In conclusion a few comments may be made on the general situation into which the poems fit. It will be remembered that _Absalom and Achitophel_ appeared after the Exclusion Bill, the purpose of which was to debar James Duke of York from the Protestant succession, had been rejected by the House of Lords, mainly through the efforts of Halifax. Dryden's poem was advertised on November 17, 1681, and we may safely assume that it was published only a short time before Settle and our other authors were hired by the Whigs to answer it. Full details have not survived; one suspects Shaftesbury's Green Ribbon Club. That such replies were considered necessary testifies both to the popularity of _Absalom and Achitophel_ with the layman in politics and to the Whigs' fear of its harming their cause. Settle's was of course a mercenary pen, and it is amusing to note that after ridiculing Halifax here he was quite prepared to publish, fourteen years later, _Sacellum Apollinare: a Funeral Poem to the Memory of that Great Statesman, George Late Marquiss of Halifax_, and on this count his place among Pope's Dunces seems merited. In tracing his quarrel with Dryden up to the publication of _Absalom Senior_, critics have tended to overlook the fact that by 1680 there was already hostility between the two;[11] less has been said about the effect on Dryden of the poets themselves. The spleen of his contributions to the Second Part of _Absalom and Achitophel_ is essentially a manufactured one and for the public entertainment; personally he was comparatively unmoved--the Og portrait, for example, is less representative than his words in "The Epistle to the Whigs" prefixed to _The Medal_. Here, as in _Mac Flecknoe_, he appears to have been able to write vituperation to order. "I have only one favor to desire of you at parting," he says, and it is "that when you think of answering this poem, you would employ the same pens against it, who have combated with so much success against _Absalom and Achitophel_; for then you may assure yourselves of a clear victory, without the least reply." Is it for the best that this forecast proved the right one? [Footnote 11: e.g., over _The Empress of Morocco_; see Scott's _Dryden_, XV, 397-413.] For permission to reproduce their copies of texts comprising the present reprint thanks are expressed to the University of Florida Library (_Absalom Senior_) and to the Trustees of the British Museum (the other two poems). The University of Leeds and the City of Manchester Public Library are also thanked for leave to use contemporary marginalia in each's copy of Settle's poem. The provenance of the latter two copies of this piece is unknown; the first, now in the Brotherton Collection, bears the name William Crisp on its last blank leaf and, in abbreviated form, identifies some characters; the second, of unidentified ownership, is fuller. HAROLD WHITMORE JONES _Liverpool, England November_, 1959