1. =Tory Reaction. 1681.=--The Tory reaction which followed made itself especially felt in the law-courts. Judges and juries who had combined to send to death innocent Catholics, upon the testimony of forsworn informers, now combined to send to death ardent Whigs, upon the testimony of informers equally base. College, the inventor of the Protestant flail (see p. 615), was condemned to death, as having borne arms in Oxford during the last Parliament, and others shared his fate on equally slight grounds. In the City of London, however, it was still impossible to secure a verdict against a Whig. Juries were everywhere nominated by the sheriff of the county, and sheriffs were, in political cases, ready to compose a jury of political partisans. In every part of England except Middlesex, the sheriffs were named by the king, and were, therefore, Tories. The City of London, which was strongly Whig, had the privilege of electing sheriffs for London and Middlesex, and these sheriffs took care that Middlesex juries should be composed of Whigs. Shaftesbury was accused of high treason, but before he could be tried the Grand Jury of Middlesex had to find a true bill against him--that is to say, to declare that there was sufficient evidence against him to call for a trial. On November 24, =1681=, the Grand Jury, composed of his own political partisans, threw out the bill, and he was at once set at liberty. 2. ='Absolom and Achitophel.' 1681.=--A few days before Shaftesbury's release, Dryden, the greatest living master of the heroic couplet, strove to stir up men's minds against the prisoner by his satire of 'Absolom and Achitophel,' in which the part of the tempter Achitophel was assigned to Shaftesbury and the part of the tempted Absolom to Monmouth. Shaftesbury was described as For close designs and crooked councils fit; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfixed in principles and place; In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace; A fiery soul, which worketh out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-informed the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity; Pleased with the danger when the waves ran high, He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to show his wit.