ormation is likewise readily available on his use of
Biblical allegory.[2]

[Footnote 1: Cf. E. D. Leyburn, _Satiric Allegory, Mirror of Man_
(New Haven, 1956).]

[Footnote 2: e.g., _Absalom's Conspiracy_, a tract tracing how the
Bible story came to be used for allegorical purposes. See _The
Harleian Miscellany_ (1811), VIII, 478-479; and R. F. Jones, "The
Originality of 'Absalom and Achitophel,'" _Modern Language Notes_,
XLVI (April, 1931) 211-218.]

We are here concerned with three representative replies to _Absalom
and Achitophel_: their form, their authors, and details of their
publication. Settle's poem was reprinted with one slight alteration
a year after its first appearance; the _Reflections_ has since been
reprinted in part, Pordage's poem not at all. _Absalom Senior_ has been
chosen because, of the many verse pieces directed against Dryden's poem,
it is of the greatest intrinsic merit and shows the reverse side of the
medal, as it were, to that piece; the second is given, not for any
literary merit it may possess--indeed, from its first appearance it has
been dismissed as of small worth--but rather as a poem representative of
much of the versifying that followed hard on the Popish Plot and as one
that has inspired great speculation as to its author; the third, in
addition to throwing light on the others, is a typical specimen of the
lesser work produced in the Absalom dispute.

The author and precise publication date of the _Reflections_ remain
unidentified. Ascription of the poem to Buckingham rests ultimately on
the authority of Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_ and on Wood alone, and we
do not know on what evidence he thought it to be Buckingham's; we do
know, however, that Wood was often mistaken over such matters. Sir
Walter Scott in his collected edition of Dryden (1808; IX, 272-5) also
accepted Buckingham as the author, but cited no authority; he printed
extracts, yet the shortcomings of his edition, whatever its convenience,
are well known. The poem has not appeared in any subsequent edition of
Dryden's poems, the latest being the four volume set (Oxford, 1958);
the volume of the California Dryden[A] relevant to _Absalom_ is still
awaited. Internal evidence is even more scanty. Only one passage of the
_Reflections_ (sig. D2) may bear on the matter. Perhaps the "Three-fold
Might" (p. 7, line 11) refers, not to the poet's "tripartite design"
(p. 7, line 10) or to the Triple Alli