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Upon her shoulders wings she wears,
Like hanging sleeves, lined through with ears
And eyes and tongues, as poets list,
Made good by deep mythologist ;
With them she thro' the welkin flies,
And sometimes carries truth, oft lies;

With letters hung, like eastern pigeons,

And Mercuries of furthest regions.

Butler, however, is a mere episode. Genuine satire was reintroduced by Satires Marvell, and ten years later revived by Oldham. The example of that very gifted, if sinister, young man, seems to have finally directed Dryden's attention to a species of poetry which must already have occupied his thoughts in the criticism of Casaubon as

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well as in the marvellous
verse of Boileau. Dryden
did not, however, at first
directly imitate the ancients
or strike an intrepid blow
at contemporary bad taste.
His Absalom and Achitophel
(1681-82) is political in
character, a gallery of satiri-
cal portraits of public men,
so painted as to excite to
madness the passions of a
faction at a critical moment.
No poem was
ever better
timed. Under the thin and
acceptable disguise of
Biblical narrative, the Tory
poet gibbeted without mercy
the heads and notables of

the rival party. The two
poems which closely fol-
lowed it bore the same
stamp. In MacFlecknoe the
manner is more closely that
of Boileau, whom Dryden

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F all our antic fights and pageantry,
which

Which English ideots run in crowds to fee,
The Polish Medal bears the prize alone?
A monfter, more the favourite of the town
Than either fairs or theatres have shown.
Never did art fo well with nature ftrive;
Nor ever idol feemed fo much alive.

Portrait of the First Earl of Shaftesbury
From Dryden's "Miscellanies"

here exceeds in force of bludgeon as far as he lags behind him in skill of rapier practice. But these four satires hold together, and should always be read in unison. In them Dryden suddenly rises to the height of his genius. Everything about him has expanded-the daring eloquence, the gusto of triumphant wit, and above all the majestic crash of the couplet, have for the first time been forged into a war-trumpet, through which the trumpeter can peal what notes he wishes.

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Jotham Lord Halifax

+ Hushai Lord, Side
x Amiel Mr Seaner
Imag SWmJours
Balam for Hunting in

od halik sord Radnor

Contemporary MS. Key to Dryden's "Absalom and Achitophel"

Michall the Queen

David the King

Absalon the Duke of Mounmouth
Achitophall the Lord Shaftsbury

Pharoah the King of France
Zimri the Duke of Buckingham
Nadab Lord Howard Escrick

From a Copy in the British Museum

Shimei Bethell

Corah Dr Oates

Bathshabath Portsmouth
Issachar Tho: Thinn
Barzillai Duke of Ormon

Zadock Bishop of London
Adriell Lord Mulgrave

FROM "ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL," PART I.

Some by their Monarch's fatal mercy grown
From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne

Were raised in power and public office high;
Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.
Of these the false Achitophel was first,

A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;

Jotham Lord Hallifax

Hushai Lord Hide
Amiell Mr Seamer

Jonas Sr Wm Jones
Balam Lord Huntingdon
Cold Caleb Lord Radnor

A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay

And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.

A daring pilot in extremity,

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too near the sands to boast his wit.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied

And their partitions do their bounds divide;

Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,

Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son,
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate,
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state;

To compass this the triple bond he broke,
The pillars of the public safety shook,

And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke;

Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.

So easy still it proves in factious times
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.

FROM "MACFlecknoe.”1

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,
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 tympany of sense.
A tun of man in thy huge bulk is writ,
But sure thou art but a kilderkin 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;

In thy felonious heart though venom lies,

It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.

Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame

In keen Iambics, but mild Anagram.

Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in Acrostic land.
There thou mayest wings display and altars raise
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways;
Or, if thou wouldst thy different talents suit,

Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.

1 This passage satirises Shadwell, who had posed as a sort of reincarnation of Ben Jonson; the "mountain belly" is quoted from Jonson's humorous description of himself.

The harmony and strength of Dryden's mature manner, directed to perfectly serious themes, may now be exemplified :

FROM "RELIGIO LAICI."

Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars

To lonely, weary, wandering travellers

Is Reason to the soul and as on high

Thy rolling fires discover but the sky,

Not light us here, so Reason's glimmering ray

Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,

But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear

When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere,

So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight,

So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.

Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led

From cause to cause to Nature's secret head,
And found that one first principle must be ;
But what or who that UNIVERSAL HE;
Whether some soul encompassing this ball,
Unmade, unmoved, yet making, moving all,
Or various atoms' interfering dance

Leapt into form (the noble work of chance,
Or this great All was from eternity,

Not even the Stagirite himself could see,

And Epicurus guessed as well as he.

FROM "THE HIND AND THE PANTHER," PART I.

A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged
Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged;
Without unspotted, innocent within,

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds

And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds
Aimed at her heart; was often forced to fly,
And doomed to death, though fated not to die.
Not so her young; for their unequal line
Was hero's make, half human, half divine.
Their earthly mould obnoxious was to fate,
The immortal part assumed immortal state.
Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood,
Extended o'er the Caledonian wood,
Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose
And cried for pardon on their perjured foes.
Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed,
Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed.
So captive Israel multiplied in chains,

A numerous exile, and enjoyed her pains.

With grief and gladness mixed, their mother viewed

Her martyred offspring and their race renewed ;

Their corps to perish, but their kind to last,

So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpassed.
Panting and pensive now she ranged alone,

And wandered in the kingdoms once her own.

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