ABSOLOM AND ACHITOPHEL. Dry den's 'Absolom and Achitophel,' perhaps the greatest verse-satire in English, was the direct outgrowth of political conditions. The Popish Plot of 1678-79, followed by the rebellion of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II, against his father, had disorganized the king dom; and the Exclusion Bill, which provided that the succession of James, Duke of York, brother to the king, and a Catholic, should be set aside in favor of the King's Protestant suc cessors, was again being fiercely debated in Parliament. The fate of the bill was still in doubt; Monmouth, though outwardly recon ciled to the King, might aain rebel; Shafts bury, implacable enemy of James and instiga tor of Monmouth's rebellion, though being tried for high treason, might yet be acquitted and live to do further mischief. Amid such conditions, in 1681, Dryden, as poet laureate, was called upon to defend the throne. He answered with a satire that for brilliant char acterization, cogent political reasoning, and mastery of form, has at least never been sur passed in English. His object was to expose the characters and motives of the King's oppo nents and to exhibit Monmouth as their dupe; and by so doing to kill the Exclusion Bill and confirm James in his succession to the throne. Taking a part of the story of Absolom's re bellion against his father David (2 Samuel, xv-xviii), he ingeniously adapts it to contem porary characters and conditions. The story of 'Absolom and Achitophel) is slight and un important, but for this defect the characteriza tion and political reasoning amply atone. The characters are not merely impersonal types, nor, unlike most of Pope's, are they too sharply individualized. Furthermore, they seemingly
are drawn without personal animus; the satirist has the air of pronouncing judgment like an Olympian. The portraits of Achitophel (Shaftsbury), Zimri (Buckingham), Shemei (Slingsby Bethel), deserve the place that they have for two centuries occupied in the picture gallery of great satire. Scarcely less remark able is the cogent political philosophy of the poem, which mingles the specious with the pro found. In the mouth of Achitophel, whose reasoning he seems to condemn, the poet puts arguments that are now generally accepted as valid by the greater part of mankind. It is hard to tell just what Dryden really believed. The verse shows mastery of that heroic couplet which Dryden perfected and which is, all things considered, the best vehicle that English satire has discovered. Each couplet, its sense condensed to the last degree, is at the same time "a slap in the face and a stride forwards toward the goal.° With such qualities, added 40 its timeliness, (Absolom and gained immediate and universal popularity and made literature for the first time in England a power in politics. Although the many re plies which it evoked are long since forgotten, it remains great literature in spite of the fact that its political issues are dead and that the world in general has come around to Achito phel's point of view. A second part of solom and Achitophel' was written by Nahum Tate. To this Dryden contributed only 200 lines (310-509) of satire on the poets Shad well and Settle, which are in his best vein and which form the only readable portion of the poem.