Anti-Achitophel | Page 3

be merely the result of carelessness.
FIRST EDITION SECOND EDITION
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published or unpublished, has been traced, we can only have recourse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.
HAROLD WHITMORE JONES
_Liverpool, England
November_, 1959
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