The controversial and satirical poems are on a higher plane; though, it must be confessed, Dryden’s satire often strikes us as cutting and revengeful, rather than witty.  The best known of these, and a masterpiece of its kind, is “Absalom and Achitophel,” which is undoubtedly the most powerful political satire in our language.  Taking the Bible story of David and Absalom, he uses it to ridicule the Whig party and also to revenge himself upon his enemies.  Charles II appeared as King David; his natural son, the Duke of Monmouth, who was mixed up in the Rye House Plot, paraded as Absalom; Shaftesbury was Achitophel, the evil Counselor; and the Duke of Buckingham was satirized as Zimri.  The poem had enormous political influence, and raised Dryden, in the opinion of his contemporaries, to the front rank of English poets.  Two extracts from the powerful characterizations of Achitophel and Zimri are given here to show the style and spirit of the whole work.

            (SHAFTESBURY)
    Of these the false Achitophel was first;
    A name to all succeeding ages cursed: 
    For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
    Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
    Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
    In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace: 
    A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
    Fretted the pygmy body to decay.... 
    A daring pilot in extremity,
    Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
    He sought the storms:  but for a calm unfit,
    Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. 
    Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
    And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
    Else why should he, with wealth and honor blest,
    Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? 
    Punish a body which he could not please;
    Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease? 
    And all to leave what with his toil he won,
    To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son.... 
    In friendship false, implacable in hate;
    Resolved to ruin or to rule the state;... 
    Then seized with fear, yet still affecting fame,
    Usurped a patriot’s all-atoning name. 
    So easy still it proves in factious times
    With public zeal to cancel private crimes. 
         (THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM)
    Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;
    In the first rank of these did Zimri stand,
    A man so various, that he seemed to be
    Not one, but all mankind’s epitome: 
    Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
    Was everything by starts and nothing long;
    But, in the course of one revolving moon,
    Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
    Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
    Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. 
    Blest madman, who could every hour employ
    With something new to wish or to enjoy! 
    Railing and praising were his usual themes,
    And both, to show his judgment, in extremes: 
    So over-violent, or over-civil,
    That every man with him was God or devil.