The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Works of John Dryden, Volume 9, by Walter Scott.

[313] Shaftesbury.

[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.

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

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

[317] A committee man.

[318] Sir Denzil Hollis. Luk's Annus Mirabilis.—(His Grace mistakes; it is Sir Frescheville Hollis.)

[319] See his poem on Cromwell.

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[326] Examen, p. 223.

[327] Ibid. p. 254.

[328] Ibid. p. 225.

[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."

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[334] Ibid, p. 113.

[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.

[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."

[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.

[338] The Duke of Ormond's eldest son.—See next note.

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

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

[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."

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

[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.

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

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

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

[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.

[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.

[349] The ridicule attached to the translation by Sternhold and Hopkins is proverbial; yet there is at least little pretension in that despised version, and it gives us, in a homely old-fashioned metre and diction, the sense of the Hebrew authors. But, in Tate and Brady, there is a vain attempt to grace the inspired songs with the incongruous ornaments of modern taste. On the whole, it is perhaps impossible to transfuse the beauties of oriental poetry into a metrical translation. It is remarkable, that, in this very poem, Dryden uses these translations to express nearly the lowest of all poetry. He calls the Whig poets,

Poor slaves, in metre dull and addle-pated,

Who rhyme below even David's psalms translated.

This was an odd prophetic denunciation, concerning what was doomed to be the principal work of his assistant. Tate and Brady, however, did not undertake their task till after the Revolution.

[350] Part of Achitophel's speech to Absalom, beginning,

The crown's true heir, a prince severe and wise,

is copied verbatim from the first part; and whole lines in many other places.

[351] First edit. Goodness was e'en.

[352] First edit. Flatterie's.

[353] Catholics. Note I.

[354] Titus Oates. See note II.

[355] The queen, accused by Oates of being engaged in the conspiracy against the king's life. See note XXXI. on Part I.

[356] The great plague.

[357] The Dutch wars.

[358] The fire of London.

[359] See note II. as above.

[360] Note III.

[361] Note IV.

[362] Alluding to the Duke of Monmouth's return from Holland without the king's license. See Vol. viii. p. 7.

[363] Note V.

[364] The Earl of Shaftesbury was at the head of the Cabal, which advised the measures of repealing the test, of shutting the Exchequer, of breaking the triple alliance and uniting with France, to the destruction of Holland. See the Earl of Ossory's spirited speech against him, p. 297.

[365] Parliaments.

[366] See the introduction to the "Medal" for Shaftesbury's proposed Association.

[367] Sir Robert Clayton. See note VI.

[368] Sir Thomas Player, chamberlain of London. See note VII.

[369] Note VIII.

[370] What follows is entirely written by Dryden, down to the conclusion of the character of Og.

[371] Robert Ferguson. See note IX.

[372] Scotland.

[373] Forbes. See note X.

[374] Note XI.

[375] Julian the Apostate.

[376] Burnet. See note XII.

[377] Pordage. See note XIII.

[378] Hall. See note XIV.

[379] Settle. See note XV.

[380] In Settle's poem, he calls the Duke of York Absalom. For his apology, see note XV.

[381] There is a ballad on this loathsome story among the Rump Songs.

[382] Settle gave his poem, in answer to Dryden, the title of "Absalom Senior, or Absalom and Achitophel transprosed." And the first verse runs thus:

In gloomy times, when priestcraft bore the sway.

And made heaven's gate a lock to their own key.

[383] Shadwell, See note XVI.

[384] Note XVII.

[385] Sir William Waller. See Note XVIII.

[386] Member of Parliament.

[389] Dutch wars.

[392] Lord Dartmouth. See Note XXIII.