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 11. has been often noticed, particularly in the notes on "The Duke of Guise," vol. vii. 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 risk 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. Everything 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 judgment 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 Not 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," * as the reader will perceive from the extracts in the note. 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. 206.) "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 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 inquire 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 grievances (which was a political lie), 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 He made the justice-seat a common mart; MALCHUS (OATES). Malchus, a puny Levite, void of sense And grace, but stuff'd with noise and impudence, Those, whom his double heart, and forked tongue, NABOTH (STAFford). Naboth, among the tribes, the foremost place, He was his neighbours' safeguard, and their peace : |