[Footnote 9: Joseph Spence, _Anecdotes ... of Books and Men_ (1858),
p. 51.]

For "No Link ... night" (p. 35, lines 19-24), the Second Edition
substitutes, for an undetermined reason, the following:

No less the Lordly Zelecks Glory sound
For courage and for Constancy renoun'd:
Though once in naught but borrow'd plumes adorn'd,
So much all servile Flattery he scorn'd;
That though he held his Being and Support,
By that weak Thread the Favour of a Court,
In Sanhedrims unbrib'd, he firmly bold
Durst Truth and Israels Right unmov'd uphold;
In spight of Fortune, still to Honour wed,
By Justice steer'd, though by Dependence fed.

Very little can be said of Pordage's poem, beyond its date of
publication (January 17, 1681/2)[10] and the fact that no parallel has
been found with his earlier work. As no detailed study on him, published
or unpublished, has been traced, we can only have recourse to the
standard works on the period; data thus easily accessible are not
therefore reproduced here. A so-called second edition (MacDonald 205b)
is identical with the first.

[Footnote 10: _Modern Philology_, XXV (1928) 409-416.]

In conclusion a few comments may be made on the general situation into
which the poems fit. It will be remembered that _Absalom and Achitophel_