y,
from the king down to Titus Oates. The number of the names is 61. Charles
is, of course, David, and Monmouth, the wayward son, is Absalom.
Shaftesbury is Achitophel, and Dr. Oates figures as Corah. The Ethnic plot
is the popish plot, and Gath is that land of exile where Charles so long
resided. Strong in his praise of David, the poet is discreet and delicate
in his handling of Absalom; his instinct is as acute as that of Falstaff:
"Beware! instinct, the lion will not touch a true prince," or touch him so
gently that the lion at least will not suffer. Thus, Monmouth is
represented as

Half loath, and half consenting to the ill,
For royal blood within him struggled still;
He thus replied: "And what pretence have I
To take up arms for public liberty?
My father governs with unquestioned right,
The faith's defender and mankind's delight;
Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws,
And heaven by wonders has espoused his cause."

But he may, and does, roundly rate Achitophel, who tempts with satanic
seductions, and proves to the youth, from the Bible, his right to the
succession, peaceably or forcibly obtained. Among those who conspired with
Monmouth were honest hearts seeking for the welfare of the realm. Chief of
these were Lord Russel and Sidney, of whom the latter was in favor of a
commonwealth; and the former, only sought the exclusion of the Roman
Catholic Duke of York, and the redress of grievances, but not the
assassination or deposition of the king. Both fell on the scaffold; but
they have both been considered martyrs in the cause of civil liberty.

And here we must pause to say that in the literary structure, language,
and rhythm of the poem, Dryden had made a great step toward that mastery
of the rhymed pentameter couplet, which is one of his greatest claims to
distinction.

DEATH OF CHARLES.--At length, in 1685, Charles II., after a sudden and
short illness, was gathered to his fathers. His life had been such that
England could not mourn: he had prostituted female honor, and almost
destroyed political virtue; sold English territory and influence to France
for beautiful strumpets; and at the last had been received, on his
death-bed, into, the Roman Catholic Church, while nominally the supreme
head of the Anglican communion. England cannot mourn, but Dryden tortures
language into crocodile tears in his _Threnodia Augustalis, sacred to the
happy memory of King Charles II_. A