elves,
  And are but satires to set up ourselves. 
  I, who have all this while been finding fault,
  Even with my master, who first satire taught;
  And did by that describe the task so hard,
  It seems stupendous and above reward;
  Now labour with unequal force to climb
  That lofty hill, unreach’d by former time;
  ’Tis just that I should to the bottom fall, 280
  Learn to write well, or not to write at all.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 50:  ‘Mulgrave:’  Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.  It was for this satire, the joint composition of Dryden and Sheffield, that Rochester hired bravoes to cudgel Dryden.]

[Footnote 51:  ‘Armstrong:’  Sir Thomas Armstrong, a notorious character of the time—­hanged at Tyburn.]

[Footnote 52:  ‘Carr:’  Sir Carr Scrope, a wit of the time.]

[Footnote 53:  ‘Beastly brace:’  Duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwynn.]

[Footnote 54:  ‘Earnely:’  Sir John Earnely, one of the lords of the treasury.]

[Footnote 55:  ‘Aylesbury:’  Robert, the first Earl of Aylesbury.]

[Footnote 56:  ‘Danby:’  Thomas, Earl of Danby, lord high-treasurer of England.]

[Footnote 57:  ‘Merriest man alive:’  Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury.]

[Footnote 58:  ‘Nokes and Lee:’  two celebrated comedians in Charles II.’s reign.]

[Footnote 59:  ‘New earl:’  Earl of Essex.]

[Footnote 60:  ‘Tropos:’  Sir William Scroggs.  See Macaulay.]

[Footnote 61:  ‘Ned Howard:’  Edward Howard, Esq., a dull writer.  See Butler’s works.]

[Footnote 62:  ‘Sid:’  brother to Algernon Sidney.]

[Footnote 63:  ‘Hewet and Jack Hall:’  courtiers of the day.]

[Footnote 64:  ‘Killigrew:’  Thomas Killigrew, many years master of the revels, and groom of the chamber to King Charles II.]

[Footnote 65:  ‘Bessus:’  a remarkable cowardly character in Beaumont and Fletcher’s play of ‘A King and no King.’]

* * * * *

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.[66]

TO THE READER.

It is not my intention to make an apology for my poem:  some will think it needs no excuse, and others will receive none.  The design I am sure is honest:  but he who draws his pen for one party, must expect to make enemies of the other.  For wit and fool are consequence of Whig and Tory; and every man is a knave or an ass to the contrary side.  There is a treasury of merits in the Fanatic church, as well as in the Popish; and a pennyworth to be had of saintship, honesty, and poetry, for the lewd, the factious, and the blockheads:  but the longest chapter in Deuteronomy has not curses enough for an Anti-Bromingham.  My comfort is, their manifest prejudice to my cause will render their judgment of