only went among them for this purpose. After which, the Bishop says, he paid no regard to any thing he could say, or swear.]

[Footnote 325: One can hardly help exclaiming, with the punning author of a ballad called "Oates well thresh't,"

A curse on every thing that's hight Oates; Both young and old, both black and white Oates Both long and short, both light and Tite Oates!

He is thus stigmatized as one of Absalom's nine worthies:

Last Corah, unexhausted mine of plots, Incredible to all but knaves and sots; He surely may for a new Sampson pass, That kills so sure with jaw-bone of an ass. ]

[Footnote 326: _Examen_, p. 223.]

[Footnote 327: Ibid. p. 254.]

[Footnote 328: Ibid. p. 225.]

[Footnote 329: This man told a fable of forty thousand Spanish pilgrims, who were to invade Britain, and eke of a number of black bills, wherewith the Irish Catholics were to be armed. Some wag has enumerated his discoveries in the verses entitled, "Funeral Tears upon the Death of Captain William Bedlow:"

"England, the mighty loss bemoan, Thy watchful centinal is gone. Now may the pilgrims land from Spain, And, undiscovered, cross the main; Now may the forty thousand men. In popish arms, be raised again. Black bills may fly about our ears, Who shall secure us from our fears? Jesuits may fall to their old sport, } Of burning, slaying, town and court, } And we never the wiser for't. } Then pity us; exert thy power, To save us in this dangerous hour; Thou hast to death sworn many men, Ah! swear thyself to life agen." ]

[Footnote 330: A hackney-coachman, named Corral, was very cruelly treated in Newgate, in order to induce him to swear, that he conveyed the dead body of Godfrey out of town in his coach. But he resisted both threats and torments; so that at length another means of conveyance was hit upon, for Prance bore witness that he carried it upon a horse.]

[Footnote 331: This gentleman was, after Monmouth's defeat, fain to pay the famous Jeffries 15,000l. to save his life, though he never could learn what he was accused of.]

[Footnote 332: There were two brothers of this name. One was convicted of a misdemeanour for aiding Braddon in his enquiry into the death of the Earl of Essex. The other was executed for joining in Monmouth's invasion. Jefferies exclaimed on his trial, that his family owed justice a life, and that he should die for the sake of his name.]

[Footnote 333: An Historical Account of the Heroic Life and Magnanimous Actions of the most illustrious Protestant Prince, James, Duke of Monmouth, 12mo. 1683. p. 99. _et sequen._]

[Footnote 334: Ibid, p. 113.]

[Footnote 335: Two of these, Captain Vratz and Lieutenant Stern, had distinguished themselves as brave officers; and it is remarkable that neither seemed to have a feeling of the base and dishonourable nature of their undertaking. The third, Borosky, was a poor Pole, who thought himself justified by his master's orders. There is an interesting account of their behaviour in prison, and at execution, in the Harleian Miscellany.]

[Footnote 336: This circumstance is alluded to in a ballad on the occasion, which mentions Monmouth's anxiety to discover the assassins:

But heaven did presently find out What, with great care, he could not do; 'Twas well he was the coach gone out, Or he might have been murdered too; For they, who did this squire kill, Would fear the blood of none to spill.

From a Grub-Street broadside, entitled "Murder Unparalleled," in _Luttrel Collect._

"Captain Vratz's Ghost to Count Coningsmark," 18. March, 1681-2, by a Western Gentleman:

"Who was't thus basely brought unto his end The loyal Monmouth's wealthy western friend." ]

[Footnote 337: It is probable either Stern or Boroski, if not Vratz, would have justified themselves at the Count's expence, had it suited the crown to have promised them a pardon on such conditions.]

[Footnote 338: The Duke of Ormond's eldest son.--See next note.]

[Footnote 339: Appendix to Life of Ormond, No. XCIII.]

[Footnote 340: Sir Richard Southwell. See Life of Ormond, Vol. II. p. 161.]

[Footnote 341:

War, and war's darling goddess, left him last; As living he adored her, he embraced Her dying, in his pangs he held her fast; Still at Tangier his waving ensigns flye, Forts, bulwarks, trenches, glide before his eye; And though, by fate itself disarmed, he dies, Even his last breath his sooty foes defies; He still his visionary thunder poured, And grasped the very shadow of a sword.

These lines occur in Settle's poem, and are illustrated by this Note: "All the delirium of his fever was wholly taken up with defending Tangiers, and fighting the Moors."]

[Footnote 342: See some particulars concerning this nobleman, Vol. V. p. 174.; and in the introductory observations to the "Essay on Satire."]

[Footnote 343: "A young Lord (Mulgrave,) newly come of age, owned himself to his majesty disobliged, because, after a voyage to Tangier, his great valour there, _and spending his youth in the king's service_, (these were his own words to the king,) another was preferred to the command of the Lord Plymouth's regiment. I cannot but commend this nobleman's ingenuity, in owning the true cause, and not pretending, as others, conscience and public good for his motives. But I am sorry he should forget, not only the obligations of gratitude, which he is under for his bread, and for his honour, but also who says, "Appear not wise before the king, and give not counsel unasked." He has learning enough to understand the meaning of, _In concilium non vocatus ne accesseris_. It is to be hoped he may repent, and with more years his wit may be turned into wisdom." _Seasonable address to parliament_. SOMERS' _Tracts_, p. 118.]

[Footnote 344: Reresby's Memoirs, p. 172.]

[Footnote 345: Hume, Vol. VIII. p. 209.]

[Footnote 346: See the Dedication to "King Arthur," Vol. VIII. p. 113.]

[Footnote 347:

Next Jonas stands, bull faced but chicken-souled, Who once the silver Sanhedrim controuled, Their gold tipped tongue; gold his great council's bawd, Till by succeeding Sanhedrims outlawed. He was preferred to guard the sacred store, There lordly rolling in whole mines of ore; To dicing lords a cully favourite, He prostitutes whole cargoes in a night. Then to the top of his ambition come, Fills all his sayls for hopeful Absalom; For his religion's as the reason calls, God's in possession, in reversion Baal's; He bears himself a dove to mortal race, And though not man, he can look heaven i' th' face. Never was compound of more different stuff, A heart in lambskin, and a conscience buff. ]

[Footnote 348: Otway attributes the same magic power to the king's speech. After calling on a painter to depict a tumultuous senate, he adds,

But then let mighty Charles at distance stand, His crown upon his head, and sceptre in his hand, To send abroad his word; or, with a frown, Repel and dash the aspiring rebels down. Unable to behold his dreaded ray, Let them grow blind, disperse, and reel away; Let the dark fiends the troubled air forsake, And all new peaceful order seem to take. _Windsor Castle._ ]

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.