Samuel Pordage (1633 – c. 1691) was a 17th-century English poet. He is best known by his Azaria and Hushai (1682), a reply to John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel. Life Samuel was the eldest son of John Pordage, a clergyman from Bradfield in Berkshire, by his first wife, and was baptised at St Dionis Backchurch, London, on 29 December 1633. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School from 1644, and studied law at Lincoln's Inn. At the trial of his father ten years later he appears to have been one of the witnesses. In his title-pages he described himself as ‘of Lincoln's Inn’ and ‘a student of physick.’ He was at one time chief steward to Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke. Roger L'Estrange attacked Pordage in the ‘Observator’ for 5 April 1682 on account of ‘A brief History of all the Papists' bloudy Persecutions,’ calling him ‘limping Pordage, a son of the famous Familist about Reading and the author of several libels,’ one against L'Estrange. Dryden, in the second part of ‘Absalom and Achitophel,’ published in November, described Pordage as Lame Mephibosheth, the wizard's son. Works He made various translations, wrote poems, and laid claim to two tragedies, Herod and Mariamne (1673), and The Siege of Babylon (1678), and a romance, Eliana. While living with his father at the parsonage of Bradfield in 1660 he published a translation from Seneca the Younger, with notes, called ‘Troades Englished.’ About the same time he published ‘Poems upon Several Occasions, by S. P., gent.,’ a little volume which included panegyrics on Charles II and General George Monck, but which consisted for the most part of poems in the style of Robert Herrick. In 1661 a volume appeared called ‘Mundorum Explicatio, or the explanation of an Hieroglyphical Figure. … Being a Sacred Poem, written by S. P., Armig.’ This book, which was reissued in 1663, is attributed to Samuel Pordage, though it has been suggested that the real author was Pordage's father, a professed follower of Jacob Boehme. White Kennett, writing in 1728, attributed the work to Samuel. In 1661 Samuel Pordage published a pamphlet, ‘Heroick Stanzas on his Maiesties Coronation.’ In 1673 his Herod and Mariamne a tragedy, was acted at the Duke's Theatre, and was published anonymously. Elkanah Settle signed the dedication to the Duchess of Albemarle. The plot was borrowed from Josephus and the romance of ‘Cleopatra.’ In 1678 appeared