The Character of a Popish Successour, and what England may expect from such a one.

Elkanah Settle

Edité par London : printed for T. Davies. 1681., 1681

A propos de cet article

The Character of a Popish Successour, and what England may expect from such a one. Humbly offered to the consideration of both Houses of Parliament, appointed to meet at Oxford, on the one and twentieth of March, 1680/1. London : Printed for T. Davies, MDCLXXXI. [1681] The volume is paginated as follows: [4], 36 p.  First leaf is blank. The volume collates as follows: [A]2 B-K2. The Volume is in Very Good Condition Disbound, with generally clean amply margined leaves, and with some small stains and fox marks otherwise. Each leaf measures 282 x 185 mm. Settle's mastery of scenic effect and the violence of his protestantism led to his unanimous election as organiser-in-chief of the pope-burning procession on Queen Elizabeth's birthday (17 Nov. 1680); and Roger L'Estrange, in Heraclitus Ridens (No. 50), described him as poet-laureate and master of ordnance to the whig party, who would vindicate Lucifer's first rebellion for a few guineas. Next year he wrote, at Shaftesbury's instance, his Character of a Popish Successor (1681), which evoked a storm of remonstrance. Settle accentuated his remarks in a revised edition, which he afterwards alleged that Shaftesbury, dissatisfied by its moderation of tone, had retouched. His personal attacks upon the Duke of York are said to have involved him in a duel with Thomas Otway. Of these passages in his life he wrote: I now grew weary of my little talent for Dramaticks, and forsooth must be rambling into politics … and much have I got by it (pref. to Distressed Innocence). Determined, at least, not to lose by politics, Settle, upon the dissolution of the Oxford parliament, promptly recanted, and wrote A Narrative of the Popish Plot, 1683, fol., exposing the perjuries of Doctor Oates, and covering with abuse Shaftesbury and his old associates at the Green Ribbon Club. Written with a clever assumption of fairness, the Narrative evoked a cloud of answers and letters, and a heated Vindication of Titus Oats. Settle was undeterred from publishing hostile animadversions upon the dying speeches of William, lord Russell, and Algernon Sidney, and he went so far as to issue A Panegyrick on Sir George Jefferies (1683) on his elevation to the chief-justiceship, Jeffreys having been conspicuous as Shimei in his satire of Achitophel Transpros'd. His tory enthusiasm reached its climax in 1685, when he published an adulatory Heroick Poem on the Coronation of the High and Mighty Monarch, James II (London, 4to), and shortly afterwards entered himself as a trooper in James's army on Hounslow Heath. He is said, moreover, to have published a weekly sheet in support of the administration. ESTC: R222377 Wing S2670A.

N° de réf. du vendeur ABE-1614094788856

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Character of a Popish Successour, and what England may expect from such a one.
• Éditeur: London : printed for T. Davies. 1681.
• Date de parution: 1681
• Reliure: No Binding
• Édition: 1st Edition
• État de l'article: Very Good