appeared after the Exclusion Bill, the purpose of which was to debar
James Duke of York from the Protestant succession, had been rejected by
the House of Lords, mainly through the efforts of Halifax. Dryden's poem
was advertised on November 17, 1681, and we may safely assume that it
was published only a short time before Settle and our other authors
were hired by the Whigs to answer it. Full details have not survived;
one suspects Shaftesbury's Green Ribbon Club. That such replies were
considered necessary testifies both to the popularity of _Absalom and
Achitophel_ with the layman in politics and to the Whigs' fear of its
harming their cause. Settle's was of course a mercenary pen, and it is
amusing to note that after ridiculing Halifax here he was quite prepared
to publish, fourteen years later, _Sacellum Apollinare: a Funeral Poem
to the Memory of that Great Statesman, George Late Marquiss of Halifax_,
and on this count his place among Pope's Dunces seems merited. In
tracing his quarrel with Dryden up to the publication of _Absalom
Senior_, critics have tended to overlook the fact that by 1680 there
was already hostility between the two;[11] less has been said about
the effect on Dryden of the poets themselves. The spleen of his
contributions to the Second Part of _Absalom and Achitophel_ is
essentially a manufactured one and for the public entertainment;
personally he was comparatively unmoved--the Og portrait, for example,
is less representative than his words in "The Epistle to the Whigs"
prefixed to _The Medal_. Here, as in _Mac Flecknoe_, he appears to have
been able to write vituperation to order. "I have only one favor to
desire of you at parting," he says, and it is "that when you think of
answering this poem, you would employ the same pens against it, who have
combated with so much success against _Absalom and Achitophel_; for then
you may assure yourselves of a clear victory, without the least reply."
Is it for the best that this forecast proved the right one?