Anti-Achitophel

(1682)

THREE VERSE REPLIES TO

Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden

Absalom Senior by Elkanah Settle

Poetical Reflections by Anonymous

Azaria and Hushai by Samuel Pordage

FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY

HAROLD WHITMORE JONES

Gainesville, Florida

SCHOLARS’ FACSIMILES & REPRINTS

1961

SCHOLARS’ FACSIMILES & REPRINTS
118 N. W. 26th Street
Gainesville, Florida
Harry R. Warfel, General Editor

REPRODUCED FROM COPIES IN

BRITISH MUSEUM

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARY

L. C. Catalog Card Number: 60-6430

MANUFACTURED IN THE U.S.A.
LETTERPRESS BY J. N. ANZEL, INC.
PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY BY EDWARDS BROTHERS
BINDING BY UNIVERSAL-DIXIE BINDERY

Editor’s Introduction
Allusions
References

Absalom Senior
Introduction
Text
Errata

Poetical Reflections
Introduction
Text

Azaria and Hushai
Introduction
Text

INTRODUCTION

English verse allegory, humorous or serious, political or moral, has deep roots; a reprint such as the present is clearly no place for a discussion of the subject at large:1 it need only be recalled here that to the age that produced The Pilgrim's Progress the art form was not new. Throughout his life Dryden had his enemies, Prior and Montague in their satire of The Hind and the Panther, for example. The general circumstances under which Dryden wrote Absalom and Achitophel, familiar enough and easily accessible, are therefore recalled only briefly below. Information is likewise readily available on his use of Biblical allegory.2

We are here concerned with three representative replies to Absalom and Achitophel: their form, their authors, and details of their publication. Settle's poem was reprinted with one slight alteration a year after its first appearance; the Reflections has since been reprinted in part, Pordage's poem not at all. Absalom Senior has been chosen because, of the many verse pieces directed against Dryden's poem, it is of the greatest intrinsic merit and shows the reverse side of the medal, as it were, to that piece; the second is given, not for any literary merit it may possess--indeed, from its first appearance it has been dismissed as of small worth--but rather as a poem representative of much of the versifying that followed hard on the Popish Plot and as one that has inspired great speculation as to its author; the third, in addition to throwing light on the others, is a typical specimen of the lesser work produced in the Absalom dispute.

The author and precise publication date of the Reflections remain unidentified. Ascription of the poem to Buckingham rests ultimately on the authority of Wood's Athenae Oxonienses and on Wood alone, and we do not know on what evidence he thought it to be Buckingham's; we do know, however, that Wood was often mistaken over such matters. Sir Walter Scott in his collected edition of Dryden (1808; IX, 272-5) also accepted Buckingham as the author, but cited no authority; he printed extracts, yet the shortcomings of his edition, whatever its convenience, are well known. The poem has not appeared in any subsequent edition of Dryden's poems, the latest being the iv four volume set (Oxford, 1958); the volume of the California Dryden relevant to Absalom is still awaited.A Internal evidence is even more scanty. Only one passage of the Reflections (sig. D2) may bear on the matter. Perhaps the "Three-fold Might" (p. 7, line 11) refers, not to the poet's "tripartite design" (p. 7, line 10) or to the Triple Alliance of England, Holland, and Sweden against France (1677/8, as in Absalom and Achitophel, line 175) but either to a treatise which had occasioned some stir in the scientific world some twenty years previously: "the Delphic problem" proposed by Hobbes to the Royal Society on the duplication of the cube, which might have come to the ears of Buckingham as well as to those of the court,3 or perhaps to the triple confederacy of Essex, Halifax, and Sunderland.4 But to the Restoration reader the phrase "Three-fold Might" would rather have suggested the Triple Alliance, to which Dryden reverts in The Medal (lines 65-68) when he claims that Shaftesbury, "thus fram'd for ill, ... loos'd our Triple Hold" on Europe.5

Evidence against Buckingham's authorship, on the other hand, is comparatively strong. The piece does not appear in his collected Works (1704-5). It surely would have been included even though he had at first wished to claim any credit from its publication and later have wished to disown it. Little connection, furthermore, will be found between the Reflections and the rest of his published verse or with the plays, including The Rehearsal, if the latter be his alone, which is doubtful.

Poetical Reflections has been ascribed to Edward Howard. W. Thomas Lowndes in his Bibliographer's Manual (1864; II, 126) assigned to this minor writer, on the authority of an auction note, the little collection Poems and Essays, with a Paraphrase on Cicero's Laelius, or, Of Friendship ... By a Gentleman (1674), and G. Thorn-Drury, on the equally debatable evidence of an anonymous manuscript ascription on the title page of his own copy, ascribed the Poetical Reflections to Howard.6 An examination of the Poems and Essays, however, reveals no point of resemblance with our poem. How, then, does Howard fit into the picture? He was in the rival camp to Dryden and was a friend of Martin Clifford7 and of Thomas Sprat, then Buckingham's chaplain: these three have been thought to be jointly responsible for The Rehearsal. Sprat had published a poem of congratulation to Howard on Howard's The British Princes (1669), the latter a long pseudo-epic v of the Blackmore style in dreary couplets which, again, provides no parallel with the Reflections. And what of Howard's plays? Many of these were written in the 1660's during his poetic apprenticeship; none seems akin to our poem. Whereas, as shown in the Table of Allusions below, two independent readers often agreed over the identities of many characters in Settle's poem, Restoration readers at large were reticent over the authorship of the Reflections. Hugh Macdonald, in his useful John Dryden: a Bibliography (1939), was wise to follow their example, and it seems rash, therefore, to propose any new candidate in the face of such negative evidence. The poem exists in two states, apparently differing only in the title page.

Evidence of Settle's authorship of Absalom Senior, on the other hand, is neither wanting nor disputed. We have had to wait until our own century for the pioneer work on this writer, since he cannot have been considered a sufficiently major poet by Samuel Johnson's sponsors, and Langbaine's account is sketchy. In a periodical paper8 Macdonald summarized supplementary evidence on the dates of composition of Settle's poem; he was working on it in January 1681/2, and it was published on the following April 6. Lockyer, Dean of Peterborough, asserted to Joseph Spence, who includes the rumor in Anecdotes, that Settle was assisted by Clifford and Sprat and by "several best hands of those times";9 but Spence is notoriously unreliable. In the lack of other evidence, then, it seems best to take the poem as wholly Settle's. It needs only to add a few words on its textual states. The First Edition, here reproduced, seems to exist in a single impression, and likewise the Second Edition of the Settle (1682, in quarto) seems to have been struck off in a single textual state. Of its individual variants from the First Edition only the following seem of any significance and, since there is no reason to suppose that it was printed from any copy other than the First, they may be merely the result of carelessness.

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.

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, vii 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?

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

TABLE OF ALLUSIONS

NAMES

The persons and places referred to in the allegories are identified in the following lists of names. M indicates the ascription in the Manchester copy; B, that in the Leeds University copy. Within the list for each poem, names similarly used in Absalom and Achitophel are omitted; those used with a different meaning are marked with an asterisk.

REFERENCES

Biblical parallels and parallels with Absalom and Achitophel are omitted. The Dedications of the poems can be compared with Dryden's in Absalom and Achitophel.

ABSALOM SENIOR

PAGE

3: Barak. The only borrowing in the poem from a popular seventeenth century jest book, Wits Recreations (1640), "Epigrams," no. 46, "On Sir Fr. Drake": "The sun itself cannot forget/His fellow traveller."

11: a Jewish Renegade. Cardinal Philip Thomas Howard (B).

13: a Breaden God. Either a reference to transubstantiation (see also II Kings 2-3 and II Chron. 34) or an allusion to the Meal Tub Plot (1679).

16: a Cake of Shew-bread. In addition to the Biblical allusion, perhaps a reference to the poisoning of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII by the communion wafer.

17: in Possession. As this legal term is opposed to "reversion" emendation is unnecessary.

19: to bear. There was a belief that Jeffreys was connected with the Duchess of Portsmouth (B). The "Golden Prize" was perhaps protestantism, to be suppressed under a secret provision of the Treaty of Dover (1670).

19: Court-Drugster. Sir George Wakeman.

25: beautifyed. OED notices this catachrestic form of "beatified"

32: All-be-devill'd Paper. Presumably that accusing Shaftsbury of high treason.

34: A Cell. Eton.

37: Midnight Bawd. Mrs. Cellier.

POETICAL REFLECTIONS

4: Ignoramus. The jury's verdict at Shaftesbury's trial.

5: the Joyner. Stephen Colledge.

9: motly Sight, read "Spight"?

AZARIA AND HUSHAI

10: Power on Amazia. Read "of Amazia"?

19: allay'd. Read "ally'd"?

28: to board. Read "hoard"?

38: swifty back. So in all copies seen.

Footnotes

To the TORIES.

Gentlemen, for so you all write your selves; and indeed you are your own Heralds, and Blazon all your Coats with Honour and Loyalty for your Supporters; nay, and you are so unconscionable too in that point, that you will allow neither of them in any other Scutcheons but your own. But who has ’em, or has ’em not, is not my present business; onely as you profess your selves Gentlemen, to conjure you to give an Adversary fair play; and that if any person whatsoever shall pretend to be aggrieved by this POEM, or any part of it, that he would bear it patiently; since the Licentiousness of the first Absolom and Achitophel has been the sole occasion of the Liberty of This, I having only taken the Measure of My Weapon, from the Length of his; which by the Rules of Honour ought not to offend you; especially, since the boldness of that Ingenious Piece, was wholly taken from the Encouragement you gave the Author; and ’tis from that Boldness only that this POEM takes its Birth: for had not his daring Pen brought that Piece into the World, I had been so far from troubling my self in any Subject on this kind, that I may justly say in one sence, the Writer of that Absolom, is the Author of this. This favour, as in Justice due, obtain’d from you, I shall not trouble you with a long Preface, like a tedious Compliment at the Door, but desire you to look in for your Entertainment. Onely I cannot forbear telling you, that one thing I am a little concern’d for you, Tories, that your Absoloms and Achitophels, and the rest of your Grinning Satyres against the Whiggs, have this one unpardonable Fault, That the Lash is more against a David, than an Achitophel; whilst the running down of the PLOT at so extravagant a rate, savours of very little less (pardon the Expression) than ridiculing of Majesty it self, and turning all those several Royal Speeches to the Parliament on that Subject, onely into those double-tongu’d Oracles that sounded one thing, and meant another. Besides, after this unmannerly Boldness, of not onely branding the publick Justice of the Nation, but affronting even the Throne it self, to 14 push the humour a little farther, you run into ten times a greater Vice, (and in the same strain too) than what you so severely inveigh against: and whilst a POPISH PLOT through want of sufficient Circumstances, and credible Witnesses, miscarries with you, a PROTESTANT PLOT without either Witness or Circumstance at all, goes currant. Nay you are so far now from your former niceties and scruples, and disparing about raising of Armies, and not one Commission found, that you can swallow the raising of a whole Protestant ARMY, without either Commission, or Commission-Officer; Nay, the very When, Where, and How, are no part of your Consideration. ’Tis true, the great Cry amongst you, is, The Nations Eyes are open’d; but I am afraid, in most of you, ’tis onely to look where you like best: and to help your lewd Eye-sight, you have got a damnable trick of turning the Perspective upon occasion, and magnifying or diminishing at pleasure. But alas, all talking to you is but impertinent, and fending and proving signifie just nothing; for after all Arguments, both Parties are so irreconcileable, that as the Author of Absolom wisely observed, they’ll be Fools or Knaves to each other to the end of the Chapter. And therefore I am so reasonable in this point, that should be very glad to divide ’em between ’em, and give the Fool to the Tory, and the Knave to the Whigg. For the Tories that will believe no POPISH PLOT, may as justly come under that denomination, as They, that David tells us, said in their Hearts there was no God. And then let the Whiggs that do believe a Popish Plot be the Knaves, for daring to endeavour to hinder the Effects of a Popish Plot, when the Tories are resolved to the contrary. But to draw near a conclusion, I have one favour more to beg of you, that you’ll give me the freedom of clapping but about a score of years extraordinary on the back of my Absolom. Neither is it altogether so unpardonable a Poetical License, since we find as great slips from the Author of your own Absolom, where we see him bring in a Zimri into the Court of David, who in the Scripture-story dyed by the Hand of Phineas in the days of Moses. Nay, in the other extream, we find him in another place talking of the Martyrdome of Stephen, so many Ages after. And if so famous an Author can forget his own Rules of Unity, Time, and Place, I hope you’ll give a Minor Poet some grains of Allowance, and he shall ever acknowledge himself

Your Humble Servant.

Absalom Senior:

OR,

ACHITOPHEL

TRANSPROS’D.

In Gloomy Times, when Priestcraft bore the sway,
And made Heav’ns Gate a Lock to their own Key:
When ignorant Devotes did blindly bow,
And groaping to be sav’d they knew not now:
Whilst this Egyptian darkness did orewhelm,
The Priest sate Pilot even at Empires Helm.
Then Royal Necks were yok’d, and Monarchs still
Hold but their Crowns at his Almighty Will.
And to defend this high Prerogative,
Falsely from Heaven he did that powr derive:
By a Commission forg’d i’th’ hand of God,
Turn’d Aarons blooming wand, to Moses snaky Rod.
Whilst Princes little Scepters overpowr’d,
Made but that prey his wider Gorge devour’d.
Now to find Wealth might his vast pomp supply,
(For costly Roofs befit a Lord so high)
No Arts were spar’d his Luster to support,
But all Mines searcht t’enrich his shining Court.
Then Heav’n was bought, Religion but a Trade;
And Temples Murder’s Sanctuary made.
By Phineas Spear no bleeding Cozbies groan’d,
If Cozbies Gold for Cozbies Crimes aton’d.
With these wise Arts, (for Humane Policy
As well as Heav’nly Truth, mounts Priests so high)
’Twixt gentle Penance, lazy Penitence,
A Faith that gratifies both Soul and Sense;
With easie steps to everlasting Bliss,
He paves the rugged way to Paradice.
16 Thus almost all the Proselyte-World he drives,
Whilst th’universal Drones buz to his Hives.
Implicite Faith Religion thus convey’d
Through little pipes to his great Channel laid,
Till Piety through such dark Conduits led,
Was poyson’d by the Spring on which it fed.
Here blind Obedience to a blinder Guide,
Nurst that Blind Zeal that rais’d the Priestly pride;
Whilst to make Kings the Sovereign Prelate own,
Their Reason he enslav’d, and then their Throne.
The Mitre thus above the Diadem soar’d,
Gods humble servant He, but Mans proud Lord.
It was in such Church-light blind-zeal was bred,
By Faiths infatuating Meteor led;
Blind Zeal, that can even Contradictions joyn;
A Saint in Faith, in Life a Libertine;
Makes Greatness though in Luxury worn down,
Bigotted even to th’ Hazard of a Crown;
Ty’d to the Girdle of a Priest so fast,
And yet Religious only to the wast.
But Constancy atoning Constancy,
Where that once raigns, Devotion may lye by.
T’espouse the Churches Cause lyes in Heav’ns road,
More than obeying of the Churches God.
And he dares fight, for Faith is more renown’d
A Zealot Militant, than Martyr crown’d.
Here the Arch-Priest to that Ambition blown,
Pull’d down Gods Altars, to erect his own:
For not content to publish Heav’ns command,
The Sacred Law penn’d by th’Almighty Hand,
And Moses-like ’twixt God and Israel go,
Thought Sinai’s Mount a Pinacle too low.

And ceasing to adore, to be ador’d.
So fell Faiths guide: so loftily he towr’d,
Till like th’Ambitious Lucifer accurst,
Swell’d to a God, into a Fiend he burst.

But as great Lucifer by falling gain’d
Dominion, and ever in Damnation reign’d;

And thus enthron’d, with an infernal spight,
The genuine Malice of the Realms of night,
The Paradise he lost blasphemes, abhors,
And against Heav’n proclaims Eternal Wars;
No Arts untry’d, no hostile steps untrod,
Both against Truths Adorers, and Truths God.

So Faiths faln Guide, now Baals great Champion raign’d;
Wide was his Sway, and Mighty his Command:
Whilst with implacable revenge he burn’d,
And all his Rage against Gods Israel turn’d.
Here his invenom’d Souls black gall he flings,
Spots all his Snakes, and points his Scorpions stings:
Omits no Force, or Treacherous Designe,
Blest Israel to assault, or undermine.
But the first Sword did his keen Malice draw,
Was aim’d against the God-like Deborah.
Deborah, the matchless pride of Judah’s Crown,
Whose Female hand Baal’s impious Groves cut down,
His banisht Wizards from her Israel thrust,
And pounded all their Idols into dust.
Her Life with indefatigable pain,
By Daggers long, and poysons fought in vain:
At length they angry Jabins Rage enflam’d,
Hazors proud King, for Iron Chariots fam’d;
A Warriour powerful, whose most dreadful Hoast
Proclaim’d Invincible, (were humane Boast
Infallible) by haughty Sisera led,
’Gainst Deborah their bloody Banners spread.
Here Deborah her Barak calls to War;
Barak, the Suns fam’d fellow-traveller,
Who wandring o’re the Earths surrounded Frame,
Had travelled far as his great Mistress Fame.
Here Barak did with Deborah’s vengeance fly,
And to that swift prodigious Victory,
So much by Humane Praises undefin’d,
That Fame wants Breath, and Wonder lags behind.
To Heav’ns high Arch her sounding Glories rung,
Whilst thus great Deborah and Barak sung.

18 Hear, oh ye Princes, oh ye Kings give Ear,
And Israels great Avengers honour hear.
When God of Hosts, thou Israels Spear and Shield,
Wentst out of Seir, and marched’st from Edoms field,
Earth trembled, the Heaven’s drop’d, the Clouds all pour’d;
The Mountains melted from before the Lord;
Even thy own Sinai melted into streams,
At Israels dazling Gods refulgent Beams.
In Shamgar and in Jael’s former days,
The wandring Traveller walked through by-ways.
They chose new Gods. No Spear nor Sword was found,
To have Idolatry depos’d, Truth Crown’d,
Till I alone, against Jehovahs Foes;
I Deborah, I Israels Mother rose.
Wake Deborah, wake, raise thy exalted Head;
Rise Barak, and Captivity Captive lead.
For to blest Deborah, belov’d of Heav’n,
Over the Mighty is Dominion given.
Great Barak leads, and Israels Courage warms;
Ephraim and Benjamin march down in Arms:
Zebulon and Nepthali my Thunder bore,
Dan from her Ship, and Asher on the Shore.
Behold Megiddoes waves, and from afar,
See the fierce Jabins threatning storm of War.
But Heav’n ’gainst Sisera fought, and the kind Stars
Kindl’d their embattel’d Fires for Deborah’s Wars,
Shot down their Vengeance that miraculous day,
When Kishons Torrants swept their Hosts away.
But curse ye Meroz, curse ’em from on high.
Did the denouncing voice of Angels cry;
Accurst be they that went not out t’oppose
The Mighty Deborah’s, God’s, and Israel’s Foes.
Victorious Judah! Oh my Soul, th’hast trod,
Trod down their strengths. So fall the Foes of God.
But they who in his Sacred Laws delight,
Be as the Sun when he sets out in might.

Thus sung, they conquer’d Deborah; thus fell
Hers, and Heav’ns Foes. But no Defeat tames Hell.
By Conquest overthrown, but not dismay’d,
’Gainst Israel still their private Engines play’d.
19 And their dire Machinations to fulfil,
Their stings torn out, they kept their poyson still.
And now too weak in open force to joyn,
In close Cabals they hatcht a damn’d Design,
To light that Mine as should the world amaze,
And set the ruin’d Israel in a blaze.

When Judahs Monarch with his Princes round,
Amidst his glorious Sanedrim sate Crown’d,
Beneath his Throne a Cavern low, and dark
As their black Souls, for the great Work they mark.
In this lone Cell their Midnight-Hands bestow’d
A Stygian Compound, a combustive load
Of Mixture wondrous, Execution dire,
Ready the Touch of their Infernal Fire.
Have you not seen in yon æthereal Road,
How at the Rage of th’angry driving God,
Beneath the pressure of his furious wheels
The Heav’ns all rattle, and the Globe all reels?
So does this Thunder’s Ape its lightning play,
Keen as Heav’ns Fires, and scarce less swift than they.

This Mixture was th’Invention of a Priest;
The Sulphurous Ingredients all the best
Of Hells own growth: for to dire Compounds still
Hell finds the Minerals, and the Priest the Skill.

From this curst Mine they had that blow decreed,
A Moments dismal blast, as should exceed
All the Storms, Battles, Murders, Massacres,
And all the strokes of Daggers, Swords, or Spears,
Since first Cain’s hand at Abels Head was lift:
A Blow more swift than Pestilence, more swift
Than ever a destroying Angel rod,
To pour the Vial of an angry God.

The Train was laid, the very Signal giv’n;
But here th’all-seeing, Israels Guardian, Heav’n
Could hold no longer; and to stop their way,
With a kind Beam from th’Empyræan Day,
20 Disclos’d their hammering Thunder at the Forge;
And made their Cyclops Cave their Bolts disgorge.

Discover’d thus, thus lost, betray’d, undone,
Yet still untir’d, the Restless Cause goes on;
And to retrieve a yet auspicious day,
A glowing spark even in their Ashes lay,
Which thus burst out in flames. In Geshur Land,
The utmost Bound of Israels Command,
Where Judah’s planted Faith but slowly grew,
A Brutal Race that Israels God n’er knew:
A Nation by the Conquerors Mercy grac’d,
Their Gods preserv’d, and Temples undefac’d;
Yet not content with all the Sweets of Peace,
Free their Estates, and free their Consciences;
’Gainst Israel those confederate Swords they drew,
Which with that vast Assassination flew
Two hundred thousand Butcher’d Victims shar’d
One common doom: No Sex nor Age was spar’d:
Not kneeling Beauties Tears, not Virgins Cries,
Nor Infants Smiles: No prey so small but dies.
Alas, the hard-mouth’d Blood-hound, Zeal, bites through;
Religion hunts, and hungry Jaws pursue.
To what strange Rage is Superstition driven,
That Man can outdo Hell to fight for Heav’n!
So Rebel Geshur fought: so drown’d in gore,
Even Mother Earth blusht at the Sons she bore;
And still asham’d of her old staining Brand,
Her Head shrinks down and Quagmires half their Land.
Yet not this blow Baals Empire could enlarge
For Israel still was Heav’ns peculiar charge:
Unshaken still in all this Scene of Blood,
Truths Temple firm on Golden Columns stood.
Whilst Sauls Revenging Arm proud Geshur scourg’d,
From their rank soyl their Hydra’s poyson purg’d.

Yet does not here their vanquish’d spleen give o’re,
But as untir’d, and restless as before,
Still through whole waiting Ages they outdo
At once the Chimists pains and patience too.
Who though he sees his bursting Limbecks crack,
And at one blast, one fatal Minutes wrack,
21 The forward Hopes of sweating years expire;
With sad, yet painful hand new lights his Fire:
Pale, lean, and wan, does Health, Wealth, all consume;
Yet for the great Elixir still to come,
Toyls and hopes on. No less their Plottings cease;
So hope, so toyl, the foes of Israels peace.

When lo, a long expected day appears,
Sought for above a hundred rowling years;
A day i’th’ register of Doom set down,
Presents ’em with an Heir of Israels Crown.
Here their vast hopes of the rich Israels spoils,
Requites the pains of their long Ages Toyls.
Baals Banners now i’th’ face of day shall march,
With Heav’ns bright Roof for his Triumphal Arch.
His lurking Missioners shall now no more
From Forreign Schools in borrow’d shapes come o’re;
Convert by Moon-light, and their Mystick Rites
Preach to poor Female half-Soul’d Proselytes.
An all-commanding Dragon now shall soar,
Where the poor Serpents onely crawl’d before.

He shall new plant their Groves with each blest Tree,
A graft of an Imperial Nursery.
In the kind Air of this new Eden blest,
Percht on each bough, and Palaces their nest;
No more by frighting Laws forc’d t’obscure flight,
And gloomy walks, like obscene Birds of Night;
Their warbling Notes like Philomel shall sing,
And like the Bird of Paradise their wing.
Thus Israels Heir their ravisht Souls all fired;
For all things to their ardent hopes conspired.

His very youth a Bigot Mother bred,
And tainted even the Milk on which he fed.
Him onely of her Sons design’d for Baals
Great Champion ’gainst Jerusalems proud Walls;
Him dipt in Stygian Lake, by timely craft,
Invulnerable made against Truths pointed shaft.
22 But to confirm his early poyson’d Faith,
’Twas in the cursed Forreign Tents of Gath,
’Twas there that he was lost. There Absolon
By Davids fatal Banishment undone,
Saw their false Gods till in their Fires he burn’d,
Truths Manna, for Egyptian Fleshpots, scorn’d.
Not David so; for he Faiths Champion Lord,
Their Altars loath’d, and prophane Rites abhorr’d:
Whilst his firm Soul on wings of Cherubs rod,
And tun’d his Lyre to nought but Abrahams God.
Thus the gay Israel her long Tears quite dry’d,
Her restor’d David met in all her Pride,
Three Brothers saw by Miracle brought back,
Like Noahs Sons sav’d from the worlds great wrack;
An unbelieving Ham graced on each hand,
’Twixt God-like Shem, and pious Japhet stand.

’Tis true, when David, all his storms blown o’re,
Wafted by Prodigies to Jordans shore,
(So swift a Revolution, yet so calm)
Had cur’d an Ages wounds with one days Balm;
Here the returning Absolon his vows
With Israel joyns, and at their Altars bows.
Perhaps surpriz’d at such strange blessings showr’d,
Such wonders shewn both t’Israels Faith, and Lord,
His Restoration-Miracle he thought
Could by no less than Israels God be wrought.
Whilst the enlightened Absolon thus kneels,
Thus dancing to the sound of Aarons Bells,
What dazling Rays did Israels Heir adorn,
So bright his Sun in his unclouded Morn!
’Twas then his leading hand in Battle drew
That Sword that Davids fam’d ten thousand slew:
Davids the Cause, but Absolons the Arm.
Then he could win all Hearts, all Tongues could charm:
Whilst with his praise the ecchoing plains all rung,
A thousand Timbrels play’d, a thousand Virgins sung;
And in the zeal of every jocund Soul,
Absolons Health with Davids crown’d one Bowl.

Had he fixt here, yes, Fate, had he fixt here,
To Man so Sacred, and to Heav’n so dear,
23 What could he want that Hands, Hearts, Lives could pay,
Or Tributary Worlds beneath his feet could lay?
What Knees, what Necks to mount him to his Throne;
What Gems, what Stars to sparkle in his Crown?
So pleas’d, so charm’d, had Israels Genius smil’d;
But oh the Pow’rs, by treacherous snakes beguil’d,
Into a more than Adams Curse he run,
Tasting that Fruit has Israels World undone.
Nay, wretched even below his falling state,
Wants Adams Eyes to see his Adams Fate.
In vain was Davids Harp and Israels Quire;
For his Conversion all in vain conspire:
For though their influence a while retires,
His own false Planets were th’Ascendant Fires.
Heav’n had no lasting Miracle design’d;
It did a while his fatal Torrent bind.
As Joshua’s Wand did Jordan’s streams divide,
And rang’d the watry Mountains on each side.

At this last stroke thus totally o’rethrown,
Apostasie now seal’d him all her own.
Here ope’d that gaping Breach, that fatal door,
Which now let in a thousand Ruines more.
All the bright Virtues, and each dazling Grace,
Which his rich Veins drew from a God-like Race;
The Mercy, and the Clemency Divine,
Those Sacred Beams which in mild David shine;
Those Royal Sparks, his Native Seeds of Light,
Were all put out, and left a Starless Night.
A long farewel to all that’s Great and Brave:
Not Cataracts more headstrong; as the Grave
Inexorable; Sullen and Untun’d
As Pride depos’d; scarce Lucifer dethron’d
More Unforgiving; his enchanted Soul
Had drank so deep of the bewitching Bowl,
Till he whose hand, with Judahs Standart, bore
Her Martial Thunder to the Tyrian shore,
Arm’d in her Wars, and in her Laurels crown’d;
Now all forgotten at one stagg’ring wound,
24 Falling from Israels Faith; from Israels Cause,
Peace, Honour, Int’rest, all at once withdraws:
Nor is he deaf t’a Kingdoms Groans alone,
But could behold ev’n Davids shaking Throne;
David, whose Bounty rais’d his glittering Pride,
The Basis of his Glories Pyramide.
But Duty, Gratitude, all ruin’d fall:
Zeal blazes, and Oblivion swallows all.
So Sodom did both burnt and drown’d expire;
A poyson’d Lake succeeds a Pile of Fire.

On this Foundation Baals last Hope was built,
The sure Retreat for all their Sallying Guilt:
A Royal Harbour, where the rowling Pride
Of Israels Foes might safe at Anchor ride;
Defie all Dangers, and even Tempests scorn,
Though Judahs God should Thunder in the Storm.

Here Israels Laws, the dull Levitick Rolls,
At once a clog to Empire, and to Souls,
Are the first Martyrs to the Fire they doom,
To make great Baals Triumphant Legends room.
But ere their hands this glorious work can Crown,
Their long-known Foe the Sanedrin must down;
Sanedrins the Free-born Israels Sacred Right,
That God-like Ballance of Imperial Might;
Where Subjects are from Tyrant-Lords set free,
From that wild Thing unbounded man would be;
Where Pow’r and Clemency are poys’d so even,
A Constitution that resembles Heav’n.
So in th’united great THREE-ONE we find
A Saving with a Dooming Godhead joyn’d.
(But why, oh why! if such restraining pow’r
Can bind Omnipotence, should Kings wish more?)
A Constitution, so Divinely mixt,
Not Natures bounded Elements more fixt.

But to rebuild their Altars, and enstal
Their Moulten Gods, the Sanedrin must fall;
25 That Constellation of the Jewish Pow’r,
All blotted from its Orb must shine no more;
Or stampt in Pharoahs darling Mould, must quit
Their Native Beams, for a new-model’d Light;
Like Egypts Sanedrins, their influence gone,
Flash but like empty Meteors round the Throne:
That that new Lord may Judahs Scepter weild,
To whom th’old Brickill Taskmasters must yield;
Who, to erect new Temples for his Gods,
Shall th’enslav’d Israel drive with Iron Rods;
If they want Bricks for his new Walls t’aspire,
To their sad cost, he’ll find ’em Straw and Fire.

All this t’effect, and their new Fabrick build,
Both close Cabals and Forreign Leagues are held:
To Babylon and Egypt they send o’re,
And both their Conduct and their Gold implore.
By such Abettors the sly Game was plaid;
One of their Chiefs a Jewish Renegade,
High-born in Israel, one Michals Priest,
But now in Babylons proud Scarlet drest.
’Tis to his Hands the Plotting Mandats come
Subscrib’d by the Apostate Absolom.
Nay, and to keep themselves all danger-proof,
That none might track the Belial by his Hoof,
Their Correspondence veil’d from prying Eyes,
In Hieroglyphick Figures they disguise.
Husht as the Night, in which their Plots combin’d,
And silent as the Graves they had design’d,
Their Ripening Mischiefs to perfection sprung.
But oh! the much-loath’d David lives too long.
Their Vultures cannot mount but from his Tomb;
And with too hungry ravenous Gorges come,
To be by airy Expectation fed.
No Prey, no Spoil, before they see Him Dead.
Yes, Dead; the Royal Sands too slowly pass,
And therefore they’re resolved to break the Glass:
And to ensure Times tardy dubious Call,
Decree their Daggers should his Sythe forestall.
For th’execrable Deed a Hireling Crew
Their Hell and They pick out; whom to make true,
26 An Oath of Force so exquisite they frame,
Sworn in the Blood of Israels Paschal Lamb.
If false, the Vengeance of that Sword that slew
Egypts First-born, their perjur’d Heads pursue.
Strong was the Oath, the Imprecation dire;
And for a Viand, lest their Guilt should tire,
With promis’d Paradice they cheer their way;
And bold’s the Souldier who has Heav’n his pay.

But the ne’r-sleeping Providence that stands
With jealous Eyes o’re Truths up-lifted Hands;
That still in its Lord Israel takes delight,
Their Cloud by Day, and Guardian Fire by Night;
A Ray from out its Fiery Pillar cast,
That overlook’d their driving Jehu’s hast.

The frighted Israelites take the Alarm,
Resolve the Traitors Sorceries t’uncharm:
Till cursing, raving, mad, and drunk with Rage,
In Amnons Blood their frantick Hands engage.

Here let the Ghost of strangl’d Amnon come,
A Specter that will strike Amazement dumb;
Amnon the Proto-Martyr of the Plot,
The Murder’d Amnon, their Eternal Blot;
Whose too bold zeal stood like a Pharos Light,
Israel to warn, and track their Deeds of Night.
Till the sly Foe his unseen Game to play,
Put out the Beacon to secure his way.
Baals Cabinet-Intrigues he open spread,
The Ravisht Tamar for whose sake he bled.
T’unveil their Temple and expose their Gods,
Deserv’d their vengeances severest Rods:
Wrath he deserv’d, and had the Vial full,
To lay those Devils had possest his Soul.
His silenc’d Fiends from his wrung Neck they twist;
Whilst his kind Murd’rer’s but his Exorcist.
Here draw, bold Painter, (if thy Pencil dare
Unshaking write, what Israel quak’d to hear,)
27 A Royal Altar pregnant with a Load
Of Humane Bones beneath a Breaden God.
Altars so rich not Molocks Temples show;
’Twas Heaven above, and Golgotha below.
Yet are not all the Mystick Rites yet done:
Their pious Fury does not stop so soon.
But to pursue the loud-tongu’d Wounds they gave,
Resolves to stab his Fame beyond the Grave,
And in Eternal Infamy to brand
With Amnons Murder, Amnons righteous Hand.
Here with a Bloodless wound, by Hellish Art,
With his own Sword they goar his Lifeless Heart.
Thus in a Ditch the butcher’d Amnon lay,
A Deed of Night enough to have kept back the Day.
Had not the Sun in Sacred vengeance rose,
Asham’d to see, but prouder to disclose,
Warm’d with new Fires, with all his posting speed,
Brought Heav’ns bright Lamp to shew th’Infernal Deed.

What art thou, Church! when Faith to propagate,
And crush all Bars that stop thy growing state,
Thou break’st through Natures, Gods, and Humane Laws,
Whilst Murder’s Merit in a Churches Cause.
How much thy Ladder Jacobs does excel:
Whose Top’s in Heaven like His, but Foot in Hell;
Thy Causes bloody Champions to befriend,
For Fiends to Mount, as Angels to Descend.

This was the stroke did th’alarm’d World surprize,
And even to infidelity lent Eyes:
Whilst sweating Absolon in Israel pent,
For fresher Air was to bleak Hebron sent.
Cold Hebron warm’d by his approaching sight,
Flusht with his Gold, and glow’d with new delight.
Till Sacred all-converting Interest
To Loyalty, their almost unknown Guest,
Oped a broad Gate, from whence forth-issuing come,
Decrees, Tests, Oaths, for well-sooth’d Absolom.
Spight of that Guilt that made even Angels fall,
An unbarr’d Heir shall Reign: In spight of all
Apostacy from Heav’n, or Natures tyes,
Though for his Throne a Cain-built Palace rise.
28 No wonder Hebron such Devotion bears
T’Imperial Dignity, and Royal Heirs;
For they, whom Chronicle so high renowns
For selling Kings, should know the price of Crowns.

Here, Glorious Hushai, let me mourn thy Fate,
Thou once great Pillar of the Hebron State:
Yet now to Dungeons sent, and doom’d t’a Grave.
But Chains are no new Sufferings to the Brave.
Witness thy pains in six years Bonds endur’d,
For Israels Faith, and Davids Cause immur’d.
Death too thou oft for Judahs Crown hast stood,
So bravely fac’d in several Fields of Blood.
But from Fames Pinnacle now headlong cast,
Life, Honour, all are ruin’d at a Blast.
For Absolons great LAW thou durst explain;
Where but to pry, bold Lord, was to prophane:
A Law that did his Mystick God-head couch,
Like th’Ark of God, and no less Death to touch.
Forgot are now thy Honourable Scars,
Thy Loyal Toyls, and Wounds in Judahs Wars.
Had thy pil’d Trophies Babel-high, reacht Heav’n,
Yet by one stroke from Absolons Thunder given,

True, thou hadst Law; that even thy Foes allow;
But to thy Advocates, as damn’d as Thou,
’Twas Death to plead it. Artless Absolon
The Bloody Banner to display so soon:
Such killing Beams from thy young Day-break shot;
What will the Noon be, if the Morn’s so hot?
Yes, dreadful Heir, the Coward Hebron awe.
So the young Lion tries his tender Paw.
At a poor Herd of feeble Heifers flies,
Ere the rough Bear, tusk’d Boar, or spotted Leopard dies.
Thus flusht, great Sir, thy strength in Israel try:
When their Cow’d Sanedrims shall prostrate lye,
And to thy feet their slavish Necks shall yield;
Then raign the Princely Savage of the Field.

29 Yes, Israels Sanedrin, ’twas they alone
That set too high a Value on a Throne;
Thought they had a God was Worthy to be serv’d;
A Faith maintain’d, and Liberty preserv’d.
And therefore judg’d, for Safety and Renown
Of Israels People, Altars, Laws and Crown,
Th’Anointing Drops on Royal Temples shed
Too precious Showrs for an Apostates Head.
Then was that great Deliberate Councel giv’n,
An Act of Justice both to Man and Heav’n,
Israels conspiring Foes to overthrow,
That Absolon should th’Hopes of Crowns forego.
Debarr’d Succession! oh that dismal sound!
A sound, at which Baal stagger’d, and Hell groan’d;
A sound that with such dreadful Thunder falls,
’Twas heard even to Semiramis trembling Walls.

But hold! is this the Plots last Murd’ring Blow,
The dire divorce of Soul and Body? No.
The mangled Snake, yet warm, to Life they’ll bring,
And each disjoynted Limb together cling.
Then thus Baals wise consulting Prophets cheer’d
Their pensive Sons, and call’d the scatter’d Herd.

Are we quite ruin’d! No, mistaken Doom,
Still the great Day, yes that great Day shall come,
(Oh, rouse our fainting Sons, and droop no more.)
A Day, whose Luster, our long Clouds blown o’re,
Not all the Rage of Israel shall annoy,
No, nor denouncing Sanedrims destroy.
See yon North-Pole, and mark Boötes Carr:
Oh! we have those Influencing Aspects there,
Those Friendly pow’rs that drive in that bright Wain,
Shall redeem All, and our lost Ground regain.
Whilst to our Glory their kind Aid stands fast,
But one Plot more, our Greatest and our Last.

Now for a Product of that subtle kind,
As far above their former Births refin’d,
As Firmamental Fires t’a Tapers ray,
Or Prodigies to Natures common Clay.
30 Empires in Blood, or Cities in a Flame,
Are work for vulgar Hands, scarce worth a Name.
A Cake of Shew-bread from an Altar ta’ne,
Mixt but with some Levitical King-bane,
Has sent a Martyr’d Monarch to his Grave.
Nay, a poor Mendicant Church-Rake-hell slave
Has stab’d Crown’d Heads; slight Work to hands well-skill’d,
Slight as the Pebble that Goliah kill’d.
But to make Plots no Plots, to clear all Taints,
Traitors transform to Innocents, Fiends to Saints,
Reason to Nonsence, Truth to Perjury;
Nay, make their own attesting Records lye,
And even the gaping Wounds of Murder whole:
If this last Masterpiece requires a Soul.
Guilt to unmake, and Plots annihilate,
Is much a greater work than to create.
Nay both at once to be, and not to be,
Is such a Task would pose a Deity.
Let Baal do this, and be a God indeed:
Yes, this Immortal Honour ’tis decreed,
His Sanguine Robe though dipt in reeking Gore,
With purity and Innocence all o’re,
Shall dry, and spotless from the purple hue,
The Miracle of Gideons Fleece outdo.
Yes, they’re resolv’d, in all their foes despight,
To wash their more than Ethiop Treason White.

But now for Heads to manage the Design,
Fit Engineers to labour in this Mine.
For their own hands ’twere fatal to employ:
Should Baal appear, it would Baals Cause destroy.
Alas, should onely their own Trumpets sound
Their Innocence, the jealous Ears around
All Infidels would the loath’d Charmer fly,
And through the Angels voice the Fiend descry.
No, this last game wants a new plotting Set,
And Israel only now can Israel cheat.
In this Machine their profest Foes must move,
Whilst Baal absconding sits in Clouds above,
From whence unseen he guides their bidden way:
For he may prompt, although he must not play.
31 This to effect a sort of Tools they find,
Devotion-Rovers, an Amphibious Kind,
Of no Religion, yet like Walls of Steel
Strong for the Altars where their Princes kneel.
Imperial not Celestial is their Test,
The Uppermost, indisputably Best.
They always in the golden Chariot rod,
Honour their Heav’n, and Interest their God.

Of these then subtil Caleb none more Great,
Caleb who shines where his lost Father set;