Produced by Louise Hope, David Starner, Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Transcriber's Note: Typographical errors are listed separately at the end of the Editor's Introduction and each poem.] _Anti-Achitophel_ (1682) THREE VERSE REPLIES TO _Absalom and Achitophel_ by JOHN DRYDEN _Absalom Senior_ by Elkanah Settle _Poetical Reflections_ by Anonymous _Azaria and Hushai_ by Samuel Pordage Facsimile Reproductions Edited with an Introduction by HAROLD WHITMORE JONES Gainesville, Florida Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints 1961 SCHOLARS' FACSIMILES & REPRINTS 118 N.W. 26th Street Gainesville, Florida Harry R. Warfel, General Editor Reproduced from Copies in BRITISH MUSEUM UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARY L. C. Catalog Card Number: 60-6430 Manufactured in the U.S.A. Letterpress by J. N. Anzel, Inc. Photolithography by Edwards Brothers Binding by Universal-Dixie Bindery * * * * * INTRODUCTION English verse allegory, humorous or serious, political or moral, has deep roots; a reprint such as the present is clearly no place for a discussion of the subject at large:[1] it need only be recalled here that to the age that produced _The Pilgrim's Progress_ the art form was not new. Throughout his life Dryden had his enemies, Prior and Montague in their satire of _The Hind and the Panther_, for example. The general circumstances under which Dryden wrote _Absalom and Achitophel_, familiar enough and easily accessible, are therefore recalled only briefly below. Information 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.]