For while he mischief means to all mankind, 230
Himself alone the ill effects does find:

And so like witches justly suffers shame,
Whose harmless malice is so much the same.
False are his words, affected is his wit;

So often he does aim, so seldom hit;

To every face he cringes while he speaks,

235

But when the back is turn'd the head he breaks:
Mean in each action, lewd in every limb,
Manners themselves are mischievous in him:
A proof that chance alone makes every creature
A very Killigrew without good nature.

To strut, look big, shake pantaloon, and swear,
With Hewit, dammee, there's no action there.'

241

State Poems, vol. i. p. 155. The above lines are addressed by Rochester to Lord Mul

grave, when bound for Tangier.

Jack Hall, a courtier, whom I take to be the same with Uzza in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel, is thus mentioned in the State Poems, vol. ii. p. 135:

But first writ something he dare own,

Of prologue lawfully begotten,

And full nine months maturely thought on :

Born with hard labour, and much pain,

Ousely was Dr. Chamberlain.

At length from stuff and rubbish pick'd,
As bears' cubs into shape are lick'd,
When Wharton, Etherege, and Soame,
To give it their last strokes were come,
Those critics differ'd in their doom.

Yet Swan says, he admir'd it 'scap'd,

Since 'twas Jack Hall's without being clapp'd.'

Swan was a notorious punster. D.

241 A very Killigrew without good nature] Thomas Killi

For what a Bessus has he always liv'd,
And his own kickings notably contriv'd?
For, there's the folly that's still mix'd with fear,
Cowards more blows than any hero bear;

245

Of fighting sparks some may their pleasures say, But 'tis a bolder thing to run away:

penance

still:

The world may well forgive him all his ill,
For every fault does prove his
Falsely he falls into some dangerous noose, 250
And then as meanly labours to get loose;

grew, of whom we hear daily so many pleasant stories related, had good natural parts, but no regular education. He was brother to Sir William Killigrew, vice-chamberlain to King Charles the Second's queen; had been some time page of honour to King Charles I. and was, after the restoration, many years master of the revels, and groom of the chamber to King Charles II., in whose exile he shared, being his resident at Venice in 1651. During his travels abroad he wrote several plays, none of which are much talked of. His itch of writing, and his character as a wit and companion, occasioned this distich from Sir John Denham,

'Had Cowley ne'er spoke, Killigrew ne'er writ,
Combin'd in one they'd made a matchless wit.'

The same knight wrote a ballad on him.

Killigrew was a most facetious companion; his wit was lively and spirited; and he had a manner of saying the bitterest things, without provoking resentment; he tickled you while he made you smart, and you overlooked the pain, charmed by the pleasure. He died at Whitehall in March 1682, aged seventy-one, bewailed by his friends, and truly wept for by the poor. D.

242 For what a Bessus has he always lived] Bessus is a remarkable cowardly character in Beaumont and Fletcher.

D.

A life so infamous is better quitting,
Spent in base injury and low submitting.
I'd like to have left out his poetry;

Forgot by all almost as well as me.
Sometimes he has some humour, never wit,
And if it rarely, very rarely, hit,

'Tis under so much nasty rubbish laid,
To find it out's the cinder woman's trade;
Who for the wretched remnants of a fire
Must toil all day in ashes and in mire.
So lewdly dull his idle works appear,

255

260

The wretched texts deserve no comments here; Where one poor thought sometimes, left all alone, For a whole page of dulness must atone.

265

How vain a thing is man, and how unwise?
E'en he, who would himself the most despise?
I, who so wise and humble seem to be,
Now my own vanity and pride can't see,
While the world's nonsense i so sharply shown,
We pull down others but to raise our own;
That we may angels seem, we paint them elves,
And are but satires to set up ourselves.

I, who have all this while been finding fault,
E'en with my master, who first satire taught; 275
And did by that describe the task so hard,
It seems stupendous and above reward!
Now labour with unequal force to climb
That lofty hill, unreach'd by former time:
'Tis just that I should to the bottom fall,
Learn to write well, or not to write at all.

280

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL;

PART I.

Si propiùs stes

Te capiet magis—

A POEM, PUBLISHED 1681.

THE OCCASION OF IT EXPLAINED.

THE Earl of Shaftesbury seemed bent upon the ruin of the Duke of York. It was mostly through his influence in both houses, that those infamous witnesses, Oates, Tongue, Bedloe, &c., were so strenuously encouraged, and the Popish plot, if not schemed by him, was at least by him cherished and supported. He had been heard to say with some exultation, I wont pretend to pronounce who started the game, but I am sure I have had the full hunting. At this day that plot appears, to impartial and discerning eyes, to have been a forgery contrived to inflame the minds of the people against popery, a religion now professed by the duke, that the bill for excluding him from the throne might meet with more countenance and greater certainty of success; and it went very near having the desired effect.

The indiscreet zeal and imprudent conduct of the Roman Catholics, for some time past, had given too much room for suspicion; they having often openly, and in defiance of the established laws of the kingdom, shown a thorough contempt for the established religion of their country, propagated as much as possible their own tenets, loudly triumphed in their progress, and daily acquisition of proselytes among all ranks of people, without the least secrecy or caution. Hence was the nation ripe for alarm: when given, it spread like wildfire; and the Duke of York, as head of the party at which it was aimed, was obliged to withdraw to Brussels to avoid the impending storm.

The king being some time after taken ill, produced his highness's sudden return, before his enemies, and those in

the opposition to the court measures, could provide for his reception; so that their schemes were thus for a while disconcerted. Lest his presence might revive commotion, he returned again to Brussels, and was then permitted (previously) to retire to Scotland, having received the strongest assurances of his brother's affection and resolution to secure him and his heirs the succession. He had before this the satisfaction of seeing the turbulent Earl of Shaftesbury removed from his seat and precedence in the privy-council, as well as all share in the ministry; and now prevailed to have the Duke of Monmouth dismissed from all his posts, and sent into Holland.

Shaftesbury's views were to lift Monmouth to the throne, whose weaknesses he knew he could so effectually manage, as to have the reins of government in that case in his own hands. Monmouth was the eldest of the king's sons, by whom he was tenderly beloved. His mother was one Mrs. Lucy Walters, otherwise Barlow, a Pembrokeshire woman, who bore him at Rotterdam in 1649, and between whom and his majesty it was artfully reported, there had passed a contract of marriage. This report was narrowly examined into, and proved false, to the full satisfaction of the privycouncil, and of the people in general, though Shaftesbury did all in his power to support and establish a belief of its reality. The youth was educated at Paris under the queenmother, and brought over to England in 1662: soon after which time he was created Duke of Orkney in Scotland, and Monmouth in England, or rather Wales; chosen a knight of the garter; appointed master of horse to his majesty, general of the land forces, colonel of the life-guard of horse, lord-lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire, governor of Kingston-upon-Hull, chief justice in eyre on the south of the river Trent, lord-chamberlain of Scotland, and Duke of Buccleugh, in right of his wife, who was daughter and heiress to a noble and wealthy earl, bearing that name; but he lost all those places of honour and fortune, together with his royal father's favour, by the insinuation and art of Shaftesbury, who poisoned him with illegal and ambitious notions, that ended in his destruction.

The partizans of this earl, and other malecontents, had long pointed out his Grace as a proper successor to the crown, instead of the Duke of York, in case of the king's demise; and he began to believe that he had a real right to be so. At the instigation of his old friend Shaftesbury, he returned to England without his father's consent, who would