obey you the more willingly," Dryden responds, "because I know you are a
lover of the Peace and Quietness of your Country; which the Author of
this seditious Pamphlet, is endeavouring to disturb." He writes to show
the "goodness and equity" of the Prince, because once they are
understood, the faction will lose its power and the well-meaning but
misled crowd will be no longer deceived by "the specious names of
Religion and Liberty." After these introductory paragraphs Dryden began
to reply to the pamphlet point by point. His method is to quote or, more
strictly, partly to quote and partly to paraphrase, a sentence and then
refute its argument. In so doing he is following the method of the
author of _A Letter_. Accordingly, to understand and judge the fairness
of Dryden's refutation, it is well first to read _His Majesties
Declaration_, then _A Letter_, and finally Dryden. The first has not
been reprinted in full but a substantial extract may be found in
Echard's _History of England_ (III, 624-6) and in Arthur Bryant's _The
Letters of Charles II_ (pp. 319-22), the second is available in a not
uncommon folio, _State Tracts: being a Collection of several Treatises
... privately printed in the Reign of K. Charles II_ (1689), and the
third is here reproduced for the first time. After the perusal of these
three tracts, the student may well turn to _Absalom and Achitophel_, and
find instruction in comparing the prose and the verse. He may reach the
conclusion that while both were written to win converts to the royal
cause, the first was designed to weaken the Whig party and the second to
take advantage of a tide that had turned to ruin the Whig leaders. (For
a fuller discussion of the relationship of Dryden's tract and his poem
see the writer's article, "The Conclusion of Dryden's Absalom and
Achitophel" in the _Huntington Library Quarterly_, X (1946-7), 69-82.)
In addition to its historical interest Dryden's tract is a fine specimen
of his masculine, vigorous style so well suited to controversial
writing.