The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Since men, like beasts, each other's prey were made,
Since trade began, and priesthood grew a trade,
Since realms were formed, none, sure, so curst as those,
That madly their own happiness oppose;
There heaven itself, and godlike kings, in vain
Shower down the manna of a gentle reign;
While pampered crowds to mad sedition run,
And monarchs by indulgence are undone.
Thus David's clemency was fatal grown,
While wealthy faction awed the wanting throne:
For now their sovereign's orders to contemn,
Was held the charter of Jerusalem;
His rights to invade, his tributes to refuse,
A privilege peculiar to the Jews;
As if from heavenly call this licence fell,
And Jacob's seed were chosen to rebel!

324

Achitophel, with triumph, sees his crimes
Thus suited to the madness of the times;
And Absalom, to make his hopes succeed,
Of flattering charms no longer stands in need;
While fond of change, though ne'er so dearly bought,
Our tribes outstrip the youth's ambitious thought;
His swiftest hopes with swifter homage meet,
And crowd their servile necks beneath his feet.
Thus to his aid while pressing tides repair,
He mounts, and spreads his streamers in the air.
The charms of empire might his youth mislead,
But what can our besotted Israel plead?
Swayed by a monarch, whose serene command
Seems half the blessing of our promised land;
Whose only grievance is excess of ease,
Freedom our pain, and plenty our disease!
Yet as all folly would lay claim to sense,
And wickedness ne'er wanted a pretence,
With arguments they'd make their treason good,
And righteous David's self with slanders load:
That arts of foreign sway he did affect,
And guilty Jebusites from law protect,

325

Whose very chiefs, convict, were never freed,
Nay we have seen their sacrifices bleed!
Accuser's infamy is urged in vain,
While in the bounds of sense they did contain;
But soon they launched into the unfathomed tide,
And in the depths they knew disdained to ride;
For probable discoveries to dispense,
Was thought below a pensioned evidence;
Mere truth was dull, nor suited with the port
Of pampered Corah, when advanced to court.
No less than wonders now they will impose,
And projects void of grace or sense disclose.
Such was the charge on pious Michal brought;
Michal, that ne'er was cruel even in thought;
The best of queens, and most obedient wife,
Impeached of curst designs on David's life!
His life, the theme of her eternal prayer,
'Tis scarce so much his guardian angel's care.
Not summer morns such mildness can disclose,
The Hermon lily, nor the Sharon rose,
Neglecting each vain pomp of majesty,
Transported Michal feeds her thoughts on high.
She lives with angels, and, as angels do,
Quits heaven sometimes to bless the world below;
Where, cherished by her bounteous plenteous spring,
Reviving widows smile, and orphans sing.
Oh! when rebellious Israel's crimes at height,
Are threatened with her Lord's approaching fate,
The piety of Michal then remain
In heaven's remembrance, and prolong his reign!

Less desolation did the pest pursue,
That from Dan's limits to Beersheba slew;

326

Less fatal the repeated wars of Tyre,
And less Jerusalem's avenging fire.
With gentler terror these our state o'erran,
Than since our evidencing days began!
On every cheek a pale confusion sat,
Continued fear beyond the worst of fate!
Trust was no more, art, science, useless made,
All occupations lost but Corah's trade.
Meanwhile a guard on modest Corah wait,
If not for safety, needful yet for state.
Well might he deem each peer and prince his slave,
And lord it o'er the tribes which he could save:

327

Even vice in him was virtue—what sad fate,
But for his honesty, had seized our state?
And with what tyranny had we been curst,
Had Corah never proved a villain first?
To have told his knowledge of the intrigue in gross,
Had been, alas, to our deponent's loss:

328

The travelled Levite had the experience got,
To husband well and make the best of's plot;
And therefore, like an evidence of skill,
With wise reserves secured his pension still;
Nor quite of future power himself bereft,
But limbos large for unbelievers left.
And now his writ such reverence had got,
'Twas worse than plotting to suspect his plot:

329

Some were so well convinced, they made no doubt
Themselves to help the foundered swearers out;
Some had their sense imposed on by their fear,
But more for interest sake believe and swear:
Even to that height with some the frenzy grew,
They raged to find their danger not prove true.

Yet, than all these a viler crew remain,
Who with Achitophel the cry maintain;
Not urged by fear, nor through misguided sense,
(Blind zeal and starving need had some pretence),
But for the good old cause, that did excite
The original rebel's wiles,—revenge, and spite.
These raise the plot, to have the scandal thrown
Upon the bright successor of the crown,
Whose virtue with such wrongs they had pursued,
As seemed all hope of pardon to exclude.
Thus, while on private ends their zeal is built,
The cheated crowd applaud and share their guilt.

Such practices as these, too gross to lie
Long unobserved by each discerning eye,
The more judicious Israelites unspelled,
Though still the charm the giddy rabble held;
Even Absalom, amidst the dazzling beams
Of empire, and ambition's flattering dreams,
Perceives the plot, too foul to be excused,
To aid designs, no less pernicious, used;

330

And, filial sense yet striving in his breast,
Thus to Achitophel his doubts exprest.

“Why are my thoughts upon a crown employed,
Which, once obtained, can be but half enjoyed?
Not so when virtue did my arms require,
And to my father's wars I flew entire.

331

My regal power how will my foes resent,
When I myself have scarce my own consent?
Give me a son's unblemished truth again,
Or quench the sparks of duty that remain.
How slight to force a throne that legions guard,
The task to me; to prove unjust, how hard!

332

And if the imagined guilt thus wound my thought,
What will it, when the tragic scene is wrought?
Dire war must first be conjured from below,
The realm we'd rule we first must overthrow;
And when the civil furies are on wing,
That blind and undistinguished slaughters fling,
Who knows what impious chance may reach the king?
Oh! rather let me perish in the strife,
Than have my crown the price of David's life!
Or, if the tempest of the war he stand,
In peace, some vile officious villain's hand
His soul's anointed temple may invade,
Or, prest by clamorous crowds, myself be made
His murtherer; rebellious crowds, whose guilt
Shall dread his vengeance till his blood be spilt;
Which if my filial tenderness oppose,
Since to the empire by their arms I rose,
Those very arms on me shall be employed,
A new usurper crowned, and I destroyed:
The same pretence of public good will hold,
And new Achitophels be found as bold
To urge the needful change,—perhaps the old.”

He said. The statesman with a smile replies,
A smile that did his rising spleen disguise:—
“My thoughts presumed our labours at an end,
And are we still with conscience to contend?
Whose want in kings as needful is allowed,
As 'tis for them to find it in the crowd.
Far in the doubtful passage you are gone,
And only can be safe by pressing on.
The crown's true heir, a prince severe and wise,
Has viewed your motions long with jealous eyes;
Your person's charms, your more prevailing arts,
And marked your progress in the people's hearts,

333

Whose patience is the effect of stinted power,
But treasures vengeance for the fatal hour;
And if remote the peril he can bring,
Your present danger's greater from the king.
Let not a parent's name deceive your sense,
Nor trust the father in a jealous prince!
Your trivial faults if he could so resent,
To doom you little less than banishment,
What rage must your presumption since inspire?
Against his orders your return from Tyre;
Nor only so, but with a pomp more high,
And open court of popularity,
The factious tribes—And this reproof from thee?”
The prince replies,—“O statesman's winding skill!
They first condemn, that first advised the ill.”—
“Illustrious youth,” returned Achitophel,
“Misconstrue not the words that mean you well.
The course you steer I worthy blame conclude,
But 'tis because you leave it unpursued.
A monarch's crown with fate surrounded lies;
Who reach, lay hold on death that miss the prize.
Did you for this expose yourself to show,
And to the crowd bow popularly low;
For this your glorious progress next ordain,
With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train;
With fame before you like the morning star,
And shouts of joy saluting from afar?
Oh from the heights you've reached but take a view,
Scarce leading Lucifer could fall like you!
And must I here my shipwrecked arts bemoan?
Have I for this so oft made Israel groan?

334

Your single interest with the nation weighed,
And turned the scale where your desires were laid.
Even when at helm a course so dangerous moved
To land your hopes, as my removal proved.”

“I not dispute,” the royal youth replies,
“The known perfection of your policies,
Nor in Achitophel yet grudge or blame
The privilege that statesmen ever claim;
Who private interest never yet pursued,
But still pretended 'twas for others' good:
What politician yet e'er 'scaped his fate,
Who saving his own neck not saved the state?
From hence on every humorous wind that veered,
With shifted sails a several course you steered.
What form of sway did David e'er pursue,
That seemed like absolute, but sprung from you?
Who at your instance quashed each penal law,
That kept dissenting factious Jews in awe;

335

And who suspends fixed laws, may abrogate,
That done, form new, and so enslave the state.
Even property, whose champion now you stand,
And seem for this the idol of the land,
Did ne'er sustain such violence before,
As when your counsel shut the royal store;
Advice, that ruin to whole tribes procured,
But secret kept till your own banks secured.
Recount with this the triple covenant broke,
And Israel fitted for a foreign yoke;
Nor here your counsels fatal progress stayed,
But sent our levied powers to Pharaoh's aid.
Hence Tyre and Israel, low in ruins laid,
And Egypt, once their scorn, their common terror made.
Even yet of such a season can we dream,
When royal rights you made your darling theme;
For power unlimited could reasons draw,
And place prerogative above the law;
Which on your fall from office grew unjust,
The laws made king, the king a slave in trust;
Whom with state-craft, to interest only true,
You now accuse of ills contrived by you.”

To this hell's agent:—“Royal youth, fix here;
Let interest be the star by which you steer.

336

Hence, to repose your trust in me was wise,
Whose interest most in your advancement lies;
A tie so firm as always will avail,
When friendship, nature, and religion fail.
On ours the safety of the crowd depends,
Secure the crowd, and we obtain our ends;
Whom I will cause so far our guilt to share,
Till they are made our champions by their fear.
What opposition can your rival bring,
While sanhedrims are jealous of the king?
His strength as yet in David's friendship lies,
And what can David's self without supplies?
Who with exclusive bills must now dispense,
Debar the heir, or starve in his defence;
Conditions which our elders ne'er will quit,
And David's justice never can admit.
Or, forced by wants his brother to betray,
To your ambition next he clears the way;
For if succession once to nought they bring,
Their next advance removes the present king:
Persisting else his senates to dissolve,
In equal hazard shall his reign involve.
Our tribes, whom Pharaoh's power so much alarms,
Shall rise without their prince to oppose his arms.
Nor boots it on what cause at first they join;
Their troops, once up, are tools for our design.
At least such subtle covenants shall be made,
Till peace itself is war in masquerade.
Associations of mysterious sense,
Against, but seeming for, the king's defence,
Even on their courts of justice fetters draw,
And from our agents muzzle up their law.

337

By which a conquest if we fail to make,
'Tis a drawn game at worst, and we secure our stake.”

He said, and for the dire success depends
On various sects, by common guilt made friends;
Whose heads, though ne'er so differing in their creed,
I'th' point of treason yet were well agreed.
Amongst these, extorting Ishban first appears,
Pursued by a meagre troop of bankrupt heirs,

338

Blest times, when Ishban, he whose occupation
So long has been to cheat, reforms the nation!
Ishban, of conscience suited to his trade,
As good a saint as usurer ever made.
Yet Mammon has not so engrossed him quite,
But Belial lays as large a claim of spite;
Who, for those pardons from his prince he draws,
Returns reproaches, and cries up the cause.
That year in which the city he did sway,
He left rebellion in a hopeful way;

339

Yet his ambition once was found so bold,
To offer talents of extorted gold,
(Could David's wants have so been bribed), to shame
And scandalise our peerage with his name;
For which his dear sedition he'd forswear,
And e'en turn loyal, to be made a peer.
Next him, let railing Rabsheka have place,
So full of zeal he has no need of grace;

340

A saint that can both flesh and spirit use,
Alike haunt conventicles and the stews;
Of whom the question difficult appears,
If most i'th' preacher's or the bawd's arrears.
What caution could appear too much in him,
That keeps the treasure of Jerusalem!
Let David's brother but approach the town,
“Double our guards,” he cries, “we are undone.”

341

Protesting that he dares not sleep in's bed,
Lest he should rise next morn without his head.

Next these, a troop of busy spirits press,
Of little fortunes, and of conscience less;
With them the tribe, whose luxury had drained
Their banks, in former sequestrations gained;
Who rich and great by past rebellions grew,
And long to fish the troubled streams anew.
Some, future hopes, some, present payment draws,
To sell their conscience and espouse the cause.
Such stipends those vile hirelings best befit,
Priests without grace, and poets without wit.

342

Shall that false Hebronite escape our curse,
Judas, that keeps the rebels' pension-purse;

343

Judas, that pays the treason-writer's fee,
Judas, that well deserves his namesake's tree;

344

Who at Jerusalem's own gates erects
His college for a nursery of sects;

345

Young prophets with an early care secures,
And with the dung of his own arts manures!

346

What have the men of Hebron here to do?
What part in Israel's promised land have you?

347

Here Phaleg, the lay-Hebronite, is come,
'Cause like the rest he could not live at home;

348

Who from his own possessions could not drain
An omer even of Hebronitish grain,
Here struts it like a patriot, and talks high
Of injured subjects, altered property;
An emblem of that buzzing insect just,
That mounts the wheel, and thinks she raises dust.
Can dry bones live? or skeletons produce
The vital warmth of cuckoldising juice?
Slim Phaleg could, and, at the table fed,
Returned the grateful product to the bed.
A waiting-man to travelling nobles chose,
He his own laws would saucily impose,
Till bastinadoed back again he went,
To learn those manners he to teach was sent.
Chastised he ought to have retreated home,
But he reads politics to Absalom;

349

For never Hebronite, though kicked and scorned,
To his own country willingly returned.
—But, leaving famished Phaleg to be fed,
And to talk treason for his daily bread,
Let Hebron, nay let hell, produce a man
So made for mischief as Ben-Jochanan;

350

A Jew of humble parentage was he,
By trade a Levite, though of low degree;

351

His pride no higher than the desk aspired,
But for the drudgery of priests was hired

352

To read and pray in linen ephod brave,
And pick up single shekels from the grave.
Married at last, and finding charge come faster,
He could not live by God, but changed his master;
Inspired by want, was made a factious tool,
They got a villain, and we lost a fool.
Still violent, whatever cause he took,
But most against the party he forsook:
For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halves,
Are bound in conscience to be double knaves.
So this prose-prophet took most monstrous pains,
To let his masters see he earned his gains.
But as the devil owes all his imps a shame,
He chose the apostate for his proper theme;
With little pains he made the picture true,
And from reflexion took the rogue he drew.
A wondrous work, to prove the Jewish nation
In every age a murmuring generation;
To trace them from their infancy of sinning,
And show them factious from their first beginning.
To prove they could rebel, and rail, and mock,
Much to the credit of the chosen flock;
A strong authority which must convince,
That saints own no allegiance to their prince;
As 'tis a leading-card to make a whore,
To prove her mother had turned up before.
But, tell me, did the drunken patriarch bless
The son that showed his father's nakedness?
Such thanks the present church thy pen will give,
Which proves rebellion was so primitive.
Must ancient failings be examples made?
Then murtherers from Cain may learn their trade.

353

As thou the heathen and the saint hast drawn,
Methinks the apostate was the better man;
And thy hot father, waving my respect,
Not of a mother-church, but of a sect.
And such he needs must be of thy inditing;
This comes of drinking asses' milk and writing.
If Balak should be called to leave his place,
As profit is the loudest call of grace,
His temple, dispossessed of one, would be
Replenished with seven devils more by thee.

Levi, thou art a load; I'll lay thee down,
And show rebellion bare, without a gown;
Poor slaves in metre, dull and addle-pated,
Who rhyme below even David's psalms translated:
Some in my speedy pace I must outrun,
As lame Mephibosheth the wizard's son;

354

To make quick way I'll heap o'er heavy blocks,
Shun rotten Uzza as I would the pox;

355

And hasten Og and Doeg to rehearse,
Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse;
Who by my muse to all succeeding times
Shall live in spite of their own doggrel rhymes.

Doeg, though without knowing how or why,
Made still a blundering kind of melody;

356

Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin,
Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in;
Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
And, in one word, heroically mad.

357

He was too warm on picking-work to dwell,
But fagoted his notions as they fell,
And, if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.
Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire,
For still there goes some thinking to ill-nature;

358

He needs no more than birds and beasts to think,
All his occasions are to eat and drink.

359

If he call rogue and rascal from a garret,
He means you no more mischief than a parrot;

360

The words for friend and foe alike were made,
To fetter them in verse is all his trade.

361

For almonds he'll cry whore to his own mother,
And call young Absalom king David's brother.
Let him be gallows-free by my consent,
And nothing suffer since he nothing meant;
Hanging supposes human soul and reason,
This animal's below committing treason;
Shall he be hanged who never could rebel?
That's a preferment for Achitophel.
The woman, that committed buggary,
Was rightly sentenced by the law to die;
But 'twas hard fate that to the gallows led
The dog, that never heard the statute read.

362

Railing in other men may be a crime,
But ought to pass for mere instinct in him;
Instinct he follows and no farther knows,
For, to write verse with him is to transprose;
'Twere pity treason at his door to lay,
Who makes heaven's gate a lock to its own key.
Let him rail on, let his invective muse
Have four-and-twenty letters to abuse,
Which if he jumbles to one line of sense,
Indict him of a capital offence.
In fireworks give him leave to vent his spite,
Those are the only serpents he can write;
The height of his ambition is, we know,
But to be master of a puppet-show;
On that one stage his works may yet appear,
And a month's harvest keeps him all the year.

Now stop your noses, readers, all and some,
For here's a tun of midnight-work to come,
Og from a treason-tavern rolling home.

363

Round as a globe, and liquored every chink,
Goodly and great he sails behind his link.
With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
For every inch, that is not fool, is rogue;
A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had spewed to make the batter.
When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God, but God before curst him;

364

And if man could have reason, none has more,
That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.
With wealth he was not trusted, for heaven knew
What 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew;
To what would he on quail and pheasant swell,
That even on tripe and carrion could rebel?
But though heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking,
He never was a poet of God's making;
The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing—Be thou dull;
Drink, swear, and roar; forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk; do anything but write.
Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men,
A strong nativity—but for the pen;
Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
Still thou may'st live, avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,
For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane;
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.
Why should thy metre good king David blast?
A psalm of his will surely be thy last.
Darest thou presume in verse to meet thy foes,
Thou, whom the penny pamphlet foiled in prose?
Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made,
O'ertops thy talent in thy very trade;
Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so coarse,
A poet is, though he's the poet's horse.
A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
For writing treason, and for writing dull;
To die for faction is a common evil,
But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
Hadst thou the glories of thy king exprest,
Thy praises had been satire at the best;
But thou in clumsy verse, unlickt, unpointed,
Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed.

365

I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes,
For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?
But of king David's foes be this the doom,
May all be like the young man Absalom;
And, for my foes, may this their blessing be,
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee!