No More Learning

[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.

PART II.

_Si quis tamen hæc quoque, si quis
Captus amore leget. _----




ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

PART SECOND.


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

---- ----so transfused, as oil and waters flow;
His always floats above, thine sinks below.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 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. ]

[Footnote 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. ]




ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

PART SECOND.


Since men, like beasts, each other's prey were made,
Since trade began, and priesthood grew a trade,
Since realms were formed, none, sure, so curst as those,
That madly their own happiness oppose;
There heaven itself, and god-like kings, in vain
Shower down the manna of a gentle reign;
While pampered crowds to mad sedition run,
And monarchs by indulgence are undone.
Thus David's clemency was[351] fatal grown,
While wealthy faction awed the wanting throne:
For now their sovereign's orders to contemn,
Was held the charter of Jerusalem;
His rights to invade, his tributes to refuse,
A privilege peculiar to the Jews;
As if from heavenly call this licence fell,
And Jacob's seed were chosen to rebel!
Achitophel, with triumph, sees his crimes
Thus suited to the madness of the times;
And Absalom, to make his hopes succeed,
Of flattering[352] charms no longer stands in need;
While fond of change, though ne'er so dearly bought,
Our tribes outstrip the youth's ambitious thought;
His swiftest hopes with swifter homage meet,
And crowd their servile necks beneath his feet.
Thus to his aid while pressing tides repair,
He mounts, and spreads his streamers in the air.
The charms of empire might his youth mislead,
But what can our besotted Israel plead?
Swayed by a monarch, whose serene command
Seems half the blessing of our promised land;
Whose only grievance is excess of ease,
Freedom our pain, and plenty our disease!
Yet as all folly would lay claim to sense,
And wickedness ne'er wanted a pretence,
With arguments they'd make their treason good,
And righteous David's self with slanders load:
That arts of foreign sway he did affect,
And guilty Jebusites[353] from law protect,
Whose very chiefs, convict, were never freed,
Nay we have seen their sacrifices bleed!
Accuser's infamy is urged in vain,
While in the bounds of sense they did contain;
But soon they launcht into the unfathomed tide,
And in the depths they knew disdained to ride;
For probable discoveries to dispense,
Was thought below a pensioned evidence;
Mere truth was dull, nor suited with the port
Of pampered Corah,[354] when advanced to court.
No less than wonders now they will impose,
And projects void of grace or sense disclose.
Such was the charge on pious Michal[355] brought;
Michal, that ne'er was cruel even in thought;
The best of queens, and most obedient wife,
Impeached of curst designs on David's life!
His life, the theme of her eternal prayer,
'Tis scarce so much his guardian angel's care.
Not summer morns such mildness can disclose,
The Hermon lily, nor the Sharon rose.
Neglecting each vain pomp of majesty,
Transported Michal feeds her thoughts on high.
She lives with angels, and, as angels do,
Quits heaven sometimes to bless the world below;
Where, cherished by her bounteous plenteous spring,
Reviving widows smile, and orphans sing.
Oh! when rebellious Israel's crimes at height,
Are threatened with her Lord's approaching fate,
The piety of Michal then remain
In heaven's remembrance, and prolong his reign!
Less desolation did the pest pursue,
That from Dan's limits to Beersheba slew;[356]
Less fatal the repeated wars of Tyre,[357]
And less Jerusalem's avenging fire. [358]
With gentler terror these our state o'er-ran,
Than since our evidencing days began!
On every cheek a pale confusion sat,
Continued fear beyond the worst of fate!
Trust was no more, art, science, useless made,
All occupations lost but Corah's trade.
Meanwhile a guard on modest Corah wait,
If not for safety, needful yet for state. [359]
Well might he deem each peer and prince his slave,
And lord it o'er the tribes which he could save:
Even vice in him was virtue--what sad fate,
But for his honesty, had seized our state?
And with what tyranny had we been curst,
Had Corah never proved a villain first?
To have told his knowledge of the intrigue in gross,
Had been, alas, to our deponent's loss:[360]
The travelled Levite had the experience got,
To husband well, and make the best of's plot;
And therefore, like an evidence of skill,
With wise reserves secured his pension still;
Nor quite of future power himself bereft,
But limbos large for unbelievers left,
And now his writ such reverence had got,
'Twas worse than plotting to suspect his plot:
Some were so well convinced, they made no doubt
Themselves to help the foundered swearers out;
Some had their sense imposed on by their fear,
But more for interest sake believe and swear:
Even to that height with some the frenzy grew,
They raged to find their danger not prove true.
Yet, than all these a viler crew remain,
Who with Achitophel the cry maintain;
Not urged by fear, nor through misguided sense,
(Blind zeal and starving need had some pretence,)
But for the good old cause, that did excite
The original rebel's wiles,--revenge, and spite.
These raise the plot, to have the scandal thrown
Upon the bright successor of the crown,
Whose virtue with such wrongs they had pursued,
As seemed all hope of pardon to exclude.
Thus, while on private ends their zeal is built,
The cheated crowd applaud and share their guilt.
Such practices as these, too gross to lie
Long unobserved by each discerning eye,
The more judicious Israelites unspelled,
Though still the charm the giddy rabble held;
Even Absalom, amidst the dazzling beams
Of empire, and ambition's flattering dreams,
Perceives the plot, too foul to be excused,
To aid designs, no less pernicious, used;[361]
And, filial sense yet striving in his breast,
Thus to Achitophel his doubts exprest.
Why are my thoughts upon a crown employed,
Which, once obtained, can be but half enjoyed?
Not so when virtue did my arms require,
And to my father's wars I flew entire.
My regal power how will my foes resent,
When I myself have scarce my own consent?
Give me a son's unblemished truth again,
Or quench the sparks of duty that remain.
How slight to force a throne that legions guard,
The task to me; to prove unjust, how hard!
And if the imagined guilt thus wound my thought,
What will it, when the tragic scene is wrought?
Dire war must first be conjured from below,
The realm we'd rule we first must overthrow;
And when the civil furies are on wing, }
That blind and undistinguished slaughters fling, }
Who knows what impious chance may reach the king? }
Oh! rather let me perish in the strife,
Than have my crown the price of David's life!
Or, if the tempest of the war he stand,
In peace, some vile officious villain's hand
His soul's anointed temple may invade,
Or, prest by clamorous crowds, myself be made
His murtherer; rebellious crowds, whose guilt
Shall dread his vengeance till his blood be spilt;
Which if my filial tenderness oppose,
Since to the empire by their arms I rose,
Those very arms on me shall be employed,
A new usurper crowned, and I destroyed:
The same pretence of public good will hold, }
And new Achitophels be found as bold }
To urge the needful change,--perhaps the old. }
He said. The statesman with a smile replies,
A smile that did his rising spleen disguise:--
My thoughts presumed our labours at an end,
And are we still with conscience to contend?
Whose want in kings as needful is allowed,
As 'tis for them to find it in the crowd.
Far in the doubtful passage you are gone,
And only can be safe by pressing on.
The crown's true heir, a prince severe and wise,
Has viewed your motions long with jealous eyes;
Your person's charms, your more prevailing arts,
And marked your progress in the people's hearts.
Whose patience is the effect of stinted power,
But treasures vengeance for the fatal hour;
And if remote the peril he can bring,
Your present danger's greater from the king.
Let not a parent's name deceive your sense,
Nor trust the father in a jealous prince!
Your trivial faults if he could so resent,
To doom you little less than banishment.
What rage must your presumption since inspire?
Against his orders your return from Tyre;[362]
Nor only so, but with a pomp more high,
And open court of popularity,
The factious tribes--And this reproof from thee?
The prince replies,--O statesman's winding skill!
They first condemn, that first advised the ill. --
Illustrious youth, returned Achitophel,
Misconstrue not the words that mean you well.
The course you steer I worthy blame conclude,
But 'tis because you leave it unpursued.
A monarch's crown with fate surrounded lies;
Who reach, lay hold on death that miss the prize.
Did you for this expose yourself to shew,
And to the crowd bow popularly low;
For this your glorious progress next ordain,
With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train;
With fame before you like the morning star,
And shouts of joy saluting from afar?
Oh from the heights you've reached but take a view,
Scarce leading Lucifer could fall like you!
And must I here my shipwrecked arts bemoan?
Have I for this so oft made Israel groan?
Your single interest with the nation weighed,
And turned the scale where your desires were laid.
Even when at helm a course so dangerous moved
To land your hopes, as my removal proved. [363]
I not dispute, the royal youth replies,
The known perfection of your policies,
Nor in Achitophel yet grudge or blame
The privilege that statesmen ever claim;
Who private interest never yet pursued,
But still pretended 'twas for others' good:
What politician yet e'er 'scaped his fate,
Who saving his own neck not saved the state?
From hence on every humourous wind that veered,
With shifted sails a several course you steered.
What from a sway did David e'er pursue,
That seemed like absolute, but sprung from you?
Who at your instance quashed each penal law,
That kept dissenting factious Jews in awe;
And who suspends fixt law's, may abrogate,
That done, form new, and so enslave the state,[364]
Even property, whose champion now you stand,
And seem for this the idol of the land,
Did ne'er sustain such violence before,
As when your counsel shut the royal store;
Advice, that ruin to whole tribes procured,
But secret kept till your own banks secured.
Recount with this the triple covenant broke,
And Israel fitted for a foreign yoke;
Nor here your counsels fatal progress staid,
But sent our levied powers to Pharaoh's aid.
Hence Tyre and Israel, low in ruins laid,
And Egypt, once their scorn, their common terror made.
Even yet of such a season can we dream,
When royal rights you made your darling theme;
For power unlimited could reasons draw,
And place prerogative above the law;
Which on your fall from office grew unjust,
The laws made king, the king a slave in trust;
Whom with state-craft, to interest only true,
You now accuse of ills contrived by you.
To this hell's agent:--Royal youth, fix here;
Let interest be the star by which you steer.
Hence, to repose your trust in me was wise,
Whose interest most in your advancement lies;
A tie so firm as always will avail,
When friendship, nature, and religion fail.
On our's the safety of the crowd depends,
Secure the crowd, and we obtain our ends;
Whom I will cause so far our guilt to share,
Till they are made our champions by their fear.
What opposition can your rival bring,
While sanhedrims[365] are jealous of the king?
His strength as yet in David's friendship lies,
And what can David's self without supplies?
Who with exclusive bills must now dispense,
Debar the heir, or starve in his defence;
Conditions which our elders ne'er will quit,
And David's justice never can admit.
Or, forced by wants his brother to betray,
To your ambition next he clears the way;
For if succession once to nought they bring,
Their next advance removes the present king:
Persisting else his senates to dissolve,
In equal hazard shall his reign involve.
Our tribes, whom Pharaoh's power so much alarms,
Shall rise without their prince to oppose his arms.
Nor boots it on what cause at first they join;
Their troops, once up, are tools for our design.
At least such subtle covenants shall be made,
Till peace itself is war in masquerade.
Associations of mysterious sense,
Against, but seeming for, the king's defence,[366]
Even on their courts of justice fetters draw,
And from our agents muzzle up their law.
By which a conquest if we fail to make,
'Tis a drawn game at worst, and we secure our stake.
He said, and for the dire success depends
On various sects, by common guilt made friends;
Whose heads, though ne'er so differing in their creed,
I' th' point of treason yet were well agreed.
Amongst these, extorting Ishban[367] first appears,
Pursued by a meagre troop of bankrupt heirs.
Blest times, when Ishban, he whose occupation
So long has been to cheat, reforms the nation!
Ishban, of conscience suited to his trade,
As good a saint as usurer ever made.
Yet Mammon has not so engrost him quite,
But Belial lays as large a claim of spite;
Who, for those pardons from his prince he draws,
Returns reproaches, and cries up the cause.
That year in which the city he did sway,
He left rebellion in a hopeful way;
Yet his ambition once was found so bold,
To offer talents of extorted gold,
(Could David's wants have so been bribed,) to shame
And scandalize our peerage with his name;
For which, his dear sedition he'd forswear,
And e'en turn loyal, to be made a peer.
Next him, let railing Rabsheka have[368] place,
So full of zeal he has no need of grace;
A saint that can both flesh and spirit use,
Alike haunt conventicles and the stews;
Of whom the question difficult appears,
If most i' th' preacher's or the bawd's arrears.
What caution could appear too much in him,
That keeps the treasure of Jerusalem!
Let David's brother but approach the town,
Double our guards, he cries, we are undone. [369]
Protesting that he dares not sleep in's bed,
Lest he should rise next morn without his head.

[370]"Next these, a troop of busy spirits press,
Of little fortunes, and of conscience less;
With them the tribe, whose luxury had drained
Their banks, in former sequestrations gained;
Who rich and great by past rebellions grew,
And long to fish the troubled streams anew.
Some, future hopes, some, present payment draws,
To sell their conscience and espouse the cause.
Such stipends those vile hirelings best befit,
Priests without grace, and poets without wit.
Shall that false Hebronite escape our curse,
Judas,[371] that keeps the rebels' pension-purse;
Judas, that pays the treason-writer's fee,
Judas, that well deserves his name-sake's tree;
Who at Jerusalem's own gates erects
His college for a nursery of sects;
Young prophets with an early care secures,
And with the dung of his own arts manures!
What have the men of Hebron[372] here to do?
What part in Israel's promised land have you?
Here Phaleg,[373] the lay-Hebronite, is come,
'Cause like the rest he could not live at home;
Who from his own possessions could not drain
An omer even of Hebronitish grain,
Here struts it like a patriot, and talks high
Of injured subjects, altered property;
An emblem of that buzzing insect just,
That mounts the wheel, and thinks she raises dust.
Can dry bones live? or skeletons produce
The vital warmth of cuckoldizing juice?
Slim Phaleg could, and, at the table fed,
Returned the grateful product to the bed.
A waiting-man to travelling nobles chose,
He his own laws would saucily impose,
'Till bastinadoed back again he went,
To learn those manners he to teach was sent.
Chastized he ought to have retreated home,
But he reads politics to Absalom;
For never Hebronite, though kicked and scorned,
To his own country willingly returned.
--But, leaving famished Phaleg to be fed,
And to talk treason for his daily bread,
Let Hebron, nay let hell, produce a man
So made for mischief as Ben-Jochanan;[374]
A Jew of humble parentage was he,
By trade a Levite, though of low degree;
His pride no higher than the desk aspired,
But for the drudgery of priests was hired
To read and pray in linen ephod brave,
And pick up single shekels from the grave.
Married at last, and finding charge come faster,
He could not live by God, but changed his master;
Inspired by want, was made a factious tool,
They got a villain, and we lost a fool.
Still violent, whatever cause he took,
But most against the party he forsook:
For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halves,
Are bound in conscience to be double knaves.
So this prose-prophet took most monstrous pains,
To let his masters see he earned his gains.
But as the devil owes all his imps a shame,
He chose the apostate[375] for his proper theme;
With little pains he made the picture true,
And from reflexion took the rogue he drew.
A wondrous work, to prove the Jewish nation
In every age a murmuring generation;
To trace them from their infancy of sinning,
And shew them factious from their first beginning.
To prove they could rebel, and rail, and mock,
Much to the credit of the chosen flock;
A strong authority which must convince,
That saints own no allegiance to their prince;
As 'tis a leading-card to make a whore,
To prove her mother had turned up before.
But, tell me, did the drunken patriarch bless
The son that shewed his father's nakedness?
Such thanks the present church thy pen will give,
Which proves rebellion was so primitive.
Must ancient failings be examples made?
Then murtherers from Cain may learn their trade.
As thou the heathen and the saint hast drawn,
Methinks the apostate was the better man;
And thy hot father, waving my respect,
Not of a mother-church, but of a sect.
And such he needs must be of thy inditing;
This comes of drinking asses milk and writing.
If Balack[376] should be called to leave his place,
As profit is the loudest call of grace,
His temple, dispossessed of one, would be
Replenished with seven devils more by thee.
Levi, thou art a load; I'll lay thee down,
And shew rebellion bare, without a gown;
Poor slaves in metre, dull and addle-pated,
Who rhime below even David's psalms translated:
Some in my speedy pace I must out-run,
As lame Mephibosheth the wizard's son;[377]
To make quick way I'll leap o'er heavy blocks,
Shun rotten Uzza[378] as I would the pox;
And hasten Og and Doeg to rehearse,
Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse;
Who by my muse to all succeeding times
Shall live, in spite of their own doggrel rhimes.
Doeg,[379] though without knowing how or why,
Made still a blundering kind of melody;
Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin,
Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in;
Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
And, in one word, heroically mad.
He was too warm on picking-work to dwell, }
But fagotted his notions as they fell, }
And, if they rhimed and rattled, all was well. }
Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire,
For still there goes some thinking to ill-nature;
He needs no more than birds and beasts to think,
All his occasions are to eat and drink.
If he call rogue and rascal from a garret,
He means you no more mischief than a parrot;
The words for friend and foe alike were made,
To fetter them in verse is all his trade.
For almonds he'll cry whore to his own mother,
And call young Absalom king David's brother. [380]
Let him be gallows-free by my consent,
And nothing suffer since he nothing meant;
Hanging supposes human soul and reason,
This animal's below committing treason;
Shall he be hanged who never could rebel?
That's a preferment for Achitophel.
The woman, that committed buggary,
Was rightly sentenced by the law to die;
But 'twas hard fate that to the gallows led
The dog, that never heard the statute read. [381]
Railing in other men may be a crime,
But ought to pass for mere instinct in him;
Instinct he follows and no farther knows,
For, to write verse with him is to _transprose_;[382]
'Twere pity treason at his door to lay,
_Who makes heaven's gate a lock to its own key. _
Let him rail on, let his invective muse
Have four-and-twenty letters to abuse,
Which if he jumbles to one line of sense,
Indict him of a capital offence.
In fire-works give him leave to vent his spite,
Those are the only serpents he can write;
The height of his ambition is, we know,
But to be master of a puppet-show;
On that one stage his works may yet appear,
And a month's harvest keeps him all the year.
Now stop your noses, readers, all and some, }
For here's a tun of midnight-work to come, }[383]
Og from a treason-tavern rolling home. }
Round as a globe, and liquored every chink,
Goodly and great he sails behind his link.
With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
For every inch, that is not fool, is rogue;
A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had spewed to make the batter.
When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God, but God before curst him;
And if man could have reason, none has more,
That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.
With wealth he was not trusted, for heaven knew
What 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew;
To what would he on quail and pheasant swell,
That even on tripe and carrion could rebel?
But though heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking,
He never was a poet of God's making;
The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing--be thou dull;
Drink, swear, and roar; forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk; do any thing but write.
Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men,
A strong nativity--but for the pen;
Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
Still thou mayst live, avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,
For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane;
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.
Why should thy metre good king David blast?
A psalm of his will surely be thy last.
Darest thou presume in verse to meet thy foes,
Thou, whom the penny pamphlet foiled in prose?
Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made,
O'er tops thy talent in thy very trade;
Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so coarse,
A poet is, though he's the poet's horse.
A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
For writing treason, and for writing dull;
To die for faction is a common evil,
But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
Hadst thou the glories of thy king exprest,
Thy praises had been satire at the best;
But thou in clumsy verse, unlickt, unpointed,
Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed.
I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?
But of king David's foes, be this the doom,
May all be like the young man Absalom;
And, for my foes, may this their blessing be,
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee! "

Achitophel each rank, degree and age,
For various ends neglects not to engage;
The wise and rich, for purse and counsel brought,
The fools and beggars, for their number sought;
Who yet not only on the town depends,
For even in court the faction had its friends.
These thought the places they possest too small,
And in their hearts wished court and king to fall;
Whose names the muse, disdaining, holds i' th' dark,
Thrust in the villain herd without a mark;
With parasites and libel-spawning imps,
Intriguing fops, dull jesters, and worse pimps.
Disdain the rascal rabble to pursue,
Their set cabals are yet a viler crew.
See where involved in common smoke they sit,
Some for our mirth, some for our satire fit;
These gloomy, thoughtful, and on mischief bent,
While those for mere good fellowship frequent
The appointed club, can let sedition pass,
Sense, nonsense, any thing to employ the glass;[384]
And who believe, in their dull honest hearts,
The rest talk treason but to shew their parts;
Who ne'er had wit or will for mischief yet,
But pleased to be reputed of a set.
But in the sacred annals of our plot,
Industrious AROD[385] never be forgot;
The labours of this midnight-magistrate
May vie with Corah's to preserve the state.
In search of arms he failed not to lay hold
On war's most powerful dangerous weapon, gold.
And last, to take from Jebusites all odds,
Their altars pillaged, stole their very gods.
Oft would he cry, when treasure he surprised,
'Tis Baalish gold in David's coin disguised.
Which to his house with richer reliques came,
While lumber idols only fed the flame;
For our wise rabble ne'er took pains to enquire,
What 'twas he burnt, so it made a rousing fire.
With which our elder was enriched no more
Than false Gehazi with the Syrian's store;
So poor, that when our chusing-tribes were met,
Even for his stinking votes he ran in debt;
For meat the wicked, and, as authors think,
The saints he choused for his electing drink;
Thus every shift and subtle method past,
And all to be no Zaken[386] at the last.
Now, raised on Tyre's sad ruins, Pharaoh's pride
Soared high, his legions threatning far and wide;
As when a battering storm engendered high,
By winds upheld, hangs hovering in the sky,
Is gazed upon by every trembling swain,
This for his vineyard fears, and that his grain,
For blooming plants, and flowers new opening; these
For lambs yeaned lately, and far-labouring bees;
To guard his stock each to the gods does call,
Uncertain where the fire-charged clouds will fall;
Even so the doubtful nations watch his arms,
With terror each expecting his alarms.
Where, Judah, where was now thy lion's roar?
Thou only couldst the captive lands restore;
But thou, with inbred broils and faction prest,
From Egypt need'st a guardian with the rest.
Thy prince from sanhedrims no trust allowed,
Too much the representers of the crowd,
Who for their own defence give no supply,
But what the crown's prerogatives must buy;[387]
As if their monarch's rights to violate
More needful were, than to preserve the state!
From present dangers they divert their care,
And all their fears are of the royal heir:
Whom now the reigning malice of his foes,
Unjudged would sentence, and ere crowned depose;
Religion the pretence, but their decree
To bar his reign, whate'er his faith shall be.
By sanhedrims and clamorous crowds thus prest,
What passions rent the righteous David's breast!
Who knows not how to oppose or to comply,
Unjust to grant, and dangerous to deny!
How near in this dark juncture Israel's fate,
Whose peace one sole expedient could create,
Which yet the extremest virtue did require,
Even of that prince whose downfal they conspire!
His absence David does with tears advise,
To appease their rage; undaunted he complies.