ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.
PART SECOND.
The sensation produced in London, and indeed throughout the nation, by the first part of "Absalom and Achitophel," was so deep and extended, as never had been before occasioned by a similar performance. Neither was Dryden backward in pursuing the literary victory which he had obtained over the Whigs. He published "The Medal" upon the acquittal of the Earl of Shaftesbury, and the rejoicings with which his party had celebrated that memorable event. He even stooped to inferior game, and avenged himself of Shadwell's repeated attacks upon his literary reputation, his political principles, and his moral character, by the publication of "Mac Flecnoe," one of the most severe satires in the English language. Yet, according to the opinion of the royal party, more still remained to be done. The heads of Shaftesbury's faction had been held up to hatred, or ridicule, in "Absalom and Achitophel;" his own life had been more closely scrutinized, and his failings and crimes exposed more specifically in "The Medal;" but something, they conceived, was wanting, to silence and crush the underling writers and agitators of the party, and Dryden's assistance was again invoked for this purpose, as well as to celebrate some of the king's supporters and favourites, who were necessarily omitted in the original poem. But Dryden, being unwilling again to undertake a task upon which he had repeatedly laboured, deputed Nahum Tate to be his assistant in a second part of "Absalom and Achitophel;" reserving for himself only the execution of certain particular characters, and the general plan and revisal of the poem.
Of Tate, honoured with so high a trust by our great poet, biographers have preserved but a very imperfect memorial. He was the son of Dr Faithful Tate or Teat, was born in Ireland, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He wrote, or rather new modelled and translated, nine plays, of which, his alteration of King Lear still keeps the stage, in defiance of its gross departure from Shakespeare's plot and moral. During the reign of Charles and his successor, Tate was a keen Tory, as may be easily guessed from Dryden's employing him in the honourable task of writing a second part to his admirable satire; yet, upon Shadwell's death, he was made poet laureat to King William, and retained that office till his own decease. His talent for poetry amounted to cold mediocrity; had he been a man of fortune, it would have raised him to the rank of an easy sonnet writer, or a person of wit and honour about town. As he was very poor, it is no disgrace to his muse, that she left him in that indigence from which far more distinguished poetical merit has been unable to raise those who possessed it. Tate died in the Mint, where he had taken refuge from his creditors, on the 12th of August, 1715. He had long been in extreme want, having owed almost his sole subsistence to the patronage or charity of the Earl of Dorset. His poetry is multifarious; but consists chiefly of pieces upon occasional subjects, written to supply the immediate wants of the author. The Psalms, of which he executed a translation, in conjunction with Dr Brady, are still used in the church of England, although, in the opinion of many persons, they are inferior to the old version.[349]
The following continuation of "Absalom and Achitophel," owes all its spirit to the touches and additions of the author of the first part. Those lines, to the number of two hundred, beginning,
Next these a troop of busy spirits press;
and concluding,
To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee,