ttle an opportunity to display his abilities, which he did
not neglect to improve, by which means he procured so formidable an
antagonist as Mr. Dryden, who was obliged by his place of laureat, to
speak, and write for the court. Dryden had formerly joined Mr. Settle,
in order to reduce the growing reputation of Shadwell, but their
interest being now so opposite, they became poetical enemies, in which
Settle was, no doubt, over-matched. He wrote a poem, however, called
Azaria and Hushai, in five sheets, 4to. designed as an answer to Mr.
Dryden's poem called Absalom and Achitophel.

Soon after this, if we may credit the Oxford Antiquary, Settle changed
sides, and turned Tory, with as much violence as he had formerly
espoused the interest of the Whigs. He published in 1683, in eight meets
in folio, a Narrative; the first part of which is concerning himself,
as being of the Tory side; the second to shew the inconsistency, and
contradiction of Titus Oates's Narrative of the Plot of the Popish
Party, against the Life of King Charles II. at the time when that
Monarch intended to alter his ministry, to have consented to the
exclusion of his brother, and taken measures to support the Protestant
interest. This Oates was in the reign of James II. tried, and convidled
of perjury, upon the evidence chiefly of Papists, and had a severe
sentence pronounced, and inflicted upon him, viz. Imprisonmehd for life,
twice every year to stand on the pillory, and twice to be severely
whipt; but he received a pardon from King William, after suffering his
whippings, and two years imprisonment, with amazing fortitude, but was
never allowed again to be an evidence. While Settle was engaged in the
Tory party, he is said, by Wood, to have been author of Animadversions
on the Last Speech and Confession of William Lord Russel, who fell a
sacrifice to the Duke of York, and whose story, as related by Burnet,
never fails to move the reader to tears. Also Remarks on Algernon
Sidney's Paper, delivered to the Sheriffs at his Execution, London,
1683, in one sheet, published the latter end of December the same year.
Algernon Sidney was likewise murdered by the same kind of violence,
which popish bigotry had lifted up against the lives of some other
British worthies.

He also wrote a heroic poem on the Coronation of the High and Mighty
Monarch James II. London 1685, and then commenced a journalist for the
Court, and published weekly an Essay in behalf of the A