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 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.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 66:  See ‘Life’ for explanation for circumstances; and the key at the close of the poem, for the real names of this satire.]

* * * * *

PART I.

  —­Si propius stes
  Te capiet magis—­

  In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin,
  Before polygamy was made a sin;
  When man on many multiplied his kind,
  Ere one to one was cursedly confined;
  When nature prompted, and no law denied
  Promiscuous use of concubine and bride;
  Then Israel’s monarch after Heaven’s own heart,
  His vigorous warmth did variously impart
  To wives and slaves; and wide as his command,
  Scatter’d his Maker’s image through the land. 10
  Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear;
  A soil ungrateful to the tiller’s care: 
  Not so the rest; for several mothers bore
  To god-like David several sons before. 
  But since like slaves his bed they did ascend,
  No true succession could their seed attend. 
  Of all the numerous progeny was none
  So beautiful, so brave, as Absalom: 
  Whether inspired by some diviner lust,
  His father got him with a greater gust; 20
  Or that his conscious destiny made way,
  By manly beauty to imperial sway. 
  Early in foreign fields he won renown,
  With kings and states allied to Israel’s crown: 
  In peace the thoughts of war he could remove,