ABSTRACT
Date and publication. When Shaftesbury was indicted on a charge of high treason at the Old Bailey on 24 November 1681 the jury returned the bill marked ignoramus (‘we do not know’). To celebrate, a medal was struck by George Bower, embosser in ordinary to the Mint since 1664, who had previously produced medals for Charles II’s restoration, his marriage, and the Popish Plot. The date of issue of the medal is uncertain, but it seems to be alluded to in Christopher Nesse’s A Key (Luttrell’s copy is dated 13 January 1682; Macdonald 225) and so probably appeared in mid-December 1681. Edmund Hickeringill (The Mushroom (March 1682) 16) says that D.’s poem is of ‘three months birth’ (Winn 601). The medal carried a bust of Shaftesbury on the obverse, with the inscription ‘Antonio Comiti de Shaftesbury’, and on the reverse a view of London Bridge and the Tower, with the rising sun breaking through a cloud, and the inscriptions ‘Laetamur’ (‘we rejoice’) and ‘24 Nov 1681’. Spence reported (from a priest whom he met at Pope’s house) that the idea for the poem was suggested to D. by Charles: ‘One day as the King was walking in the Mall and talking with Dryden, he said: “If I were a poet (and I think I’m poor enough to be one) I would write a poem on such a subject in the following manner—”; and then gave him the plan for it. Dryden took the hint, carried the poem as soon as it was written to the King, and had a present of a hundred broadpieces [pound coins] for it’ (Spence 28). Politically, by early 1682 the tide was turning against the Whigs: ‘A month before the verdict, the court had succeeded in promoting the election of a moderate Tory, Sir John Moore, as Lord Mayor; ten members of Shaftesbury’s jury were defeated in the December elections for the Common Council of London; and the King now felt strong enough to begin an action of quo warranto that would allow him to alter the City’s charter … the Duke of York was recalled from Scotland; he arrived at Yarmouth a week before the publication of The Medall’ (Winn 365). The Medall. A Satyre Against Sedition. By the Author of Absalom and Achitophel was published by Jacob Tonson in 1682 (16 March according to Malone (I i 163) citing Luttrell; a letter from Lenthall Warcupp to his father dated 15 March says ‘wee expect the Poem vpon my Lord S. Meddall to come out this morning’ (G. Thorn-Drury, RES i (1925) 324)). Some press corrections were made; the present text is taken from a corrected copy of 1682. The poem was reprinted in Edinburgh, 1682; Dublin, 1682; in MP 1684 and 1692; and in 1692. The first edition carried anonymous commendatory verses by Nahum Tate and T. Adams: see Poems ii Appendix B.
