Zimri

in Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, is the second Duke of Buckingham. Like the captain who conspired against Asa, King of Judah, he “formed parties and joined factions,” but pending the issue “he was drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, steward of his house.” (1 Kings xvi. 9.)

“Some of the chiefs were princes in 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.

Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,

Was everything by starts, and nothing long.”

Part i. 543–548.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.