(Title, after dedication) Absalom Senior _catchword on previous page has "Abso-"_ Whilst th'universal Drones buz to his Hives. _apostrophe missing_ If this last Masterpiece requires a Soul. _"f" ("If") invisible_ The Uppermost, indisputably Best. _text reads "indsputably"_ This final Resolution made, at last _line printed after break, but not indented_ But t'Heavens Vice-gerents, Soul, Sense, Reason, all, _the word "vice-gerent" occurs twice_ Why did not th'Oaths of his once-great Colleagues, _apostrophe missing_ Th'Embroiderd Mantle from his Neck he threw. _apostrophe missing_ By profane Crowds in dirt his Prophets spurn'd, _apostrophe invisible_ ] * * * * * Poetical Reflections on a Late POEM Entituled, Absalom and Achitophel. _By a Person of Honour._ [Decoration] _LONDON:_ Printed for _Richard Janeway_. 1681. TO THE READER. If ever anything, call'd a _Poem_, deserv'd a severe Reflection, that of _Absalom_ and _Achitophel_ may justly contract it. For tho' Lines can never be purg'd from the dross and filth they would throw on others (there being no retraction that can expiate the conveying of persons to an unjust and publick reproach); yet the cleansing of their fames from a design'd pollution, may well become a more ingenious Pen than the Author of these few reflections will presume to challenge. To epitomize which scandalous Phamphlet (unworthy the denomination of _Poesy_) no eye can inspect it without a prodigious amazement; the abuses being so gross and deliberate, that it seems rather a Capital or National Libel, than personal exposures, in order to an infamous detraction. For how does he character the King, but as a broad figure of scandalous inclinations, or contriv'd unto such irregularities, as renders him rather the property of Parasites and Vice, than suitable to the accomplishment of so excellent a Prince? Nay, he forces on King _David_ such a Royal resemblance, that he darkens his sanctity in spite of illuminations from Holy Writ. Next (to take as near our King as he could) he calumniates the Duke of _Monmouth_ with that height of impudence, that his Sense is far blacker than his Ink, exposing him to all the censures that a Murderer, a Traytor, or what a Subject of most ambitious evil can possibly comprehend: and it is some wonder, that his Lines also had not hang'd him on a Tree, to make the intended _Absalom_ more compleat. As to my Lord _Shaftsbury_ (in his collusive _Achitophel_), what does he other than exceed Malice it self? or that the more prudent deserts of that Peer were to be so impeach'd before hand by his impious Poem, as that he might be granted more emphatically condign of the Hangman's Ax; And which his Muse does in effect take upon her to hasten.