the foundation of the Charterhouse, of which he was then governor.  But Mr. Malone has fully confuted this tale, and shown, from the records of the seminary, that Dryden’s son Erasmus was admitted upon the recommendation of the king himself.[6] The insertion, therefore, of the lines in commemoration of Shaftesbury’s judicial character, was a voluntary effusion on the part of Dryden, and a tribute which he seems to have judged it proper to pay to the merit even of an enemy.  Others of the party of Monmouth, or rather of the opposition party (for it consisted, as is commonly the case, of a variety of factions, agreeing in the single principle of opposition to the government), were stigmatised with severity, only inferior to that applied to Achitophel.  Among these we distinguish the famous Duke of Buckingham, with whom, under the character of Zimri, our author balanced accounts for his share in the “Rehearsal;” Bethel, the Whig sheriff, whose scandalous avarice was only equalled by his factious turbulence; and Titus Oates, the pretended discoverer of the Popish Plot.  The account of the Tory chiefs, who retained, in the language of the poem, their friendship for David at the expense of the popular hatred, included, of course, most of Dryden’s personal protectors.  The aged Duke of Ormond is panegyrised with a beautiful apostrophe to the memory of his son, the gallant Earl of Ossory.  The Bishops of London and Rochester; Mulgrave our author’s constant patron, now reconciled with Charles and his government; the plausible and trimming Halifax; and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, second son to the great Clarendon, appear in this list.  The poet having thus arrayed and mustered the forces on each side, some account of the combat is naturally expected; and Johnson complains, that, after all the interest excited, the story is but lamely winded up by a speech from the throne, which produces the instantaneous and even marvellous effect, of reconciling all parties, and subduing the whole phalanx of opposition.  Even thus, says the critic, the walls, towers, and battlements of an enchanted castle disappear, when the destined knight winds his horn before it.  Spence records in his Anecdotes, that Charles himself imposed on Dryden the task of paraphrasing the speech to his Oxford parliament, at least the most striking passages, as a conclusion to his poem of “Absalom and Achitophel.”

But let us consider whether the nature of the poem admitted of a different management in the close.  Incident was not to be attempted; for the poet had described living characters and existing factions, the issue of whose contention was yet in the womb of fate, and could not safely be anticipated in the satire.  Besides, the dissolution of the Oxford parliament with that memorable speech, was a remarkable era in the contention of the factions, after which the Whigs gradually declined, both in spirit, in power, and in popularity.  Their boldest leaders were for a time appalled;[7] and when they resumed their measures, they gradually approached rather revolution than reform, and thus alienated the more temperate of their own party, till at length their schemes terminated in the Rye-house Conspiracy.  The speech having such an effect, was therefore not improperly adopted as a termination to the poem of “Absalom and Achitophel.”