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To sell their duty at a dearer rate,

Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since, The next for interest sought to embroil the
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.
The wished occasion of the Plot he takes;
Some circumstances finds, but more he makes;
By buzzing emissaries fills the ears
210

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 re-

news:

220

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:

He said, and this advice16 above the rest With Absalom's mild nature suited best; Unblamed of life (ambition set aside),

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.
With them joined all the haranguers of the
throng

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Resumed their cant, and with a zealous cry
Pursued their old beloved theocracy,
Where Sanhedrin and priest enslaved the
nation

And justified their spoils by inspiration;
For who so fit for reign as Aaron's race,
If once dominion they could found in grace?
These led the pack; though not of surest scent,

Not stained with cruelty nor puffed with Yet deepest mouthed against the government.

pride,

How happy had he been, if Destiny

480

490

Had higher placed his birth or not so high!
His kingly virtues might have claimed a throne
And blessed 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 govern-
ment.

500

530

A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed
Of the true old enthusiastic breed:
'Gainst form and order they their power em-
ploy,

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 Zimri21 stand,
17 The London populace (Jerusalem

lyma).

540

Hieroso

18 Gentile (i. e., the Popish Plot). 19 Presbyterian ministers deprived of their office by the act of Uniformity.

20 The days of the Commonwealth, when (1. 523) the clergy were unusually prominent in affairs

16 Achitophel has been urging Absalom to advance 21
his cause by securing possession of the person
of the king.

of state.

The Duke of Buckingham, favorite, and former minister, of Charles II. He had ridiculed Dryden.

A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drink-
ing,
551

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 show 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,

560

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Should only rule who most resembles me.
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dulness from his tender years;
Shadwell alone of all my sons is he
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.

1 Successor of Caesar at the age of eighteen, and virtual emperor at thirty-two.

"Son of Flecknoe." Dryden is satirizing Thomas Shadwell, a rival dramatist and personal enemy, by making him the son of a very dull poet. Flecknoe, who had died several years before the date of this poem (1682) at an advanced age.

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30

And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.
Heywood and Shirley3 were but types of thee,
Thou last great prophet of tautology.
Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,
Was sent before but to prepare thy way,
And coarsely clad in Norwich drugget+ came
To teach the nations in thy greater name.
My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung,
When to King John of Portugalā I sung,
Was but the prelude to that glorious day,
When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way,
With well-timed oars before the royal barge,
Swelled with the pride of thy celestial charge,
And, big with hymn, commander of an host; 41
The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost.7
Methinks I see the new Arions sail,

The lute still trembling underneath thy nail. At thy well-sharpened thumb from shore to shore

The treble squeaks for fear, the basses roar;
Echoes from Private-alley Shadwell call,
And Shadwell they resound from Aston-hall.
About thy boat the little fishes throng,
As at the morning toast that floats along. 50
Thou wieldst thy papers in thy threshing hand.
Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band,
St. André's feet ne'er kept more equal time,
Not even the feet of thy own "Psyche's ''10
rhyme:

Though they in number as in sense excel,
So just, so like tautology, they fell,
That, pale with envy, Singleton11 forswore
The lute and sword which he in triumph bore,
And vowed he ne'er would act Villerius12

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Here stopped the good old sire and wept for | Much Heywood, Shirley, 23 Ogleby24 there lay,

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Near these a Nursery 15 erects its head
Where queens are formed and future heroes
bred,

Where unfledged actors learn to laugh and cry,
Where infant trulls their tender voices try,
And little Maximins16 the gods defy.
Great Fletcher17 never treads in buskins18 here.
Nor greater Jonson dares in socks19 appear; 80
But gentle Simkin just reception finds
Amidst this monument of vanished minds;
Pure clinches20 the suburbian muse affords
And Panton waging harmless war with words.
Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known,
Ambitiously designed his Shadwell's throne.
For ancient Dekker prophesied long since

That in this pile should reign a mighty prince,
Born for a scourge of wit and flail of sense,
To whom true dulness should some "Psy-
ches''10 owe,

90 But worlds of "Misers''21 from his pen should flow;

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But loads of Shadwell almost choked the way.
Bilked stationers for yeomen25 stood prepared
And Herringman26 was captain of the guard.
The hoary prince27 in majesty appeared,

High on a throne of his own labours reared.
At his right hand our young Ascanius2s sate,
Rome's other hope and pillar of the state. 109
His brows thick fogs instead of glories grace,
And lambent dulness played around his face.
As Hannibal did to the altars come,

Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome; 29
So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain,
That he till death true dulness would maintain;
And, in his father's right and realm's defence,
Ne'er to have peace with wit nor truce with

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And from whose loins recorded "Psyche" sprung.

His temples, last, with poppies32 were o'er-
spread,

That nodding seemed to consecrate his head.
Just at that point of time, if fame not lie,
On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly.

"Humorists''21 and Hypocrites it should pro- So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook,

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130

Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.
The admiring throng loud acclamations make
And omens of his future empire take.
The sire then shook the honours of his head,
And from his brows damps of oblivion shed
Full on the filial dulness: long he stood,
Repelling from his breast the raging god;
At length burst out in this prophetic mood:
"Heavens bless my son! from Ireland let him
reign

To far Barbadoes on the western main; 140
Of his dominion may no end be known
And greater than his father's be his throne;
Beyond 'Love's Kingdom' let him stretch his
pen!"'

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Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit. 150
Let gentle George3+ in triumph tread the stage,
Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage;
Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,
And in their folly show the writer's wit.
Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence
And justify their author's want of sense.
Let them be all by thy own model made
Of dulness and desire no foreign aid,
That they to future ages may be known,
Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.
Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same,
All full of thee and differing but in name.
But let no alien Sedley35 interpose
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.
And when false flowers of rhetoric
wouldst cull,

Trust nature, do not labour to be dull;

This is thy province, this thy wondrous way, New humours to invent for each new play: This is that boasted bias of thy mind,

By which one way to dulness 'tis inclined, 190 Which makes thy writings lean on one side still,

And, in all changes, that way bends thy will.
Nor let thy mountain belly make pretence
Of likeness; thine's a tympany11 of sense.
A tun of man+2 in thy large bulk is writ,
But sure thou'rt but a kilderkins of wit.
Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep;
Thy tragic Muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep.
With whate'er gall thou setst thyself to write,
Thy inoffensive satires never bite;

200

In thy felonious heart though venom lies,
160 It does but touch thy Irish++ pen, and dies.
Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen Iambics,45 but mild Anagram.
Leave writing plays, and choose for thy com-

thou

mand

Some peaceful province in Acrostic land. There thou mayest wings display and altars raise,

But write thy best and top,36 and in each line And torture one poor word ten thousand ways; Sir Formal's37 oratory will be thine.

170

Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill
And does thy northern dedications fill.38
Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame
By arrogating Jonson's hostile name; 39
Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise
And uncle Ogleby24 thy envy raise.
Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part:|
What share have we in nature or in art?
Where did his wit on learning fix a brand
And rail at arts he did not understand?
Where made he love in Prince Nicander 's:
vein

Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble

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Or, if thou wouldst thy different talents suit, Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute."

210

He said, but his last words were scarcely heard, For Bruce and Longville22 had a trap prepared,

And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.
Sinking he left his drugget robe behind,
Borne upwards by a subterranean wind.
The mantle fell to the young prophet's part
With double portion of his father's art.

A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY.* NOVEMBER 22, 1687.

1

From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began;
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,

And could not heave her head,

41 dropsy

42 Cp. I Henry IV., II. iv. 493. 43 small barrel

44 Shadwell was not Irish and insisted that he had never been in Ireland more than a few hours.

45 Iambics were the standard verse-form of satire in classical poetry.

St. Cecilia, as patroness of music, is commonly represented in paintings with a harp or organ, and Dryden makes her the inventor of the latter. Public festivals in her honor were held annually at London at this period. Compare the following Ode, and also Pope's. p. 305.

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