greatest writers of English prose—George Savile, then Earl, later Marquis of Halifax, and John Dryden. Halifax, in the tract lately identified as his by Hugh Macdonald (Cambridge, 1940), Observations upon a late Libel—though he might scarify an individual opponent like Shaftesbury or pour ridicule upon a sentence from A Letter, set himself the task of answering the Whig case as a whole. The text he dilated upon was: "there seemeth to be no other Rule allowed by one sort of Men, than that they cannot Err, and the King cannot be in the Right." With superb irony and wit he demonstrated how inconsistent such an attitude was with the constitution of that day.

Dryden's tract, His Majesties Declaration Defended is, like the one he is answering, in the form of a letter to a friend who has asked the writer's opinion of the Declaration and the answer to it. "I shall obey you the more willingly," Dryden responds, "because I know you are a lover of the Peace and Quietness of your Country; which the Author of this seditious Pamphlet, is endeavouring to disturb." He writes to show the "goodness and equity" of the Prince, because once they are understood, the faction will lose its power and the well-meaning but misled crowd will be no longer deceived by "the specious names of Religion and Liberty." After these introductory paragraphs Dryden began to reply to the pamphlet point by point. His method is to quote or, more strictly, partly to quote and partly to paraphrase, a sentence and then refute its argument. In so doing he is following the method of the author of A Letter. Accordingly, to understand and judge the fairness of Dryden's refutation, it is well first to read His Majesties Declaration, then A Letter, and finally Dryden. The first has not been reprinted in full but a substantial extract may be found in Echard's History of England (III, 624-6) and in Arthur Bryant's The Letters of Charles II (pp. 319-22), the second is available in a not uncommon folio, State Tracts: being a Collection of several Treatises … privately printed in the Reign of K. Charles II (1689), and the third is here reproduced for the first time. After the perusal of these three tracts, the student may well turn to Absalom and Achitophel, and find instruction in comparing the prose and the verse. He may reach the conclusion that while both were written to win converts to the royal cause, the first was designed to weaken the Whig party and the second to take advantage of a tide that had turned to ruin the Whig leaders. (For a fuller discussion of the relationship of Dryden's tract and his poem see the writer's article, "The Conclusion of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel" in the Huntington Library Quarterly, X (1946-7), 69-82.) In addition to its historical interest Dryden's tract is a fine specimen of his masculine, vigorous style so well suited to controversial writing.

I desire to thank Mr. James M. Osborn, Yale University, for helpful suggestions in the preparation of this introduction.

This facsimile has been made from the copy in the William Andrews Clark
Memorial Library.

Godfrey Davies The Huntington Library

His Majesties

DECLARATION

DEFENDED:

In a LETTER to a Friend.

BEING AN

ANSWER

TO A

Seditious Pamphlet,

CALLED

A LETTER from a Person of Quality to his Friend:

CONCERNING

The Kings late Declaration touching the Reasons which moved him to Dissolve

THE TWO LAST

PARLIAMENTS

AT

WESTMINSTER and OXFORD.

LONDON: Printed for T. Davies, 1681.

THE
Kings Declaration
DEFENDED.

Sir,

Since you are pleas'd to require my Opinion of the Kings Declaration, and the Answer to it, which you write me word was sent you lately, I shall obey you the more willingly, because I know you are a lover of the Peace and Quietness of your Country; which the Author of this seditious Pamphlet, is endeavouring to disturb. Be pleas'd to understand then, that before the Declaration was yet published, and while it was only the common news, that such an one there was intended, to justifie the Dissolution of the two last Parliaments; it was generally agreed by the heads of the discontented Party, that this Declaration must be answer'd, and that with all the ingredients of malice which the ablest amongst them could squeeze into it. Accordingly, upon the first appearance of it in Print, five several Pens of their Cabal were set to work; and the product of each having been examin'd, a certain person of Quality appears to have carried the majority of Votes, and to be chosen like a new Matthias, to succeed in the place of their deceas'd Judas.

He seems to be a man cut out to carry on vigorously the designs of the
Phanatique Party, which are manifestly in this Paper, to hinder the
King, from making any good impression on his Subjects, by giving them
all possible satisfaction.

And the reason of this undertaking is manifest, for if once the goodness and equity of the Prince comes to be truly understood by the People, the Authority of the Faction is extinguish'd; and the well meaning crowd who are misled, will no longer gape after the specious names of Religion and Liberty; much like the folly of the Jews, expecting a Messiah still to come, whose History has been written sixteen hundred years ago.

Thus much in general: I will now confider the Cavils of my Author against the Declaration.

He tells us, in the first place, That the Declaration seems to him as a forerunner of another Parliament to be speedily call'd: And indeed to any man in his right sences, it can seem no other; for 'tis the business of its three last Paragraphs to inform the People, that no irregularities in Parliament can make the King out of love with them: but that he looks upon them as the best means for healing the distempers of the publick, and for preservation of the Monarchy.

Now if this seems clearly to be the Kings intention, I would ask what need there was of the late Petition from the City, for another Parliament; unless they had rather seem to extort it from his Majesty, than to have it pass for his own gracious action? The truth is, there were many of the Loyal Party absent at that Common Council: and the whole strength of the other Faction was united; for it is the common failing of honest men to trust too much in the goodness of their cause; and to manage it too negligently. But there is a necessity incumbent on such as oppose the establish'd Government, to make up with diligence, what they want in the justice of their undertaking. This was the true and only reason why the majority of Votes was for the Petition: but if the business had not been carried by this surprise, My Lord Mayor might have only been troubled to have carried the Addresses of Southwark, &c. of another nature: without his offering them with one hand, and the City Petition with the other; like the Childrens play of, This Mill grinds Pepper and Spice; that Mill grinds Ratts and Mice.

In the next place he informs us, That if has been long the practice of the Popish and Arbitrary Party, that the King should call, frequent, short, and useless Parliaments, tell the Gentry, grown weary of the great expences of Elections, should sit at home, and