In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin,

Before polygamy was made a sin;

When man on many multiplied his kind,

Ere one to one was cursedly confined;

When nature prompted, and no law denied,

Promiscuous use of concubine and bride;

Then Israel's monarch[221] after heaven's own heart,

His vigorous warmth did variously impart

To wives and slaves; and, wide as his command,

Scattered his Maker's image through the land.

Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear,[222]

A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care.

Not so the rest; for several mothers bore

To god-like David several sons before.

But since like slaves his bed they did ascend,

No true succession could their seed attend.

Of all the[223] numerous progeny was none

So beautiful, so brave, as Absalon;[224]

Whether inspired by[225] by some diviner lust,

His father got him with a greater gust;

Or that his conscious destiny made way,

By manly beauty, to imperial sway.

Early in foreign fields he won renown,

With kings and states, allied to Israel's crown;

In peace the thoughts of war he could remove,

And seemed as he were only born for love.

Whate'er he did, was done with so much ease,

In him alone twas natural to please;

His motions all accompanied with grace,

And paradise was opened in his face.

With secret joy indulgent David viewed

His youthful image in his son renewed;

To all his wishes nothing he denied,

And made the charming Annabel his bride.[226]

What faults he had,--for who from faults is free?

His father could not, or he would not see.

Some warm excesses, which the law forbore,

Were construed youth that purged by boiling o'er;

And Amnon's murder, by a specious name,

Was called a just revenge for injured fame.[227]

Thus praised and loved, the noble youth remained,

While David undisturbed in Sion reigned.

But life can never be sincerely blest;

Heaven punishes the bad, and proves the best.

The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murmuring race,

As ever tried the extent and stretch of grace;

God's pampered people, whom, debauched with ease,

No king could govern, nor no God could please;

Gods they had tried of every shape and size,

That godsmiths could produce, or priests devise;

These Adam-wits, too fortunately free,

Began to dream they wanted liberty;

And when no rule, no precedent was found,

Of men, by laws less circumscribed and bound;

They led their wild desires to woods and caves,

And thought that all but savages were slaves.

They who, when Saul[228] was dead, without a blow,

Made foolish Ishbosheth[229] the crown forego;

Who banished David[230] did from Hebron[231] bring,

And with a general shout proclaimed him king;

Those very Jews, who at their very best,

Their humour more than loyalty exprest,

Now wondered why so long they had obeyed

An idol monarch, which their hands had made;

Thought they might ruin him they could create,

Or melt him to that golden calf,--a state.

But these were random bolts; no formed design,

Nor interest made the factious crowd to join:

The sober part of Israel, free from stain,

Well knew the value of a peaceful reign;

And, looking backward with a wise affright,

Saw seams of wounds dishonest to the sight;

In contemplation of whose ugly scars,

They curst the memory of civil wars.

The moderate sort of men, thus qualified,

Inclined the balance to the better side;

And David's mildness managed it so well,

The bad found no occasion to rebel.

But when to sin our biassed nature leans,

The careful devil is still at hand with means,

And providently pimps for ill desires;

The good old cause, revived, a plot requires.

Plots, true or false, are necessary things,

To raise up commonwealths, and ruin kings.

The inhabitants of old Jerusalem[232]

Were Jebusites[233]; the town so called from them;

And theirs the native right.----

But when the chosen people grew more strong,

The rightful cause at length became the wrong;

And every loss the men of Jebus bore,

They still were thought God's enemies the more.

Thus worn or[234] weakened, well or ill content,

Submit they must to David's government;

Impoverished and deprived of all command,

Their taxes doubled as they lost their land;

And, what was harder yet to flesh and blood,

Their gods disgraced, and burnt like common wood.

This set the heathen priesthood in a flame;

For priests of all religions are the same.

Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be,

Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree,

In his defence his servants are as bold,

As if he had been born of beaten gold.

The Jewish rabbins, though their enemies,

In this conclude them honest men and wise;

For 'twas their duty, all the learned think,

To espouse his cause, by whom they eat and drink.

From hence began that plot, the nation's curse,

Bad in itself, but represented worse;[235]

Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried;

With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied;

Not weighed nor winnowed by the multitude,

But swallowed in the mass, unchewed and crude.

Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies,

To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise.

Succeeding times did equal folly call,

Believing nothing, or believing all.

The Egyptian rites the Jebusites embraced,

Where gods were recommended by their taste.

Such savoury deities must needs be good,

As served at once for worship and for food.[236]

By force they could not introduce these gods,--

For ten to one in former days was odds,--

So fraud was used, the sacrificer's trade;

Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade.

Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews,

And raked for converts even the court and stews;

Which Hebrew priests the more unkindly took,

Because the fleece accompanies the flock.

Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay

By guns, invented since full many a day:

Our author swears it not; but who can know

How far the devil and Jebusites may go?[237]

This plot, which failed for want of common sense,

Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence;

For as, when raging fevers boil the blood,

The standing lake soon floats into a flood,

And every hostile humour, which before

Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er;

So several factions, from this first ferment,

Work up to foam, and threat the government.

Some by their friends, more by themselves thought wise,

Opposed the power to which they could not rise;

Some had in courts been great, and, thrown from thence,

Like fiends, were hardened in impenitence;

Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown

From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne,

Were raised in power and public office high;

Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.

Of these the false Achitophel[238] was first;

A name to all succeeding ages curst:

For close designs, and crooked counsels fit;

Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;

Restless, unfixed in principles and place;

In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;

A fiery soul, which, working out its way, }

Fretted the pigmy-body to decay, }

And o'er-informed the tenement of clay; }

A daring pilot in extremity;

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high

He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,

Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide;

Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,

Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?

Punish a body which he could not please;

Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?

And all to leave what with his toil he won,

To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son;[239]

Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;

And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.

In friendship false, implacable in hate;

Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state.

To compass this the triple bond he broke; }

The pillars of the public safety shook; }

And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke;[240] }

Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame,

Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.[241]

So easy still it proves in factious times,

With public zeal to cancel private crimes.

How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,

Where none can sin against the people's will?

Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,

Since in another's guilt they find their own?

Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;

The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.

In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin[242]

With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,

Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress;

Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.

Oh! had he been content to serve the crown,

With virtue only proper to the gown;

Or had the rankness of the soil been freed

From cockle, that oppressed the noble seed;

David for him his tuneful harp had strung,

And heaven had wanted one immortal song.

But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,

And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.

Achitophel, grown weary to possess

A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,

Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,

And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.

Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since,

He stood at bold defiance with his prince;

Held up the buckler of the people's cause

Against the crown, and skulked behind the laws.[243]

The wished occasion of the plot he takes;

Some circumstances finds, but more he makes;

By buzzing emissaries, fills the ears

Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears,

Of arbitrary counsels brought to light,

And proves the king himself a Jebusite.

Weak arguments! which yet, he knew full well,

Were strong with people easy to rebel.

For, governed by the moon, the giddy Jews

Tread the same track when she the prime renews;

And once in twenty years their scribes record,

By natural instinct they change their lord.

Achitophel still wants a chief, and none

Was found so fit as warlike Absalon.

Not that he wished his greatness to create,

For politicians neither love nor hate;

But, for he knew his title not allowed,

Would keep him still depending on the crowd;

That kingly power, thus ebbing out, might be

Drawn to the dregs of a democracy.

Him he attempts with studied arts to please,

And sheds his venom in such words as these.

Auspicious prince, at whose nativity

Some royal planet ruled the southern sky;

Thy longing country's darling and desire;

Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire;

Their second Moses, whose extended wand

Divides[244] the seas, and shews the promised land;

Whose dawning day, in every distant age,

Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage;

The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,

The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!

Thee, Saviour, thee the nation's vows confess,

And, never satisfied with seeing, bless;

Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim,

And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name.

How long wilt thou the general joy detain,

Starve and defraud the people of thy reign;

Content ingloriously to pass thy days,

Like one of virtue's fools that feed on praise;

'Till thy fresh glories, which now shine so bright,

Grow stale, and tarnish with our daily sight?

Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be

Or gathered ripe, or rot upon the tree.

Heaven has to all allotted, soon or late,

Some lucky revolution of their fate;

Whose motions if we watch and guide with skill,

(For human good depends on human will,)

Our fortune rolls as from a smooth descent,

And from the first impression takes the bent;

But, if unseized, she glides away like wind,

And leaves repenting folly far behind.

Now, now she meets you with a glorious prize,

And spreads her locks before you as she flies.

Had thus old David, from whose loins you spring,

Not dared, when fortune called him, to be king,

At Gath[245] an exile he might still remain,

And heaven's anointing oil had been in vain.

Let his successful youth your hopes engage;

But shun the example of declining age:

Behold him setting in his western skies,

The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise.

He is not now, as when, on Jordan's[246] sand, }

The joyful people thronged to see him land, }

Covering the beach and blackening all the strand; }

But, like the prince of angels, from his height

Comes tumbling downward with diminished light;

Betrayed by one poor plot to public scorn,

Our only blessing since his curst return;

Those heaps of people which one sheaf did bind,

Blown off and scattered by a puff of wind.

What strength can he to your designs oppose,

Naked of friends, and round beset with foes?

If Pharaoh's[247] doubtful succour he should use,

A foreign aid would more incense the Jews;

Proud Egypt[248] would dissembled friendship bring;

Foment the war, but not support the king:

Nor would the royal party e'er unite

With Pharaoh's arms, to assist the Jebusite;

Or, if they should, their interest soon would break,

And with such odious aid make David weak.

All sorts of men, by my successful arts

Abhorring kings, estrange their altered hearts

From David's rule; and 'tis their general cry,

Religion, commonwealth, and liberty.

If you, as champion of the public good,

Add to their arms a chief of royal blood,

What may not Israel hope, and what applause

Might such a general gain by such a cause?

Not barren praise alone, that gaudy flower

Fair only to the sight, but solid power;

And nobler is a limited command,

Given by the love of all your native land,

Than a successive title, long and dark,

Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.[249]

What cannot praise effect in mighty minds,

When flattery sooths, and when ambition blinds?

Desire of power, on earth a vicious weed,

Yet, sprung from high, is of celestial seed;

In God 'tis glory; and when men aspire,

'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire.

The ambitious youth, too covetous of fame,

Too full of angel's metal in his frame,

Unwarily was led from virtue's ways,

Made drunk with honour, and debauched with praise.

Half loath, and half consenting to the ill,--

For royal blood within him struggled still,--

He thus replied.--And what pretence have I

To take up arms for public liberty?

My father governs with unquestioned right,

The faith's defender, and mankind's delight;

Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws;

And heaven by wonders has espoused his cause.

Whom has he wronged in all his peaceful reign?

Who sues for justice to his throne in vain?

What millions has he pardoned of his foes,

Whom just revenge did to his wrath expose?

Mild, easy, humble, studious of our good,

Inclined to mercy, and averse from blood.

If mildness ill with stubborn Israel suit,

His crime is God's beloved attribute.

What could he gain his people to betray,

Or change his right for arbitrary sway?

Let haughty Pharaoh curse with such a reign

His fruitful Nile, and yoke a servile train.

If David's rule Jerusalem displease,

The dog-star heats their brains to this disease.

Why then should I, encouraging the bad,

Turn rebel, and run popularly mad?

Were he a tyrant, who by lawless might

Oppressed the Jews, and raised the Jebusite,

Well might I mourn; but nature's holy bands

Would curb my spirits, and restrain my hands:

The people might assert their liberty;

But what was right in them were crime in me.

His favour leaves me nothing to require,

Prevents my wishes, and out-runs desire.

What more can I expect while David lives?

All but his kingly diadem he gives;

And that--But there he paused; then sighing, said--

Is justly destined for a worthier head;

For, when my father from his toils shall rest,

And late augment the number of the blest,

His lawful issue shall the throne ascend,

Or the collateral line, where that shall end.

His brother, though oppressed with vulgar spite,[250]

Yet dauntless, and secure of native right,

Of every royal virtue stands possest;

Still dear to all the bravest and the best.

His courage foes, his friends his truth proclaim;

His loyalty the king, the world his fame.

His mercy even the offending crowd will find;

For sure he comes of a forgiving kind.

Why should I then repine at heaven's decree,

Which gives me no pretence to royalty?

Yet oh that fate, propitiously inclined,

Had raised my birth, or had debased my mind;

To my large soul not all her treasure lent,

And then betrayed it to a mean descent!

I find, I find my mounting spirits bold,

And David's part disdains my mother's mould.

Why am I scanted by a niggard birth?

My soul disclaims the kindred of her earth;

And, made for empire, whispers me within,

Desire of greatness is a god-like sin.

Him staggering so, when hell's dire agent found,

While fainting virtue scarce maintained her ground,

He pours fresh forces in, and thus replies:

The eternal God, supremely good and wise,

Imparts not these prodigious gifts in vain.

What wonders are reserved to bless your reign!

Against your will your arguments have shown,

Such virtue's only given to guide a throne.

Not that your father's mildness I contemn;

But manly force becomes the diadem.

'Tis true, he grants the people all they crave;

And more, perhaps, than subjects ought to have;

For lavish grants suppose a monarch tame,

And more his goodness than his wit proclaim:

But when should people strive their bonds to break,

If not when kings are negligent, or weak?

Let him give on till he can give no more,

The thrifty sanhedrim shall keep him poor;

And every shekel, which he can receive,

Shall cost a limb of his prerogative.

To ply him with new plots shall be my care,

Or plunge him deep in some expensive war;

Which when his treasure can no more supply,

He must, with the remains of kingship, buy.

His faithful friends, our jealousies and fears

Call Jebusites, and Pharaoh's pensioners;

Whom when our fury from his aid has torn,

He shall be naked left to public scorn.

The next successor, whom I fear and hate,

My arts have made obnoxious to the state;

Turned all his virtues to his overthrow,

And gained our elders to pronounce a foe.[251]

His right, for sums of necessary gold,

Shall first be pawned, and afterwards be sold;

'Till time shall ever-wanting David draw,

To pass your doubtful title into law:

If not, the people have a right supreme

To make their kings; for kings are made for them.

All empire is no more than power in trust,

Which, when resumed, can be no longer just.

Succession, for the general good designed,

In its own wrong a nation cannot bind;

If altering that the people can relieve,

Better one suffer than a nation grieve.

The Jews well know their power; ere Saul[252] they chose,

God was their king, and God they durst depose.

Urge now your piety, your filial name,

A father's right, and fear of future fame;--

The public good, that universal call,

To which even heaven submitted, answers all.

Nor let his love enchant your generous mind;

'Tis nature's trick to propagate her kind.

Our fond begetters, who would never die,

Love but themselves in their posterity.

Or let his kindness by the effects be tried,

Or let him lay his vain pretence aside.

God said, he loved your father; could he bring

A better proof, than to anoint him king?

It surely shewed he loved the shepherd well,

Who gave so fair a flock as Israel.

Would David have you thought his darling son?

What means he then to alienate the crown?

The name of godly he may blush to bear;

Is't[253] after God's own heart to cheat his heir?

He to his brother gives supreme command,

To you a legacy of barren land;

Perhaps the old harp, on which he thrums his lays,

Or some dull Hebrew ballad in your praise.

Then the next heir, a prince severe and wise,

Already looks on you with jealous eyes;[254]

Sees through the thin disguises of your arts,

And marks your progress in the people's hearts;

Though now his mighty soul its grief contains,

He meditates revenge who least complains;

And like a lion, slumbering in the way,

Or sleep dissembling, while he waits his prey,

His fearless foes within his distance draws,

Constrains his roaring, and contracts his paws;

'Till, at the last, his time for fury found,

He shoots with sudden vengeance from the ground;

The prostrate vulgar passes o'er and spares,

But with a lordly rage his hunters tears.

Your case no tame expedients will afford;

Resolve on death, or conquest by the sword,

Which for no less a stake than life you draw;

And self defence is nature's eldest law.

Leave the warm people no considering time;

For then rebellion may be thought a crime.

Avail[255] yourself of what occasion gives,

But try your title while your father lives;

And that your arms may have a fair pretence,

Proclaim you take them in the kings defence;

Whose sacred life each minute would expose

To plots, from seeming friends, and secret foes.

And who can sound the depth of David's soul?[256]

Perhaps his fear his kindness may controul.

He fears his brother, though he loves his son,

For plighted vows too late to be undone.

If so, by force he wishes to be gained;

Like women's lechery to seem constrained.

Doubt not; but, when he most affects the frown,

Commit a pleasing rape upon the crown.

Secure his person to secure your cause;

They, who possess the prince, possess the laws.

He said, and this advice, above the rest,

With Absalom's mild nature suited best;

Unblamed of life, ambition set aside,

Not stained with cruelty, not puft with pride.

How happy had he been, if destiny

Had higher placed his birth, or not so high!

His kingly virtues might have claimed a throne,

And blest all other countries but his own;

But charming greatness since so few refuse,

'Tis juster to lament him than accuse.

Strong were his hopes a rival to remove,

With blandishments to gain the public love;

To head the faction while their zeal was hot,

And popularly prosecute the plot.

To further this, Achitophel unites

The malcontents of all the Israelites;

Whose differing parties he could wisely join,

For several ends, to serve the same design.

The best,--and of the princes some were such,

Who thought the power of monarchy too much;

Mistaken men, and patriots in their hearts;

Not wicked, but seduced by impious arts.

By these the springs of property were bent,

And wound so high, they cracked the government.

The next for interest sought to embroil the state,

To sell their duty at a dearer rate,

And make their Jewish markets of the throne;

Pretending public good, to serve their own.

Others thought kings an useless heavy load,

Who cost too much, and did too little good.

These were for laying honest David by,

On principles of pure good husbandry.[257]

With them joined all the haranguers of the throng;

That thought to get preferment by the tongue.

Who follow next a double danger bring,

Not only hating David, but the king;

The Solymæan rout; well versed, of old,

In godly faction, and in treason bold;

Cowring and quaking at a conqueror's sword,

But lofty to a lawful prince restored;

Saw with disdain an Ethnic plot begun,

And scorned by Jebusites to be outdone.

Hot Levites[258] headed these; who, pulled before

From the ark, which in the judges' days they bore,[259]

Resumed their cant, and, with a zealous cry,

Pursued their old beloved theocracy;

Where sanhedrim and priest enslaved the nation,

And justified their spoils by inspiration.

For who so fit to reign as Aaron's race,

If once dominion they could found in grace?

These led the pack; though not of surest scent,

Yet deepest mouthed against the government.

A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed,

Of the true old enthusiastic breed;

'Gainst form and order they their power employ,

Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.

But far more numerous was the herd of such,

Who think too little, and who talk too much.

These out of mere instinct, they knew not why,

Adored their fathers' God, and property;

And, by the same blind benefit of fate,

The devil and the Jebusite did hate;

Born to be saved, even in their own despite.

Because they could not help believing right.

Such were the tools; but a whole Hydra more

Remains of sprouting heads too long to score.

Some of their chiefs were princes of the land:

In the first rank of these did Zimri[260] stand;

A man so various, that he seemed to be

Not one, but all mankind's epitome;

Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,

Was every thing by starts, and nothing long;

But, in the course of one revolving moon,

Was chemist, fidler, statesman, and buffoon;

Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,

Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.

Blest madman, who could every hour employ,

With something new to wish, or to enjoy!

Railing and praising were his usual themes;

And both, to shew his judgment, in extremes;

So over violent, or over civil,

That every man with him was God or devil.

In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;

Nothing went unrewarded but desert.

Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late;

He had his jest, and they had his estate.

He laughed himself from court; then sought relief

By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;

For, spite of him, the weight of business fell

On Absalom, and wise Achitophel;

Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,

He left not faction, but of that was left.

Titles and names 'twere tedious to rehearse

Of lords, below the dignity of verse.

Wits, warriors, commonwealths-men, were the best;

Kind husbands, and mere nobles, all the rest.

And therefore, in the name of dulness, be

The well-hung Balaam and cold Caleb free;

And canting Nadab let oblivion damn,[261]

Who made new porridge for the paschal lamb.

Let friendship's holy band some names assure;

Some their own worth, and some let scorn secure.

Nor shall the rascal rabble here have place,

Whom kings no titles gave, and God no grace:

Not bull-faced Jonas,[262] who could statutes draw

To mean rebellion, and make treason law.

But he, though bad, is followed by a worse,

The wretch, who heaven's anointed dared to curse;

Shimei,[263]--whose youth did early promise bring

Of zeal to God, and hatred to his king,--

Did wisely from expensive sins refrain,

And never broke the sabbath but for gain:

Nor ever was he known an oath to vent,

Or curse, unless against a government.

Thus heaping wealth, by the most ready way

Among the jews, which was--to cheat and pray;

The city, to reward his pious hate

Against his master, chose him magistrate.

His hand a vase of justice did uphold;

His neck was loaded with a chain of gold.

During his office treason was no crime;

The sons of Belial had a glorious time:

For Shimei, though not prodigal of pelf,

Yet loved his wicked neighbour as himself.

When two or three were gathered to declaim }

Against the monarch of Jerusalem, }

Shimei was always in the midst of them: }

And, if they cursed the king when he was by,

Would rather curse than break good company.

If any durst his factious friends accuse,

He packed a jury of dissenting jews;[264]

Whose fellow-feeling in the Godly cause

Would free the suffering saint from human laws:

For laws are only made to punish those

Who serve the king, and to protect his foes.

If any leisure time he had from power,--

Because 'tis sin to misemploy an hour,--

His business was, by writing, to persuade,

That kings were useless, and a clog to trade:[265]

And, that his noble style he might refine,

No Rechabite more shunned the fumes of wine.

Chaste were his cellars, and his shrieval board

The grossness of a city-feast abhorred.

His cooks, with long disuse, their trade forgot;

Cool was his kitchen, though his brains were hot.

Such frugal virtue malice may accuse;

But sure 'twas necessary to the Jews:

For towns, once burnt, such magistrates require,

As dare not tempt God's providence by fire.

With spiritual food he fed his servants well,

But free from flesh, that made the Jews rebel:

And Moses' laws he held in more account,

For forty days of fasting in the mount.

To speak the rest, (who better are forgot,)

Would tire a well-breathed witness of the plot.

Yet Corah,[266] thou shalt from oblivion pass;

Erect thyself, thou monumental brass,

High as the serpent of thy metal made,

While nations stand secure beneath thy shade!

What though his birth were base, yet comets rise

From earthy vapours, ere they shine in skies.

Prodigious actions may as well be done

By weaver's issue, as by prince's son.

This arch-attestor for the public good

By that one deed ennobles all his blood.

Who ever asked the witnesses high race,

Whose oath with martyrdom did Stephen grace?

Ours was a Levite, and, as times went then,

His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen.

Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud:[267]

Sure signs he neither choleric was, nor proud:

His long chin proved his wit; his saint-like grace

A church vermillion, and a Moses' face.

His memory, miraculously great,

Could plots, exceeding man's belief, repeat;

Which therefore cannot be accounted lies,

For human wit could never such devise.

Some future truths are mingled in his book;

But where the witness failed the prophet spoke:

Some things like visionary flight appear;

The spirit caught him up,--the Lord knows where,

And gave him his rabinical degree,

Unknown to foreign university.[268]

His judgment yet his memory did excel;

Which pieced his wonderous evidence so well,

And suited to the temper of the times,

Then groaning under Jebusitic crimes.

Let Israel's foes suspect his heavenly call,

And rashly judge his writ apocryphal;

Our laws for such affronts have forfeits made:

He takes his life, who takes away his trade.

Were I myself in witness Corah's place,

The wretch, who did me such a dire disgrace,

Should whet my memory, though once forgot,

To make him an appendix of my plot.

His zeal to heaven made him his prince despise,

And load his person with indignities.

But zeal peculiar privilege affords,

Indulging latitude to deeds and words:

And Corah might for Agag's[269] murder call,

In terms as coarse as Samuel used to Saul.

What others in his evidence did join,

The best that could be had for love or coin,

In Corah's own predicament will fall:

For witness is a common name to all.

Surrounded thus with friends of every sort,

Deluded Absalom forsakes the court;

Impatient of high hopes, urged with renown,

And fired with near possession of a crown.

The admiring crowd are dazzled with surprise,

And on his goodly person feed their eyes.

His joys concealed,[270] he sets himself to show;

On each side bowing popularly low:

His looks, his gestures, and his words he frames,

And with familiar ease repeats their names.

Thus formed by nature, furnished out with arts,

He glides unfelt into their secret hearts.

Then with a kind compassionating look,

And sighs, bespeaking pity ere he spoke,

Few words he said; but easy those and fit,

More slow than Hybla-drops, and far more sweet.

I mourn, my countrymen, your lost estate;

Though far unable to prevent your fate:

Behold a banished man, for your dear cause

Exposed a prey to arbitrary laws!

Yet oh! that I alone could be undone,

Cut off from empire, and no more a son!

Now all your liberties a spoil are made; }

Egypt and Tyrus[271] intercept your trade, }

And Jebusites your sacred rites invade. }

My father,--whom with reverence yet I name--

Charmed into ease, is careless of his fame;

And, bribed with petty sums of foreign gold,

Is grown in Bathsheba's embraces old;[272]

Exalts his enemies, his friends destroys,

And all his power against himself employs.

He gives,--and let him give,--my right away:

But why should he his own and yours betray?

He, only he, can make the nation bleed,

And he alone from my revenge is freed.

Take then my tears,--with that he wiped his eyes,--

'Tis all the aid my present power supplies:

No court-informer can these arms accuse;

These arms may sons against their fathers use:

And 'tis my wish, the next successor's reign

May make no other Israelite complain.

Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail;

But common interest always will prevail;

And pity never ceases to be shown

To him who makes the people's wrongs his own.

The crowd, that still believe their kings oppress,

With lifted hands their young Messiah bless:

Who now begins his progress to ordain

With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train:[273]

From east to west his glories he displays,

And, like the sun, the promised land surveys.

Fame runs before him as the morning-star,

And shouts of joy salute him from afar;

Each house receives him as a guardian god,

And consecrates the place of his abode.

But hospitable treats did most commend

Wise Issachar, his wealthy western friend.[274]

This moving court, that caught the people's eyes,

And seemed but pomp, did other ends disguise:

Achitophel had formed it, with intent

To sound the depths, and fathom, where it went,

The people's hearts, distinguish friends from foes,

And try their strength before they came to blows.

Yet all was coloured with a smooth pretence

Of specious love, and duty to their prince.

Religion, and redress of grievances,

(Two names that always cheat, and always please,)

Are often urged; and good king David's life,

Endangered by a brother and a wife.[275]

Thus in a pageant-shew a plot is made;

And peace itself is war in masquerade.

Oh foolish Israel! never warned by ill!

Still the same bait, and circumvented still!

Did ever men forsake their present ease,

In midst of health imagine a disease,

Take pains contingent mischiefs to foresee,

Make heirs for monarchs, and for God decree?

What shall we think? Can people give away,

Both for themselves and sons, their native sway?

Then they are left defenceless to the sword

Of each unbounded, arbitrary lord:

And laws are vain, by which we right enjoy,

If kings unquestioned can those laws destroy.

Yet if the crowd be judge of fit and just,

And kings are only officers in trust,

Then this resuming covenant was declared

When kings were made, or is for ever barred.

If those, who gave the sceptre, could not tie,

By their own deed, their own posterity,

How then could Adam bind his future race?

How could his forfeit on mankind take place?

Or how could heavenly justice damn us all,

Who ne'er consented to our father's fall?

Then kings are slaves to those whom they command,

And tenants to their people's pleasure stand.

Add, that the power, for property allowed,

Is mischievously seated in the crowd;

For who can be secure of private right,

If sovereign sway may be dissolved by might?

Nor is the people's judgment always true:

The most may err as grossly as the few;

And faultless kings run down by common cry,

For vice, oppression, and for tyranny.

What standard is there in a fickle rout,

Which, flowing to the mark, runs faster out?

Nor only crowds but Sanhedrims may be

Infected with this public lunacy,

And share the madness of rebellious times,

To murder monarchs for imagined crimes.

If they may give and take whene'er they please,

Not kings alone, the Godhead's images,

But government itself, at length must fall

To nature's state, where all have right to all.

Yet, grant our lords, the people, kings can make,

What prudent men a settled throne would shake?

For whatsoe'er their sufferings were before,

That change they covet makes them suffer more.

All other errors but disturb a state;

But innovation is the blow of fate.

If ancient fabrics nod, and threat to fall,

To patch their flaws, and buttress up the wall,

Thus far 'tis duty: but here fix the mark;

For all beyond it is to touch the ark.

To change foundations, cast the frame anew,

Is work for rebels, who base ends pursue;

At once divine and human laws controul,

And mend the parts by ruin of the whole.

The tampering world is subject to this curse,

To physic their disease into a worse.

Now what relief can righteous David bring?

How fatal 'tis to be too good a king!

Friends he has few, so high the madness grows;

Who dare be such must be the people's foes.

Yet some there were, even in the worst of days;

Some let me name, and naming is to praise.

In this short file Barzillai[276] first appears;

Barzillai, crowned with honour and with years.

Long since, the rising rebels he withstood

In regions waste beyond the Jordan's flood:[277]

Unfortunately brave to buoy the state;

But sinking underneath his master's fate:

In exile with his godlike prince he mourned;

For him he suffered, and with him returned.

The court he practised, not the courtier's art:

Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart,

Which well the noblest objects knew to choose,

The fighting warrior, and recording muse.

His bed could once a fruitful issue boast;

Now more than half a father's name is lost.

His eldest hope, with every grace adorned,

By me, so heaven will have it, always mourned,

And always honoured, snatched in manhood's prime

By unequal fates, and providence's crime:[278]

Yet not before the goal of honour won, }

All parts fulfilled of subject and of son: }

Swift was the race, but short the time to run. }

Oh narrow circle, but of power divine,

Scanted in space, and perfect in thy line!

By sea, by land, thy matchless worth was known,

Arms thy delight, and war was all thy own:

Thy force infused the fainting Tyrians[279] prop'd,

And haughty Pharaoh found his fortune stop'd.

Oh ancient honour! Oh unconquered hand,

Whom foes unpunished never could withstand!

But Israel was unworthy of his name:[280]

Short is the date of all immoderate fame.[281]

It looks as heaven our ruin had designed,

And durst not trust thy fortune and thy mind.

Now, free from earth, thy disencumbered soul

Mounts up, and leaves behind the clouds and starry pole:

From thence thy kindred legions may'st thou bring,

To aid the guardian angel of thy king.

Here stop, my muse; here cease thy painful flight;

No pinions can pursue immortal height:

Tell good Barzillai thou canst sing no more,

And tell thy soul she should have fled before:

Or fled she with his life, and left this verse

To hang on her departed patron's hearse?

Now take thy steepy flight from heaven, and see

If thou canst find on earth another he:

Another he would be too hard to find;

See then whom thou canst see not far behind.

Zadoc the priest,[282] whom, shunning power and place,

His lowly mind advanced to David's grace.

With him the Sagan[283] of Jerusalem,

Of hospitable soul, and noble stem;

Him of the western dome,[284] whose weighty sense

Flows in fit words, and heavenly eloquence.

The prophet's sons, by such example led,

To learning and to loyalty were bred:

For colleges on bounteous kings depend,

And never rebel was to arts a friend.

To these succeed the pillars of the laws;

Who best can plead, and best can judge a cause.

Next them a train of loyal peers ascend;

Sharp-judging Adriel,[285] the muses friend,

Himself a muse: in Sanhedrim's debate,

True to his prince, but not a slave of state:

Whom David's love with honours did adorn,

That from his disobedient son were torn.

Jotham, of piercing wit, and pregnant thought,[286]

Endued by nature, and by learning taught,

To move assemblies, who but only tried

The worse a-while, then chose the better side:

Nor chose alone, but turned the balance too;

So much the weight of one brave man can do.

Hushai, the friend of David in distress;

In public storms, of manly stedfastness;[287]

By foreign treaties he informed his youth,

And joined experience to his native truth.

His frugal care supplied the wanting throne;

Frugal for that, but bounteous of his own:

'Tis easy conduct when exchequers flow,

But hard the task to manage well the low;

For sovereign power is too depressed or high,

When kings are forced to sell, or crowds to buy.

Indulge one labour more, my weary muse,

For Amiel; who can Amiel's praise refuse?[288]

Of ancient race by birth, but nobler yet

In his own worth, and without title great:

The Sanhedrim long time as chief he ruled,

Their reason guided, and their passion cooled:

So dexterous was he in the crown's defence,

So formed to speak a loyal nation's sense,

That, as their band was Israel's tribes in small,

So fit was he to represent them all.

Now rasher charioteers the seat ascend,

Whose loose careers his steady skill commend:

They, like the unequal ruler of the day,

Misguide the seasons, and mistake the way;

While he, withdrawn, at their mad labours smiles,

And safe enjoys the sabbath of his toils.

These were the chief; a small but faithful band }

Of worthies, in the breach who dared to stand, }

And tempt the united fury of the land. }

With grief they viewed such powerful engines bent,

To batter down the lawful government.

A numerous faction, with pretended frights,

In Sanhedrims to plume the legal rights;

The true successor from the court removed;

The plot, by hireling witnesses, improved.

These ills they saw, and, as their duty bound,

They shewed the king the danger of the wound;

That no concessions from the throne would please,

But lenitives fomented the disease:

That Absalom, ambitious of the crown,

Was made the lure to draw the people down:

That false Achitophel's pernicious hate

Had turned the plot to ruin church and state:

The council violent, the rabble worse;

That Shimei taught Jerusalem to curse.

With all these loads of injuries opprest,

And long revolving in his careful breast

The event of things, at last, his patience tired,

Thus, from his royal throne, by heaven inspired,

The god-like David spoke; with awful fear

His train their Maker in their master hear.[289]

Thus long, have I by native mercy swayed,

My wrongs dissembled, my revenge delayed;

So willing to forgive the offending age;

So much the father did the king assuage.

But now so far my clemency they slight,

The offenders question my forgiving right.[290]

That one was made for many, they contend;

But 'tis to rule; for that's a monarch's end.

They call my tenderness of blood, my fear;

Though manly tempers can the longest bear.

Yet since they will divert my native course,

'Tis time to shew I am not good by force.

Those heaped affronts, that haughty subjects bring,

Are burdens for a camel, not a king.

Kings are the public pillars of the state,

Born to sustain and prop the nation's weight:

If my young Sampson will pretend a call

To shake the column, let him share the fall:[291]

But oh, that yet he would repent and live!

How easy 'tis for parents to forgive!

With how few tears a pardon might be won

From nature, pleading for a darling son!

Poor, pitied youth, by my paternal care

Raised up to all the height his frame could bear!

Had God ordained his fate for empire born,

He would have given his soul another turn:

Gulled with a patriot's name, whose modern sense

Is one that would by law supplant his prince;

The people's brave, the politician's tool;

Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

Whence comes it, that religion and the laws

Should more be Absalom's than David's cause?

His old instructor, ere he lost his place,

Was never thought endued with so much grace.

Good heavens, how faction can a patriot paint!

My rebel ever proves my people's saint.

Would they impose an heir upon the throne?

Let Sanhedrims be taught to give their own.

A king's at least a part of government;

And mine as requisite as their consent:

Without my leave a future king to chuse,

Infers a right the present to depose.

True, they petition me to approve their choice;

But Esau's hands suit ill with Jacob's voice.

My pious subjects for my safety pray;

Which to secure, they take my power away.

From plots and treasons heaven preserve my years,

But save me most from my petitioners![292]

Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave;

God cannot grant so much as they can crave.

What then is left, but with a jealous eye

To guard the small remains of royalty?

The law shall still direct my peaceful sway,

And the same law teach rebels to obey:

Votes shall no more established power controul,--

Such votes, as make a part exceed the whole

No groundless clamours shall my friend remove,

Nor crowds have power to punish ere they prove;

For Gods and god-like kings their care express,

Still to defend their servants in distress

Oh, that my power to saving were confined! }

Why am I forced, like heaven, against my mind, }

To make examples of another kind? }

Must I at length the sword of justice draw?

Oh curst effects of necessary law!

How ill my fear they by my mercy scan!

Beware the fury of a patient man.

Law they require, let law then shew her face;

They could not be content to look on grace,

Her hinder parts, but with a daring eye,

To tempt the terror of her front, and die.

By their own arts 'tis righteously decreed,

Those dire artificers of death shall bleed.

Against themselves their witnesses will swear,[293]

'Till, viper like, their mother-plot they tear;

And suck for nutriment that bloody gore,

Which was their principle of life before.

Their Belial with their Beelzebub will fight;

Thus on my foes, my foes shall do me right:

Nor doubt the event; for factious crowds engage,

In their first onset, all their brutal rage.

Then let them take an unresisted course;

Retire, and traverse, and delude their force:

But when they stand all breathless, urge the fight,

And rise upon them with redoubled might:

For lawful power is still superior found;

When long driven back, at length it stands the ground.

He said; the Almighty, nodding, gave consent,

And peals of thunder shook the firmament.

Henceforth a series of new time began,

The mighty years in long procession ran;

Once more the god-like David was restored,

And willing nations knew their lawful lord.

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

[Footnote 223: First edit. _this_.]

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

[Footnote 225: First edit. _with_.]

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

[Footnote 227: Note V.]

[Footnote 228: Cromwell.]

[Footnote 229: Richard Cromwell.]

[Footnote 230: Charles II.]

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

[Footnote 232: London.]

[Footnote 233: Roman Catholics.]

[Footnote 234: First edit. _and_.]

[Footnote 235: Note VI.]

[Footnote 236: A sneer at the doctrine of transubstantiation, which our

author afterwards attempted to defend.]

[Footnote 237: Note VII.]

[Footnote 238: Shaftesbury. See note VIII.]

[Footnote 239: Note IX.]

[Footnote 240: Note X.]

[Footnote 241: First edit. _A patron's_. The next twelve lines were

added after the first edition. See Introduction.]

[Footnote 242: Note XI.]

[Footnote 243: Note XII.]

[Footnote 244: First edit. _Shuts up_.]

[Footnote 245: The land of exile, more particularly Brussels, where

Charles long resided.]

[Footnote 246: Dover.]

[Footnote 247: King of France.]

[Footnote 248: France.]

[Footnote 249: Note XIII.]

[Footnote 250: James Duke of York, whose exclusion, as a Catholic, was

warmly urged in the House of Commons.]

[Footnote 251: Note XIV.]

[Footnote 252: The allusion is to the Republic, who acknowleged God

alone for their king, but were dispossessed by Cromwell, here, as

formerly, called Saul.]

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

[Footnote 254: Note XV.]

[Footnote 255: First edit. _Prevail_.]

[Footnote 256: Note XVI.]

[Footnote 257: A thrifty and frugal doctrine, not forgotten by the

reformers of our own day.]

[Footnote 258: Note XVII.]

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

Conformity.]

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

[Footnote 261: Balaam, the earl of Huntingdon; Caleb, lord Gray of

Wark; Nadab, lord Howard of Escrick. Note XIX. XX. XXI.]

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

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

XXIII.]

[Footnote 264: Note XXIV.]

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

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

[Footnote 267: Note XXVI.]

[Footnote 268: Oates pretended to have taken his degree of doctor at

Salamanca. See note XXVII. Also vol. VII. p. 164.]

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

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

[Footnote 271: France and Holland.]

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

[Footnote 273: Note XXIX.]

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

[Footnote 275: Note XXXI.]

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

[Footnote 277: In Ireland.]

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

[Footnote 279: Alluding to Lord Ossory's services in the Dutch war

against the French.]

[Footnote 280: First edit, _birth_.]

[Footnote 281: First edit, _worth_.]

[Footnote 282: Note XXXIV.]

[Footnote 283: Note XXXV.]

[Footnote 284: Note XXXVI.]

[Footnote 285: Note XXXVII.]

[Footnote 286: Note XXXVIII.]

[Footnote 287: Note XXXIX.]

[Footnote 288: Note XL.]

[Footnote 289: Note XLI.]

[Footnote 290: Note XLII.]

[Footnote 291: The four following lines were added after the first

edition. See Introduction.]

[Footnote 292: Note XLIII.]

[Footnote 293: Note XLIV.]

NOTES ON ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

Note I.

_Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear,

A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care._--P. 217.

Queen Catherine of Portugal, the wife of Charles II., resembled the

daughter of Saul in the circumstance mentioned in the text. She was

plain in her person, and consequently possessed little influence over

her gallant husband. She was, however, always treated by him with

decent civility; and indeed, when persecuted by the popular party,

experienced his warmest protection. Her greatest fault was her being

educated a Catholic; her greatest misfortune, her bearing the king no

children; and her greatest foible an excessive love of dancing. It

might have occurred to the good people of these times, that loving a

ball was not a capital sin, even in a person whose figure excluded her

from the hopes of gracing it; that a princess of Portugal must be a

Catholic, if she had any religion at all; and, finally, that to bear

children, it is necessary some one should take the trouble of getting

them. But these obvious considerations did not prevent her being

grossly abused in the libels of the times,[294] and very nearly made a

party in Dr Titus Oates' Appendix to his Original Plot.

Note II.

_Not so the rest; for several mothers bore

To god-like David several sons before._--P. 217.

Charles left a numerous family of illegitimate children by his various

mistresses. Besides the Duke of Monmouth to be presently mentioned,

he had a daughter by Lady Shannon, and the Earl of Plymouth by Mrs

Catherine Pegge; by the Duchess of Cleveland he had the Dukes of

Cleveland, Gratton, and Northumberland, and three daughters; by Mrs

Eleanor Gwyn he had the Duke of St Alban's, and James Beauclerk; the

Duchess of Portsmouth bore him the Duke of Richmond and Lennox: with a

daughter by Mrs Mary Davies, the king's children amounted to the number

of eight sons and five daughters.

Note III.

_Of all the numerous progeny, was none

So beautiful, so brave, as Absalon._--P. 217.

James Stuart, Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch, was born at Rotterdam,

9th April, 1649, in the very heat of the civil wars. He was the son of

Charles II. and Mrs Lucy Walters, or Waters, otherwise called Barlow, a

beautiful young lady, of a good Welch family. He was educated privately

in Holland, under the assumed name of James Crofts; and the respect

with which his mother and he were treated by the cavalier, afforded a

foundation for the argument of his adherents, who afterwards contended,

that the king had been privately married to that lady. After the

Restoration, the king sent for this young gentleman to court, where the

royal favour and his own personal and acquired accomplishments soon

made him very remarkable. Of his outward appearance, Count Hamilton,

the gay recorder of the gaieties of the court of Charles, has given

us a most interesting description, which is not belied by portraits

which are still preserved. "Nature," says the count, "perhaps never

formed any thing so perfect as the external graces of his person."

His face was beautiful; but it was a masculine beauty, unmixed with

any thing weak or effeminate: each feature had its own peculiar and

interesting turn of expression. He had admirable address in all active

exercises, an attractive manner, and an air of princely majesty. Yet

his mental qualities did not altogether support this prepossessing

exterior; or rather his fate plunged him into scenes where more was

necessary than the mind and manners which, in more regular times, would

have distinguished him as an accomplished cavalier in peace and war.

He was married, by the king's interference, to Anne Scott, Countess

of Buccleuch, sole surviving child of Francis, Earl of Buccleuch,

and heiress of the extensive estate which the powerful family she

represented had acquired on the frontiers of Scotland. The young prince

had been previously created Duke of Orkney, a title now changed for

that of Monmouth; and the king, upon his marriage, added to his honours

the dukedom of Buccleuch. Thus favoured at home, he was also fortunate

enough to have an opportunity of acquiring military fame, by serving

two campaigns as a volunteer in Louis XIV.'s army against the Dutch. He

particularly distinguished himself at the siege of Maestricht, where

he led the storming party, took possession of the counterscarp, and

made good his quarters against the repeated and desperate attempts of

the besieged to dislodge him. Monmouth also served a campaign with the

Dutch against the French, in 1678, and is on all hands allowed to have

displayed great personal bravery; especially in the famous attack on

the Duke of Luxemburgh's line before Mons, when the Prince of Orange,

whose judgment can hardly be doubted, formed that good opinion of

his military skill, which he stated when he offered to command the

forces of his father-in-law against the Duke on his last unfortunate

expedition. With that renown which is so willingly conferred upon the

noble and the beautiful, the Duke returned to England, and met with

a distinguished reception from Charles, by whom he was loaded with

favours, as will appear from the following list of his titles and

offices.

He was Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch; Earl of Doncaster and Dalkeith;

Lord Scott of Tinedale, Whichester, and Eskdale; Lord Great Chamberlain

of Scotland, Lord-Lieutenant of the east Riding of Yorkshire; Governor

of the town and citadel of Kingston upon Hull; Chief Justice in Eyre of

all his Majesty's forests, chases, parks, and warrens on the south side

of the Trent; Lord-General of all his Majesty's land forces; Captain

of his Majesty's Life-guards of horse; Chancellor of the university of

Cambridge; Master of horse to the King; one of the Lords of the Privy

Council, and Knight of the order of the Garter.

Thus highly distinguished by rank, reputation, and royal favour,

he appears for some time to have dedicated himself chiefly to the

pleasures of the court, when an unfortunate quarrel with the Duke of

York, in the rivalry of an intrigue,[295] laid the foundation for

that difference, which was one great means of embroiling the latter

years of Charles's reign, and finally cost Monmouth his head. When his

quarrel with his uncle, whose unforgiving temper was well known, had

become inveterate and irreconcileable, the Duke of Monmouth was led to

head the faction most inimical to the interests of York, and speedily

became distinguished by the name of the Protestant Duke, the dearest

title that his party could bestow. The prospect which now opened itself

before Monmouth was such as might have turned the head of a man of

deeper political capacity. The heir apparent, his personal enemy, had

become the object of popular hatred to such a degree, that the bill,

excluding him from the succession, seemed to have every chance of

being carried through the House of Lords, as it had already passed

the Commons. The rights of the Queen were not likely to interest any

one; and it seems generally to have been believed, however unjustly as

it proved, that Charles was too fond of Monmouth, too jealous of his

brother, and too little scrupulous of ways and means, to hesitate at

declaring this favourite youth his legitimate successor.

Under such favourable circumstances, it is no wonder that Monmouth gave

way to the dictates of ambition; and while he probably conceived that

he was only giving his father an opportunity to manifest his secret

partiality, he became more and more deeply involved in the plots of

Shaftesbury, whose bustling and intriguing spirit saw at once the use

to be made of Monmouth's favour with the king, and popularity with

the public. From that time, their union became close and inseparable;

even while Shaftesbury was yet a member of the king's administration.

Their meetings were conducted with a secrecy and mystery which

argued their importance. According to Carte, they were held at Lord

Shaftesbury's and Charleton's houses, both parties coming in private,

and in hackney coaches. Some of Monmouth's partizans had even the

boldness to assert the legitimacy of their patron, to prepare for his

supplanting the Duke of York. When the insurrection of the Covenanters

broke out in Scotland, Monmouth was employed against them, a duty

which he executed with fidelity and success. He completely defeated

the insurgents in the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and returned to

the court in all the freshness of his laurels. This was in the year

1679, and Monmouth's good fortune had then attained its summit. He

was beloved by the people, general of all the forces both in England

and Scotland; London was at the devotion of Shaftesbury, the Duke of

York banished to Brussels, and universally detested on account of

his religion. At this important moment Charles fell ill of a fever

at Windsor. Had he died it is very probable that Monmouth would have

found himself in a condition to agitate successfully a title to the

crown. But either the king's attachment to the Catholic religion, in

the profession of which he finally died, or his sense of justice and

hereditary right occasioned an extraordinary alteration of measures

at this momentous crisis. The Duke of York was summoned from abroad,

arrived at Windsor, and by his presence and activity at once resumed

that ascendance over Charles, which his more stern genius had always

possessed, and animated the sunken spirit of his own partizans. By a

most sudden and surprising revolution, York was restored to all his

brother's favour. For although he was obliged to retire to Scotland

to avoid the fury of the exclusionists, yet a sharper exile awaited

his rival Monmouth, who, deprived of all his offices, was sent into

the foreign banishment from which his uncle had just been recalled.

Accordingly he retired to Holland, where he was courteously received by

the States; and where Charles himself appears to have been desirous,

that his darling son should find an honourable asylum. Meanwhile the

factions waxed still more furious; and Shaftesbury, whose boast it was

to "ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm," utterly embroiled

the kingdom, by persuading Monmouth to return to England without

licence from his father, and to furnish an ostensible head to that

body of which the wily politician was himself the soul. This conduct

deeply injured Monmouth in his father's favour, who refused to see

him; and, by an enquiry and subsequent declaration made openly in

council, and published in the Gazette, endeavoured to put an end to

his hopes, by publicly declaring his illegitimacy. Wonderful as it may

seem, this avowal was ascribed to the king's fear for his brother;

and two daring pamphlets were actually published, to assert the

legitimacy of Monmouth, against the express and solemn declaration of

his father.[296] Monmouth himself, by various progresses through the

kingdom, with an affectation of popularity which gained the vulgar

but terrified the reflecting, above all, by a close alliance with the

Machiavel, Shaftesbury, shewed his avowed determination to maintain his

pretensions against those of the lawful successor. This was the state

of parties in 1681, when "Absalom and Achitophel" first appeared.

The permission of so sharp a satire against the party of Monmouth,

though much qualified as to his individual person, plainly shewed the

king's intention to proceed with energy against the country party.

Monmouth, in the midst of one of those splendid journies which he had

made to display his strength, was arrested at Stafford, September

20, 1682, and obliged to enter bail for his peaceable deportment and

appearance when called on, to answer any suit against him by the

king. In the mean while, the dubious and mysterious cabal, called the

Rye-house Plot, was concocted by two separate parties, moving in some

degree towards the same point, but actuated by very different motives,

adopting different modes of conduct, and in their mutual intrigues

but slightly connected with each other. It appears certain, that

Monmouth utterly abominated the proposal of Rumbold, and those who

made the assassination of the King and Duke of York the groundwork of

their proposed insurrection. It is equally certain, that, with Sidney

and Russell, he engaged in plans of reformation, or revolution, of

that dubious description, which might have turned out good or evil,

according to their power of managing the machine they were about to

set in motion; a power almost always over-rated till the awful moment

of experiment. Upon the discovery of these proceedings, Monmouth

absconded, but generously signified to Lord Russell his determination

to surrender himself if it could serve his friend; an offer which

Russell, with the same generosity, positively rejected.

Notwithstanding the discovery which involved perhaps a charge of high

treason, the king was so much convinced of Monmouth's innocence, so

far as the safety of his person was concerned, that the influence

of Halifax, who always strove to balance the power of the Duke of

York by that of his nephew, procured him an opportunity of being

restored to the king's favour, for which the minister had little

thanks from the heir of the crown.[297] But Monmouth, by an excess of

imprudence, in which, however, he displayed a noble spirit, forfeited

the advantages he might have obtained at this crisis. Although he

signed an acknowledgment of his guilt, in listening to counsels which

could not be carried into effect, without a restraint on the king's

person; he would not, on reflection, authorize the publication of a

declaration, which must have had a fatal influence on the impending

trial of his friends. He demanded it back, and received it; but

accompanied with an order to leave the kingdom. He obeyed, and remained

in honourable banishment in Holland, till after the accession of James

II. to the throne. There is room to believe, that Monmouth would never

have disturbed his uncle, had James not evinced a desire to follow

him with vengeance even into his retreat. Wellwood has published a

letter from him, in which he says, ambition is mortified within him,

and expresses himself determined to live in retirement. But when the

King insisted on the Prince of Orange driving him out of Holland, and

proceeded to take measures to exclude him from Brussels, he appears to

have become desperate. Even yet he prepared to retire to Sweden, but

he was surrounded by fugitives from England and Scotland, who, as is

always the case, represented the nation as agitated by their passions,

and feeling for their individual oppression: Argyle, in particular,

and the Scottish exiles, fired by the aggressions on their liberty

and religion, anticipated a more warm support than they afterwards

experienced.

Monmouth, thus driven upon his fate, set sail with three ships; landed

at Lyme with hardly an hundred followers; and, such was the magic of

his popularity, soon found himself at the head of a considerable force.

He baffled the Duke of Albemarle who attempted to coop him up at Lyme,

and, advancing to Taunton took upon him fatally the title of King. At

length, he surprised the Earl of Feversham, James's general, in his

entrenchments near Bridgewater; and the native stubborn valour of his

followers nearly proved too much for the discipline of the veterans,

whom they attacked. The cowardice of Lord Grey,[298] who fled with the

cavalry, led to a total defeat and much slaughter among Monmouth's

forces. Still more fell a sacrifice to the bloody zeal of the brutal

Jefferies. The Duke himself was taken in his flight; and, depressed

by fatigue and disappointment, shewed some symptoms of weakness,

inconsistent with his former character. He solicited his life by

submissive letters to James, and, at length, obtained an interview with

the king. But James forgot the noble, though homely popular saying,

A king's face

Should give grace.

With the natural sternness of his character, he only strove to extort

from Monmouth a disavowal of his legitimacy, and a confession of his

accomplices. To the former the Duke submitted; but, when urged to

the latter, rose from the posture of supplication, and retorted with

dignity the reproaches of James. When he returned to the Tower, he

wrote a letter to the king, supposed to contain a secret, the revealing

of which might have purchased his life. This letter he intrusted to

Captain Scott of Dumbarton's regiment, a descendant of the family of

Harden, and, consequently, related to the Duchess of Monmouth. The

famous Blood is said to have compelled Scott to deliver up the letter,

and carried it to Sunderland, who destroyed it.[299]

The Duke of Monmouth, finding all efforts to procure a pardon

ineffectual, met death with great resolution. He smiled on the guards

who surrounded the scaffold, and whom in his better days he had

commanded; bowed to the populace, who expressed by sighs and tears

their interest in his fate; and submitted to his doom. His death was

cruelly prolonged by the hesitation of the executioner, who, after

several ineffectual strokes of the axe, threw it down, and could

scarcely be prevailed on to finish his bloody work. The execution took

place on the 15th of July, 1685.

It would be difficult, were it here necessary, to draw a character of

the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. His qualities and accomplishments

were fitted for times more gentle than those in which he lived,

where he might be compared to a pleasure barge struggling against a

hurricane. In gentler times, he had proved a successful leader in

war; and in peace, what the reviver of tragedy has aptly stiled, "An

honoured courtly gentleman." _Count Basil_. Act I. Scene II.

Note IV.

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

Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, a lady of high spirit, great

beauty, and unimpeachable honour. We have had repeated occasion

to mention her in the course of these notes. She was reckoned the

richest heiress in Europe; as, upon the death of her elder sister,

Anne Countess of Buccleuch, wife of Walter Earl of Tarras, she

succeeded to the extensive land estate of that family. Charles made

this advantageous match for his son, by the intervention of the young

lady's mother, the Countess of Wemyss. The Duchess of Buccleuch

was a distinguished protectress of poetical merit, and evinced her

discriminating taste, by early selecting Dryden as the object of her

patronage; she cultivated the friendship of the Duke of York, and

established an intimacy between him and her husband, which paved the

way for the advancement of the latter.[300] When by an occasional

rivalry they quarrelled, and became irreconcileable enemies, she still

opposed her prudence to the precipitate counsels of Monmouth's worse

advisers. It is probable her influence saved his life, by determining

him to make a timely confession, concerning all he knew of the

Rye-house conspiracy, upon condition, it was not to be used against

his friends. When he imprudently retracted that confession, her advice

prevailed on him to offer a renewal of it.[301] Their last interview

before the Duke's execution, is thus narrated in a MS. now before me.

"His behaviour all the time was brave and unmoved, and, even during

the last conversation and farewell with his lady and children, which

was the movingest scene in the world, and which no bye-standers could

see without melting in tears, he did not shew the least concerndness.

He declared before all the company, how averse the duchess had been to

all his irregular courses, and that she had never been uneasy to him

on any occasion whatsoever, but about women, and his failing of dutie

to the late king. And that she knew nothing of his last designe, not

having heard from himself a year before, which was his own fault, and

noe unkindness in her, because she knew not how to direct her letters

to him. In that, he gave her the kyndest character that could be, and

begged her pardon of his many failings and offences to her, and prayed

her to continue her kyndness and care to her poore children. At this

expression she fell down on her knees, with her eyes full of teares,

and begged him to pardon her if ever she had done any thing to offend

and displease him; and embracing his knees, fell into a swoon, out

of which they had much adoe to raise her up in a good while after. A

little before, his children were brought to him, all crying about him;

but he acquitted himself of these last adewes with much composure,

shewing nothing of weakness and unmanliness." _Account of the Actions

and Behaviour of the Duke of Monmouth, from the time he was taken to

his Execution, in a letter, dated July 16, 1685, MS_., in the Duke of

Buccleuch's library.

The Duchess of Monmouth's turn of mind, and her aversion to her

husband's political intrigues, lead me to imagine, that Dryden

sketched out her character under that of Marmoutiere in "the Duke

of Guise;" whose expostulations with her lover apply exactly to the

situation of this noble pair. If the Duke of Monmouth entertained a

causeless jealousy of the intimacy of York with his lady, as the Duke

of Buckingham seems to hint,[302] something like an allusion to this

circumstance may be traced in the suspicions of Guise, and vindication

of Marmoutiere.[303]

The Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth survived the catastrophe of her

husband many years; during which she was resolute in asserting her

right to be treated as a princess of the blood. She had two surviving

sons by Monmouth; one of whom carried on the line of Buccleuch, and the

other was created Earl of Deloraine. She was married a second time, in

1688, to Lord Cornwallis, by whom she had two surviving daughters. The

Duchess died in 1732, in the eighty-first year of her life. King James

made her Grace and her family a gift of all her original property, so

far as forfeited by the Duke of Monmouth's condemnation.

Note V.

_And Amnon's murder, by a specious name,

Was called a just revenge for injured fame._--P. 218.

There is a libel among the State Poems, relating to some obscure fray,

in which the duke of Monmouth and some of his brothers appear to have

been concerned. This was probably one of the youthful excesses alluded

to.[304] But Amnon's murder seems to refer to the more noted assault

upon sir John Coventry, which the reader may take in the words of

Andrew Marvell.

"But an accident happened, which had like to have spoiled all. Sir

John Coventry having moved (in the house of commons) for an imposition

on the play houses, sir John Berkenhead, to excuse them, said they

had been of great service to the king. Upon which, sir John Coventry

desired that gentleman to explain "whether he meant the men or women

players?"[305] Hereupon it is imagined, that the house adjourning

from Tuesday, before, till Thursday after Christmas day, on the very

Tuesday night of the adjournment, twenty-five of the duke of Monmouth's

troop,[306] and some few foot, laid in wait from ten at night, till

two in the morning, and as he returned from the Cock, where he supped,

to his own house, they threw him down, and with a knife cut off almost

all the end of his nose; but company coming, made them fearful to

finish it; so they marched off. Sir Thomas Sands, lieutenant of the

troop, commanded the party, and Obrian, the earl of Inchequin's son,

was a principal actor. The court hereupon sometimes thought to carry

it with a high hand, and question sir John for his words, and maintain

the action; sometimes they flagged in their councils. However, the

king commanded sir Thomas Clarges, and sir W. Pulteney, to release

Wroth, and Lake, who were two of the actors, and taken. But the night

before the house met, they surrendered (to) him again. The house being

but sullen the next day, the court did not oppose adjourning for some

days longer, till it was filled. Then the house went upon Coventry's

business, and voted that they would go upon nothing else whatever, till

they had passed a bill, as they did, for Sands, Obrian, Parry, and

Reeves, to come in by the sixteenth of February, or else be condemned,

and never to be pardoned, but by an express act of parliament, and

their names therein inserted, for fear of being pardoned in some

general act of grace. Farther, all such actions, for the future, on any

man, felony without clergy; and who shall otherwise strike or wound any

parliament man, during his attendance, or going or coming, imprisonment

for a year, treble damages, and incapacity. The bill having in some

few days been despatched to the lords, the house has since gone on in

grand committee upon the first 800,000l. bill, but are not yet half

way. But now the lords, instead of the sixteenth of February, put

twenty-five days after the king's royal assent, and that registered in

their journal; they disagree in several other things, but adhere in

that first which is material. So that, in this week, the houses will be

in danger of splitting, without much wisdom or force. For, considering

that sir Thomas Sands was the very person sent to Clarges and Pulteney,

that Obrian was concealed in the duke of Monmouth's lodgings, that

Wroth and Lake were bailed at sessions, by order from Mr Attorney, and,

that all persons and things are perfectly discovered, that act will not

be passed without great consequence." Letter from Andrew Marvel, to

William Romsden, in _Marvel's Works_, Vol. I. p. 413.

This aggression led to what, from the name of the sufferer, is called

the Coventry act, making cutting, and maiming the person, with intent

to disfigure it, felony without benefit of clergy. A satirical ballad

on this subject, called the Haymarket Hectors, was written by Andrew

Marvel, which may be found in his works, and, with some variations, in

the third vol. of the State poems. It has very little wit, to atone for

a great deal of grossness.

Note VI.

_From hence began that plot, the nation's curse;

Bad in itself, but represented worse:

Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried;

With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied._--P. 220.

The Papist plot, like every criminal and mysterious transaction, where

accomplices alone can give evidence, is involved in much mystery.

It is well known, that the zeal for making proselytes, with all its

good and all its evil consequences, is deeply engrafted upon the

catholic faith. There can be no doubt, from Coleman's correspondence,

that there was in agitation, among the Catholics, a grand scheme to

bring about the conversion of the British kingdoms to the Romish

religion. Much seemed to favour this in the reign of Charles II. The

king, though a latitudinarian, was believed addicted to the religion

of those countries which had afforded him refuge in his adversity,

and the Duke of York was an open and zealous Papist. From the letters

of his secretary Coleman, it is obvious, that hopes were entertained

of eradicating the great northern heresy; and the real existence of

intrigues carried on with this purpose, unfortunately gave a colour

to the monstrous and absurd falsehoods which the witnesses of the

plot contrived to heap together. It is probable, that Oates, by whom

the affair was first started, knew nothing, but by vague report and

surmise, of the real designs of the Roman catholic party; since he

would otherwise have accommodated his story better to their obvious

interests. The catholics might gain much by the life of Charles; but

a plot to assassinate him, would have been far from placing them an

inch nearer their point, even supposing them to escape the odium of

so horrible a crime. The Duke, it was true, was nearest in blood; but

his succession to the throne, had the king been taken off by those

of his sect, would have been a very difficult matter, since the very

suspicion of such a catastrophe had nearly caused his exclusion. But

when the faction involved the king also in the plot, which Oates

positively charges upon him in his last publication, and thereby

renders him an accessory before the fact to an attempt on his own life,

the absurdity is fully completed. Even according to the statement of

those who suppose that Charles had irritated the Roman catholics, by

preferring his ease and quiet to their interest and his own religious

feelings, his situation appears ludicrously distressing. For, on the

one hand, he incurred the hatred of those who called themselves the

Protestant party, for his obstinacy in exposing himself to be murdered

by the papists; and, on the other hand, he was to be assassinated by

the catholics, for not doing what, according to this supposition,

he himself most wished to do. It would be far beyond our bounds, to

notice the numberless gross absurdities to which Oates and the other

witnesses deposed upon oath. It may appear almost incredible, in the

present day, how such extravagant fictions should be successfully

palmed upon the deluded public; but at that time there was not the

same ready communication by the press, which now allows opportunity to

canvass an extraordinary charge as soon as it is brought forward. The

public at large had no means of judging of state matters, but from

the bribed libellers of faction, and the haranguers in coffee-houses,

who gave what colour they pleased to the public news of the day.[307]

Besides, the catholics had given an handle against themselves, by their

own obscure intrigues; and it was impossible to forget the desperate

scheme of the Gunpowder Plot, by which they had resolved to cut off

the heresy in the time of King James. The crime of the fathers was, in

this case, visited on the children; for no person probably would, or

could, have believed in the catholic plot of 1678, had not the same

religious sect meditated something equally desperate in 1606. It is

true, the gunpowder conspiracy was proved by the most unexceptionable

testimony; and the plot in Charles' time rested on the oaths of a few

boldfaced villains, who contradicted both themselves and each other;

but still popular credulity was prepared to believe any thing charged

on a sect, who had shown themselves so devoted to their religious

zeal, and so little scrupulous about means to gratify it. Another main

prop of the Catholic plot was the mystery in which it was involved. If

inconsistencies were pointed out, or improbabilities urged, the answer

was, that the discovery had not yet reached the bottom of the plot.

Thus the disposition of the vulgar to believe the atrocious and the

marvellous, was heightened by the stimulus of ungratified curiosity,

and still impending danger. "Every new witness," says North, "that came

in, made us start--now we shall come to the bottom. And so it continued

from one witness to another, year after year, till at length it had

no bottom but in the bottomless pit."[308] Thus, betwixt villainy and

credulity, the spirits of the people were exasperated and kept afloat,

till the bloodhounds of the plot, like those formerly used in pursuit

of marauders, had drenched their scent, and annihilated their powers of

quest in the best blood in the kingdom.

The unfortunate victims, whose lives were sworn away by Oates and his

accomplices, died averring their innocence; but the infuriated people

for some time gave little credit to this solemn exculpation; believing

that the religion of the criminals, or at least the injunctions of

their priests, imposed on them the obligation of denying, with their

last breath, whatever, if confessed, could have prejudiced the catholic

cause. As all high wrought frenzies are incapable of duration, that

of the Roman catholic plot decayed greatly after the execution of the

venerable Stafford. The decent and manly sobriety of his demeanour on

the scaffold, the recollection of how much blood had been spilled,

and how much more might be poured out like water, excited the late

and repentant commiseration of the multitude: His protestations of

innocence were answered by broken exclamations of "God bless you,

my lord! we believe you." And after this last victim, the Popish

plot, like a serpent which had wasted its poison, though its wreaths

entangled many, and its terrors held their sway over more, did little

effectual mischief. Even when long lifeless, and extinguished, this

chimera, far in the succeeding reigns, continued, like the dragon slain

by the Red-cross Knight, to be the object of popular fear, and the

theme of credulous terrorists:

Some feared, and fled; some feared, and well it fained.

One, that would wiser seem than all the rest,

Warned him not touch; for yet, perhaps, remained

Some lingering life within his hollow breast;

Or, in his womb might lurk some hidden nest

Of many dragonettes, his fruitful seed;

Another said, that in his eyes did rest

Yet sparkling fire, and bade thereof take heed;

Another said, he saw him move his eyes indeed.

Note VII.

_Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay

By guns, invented since full many a day._--P. 221.

The author alludes to the wonderful project to assassinate the king

by Pickering and Groves, to which Oates bore testimony. Pickering, a

man in easy circumstances, and whom religious zeal alone induced to

murder his sovereign, was to have 30,000 masses; and Groves, a more

mercenary ruffian, was to be recompensed with a sum, which, reckoning

at a shilling a mass, should be an equivalent in money. But this scheme

misgave, because, according to the evidence, the conscientious and

opulent Mr Pickering had furnished himself for the exploit with an old

pistol, the cock whereof was too loose to hold a flint. Another time

they were to come to Windsor, to execute their bloody purpose with

sword and dagger; but could find no better conveyance than miserable

hack horses, one of which became lame, and disconcerted the expedition.

Such at least was the apology made by Oates for their not appearing,

when a party were, upon his information, stationed to apprehend them.

Note VIII.

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

Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the principal heroes of this poem,

was in the Tower when it was published, and very soon after was served

with a bill of indictment for high treason; which was thrown out by

the grand jury, who returned a verdict of _Ignoramus_. This gave rise

to our author's next poem, "The Medal," and in the notes is contained

some account of his lordship's life, to which the reader is referred

for further information. We have already stated, that he was the

counsellor of Monmouth, and the very soul of his party. Nothing can be

more exquisitely satirical than the description which Dryden has here

given of this famous statesman.

Note IX.

_And all to leave what with his toil he won,

To that unfeathered, two-legged thing, a son;

Got while his soul did huddled notions try,

And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy._--P. 222.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, second Earl of Shaftesbury, and son of the great

statesman, whom Dryden has dubbed his Achitophel. The contemptuous

language used towards him, is said not to have reference to his

outward appearance; for the portraits which remain represent him at

uncommonly handsome. Nay, so much was his personal beauty an object

of his attention, that he is said to have hastened his decease by his

solicitude to remove, by violent means, an excrescence which disfigured

his face. But the authority, from which these circumstances are quoted,

seems to admit, that he was of a very insignificant character, at least

not at all distinguished by mental abilities. _Biographia Britannica_,

Vol. IV. p. 266. His want of capacity was a standing joke among the

Tories. In an ironical pamphlet, called "A modest Vindication of the

Earl of Shaftesbury, in a letter to a friend concerning his being

elected King of Poland," we have, among the list of his officers of

the crown, "Prince Prettyman Perkinoski (_i.e._ Monmouth), our adopted

heir, because a little wiser than our own son, and designed to be

offered to the diet as our successor."

It often happens, that men are more jealous of their own, or their

ancestors' reputation for talents, than for virtue. The third Earl of

Shaftesbury, author of the "Characteristics," is said to have resented

more deeply this occasional attack on his father's understanding, than

the satire against his grandfather, in which Dryden has poured forth

his whole energy. This passage is alleged to have been the occasion of

his mentioning Dryden disrespectfully in several places of his works; a

revenge more dishonourable to his Lordship's taste than to the object

of his spleen.[309]

Note X.

_To compass this, the triple bond he broke,

The pillars of the public safety shook,

And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke._--P. 222.

The Earl of Shaftesbury is allowed to have been a principal adviser of

the Dutch war in 1672; by which the triple alliance between England,

Sweden, and Holland, the _chef d'œuvre_ of Sir William Temple's

negociation, by which France and Spain were forced into the treaty

of Aix-la-Chapelle, was for ever broken. It was he who applied to

Holland the famous saying, _Delenda est Carthago_; and who, with all

his wit and eloquence, furthered a closer connection with France, to

the destruction of our natural ally. But when the success of the Dutch

war was inferior to the expectations of this ardent statesman, when he

found himself rivalled by Clifford and others in the favour of Charles,

and when he perceived that the king, to preserve his quiet, would not

hesitate to sacrifice an obnoxious minister, he chose to make what some

of his biographers have called _a short turn_; and, by going over to

the popular party, to escape the odium attached to the measures he had

himself recommended.

Note XI.

_In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin

With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean;

Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress,

Swift of dispatch, and easy of access._--P. 223.

In 1672, the seals were given to the Earl of Shaftesbury, on the

resignation of the Lord Keeper, Sir Orlando Bridgeman; and he was

invested with the office of Lord High Chancellor. In the judicial part

of his duty, he appears to have merited the eulogium so elegantly

expressed in the text. One of his biographers uses the following

strong expressions: "With what prudence and candour, honour, and

integrity, he acquitted himself in that great and weighty employment,

the transactions of the Court of Chancery, during the time of his

chancellorship, will best testify. Justice, then, ran in an equal

channel; so that the cause of the rich was not suffered to swallow

up the rights of the poor, nor was the strong or cunning oppressor

permitted to devour the weak or unskilful opposer: but the abused found

relief suitable to their distress; and those by whom they were abused,

a severe reprehension, answerable to their crimes. The mischievous

consequences, which commonly arise from the delays and other practices

of that court, were, by his ingenious and judicious management, very

much abated, and every thing weighed and determined with such an

exact judgment and equity, that it almost exceeds all possibility of

belief."[310] Yet even in this high situation, Shaftesbury could not

help displaying something of a temper more lively and freakish than was

consistent with the gravity of his place. His dress was an odd mixture

of the courtier and lawyer; being an ash-coloured gown, silver-laced,

with pantaloons garnished with ribbons; nothing being black about him,

save, peradventure, his hat, which North, though he saw him, cannot

positively affirm to have been so.[311] Besides, he occasioned much

dismay and discomfiture upon the first day of the term, which succeeded

his appointment, by obliging the judges, law officers, &c. who came,

as usual, to attend the great seal to Westminster-hall, to make this

solemn procession on horseback, according to ancient custom. As long as

the cavalcade was in the open street, this did well enough; but when

they came to strait passages and interruptions, "for want of gravity in

the beasts, and too much in the riders, there happened some curvetting,

which made no small disorder. Judge Twisden, to his great affright,

and the consternation of his grave brethren, was laid all along in the

dirt; but all at length arrived safe, without loss of life or limb in

the service."[312] This whimsical fancy of setting grave judges on

managed horses, with hazard both of damage and ridicule, to say nothing

of bodily distress and terror, is a curious trait of the mercurial Earl

of Shaftesbury.

Note XII.

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

As it was pretty well understood that Charles was friendly to the

Catholic religion, which indeed he had secretly embraced, no pains

were spared to point out this tendency to the people, who connected

with the faith of Rome all the bugbear horrors of the plot, as well as

the real reasons which they had to dread its influence. Dryden probably

alludes to the language held by Colledge, which was that of his party.

Smith deposed against him, that, while he was carrying him to dine with

one Alderman Willcox, he told him, "He was a man as true as steel, and

a man that would endeavour to root out Popery.'--Says I, 'That may be

easily done, if you can but prevail with the king to pass the bill

against the duke of York.'--'No, no, (said he) now you are mistaken,

for Rowley is as great a papist as the duke of York is, (now he called

the king, Rowley,) and every way as dangerous to the Protestant

interest, as is too apparent by his arbitrary ruling."--_State Trials_,

Vol. iii. p. 359.

Note XIII.

_And nobler is a limited command,

Given by the love of all your native land,

Than a successive title, long and dark,

Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark._--P. 226.

The legitimacy of the duke of Monmouth, though boldly and repeatedly

asserted by his immediate partizans, did not receive general credit

even in the popular faction. It was one of Shaftesbury's principal

advantages, to have chosen, for the ostensible head of his party, a

candidate, whose right, had he ever attained the crown, must have

fluctuated betwixt an elective and hereditary title. The consciousness

of how much he was to depend upon Shaftesbury's arts, for stating

and supporting so dubious a claim, obliged the duke to remain at the

devotion of that intriguing politician. It seems to have been shrewdly

suspected by some of Monmouth's friends, that Shaftesbury had no real

intention of serving his interest. A poem, written by one of Monmouth's

followers, called "Judah Betrayed, or the Egyptian Plot turned on

the Israelites," expresses their fears, and very plainly intimates

this suspicion: and the reader may bear with some bad poetry, to be

convinced how far this faction was from being firmly united together:

For depth in politics, and statesman's brain,

Draw Hushai[313] next, attended by a train

Of peevish votaries, heart-sick with pride,

Too numerous for an apostate guide;

The odious name of patriot he does own,

And prophecies the downfall of a throne:

Forms in his aged fancy, robbed of health,

The strange ideas of a Commonwealth,

Then gains the proselyte dissenting Jews,

And arguments from liberty does use:

So treason veiled for liberty may go,

And traitors' heads like royalists may show.

All Judah's people had united been,

Had not he interposed, and stept between;

David in's subjects love had held his reign,

Had not he cut the fastening bond in twain,

And fatal discord sown in sanhedrin,

The much lamented hasty Judah's sin.

When either faction does produce their right

To succession, they tacitly do slight

The present king, and silent reasons bring

That he is not, or should not be, a king.--

We need not care; for heaven ne'er will own

Egyptian heir on Israelitish throne;

Nor will it ere auspiciously defend

Hushai, that only strives for's private end.

He wheedles Absalon with hopes of king,

And glistering toys of crowns does 'fore him fling;

Thus does he sooth to overthrow a crown,

And Absalon's the tool to beat it down;

And easy Absalon, by gentleness drawn,

(Though he has courage paralleled by none,)

The loss of crowns to come he now does dread,

Can heaven place them on a nobler head?

So great a soul as his 'twill never own

Should rule on any thing beneath a throne;

Or ere see Judah plagued or robbed of health,

By that unbounded thing a Commonwealth.

Note XIV.

_The next successor, whom I fear and hate,

My arts have made obnoxious to the State;

Turned all his virtues to his overthrow,

And gained our elders to pronounce a foe._--P. 229.

In 1679, when the antipathy to popery had taken the deepest root in

men's minds, the House of Commons passed a vote, "That the Duke of

York's being a papist, and the hopes of his coming to the crown,

had given the highest countenance to the present conspiracies and

designs of the papists, against the king and the protestant religion."

Charles endeavoured to parry the obvious consequences of this vote,

by proposing to the council a set of limitations, which deprived

his successor, if a catholic, of the chief branches of royalty.

Shaftesbury, then president of the council, argued against this plan as

totally ineffectual; urging, that when the future king should find a

parliament to his mind, the limitations might be as effectually taken

off as they could be imposed. When the bill was brought in, for the

total exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession, Shaftesbury

favoured it with all his influence. It passed the Lower House by a very

large majority, but was rejected by the House of Lords, where Halifax

opposed it with very great ability. Shaftesbury, who had taken so

decided a part against the Duke of York in his dearest interests, was

now irreconcilable with him, and could only look for safety in his ruin.

Note XV.

_'Till time shall ever-wanting David draw,

To pass your doubtful title into law:

If not, the people have a right supreme

To make their kings; for kings are made for them._--P. 229.

If we can believe the honourable Roger North, Lord Shaftesbury made

a fair experiment, for the purpose of ascertaining whether Charles's

love of ease and affection for Monmouth would induce him to consent to

an alteration of the succession in his favour, to the prejudice of the

Duke of York. He quotes a pamphlet, called, "The Earl of Shaftesbury's

expedient to settle the nation, discoursed with his Majesty at Oxford,

24 March, 1681," which gives the following account of the transaction;

and, as it was published at the time, and remained uncontradicted,

either by Shaftesbury, or the king, probably contains some essential

truth. The Earl of Shaftesbury having received, or pretended to

receive, an unsigned letter, in a disguised hand, bustled away to

court, "as hard," says the pamphleteer, "as legs, stick, and man could

carry him." When he arrived there, the Lord Chamberlain conceiving

the Duke of Monmouth might be in the secret, applied to him to know

what the great concern was. His grace answered, with an appearance of

hesitation, that it was something relating to himself, in which, as

in other affairs of his, Lord Shaftesbury took a deeper concern than

he desired. Meanwhile. Shaftesbury was introduced to the audience

he solicited with the king, and produced the letter, containing, as

he said, a plan for settling the interests of religion and state,

which proved to be a proposal for calling the Duke of Monmouth to the

succession. The king answered, he was surprized such a plan should

be pressed upon him, after all the declarations he had made on the

subject, and that, far from being more timorous, he became more

resolute the nearer he approached his grave. Shaftesbury expressing

great horror at such an expression, the king assured him he was no less

anxious for his own preservation, than those who pretended to so much

concern for the security of his person; and yet, that he would rather

lay down his life than alter the true succession of the crown, against

both law and conscience. For that, said the earl, let us alone; we

will make a law for it. To which the king replied, that, if such was

his lordship's conscience, it was not his; and that he did not think

even his life of sufficient value to be preserved with the forfeiture

of his honour, and essential injury to the laws of the land.--_North's

Examen_, p. 100. 123.

Note XVI.

_Then the next heir, a prince severe and wise,

Already looks on you with jealous eyes._--P. 230.

Before James went to Flanders, he had testified a jealousy of Monmouth.

"The Duke of York, before he went abroad," says Carte, "was concerned

to see that the king could observe his frequent whispers at court to

the Lord Shaftesbury, without being moved or expressing his dislike

of it, but was much more alarmed at hearing of their frequent and

clandestine meetings, without any apparent dissatisfaction expressed by

his Majesty." p. 493. vol. II.

Note XVII.

_The Solymæan rout---- ----

Saw with disdain an Ethnic plot begun,

And scorned by Jebusites to be outdone._--P. 232.

The royalists recriminated upon the popular party, the charge of plots

and machinations against the government. There is no doubt that every

engine was put in motion, to secure the mob of London, "the Solymean

rout" of Dryden, to Shaftesbury's party. Every one has heard of the

30,000 brisk boys, who were ready to follow the wagging of his finger.

The plots, and sham-plots, charged by the parties against each other,

form a dismal picture of the depravity of the times. Settle thus

ridicules the idea of the protestant, or fanatical plot for seizing the

king at Oxford.

This hellish Ethnick plot the court alarms;

The traytors, seventy thousand strong, in arms,

Near Endor town lay ready at a call,

And garrisoned in airy castles all:

These warriors, on a sort of coursers rid,

Ne'er lodged in stables, or by man bestrid.

What though the steel, with which the rebels fought,

No forge ere felt, or anvil ever wrought;

Yet this magnetick plot for black designs,

Can raise cold iron from the very mines;

To this, were twenty under plots contrived

By malice, and by ignorance believed;

Till shams met shams, and plots with plots so crost,

That the true plot amongst the false was lost.

_Absalom Senior._

Note XVIII.

_In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;

A man so various, that he seemed to be

Not one, but all mankind's epitome._--P. 233.

This inimitable description refers, as is well known, to the famous

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, son of the favourite of Charles

I., who was murdered by Felton. The Restoration put into the hands

of the most lively, mercurial, ambitious, and licentious genius, who

ever lived, an estate of 20,000l a-year, to be squandered in every

wild scheme which the lust of power, of pleasure, of licence, or of

whim, could dictate to an unrestrained imagination. Being refused

the situation of President of the North, he was suspected of having

favoured the disaffected in that part of England, and was disgraced

accordingly. But, in 1666, he regained the favour of the king, and

became a member of the famous administration called the Cabal, which

first led Charles into unpopular and arbitrary measures, and laid the

foundation for the troubles of his future reign. Buckingham changed

sides about 1675, and, becoming attached to the country party, made a

most active figure in all proceedings which had relation to the Popish

plot; intrigued deeply with Shaftesbury, and distinguished himself as

a promoter of the bill of exclusion. Hence, he stood an eminent mark

for Dryden's satire; which, we may believe, was not the less poignant,

that the poet had sustained a personal affront, from being depicted

by his grace under the character of Bayes in the Rehearsal. As Dryden

owed the Duke no favour, he has shewn him none. Yet, even here, the

ridiculous, rather than the infamous part of his character, is touched

upon; and the unprincipled libertine, who slew the Earl of Shrewsbury

while his adulterous countess held his horse in the disguise of a page,

and who boasted of caressing her before he changed the bloody cloaths

in which he had murdered her husband,[314] is not exposed to hatred,

while the spendthrift and castle-builder are held up to contempt. So

just, however, is the picture drawn by Dryden, that it differs little

from the following sober historical character.

"The Duke of Buckingham was a man of great parts, and an infinite

deal of wit and humour; but wanted judgement, and had no virtue, or

principle of any kind. These essential defects made his whole life one

continued train of inconsistencies. He was ambitious beyond measure,

and implacable in his resentments; these qualities were the effects, or

different faces of his pride; which, whenever he pleased to lay aside,

no man living could be more entertaining in conversation. He had a

wonderful talent in turning all things into ridicule; but, by his own

conduct, made a more ridiculous figure in the world, than any other he

could, with all his vivacity of wit, and turn of imagination, draw of

others. Frolick and pleasure took up the greatest part of his life;

and in these he neither had any taste, nor set himself any bounds;

running into the wildest extravagancies, and pushing his debaucheries

to a height, which even a libertine age could not help censuring as

downright madness. He inherited the best estate which any subject

had at that time in England; yet, his profuseness made him always

necessitous; as that necessity made him grasp at every thing that would

help to support his expences. He was lavish without generosity, and

proud without magnanimity; and, though he did not want some bright

talents, yet, no good one ever made part of his composition; for there

was nothing so mean that he would not stoop to, nor any thing so

flagrantly impious, but he was capable of undertaking."[315]

A patron like Buckingham, who piqued himself on his knowledge of

literature, and had the means, if not the inclination, to be liberal,

was not likely to want champions, such as they were, to repel the sharp

attack of Dryden. Elkanah Settle compliments him with the following

lines in his "Absalom Senior," some of which are really tolerable.

But who can Amiel's charming wit withstand,

The great state-pillar of the muses' land;

For lawless and ungoverned had the age

The nine wild sisters seen run mad with rage;

Debauched to savages, till his keen pen

Brought their long banished reason back again;

Driven by his satyrs into reason's fence,

And lashed the idle rovers into sense.

* * * * *

Amiel, whose generous gallantry, while fame

Shall have a tongue, shall never want a name;

Who, whilst his pomp his lavish gold consumes,

Moulted his wings to lend a throne his plumes;

Whilst an ungrateful court he did attend,

Too poor to pay, what it had pride to spend.

Another poet, at a period when interest could little sway his

panegyrick, has apologized for the versatility and extravagance of the

then deceased Duke of Buckingham:

What though black envy, with her ran'crous tongue,

And angry poets in embittered song,

While to new tracks thy boundless soul aspires,

Charge thee with roving change, and wandring fires?

Envy more base did never virtue wrong:

Thy wit, a torrent for the bank too strong,

In twenty smaller rills o'erflowed the dam,

Though the main channel still was Buckingham.[316]

Buckingham himself, smarting under the severity of Dryden's satire,

strove to answer it in kind. He engaged in this work with more zeal

and anger, than wit or prudence. It is one thing to write a farce, and

another to support such a controversy with such an author. The Duke's

pamphlet, however, sold at a high price, and had a celebrity, which

is certainly rather to be imputed to the rank and reputation of the

author, than to the merit of the performance. As it is the work of such

an applauded wit, is exceedingly scarce, and relates entirely to the

poem which I am illustrating, I shall here insert the introduction, and

some extracts from the piece itself.

It is entitled "Poetic Reflections on a late Poem, entituled, Absalom

and Achitophel, by a Person of Honour. London, printed for Richard

Janeway, 1682. (14 December.)"

To the Reader.--"To epitomize which scandalous pamphlet, unworthy the

denomination of poesy, no eye can inspect it without a prodigious

amazement, the abuses being so gross and deliberate, that it seems

rather a capital or national libel, than personal exposures, in order

to an infamous detraction. For how does he character the King, but

as a broad figure of scandalous inclinations, or contrived into such

irregularities, as renders him rather the property of parasites and

vice, than suitable to the accomplishment of so excellent a prince.

Nay, he forces on king David such a royal resemblance, that he darkens

his sanctity, in spite of illuminations from holy writ.

"Next, to take as near our king as he could, he calumniates the Duke

of Monmouth, with that height of impudence, that his sense is far

blacker than his ink, exposing him to all the censures that a murderer,

a traitor, or what a subject of most ambitious evil can possibly

comprehend.

"As to my Lord Shaftesbury, in his collusive Achitophel, what does he

other than exceed malice itself, or that the more prudent deserts of

that Peer were to be so impeached before hand by his impious poem, as

that he might be granted more emphatically condign of the hangman's

axe, and which his muse does in effect take upon her to hasten.

"And if the season be well observed when this adulterate poem was

spread, it will be found purposely divulged near the time when this

lord, with his other noble partner, were to be brought to their trial;

and, I suppose this poet thought himself enough assured of their

condemnation, at least that his genius had not otherwise ventured to

have trampled on persons of such eminent abilities and interest in

the nation; a consideration, I confess, incited my pen, its preceding

respect being paid to the duke of Monmouth, to vindicate their

reputations where I thought it due.

When late Protector-ship was cannon proof,

And, cap-a-pe, had seized on Whitehall roof;

And next on Israelites durst look so big,

That, Tory-like, it loved not much the Whig;

A poet there starts up of wondrous fame,

Whether Scribe, or Pharisee, his race doth name,

Or more to intrigue the metaphor of man,

Got on a muse by father Publican;[317]

For 'tis not harder much if we tax nature,

That lines should give a poet such a feature,

Than that his verse a hero should us show,[318]

Produced by such a feat, as famous too;

His mingle such, what man presumes to think,

But he can figures daub with pen and ink.

A grace our mighty Nimrod late beheld,

When he within the royal palace dwelled;

And saw 'twas of import, if lines could bring

His greatness from usurper to be king;[319]

Or varnish so his praise, that little odds

Should seem 'twixt him and such called earthly gods;

And though no wit can royal blood infuse,

No more than melt a mother to a muse,

Yet much a certain poet undertook,

That men and manners deals in without book,

And might not more to gospel truth belong,

Than he if christened does by name of John.

* * * * *

Fame's impious hireling, and mean reward,

The knave that in his lines turns up his card;

Who, though no Raby thought in Hebrew writ,

He forced allusions that can closely fit;

To Jews, or English, much unknown before,

He made a talmud on his muses score;

Though hoped few critics will its genius carp,

So purely metaphors king David's harp;

And, by a soft encomium, near at hand,

Shews Bathsheba embraced throughout the land.

After much unintelligible panegyric on Shaftesbury, his Grace comes to

Seymour:[320]

For Amiel, Amiel, who cannot endite,

Of his then value wont disdain to write;

The very _him_, with gown and mace did rule

The Sanhedrim, when guided by a fool;

The _him_ that did both sense and reason shift.

That he to gainful place himself might lift;

The very _him_, that did adjust the seed

Of such as did their votes for money breed;

The mighty _him_, that frothy notions vents,

In hope to turn them into presidents;

The _him_ of _hims_, although in judgment small,

That fain would be the biggest at Whitehall;

The _he_, that does for justice coin postpone,

As on account may be hereafter shown.

The noble author, with what cause the reader is now enabled to

determine, piqued himself especially upon the satirical vigour of

these last verses. "As to the character of Amiel, I confess my lines

are something pointed: the one reason being, that it alludes much to a

manner of expression of this writer's, as may be seen by the marginal

notes; and a second will soon be allowed. The figure of Amiel has been

so squeezed into paint, that his soul is seen in spite of the varnish."

As these verses were written on an occasion, when personal indignation

must have fired his Grace's wit, they incline us to believe, with Mr

Malone, that his friends, Clifford and Sprat, had the greatest share in

the lively farce of "The Rehearsal."

Buckingham's death was as awful a beacon as his life. He had dissipated

a princely fortune, and lost both the means of procuring, and the power

of enjoying, the pleasures to which he was devoted. He had fallen from

the highest pinnacle of ambition, into the last degree of contempt and

disregard. His dying scene, in a paltry inn in Yorkshire, has been

immortalized by Pope's beautiful lines:

In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,

The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung;

On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,

With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,

The George and Garter dangling from that bed,

Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,

Great Villiers lies! alas, how changed from him!

That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim;

Gallant and gay, in Cliefden's proud alcove,

The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;

Or just as gay at council, in a ring

Of mimicked statesmen, and a merry king;

No wit to flatter left of all his store,

No fool to laugh at, which he valued more;

There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,

And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends!

Note XIX.

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

The Earl of Huntington. A coarse reason is given by Luttrel in his MS.

notes, for the epithet by which he is distinguished in the text.[321]

He was one of the seventeen peers who signed a petition, beseeching

Charles to have recourse to the advice of his parliament; and he

himself presented it at Whitehall, on the 7th of December, 1679, in

the name of the other lords subscribing. This advice was received

very coldly by the king, who answered, "That he would consider of

what they had offered, and could heartily wish, that all other people

were as solicitous for the peace and good of the nation, as he would

ever be." The Earl of Huntington also subscribed the petition and

advice, presented by fifteen peers to the king, against removing the

parliament to Oxford; where they stated, "Neither Lords nor Commons can

be in safety, but will be daily exposed to the swords of the Papists,

and their adherents, of whom too many are crept into your majesty's

guards." Yet Lord Huntington did not go all the lengths of the Whig

party. He became a privy councillor, was admitted to the honour of

kissing the king's hand, and was stated in the Public Intelligencer, of

the 25th of October, 1681, to have then confessed, that he had found by

experience, "That they who promoted the bill of exclusion, were for the

subversion of monarchy itself." Monmouth, Grey, and Herbert, state, in

a paper published on this occasion, that Lord Huntington had denied the

utterance of the said words; but, from the stile of their manifesto,

it is obvious, they no longer regarded him as attached to their party.

_Ralph's History_. Vol. I. p. 657. 709. Note.

Note XX.

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

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

Chaste Caleb next, whose chill embraces charm

Women to ice, was yet in treason warm;

Of the ancient race of Jewish nobles come,

Whose title never lay in Christendom.

He appears to have been a man of very great indifference to his

domestic concerns; as the Duke of Monmouth, under whose banners he

enlisted himself, was generally believed to have an intrigue with

Lady Grey. In an account of a mock apparition, which that lady is

supposed to witness, she is made to state, "That on Saturday, the 29th

of January, 1680, being alone in her closet about nine o'clock at

night, she heard a voice behind her, which mildly said, _sweetheart_.

At which she was at first not at all frightened, supposing it to be

an apparition, which she says has often of late appeared to her _in

the absence of her lord_, in the shape of a _bright star and blue

garter_, but without hurting, or so much as frightening her." Lord

Grey, ignorant or indifferent about these scandalous reports, went

step for step with Monmouth in all his projects. He was a man of a

restless temper, and lively talents, which he exercised in the service

of the popular party. He was deep in the Rye-house Plot, and probably

engaged in the very worst part of it; at least, Lord Howard deposed,

that Grey was full of expectation of some great thing to be attempted

on the day of the king's coming from Newmarket, which was that fixed

by the inferior conspirators for his assassination. Upon the trial of

Lord Russel, Howard was yet more particular, and said, that upon a dark

intimation of an attempt on the king's person, the Duke of Monmouth,

"with great emotion, struck his breast, and cried out, 'God so! kill

the king! I will never suffer them.' That Lord Grey, with an oath,

also observed upon it, that if they made such an attempt, they could

not fail." Ramsey charged Lord Grey with arguing with Ferguson, on the

project of the rising at Taunton. Grey, on the first discovery of this

conspiracy, was arrested, but, filling the officers drunk, he escaped

in a boat, and fled into Holland. He was afterwards very active in

pushing on Monmouth to his desperate expedition in 1685. He landed with

the duke at Lyme, and held the rank of general of horse in his army.

Like many other politicians, his lordship proved totally devoid of

that courage in executing bold plans, which he displayed in forming or

abetting them. At the first skirmish at Bridport he ran away, although

the troops he commanded did not follow his example, but actually

gained a victory, while he returned on the gallop to announce a total

defeat. Monmouth, much shocked, asked Colonel Mathews what he should do

with him? who answered, he believed there was not another general in

Europe would have asked such a question. Lord Grey, however, fatally

for Monmouth, continued in his trust, and commanded the horse at the

battle of Sedgemore. There he behaved like a poltroon as formerly, fled

with the whole cavalry, and left the foot, who behaved most gallantly,

to be cut to pieces by the horse of King James, who, without amusing

themselves with pursuit, wheeled, and fell upon the rear of the hardy

western peasants. So infamous was Grey's conduct, that many writers at

the time, thinking mere cowardice insufficient to account for it, have

surmised, some, that he was employed by the king to decoy Monmouth to

his destruction; and others, that jealousy of the domestic injury he

had received from the duke, induced him to betray the army.[322] This

caitiff peer was taken in the disguise of a shepherd, near Holt Lodge,

in Dorsetshire; and confessed, that "since his landing in England, he

had never enjoyed a quiet meal, or a night's repose." He was conveyed

to London, and would probably have been executed, had it not been

discovered, that his estate, which had been given to Lord Rochester,

was so strictly entailed, that nothing could be got by his death. He,

therefore, by the liberal distribution, it is said, of large sums of

money, received a pardon from the king, and appeared as a witness on

the trial of Lord Delamere; and was ready to do so on that of Hampden;

yet he is supposed to have kept some secrets with respect to the

politics of the Prince of Orange, in reward of which, he was raised to

the rank of an Earl after the Revolution.--_Dalrymple's Memoirs_, Vol.

I. p. 185.

Notwithstanding the attribute which Dryden has ascribed to Lord Grey in

this poem, he afterwards proved a man of unprincipled gallantry; and

23d of November, 1682, was tried in the King's Bench for debauching

lady Henrietta Berkeley, daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, to whose

sister, lady Mary, he was himself married. See _State Trials_, Vol.

III. p. 519.

Note XXI

_And canting Nadab let oblivion damn,

Who made new porridge for the paschal lamb._--P. 234.

Lord Howard of Escricke, although an abandoned debauchee, made

occasional pretensions to piety. He was an intimate of Shaftesbury and

of Monmouth, but detested by Russel on account of the infamy of his

character. Plots, counter-plots, and sham-plots, were at this time

wrought like mine and countermine by each party, under the other's

vantage-ground. One Fitzharris had written a virulent libel against

the court party, which he probably intended to father upon the whigs;

but being seized by Sir William Waller, he changed his note, and

averred, that he had been employed by the court to write this libel,

and to fix it upon the exclusionists; and to this probable story

he added, _ex mera gratia_, a new account of the old Popish Plot.

The court resolved to make an example of Fitzharris; they tried and

convicted him of treason, for the libel fell nothing short of it. When

condemned, finding his sole resource in the mercy of the crown, he

retracted his evidence against the court, and affirmed, that Treby,

the recorder, and Bethel and Cornish, the two sheriffs, had induced

him to forge that accusation; and that Lord Howard was the person who

drew up instructions, pointing out to him what he was to swear, and

urging him so to manage his evidence, as to criminate the Queen and

the Duke of York. The confession of Fitzharris did not save his life,

although he adhered to it upon the scaffold. Lord Howard, as involved

in this criminal intrigue, was sent to the Tower, where he uttered and

published a canting declaration, asserting his innocence, upon the

truth of which he received the sacrament. He is said, however, to have

taken the communion in _lamb's wool_, (_i. e._ ale poured on roasted

apples and sugar,) to which profanation Dryden alludes, with too much

levity, in the second line above quoted. The circumstance is also

mentioned in "Absalom's IX Worthies:"

Then prophane Nadab, that hates all sacred things,

And on that score abominateth kings;

With Mahomet wine he damneth, with intent

To erect his Paschal-lamb's-wool-sacrament.

Lord Howard was at length set at liberty from the Tower, upon finding

bail, when he engaged under Shaftesbury, and ran into all the excesses

of the party. Being deeply involved in the Rye-house Plot, he fled upon

the discovery of that affair, and was detected in his shirt, covered

with soot, in a chimney; a sordid place of concealment, which well

suited the spirit of the man. A tory ballad-maker has the following

strain of prophetic exultation on Howard's commitment: