A report was circulated, and has crept into the "_Biographia Britannica_," that this addition was made in consequence of Shaftesbury's having conferred a favour upon Dryden, and his family,[211] in the interval between the first and second edition of "Absalom and Achitophel;" but this Mr Malone has refuted in the most satisfactory manner. A passage, expressive of kind wishes towards Monmouth, was also added in the second addition: But oh that yet he would repent and live! How easy 'tis for parents to forgive; With how few tears a pardon might be won, From nature pleading for a darling son! These, and other passages, in which Dryden has softened the severity of his muse, evince not only the poet's taste and judgment, but that tone of honourable and just feeling, which distinguishes a true satire from a libellous lampoon. It was not consistent with Dryden's subject to introduce much imagery or description into "Absalom and Achitophel;" but, though Dr Johnson has remarked this as a disadvantage to the poem, it was, I think, amply compensated by the good effects which the restraint produced on our author's style of composition. The reader has already seen in how many instances Dryden gave way to the false taste of his age, which, indeed, furnished the strongest temptation to a vigorous mind, naturally delighting to exert itself in working out an ingenious parallel between remote and dissimilar ideas. A fiery horse is taught his regular paces by the restraining discipline of the manege; and, in the same way, the subject of "Absalom and Achitophel," which confined the poet to the expression of sentiment and character, and left no room for excursions into the regions of metaphysical poetry, probably had the effect of restraining his exertions within the bounds of true taste, whose precincts he would be less likely to overleap, even when again turned loose upon a more fanciful theme. It is certain that "Absalom and Achitophel" is as remarkable for correctness of taste, as for fire and spirit of composition; nor ought the reader, amidst so many appropriate beauties, to regret those flights of imagination, which could not have been indulged without impropriety.