Whig; nay, he was so far in the confidence of Shaftesbury, that, under his direction, and with his materials, he had been entrusted to compose a noted libel against the Duke of York, entitled, «The Character of a Popish Successor.»> Having a genius for mechanics, he was also exalted to the manager of a procession for burning the Pope; which the Whigs celebrated with great pomp, as one of many artifices to inflame the minds of the people. To this, and to the fire-works which attended its solemnization, Dryden alludes in the lines to which Elkanah's subsequent disasters gave an air of prophecy :

«In fire-works 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.»

Notwithstanding the rank he held among the Whig authors,' Settle, perceiving the cause of his patron Shaftesbury was gradually becoming weaker, fairly abandoned him to his

' In a satire against Settle, dated April 1682, entitled, «A Character of the True-blue Protestant Poet,» the author exclaims, "One would believe it almost incredible, that any out of Bedlam should think it possible, a yesterday's fool, an errant knave, a despicable coward, and a prophane atheist, should be termed to-day by the same persons, a Cowley, a man of honour, an hero, and a zealous upholder of the Protestant cause and interest.»

fate, and read a solemn recantation of his political errors in a narrative published in 1683. The truth seems to be, that honest Doeg was poet-laureat to the city, and earned some emolument by composing verses for pageants and other occasions of civic festivity; so that when the Tory interest resumed its ascendancy among the magistrates, he had probably no alternative but to relinquish his principles or his post, and Elkanah, like many greater men, held the former the easier sacrifice. Like all converts, he became outrageous in his new faith, wrote a libel on Lord Russell a few days after his execution; indited a panegyric on Judge Jefferies; and, being tam Marte quam Mercurio, actually joined as a trooper the army which King James encamped upon Hounslow Heath. After the Revolution, he is enumerated, with our author and Tate, among those poets whose strains had been stifled by that great event.'

1 In the " Deliverance," an address to the Prince of Orange, published about 9th February, 1689:

Alas! the famous Settle, Durfey, Tate,

That early propp'd the deep intrigues of state,
Dull Whiggish lines the world could ne'er applaud,
While your swift genius did appear abroad:
And thou, great Bayes, whose yet unconquer'd pen
Wrote with strange force as well of beasts as men,

Whose noble genius grieved from afar,

Because new worlds for Bayes did not appear,

He continued, however, to be the city-laureat;1 but, in despite of that provision, was reduced by want to write plays, like Ben Jonson's Littlewit, for the prophane motions, or puppetshows, of Smithfield and Bartholomew fairs. Nay, having proceeded thus far in exhibiting the truth of Dryden's prediction, he actually mounted the stage in person among these wooden performers, and combated St George for England in a green dragon of his own proper device. Settle was admitted into the CharterHouse in his old age, and died there in 1723, The lines of Pope on poor Elkanah's fate are familiar to every poetical reader:

«In Lud's old walls though long I ruled, renown'd
Far as loud Bow's stupendous bells resound;
Though my own aldermen conferr❜d the bays,
To me committing their eternal praise,
Their full-fed heroes, their pacific mayors,
Their annual trophies, and their monthly wars ;
Though long my party built on me their hopes,
For writing pamphlets, and for roasting popes;
Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on!
Reduced at last to hiss in my own dragon.
Avert it, Heaven! that thou, or Cibber, e'er
Should wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair!
Like the vile straw that 's blown about the streets,
The needy poet sticks to all he meets;
Coach'd, carted, trod upon, now loose, now fast,
And carried off in some dog's tail at last.»

In 1702, probably in the capacity of civic-laureat, he wrote «Carmen Irenicum,» upon the union of the two East India companies; and long afterward, in 1717, he is mentioned by Dennis as still the city poet. See p. 171.

As Dryden was probably more apprehensive of Shadwell, who, though a worse poet than Settle, has excelled even Dryden in the lower walks of comedy, he has treated him with sterner severity. His person, his morals, his manners, and his politics, all that had escaped or been but slightly touched upon in «MacFlecknoe, are bitterly reviewed in the character of Og; and there probably never existed another poet, who, at the distance of a month, which intervened between the publication of the two poems, could resume an exhausted theme with an energy which gave it all the charms of novelty. Shadwell did not remain silent beneath the lash; but his clamorous exclamations only tended to make his castigation more ludicrous.'

The Second Part of « Absalom and Achitophel» was followed by the « Religio Laici,» a poem which Dryden published in the same month of November 1682. Its tendency, although of a political nature, is so different from that of the satires, that it will be most properly considered when we can place it in contrast to the «Hind and Panther.» It was addressed to Henry Dickinson, a young gentleman, who had just published a translation

· He published a translation of the tenth satire of Juvenal, in the preface to which he rails plentifully against Dryden.

of Simon's Critical History of the New Testa

ment.»

As the publication of the two Parts of « Absalom and Achitophel,» « The Medal,» and « MacFlecknoe,» all of a similar tone, and rapidly succeeding each other, gave to Dryden, hitherto chiefly known as a dramatist, the formidable character of an inimitable satirist, we may here pause to consider their effect upon English poetry. The witty Bishop Hall had first introduced into our literature that species of poetry; which, though its legitimate use be to check vice and expose folly, is so often applied by spleen or by faction to destroy domestic happiness, by assailing private character. Hall possessed a good ear for harmony; and living in the reign of Elizabeth, might have studied it in Spenser, Fairfax, and other models. But from system, rather than ignorance or inability, he chose to be « hard of conceit, and harsh of style,» in order that his poetry might correspond with the sharp, sour, and crabbed nature of his theme. Donne, his successor, was still

'I infer, that the want of harmony was intentional, from these expressions: «It is not for every one to relish a true and natural satire; being of itself, besides the nature and inbred bitterness and tartness of particulars, both hard of conceit and harsh of style, and therefore cannot but be unpleasing both to the unskilful and over-musical ear; the one being affected with only a shallow and easy, the other with a smooth and current, disposition.»—Postscript to Hall's Satires.