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."
After lamenting, in similar strains, that the subject of his muse had not
he complains, "weeps, and frets," that
It is curious, and not quite useless, to see how admirably such a poet can succeed in turning into farce the most lofty subject.
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.
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:
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,
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.
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]
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:
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
Si quis tamen hæc quoque, si quis
Captus amore leget.——
The sensation produced in London, and indeed throughout the nation, by the first part of "Absalom and Achitophel," was so deep and extended, as never had been before occasioned by a similar performance. Neither was Dryden backward in pursuing the literary victory which he had obtained over the Whigs. He published "The Medal" upon the acquittal of the Earl of Shaftesbury, and the rejoicings with which his party had celebrated that memorable event. He even stooped to inferior game, and avenged himself of Shadwell's repeated attacks upon his literary reputation, his political principles, and his moral character, by the publication of "Mac Flecnoe," one of the most severe satires in the English language. Yet, according to the opinion of the royal party, more still remained to be done. The heads of Shaftesbury's faction had been held up to hatred, or ridicule, in "Absalom and Achitophel;" his own life had been more closely scrutinized, and his failings and crimes exposed more specifically in "The Medal;" but something, they conceived, was wanting, to silence and crush the underling writers and agitators of the party, and Dryden's assistance was again invoked for this purpose, as well as to celebrate some of the king's supporters and favourites, who were necessarily omitted in the original poem. But Dryden, being unwilling again to undertake a task upon which he had repeatedly laboured, deputed Nahum Tate to be his assistant in a second part of "Absalom and Achitophel;" reserving for himself only the execution of certain particular characters, and the general plan and revisal of the poem.
Of Tate, honoured with so high a trust by our great poet, biographers have preserved but a very imperfect memorial. He was the son of Dr Faithful Tate or Teat, was born in Ireland, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He wrote, or rather new modelled and translated, nine plays, of which, his alteration of King Lear still keeps the stage, in defiance of its gross departure from Shakespeare's plot and moral. During the reign of Charles and his successor, Tate was a keen Tory, as may be easily guessed from Dryden's employing him in the honourable task of writing a second part to his admirable satire; yet, upon Shadwell's death, he was made poet laureat to King William, and retained that office till his own decease. His talent for poetry amounted to cold mediocrity; had he been a man of fortune, it would have raised him to the rank of an easy sonnet writer, or a person of wit and honour about town. As he was very poor, it is no disgrace to his muse, that she left him in that indigence from which far more distinguished poetical merit has been unable to raise those who possessed it. Tate died in the Mint, where he had taken refuge from his creditors, on the 12th of August, 1715. He had long been in extreme want, having owed almost his sole subsistence to the patronage or charity of the Earl of Dorset. His poetry is multifarious; but consists chiefly of pieces upon occasional subjects, written to supply the immediate wants of the author. The Psalms, of which he executed a translation, in conjunction with Dr Brady, are still used in the church of England, although, in the opinion of many persons, they are inferior to the old version.[349]
The following continuation of "Absalom and Achitophel," owes all its spirit to the touches and additions of the author of the first part. Those lines, to the number of two hundred, beginning,
Next these a troop of busy spirits press;
and concluding,
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee,
are entirely composed by Dryden, and contain some of the most masterly strokes of his pen. The portraits of Doeg and Og, under which names he stigmatized his personal antagonists, Settle and Shadwell, are executed with a strength of satirical colouring, unmatched in the English language. When we consider that Dryden had already, and very lately, made Shadwell the subject of an entire independent satire, it seems wonderful, with what ease he has executed a separate, and even more striking, caricature of his adversary, without repeating an idea or expression which he had used in "Mac Flecnoe." This is, indeed, partly owing to the dexterous division of his subject, as well as to the rich fertility of his vein of satire. For, after apparently exhausting upon his enemy all the opprobrium and contempt with which a literary character could be loaded, he seized this second occasion to brand and blacken his political and moral principles, and to exaggerate his former charge of dulness, by combining it with those of sedition, profaneness, and immorality. The characters of Ben Jochanan, Judas, Phaleg, &c. are all drawn with the same spirit and vivacity; and, on the whole, these lines are equal to any of the kind which our author ever wrote.
Had Dryden limited his assistance to furnishing this fragment, he would rather have injured than served his coadjutor, since it would have shone like a lamp in a dungeon, only to show the dreary waste in which it was inclosed. To prevent Tate from suffering too much by comparison, Dryden has obviously contributed much to the poem at large. Still, though Tate's lines have doubtless been weeded of much that would at once have ascertained their origin, our author's own couplet might have been addressed to Nahum on the assistance lent him. Dryden's spirit is
Much of the character of Corah, for example, is unquestionably Dryden's; so probably is that of Arod, and the verses generally descriptive of the Green-ribbon Club, which precede it. Such pungent satire is easily distinguished from the smooth insipid flow of other parts in which Dryden's corrections probably left nothing for censure, and which fate was unable to qualify with any thing entitled to praise. The character of Michal, of Dryden as Asaph, and some of the encomiastic passages, seem to show the extent of Tate's powers, when unsupported by the vivifying assistance of his powerful auxiliary. They are just decently versified, but flat, common-place, and uninteresting.
The second part of "Absalom and Achitophel" shared the fate of most continuations, and did not attain the popularity of the original. This was not entirely owing to the general inferiority of the poetry; for there was enough of personal satire, and that immediately flowing from the keen pen of Dryden, to secure the attention both of friends and foes; but the parallel between the heroes of Scripture and the characters of the day, however striking at first, did not bear to be too long protracted. When the original comparison was made, its aptness at once pleased the imagination, and arrested the attention; but when prolonged in a second part, readers began to see there was little wit in continuing to draw out the allusion, till it consisted in nothing more than the invention of a Jewish name for a British author or statesman; the attempt at finding prototypes in Scripture for every modern character being necessarily abandoned. Besides, those who took it upon them to answer Dryden, had in general made use of the vehicle of satire which he had invented; and as, in the eyes of the public, the theme became stale and tarnished by repetition, his antagonists did him that injury by their stupidity, which their wit was unequal to accomplish. Add to all this, that whole lines, and even longer passages, not to mention images and sentiments, are by Tate, in his poverty of ideas, transferred from the first part of the satire to the second;[350] and we must allow, that the latter is deficient in the captivating grace of novelty.
The second part of "Absalom and Achitophel" appeared about November 10th, 1682, in folio. Tonson is the publisher.