[43] There was published, 1679, a translation of Appian, printed for John Amery at the Peacock, against St. Dunstan’s Church, Fleet-street.  It is inscribed by the translator, J.D., to the Earl of Ossory; and seems to have been undertaken by his command.  This work is usually termed in catalogues, Dryden’s Appian.  I presume it may be the work of that Jonathan Dryden who is mentioned in p 26.

SECTION V.

Dryden engages in Politics—­Absalom and Achitophel, Part First—­The Medal—­MacFlecknoe—­Absalom and Achitophel, Part Second—­The Duke of Guise.

The controversies, in which Dryden had hitherto been engaged, were of a private complexion, arising out of literary disputes and rivalry.  But the country was now deeply agitated by political faction; and so powerful an auxiliary was not permitted by his party to remain in a state of inactivity.  The religion of the Duke of York rendered him obnoxious to a large proportion of the people, still agitated by the terrors of the Popish Plot.  The Duke of Monmouth, handsome, young, brave, and courteous, had all the external requisites for a popular idol; and what he wanted in mental qualities was amply supplied by the Machiavel subtlety of Shaftesbury.  The life of Charles was the only isthmus between these contending tides, “which, mounting, viewed each other from afar, and strove in vain to meet.”  It was already obvious, that the king’s death was to be the signal of civil war.  His situation was doubly embarrassing, because, in all probability, Monmouth, whose claims were both unjust in themselves and highly derogatory to the authority of the crown, was personally amiable, and more beloved by Charles than was his inflexible and bigoted brother.  But to consent to the bill for excluding the lawful heir from the crown, would have been at the same time putting himself in a state of pupillage for the rest of his reign, and evincing to his subjects, that they had nothing to expect from attachment to his person, or defence of his interest.  This was a sacrifice not to be thought of so long as the dreadful recollection of the wars in the preceding reign determined a large party to support the monarch, while he continued willing to accept of their assistance.  Charles accordingly adopted a determined course; and, to the rage rather than confusion of his partisans, Monmouth was banished to Holland, from whence he boldly returned without the king’s licence, and openly assumed the character of the leader of a party.  Estranged from court, he made various progresses through the country, and employed every art which the genius of Shaftesbury could suggest, to stimulate the courage, and to increase the number, of his partisans.  The press, that awful power, so often and so rashly misused, was not left idle.  Numbers of the booksellers were distinguished as Protestant or fanatical publishers; and their shops teemed with the furious declamations