"and his name is Simeon Dixon on account of his father's being the same thing, and he went in the street railroad business in a place named Hartville in Connecticut, and he got married and had a wifeshe was Zithia Forbes, and she's dead, and I knowed that, and he's rich I reckon and" "An' Amrak begat Meshak an' Meshak begat Zimri an' Zimri was th' founder of th' House of Old Heck," the Ramblin' Kid chanted.

"and his name is Simeon Dixon on account of his father's being the same thing, and he went in the street railroad business in a place named Hartville in Connecticut, and he got married and had a wifeshe was Zithia Forbes, and she's dead, and I knowed that, and he's rich I reckon and" "An' Amrak begat Meshak an' Meshak begat Zimri an' Zimri was th' founder of th' House of Old Heck," the Ramblin' Kid chanted.

So from her open window she tauntingly accosted Jehu as he approached: "What came of Zimri, who murdered his master as thou hast done?"

Charles II appeared as King David; his natural son, the Duke of Monmouth, who was mixed up in the Rye House Plot, paraded as Absalom; Shaftesbury was Achitophel, the evil Counselor; and the Duke of Buckingham was satirized as Zimri.

(THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM) Some of their chiefs were princes of the land; In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome:

There, is much reason to suspect, however, that "The Rehearsal" was not forgotten, when the "Absalom and Achitophel" was written, and that the character of Zimri gathered much of its intense vigor and depth of shadow from recollections of the ludicrous Mr. Bayes.

To the country of Zimri 94 I went.

Yan'su King of the Zimri from the face 113 of my mighty weapons fled and to save his life 114 ascended (the mountains).

Mr. Dryden has expressed this very excellently in the Character of Zimri.

8, 9, that Elah, the King of Israel, was slain by Zimri, one of his chief officers, at a festive entertainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or head servant, with whom he seems to have been on terms of familiarity.

Though Buckingham is forgotten and Shaftesbury's name swallowed up in that of his more philanthropic descendant, we can read of Achitophel and Zimri still, and feel something of the strength and heat which he caught from a fiercely fought conflict and transmitted with his own gravity and purposefulness into verse.

The son (1627-1688) also appears under the name of "Zimri" (q.v.) in Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel.

Klop-stock, in The Messiah, says there were six Magi, whom he calls Hadad, Sel'ima, Zimri, Mirja, Beled, and Sunith.

"In the twenty and seventh year of Asa king of Judah did Zimri reign seven days in Tirzah."1

He was at his best in satirical character-sketches, such as the brilliant portraits in this poem of Shaftesbury, as the false counselor Ahitophel, and of the Duke of Buckingham as Zimri.

THE CHARACTER OF ZIMRI.

But though he veiled his resentment under this mask of indifference at the time, he afterwards avowed that the exquisite character of Zimri in "Absalom and Achitophel" was laboured with so much felicitous skill as a requital in kind to the author of the "Rehearsal.

The pains which Dryden bestowed on the character of Zimri, and the esteem in which he held it, is evident from his quoting it as the master-piece of his own satire.

"The character of Zimri in my 'Absalom' is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem: it is not bloody, but it is ridiculous enough; and he, for him it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury.

Among these we distinguish the famous Duke of Buckingham, with whom, under the character of Zimri, our author balanced accounts for his share in the "Rehearsal;" Bethel, the Whig sheriff, whose scandalous avarice was only equalled by his factious turbulence; and Titus Oates, the pretended discoverer of the Popish Plot.

Thus he showed his zeal for the law, just as Phinehas did in the case of Zimri the son of Salu.

[Footnote 7: The 'Rehearsal' was a witty burlesque upon the heroic dramas of Davenant, Dryden, and others, written by George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, the Zimri of Dryden's 'Absalom and Achitophel,' 'that life of pleasure and that soul of whim,' who, after running through a fortune of £50,000 a year, died, says Pope, 'in the worst inn's worst room.'

In the first Rank of these did Zimri stand: A Man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome.

Mr. Dryden has expressed this very excellently in the Character of Zimri.

[Footnote 1: George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, Drydens Zimri, and the author of the Rehearsal.]