self could not be more tender of the young man's life, than I would be of his reputation. But since the most excellent natures are always the most easy, and as being such, are the soonest perverted by ill counsels, especially when baited with fame and glory, it is no more a wonder that he withstood not the temptations of Achitophel,' than it was for Adam not to have resisted the two devils, the serpent, and the woman. The conclusion of the story I purposely forbore to prosecute, because I could not obtain from myself to shew Absalom unfortunate. The frame of it was cut out but for a picture to the waist; and if the draught be so far true, it is as much as I designed.

Were I the inventor, who am only the historian, I should certainly conclude the piece with the reconcilement of Absalom to David; and who knows but this may come to pass? Things were not brought to an extremity where I left the story; there seems yet to be room left for a composure; hereafter, there may only be for pity. I have not so much as an uncharitable wish against Achitophel, but am content to be accused of a goodnatured errour, and to hope with Origen,* that the devil himself may at last be saved: for which

Antony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury. *This learned father, who lived in the third century, and who very early was styled a schismatick, (almost all his books being ordered to be burnt by Pope Gelasius in 494.) did not experience from the catholick church so much charity as he is said to have had even for the spiritual enemy of mankind; for the famous John Picus, of Mirandula,

reason, in this poem, he is neither brought to set his house in order, nor to dispose of his person afterwards, as he in wisdom shall think fit.* GOD is infinitely merciful; and his vicegerent is only not so, because he is not infinite.

The true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction; and he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease: for those are only in order to prevent the chirurgeon's work of an ense rescindendum, which I wish not to my very enemies. To conclude all: if the body politick have any analogy to the natural, in my weak judgment an act of oblivion were as necessary in a hot distempered state, as an opiate would be in a raging fever.

having asserted and published at Rome in 1487, among his nine hundred propositions, that it is more reasonable to believe Origen saved, than to think him damned, the masters in divinity censured him for it, asserting, that his proposition was rash, blameable, savouring of heresy, and contrary to the determination of the catholick church.

Among other opinions which the church considered as heretical, Origen denied the eternity of hell-torments, being of opinion, that after having been punished for some ages, even damned spirits will be translated into a place of infinite bliss.

* " And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father." 2 Sam. c. xvii. v. 23.

EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS,

PREFIXED TO

THE MEDAL,

A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION. *

For to whom can I dedicate this

poem with so much justice as to you? It is the representation of your own hero; it is the picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize so much in little. None of your ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of the Tower, nor the rising şun, nor the Anno Domini of your new Sovereign's coronation. This must needs be a grateful under

2 Of the bill preferred against Lord Shaftesbury for High Treason in November, 1681, an account has already been given. See p. 81. On the Jury's refusing to find the bill, the acclamations by the people in the court lasted an hour, as appears from a letter of Sir Leoline Jenkins to the Prince of Orange, quoted by Dalrymple. To perpetuate the memory of this event, a medal was struck with Shaftesbury's head on one side; on the reverse, a view of the city of London, with a rising sun; and in the exergue, the word Latamur at the top, and at the bottom, 24 Nov. 1681. This gave occasion to our author's poem with the same title, which was first published in quarto in 1682.

taking to your whole party, especially to those who have not been so happy as to purchase the original. I hear the graver has made a good market of it; all his Kings are bought up already, or the value of the remainder so enhanced, that many a poor Polander, who would be glad to worship the image, is not able to go to the cost of him; but must be content to see him here.

I must confess I am no great artist; but signpost painting will serve the turn to remember a friend by, especially when better is not to be had. Yet for your comfort, the lineaments are true; and though he sat not five times to me, as he did to B., yet I have consulted history, as the Italian painters do, when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula: though they have not seen the man, they can help their imagination by a statue of him, and find out the colouring from Suetonius and

3 i. e. all his medals. Shaftesbury, it was supposed, entertained hopes that he should be elected King of Poland.

• George Bower, I believe a Dutchman, who engraved several heads for King Charles, and James the Second, both before and after he came to the crown; and some satirical medals relative to the Popish Plot, which may be found in Evelyn's NUMISMATÁ. He also engraved medals after the Revolution for William and Mary; so that Lord Orford (ANECDOTES OF PAINTING, iii. 104. 4to.) is certainly mistaken in supposing him a volunteer artist. He appears to have engraved for any one who would employ him.

Tacitus. Truth is, you might have spared one side of your medal; the head would be seen to more advantage, if it were placed on a spike of the Tower, a little nearer to the sun, which would then break out to better purpose.

You tell us in your Preface to the NO PROTESTANT PLOT,' that you shall be forced hereafter to leave off your modesty; I suppose you mean that little which is left you; for it was worn to rags, when you put out this medal. Never was there practised such a piece of notorious impudence in the face of an established government. I believe, when he is dead, you will wear him in thumb-rings, as the Turks did Scanderbeg; as if there were virtue in his bones to preserve you against monarchy. Yet all this while you pretend not only zeal for the publick good, but a due veneration for the person of the King; but all men who can see an inch before them may easily detect those gross fallacies. That it is necessary for men in your circumstances to pretend both, is granted you, for without them there could be no ground to raise a faction; but I would ask you one civil question,-what right has any man among you, or any association of men, (to come nearer to you,) who out of parliament cannot be considered in a publick capacity, to meet, as you

5 NO PROTESTANT PLOT was a tract in three parts, printed in folio, in 1682.

6 Alluding to the scheme of an Association, found in Shaftesbury's study. See p. 81.