genius, it will force its own reception in the world: for there is a sweetness in good verse which tickles even while it hurts; and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleases him against his will. The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted. But I can be satisfied on more easy terms; if I happen to please the more moderate sort, I shall be sure of an honest party, and, in all probability, of the best judges; for the least concerned are commonly the least corrupt. And I confess I have laid in for those, by rebating the satire (where justice would allow it) from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced, at their own cost, that I can write severely with more ease than I can gently. I have but laughed at some men's follies, when I could have declaimed against their vices; and other men's virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes. And now, if you are a malicious reader, I expect you should return upon me, that I affect to be thought more impartial than I am. But if men are not to be judged by their professions, God forgive you Commonwealth's-men for professing so plausibly for the government. You cannot be so unconscionable as to charge me for not subscribing my name; for that would reflect too grossly upon your own party, who never dare, though they have the advantage of a jury to secure them. If you like not my Poem, the fault may possibly be in my writing, though it is hard for an author to judge against himself; but more probably, it is in your morals, which cannot bear the truth of it. The violent on both sides will condemn the character of Absalom', as either too favourably or too hardly drawn: but they are not the violent whom I desire to please. The fault, on the other hand, is to extenuate, palliate, and indulge; and, to confess freely, I have endeavoured to commit it. Besides the respect which I owe his birth, I have a greater for his heroic virtues; and David2 himself could not be more tender of the young man's life, than I would be of his reputation. But since the most excellent natures are always the most easy, and, as being such, are the soonest perverted by ill counsels, especially when baited with fame and glory; it is no more a wonder that he withstood not the temptations of Achitophel3, than it was for Adam not to have resisted the two devils, the serpent and the woman. The conclusion of the story I purposely forbore to prosecute, because I could not obtain from my→ self to show Absalom unfortunate. The frame of it was cut out but for a picture to the waist, and if the draught be so far true, it is as much as I designed. Were I the inventor, who am only the historian, I should certainly conclude the piece with the reconcilement of Absalom to David; and who knows but this may come to pass? Things were not brought to an extremity where I left the story; there seems yet to be room left for a composure; hereafter, there may be only for pity. I have not so much as an uncharitable wish against 1 The Duke of Monmouth. 3 Earl of Shaftesbury. 2 Charles the Second. Achitophel, but am content to be accused of a good-natured error, and to hope, with Origen, that the devil himself may at last be saved: for which reason, in this Poem, he is neither brought to set his house in order, nor to dispose of his person afterwards as he in wisdom shall think fit. God is infinitely merciful, and his vicegerent is only not so, because he is not infinite. The true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction; and he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease; for those are only in order to prevent the chirurgeon's work of an ense rescindendum, which I wish not to my very enemies. To conclude all; if the body politic have any analogy to the natural, in my weak judgment an act of oblivion were as necessary in a hot distempered state, as an opiate would be in a raging fever. A KEY ΤΟ ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. Abdael. Abethdin... Absalom Achitophel Adriel Amri .General Monk, Duke of Albemarle. .................................Anthony-Ashley Cowper, first Earl of Shaftesbury. ...John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave. .Mr. Seymour, Speaker of the House of ..........Sir Heneage Finch, Earl of Winchelsea Annabel.................Anne, Duchess of Monmouth, the daugh ter and sole heir of Francis, Earl of Buccleugh. ..Sir William Waller. .A character drawn by Tate for Dryden, in the Second Part of this Poem. Earl of Huntingdon. Arod Balaam.... Balak ... Barnet. Duke of Ormond. Duchess of Portsmouth. General Sackville. Rev. Samuel Johnson. Duke of Beaufort. Ford, Lord Grey of Werk. Dr. Titus Oates. .King Charles II. Elkanah Settle, the City poet. .Sir Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington. .....The Land of Exile, more particularly Hebrew Priests........ The Church of England Clergy. Helon..... Hushai..... Jebusites Jerusalem Jews Jonas Jordan Jotham Jothran... Ishbosheth Israel.. Rabsheka.. Earl of Feversham, a Frenchman by birth, and nephew to Marshal Tu ..Thomas Thynne, Esq. who was shot in .Mr. Ferguson, a canting Teacher. ..Sir Thomas Player, one of the City Sagan of Jerusalem...Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, young est Son to the Earl of Northampton. Sanhedrim Saul Shimei...... Sheva...... Sion .Oliver Cromwell. ...Slingsby Bethel, Sheriff of London, in 1680. Sir Roger L'Estrange, .England. .London Rebels. ........Holland. ..Jack Hall. ..Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury. ........A Member of the House of Commons. .Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. ..Sir John Moore, Lord Mayor in 1682. |