p. 3, line 4, enthron'd, with inthron'd with
3 8, Arts ... steps Art's ... step's
11 10, Rods; Rods?
13 26, to Descend do Descend
14 17, couch, couch
29 9, Cedar Cedars
31 21, Temples Temple
[Footnote 8: "The Attacks on John Dryden," _Essays and Studies by
Members of the English Association_, XXI, 41-74.]
[Footnote 9: Joseph Spence, _Anecdotes ... of Books and Men_ (1858),
p. 51.]
For "No Link ... night" (p. 35, lines 19-24), the Second Edition
substitutes, for an undetermined reason, the following:
No less the Lordly Zelecks Glory sound
For courage and for Constancy renoun'd:
Though once in naught but borrow'd plumes adorn'd,
So much all servile Flattery he scorn'd;
That though he held his Being and Support,
By that weak Thread the Favour of a Court,
In Sanhedrims unbrib'd, he firmly bold
Durst Truth and Israels Right unmov'd uphold;
In spight of Fortune, still to Honour wed,
By Justice steer'd, though by Dependence fed.
Very little can be said of Pordage's poem, beyond its date of
publication (January 17, 1681/2)[10] and the fact that no parallel has
been found with his earlier work. As no detailed study on him, published
or unpublished, has been traced, we can only have recourse to the
standard works on the period; data thus easily accessible are not
therefore reproduced here. A so-called second edition (MacDonald 205b)
is identical with the first.
[Footnote 10: _Modern Philology_, XXV (1928) 409-416.]
In conclusion a few comments may be made on the general situation into
which the poems fit. It will be remembered that _Absalom and Achitophel_
appeared after the Exclusion Bill, the purpose of which was to debar
James Duke of York from the Protestant succession, had been rejected by
the House of Lords, mainly through the efforts of Halifax. Dryden's poem
was advertised on November 17, 1681, and we may safely assume that it
was published only a short time before Settle and our other authors
were hired by the Whigs to answer it. Full details have not survived;
one suspects Shaftesbury's Green Ribbon Club. That such replies were
considered necessary testifies both to the popularity of _Absalom and
Achitophel_ with the layman in politics and to the Whigs' fear of its
harming their cause. Settle's was of course a mercenary pen, and it is
amusing to note that after ridiculing Halifax here he was quite prepared
to publish, fourteen years later, _Sacellum Apollinare: a Funeral Poem
to the Memory of that Great Statesman, George Late Marquiss of Halifax_,
and on this count his place among Pope's Dunces seems merited. In
tracing his quarrel with Dryden up to the publication of _Absalom
Senior_, critics have tended to overlook the fact that by 1680 there
was already hostility between the two;[11] less has been said about
the effect on Dryden of the poets themselves. The spleen of his
contributions to the Second Part of _Absalom and Achitophel_ is
essentially a manufactured one and for the public entertainment;
personally he was comparatively unmoved--the Og portrait, for example,
is less representative than his words in "The Epistle to the Whigs"
prefixed to _The Medal_. Here, as in _Mac Flecknoe_, he appears to have
been able to write vituperation to order. "I have only one favor to
desire of you at parting," he says, and it is "that when you think of
answering this poem, you would employ the same pens against it, who have
combated with so much success against _Absalom and Achitophel_; for then
you may assure yourselves of a clear victory, without the least reply."
Is it for the best that this forecast proved the right one?
[Footnote 11: e.g., over _The Empress of Morocco_; see Scott's
_Dryden_, XV, 397-413.]
For permission to reproduce their copies of texts comprising the present
reprint thanks are expressed to the University of Florida Library
(_Absalom Senior_) and to the Trustees of the British Museum (the other
two poems). The University of Leeds and the City of Manchester Public
Library are also thanked for leave to use contemporary marginalia in
each's copy of Settle's poem. The provenance of the latter two copies
of this piece is unknown; the first, now in the Brotherton Collection,
bears the name William Crisp on its last blank leaf and, in abbreviated
form, identifies some characters; the second, of unidentified ownership,
is fuller.