Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу автора  The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in Eighteen Volumes, Volume 11

John Dryden

THE

WORKS

OF

JOHN DRYDEN,

NOW FIRST COLLECTED

IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES.

ILLUSTRATED

WITH NOTES,

HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,

AND

A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

WALTER SCOTT, Esq.

VOL. XI.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,

BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.

1808.

CONTENTS

OF

VOLUME ELEVENTH.

PAGE. Epistles. Epistle I.

To John Hoddeson,

3 II.

To Sir Robert Howard,

5 III.

To Dr Charleton,

12 IV.

To the Lady Castlemain,

18 V.

To Mr Lee,

22 VI.

To the Earl of Roscommon,

26 VII.

To the Duchess of York,

31 VIII.

To Mr J. Northleigh,

35 IX.

To Sir George Etherege,

38 X.

To Mr Southerne,

47 XI.

To Henry Higden, Esq.

52 XII.

To Mr Congreve,

57 XIII.

To Mr Granville,

63 XIV.

To Mr Motteux,

67 XV.

To Mr John Driden,

71 XVI.

To Sir Godfrey Kneller,

84 Elegies and Epitaphs.

Upon the Death of Lord Hastings,

94

To the Memory of Mr Oldham,

99

To the pious Memory of Mrs Anne Killigrew,

105

Upon the Death of the Viscount of Dundee,

115

Eleonora, a panegyrical Poem, to the Memory of

  the Countess of Abingdon,

117

Dedication to the Earl of Abingdon,

121

On the Death of Amyntas,

139

On the Death of a very young Gentleman,

142

Upon young Mr Rogers of Gloucestershire,

144

On the Death of Mr Purcell,

145

Epitaph on the Lady Whitmore,

150 Mrs Margaret Paston, 151 the Monument of the Marquis of Winchester, 152 Sir Palmer Fairbones' tomb in Westminster Abbey 155 The Monument of a fair Maiden Lady, 158

Inscription under Milton's Picture,

160 Odes, Songs, and Lyrical Pieces.

The Fair Stranger,

163

A Song for St Cecilia's Day,

165

The Tears of Amynta,

171

A Song,

173

The Lady's Song,

175

A Song,

176

A Song,

177

Rondelay,

178

A Song,

180

A Song to a fair young Lady,

181

Alexander's Feast, or the power of Music, an Ode,

183

Veni Creator Spiritus, paraphrased,

190 Fables.—Tales from Chaucer.

Dedication to the Duke of Ormond,

195

Preface prefixed to the Fables,

205

Palamon and Arcite; or the Knight's Tale,

241 Dedication to the Duchess of Ormond, 245

The Cock and the Fox; or the Tale of the Nun's Priest,

327

The Flower and the Leaf; or the Lady in the Arbour,

356

The Wife of Bath, her Tale,

377

The Character of a good Parson,

395 Fables.—Translations from Boccace.

Sigismonda and Guiscardo,

403

Theodore and Honoria,

433

Cymon and Iphigenia,

452

EPISTLES.

EPISTLE THE FIRST,

TO HIS FRIEND

JOHN HODDESDON,

ON HIS

DIVINE EPIGRAMS.

These verses were rescued from oblivion by Mr Malone, having escaped the notice of Dryden's former editors. I have disposed them among the Epistles, that being the title which the author seems usually to have given to those copies of verses, which he sent to his friends upon their publications, and which, according to the custom of the time, were prefixed to the works to which they related. They form the second of our author's attempts at poetry hitherto discovered, the "Elegy upon Lord Hastings" being the first. The lines are distinguished by the hard and rugged versification, and strained conceit, which characterised English poetry before the Restoration. The title of Hoddesdon's book is a sufficiently odd one: "Sion and Parnassus, or Epigrams on several Texts of the Old and New Testaments," 8vo, 1650. Dryden was then a student in Trinity College, Cambridge, and about eighteen years old. The nature of the volume which called forth his poetical approbation, may lead us to suppose, that, at this time, he retained the puritanical principles in which he was doubtless educated. The verses are subscribed, J. Dryden of Trin. C.

EPISTLE THE FIRST.

T hou hast inspired me with thy soul, and I,

Who ne'er before could ken of poetry,

Am grown so good proficient, I can lend

A line in commendation of my friend.

Yet 'tis but of the second hand; if ought

There be in this, 'tis from thy fancy brought.

Good thief, who dar'st, Prometheus-like, aspire,

And fill thy poems with celestial fire;

Enlivened by these sparks divine, their rays

Add a bright lustre to thy crown of bays.

Young eaglet, who thy nest thus soon forsook,

So lofty and divine a course hast took,

As all admire, before the down begin

To peep, as yet, upon thy smoother chin;

And, making heaven thy aim, hast had the grace

To look the sun of righteousness i'the face.

What may we hope, if thou goest on thus fast?

Scriptures at first, enthusiams at last!

Thou hast commenced, betimes, a saint; go on,

Mingling diviner streams with Helicon,

That they who view what epigrams here be,

May learn to make like, in just praise of thee.—

Reader, I've done, nor longer will withhold

Thy greedy eyes; looking on this pure gold,

Thou'lt know adulterate copper; which, like this,

Will only serve to be a foil to his.

EPISTLE THE SECOND.

TO MY HONOURED FRIEND

SIR ROBERT HOWARD,

ON HIS

EXCELLENT POEMS.

This epistle was prefixed to Sir Robert Howard's poems, printed for Herringman, 12mo, 1660, and entered in the Stationers' books on 16th April that year. It was probably written about the commencement of Dryden's intimacy with the author, whose sister he afterwards married. Sir Robert Howard, son to the Earl of Berkshire, a man of quality, a wit, and a cavalier, was able to extend effectual patronage to a rising author; and so willing to do it, that he is even said to have received Dryden into his own house. These lines, therefore, make part of Dryden's grateful acknowledgments, of which more may be found in the prefatory letter to the "Annus Mirabilis," addressed to Sir Robert Howard.[1] The friendship of the brother poets was afterwards suspended for some time, in consequence of Sir Robert's strictures on the "Essay on Dramatic Poetry," and Dryden's contemptuous refutation of his criticism. But there is reason to believe, that this interval of coldness was of short duration; and that, if the warmth of their original intimacy was never renewed, they resumed the usual kindly intercourse of relations and friends.

The epistle itself is earlier in date than the poem called "Astrea Redux," which was probably not published till the summer of 1660 was somewhat advanced. This copy of verses, therefore, is the first avowed production of our author after the Restoration, and may rank, in place and merit, with "Astrea Redux," the "Poem on the Coronation," and the "Address to the Chancellor." There is the same anxiety to turn and point every sentence, and the same tendency to extravagant and unnatural conceit. Yet it is sometimes difficult to avoid admiring the strength of the author's mind, even when employed in wresting ideas the wrong way. It is remarkable, also, that Dryden ventures to praise the verses of his patron, on account of that absence of extravagant metaphor, and that sobriety of poetic composition, for which, to judge by his own immediate practice, he ought rather to have censured them.

Those who may be induced to peruse the works of Sir Robert Howard, by the high commendation here bestowed upon them, will have more reason to praise the gratitude of our author, than the justice of his panegyric. They are productions of a most freezing mediocrity.

EPISTLE THE SECOND.

A s there is music uninformed by art

In those wild notes, which, with a merry heart,

The birds in unfrequented shades express,

Who, better taught at home, yet please us less;

So in your verse a native sweetness dwells,

Which shames composure,[2] and its art excells.

Singing no more can your soft numbers grace,

Than paint adds charms unto a beauteous face.[3]

Yet as when mighty rivers gently creep,

Their even calmness does suppose them deep,

Such is your muse: no metaphor swelled high

With dangerous boldness lifts her to the sky:

Those mounting fancies, when they fall again,

Show sand and dirt at bottom do remain.

So firm a strength, and yet withal so sweet,

Did never but in Sampson's riddle meet.

'Tis strange each line so great a weight should bear,

And yet no sign of toil, no sweat appear.

Either your art hides art, as stoics feign

Then least to feel, when most they suffer pain;

And we, dull souls, admire, but cannot see

What hidden springs within the engine be:

Or 'tis some happiness, that still pursues

Each act and motion of your graceful muse.

Or is it fortune's work, that in your head

The curious net that is for fancies spread,[4]

Lets through its meshes every meaner thought,

While rich ideas there are only caught?

Sure that's not all; this is a piece too fair

To be the child of chance, and not of care.

No atoms, casually together hurled,

Could e'er produce so beautiful a world;

Nor dare I such a doctrine here admit,

As would destroy the providence of wit.

'Tis your strong genius, then, which does not feel

Those weights, would make a weaker spirit reel.

To carry weight, and run so lightly too,

Is what alone your Pegasus can do.

Great Hercules himself could ne'er do more,

Than not to feel those heavens and gods he bore.

Your easier odes, which for delight were penned,

Yet our instruction make their second end;

We're both enriched and pleased, like them that woo

At once a beauty, and a fortune too.

Of moral knowledge poesy was queen,

And still she might, had wanton wits not been;

Who, like ill guardians, lived themselves at large,

And, not content with that, debauched their charge.

Like some brave captain, your successful pen

Restores the exiled to her crown again;

And gives us hope, that having seen the days

When nothing flourished but fanatic bays,

All will at length in this opinion rest,—

"A sober prince's government is best."

This is not all; your art the way has found

To make improvement of the richest ground;

That soil which those immortal laurels bore,

That once the sacred Maro's temples wore.[5]

Eliza's griefs are so expressed by you,

They are too eloquent to have been true.

Had she so spoke, Æneas had obeyed

What Dido, rather than what Jove, had said.

If funeral rites can give a ghost repose,

Your muse so justly has discharged those,

Eliza's shade may now its wandering cease,

And claim a title to the fields of peace.

But if Æneas be obliged, no less

Your kindness great Achilles doth confess;

Who, dressed by Statius in too bold a look,

Did ill become those virgin robes he took.[6]

To understand how much we owe to you,

We must your numbers, with your author's, view:

Then we shall see his work was lamely rough,

Each figure stiff, as if designed in buff;

His colours laid so thick on every place,

As only showed the paint, but hid the face.

But, as in perspective, we beauties see,

Which in the glass, not in the picture, be;

So here our sight obligingly mistakes

That wealth, which his your bounty only makes.

Thus vulgar dishes are, by cooks, disguised,

More for their dressing than their substance prized.

Your curious notes[7] so search into that age,

When all was fable but the sacred page,

That, since in that dark night we needs must stray,

We are at least misled in pleasant way.

But, what we most admire, your verse no less

The prophet than the poet doth confess.

Ere our weak eyes discerned the doubtful streak

Of light, you saw great Charles his morning break:[8]

So skilful seamen ken the land from far,

Which shows like mists to the dull passenger.

To Charles your muse first pays her duteous love,

As still the ancients did begin from Jove;

With Monk you end,[9] whose name preserved shall be,

As Rome recorded Rufus' memory;

Who thought it greater honour to obey

His country's interest, than the world to sway.[10]

But to write worthy things of worthy men,

Is the peculiar talent of your pen;

Yet let me take your mantle up, and I

Will venture, in your right, to prophecy:—

"This work, by merit first of fame secure,

Is likewise happy in its geniture;[11]

For since 'tis born when Charles ascends the throne,

It shares at once his fortune and its own."

EPISTLE THE THIRD.

TO MY HONOURED FRIEND

DR CHARLETON,

ON HIS

LEARNED AND USEFUL WORKS,

BUT MORE PARTICULARLY HIS TREATISE OF STONEHENGE,

BY HIM RESTORED TO THE TRUE

FOUNDER.

Walter Charleton, M.D. was born in 1619, and educated at Oxford to the profession of physic, in which he became very eminent. During the residence of King Charles I. at Oxford, in the civil wars, Charleton became one of the physicians in ordinary to his majesty. He afterwards settled in London; and, having a strong bent towards philosophical and historical investigation, became intimate with the most learned and liberal of his profession, particularly with Ent and Harvey. He wrote several treatises in the dark period preceding the Restoration, when, the government being in the hands of swordsmen equally ignorant and fanatical, a less ardent mind would have been discouraged from investigations, attended neither by fame nor profit. These essays were upon physical, philosophical, and moral subjects. After the Restoration, Charleton published the work upon which he is here congratulated by our author. Its full title is, "Chorea Gigantum, or the most famous antiquity of Great Britain, Stonehenge, standing on Salisbury Plain, restored to the Danes. By Walter Charleton, M.D., and Physician in Ordinary to his Majesty. London, 1663, 4to." The opinion which Dr Charleton had formed concerning the origin of this stupendous monument is strengthened by the information which he received from the famous northern antiquary, Olaus Wormius. But it is nevertheless hypothetical, and inconsistent with evidence; for Stonehenge is expressly mentioned by Nennius, who wrote two hundred years before the arrival of the Danes in Britain. If it be true, which is alleged by some writers, that it was anciently called Stan-Hengist, or, indeed, whether that be true or no, the monument seems likely to have been a Saxon erection, during their days of paganism; for it is neither mentioned by Cæsar nor Tacitus, who were both likely to have noticed a structure of so remarkable an appearance. Leaving the book to return to the author, I am sorry to add, that this learned man, after being president of the College of Physicians, and thus having attained the highest honours of his profession, in 1691 fell into embarrassed circumstances, which forced him shortly after to take refuge in the island of Jersey. It is uncertain if Dr Charleton ever returned from this sort of exile; but his death took place in 1707, at the advanced age of eighty-eight years.

Dr Charleton's hypothesis concerning Stonehenge was but indifferently received. It was considered as a personal attack on Inigo Jones, who had formed a much more fantastic opinion upon the subject, conceiving the stones to form a temple, dedicated, by the Romans, to the god Cælus, or Cælum. To the disgrace of that great architect's accuracy, it seems probable that he never had seen the monument which he attempts to describe; for he has converted an irregular polygon into a regular hexagon, in order to suit his own system. Dryden sided with Charleton in his theory; and, in the following elegant epistle, compliments him as having discovered the long-forgotten cause of this strange monument. The verses are not only valuable for the poetry and numbers, but for the accurate and interesting account which they present of the learning and philosophers of the age. It was probably written soon before the publication of Charleton's book in 1663. Sir Robert Howard also favoured Dr Charleton with a copy of recommendatory verses. Both poems are prefixed to the second edition of the "Chorea Gigantum," which is the only one I have seen. That of Dryden seems to have been afterwards revised and corrected.

EPISTLE THE THIRD.

T he longest tyranny that ever swayed,

Was that wherein our ancestors betrayed

Their free-born reason to the Stagyrite,

And made his torch their universal light.

So truth, while only one supplied the state,

Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.

Still it was[12] bought, like emp'ric wares, or charms,

Hard words sealed up with Aristotle's arms.

Columbus was the first that shook his throne,

And found a temperate in a torrid zone:

The feverish air, fanned by a cooling breeze;

The fruitful vales, set round with shady trees;

And guiltless men, who danced away their time,

Fresh as their groves, and happy as their clime.

Had we still paid that homage to a name,

Which only God and nature justly claim,

The western seas had been our utmost bound,

Where poets still might dream the sun was drowned;

And all the stars, that shine in southern skies,

Had been admired by none but savage eyes.

Among the assertors of free reason's claim,

Our nation's not[13] the least in worth or fame.

The world to Bacon[14] does not only owe

Its present knowledge, but its future too.

Gilbert[15] shall live, till loadstones cease to draw,

Or British fleets the boundless ocean awe.

And noble Boyle,[16] not less in nature seen,

Than his great brother, read in states and men.

The circling streams, once thought but pools, of blood,

(Whether life's fuel, or the body's food,)

From dark oblivion Harvey's[17] name shall save;

While Ent keeps all the honour that he gave.

Nor are you, learned friend, the least renowned;

Whose fame, not circumscribed with English ground,

Flies like the nimble journies of the light,

And is, like that, unspent too in its flight.

Whatever truths have been, by art or chance,

Redeemed from error, or from ignorance,

Thin in their authors, like rich veins of ore,

Your works unite, and still discover more.

Such is the healing virtue of your pen,

To perfect cures on books, as well as men.

Nor is this work the least; you well may give

To men new vigour, who make stones to live.

Through you, the Danes, their short dominion lost,

A longer conquest than the Saxons boast.

Stonehenge, once thought a temple, you have found

A throne, where kings, our earthly gods, were crowned;

Where by their wondering subjects they were seen,

Joyed[18] with their stature, and their princely mien.

Our sovereign here above the rest might stand,

And here be chose again to rule the land.

These ruins sheltered once his sacred head,

When he from Wor'ster's fatal battle fled;

Watched by the genius of this royal place,

And mighty visions of the Danish race.

His refuge then was for a temple shown;

But, he restored, 'tis now become a throne.[19]

EPISTLE THE FOURTH.

TO THE

LADY CASTLEMAIN,

UPON HER ENCOURAGING HIS FIRST PLAY,

THE WILD GALLANT,

ACTED IN 1662-3.

Barbara Villiers, heiress of William Viscount Grandison, in Ireland, and wife of Roger Palmer, Esq., was the first favourite, who after the Restoration of Charles II. enjoyed the power and consequence of a royal mistress. It is even said, that the king took her from her husband, upon the very day of his landing, and raised him, in compensation, to the rank and title of Earl of Castlemain. The lady herself was created Lady Nonsuch, Countess of Southampton, and finally Duchess of Cleveland. She bore the king three sons and three daughters, and long enjoyed a considerable share of his favour.

It would seem, that, in 1662-3, while Lady Castlemain was in the very height of her reign, she extended her patronage to our author, upon his commencing his dramatic career. In the preface to his first play, "The Wild Gallant," he acknowledges, that it met with very indifferent success, and had been condemned by the greater part of the audience. But he adds, "it was well received at court, and was more than once the divertisement of his majesty by his own command."[20] These marks of royal favour were doubtless owing to the intercession of Lady Castlemain. If we can trust the sarcasm thrown out by a contemporary satirist, our author piqued himself more on this light and gallant effusion, than its importance deserved.[21] The verses abound with sprightly and ingenious turns; and the conceits, which were the taste of the age, shew to some advantage on such an occasion. There is, however, little propriety in comparing the influence of the royal mistress to the virtue of Cato.

EPISTLE THE FOURTH.

A s seamen, shipwrecked on some happy shore,

Discover wealth in lands unknown before;

And, what their art had laboured long in vain,

By their misfortunes happily obtain:

So my much-envied muse, by storms long tost,

Is thrown upon your hospitable coast,

And finds more favour by her ill success,

Than she could hope for by her happiness.

Once Cato's virtue did the gods oppose;

While they the victor, he the vanquished chose;

But you have done what Cato could not do,

To choose the vanquished, and restore him too.

Let others still triumph, and gain their cause

By their deserts, or by the world's applause;

Let merit crowns, and justice laurels give,

But let me happy by your pity live.

True poets empty fame and praise despise,

Fame is the trumpet, but your smile the prize.[22]

You sit above, and see vain men below

Contend for what you only can bestow;

But those great actions others do by chance,

Are, like your beauty, your inheritance:

So great a soul, such sweetness joined in one,

Could only spring from noble Grandison.

You, like the stars, not by reflection bright,

Are born to your own heaven, and your own light;

Like them are good, but from a nobler cause,

From your own knowledge, not from nature's laws.

Your power you never use, but for defence,

To guard your own, or others' innocence:

Your foes are such, as they, not you, have made,

And virtue may repel, though not invade.

Such courage did the ancient heroes show,

Who, when they might prevent, would wait the blow;

With such assurance as they meant to say,

We will o'ercome, but scorn the safest way.

What further fear of danger can there be?

Beauty, which captives all things, sets me free.

Posterity will judge by my success,

I had the Grecian poet's happiness,

Who, waving plots, found out a better way;

Some God descended, and preserved the play.

When first the triumphs of your sex were sung

By those old poets, beauty was but young,

And few admired the native red and white,

Till poets dressed them up to charm the sight;

So beauty took on trust, and did engage

For sums of praises till she came to age.

But this long-growing debt to poetry,

You justly, madam, have discharged to me,

When your applause and favour did infuse

New life to my condemned and dying muse.

EPISTLE THE FIFTH.

TO

MR LEE,

ON HIS TRAGEDY OF

THE RIVAL QUEENS, OR ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

1677.

"The Rival Queens, or Alexander the Great," of Nathaniel Lee, has been always deemed the most capital performance of its unfortunate author. There is nothing throughout the play that is tame or indifferent; all is either exquisitely good, or extravagantly bombastic, though some passages hover between the sublime and the ludicrous. Addison has justly remarked, that Lee's "thoughts are wonderfully suited for tragedy, but frequently lost in such a crowd of words, that it is hard to see the beauty of them. There is infinite fire in his works, but so involved in smoke, that it does not appear in half its lustre."

Lee and our author lived on terms of strict friendship, and wrote, in conjunction, "Œdipus," and the "Duke of Guise." Lee's madness and confinement in Bedlam are well known; as also his repartee to a coxcomb, who told him, it was easy to write like a madman:—"No," answered the poet, "it is not easy to write like a madman, but it is very easy to write like a fool." Dryden elegantly apologizes, in the following verses, for the extravagance of his style of poetry. Lee's death was very melancholy: Being discharged from Bedlam, and returning by night from a tavern, in a state of intoxication, to his lodgings in Duke-street, he fell down somewhere in Clare-Market, and was either killed by a carriage driving over him, or stifled in the snow, which was then deep. Thus died this eminent dramatic poet in the year 1691, or 1692, in the 35th year of his age.

EPISTLE THE FIFTH.

T he blast of common censure could I fear,

Before your play my name should not appear;

For 'twill be thought, and with some colour too,

I pay the bribe I first received from you;

That mutual vouchers for our fame we stand,

And play the game into each others hand;

And as cheap pen'orths to ourselves afford,

As Bessus and the brothers of the sword.[23]

Such libels private men may well endure,

When states and kings themselves are not secure;

For ill men, conscious of their inward guilt,

Think the best actions on by-ends are built.

And yet my silence had not 'scaped their spite;

Then, envy had not suffered me to write;

For, since I could not ignorance pretend,

Such merit I must envy or commend.

So many candidates there stand for wit,

A place at court is scarce so hard to get:

In vain they crowd each other at the door;

For e'en reversions are all begged before:

Desert, how known soe'er, is long delayed,

And then, too, fools and knaves are better paid.

Yet, as some actions bear so great a name,

That courts themselves are just, for fear of shame;

So has the mighty merit of your play

Extorted praise, and forced itself a way.

'Tis here as 'tis at sea; who farthest goes,

Or dares the most, makes all the rest his foes.

Yet when some virtue much outgrows the rest,

It shoots too fast, and high, to be supprest;

As his heroic worth struck envy dumb,

Who took the Dutchman, and who cut the boom.[24]

Such praise is yours, while you the passions move,

That 'tis no longer feigned, 'tis real love,

Where nature triumphs over wretched art;

We only warm the head, but you the heart.

Always you warm; and if the rising year,

As in hot regions, brings the sun too near,

'Tis but to make your fragrant spices blow,

Which in our cooler climates will not grow.

They only think you animate your theme

With too much fire, who are themselves all phlegm.

Prizes would be for lags of slowest pace,

Were cripples made the judges of the race.

Despise those drones, who praise, while they accuse,

The too much vigour of your youthful muse.

That humble style, which they your virtue make,

Is in your power; you need but stoop and take.

Your beauteous images must be allowed

By all, but some vile poets of the crowd.

But how should any sign-post dauber know

The worth of Titian, or of Angelo?

Hard features every bungler can command;

To draw true beauty, shews a master's hand.

EPISTLE THE SIXTH.

TO THE

EARL OF ROSCOMMON,

ON HIS EXCELLENT

ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE.

The Earl of Roscommon's "Essay on Translated Verse," a work which abounds with much excellent criticism, expressed in correct, succinct, and manly language, was first published in 4to, in 1680: a second edition, corrected and enlarged, appeared in 1684. To both editions are prefixed the following copy of verses by our author; and to the second there is also one in Latin by his son Charles Dryden, afterwards translated by Mr Needler.

The high applause which our author has here and elsewhere[25] bestowed on the "Essay on Translated Verse," is censured by Dr Johnson, as unmerited and exaggerated. But while something is allowed for the partiality of a friend, and the zeal of a panegyrist, it must also be remembered, that the rules of criticism, now so well known as to be even trite and hackneyed, were then almost new to the literary world, and that translation was but then beginning to be emancipated from the fetters of verbal and literal versions. But Johnson elsewhere does Roscommon more justice, where he acknowledges, that "he improved taste, if he did not enlarge knowledge, and may be numbered among the benefactors of English literature."

Dryden has testified, in several places of his works, that he loved and honoured Roscommon; particularly by inscribing and applying to him his version of the Third Ode of the First Book of Horace.[26] Roscommon repaid these favours by a copy of verses addressed to Dryden on the "Religio Laici."[27]

EPISTLE THE SIXTH.

W   hether the fruitful Nile, or Tyrian shore,

The seeds of arts and infant science bore,

'Tis sure the noble plant, translated first,

Advanced its head in Grecian gardens nurst.

The Grecians added verse; their tuneful tongue

Made nature first, and nature's God their song.

Nor stopt translation here; for conquering Rome,

With Grecian spoils, brought Grecian numbers home;

Enriched by those Athenian muses more,

Than all the vanquished world could yield before.

Till barbarous nations, and more barbarous times,

Debased the majesty of verse to rhymes;

Those rude at first; a kind of hobbling prose,

That limped along, and tinkled in the close.

But Italy, reviving from the trance

Of Vandal, Goth, and Monkish ignorance,

With pauses, cadence, and well-vowel'd words,

And all the graces a good ear affords,

Made rhyme an art, and Dante's polished page

Restored a silver, not a golden age.

}

{  Then Petrarch followed, and in him we see,

{  What rhyme improved in all its height can be;

{  At best a pleasing sound, and fair barbarity.

The French pursued their steps; and Britain, last,

In manly sweetness all the rest surpassed.

The wit of Greece, the gravity of Rome,

Appear exalted in the British loom:

The Muses' empire is restored again,

In Charles his reign, and by Roscommon's pen.

Yet modestly he does his work survey,

And calls a finished poem an essay;

}

{  For all the needful rules are scattered here;

{  Truth smoothly told, and pleasantly severe;

{  So well is art disguised, for nature to appear.

Nor need those rules to give translation light;

His own example is a flame so bright,

That he, who but arrives to copy well,

Unguided will advance, unknowing will excel.

Scarce his own Horace could such rules ordain,

Or his own Virgil sing a nobler strain.

How much in him may rising Ireland boast,

How much in gaining him has Britain lost!

Their island in revenge has ours reclaimed;

The more instructed we, the more we still are shamed.

'Tis well for us his generous blood did flow,

Derived from British channels long ago,[28]

That here his conquering ancestors were nurst,

And Ireland but translated England first:

By this reprizal we regain our right,

Else must the two contending nations fight;

A nobler quarrel for his native earth,

Than what divided Greece for Homer's birth.

To what perfection will our tongue arrive,

How will invention and translation thrive,

When authors nobly born will bear their part,

And not disdain the inglorious praise of art!

Great generals thus, descending from command,

With their own toil provoke the soldier's hand.

How will sweet Ovid's ghost be pleased to hear

His fame augmented by an English peer;[29]

How he embellishes his Helen's loves,

Outdoes his softness, and his sense improves?

When these translate, and teach translators too,

Nor firstling kid, nor any vulgar vow,

}

{  Should at Apollo's grateful altar stand:

{  Roscommon writes; to that auspicious hand,

{  Muse, feed the bull that spurns the yellow sand.

Roscommon, whom both court and camps commend,

True to his prince, and faithful to his friend;

}

{  Roscommon, first in fields of honour known,

{  First in the peaceful triumphs of the gown;

{  Who both Minervas justly makes his own.

Now let the few beloved by Jove, and they

Whom infused Titan formed of better clay,

On equal terms with ancient wit engage,

Nor mighty Homer fear, nor sacred Virgil's page:

Our English palace opens wide in state,

And without stooping they may pass the gate.

EPISTLE THE SEVENTH.

TO THE

DUCHESS OF YORK,

ON HER

RETURN FROM SCOTLAND, IN THE YEAR 1682.

These smooth and elegant lines are addressed to Mary of Este, second wife of James Duke of York, and afterwards his queen. She was at this time in all the splendour of beauty; tall, and admirably formed in her person; dignified and graceful in her deportment, her complexion very fair, and her hair and eye-brows of the purest black. Her personal charms fully merited the encomiastic strains of the following epistle.

The Duchess accompanied her husband to Scotland, where he was sent into a kind of honorary banishment, during the dependence of the Bill of Exclusion. Upon the dissolution of the Oxford parliament, the Duke visited the court in triumph; and after two months stay, returned to Scotland, and in his voyage suffered the misfortune of shipwreck, elsewhere mentioned particularly.[30] Having settled the affairs of Scotland, he returned with his family to England; whence he had been virtually banished for three years. His return was hailed by the poets of the royal party with unbounded congratulation. It is celebrated by Tate, in the Second Part of "Absalom and Achitophel;"[31] and by our author, in a prologue spoken before the Duke and Duchess.[32] But, not contented with that expression of zeal, Dryden paid the following additional tribute upon the same occasion.

EPISTLE THE SEVENTH.

W   hen factious rage to cruel exile drove

The queen of beauty, and the court of love,

The Muses drooped, with their forsaken arts,

And the sad Cupids broke their useless darts;

Our fruitful plains to wilds and desarts turned,

Like Eden's face, when banished man it mourned.

Love was no more, when loyalty was gone,

The great supporter of his awful throne.

}

{  Love could no longer after beauty stay,

{  But wandered northward to the verge of day,

{  As if the sun and he had lost their way.

But now the illustrious nymph, returned again,

Brings every grace triumphant in her train.

The wondering Nereids, though they raised no storm,

Foreslowed her passage, to behold her form:

Some cried, A Venus; some, A Thetis past;

But this was not so fair, nor that so chaste.

Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife, and Pride;

And Envy did but look on her, and died.

Whate'er we suffered from our sullen fate,

Her sight is purchased at an easy rate.

Three gloomy years against this day were set;

But this one mighty sum has cleared the debt:

Like Joseph's dream, but with a better doom,

The famine past, the plenty still to come.

For her, the weeping heavens become serene;

For her, the ground is clad in cheerful green;

For her, the nightingales are taught to sing,

And Nature has for her delayed the spring.

}

{  The Muse resumes her long-forgotten lays,

{  And Love restored his ancient realm surveys,

{  Recals our beauties, and revives our plays,

His waste dominions peoples once again,

And from her presence dates his second reign.

But awful charms on her fair forehead sit,

Dispensing what she never will admit;

Pleasing, yet cold, like Cynthia's silver beam,

The people's wonder, and the poet's theme.

Distempered zeal, sedition, cankered hate,

No more shall vex the church, and tear the state;

No more shall faction civil discords move,

Or only discords of too tender love:

Discord, like that of music's various parts;

Discord, that makes the harmony of hearts;

Discord, that only this dispute shall bring,

Who best shall love the duke, and serve the king.

EPISTLE THE EIGHTH.

TO MY FRIEND,

MR J. NORTHLEIGH,

AUTHOR OF

THE PARALLEL;

ON HIS

TRIUMPH OF THE BRITISH MONARCHY.

These verses have been recovered by Mr Malone, and are transferred, from his life of Dryden, into the present collection of his works. John Northleigh was by profession a student of law, though he afterwards became a physician; and was in politics a keen Tory. He wrote "The Parallel, or the new specious Association, an old rebellious Covenant, closing with a disparity between a true Patriot and a factious Associator." London, 1682, folio. This work was anonymous; but attracted so much applause among the High-churchmen, that, according to Wood, Dr Lawrence Womack called the author "an excellent person, whose name his own modesty, or prudence, as well as the iniquity of the times, keeps from us."

Proceeding in the same track of politics, Northleigh published two pamphlets on the side of the Tories, in the dispute between the petitioners and abhorrers; and finally produced, "The Triumph of our Monarchy, over the Plots and Principles of our Rebels and Republicans, being remarks on their most eminent Libels. London, 1685." This last publication called forth the following lines from our author.

Northleigh was the son of a Hamburgh merchant, and born in that city. He became a student in Exeter College, in 1674, aged 17 years; and was, it appears, studying law in the Inner Temple in 1685, when his book was published. He was then, consequently, about 28 years old; so that his genius was not peculiarly premature, notwithstanding our author's compliment. He afterwards took a medical degree at Cambridge, and practised physic at Exeter.—Wood, Athenæ Oxon. Vol. II. p. 962.

These verses, like the address to Hoddesdon, are ranked among the Epistles, because Dryden gave that title to other recommendatory verses of the same nature.

EPISTLE THE EIGHTH.

}

{  S o Joseph, yet a youth, expounded well

{  The boding dream, and did the event foretell;

{  Judged by the past, and drew the Parallel.

Thus early Solomon the truth explored,

The right awarded, and the babe restored.

}

{  Thus Daniel, ere to prophecy he grew,

{  The perjured Presbyters did first subdue,

{  And freed Susanna from the canting crew.

Well may our monarchy triumphant stand,

While warlike James protects both sea and land;

And, under covert of his seven-fold shield,

Thou send'st thy shafts to scour the distant field.

By law thy powerful pen has set us free;

Thou studiest that, and that may study thee.

EPISTLE THE NINTH.

A

LETTER

TO

SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE.

Sir George Etherege, as a lively and witty companion, a smooth sonnetteer, and an excellent writer of comedy, was in high reputation in the seventeenth century. He lived on terms of intimacy with the men of genius, and with those of rank, at the court of Charles the Second, and appears to have been particularly acquainted with Dryden. Etherege enjoyed in a particular manner the favour of Queen Mary of Este, through whose influence he was sent envoy to Hamburgh, and afterwards became resident minister at Ratisbon. In this situation, he did not cease to interest himself in the progress of English literature; and we have several of his letters, both in prose and verse, written with great wit and vivacity, to the Duke of Buckingham, and other persons of wit and honour at the court of London. Among others, he wrote an epistle in verse to the Earl of Middleton, who engaged Dryden to return the following answer to it. As Sir George's verses are lively and pleasing, I have prefixed them to Dryden's epistle. Both pieces, with a second letter from Etherege to Middleton, appeared in Dryden's Miscellanies.

Our poet's epistle to Sir George Etherege affords an example how easily Dryden could adapt his poetry to the style which the moment required; since, although this is the only instance in which he has used the verse of eight syllables, it flows as easily from his pen as if he had never written in another measure. This is the more remarkable, as, in the "Essay on Satire," Dryden speaks very contemptuously of the eight syllable, or Hudibrastic measure, and the ornaments proper to it, as a little instrument, unworthy the use of a great master.[33] Here, however, he happily retorts upon the witty knight, with his own weapons of gallant and courtly ridicule, and acquits himself, as well in the light arms of a polite and fashionable courtier, as when he wields the trenchant brand of his own keen satire.

Our author had formerly favoured Sir George Etherege with an excellent epilogue to his popular play, called "The Man of Mode," acted in 1676, and he occasionally speaks of him in his writings with great respect. The date of this epistle is not easily ascertained. From a letter of Etherege to the Duke of Buckingham, it appears, that Sir George was at Ratisbon when Dryden was engaged in his controversial poetry;[34] but whether that letter be previous or subsequent to the epistle to the Earl of Middleton, seems uncertain.

Considering the high reputation which Sir George Etherege enjoyed, and the figure which he made as a courtier and a man of letters, it is humbling to add, that we have no accurate information concerning the time or manner of his death. It seems certain, that he never returned from the Continent; but it is dubious, whether, according to one report, he followed the fortunes of King James, and resided with him at the court of St Germains till his death, or whether, as others have said, that event was occasioned by his falling down the stairs of his own house at Ratisbon, when, after drinking freely with a large company, he was attempting to do the honours of their retreat. From the date of the letter to the Duke of Buckingham, 21st October, 1689, it is plain he was then at Ratisbon; and it is somewhat singular, that he appears to have retained his official situation of Resident, though nearly twelve months had elapsed since the Revolution. This seems to give countenance to the latter report of his having died at Ratisbon. The date of that event was probably about 1694.

SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE,

TO THE

EARL OF MIDDLETON.[35]

S ince love and verse, as well as wine,

Are brisker where the sun does shine,

'Tis something to lose two degrees,

Now age itself begins to freeze:

}

{  Yet this I patiently could bear,

{  If the rough Danube's beauties were

{  But only two degrees less fair

Than the bright nymphs of gentle Thames,

Who warm me hither with their beams:

Such power they have, they can dispense

Five hundred miles their influence.

But hunger forces men to eat,

Though no temptation's in the meat.

How would the ogling sparks despise

The darling damsel of my eyes,

Should they behold her at a play,

As she's tricked up on holiday,

When the whole family combine,

For public pride, to make her shine!

Her locks, which long before lay matted,

Are on this day combed out and plaited;

A diamond bodkin in each tress,

The badges of her nobleness;

For every stone, as well as she,

Can boast an ancient pedigree.

These formed the jewel erst did grace

The cap of the first Grave[36] o' the race,

Preferred by Graffin[37] Marian

To adorn the handle of her fan;

And, as by old record appears,

Worn since in Kunigunda's years,

}

{  Now sparkling in the froein's hair;[38]

{  No rocket breaking in the air

{  Can with her starry head compare.

Such ropes of pearl her arms encumber,

She scarce can deal the cards at omber;

So many rings each finger freight,

They tremble with the mighty weight.

The like in England ne'er was seen,

Since Holbein drew Hal[39] and his queen:

But after these fantastic flights,

The lustre's meaner than the lights.

The thing that bears this glittering pomp

Is but a tawdry ill-bred romp,

Whose brawny limbs and martial face

Proclaim her of the Gothic race,

More than the mangled pageantry

Of all the father's heraldry.

But there's another sort of creatures,

Whose ruddy look and grotesque features

Are so much out of nature's way,

You'd think them stamped on other clay,

No lawful daughters of old Adam.

'Mongst these behold a city madam,

With arms in mittins, head in muff,

A dapper cloak, and reverend ruff:

No farce so pleasant as this maukin,

And the soft sound of High-Dutch talking.

Here, unattended by the Graces,

The queen of love in a sad case is.

Nature, her active minister,

Neglects affairs, and will not stir;

Thinks it not worth the while to please,

But when she does it for her ease.

Even I, her most devout adorer,

With wandering thoughts appear before her,

}

{  And when I'm making an oblation,

{  Am fain to spur imagination

{  With some sham London inclination:

The bow is bent at German dame,

The arrow flies at English game.

Kindness, that can indifference warm,

And blow that calm into a storm,

Has in the very tenderest hour

Over my gentleness a power;

True to my country-women's charms,

When kissed and pressed in foreign arms.

EPISTLE THE NINTH.

T o you, who live in chill degree,

As map informs, of fifty-three,[40]

And do not much for cold atone,

By bringing thither fifty-one,

Methinks all climes should be alike,

From tropic even to pole artique;

Since you have such a constitution

As no where suffers diminution.

You can be old in grave debate,

And young in love affairs of state;

And both to wives and husbands show

The vigour of a plenipo.

Like mighty missioner you come

Ad Partes Infidelium.

A work of wonderous merit sure,

So far to go, so much t'endure;

And all to preach to German dame,

Where sound of Cupid never came.

Less had you done, had you been sent

As far as Drake or Pinto went,

For cloves or nutmegs to the line-a,

Or even for oranges to China.

}

{  That had indeed been charity,

{  Where love-sick ladies helpless lie,

{  Chapt, and, for want of liquor, dry.

But you have made your zeal appear

Within the circle of the Bear.

What region of the earth's so dull,

That is not of your labours full?

Triptolemus (so sung the Nine)

Strewed plenty from his cart divine;

But spite of all these fable-makers,

He never sowed on Almain acres.

No, that was left by fate's decree

To be performed and sung by thee.

Thou break'st through forms with as much ease

As the French king through articles.

}

{  In grand affairs thy days are spent,

{  In waging weighty compliment,

{  With such as monarchs represent.

They, whom such vast fatigues attend,

Want some soft minutes to unbend,

To shew the world that, now and then,

Great ministers are mortal men.

Then Rhenish rummers walk the round;

In bumpers every king is crowned;

Besides three holy mitred Hectors,[41]

And the whole college of Electors.

No health of potentate is sunk,

That pays to make his envoy drunk.

These Dutch delights, I mentioned last,

Suit not, I know, your English taste:

For wine to leave a whore or play,

Was ne'er your Excellency's way.[42]

Nor need this title give offence,

For here you were your Excellence;

For gaming, writing, speaking, keeping,

His Excellence for all—but sleeping.

}

{  Now if you tope in form, and treat,

{  'Tis the sour sauce to the sweet meat,

{  The fine you pay for being great.

Nay, here's a harder imposition,

Which is indeed the court's petition,

That, setting worldly pomp aside,

Which poet has at font denied,

You would be pleased in humble way

To write a trifle called a Play.

}

{  This truly is a degradation,

{  But would oblige the crown and nation

{  Next to your wise negotiation.

}

{  If you pretend, as well you may,

{  Your high degree, your friends will say,

{  The duke St Aignon made a play.

If Gallic wit convince you scarce,

His grace of Bucks has made a farce,

And you, whose comic wit is terse all,

Can hardly fall below Rehearsal.

Then finish what you have began,

But scribble faster if you can;

For yet no George, to our discerning,

Has writ without a ten years warning.[43]

EPISTLE THE TENTH.

TO

MR SOUTHERNE,

ON HIS COMEDY

CALLED

THE WIVES' EXCUSE,

ACTED IN 1692.

Southerne,—well known to the present age as a tragic writer, for his Isabella has been ranked among the first-rate parts of our inimitable Siddons,—was also distinguished by his contemporaries as a successful candidate for the honours of the comic muse. Two of his comedies, "The Mother in Fashion," and "Sir Anthony Love," had been represented with success, when, in 1692, the "Wives' Excuse, or Cuckolds make Themselves," was brought forward. The tone of that piece approaches what we now call genteel comedy: but, whether owing to the flatness into which such plays are apt to slide, for want of the vis comica which enlivens the more animated, though coarser, effusions of the lower comedy, or to some strokes of satire directed against music meetings, and other places of fashionable resort, "The Wives' Excuse" was unfortunate in the representation. The author, in the dedication of the printed play,[44] has hinted at the latter cause as that of his defeat; and vindicates himself from the idea of reflecting upon music meetings, or any other resort of the people of fashion, by urging, that although a billet doux is represented as being there delivered, "such a thing has been done before now in a church, without the place being thought the worse of." But Southerne consoles himself for the disapprobation of the audience with the favour of Dryden, who, says he, "speaking of this play, has publicly said, the town was kind to 'Sir Anthony Love;' I needed them only to be just to this." And, after mentioning that Dryden had intrusted to him, upon the credit of this play, the task of completing "Cleomenes,"[45] he triumphantly adds,—"If modesty be sometimes a weakness, what I say can hardly be a crime: in a fair English trial, both parties are allowed to be heard; and without this vanity of mentioning Mr Dryden, I had lost the best evidence of my cause." Dryden, not satisfied with a verbal exertion of his patronage, consoled his friend under his discomfiture, by addressing to him the following Epistle, in which his failure is ascribed to the taste for bustling intrigue, and for low and farcical humour.

It is not the Editor's business to trace Southerne's life, or poetical career. He was born in the county of Dublin, in 1659; and produced, in his twenty-third year, the tragedy of "The Loyal Brother," which Dryden honoured with a prologue. On this occasion, Southerne's acquaintance with our bard took place, under the whimsical circumstances mentioned Vol. X. p. 372. The aged bard furnished also a prologue to Southerne's "Disappointment, or Mother in Fashion;" and as he had repeatedly ushered him to success, he presented him with the following lines to console him under disappointment. The poets appear to have continued on the most friendly terms until Dryden's death. Southerne survived him many years, and lived to be praised by the rising generation of a second century, for mildness of manners, and that cheerful and amiable disposition, which rarely is found in old age, unless from the happy union of a body at ease, and a conscience void of offence. When this dramatist was sixty-five, his last play, called "Money the Mistress," was acted, with a prologue by Welsted, containing the following beautiful lines:[46]

To you, ye fair, for patronage he sues;

O last defend, who first inspired his muse!

In your soft service he has past his days,

And gloried to be born for woman's praise:

Deprest at length, and in your cause decayed,

The good old man to beauty bends for aid;

}

{  That beauty, he has taught so oft to moan!

{  That ne'er let Imoinda weep alone,

{  And made his Isabella's griefs its own!

Ere you arose to life, ye blooming train;

Ere time brought forth our pleasure and our pain;

He melted hearts, to monarchs' vows denied,

And softened to distress unconquered pride:

O! then protect, in his declining years,

The man, that filled your mother's eyes with tears!

The last of Charles's bards! The living name,

That rose, in that Augustan age, to fame!

And you, his brother authors, bravely dare

To join to-night the squadrons of the fair;

With zeal protect your veteran writer's page,

And save the drama's father, in his age:

Nor let the wreath from his grey head be torn,

For half a century with honour worn!

His merits let your tribe to mind recal;

Of some the patron, and the friend to all!

In him the poets' Nestor ye defend!

Great Otway's peer, and greater Dryden's friend.

Southerne, on his eighty-first birth day, was complimented with a copy of verses by Pope; and on 26th May, 1746, he died at the advanced age of eighty-five and upwards.

EPISTLE THE TENTH.

S ure there's a fate in plays, and 'tis in vain

To write, while these malignant planets reign.

Some very foolish influence rules the pit,

Not always kind to sense, or just to wit;

And whilst it lasts, let buffoonry succeed,

To make us laugh, for never was more need.

Farce, in itself, is of a nasty scent;

But the gain smells not of the excrement.

The Spanish nymph, a wit and beauty too,

With all her charms, bore but a single show;

But let a monster Muscovite appear,

He draws a crowded audience round the year.

}

{  May be thou hast not pleased the box and pit;

{  Yet those who blame thy tale applaud thy wit:

{  So Terence plotted, but so Terence writ.

Like his, thy thoughts are true, thy language clean;

Even lewdness is made moral in thy scene.[47]

The hearers may for want of Nokes[48] repine;

But rest secure, the readers will be thine.

Nor was thy laboured drama damned or hissed,

But with a kind civility dismissed;

With such good manners as the Wife[49] did use,

Who, not accepting, did but just refuse.

There was a glance at parting; such a look,

As bids thee not give o'er for one rebuke.

But if thou wouldst be seen, as well as read,

Copy one living author, and one dead.

The standard of thy style let Etherege be;

For wit, the immortal spring of Wycherly.

Learn, after both, to draw some just design,

And the next age will learn to copy thine.

EPISTLE THE ELEVENTH.

TO

HENRY HIGDEN, Esq.

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF

THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.

Henry Higden was a member of the honourable society of the Middle Temple, and during the reigns of James II. and William III. held some rank among the wits of the age. He wrote a play called "Sir Noisy Parrot, or the Wary Widow," represented in 1693, which seems to have been most effectually damned; for in the preface the author complains, that "the theatre was by faction transformed into a bear-garden, hissing, mimicking, ridiculing, and cat-calling." I mention this circumstance, because amongst the poetical friends who hastened to condole with Mr Higden on the bad success of his piece, there is one who attributes it to the influence of our author over the inferior wits at Will's coffee-house.[50] But it seems more generally admitted, as the cause of the downfall of the "Wary Widow," that the author being a man of a convivial temper, had introduced too great a display of good eating and drinking into his piece; and that the actors, although Mr Higden complains of their general negligence, entered into these convivial scenes with great zeal, and became finally incapable of proceeding in their parts.[51] The prologue was written by Sir Charles Sedley, in which the following lines seem to be levelled at Dryden's critical prefaces:

But against old, as well as new, to rage,

Is the peculiar phrenzy of this age;

Shakespeare must down, and you must praise no more

Soft Desdemona, or the jealous Moor.

Shakespeare, whose fruitful genius, happy wit,

Was framed and finished at a lucky hit;

The pride of nature, and the shame of schools,

Born to create, and not to learn from rules,

Must please no more. His bastards now deride

Their father's nakedness, they ought to hide;

But when on spurs their Pegasus they force,

Their jaded muse is distanced in the course.

If the admirers of Dryden were active in the condemnation of Higden's play, the offence probably lay in these verses.

It seems likely that Higden's translation, of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, which I have never seen, was printed before Dryden published his own version, in 1693; consequently, before the damnation of the "Wary Widow," acted in the same year, which seems to have been attended with a quarrel between Dryden and the author. It is therefore very probable, that this Epistle should have stood earlier in the arrangement: but, having no positive evidence, the Editor has not disturbed the former order.

EPISTLE THE ELEVENTH.

T he Grecian wits, who satire first began,

Were pleasant Pasquins on the life of man;

}

{  At mighty villains, who the state opprest,

{  They durst not rail, perhaps; they lashed, at least,

{  And turned them out of office with a jest.

No fool could peep abroad, but ready stand

The drolls to clap a bauble[52] in his hand.

Wise legislators never yet could draw

A fop within the reach of common law;

For posture, dress, grimace, and affectation,

Though foes to sense, are harmless to the nation.

Our last redress is dint of verse to try,

And satire is our court of chancery.

This way took Horace to reform an age,

Not bad enough to need an author's rage:

But yours,[53] who lived in more degenerate times,

Was forced to fasten deep, and worry crimes.

Yet you, my friend, have tempered him so well,

You make him smile in spite of all his zeal;

An art peculiar to yourself alone,

To join the virtues of two styles in one.

}

{  Oh! were your author's principle received,

{  Half of the labouring world would be relieved;

{  For not to wish is not to be deceived.

Revenge would into charity be changed,

Because it costs too dear to be revenged;

It costs our quiet and content of mind,

And when 'tis compassed leaves a sting behind.

Suppose I had the better end o'the staff,

Why should I help the ill-natured world to laugh?

'Tis all alike to them, who get the day;

They love the spite and mischief of the fray.

No; I have cured myself of that disease;

Nor will I be provoked, but when I please:

But let me half that cure to you restore;

You give the salve, I laid it to the sore.

}

{  Our kind relief against a rainy day,

{  Beyond a tavern, or a tedious play,

{  We take your book, and laugh our spleen away.

If all your tribe, too studious of debate,

Would cease false hopes and titles to create,

Led by the rare example you begun,

Clients would fail, and lawyers be undone.

EPISTLE THE TWELFTH.

TO MY DEAR FRIEND

Mr CONGREVE,

ON HIS COMEDY

CALLED

THE DOUBLE DEALER.

This admirable Epistle is addressed to Congreve, whose rising genius had early attracted our author's attention and patronage. When Congreve was about to bring out "The Old Bachelor," the manuscript was put by Southerne into Dryden's hands, who declared, that he had never seen such a first play, and bestowed considerable pains in adapting it to the stage. It was received with the most unbounded approbation. "The Double Dealer" was acted in November 1693, but without that universal applause which attended "The Old Bachelor." The plot was perhaps too serious, and the villainy of Maskwell too black and hateful for comedy. It was the opinion too of Dryden, that the fashionable world felt the satire too keenly.[54] The play, however, cannot be said to have failed; for it rose by degrees against opposition. The epistle is one of the most elegant and apparently heart-felt effusions of friendship, that our language boasts; and the progress of literature from the Restoration, is described as Dryden alone could describe it. A critic of that day, whose candour seems to have been on a level with his taste, has ventured to insinuate, that huffing Dryden, as he prophanely calls our poet, had purposely deluded Congreve into presumption, by his praise, in order that he might lead him to make shipwreck of his popularity. But such malevolent constructions have been always put upon the conduct of men of genius, by the mean jealousy of the vulgar.[55]

EPISTLE THE TWELFTH.

W   ell, then, the promised hour is come at last,

The present age of wit obscures the past:

Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ,

Conquering with force of arms, and dint of wit:

Theirs was the giant race, before the flood;

And thus, when Charles returned, our empire stood.

Like Janus, he the stubborn soil manured,

With rules of husbandry the rankness cured;

Tamed us to manners when the stage was rude,

And boisterous English wit with art endued.

Our age was cultivated thus at length;

But what we gained in skill we lost in strength.

Our builders were with want of genius curst;

The second temple was not like the first;

Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length,

Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.

}

{  Firm Doric pillars found your solid base;

{  The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space:

{  Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.

In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise;

He moved the mind, but had not power to raise:

Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please;

Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease.

In differing talents both adorned their age;

One for the study, t'other for the stage.

One for the study, t'other for the stage.

But both to Congreve justly shall submit,

One matched in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit.

}

{  In him all beauties of this age we see,

{  Etherege his courtship, Southerne's purity,

{  The satire, wit, and strength, of manly Wycherly.

All this in blooming youth you have atchieved;

Nor are your foiled contemporaries grieved.

So much the sweetness of your manners move,

We cannot envy you, because we love.

Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw

A beardless consul made against the law,

And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome,

Though he with Hannibal was overcome.

Thus old Romano bowed to Raphael's fame,

And scholar to the youth he taught became.

O that your brows my laurel had sustained!

Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned:

The father had descended for the son;

For only you are lineal to the throne.

Thus, when the state one Edward did depose,

A greater Edward in his room arose:

But now not I, but poetry, is cursed;

For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.[56]

But let them not mistake my patron's part,

Nor call his charity their own desert.

Yet this I prophecy,—Thou shalt be seen,

(Though with some short parenthesis between,)

High on the throne of wit, and, seated there,

Not mine,—that's little,—but thy laurel wear.[57]

Thy first attempt an early promise made;

That early promise this has more than paid.

So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,

That your least praise is to be regular.

Time, place, and action, may with pains be wrought,

But genius must be born, and never can be taught.

}

{  This is your portion, this your native store;

{  Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,

{  To Shakespeare gave as much,—she could not give him more.

Maintain your post; that's all the fame you need;

For 'tis impossible you should proceed.

Already I am worn with cares and age,

And just abandoning the ungrateful stage;

Unprofitably kept at heaven's expence,

I live a rent-charge on his providence:

But you, whom every muse and grace adorn,

Whom I foresee to better fortune born,

Be kind to my remains; and O defend,

Against your judgment, your departed friend!

Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,

But shade those laurels which descend to you:[58]

And take for tribute what these lines express;

You merit more, nor could my love do less.

EPISTLE THE THIRTEENTH.

TO

Mr GRANVILLE,

ON HIS EXCELLENT TRAGEDY,

CALLED

HEROIC LOVE.

George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne of Biddiford, was distinguished, by the friendship of Dryden and Pope, from the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease. He copied Waller, a model perhaps chosen from a judicious consideration of his own powers. His best piece is his "Essay on unnatural Flights in Poetry," in which he elegantly apologizes for Dryden having suffered his judgment to be swayed by a wild audience. Granville's play of the "Heroic Love, or the cruel Separation," was acted in 1698 with great applause. It is a mythological drama on the love of Agamemnon and Briseis; and this being said, it is hardly necessary to add, that it now scarcely bears reading. Granville's unshaken attachment to Tory principles, as well as his excellent private character, probably gained him favour in our poet's eyes. Lord Lansdowne (for such became Granville's title when Queen Anne created twelve peers to secure a majority to ministry in the House of Lords) died on the 30th January, 1735.

EPISTLE THE THIRTEENTH.

A  uspicious poet, wert thou not my friend,

How could I envy, what I must commend!

But since 'tis nature's law, in love and wit,

That youth should reign, and withering age submit,

With less regret those laurels I resign,

Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine.

With better grace an ancient chief may yield

The long contended honours of the field,

Than venture all his fortune at a cast,

And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.

Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,

Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise:

Old monarchs, though successful, still in doubt,

Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.

Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age

Can best, if any can, support the stage;

Which so declines, that shortly we may see

Players and plays reduced to second infancy:

Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown,

They plot not on the stage, but on the town,

And, in despair their empty pit to fill,

Set up some foreign monster in a bill.

Thus they jog on, still tricking, never thriving,

And murdering plays, which they miscal reviving.[59]

Our sense is nonsense, through their pipes conveyed;

Scarce can a poet know the play he made,

'Tis so disguised in death; nor thinks 'tis he

That suffers in the mangled tragedy.

Thus Itys first was killed, and after dressed

For his own sire, the chief invited guest.

I say not this of thy successful scenes,

Where thine was all the glory, theirs the gains.

With length of time, much judgment, and more toil,

Not ill they acted what they could not spoil.

Their setting-sun still shoots a glimmering ray,

Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay;

And better gleanings their worn soil can boast,

Than the crab-vintage of the neighbouring coast.

This difference yet the judging world will see;

Thou copiest Homer, and they copy thee.

EPISTLE THE FOURTEENTH.

TO MY FRIEND

Mr MOTTEUX,

ON HIS TRAGEDY

CALLED

BEAUTY IN DISTRESS,

PUBLISHED IN 1698.

Peter Anthony Motteux was a French Huguenot, born at Rohan, in Normandy, in l660. He emigrated upon the revocation of the edict of Nantz; and having friends in England of opulence and respectability, he became a merchant and bookseller of some eminence; besides enjoying a place in the Post-office, to which his skill as a linguist recommended him. This must have been considerable, if we judge by his proficiency in the language of England, certainly not the most easy to be commanded by a foreigner. Nevertheless, Motteux understood it so completely, as not only to write many occasional pieces of English poetry, but to execute a very good translation of "Don Quixote," and compose no less than fifteen plays, several of which were very well received. He also conducted the "Gentleman's Journal." On the 19th February, 1717-18, this author was found dead in a house of bad fame, in the parish of St Clement Danes, not without suspicion of murder.

Motteux appears to have enjoyed the countenance of Dryden, who, in the following verses, consoles him under the censure of those who imputed to his play of "Beauty in Distress" an irregularity of plot, and complication of incident. But the preliminary and more important part of the verses regards Jeremy Collier's violent attack upon the dramatic authors of the age for immorality and indecency. To this charge, our author, on this as on other occasions, seems to plead guilty, while he deprecates the virulence, and sometimes unfair severity of his adversary. The reader may compare the poetical defence here set up with that in the prose dedication to the "Fables," and he will find in both the same grumbling, though subdued, acquiescence under the chastisement of the moralist; the poet much resembling an over-matched general, who is unwilling to surrender, though conscious of his inability to make an effectual resistance. See also Vol. VIII. p. 462.

EPISTLE THE FOURTEENTH.

'T   is hard, my friend, to write in such an age,

As damns not only poets, but the stage.

That sacred art, by heaven itself infused,

Which Moses, David, Solomon, have used,

Is now to be no more: the Muses' foes

Would sink their Maker's praises into prose.

Were they content to prune the lavish vine

Of straggling branches, and improve the wine,

Who, but a madman, would his thoughts defend?

All would submit; for all but fools will mend.

But when to common sense they give the lie,

And turn distorted words to blasphemy,

They give the scandal; and the wise discern,

Their glosses teach an age, too apt to learn.

What I have loosely, or prophanely, writ,

Let them to fires, their due desert, commit:

Nor, when accused by me, let them complain;

Their faults, and not their function, I arraign.[60]

Rebellion, worse than witchcraft, they pursued;

The pulpit preached the crime, the people rued.

The stage was silenced; for the saints would see

In fields performed their plotted tragedy.

But let us first reform, and then so live,

That we may teach our teachers to forgive;

Our desk be placed below their lofty chairs,

Ours be the practice, as the precept theirs.

The moral part, at least we may divide,

Humility reward, and punish pride;

Ambition, interest, avarice, accuse;

These are the province of a tragic muse.

These hast thou chosen; and the public voice

Has equalled thy performance with thy choice.

}

{  Time, action, place, are so preserved by thee,

{  That e'en Corneille might with envy see

{  The alliance of his tripled unity.

Thy incidents, perhaps, too thick are sown,

But too much plenty is thy fault alone.

At least but two can that good crime commit,

Thou in design, and Wycherly in wit.

Let thy own Gauls condemn thee, if they dare,

Contented to be thinly regular:

Born there, but not for them, our fruitful soil

With more increase rewards thy happy toil.

Their tongue, enfeebled, is refined too much,

And, like pure gold, it bends at every touch.

Our sturdy Teuton yet will art obey,

More fit for manly thought, and strengthened with allay.

But whence art thou inspired, and thou alone,

To flourish in an idiom not thy own?

It moves our wonder, that a foreign guest

Should overmatch the most, and match the best.

In under-praising thy deserts, I wrong;

Here find the first deficience of our tongue:

Words, once my stock, are wanting, to commend

So great a poet, and so good a friend.

EPISTLE THE FIFTEENTH.

TO MY HONOURED KINSMAN

JOHN DRIDEN,

OF

CHESTERTON, IN THE COUNTY OF

HUNTINGDON, ESQ.

The person to whom this epistle is addressed was Dryden's first cousin; being the second son of Sir John Driden, elder brother of the poet's father Erasmus. He derived from his maternal grandfather, Sir Robert Bevile, the valuable estate of Chesterton, near Stilton, where latterly our author frequently visited him, and where it is said he wrote the first four verses of his Virgil with a diamond on a glass pane. The mansion-house is at this time (spring, 1807,) about to be pulled down, and the materials sold. The life of Mr John Driden, for he retained the ancient spelling of the name, seems to have been that of an opulent and respectable country gentleman, more happy, perhaps, in the quiet enjoyment of a large landed property, than his cousin in possession of his brilliant poetical genius. He represented the county of Huntingdon in parliament, in 1690, and from 1700 till his death in 1707-8.

The panegyric of our author is an instance, among a thousand, how genius can gild what it touches; for the praise of this lofty rhyme, when minutely examined, details the qualities of that very ordinary, though very useful and respectable, character, a wealthy and sensible country squire. "Just, good, and wise," contending neighbours referred their disputes to his decision; in humble prose, he was an active justice of peace. That he was hospitable, and kept a good pack of hounds, was a fox-hunter while young, and now followed beagles or harriers, that he represented his county, and voted against ministry, sums up his excellencies; for I will not follow my author, by numbering among them his living and dying a bachelor.[61] Yet these annals, however simple and vulgar, illuminated by the touch of our author's pen, shine like the clouds under the influence of a setting sun. The greatest illustration of our author's genius is, that the praise, though unusually applied, is appropriate, and hardly exaggerated; we lay down the book, and recollect to how little this laboured character amounts; and when we resume it, are again hurried away by the magic of the poet. But in this epistle, besides the compliment to his cousin, Dryden had a further intention in view, which was, to illustrate the character of a good English member of Parliament, whom, in conformity with his own prejudice, he represents as inclining to oppose the ministry. It was coincidence in this sentiment which had done much to reconcile Dryden and his cousin; and thus politics reunited relations, whom political disputes had long parted. At this time we learn from one of our author's letters, that Mr Dryden of Chesterton, although upon different principles, was in as warm opposition as his cousin could have wished him.[62] Our poet, however, who had felt the hand of power, did not venture on this portrait without such an explanation to Charles Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax, as he thought sufficient to avert any risk of misconstruction.[63]

There has not been found any early edition of this epistle separate from the volume of Fables; of which therefore it probably made an original part, and was first published with them in 1700. It supplies one instance among many, that the poet's lamp burned clear to the close of life. It is said that his cousin acknowledged the honour done him by the poet, by a handsome gratuity. The amount has been alleged to be five hundred pounds, which is probably exaggerated. Mr Driden of Chesterton bequeathed that sum to Charles Dryden, the poet's son, who did not live to profit by the legacy. As the report of the present to Dryden himself depends only on tradition,[64] it is possible the two circumstances may have been more or less confounded together.

The reader may be pleased to see the epitaph of John Driden of Chesterton, which concludes with some lines from this epistle. It is in the church of the village of Chesterton:

M.S.

Johannis Driden, Arm.

F. Natu secundi Johannis Driden

de Canons Ashby in agro Northampton Bart.

ex Honorâ F. et cohærede, e tribus unâ,

Roberti Bevile, Bart.

unde sortem maternam

in hâc viciniâ de Chesterton et Haddon

adeptus,

prædia dein latè,

per comitatum Huntington

adjecit;

nec sui profusus nec alieni appetens:

A litibus ipse abhorrens,

Et qui aliorum lites

Æquissimo sæpe arbitrio diremit,

Vivus,

adeo Amicitiam minimè fucatam coluit,

et publicam Patriæ salutem asseruit strenuè,

ut illa vicissim Eum summis quibus potuit

Honoribus cumulârit;

lubens sæpiusq. Senatorem voluerit:

vel moriens,

honorum atq. beneficiorum non immemor,

maximè vero Religiosæ charitatis interitu,

largam sui censûs partem

ad valorem 16 Millium plus minus Librarum,

vel in locis ubi res et commercium,

vel inter familiares quibus necessitudo

cum eo vivo intercesserat,

erogavit

Marmor hoc P.

Nepos et Hæres Viri multum desiderati

Robertus Pigott, Arm.

Obiit Cœlebs 3 Non. Jan. Anno Dom. 1707, Æt. 72.

}

{  just, good, and wise, contending neighbours come,

{  from your award to wait their final doom;

{  and, foes before, return in freindship home.

without their cost, you terminate the cause,

and save the expence of long litigious laws;

where suits are traversed, and so little won,

that he who conquiers is but last undone.

Vide p. 75.

EPISTLE THE FIFTEENTH.

H  ow blessed is he, who leads a country life,

Unvexed with anxious cares, and void of strife!

Who, studying peace, and shunning civil rage,

Enjoyed his youth, and now enjoys his age:

All who deserve his love, he makes his own;

And, to be loved himself, needs only to be known.

}

{  Just, good, and wise, contending neighbours come,

{  From your award to wait their final doom;

{  And, foes before, return in friendship home.

Without their cost, you terminate the cause,

And save the expence of long litigious laws;

Where suits are traversed, and so little won,

That he who conquers is but last undone:

}

{  Such are not your decrees; but so designed,

{  The sanction leaves a lasting peace behind;

{  Like your own soul, serene, a pattern of your mind.

Promoting concord, and composing strife,

Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a wife;

Where, for a year, a month, perhaps a night,

Long penitence succeeds a short delight:

Minds are so hardly matched, that even the first,

Though paired by heaven, in Paradise were cursed.

For man and woman, though in one they grow,

Yet, first or last, return again to two.

He to God's image, she to his was made;

So, farther from the fount the stream at random strayed.

How could he stand, when, put to double pain,

He must a weaker than himself sustain!

Each might have stood perhaps, but each alone;

Two wrestlers help to pull each other down.

}

{  Not that my verse would blemish all the fair;

{  But yet if some be bad, 'tis wisdom to beware,

{  And better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.

Thus have you shunned, and shun the married state,

Trusting as little as you can to fate.

No porter guards the passage of your door,

To admit the wealthy, and exclude the poor;

For God, who gave the riches, gave the heart,

To sanctify the whole, by giving part;

Heaven, who foresaw the will, the means has wrought,

And to the second son a blessing brought;

The first-begotten had his father's share;

But you, like Jacob, are Rebecca's heir.[65]

So may your stores and fruitful fields increase;

And ever be you blessed, who live to bless.

As Ceres sowed, where-e'er her chariot flew;

As heaven in deserts rained the bread of dew;

So free to many, to relations most,

You feed with manna your own Israel host.

With crowds attended of your ancient race,

You seek the champaign sports, or sylvan chace;

With well-breathed beagles you surround the wood,

Even then industrious of the common good;

And often have you brought the wily fox

To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks;

Chased even amid the folds, and made to bleed,

Like felons, where they did the murderous deed.

This fiery game your active youth maintained;

Not yet by years extinguished, though restrained:

You season still with sports your serious hours;

For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.

The hare in pastures or in plains is found,

Emblem of human life; who runs the round,

}

{  And, after all his wandering ways are done,

{  His circle fills, and ends where he begun,

{  Just as the setting meets the rising sun.

Thus princes ease their cares; but happier he,

Who seeks not pleasure through necessity,

Than such as once on slippery thrones were placed,

And chasing, sigh to think themselves are chased.

So lived our sires, ere doctors learned to kill,

And multiplied with theirs the weekly bill.

The first physicians by debauch were made;

Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.

Pity the generous kind their cares bestow

To search forbidden truths, (a sin to know,)

To which if human science could attain,

The doom of death, pronounced by God, were vain.

In vain the leech would interpose delay;

Fate fastens first, and vindicates the prey.

}

{  What help from art's endeavours can we have?

{  Guibbons[66] but guesses, nor is sure to save;

{  But Maurus[67] sweeps whole parishes, and peoples every grave;

And no more mercy to mankind will use,

Than when he robbed and murdered Maro's muse.

Would'st thou be soon dispatched, and perish whole,

Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourne with thy soul.[68]

By chace our long-lived fathers earned their food;

Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood:

But we their sons, a pampered race of men,

Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,

Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.

The wise, for care, on exercise depend;

God never made his work for man to mend.

The tree of knowledge, once in Eden placed,

Was easy found, but was forbid the taste:

O had our grandsire walked without his wife,

He first had sought the better plant of life!

Now both are lost: yet, wandering in the dark,

Physicians, for the tree, have found the bark;

}

{  They, labouring for relief of human kind,

{  With sharpened sight some remedies may find;

{  The apothecary-train is wholly blind.

From files a random recipe they take,

And many deaths of one prescription make.

Garth,[69] generous as his muse, prescribes and gives;

The shopman sells, and by destruction lives:

Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper's brood,

From Med'cine issuing, suck their mother's blood!

Let these obey, and let the learned prescribe,

That men may die without a double bribe;

Let them, but under their superiors, kill,

When doctors first have signed the bloody bill;

He 'scapes the best, who, nature to repair,

Draws physic from the fields, in draughts of vital air.

You hoard not health for your own private use,

But on the public spend the rich produce.

When, often urged, unwilling to be great,

Your country calls you from your loved retreat,

And sends to senates, charged with common care,

Which none more shuns, and none can better bear:

Where could they find another formed so fit,

To poise, with solid sense, a sprightly wit?

Were these both wanting, as they both abound,

Where could so firm integrity be found?

Well born, and wealthy, wanting no support,

You steer betwixt the country and the court;

Nor gratify whate'er the great desire,

Nor grudging give, what public needs require.

Part must be left, a fund when foes invade,

And part employed to roll the watery trade;

Even Canaan's happy land, when worn with toil,

Required a sabbath-year to mend the meagre soil.

Good senators (and such as you) so give,

That kings may be supplied, the people thrive:

}

{  And he, when want requires, is truly wise,

{  Who slights not foreign aids, nor overbuys,

{  But on our native strength, in time of need, relies.

Munster was bought, we boast not the success;

Who fights for gain, for greater makes his peace.

Our foes, compelled by need, have peace embraced;[70]

The peace both parties want, is like to last;

Which if secure, securely we may trade;

Or, not secure, should never have been made.

Safe in ourselves, while on ourselves we stand,

The sea is ours, and that defends the land.

Be, then, the naval stores the nation's care,

New ships to build, and battered to repair.

Observe the war, in every annual course;

What has been done, was done with British force:

Namur subdued, is England's palm alone;

The rest besieged, but we constrained the town:[71]

We saw the event that followed our success;

France, though pretending arms, pursued the peace,

Obliged, by one sole treaty, to restore

What twenty years of war had won before.

Enough for Europe has our Albion fought;

Let us enjoy the peace our blood has bought.

When once the Persian king was put to flight,

The weary Macedons refused to fight;

Themselves their own mortality confessed,

And left the son of Jove to quarrel for the rest.

}

{  Even victors are by victories undone;

{  Thus Hannibal, with foreign laurels won,

{  To Carthage was recalled, too late to keep his own.

While sore of battle, while our wounds are green,

Why should we tempt the doubtful dye again?

In wars renewed, uncertain of success;

Sure of a share, as umpires of the peace.

A patriot both the king and country serves;

Prerogative and privilege preserves:

Of each our laws the certain limit show;

One must not ebb, nor t'other overflow:

}

{  Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand,

{  The barriers of the state on either hand;

{  May neither overflow, for then they drown the land.

When both are full, they feed our blessed abode;

Like those that watered once the paradise of God.

Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share;

In peace the people, and the prince in war:

Consuls of moderate power in calms were made;

When the Gauls came, one sole dictator swayed.

Patriots, in peace, assert the people's right,

With noble stubbornness resisting might;

No lawless mandates from the court receive,

Nor lend by force, but in a body give.

Such was your generous grandsire; free to grant

In parliaments, that weighed their prince's want:

But so tenacious of the common cause,

As not to lend the king against his laws;

}

{  And, in a loathsome dungeon doomed to lie,

{  In bonds retained his birthright liberty,

{  And shamed oppression, till it set him free.[72]

O true descendant of a patriot line,

Who, while thou shar'st their lustre, lend'st them thine.

Vouchsafe this picture of thy soul to see;

'Tis so far good, as it resembles thee;

The beauties to the original I owe,

Which when I miss, my own defects I show:

Nor think the kindred muses thy disgrace;

A poet is not born in every race.

Two of a house few ages can afford,

One to perform, another to record.[73]

Praise-worthy actions are by thee embraced,

And 'tis my praise to make thy praises last.

}

{  For even when death dissolves our human frame,

{  The soul returns to heaven from whence it came;

{  Earth keeps the body, verse preserves the fame.

EPISTLE THE SIXTEENTH.

TO

SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

PRINCIPAL PAINTER TO

HIS MAJESTY.

The well-known Sir Godfrey Kneller was a native of Lubec, but settled in London about 1674. He was a man of genius; but, according to Walpole, he lessened his reputation, by making it subservient to his fortune. No painter was more distinguished by the great, for ten sovereigns sate to him. What may tend longer to preserve his reputation, no painter ever received more incense from the praise of poets. Dryden, Pope, Addison, Prior, Tickell, Steele, all wrote verses to him in the tone of extravagant eulogy. Those addressed to Kneller by Addison, in which the series of the heathen deities is, with unexampled happiness, made to correspond with that of the British monarchs painted by the artist, are not only the best production of that elegant poet, but of their kind the most felicitous ever written. Sir Godfrey Kneller died 27th November, 1723.

Dryden seems to have addressed the following epistle to Sir Godfrey Kneller, as an acknowledgment for the copy of the Chandos' portrait of Shakespeare, mentioned in the verses. It would appear that, upon other occasions, Sir Godfrey repaid the tributes of the poets, by the productions of his pencil.

There is great luxuriance and richness of idea and imagery in the epistle.

EPISTLE THE SIXTEENTH.

O  nce I beheld the fairest of her kind,

And still the sweet idea charms my mind:

True, she was dumb; for nature gazed so long,

Pleased with her work, that she forgot her tongue;

But, smiling, said—She still shall gain the prize;

I only have transferred it to her eyes.

Such are thy pictures, Kneller, such thy skill,

That nature seems obedient to thy will;

Comes out, and meets thy pencil in the draught,

Lives there, and wants but words to speak her thought.

}

{  At least thy pictures look a voice; and we

{  Imagine sounds, deceived to that degree,

{  We think 'tis somewhat more than just to see.

Shadows are but privations of the light;

Yet, when we walk, they shoot before the sight;

With us approach, retire, arise, and fall;

Nothing themselves, and yet expressing all.

Such are thy pieces, imitating life

So near, they almost conquer in the strife;

And from their animated canvas came,

Demanding souls, and loosened from the frame.

Prometheus, were he here, would cast away

His Adam, and refuse a soul to clay;

And either would thy noble work inspire,

Or think it warm enough, without his fire.

But vulgar hands may vulgar likeness raise;

This is the least attendant on thy praise:

From hence the rudiments of art began;

A coal, or chalk, first imitated man:

Perhaps the shadow, taken on a wall,

Gave outlines to the rude original;

}

{  Ere canvas yet was strained, before the grace

{  Of blended colours found their use and place,

{  Or cypress tablets first received a face.

By slow degrees the godlike art advanced;

As man grew polished, picture was enhanced:

Greece added posture, shade, and perspective,

And then the mimic piece began to live.

Yet perspective was lame, no distance true,

But all came forward in one common view:

No point of light was known, no bounds of art;

When light was there, it knew not to depart,

But glaring on remoter objects played;

Not languished and insensibly decayed.[74]

Rome raised not art, but barely kept alive,

And with old Greece unequally did strive;

Till Goths and Vandals, a rude northern race,

Did all the matchless monuments deface.

Then all the Muses in one ruin lie,

And rhyme began to enervate poetry.

Thus, in a stupid military state,

The pen and pencil find an equal fate.

Flat faces, such as would disgrace a skreen,

Such as in Bantam's embassy were seen,

Unraised, unrounded, were the rude delight

Of brutal nations, only born to fight.

Long time the sister arts, in iron sleep,

A heavy sabbath did supinely keep;

At length, in Raphael's age, at once they rise,

Stretch all their limbs, and open all their eyes.

Thence rose the Roman, and the Lombard line;

One coloured best, and one did best design.

Raphael's, like Homer's, was the nobler part,

But Titian's painting looked like Virgil's art.

Thy genius gives thee both; where true design,

Postures unforced, and lively colours join,

Likeness is ever there; but still the best,

(Like proper thoughts in lofty language drest,)

Where light, to shades descending, plays, not strives,

Dies by degrees, and by degrees revives.

Of various parts a perfect whole is wrought;

Thy pictures think, and we divine their thought.

Shakespeare, thy gift, I place before my sight;[75]

With awe, I ask his blessing ere I write;

With reverence look on his majestic face;

Proud to be less, but of his godlike race.

His soul inspires me, while thy praise I write,

And I, like Teucer, under Ajax fight;

Bids thee, through me, be bold; with dauntless breast

Contemn the bad, and emulate the best.

Like his, thy critics in the attempt are lost;

When most they rail, know then, they envy most.

In vain they snarl aloof; a noisy crowd,

Like women's anger, impotent and loud.

While they their barren industry deplore,

Pass on secure, and mind the goal before,

Old as she is, my muse shall march behind,

Bear off the blast, and intercept the wind.

Our arts are sisters, though not twins in birth,

For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:

But oh, the painter muse, though last in place,

Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race.

}

{  Apelles' art an Alexander found,

{  And Raphael did with Leo's gold abound;

{  But Homer was with barren laurel crowned.

Thou hadst thy Charles a while, and so had I;

But pass we that unpleasing image by.

Rich in thyself, and of thyself divine,

All pilgrims come and offer at thy shrine.

A graceful truth thy pencil can command;

The fair themselves go mended from thy hand.

Likeness appears in every lineament,

But likeness in thy work is eloquent.

Though nature there her true resemblance bears,

A nobler beauty in thy piece appears.

So warm thy work, so glows the generous frame,

Flesh looks less living in the lovely dame.

}

{  Thou paint'st as we describe, improving still,

{  When on wild nature we ingraft our skill,

{  Yet not creating beauties at our will.

But poets are confined in narrower space,

To speak the language of their native place;

The painter widely stretches his command,

Thy pencil speaks the tongue of every land.

From hence, my friend, all climates are your own,

Nor can you forfeit, for you hold of none.

}

{  All nations all immunities will give

{  To make you theirs, where'er you please to live;

{  And not seven cities, but the world, would strive.

Sure some propitious planet then did smile,

When first you were conducted to this isle;

Our genius brought you here, to enlarge our fame,

For your good stars are every where the same.

Thy matchless hand, of every region free,

Adopts our climate, not our climate thee.

[76]Great Rome and Venice early did impart

To thee the examples of their wonderous art.

Those masters, then but seen, not understood,

With generous emulation fired thy blood;

For what in nature's dawn the child admired,

The youth endeavoured, and the man acquired.

If yet thou hast not reached their high degree,

'Tis only wanting to this age, not thee.

}

{  Thy genius, bounded by the times, like mine,

{  Drudges on petty draughts, nor dare design

{  A more exalted work, and more divine.

For what a song, or senseless opera,

Is to the living labour of a play;

Or what a play to Virgil's work would be,

Such is a single piece to history.

But we, who life bestow, ourselves must live;

Kings cannot reign, unless their subjects give;

And they, who pay the taxes, bear the rule:

Thus thou, sometimes, art forced to draw a fool;[77]

But so his follies in thy posture sink,

The senseless idiot seems at last to think.

Good heaven! that sots and knaves should be so vain,

To wish their vile resemblance may remain,

And stand recorded, at their own request,

To future days, a libel or a jest!

Else should we see your noble pencil trace

Our unities of action, time, and place;

A whole composed of parts, and those the best,

With every various character exprest;

Heroes at large, and at a nearer view;

Less, and at distance, an ignoble crew;

While all the figures in one action join,

As tending to complete the main design.

More cannot be by mortal art exprest,

But venerable age shall add the rest:

For time shall with his ready pencil stand,

Retouch your figures with his ripening hand,

Mellow your colours, and imbrown the teint,

Add every grace, which time alone can grant;

To future ages shall your fame convey,

And give more beauties than he takes away.

ELEGIES AND EPITAPHS.

UPON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.

The subject of this elegy was Henry Lord Hastings, eldest son of Ferdinando Earl of Huntingdon. He was born 16th January, 1630, and died 24th June, 1649. He was buried at Ashby de la Zouche, near the superb family-seat of Donnington-Castle. This Lord Hastings, says Collins, was a nobleman of great learning, and of so sweet a disposition, that no less than ninety-eight elegies were made on him, and published in 1650, under this title: "Lachrymæ Musarum, the Tears of the Muses expressed in Elegies written by divers Persons of nobility and worth, upon the Death of the most hopeful Henry, Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Right Honourable Ferdinando, Earl of Huntingdon, then general of the high-born Prince George, Duke of Clarence, brother to King Edward IV."

This accomplished young nobleman died unmarried; but, from the concluding lines of the elegy, it is obvious, that he had been betrothed to the "virgin widow," whom the poet there addresses, but whose name I have been unable to learn.

The poem was written by Dryden while at Westminster-school, and displays little or no promise of future excellence; being a servile imitation of the conceits of Cleveland, and the metaphysical wit of Cowley, exerted in numbers hardly more harmonious than those of Donne.

UPON

THE DEATH
OF
LORD HASTINGS.

M   ust noble Hastings immaturely die,

The honour of his ancient family,

Beauty and learning thus together meet,

To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet?

Must virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,

With him expiring, feel mortality?

Is death, sin's wages, grace's now? shall art

Make us more learned, only to depart?

If merit be disease; if virtue, death;

To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath

Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem

Labour a crime? study self-murder deem?

Our noble youth now have pretence to be

Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully.

Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise,

Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise:

Than whom great Alexander may seem less,

Who conquered men, but not their languages.

In his mouth nations spake; his tongue might be

Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.

His native soil was the four parts o'the earth;

All Europe was too narrow for his birth.

A young apostle; and,—with reverence may

I speak't,—inspired with gift of tongues, as they.

Nature gave him, a child, what men in vain

Oft strive, by art though furthered, to obtain.

His body was an orb, his sublime soul

Did move on virtue's and on learning's pole;

Whose regular motions better to our view,

Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did shew.

Graces and virtues, languages and arts,

Beauty and learning, filled up all the parts.

Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear

Scattered in others, all, as in their sphere,

Were fixed, conglobate in his soul, and thence

Shone through his body, with sweet influence;

Letting their glories so on each limb fall,

The whole frame rendered was celestial.

Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make,

If thou this hero's altitude can'st take:

But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all,

Could we but prove thus astronomical.

Lived Tycho now, struck with this ray which shone[78]

More bright i'the morn, than others beam at noon,

He'd take his astrolabe, and seek out here

What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere.

Replenished then with such rare gifts as these,

Where was room left for such a foul disease?

The nation's sin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds

Our day-spring in so sad benighting clouds.

Heaven would no longer trust its pledge, but thus

Recalled it,—rapt its Ganymede from us.

Was there no milder way but the small-pox,

The very filthiness of Pandora's box?

So many spots, like næves on Venus' soil,

One jewel set off with so many a foil;

Blisters with pride swelled, which through's flesh did sprout

Like rose-buds, stuck i'the lily-skin about.

Each little pimple had a tear in it,

To wail the fault its rising did commit;

Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife,

Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.

Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,

The cabinet of a richer soul within?

No comet need foretel his change drew on,

Whose corpse might seem a constellation.

O had he died of old, how great a strife

Had been, who from his death should draw their life;

Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er

Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæsar, were!

Learned, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this

An universal metempsychosis.

Must all these aged sires in one funeral

Expire? all die in one so young, so small?

Who, had he lived his life out, his great fame

Had swoln 'bove any Greek or Roman name.

But hasty winter, with one blast, hath brought

The hopes of autumn, summer, spring, to nought.

Thus fades the oak i'the sprig, i'the blade the corn;

Thus without young, this Phœnix dies, new-born.

Must then old three-legged grey-beards with their gout,

Catarrhs, rheums, aches, live three ages out?

Time's offals, only fit for the hospital!

Or to hang antiquaries rooms withal!

Must drunkards, lechers, spent with sinning, live

With such helps as broths, possets, physic give?

None live, but such as should die? shall we meet

With none but ghostly fathers in the street?

Grief makes me rail, sorrow will force its way,

And showers of tears tempestuous sighs best lay.

The tongue may fail; but overflowing eyes

Will weep out lasting streams of elegies.

But thou, O virgin-widow, left alone,

Now thy beloved, heaven-ravished spouse is gone,

Whose skilful sire in vain strove to apply

Med'cines, when thy balm was no remedy;

With greater than Platonic love, O wed

His soul, though not his body, to thy bed:

Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth

The ideas of his virtue, knowledge, worth;

Transcribe the original in new copies; give

Hastings o'the better part: so shall he live

In's nobler half; and the great grandsire be

Of an heroic divine progeny:

An issue which to eternity shall last,

Yet but the irradiations which he cast.

Erect no mausoleums; for his best

Monument is his spouse's marble breast.

TO THE MEMORY OF Mr OLDHAM.

John Oldham, who, from the keenness of his satirical poetry, justly acquired the title of the English Juvenal, was born at Shipton, in Gloucestershire, where his father was a clergyman, on 9th August, 1653. About 1678, he was an usher in the free school of Croydon; but having already distinguished himself by several pieces of poetry, and particularly by four severe satirical invectives against the order of Jesuits, then obnoxious on account of the Popish Plot, he quitted that mean situation, to become tutor to the family of Sir Edward Theveland, and afterwards to a son of Sir William Hickes. Shortly after he seems to have resigned all employment except the unthrifty trade of poetry. When Oldham entered upon this career, he settled of course in the metropolis, where his genius recommended him to the company of the first wits, and to the friendship of Dryden. He did not long enjoy the pleasures of such a life, nor did he live to experience the uncertainties, and disappointment, and reverses, with which, above all others, it abounds. Being seized with the small-pox, while visiting at the seat of his patron, William Earl of Kingston, he died of that disease on the 9th December, 1683, in the 30th year of his age.

His "Remains," in verse and prose, were soon afterwards published, with elegies and recommendatory verses prefixed by Tate, Flatman, Durfey, Gould, Andrews, and others. But the applause of Dryden, expressed in the following lines, was worth all the tame panegyrics of other contemporary bards. It appears, among the others, in "Oldham's Remains," London, 1683.

TO

THE MEMORY
OF
Mr OLDHAM.

F arewell, too little, and too lately known,

Whom I began to think, and call my own:

For sure our souls were near allied, and thine

Cast in the same poetic mould with mine.

One common note on either lyre did strike,

And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.

To the same goal did both our studies drive;

The last set out, the soonest did arrive.

Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place,

Whilst his young friend performed and won the race.

O early ripe! to thy abundant store

What could advancing age have added more!

It might (what nature never gives the young)

Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.

But satire needs not those, and wit will shine

Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.[79]

A noble error, and but seldom made,

When poets are by too much force betrayed.

}

{  Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime,

{  Still shewed a quickness; and maturing time

{  But mellows what we write, to the dull sweets of rhyme.

Once more, hail, and farewell! farewell, thou young,

But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue!

Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;

But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.

TO

THE PIOUS MEMORY

OF

Mrs ANNE KILLIGREW.

Mrs Anne Killigrew was daughter of Dr Henry Killigrew, master of the Savoy, and one of the prebendaries of Westminster, and brother of Thomas Killigrew, renowned, in the court of Charles II., for wit and repartee. The family, says Mr Walpole, was remarkable for its loyalty, accomplishments, and wit; and this young lady, who displayed great talents for painting and poetry, promised to be one of its fairest ornaments. She was maid of honour to the Duchess of York, and died of the small-pox in 1685, the 25th year of her age.

Mrs Anne Killigrew's poems were published after her death in a thin quarto, with a print of the author, from her portrait drawn by herself. She also painted the portraits of the Duke of York and of his Duchess, and executed several historical pictures, landscapes, and pieces of still life. See Lord Orford's Lives of the Painters, Works, Vol. III. p. 297; and Ballard's Lives of Learned Ladies.

The poems of this celebrated young lady do not possess any uncommon merit, nor are her paintings of a high class, although preferred by Walpole to her poetry. But very slender attainments in such accomplishments, when united with youth, beauty, and fashion, naturally receive a much greater share of approbation from contemporaries, than unbiassed posterity can afford to them. Even the flinty heart of old Wood seems to have been melted by this young lady's charms, notwithstanding her being of womankind, as he contemptuously calls the fair sex. He says, that she was a Grace for a beauty, and a Muse for a wit; and that there must have been more true history than compliment in our author's ode, since otherwise the lady's father would not have permitted it to go to press.—Athenæ, Vol. II. p. 1036.

This ode, which singularly exhibits the strong grasp and comprehensive range of Dryden's fancy, as well as the harmony of his numbers, seems to have been a great favourite of Dr Johnson, who, in one place, does not hesitate to compare it to the famous ode on St Cecilia; and, in another, calls it undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. Although it is probable that few will subscribe to the judgment of that great critic in the present instance, yet the verses can never be read with indifference by any admirer of poetry. We are, it is true, sometimes affronted by a pun, or chilled by a conceit; but the general power of thought and expression resumes its sway, in despite of the interruption given by such instances of bad taste. In its arrangement, the ode is what the seventeenth century called pindaric; freed, namely, from the usual rules of order and arrangement. This license, which led most poets, who exercised it, to extravagance and absurdity, only gave Dryden a wider scope for the exercise of his wonderful power of combining and uniting the most dissimilar ideas, in a manner as ingenious as his numbers are harmonious. Images and scenes, the richest, though most inconsistent with each other, are sweeped together by the flood of song: we neither see whence they arise, nor whither they are going; but are contented to admire the richness and luxuriance in which the poet has arrayed them. The opening of the poem has been highly praised by Dr Johnson. "The first part," says that critic, "flows with a torrent of enthusiasm,—Fervet immensusque ruit. All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one continued diamond; the gems must be held together by some less valuable matter."

The stanzas, which appear to the editor peculiarly to exhibit the spirit of the pindaric ode, are the first, second, fourth, and fifth. Of the others, the third is too metaphysical for the occasion; the description of the landscapes in the sixth is beautiful, and presents our imagination with the scenery and groups of Claude Lorraine; and that of the royal portraits, in the seventh, has some fine lines and turns of expression: But I cannot admire, with many critics, the comparison of the progress of genius to the explosion of a sky-rocket; and still less the flat and familiar conclusion,

What next she had designed, heaven only knows.

The eighth stanza is disgraced by antitheses and conceit; and though the beginning of the ninth be beautiful and affecting, our emotion is quelled by the nature of the consolation administered to a sea captain, that his sister is turned into a star. The last stanza excites ideas perhaps too solemn for poetry; and what is worse, they are couched in poetry too fantastic to be solemn; but the account of the resurrection of the "sacred poets," is, in the highest degree, elegant and beautiful.

Anne Killigrew was the subject of several other poetical lamentations, one or two of which are in the Luttrell Collection.

TO

THE PIOUS MEMORY

OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY

Mrs ANNE KILLIGREW,

EXCELLENT IN

THE TWO SISTER ARTS

OF

POESY AND PAINTING.

AN ODE.

I.

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,

Made in the last promotion of the blest;

Whose palms, new plucked from paradise,

In spreading branches more sublimely rise,

Rich with immortal green above the rest:

Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,

Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race,

Or, in procession fixed and regular,

Mov'st with the heaven's majestic pace;

Or, called to more superior bliss,

Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:

Whatever happy region is thy place,

Cease thy celestial song a little space;

Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,

Since heaven's eternal year is thine.

Hear, then, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse,

In no ignoble verse;

But such as thy own voice did practise here,

When thy first fruits of poesy were given,

To make thyself a welcome inmate there;

While yet a young probationer,

And candidate of heaven.

II.

If by traduction came thy mind,

Our wonder is the less to find

A soul so charming from a stock so good;

Thy father was transfused into thy blood:

So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,

An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.[80]

But if thy pre-existing soul

Was formed, at first, with myriads more,

It did through all the mighty poets roll,

Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,

And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.

If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!

Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:

}

{  Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find,

{  Than was the beauteous frame she left behind:

{  Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind.

III.

May we presume to say, that, at thy birth,

New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth.

}

{  For sure the milder planets did combine

{  On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,

{  And e'en the most malicious were in trine.

Thy brother-angels at thy birth

Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,

That all the people of the sky

Might know a poetess was born on earth;

And then, if ever, mortal ears

Had heard the music of the spheres.

And if no clustering swarm of bees

On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,

'Twas that such vulgar miracles

Heaven had not leisure to renew:

For all thy blest fraternity of love

Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.

IV.

O gracious God! how far have we

Prophaned thy heavenly gift of poesy?

Made prostitute and profligate the muse,

Debased to each obscene and impious use,

Whose harmony was first ordained above

For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?

O wretched we! why were we hurried down

This lubrique and adulterate age,

(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own)

T'increase the streaming ordures of the stage?

What can we say t'excuse our second fall?

Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all:

Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled,

Unmixed with foreign filth, and undefiled;

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.[81]

V.

Art she had none, yet wanted none;

For nature did that want supply:

So rich in treasures of her own,

She might our boasted stores defy:

Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,

That it seemed borrowed where 'twas only born.

Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred,

By great examples daily fed,

What in the best of books, her father's life, she read:

And to be read herself she need not fear;

Each test, and every light, her muse will bear,

Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.

E'en love (for love sometimes her muse exprest)

Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast:

Light as the vapours of a morning dream,

So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,

'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.

VI.

Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,

One would have thought she should have been content

To manage well that mighty government;

But what can young ambitious souls confine?

}

{  To the next realm she stretched her sway,

{  For Painture near adjoining lay,

{  A plenteous province, and alluring prey.

A chamber of dependencies was framed,

(As conquerors will never want pretence,

When armed, to justify the offence,)

And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claimed.

The country open lay without defence;

For poets frequent inroads there had made,

And perfectly could represent

The shape, the face, with every lineament,

And all the large domains which the Dumb Sister swayed;

All bowed beneath her government,

Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went.

Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed,

And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind.

The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks,

And fruitful plains and barren rocks,

Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear,

The bottom did the top appear;

Of deeper too and ampler floods,

Which, as in mirrors, shewed the woods;

Of lofty trees, with sacred shades,

And perspectives of pleasant glades,

}

{  Where nymphs of brightest form appear,

{  And shaggy satyrs standing near,

{  Which them at once admire and fear.

The ruins too of some majestic piece,

Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,

Whose statues, frizes, columns, broken lie,

And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye;

What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame,

Her forming hand gave feature to the name.

So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before,

But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore.

VII.

The scene then changed; with bold erected look

Our martial king[82] the sight with reverence strook:

For, not content to express his outward part,

Her hand called out the image of his heart:

}

{  His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear,

{  His high-designing thoughts were figured there,

{  As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear.

Our phœnix queen[83] was pourtrayed too so bright,

Beauty alone could beauty take so right:

Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,

Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.

With such a peerless majesty she stands,

As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands:

Before a train of heroines was seen,

In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.

Thus nothing to her genius was denied,

But like a ball of fire the further thrown,

Still with a greater blaze she shone,

And her bright soul broke out on every side.

What next she had designed, heaven only knows:

To such immoderate growth her conquest rose,

That fate alone its progress could oppose.

VIII.

Now all those charms, that blooming grace,

The well-proportioned shape, and beauteous face,

Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;

In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.

Not wit, nor piety, could fate prevent;

Nor was the cruel destiny content

To finish all the murder at a blow,

To sweep at once her life and beauty too;

But, like a hardened felon, took a pride

To work more mischievously slow,

And plundered first, and then destroyed.

O double sacrilege on things divine,

To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!

But thus Orinda died;[84]

Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate;

As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.

IX.

Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas

His waving streamers to the winds displays,

And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.

Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,

The winds too soon will waft thee here:

Slack all thy sails, and fear to come;

Alas, thou know'st not, thou art wrecked at home!

No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face,

Thou hast already had her last embrace.

But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far

Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star,

If any sparkles than the rest more bright,

Tis she that shines in that propitious light.

X.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,

To raise the nations under ground;

When in the valley of Jehosophat,

The judging God shall close the book of fate,

And there the last assizes keep,

For those who wake, and those who sleep;

When rattling bones together fly,

From the four corners of the sky;

When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,

Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;

}

{  The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,

{  And foremost from the tomb shall bound,

{  For they are covered with the lightest ground;

And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing,

Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.

}

{  There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shall go,

{  As harbinger of heaven, the way to show,

{  The way which thou so well hast learnt below.

UPON THE DEATH OF

THE VISCOUNT OF DUNDEE.

James Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, studied the military art under the Prince of Orange. He first distinguished himself by his activity in exercising the severities which the Scottish council, in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., decreed against the frequenters of the field-meetings and conventicles. On this account his memory is generally reprobated by the Scottish presbyterians; nor would history have treated him more gently, had not the splendour of his closing life effaced the recollection of his cruelties. When the Scottish Convention declared for the Prince of Orange in 1688-9, Dundee left Edinburgh, and retired to the north, where he raised the Highland clans, to prop the sinking cause of James II. After an interval of a few months, spent in desultory warfare, General Mackay marched, with a regular force, towards Blair in Athole, against this active and enterprising enemy. Upon the 17th June, 1689, when Mackay had defiled through the rocky and precipitous pass of Killicrankie, he found Dundee, with his Highlanders, arranged upon an eminence opposite to the northern mouth of the defile. Dundee permitted his adversary gradually, and at leisure, to disengage himself from the pass, and draw up his army in line; for, meditating a total victory, and not a mere check or repulse, he foresaw that Mackay's retreat would be difficult in proportion to the distance of his forces from the only path of safety through which they could fly. He then charged with irresistible fury, and routed Mackay's army in every direction, saving two regiments who stood firm. But as Dundee hastened towards them, and extended his arm as if urging the assault, a shot penetrated his armour beneath his arm-pit, and he dropt from his horse. He lived but a very short time, and died in the arms of victory. With Dundee fell all hopes of restoring King James's affairs in Scotland; the independent chieftains, who had been overawed by his superior talents, resumed the petty altercations which his authority had decided or suppressed; their followers melted away without a battle; and after his death, those who had been rather the implements than the companions of his victory, met nothing but repulse and defeat, until all the north of Scotland submitted to William III.

The epitaph, here translated by Dryden, was originally written in Latin by Dr Pitcairn, remarkable for genius and learning, as well as for Jacobitism. It will hardly be disputed, that the original is much superior to the translation, though the last be written by Dryden. In the second couplet alone, the translator has improved upon his original:

IN MORTEM VICECOMITIS TAODUNENSIS.

ULTIME SCOTORUM! POTUIT, QUO SOSPITE SOLO,

LIBERTAS PATRIÆ SALVA FUISSE TUÆ;

TE MORIENTE NOVOS ACCEPIT SCOTIA CIVES,

ACCEPITQUE NOVOS, TE MORIENTE, DEOS.

ILLA TIBI SUPERESSE NEGAT, TU NON POTES ILLI,

ERGO CALEDONIÆ NOMEN INANE, VALE!

TUQUE VALE, GENTIS PRISCÆ FORTISSIME DUCTOR,

Some editions of this celebrated epitaph, which seem to have been followed by Dryden, read the last line thus:

Ultime Scotorum atque optime, Grame, Vale.

But there is something national in calling Dundee the last of Scots, and the last of Grames, a race distinguished for patriotism in the struggles against England, and on this principle the last reading should be preferred.

UPON

THE DEATH
OF
THE VISCOUNT OF DUNDEE.

O h last and best of Scots! who didst maintain

Thy country's freedom from a foreign reign;

New people fill the land now thou art gone,

New gods the temples, and new kings the throne.

Scotland and thou did each in other live;

Nor would'st thou her, nor could she thee survive.

Farewell! who, dying, didst support the state,

And couldst not fall but with thy country's fate.

ELEONORA:

A

PANEGYRICAL POEM,

DEDICATED

TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE

COUNTESS OF ABINGDON.

——Superas evadere per auras,

Hoc opus, hic labor est. Pauci quos æquus amavit

Jupiter, aut ardens evixit ad æthera virtus,

Diis geniti potuere.Virgil. Æneid. lib. vi.

ELEONORA.

Mr. Malone has given a full account of the lady in whose honour this poem was written: "Eleonora, eldest daughter, and at length sole heir, of Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, in the county of Oxford, Baronet, by Anne, daughter of Sir John Danvers, and sister and heir to Henry Danvers, Esq., who was nephew and heir to Henry, Earl of Danby: She was the wife of James Bertie, first Earl of Abingdon, and died May 31, 1691. Her lord, in 1698, married a second wife, Catharine, daughter of Sir Thomas Chamberlaine, Bart."

Her death was unexpectedly sudden, and took place in a ball-room in her own house; a circumstance which our author has hardly glanced at, although capable of striking illustration; and although one might have thought he would have grasped at whatever could assist him in executing the difficult task, of an elegy written by desire of a nobleman whom he did not know, in memory of a lady whom he had never seen. It is to be presumed, that the task imposed was handsomely recompensed; for we can hardly conceive one in itself more unpleasant or unprofitable. Notwithstanding Dryden's professions, that he "swam with the tide" while composing this piece, and that the variety and multitude of his similies were owing to the divine afflatus and the influence of his subject, we may be fairly permitted to doubt, whether they did not rather originate in an attempt to supply the lack of real sympathy, by the indulgence of a luxuriant imagination. The commencement has been rather severely censured by Dr Johnson; the comparison, he says, contains no illustration. As a king would be lamented, Eleonora was lamented: "This," observes he, "is little better than to say of a shrub, that it is as green as a tree; or of a brook, that it waters a garden, as a river waters a country." But, I presume, the point on which Dryden meant the comparison to depend, was, the extent of the lamentation occasioned by Eleonora's death; in which particular the simile conveyed an illustration as ample, as if Dryden had said of a myrtle, it was as tall as an oak, or of a brook, it was as deep as the Thames.

The poem is certainly totally deficient in interest; for the character has no peculiarity of features: But, considered as an abstract example of female perfection, we may admire the ideal Eleonora, as we do the fancy-piece of a celebrated painter, though with an internal consciousness that the original never existed.

"Eleonora" first appeared in quarto, in 1692, probably about the end of autumn; as Dryden alludes to the intervention of some months between Lord Abingdon's commands and his own performance.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE EARL OF ABINGDON, &c.[85]

MY LORD,

T he commands, with which you honoured me some months ago, are now performed: they had been sooner, but betwixt ill health, some business, and many troubles, I was forced to defer them till this time. Ovid, going to his banishment, and writing from on shipboard to his friends, excused the faults of his poetry by his misfortunes; and told them, that good verses never flow, but from a serene and composed spirit. Wit, which is a kind of Mercury, with wings fastened to his head and heels, can fly but slowly in a damp air. I therefore chose rather to obey you late than ill: if at least I am capable of writing any thing, at any time, which is worthy your perusal and your patronage. I cannot say that I have escaped from a shipwreck; but have only gained a rock by hard swimming, where I may pant awhile and gather breath; for the doctors give me a sad assurance, that my disease[86] never took its leave of any man, but with a purpose to return. However, my lord, I have laid hold on the interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, in performing this inconsiderable service to my lady's memory. We, who are priests of Apollo, have not the inspiration when we please; but must wait till the God comes rushing on us, and invades us with a fury which we are not able to resist; which gives us double strength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent, at its departure. Let me not seem to boast, my lord, for I have really felt it on this occasion, and prophesied beyond my natural power. Let me add, and hope to be believed, that the excellency of the subject contributed much to the happiness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken off me while I was writing. I swam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will easily observe, that I was transported by the multitude and variety of my similitudes; which are generally the product of a luxuriant fancy, and the wantonness of wit. Had I called in my judgment to my assistance, I had certainly retrenched many of them. But I defend them not; let them pass for beautiful faults amongst the better sort of critics; for the whole poem, though written in that which they call heroic verse, is of the pindaric nature, as well in the thought as the expression; and, as such, requires the same grains of allowance for it. It was intended, as your lordship sees in the title, not for an elegy, but a panegyric: a kind of apotheosis, indeed, if a heathen word may be applied to a Christian use. And on all occasions of praise, if we take the ancients for our patterns, we are bound by prescription to employ the magnificence of words, and the force of figures, to adorn the sublimity of thoughts. Isocrates amongst the Grecian orators, and Cicero, and the younger Pliny, amongst the Romans, have left us their precedents for our security; for I think I need not mention the inimitable Pindar, who stretches on these pinions out of sight, and is carried upward, as it were, into another world.

This, at least, my lord, I may justly plead, that, if I have not performed so well as I think I have, yet I have used my best endeavours to excel myself. One disadvantage I have had, which is, never to have known or seen my lady; and to draw the lineaments of her mind from the description which I have received from others, is for a painter to set himself at work without the living original before him; which, the more beautiful it is, will be so much the more difficult for him to conceive, when he has only a relation given him of such and such features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches, which give the best resemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artist is apt enough to flatter himself, and I amongst the rest, that their own ocular observations would have discovered more perfections, at least others, than have been delivered to them; though I have received mine from the best hands, that is, from persons who neither want a just understanding of my lady's worth, nor a due veneration for her memory.

Doctor Donne, the greatest wit, though not the best poet of our nation, acknowledges, that he had never seen Mrs Drury, whom he has made immortal in his admirable "Anniversaries."[87] I have had the same fortune, though I have not succeeded to the same genius. However, I have followed his footsteps in the design of his panegyric; which was to raise an emulation in the living, to copy out the example of the dead. And therefore it was, that I once intended to have called this poem "The Pattern;" and though, on a second consideration, I changed the title into the name of that illustrious person, yet the design continues, and Eleonora is still the pattern of charity, devotion, and humility; of the best wife, the best mother, and the best of friends.

And now, my lord, though I have endeavoured to answer your commands, yet I could not answer it to the world, nor to my conscience, if I gave not your lordship my testimony of being the best husband now living: I say my testimony only; for the praise of it is given you by yourself. They, who despise the rules of virtue both in their practice and their morals, will think this a very trivial commendation. But I think it the peculiar happiness of the Countess of Abingdon, to have been so truly loved by you, while she was living, and so gratefully honoured, after she was dead. Few there are who have either had, or could have, such a loss; and yet fewer, who carried their love and constancy beyond the grave. The exteriors of mourning, a decent funeral, and black habits, are the usual stints of common husbands; and perhaps their wives deserve no better than to be mourned with hypocrisy, and forgot with ease. But you have distinguished yourself from ordinary lovers, by a real and lasting grief for the deceased; and by endeavouring to raise for her the most durable monument, which is that of verse. And so it would have proved, if the workman had been equal to the work, and your choice of the artificer as happy as your design. Yet, as Phidias, when he had made the statue of Minerva, could not forbear to engrave his own name, as author of the piece; so give me leave to hope, that, by subscribing mine to this poem, I may live by the goddess, and transmit my name to posterity by the memory of hers. It is no flattery to assure your lordship, that she is remembered, in the present age, by all who have had the honour of her conversation and acquaintance; and that I have never been in any company since the news of her death was first brought me, where they have not extolled her virtues, and even spoken the same things of her in prose, which I have done in verse.

I therefore think myself obliged to your lordship for the commission which you have given me: how I have acquitted myself of it, must be left to the opinion of the world, in spite of any protestation which I can enter against the present age, as incompetent or corrupt judges. For my comfort, they are but Englishmen; and, as such, if they think ill of me to-day, they are inconstant enough to think well of me to-morrow. And after all, I have not much to thank my fortune that I was born amongst them. The good of both sexes are so few, in England, that they stand like exceptions against general rules; and though one of them has deserved a greater commendation than I could give her, they have taken care that I should not tire my pen with frequent exercise on the like subjects; that praises, like taxes, should be appropriated, and left almost as individual as the person. They say, my talent is satire; if it be so, it is a fruitful age, and there is an extraordinary crop to gather, but a single hand is insufficient for such a harvest: they have sown the dragon's teeth themselves, and it is but just they should reap each other in lampoons. You, my lord, who have the character of honour, though it is not my happiness to know you, may stand aside, with the small remainders of the English nobility, truly such, and, unhurt yourselves, behold the mad combat. If I have pleased you, and some few others, I have obtained my end. You see I have disabled myself, like an elected Speaker of the House; yet, like him, I have undertaken the charge, and find the burden sufficiently recompensed by the honour. Be pleased to accept of these my unworthy labours, this paper monument; and let her pious memory, which I am sure is sacred to you, not only plead the pardon of my many faults, but gain me your protection, which is ambitiously sought by,

My Lord,
Your Lordship's
Most obedient servant,
John Dryden.

ELEONORA:
A
PANEGYRICAL POEM,

DEDICATED

TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE

COUNTESS OF ABINGDON.

ARGUMENT.

From the Marginal Notes of the First Edition.

The introduction. Of her charity. Of her prudent management. Of her humility. Of her piety. Of her various virtues. Of her conjugal virtues. Of her love to her children. Her care of their education. Of her friendship. Reflections on the shortness of her life. The manner of her death. Her preparedness to die. Apostrophe to her soul. Epiphonema, or close of the poem.

As when some great and gracious monarch dies,

Soft whispers first, and mournful murmurs, rise

Among the sad attendants; then the sound

Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around,

Through town and country, till the dreadful blast

Is blown to distant colonies at last,

Who then, perhaps, were offering vows in vain,

For his long life, and for his happy reign:

}

{  So slowly, by degrees, unwilling fame

{  Did matchless Eleonora's fate proclaim,

{  Till public as the loss the news became.

The nation felt it in the extremest parts,

With eyes o'erflowing, and with bleeding hearts;

But most the poor, whom daily she supplied,

Beginning to be such, but when she died.

For, while she lived, they slept in peace by night,

Secure of bread, as of returning light,

And with such firm dependence on the day,

That need grew pampered, and forgot to pray;

So sure the dole, so ready at their call,

They stood prepared to see the manna fall.

Such multitudes she fed, she clothed, she nurst,

That she herself might fear her wanting first.

Of her five talents, other five she made;

Heaven, that had largely given, was largely paid;

And in few lives, in wonderous few, we find

A fortune better fitted to the mind.

Nor did her alms from ostentation fall,

Or proud desire of praise—the soul gave all:

Unbribed it gave; or, if a bribe appear,

No less than heaven, to heap huge treasures there.

Want passed for merit at her open door:

Heaven saw, he safely might increase his poor,

And trust their sustenance with her so well,

As not to be at charge of miracle.

None could be needy, whom she saw or knew;

All in the compass of her sphere she drew:

He, who could touch her garment, was as sure,

As the first Christians of the apostles' cure.

The distant heard, by fame, her pious deeds,

And laid her up for their extremest needs;

A future cordial for a fainting mind;

For, what was ne'er refused, all hoped to find,

Each in his turn: the rich might freely come,

As to a friend; but to the poor, 'twas home.

}

{  As to some holy house the afflicted came,

{  The hunger-starved, the naked, and the lame,

{  Want and diseases fled before her name.

}

{  For zeal like her's her servants were too slow;

{  She was the first, where need required, to go;

{  Herself the foundress and attendant too.

Sure she had guests sometimes to entertain,

Guests in disguise, of her great Master's train:

Her Lord himself might come, for aught we know,

Since in a servant's form he lived below:

Beneath her roof he might be pleased to stay;

Or some benighted angel, in his way,

Might ease his wings, and, seeing heaven appear

In its best work of mercy, think it there;

Where all the deeds of charity and love

Were in as constant method, as above,

}

{  All carried on; all of a piece with theirs;

{  As free her alms, as diligent her cares;

{  As loud her praises, and as warm her prayers.

Yet was she not profuse; but feared to waste,

And wisely managed, that the stock might last;

That all might be supplied, and she not grieve,

When crowds appeared, she had not to relieve:

Which to prevent, she still increased her store;

Laid up, and spared, that she might give the more.

So Pharaoh, or some greater king than he,

Provided for the seventh necessity;[88]

Taught from above his magazines to frame,

That famine was prevented ere it came.

Thus heaven, though all-sufficient, shews a thrift

In his œconomy, and bounds his gift;

Creating for our day one single light,

And his reflection too supplies the night.

Perhaps a thousand other worlds, that lie

Remote from us, and latent in the sky,

Are lightened by his beams, and kindly nurst,

Of which our earthly dunghill is the worst.

Now, as all virtues keep the middle line,

Yet somewhat more to one extreme incline,

Such was her soul; abhorring avarice,

Bounteous, but almost bounteous to a vice;

Had she given more, it had profusion been,

And turned the excess of goodness into sin.

These virtues raised her fabric to the sky;

For that which is next heaven is charity.

But as high turrets for their airy steep

Require foundations in proportion deep,

And lofty cedars as far upward shoot

As to the nether heavens they drive the root;

So low did her secure foundation lie,

She was not humble, but humility.

}

{  Scarcely she knew that she was great, or fair,

{  Or wise, beyond what other women are,

{  Or, which is better, knew, but never durst compare.

For, to be conscious of what all admire,

And not be vain, advances virtue higher.

But still she found, or rather thought she found,

Her own worth wanting, others' to abound;

Ascribed above their due to every one,

Unjust and scanty to herself alone.

Such her devotion was, as might give rules

Of speculation to disputing schools,

And teach us equally the scales to hold

Betwixt the two extremes of hot and cold;

That pious heat may moderately prevail,

And we be warmed, but not be scorched with zeal.

Business might shorten, not disturb, her prayer;

Heaven had the best, if not the greater share.

An active life long orisons forbids;

Yet still she prayed, for still she prayed by deeds.

Her every day was sabbath; only free

From hours of prayer, for hours of charity.

Such as the Jews from servile toil released,

Where works of mercy were a part of rest;

Such as blest angels exercise above,

Varied with sacred hymns and acts of love;

Such sabbaths as that one she now enjoys,

E'en that perpetual one, which she employs,

(For such vicissitudes in heaven there are)

In praise alternate, and alternate prayer.

All this she practised here, that when she sprung

Amidst the choirs, at the first sight she sung;

Sung, and was sung herself in angels' lays;

For, praising her, they did her Maker praise.

All offices of heaven so well she knew,

Before she came, that nothing there was new;

And she was so familiarly received,

As one returning, not as one arrived.

Muse, down again precipitate thy flight;

For how can mortal eyes sustain immortal light?

But as the sun in water we can bear,

Yet not the sun, but his reflection there,

So let us view her here in what she was,

And take her image in this watery glass:

}

{  Yet look not every lineament to see;

{  Some will be cast in shades, and some will be

{  So lamely drawn, you'll scarcely know 'tis she.

}

{  For where such various virtues we recite,

{  'Tis like the milky-way, all over bright,

{  But sown so thick with stars, 'tis undistinguished light.

Her virtue, not her virtues, let us call;

For one heroic comprehends them all:

}

{  One, as a constellation is but one,

{  Though 'tis a train of stars, that, rolling on,

{  Rise in their turn, and in the zodiac run,

}

{  Ever in motion; now 'tis faith ascends,

{  Now hope, now charity, that upward tends,

{  And downwards with diffusive good descends.

As in perfumes composed with art and cost,

Tis hard to say what scent is uppermost;

Nor this part musk or civet can we call,

Or amber, but a rich result of all;

So she was all a sweet, whose every part,

In due proportion mixed, proclaimed the Maker's art.

No single virtue we could most commend,

Whether the wife, the mother, or the friend;

For she was all, in that supreme degree,

That as no one prevailed, so all was she.

The several parts lay hidden in the piece;

The occasion but exerted that, or this.

A wife as tender, and as true withal,

As the first woman was before her fall:

Made for the man, of whom she was a part;

Made to attract his eyes, and keep his heart.

A second Eve, but by no crime accurst;

As beauteous, not as brittle as the first.

Had she been first, still Paradise had been,

And death had found no entrance by her sin.

So she not only had preserved from ill

Her sex and ours, but lived their pattern still.

Love and obedience to her lord she bore;

She much obeyed him, but she loved him more:

Not awed to duty by superior sway,

But taught by his indulgence to obey.

Thus we love God, as author of our good;

So subjects love just kings, or so they should.

}

{  Nor was it with ingratitude returned;

{  In equal fires the blissful couple burned;

{  One joy possessed them both, and in one grief they mourned.

His passion still improved; he loved so fast,

As if he feared each day would be her last.

Too true a prophet to foresee the fate

That should so soon divide their happy state;

When he to heaven entirely must restore

That love, that heart, where he went halves before.

Yet as the soul is all in every part,

So God and he might each have all her heart.

So had her children too; for charity

Was not more fruitful, or more kind, than she:[89]

Each under other by degrees they grew;

A goodly perspective of distant view.

Anchises looked not with so pleased a face,

In numbering o'er his future Roman race,[90]

And marshalling the heroes of his name,

As, in their order, next to light they came;

Nor Cybele, with half so kind an eye,

Surveyed her sons and daughters of the sky;

Proud, shall I say, of her immortal fruit?

As far as pride with heavenly minds may suit.

Her pious love excelled to all she bore;

New objects only multiplied it more.

And as the chosen found the pearly grain

As much as every vessel could contain;

}

{  As in the blissful vision each shall share

{  As much of glory as his soul can bear;

{  So did she love, and so dispense her care.

Her eldest thus, by consequence, was best,

As longer cultivated than the rest.

The babe had all that infant care beguiles,

And early knew his mother in her smiles:

But when dilated organs let in day

To the young soul, and gave it room to play,

At his first aptness, the maternal love

Those rudiments of reason did improve:

The tender age was pliant to command;

Like wax it yielded to the forming hand:

True to the artificer, the laboured mind

With ease was pious, generous, just, and kind;

Soft for impression, from the first prepared,

Till virtue with long exercise grew hard:

With every act confirmed, and made at last

So durable as not to be effaced,

It turned to habit; and, from vices free,

Goodness resolved into necessity.

Thus fixed she virtue's image, (that's her own,)

Till the whole mother in the children shone;

For that was their perfection: she was such,

They never could express her mind too much.

So unexhausted her perfections were,

That, for more children, she had more to spare;

For souls unborn, whom her untimely death

Deprived of bodies, and of mortal breath;

And, could they take the impressions of her mind,

Enough still left to sanctify her kind.

Then wonder not to see this soul extend

The bounds, and seek some other self, a friend;

As swelling seas to gentle rivers glide,

To seek repose, and empty out the tide;

So this full soul, in narrow limits pent,

Unable to contain her, sought a vent

To issue out, and in some friendly breast

Discharge her treasures, and securely rest;

To unbosom all the secrets of her heart,

Take good advice, but better to impart.

}

{  For 'tis the bliss of friendship's holy state,

{  To mix their minds, and to communicate;

{  Though bodies cannot, souls can penetrate:

Fixed to her choice, inviolably true,

And wisely choosing, for she chose but few.

Some she must have; but in no one could find

A tally fitted for so large a mind.

The souls of friends like kings in progress are,

Still in their own, though from the palace far:

Thus her friend's heart her country dwelling was,

A sweet retirement to a coarser place;

Where pomp and ceremonies entered not,

Where greatness was shut out, and business well forgot.

}

{  This is the imperfect draught; but short as far

{  As the true height and bigness of a star

{  Exceeds the measures of the astronomer.

She shines above, we know; but in what place,

How near the throne, and heaven's imperial face,

By our weak optics is but vainly guessed;

Distance and altitude conceal the rest.

Though all these rare endowments of the mind

Were in a narrow space of life confined,

The figure was with full perfection crowned;

Though not so large an orb, as truly round.

As when in glory, through the public place,

The spoils of conquered nations were to pass,

And but one day for triumph was allowed,

The consul was constrained his pomp to crowd;

And so the swift procession hurried on,

That all, though not distinctly, might be shewn:

So in the straitened bounds of life confined,

She gave but glimpses of her glorious mind;

And multitudes of virtues passed along,

Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng,

Ambitious to be seen, and then make room

For greater multitudes that were to come.

Yet unemployed no minute slipped away;

Moments were precious in so short a stay.

}

{  The haste of heaven to have her was so great,

{  That some were single acts, though each complete;

{  But every act stood ready to repeat.

Her fellow-saints with busy care will look

For her blest name in fate's eternal book;

And, pleased to be outdone, with joy will see

Numberless virtues, endless charity:

But more will wonder at so short an age,

To find a blank beyond the thirtieth page;

And with a pious fear begin to doubt

The piece imperfect, and the rest torn out.

But 'twas her Saviour's time;[91] and, could there be

A copy near the original, 'twas she.

As precious gums are not for lasting fire,

They but perfume the temple, and expire;

So was she soon exhaled, and vanished hence;

A short sweet odour, of a vast expence.

She vanished, we can scarcely say she died;

For but a now did heaven and earth divide:

She passed serenely with a single breath;

This moment perfect health, the next was death:

One sigh did her eternal bliss assure;

So little penance needs, when souls are almost pure.

As gentle dreams our waking thoughts pursue,

Or, one dream passed, we slide into a new;

So close they follow, such wild order keep,

We think ourselves awake, and are asleep;

So softly death succeeded life in her,

She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.

No pains she suffered, nor expired with noise;

Her soul was whispered out with God's still voice;

As an old friend is beckoned to a feast,

And treated like a long-familiar guest.

He took her as he found, but found her so,

As one in hourly readiness to go;

E'en on that day, in all her trim prepared,[92]

As early notice she from heaven had heard,

And some descending courier from above

Had given her timely warning to remove;

Or counselled her to dress the nuptial room,

For on that night the bridegroom was to come.

He kept his hour, and found her where she lay,

Clothed all in white, the livery of the day:[93]

Scarce had she sinned in thought, or word, or act,

Unless omissions were to pass for fact;

That hardly death a consequence could draw,

To make her liable to nature's law.

And, that she died, we only have to shew

The mortal part of her she left below;

}

{  The rest, so smooth, so suddenly she went,

{  Looked like translation through the firmament,

{  Or like the fiery car on the third errand sent.

O happy soul! if thou canst view from high,

Where thou art all intelligence, all eye,

If looking up to God, or down to us,

Thou find'st, that any way be pervious,

Survey the ruins of thy house, and see

Thy widowed and thy orphan family;

Look on thy tender pledges left behind;

And, if thou canst a vacant minute find

From heavenly joys, that interval afford

To thy sad children, and thy mourning lord.

See how they grieve, mistaken in their love,

And shed a beam of comfort from above;

Give them, as much as mortal eyes can bear,

A transient view of thy full glories there;

That they with moderate sorrow may sustain,

And mollify their losses in thy gain.

}

{  Or else divide the grief; for such thou wert,

{  That should not all relations bear a part,

{  It were enough to break a single heart.

Let this suffice: nor thou, great saint, refuse

This humble tribute, of no vulgar muse;

Who, not by cares, or wants, or age deprest,

Stems a wild deluge with a dauntless breast;

And dares to sing thy praises in a clime

Where vice triumphs, and virtue is a crime;

Where e'en to draw the picture of thy mind,

Is satire on the most of human kind:

Take it, while yet 'tis praise; before my rage,

Unsafely just, break loose on this bad age;

So bad, that thou thyself hadst no defence

From vice, but barely by departing hence.

Be what, and where thou art; to wish thy place,

Were, in the best, presumption more than grace.

Thy relics, (such thy works of mercy are)

Have, in this poem, been my holy care.

}

{  As earth thy body keeps, thy soul the sky,

{  So shall this verse preserve thy memory;

{  For thou shalt make it live, because it sings of thee.

ON

THE DEATH OF AMYNTAS.

A PASTORAL ELEGY.

'T   was on a joyless and a gloomy morn,

Wet was the grass, and hung with pearls the thorn,

When Damon, who designed to pass the day

With hounds and horns, and chace the flying prey,

}

{  Rose early from his bed; but soon he found

{  The welkin pitched with sullen clouds around,

{  An eastern wind, and dew upon the ground.

Thus while he stood, and sighing did survey

The fields, and curst the ill omens of the day,

He saw Menalcas come with heavy pace:

Wet were his eyes, and cheerless was his face:

He wrung his hands, distracted with his care,

And sent his voice before him from afar.

"Return," he cried, "return, unhappy swain,

The spungy clouds are filled with gathering rain:

The promise of the day not only crossed,

But even the spring, the spring itself is lost.

Amyntas—oh!"—he could not speak the rest,

Nor needed, for presaging Damon guessed.

Equal with heaven young Damon loved the boy,

The boast of nature, both his parents' joy.

His graceful form revolving in his mind;

So great a genius, and a soul so kind,

Gave sad assurance that his fears were true;

Too well the envy of the gods he knew:

For when their gifts too lavishly are placed,

Soon they repent, and will not make them last.

For sure it was too bountiful a dole,

The mother's features, and the father's soul.

Then thus he cried:—"The morn bespoke the news;

The morning did her cheerful light diffuse;

}

{  But see how suddenly she changed her face,

{  And brought on clouds and rain, the day's disgrace;

{  Just such, Amyntas, was thy promised race.

What charms adorned thy youth, where nature smiled,

And more than man was given us in a child!

His infancy was ripe; a soul sublime

In years so tender that prevented time:

}

{  Heaven gave him all at once; then snatched away,

{  Ere mortals all his beauties could survey;

{  Just like the flower that buds and withers in a day.

MENALCAS.

The mother, lovely, though with grief opprest,

Reclined his dying head upon her breast.

}

{  The mournful family stood all around;

{  One groan was heard, one universal sound:

{  All were in floods of tears and endless sorrow drowned.

So dire a sadness sat on every look,

Even death repented he had given the stroke.

He grieved his fatal work had been ordained,

But promised length of life to those who yet remained.

The mother's and her eldest daughter's grace,

It seems, had bribed him to prolong their space.

The father bore it with undaunted soul,

Like one who durst his destiny controul;

Yet with becoming grief he bore his part,

Resigned his son, but not resigned his heart.

Patient as Job; and may he live to see,

Like him, a new increasing family!

DAMON.

Such is my wish, and such my prophecy;

For yet, my friend, the beauteous mould remains;

Long may she exercise her fruitful pains!

But, ah! with better hap, and bring a race

More lasting, and endued with equal grace!

Equal she may, but farther none can go;

For he was all that was exact below.

MENALCAS.

Damon, behold yon breaking purple cloud;

Hear'st thou not hymns and songs divinely loud?

There mounts Amyntas; the young cherubs play

About their godlike mate, and sing him on his way.

He cleaves the liquid air; behold, he flies,

And every moment gains upon the skies.

The new-come guest admires the ethereal state,

The sapphire portal, and the golden gate;

And now admitted in the shining throng,

He shows the passport which he brought along.

His passport is his innocence and grace,

Well known to all the natives of the place.

Now sing, ye joyful angels, and admire

Your brother's voice that comes to mend your quire:

Sing you, while endless tears our eyes bestow;

For, like Amyntas, none is left below.

ON

THE DEATH

OF

A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN.

H  e, who could view the book of destiny,

And read whatever there was writ of thee,

O charming youth, in the first opening page,

So many graces in so green an age,

Such wit, such modesty, such strength of mind,

A soul at once so manly and so kind,

Would wonder when he turned the volume o'er,

And, after some few leaves, should find no more.

Nought but a blank remain, a dead void space,

A step of life that promised such a race.

We must not, dare not, think, that heaven began

A child, and could not finish him a man;

Reflecting what a mighty store was laid

Of rich materials, and a model made:

The cost already furnished; so bestowed,

As more was never to one soul allowed:

Yet after this profusion spent in vain,

Nothing but mouldering ashes to remain,

I guess not, lest I split upon the shelf,

Yet, durst I guess, heaven kept it for himself;

And giving us the use, did soon recal,

Ere we could spare the mighty principal.

Thus then he disappeared, was rarefied,

For 'tis improper speech to say he died:

He was exhaled; his great Creator drew

His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.

'Tis sin produces death; and he had none,

But the taint Adam left on every son.

He added not, he was so pure, so good,

'Twas but the original forfeit of his blood;

And that so little, that the river ran

More clear than the corrupted fount began.

Nothing remained of the first muddy clay;

The length of course had washed it in the way:

So deep, and yet so clear, we might behold

The gravel bottom, and that bottom gold.

As such we loved, admired, almost adored,

Gave all the tribute mortals could afford.

Perhaps we gave so much, the powers above

Grew angry at our superstitious love;

For when we more than human homage pay,

The charming cause is justly snatched away.

Thus was the crime not his, but ours alone;

And yet we murmur that he went so soon,

Though miracles are short, and rarely shown.

Learn then, ye mournful parents, and divide

That love in many, which in one was tied.

That individual blessing is no more,

But multiplied in your remaining store.

The flame's dispersed, but does not all expire;

The sparkles blaze, though not the globe of fire.

Love him by parts, in all your numerous race,

And from those parts form one collected grace;

Then, when you have refined to that degree,

Imagine all in one, and think that one is he.

UPON

YOUNG Mr ROGERS,

OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

The family of Rogers seems to have been of considerable antiquity in Gloucestershire. They possessed the estate of Dowdeswell during the greater part of the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of their monuments are in the church of Dowdeswell, of which they were patrons.—See Atkyn's Gloucestershire. The subject of this epitaph was probably of this family.

O  f gentle blood, his parents only treasure,

Their lasting sorrow, and their vanished pleasure.

Adorned with features, virtues, wit, and grace,

A large provision for so short a race:

More moderate gifts might have prolonged his date,

Too early fitted for a better state:

But, knowing heaven his home, to shun delay,

He leaped o'er age, and took the shortest way.

ON THE DEATH OF

Mr PURCELL.

IN MUSIC.

Henry Purcell, as a musician, is said by Burney to have been as much the pride of an Englishman, as Shakespeare in the drama, Milton in epic poetry, or Locke and Newton in their several departments of philosophy. He was born in 1658, and died in 1695, at the premature age of 37 years. Dryden, to whose productions he had frequently added the charms of music, devoted a tribute to his memory in the following verses, which, with others by inferior bards, were prefixed to a collection of Purcell's music, published two years after his death, under the title of Orpheus Britannicus. The Ode was set to music by Dr Blow, and performed at the concert in York Buildings. Dr Burney says, that the music is composed in fugue and imitation; but appears laboured, and is wholly without invention or pathos.

The "Orpheus Britannicus" being inscribed by the widow of Purcell to the Hon. Lady Howard, both Sir John Hawkins and Dr Burney have been led into the mistake of supposing, that the person so named was no other than Lady Elizabeth Dryden, our author's wife. Mr Malone has detected this error; and indeed the high compliments paid by the dedicator to Mr Purcell's patroness, as an exquisite musician, a person of extensive influence, and one whose munificence had covered the remains of Purcell with "a fair monument," are irreconcileable with the character, situation, and pecuniary circumstances of Lady Elizabeth Dryden. The Lady Howard of the dedication must, unquestionably, have been the wife of the Honourable Sir Robert Howard; whence it follows, that the "honourable gentleman, who had the dearest, and most deserved relation to her, and whose excellent compositions were the subject of Purcell's last and best performances in music," was not our author, as has been erroneously supposed, but his brother-in-law, the said Sir Robert Howard, who continued to the last to be an occasional author, and to contribute songs to the dramatic performances of the day.[94]

Although Dryden's lady certainly did not erect Purcell's monument, it is more than probable, judging from internal evidence, that the poet contributed the inscription, which runs thus:

Here lies

Henry Purcell, Esq.

Who left this life,

And is gone to that blessed place,

Where only his harmony

can be exceeded.

Obiit 21mo die Novembris,

Anno ætatis suæ 37mo,

Annoq. Domini, 1695.

The stone over the grave bore the following epitaph:

Plaudito, felices Superi, tanto hospite; nostris

Præfuerat, vestris additur ille choris:

Invida nec vobis Purcellum terra reposcat,

Questa decus secli, deliciasque breves

Tam cito decessisse, modos cui singula debet

Musa, prophana suos, religiosa suos:

Vivit Io et vivat, dum vicina organa spirant,

Dumque colet numeris turba canora Deum.

Of the following ode, it may be briefly observed, that it displays much conceit, and little pathos, although the introductory simile is beautifully worded.

ON

THE DEATH OF

Mr PURCELL.

SET TO MUSIC BY DR BLOW.

M   ark how the lark and linnet sing,

With rival notes

They strain their warbling throats,

To welcome in the spring.

But in the close of night,

When Philomel begins her heavenly lay,

They cease their mutual spite,

Drink in her music with delight,

And, listening, silently obey.

II.

So ceased the rival crew when Purcell came;

They sung no more, or only sung his fame.

Struck dumb, they all admired the godlike man:

The godlike man,

Alas! too soon retired,

As he too late began.

We beg not hell our Orpheus to restore;

Had he been there,

Their sovereign's fear

Had sent him back before.

The power of harmony too well they knew:

He long ere this had tuned their jarring sphere,

And left no hell below.

III.

The heavenly choir, who heard his notes from high,

Let down the scale of music from the sky;

They handed him along,

And all the way he taught, and all the way they sung.

Ye brethren of the lyre, and tuneful voice,

Lament his lot, but at your own rejoice:

Now live secure, and linger out your days;

The gods are pleased alone with Purcell's lays,

Nor know to mend their choice.

EPITAPH
ON THE
LADY WHITMORE.

This was perhaps Frances, daughter of Sir William Brooke, Knight of the Bath, and wife to Sir Thomas Whitmore, Knight-Baronet.

F air, kind, and true, a treasure each alone,

A wife, a mistress, and a friend, in one;

Rest in this tomb, raised at thy husband's cost,

Here sadly summing, what he had, and lost.

Come, virgins, ere in equal bands ye join,

Come first and offer at her sacred shrine;

Pray but for half the virtues of this wife,

Compound for all the rest, with longer life;

And wish your vows, like hers, may be returned,

So loved when living, and, when dead, so mourned.

EPITAPH

ON

Mrs MARGARET PASTON,

OF BURNINGHAM, IN NORFOLK.

This is an ancient and distinguished family in Norfolk. See Bloomfield's topographical account of that shire.

}

{  S o fair, so young, so innocent, so sweet,

{  So ripe a judgment, and so rare a wit,

{  Require at least an age in one to meet.

In her they met; but long they could not stay,

'Twas gold too fine to mix without allay.

Heaven's image was in her so well exprest,

Her very sight upbraided all the rest;

Too justly ravished from an age like this,

Now she is gone, the world is of a piece.

EPITAPH

ON THE

MONUMENT
OF
THE MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER.

John Powlet, fifth Marquis of Winchester, was remarkable for his steady loyalty to Charles I. He garrisoned for the king his fine castle at Basing, and underwent a siege of two years, from August 1643 to October 16th, 1645; on which day it was taken by Cromwell, by storm, after having been defended with great gallantry to the very last extremity. The Marquis had written, in every window of the house, with a diamond, the motto Aymez Loyaulté. The parliamentary leaders, incensed at this device, burned down this noble seat, (a conflagration which Cromwell imputes to accident,) and destroyed and plundered property to the amount of L. 200,000. The Marquis himself was made prisoner. The particulars of this memorable siege were printed at Oxford, in 1645; and Oliver's account of the storm is published in Collins's "Peerage," from a manuscript in the Museum. The Marquis of Winchester survived the Restoration; and, having died premier marquis of England in 1674, was buried at Englefield. This monument, upon which our author's verses are engraved, is made of black and white marble; and a compartment underneath the lines bears this inscription: "The Lady Marchioness Dowager, in testimony of her love and sorrow, gave this monument to the memory of a most affectionate, tender husband." On a flat marble stone, beneath the monument, is the following epitaph: "Here lieth interred the body of the most noble and mighty prince, John Powlet, Marquis of Winchester, Earl of Wiltshire, Baron of St John of Basing, first Marquis of England: A man of exemplary piety towards God, and of inviolable fidelity towards his sovereign; in whose cause he fortified his house of Basing, and defended it against the rebels to the last extremity. He married three wives: the first was Jane, daughter of Thomas, Viscount Savage, and of Elizabeth his wife, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Darcey, Earl of Rivers; by whom he had issue Charles, now Marquis of Winchester. His second wife was Honora, daughter of Richard Burgh, Earl of St Alban's and Clanricarde, and of Frances, his wife, daughter and heir of Sir Francis Walsingham, knight, and principal secretary of state to Queen Elizabeth; by whom he had issue four sons and three daughters. His last wife, who survived him, was Isabella, daughter of William, Viscount Stafford, second son of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Earl Marshal of England, and of Mary his wife, sister and sole heir of Henry, Lord Stafford, who was the heir-male of the most high, mighty, and most noble Prince Edward, last Duke of Buckingham of that most illustrious name and family, by whom he had no issue. He died in the 77th year of his age, on the 5th of March, in the year of our Lord 1674.—By Edward Walker, Garter King of Arms."

EPITAPH

ON THE

MONUMENT
OF
THE MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER.

H  e who, in impious times, undaunted stood,

And 'midst rebellion durst be just and good;

Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more

Confirmed the cause for which he fought before,

Rests here, rewarded by an heavenly prince,

For what his earthly could not recompence.

Pray, reader, that such times no more appear;

Or, if they happen, learn true honour here.

Ask of this age's faith and loyalty,

Which, to preserve them, heaven confined in thee.

Few subjects could a king like thine deserve;

And fewer, such a king so well could serve.

Blest king, blest subject, whose exalted state

By sufferings rose, and gave the law to fate!

Such souls are rare, but mighty patterns given

To earth, and meant for ornaments to heaven.

EPITAPH

ON

Sir PALMES FAIRBONE'S Tomb
IN
WESTMINSTER-ABBEY.

Sacred to the immortal memory of Sir Palmes Fairbone, Knight, Governor of Tangier; in execution of which command he was mortally wounded by a shot from the Moors, then besieging the town, in the forty-sixth year of his age, October 24, 1680.

Y e sacred relics, which your marble keep,

Here, undisturbed by wars, in quiet sleep;

}

{  Discharge the trust, which, when it was below,

{  Fairbone's undaunted soul did undergo,

{  And be the town's palladium from the foe.

Alive and dead these walls he will defend:

Great actions great examples must attend.

The Candian siege his early valour knew,

Where Turkish blood did his young hands imbrue.

}

{  From thence returning with deserved applause,

{  Against the Moors his well-fleshed sword he draws;

{  The same the courage, and the same the cause.

}

{  His youth and age, his life and death, combine,

{  As in some great and regular design,

{  All of a piece throughout, and all divine.

}

{  Still nearer heaven his virtues shone more bright,

{  Like rising flames expanding in their height;

{  The martyr's glory crowned the soldier's fight.

More bravely British general never fell,

Nor general's death was e'er revenged so well;

Which his pleased eyes beheld before their close,

Followed by thousand victims of his foes.[95]

To his lamented loss, for time to come,

His pious widow consecrates this tomb.

ON

THE MONUMENT

OF A

FAIR MAIDEN LADY,

WHO DIED AT BATH,

AND IS THERE INTERRED.

This lady lies buried in the Abbey-Church at Bath. The lines are accompanied by the following inscription upon a monument of white marble: "Here lies the body of Mary, third daughter of Richard Frampton of Moreton, in Dorsetshire, Esq. and of Jane his wife, sole daughter of Sir Francis Cothington of Founthill, in Wilts, who was born January 1, 1676, and died, after seven weeks illness, on the 6th of September, 1698.

"This monument was erected by Catharine Frampton, her second sister and executrix, in testimony of her grief, affection, and gratitude."

B elow this marble monument is laid

All that heaven wants of this celestial maid.

Preserve, O sacred tomb, thy trust consigned;

The mold was made on purpose for the mind:

And she would lose, if, at the latter day,

One atom could be mixed of other clay;

Such were the features of her heavenly face,

Her limbs were formed with such harmonious grace:

So faultless was the frame, as if the whole

Had been an emanation of the soul;

Which her own inward symmetry revealed,

And like a picture shone, in glass annealed;

Or like the sun eclipsed, with shaded light;

Too piercing, else, to be sustained by sight.

Each thought was visible that rolled within;

As through a crystal case the figured hours are seen.

And heaven did this transparent veil provide,

Because she had no guilty thought to hide.

All white, a virgin-saint, she sought the skies,

For marriage, though it sullies not, it dyes.

}

{  High though her wit, yet humble was her mind;

{  As if she could not, or she would not find

{  How much her worth transcended all her kind.

Yet she had learned so much of heaven below,

That when arrived, she scarce had more to know;

But only to refresh the former hint,

And read her Maker in a fairer print.

So pious, as she had no time to spare

For human thoughts, but was confined to prayer;

Yet in such charities she passed the day,

'Twas wondrous how she found an hour to pray.

A soul so calm, it knew not ebbs or flows,

Which passion could but curl, not discompose.

}

{  A female softness, with a manly mind;

{  A daughter duteous, and a sister kind;

{  In sickness patient, and in death resigned.

UNDER

MR MILTON'S PICTURE,

BEFORE HIS PARADISE LOST.

This inscription appeared under the engraving prefixed to Tonson's folio edition of the Paradise Lost, published by subscription, under the patronage of Somers, in 1688. Dryden was one of the subscribers. Atterbury, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, was active in procuring subscribers. See a letter of his to Tonson, Malone's Life of Dryden, p. 203.

Mr Malone regards Dryden's hexastich as an amplification of Selvaggi's distich, addressed to Milton while at Rome:

Græcia Mœonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem,

Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem.

T hree poets, in three distant ages born,

Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn.

The first, in loftiness of thought surpassed;

The next, in majesty; in both, the last.

The force of nature could no further go;

To make a third, she joined the former two.

ODES, SONGS,

AND

LYRICAL PIECES.

FAREWELL, FAIR ARMIDA.

A SONG.

This Song was written on the death of Captain Digby, a younger son of the Earl of Bristol, who was killed in the great sea-fight between the English and Dutch, on the 28th May, 1672. The relentless beauty to whom the lines were addressed, was Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond; called in the Memoires de Grammont, La Belle Stuart. Count Hamilton there assures us, that her charms made conquest of Charles II. and were the occasion of much jealousy to the Countess of Castlemaine. Dryden's song is parodied in "The Rehearsal," in that made by "Tom Thimble's first wife after she was dead." "Farewell, fair Armida," is printed in the Covent-Garden Drollery, 1672, p. 16. where there is an exculpatory answer by the Lady, but of little merit.

Farewell, fair Armida, my joy and my grief!

In vain I have loved you, and hope no relief;

Undone by your virtue, too strict and severe,

Your eyes gave me love, and you gave me despair:

Now called by my honour, I seek with content

The fate which in pity you would not prevent:

To languish in love were to find, by delay,

A death that's more welcome the speediest way.

On seas and in battles, in bullets and fire,

The danger is less than in hopeless desire;

My death's wound you give me, though far off I bear

My fall from your sight—not to cost you a tear;

But if the kind flood on a wave should convey,

And under your window my body should lay,

The wound on my breast when you happen to see,

You'll say with a sigh—it was given by me.

THE
FAIR STRANGER,

A SONG.

These verses are addressed to Louise de la Querouailles. That lady came to England with the Duchess of Orleans, when she visited her brother Charles II. in 1670. The beauty of this fair stranger made the intended impression on Charles; he detained her in England, and created her Duchess of Portsmouth. Notwithstanding the detestation in which she was held by his subjects, on account of her religion, country, and politics, she continued to be Charles's principal favourite till the very hour of his death, when he recommended her and her son to his successor's protection.

I.

H  appy and free, securely blest,

No beauty could disturb my rest;

My amorous heart was in despair

To find a new victorious fair:

II.

Till you, descending on our plains,

With foreign force renew my chains;

Where now you rule without controul,

The mighty sovereign of my soul.

III.

Your smiles have more of conquering charms,

Than all your native country's arms;

Their troops we can expel with ease,

Who vanquish only when we please.

IV.

But in your eyes, O! there's the spell!

Who can see them, and not rebel?

You make us captives by your stay;

Yet kill us if you go away.

A SONG FOR ST CECILIA'S DAY.

St Cecilia was, according to her legend, a Roman virgin of rank, who flourished during the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. She was a Christian, and, by her purity of life, and constant employment in the praises of her Maker, while yet on earth, obtained intercourse with an angel. Being married to Valerianus, a Pagan, she not only prevailed upon him to abstain from using any familiarity with her person, but converted him and his brother to Christianity. They were all martyrs for the faith in the reign of Septimius Severus. Chaucer has celebrated this legend in the "Second Nonne's Tale," which is almost a literal translation from the "Golden Legend" of Jacobus Januensis. As all professions and fraternities, in ancient times, made choice of a tutelar saint, Cecilia was elected the protectress of music and musicians. It was even believed that she had invented the organ, although no good authority can be discovered for such an assertion. Her festival was celebrated from an early period by those of the profession over whom she presided.

The revival of letters, with the Restoration, was attended with a similar resuscitation of the musical art; but the formation of a Musical Society, for the annual commemoration of St Cecilia's day, did not take place until 1680. An ode, written for the occasion, was set to music by the most able professor, and rehearsed before the society and their stewards upon the 22d November, the day dedicated to the patroness. The first effusions of this kind are miserable enough. Mr Malone has preserved a few verses of an ode, by an anonymous author, in 1633; that of 1684 was furnished by Oldham, whom our author has commemorated by an elegy; that of 1685 was written by Nahum Tate, and is given by Mr Malone, Vol. I. p. 274. There was no performance in 1686; and, in 1687, Dryden furnished the following ode, which was set to music by Draghi, an eminent Italian composer. Of the annual festival, Motteux gives the following account:

"The 22d of November, being St Cecilia's day, is observed throughout all Europe by the lovers of music. In Italy, Germany, France, and other countries, prizes are distributed on that day, in some of the most considerable towns, to such as make the best anthem in her praise.... On that day, or the next when it falls on a Sunday, ... most of the lovers of music, whereof many are persons of the first rank, meet at Stationers' Hall in London, not through a principle of superstition, but to propagate the advancement of that divine science. A splendid entertainment is provided, and before it is always a performance of music, by the best voices and hands in town: the words, which are always in the patronesses praise, are set by some of the greatest masters. This year [1691] Dr John Blow, that famous musician, composed the music; and Mr D'Urfey, whose skill in things of that nature is well known, made the words. Six stewards are chosen for each ensuing year; four of which are either persons of quality or gentlemen of note, and the two last either gentlemen of their majesties music, or some of the chief masters in town.... This feast is one of the genteelest in the world; there are no formalities nor gatherings as at others, and the appearance there is always very splendid. Whilst the company is at table, the hautboys and trumpets play successively."

The merit of the following Ode has been so completely lost in that of "Alexander's Feast," that few readers give themselves even the trouble of attending to it. Yet the first stanza has exquisite merit; and although the power of music is announced, in those which follow, in a manner more abstracted and general, and, therefore, less striking than when its influence upon Alexander and his chiefs is placed before our eyes, it is perhaps only our intimate acquaintance with the second ode that leads us to undervalue the first, although containing the original ideas, so exquisitely brought out and embodied in "Alexander's Feast."

A

SONG

FOR

ST CECILIA'S DAY,

22d NOVEMBER, 1687.

I.

F rom harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began:

When nature underneath a heap

Of jarring atoms lay,

And could not heave her head,

The tuneful voice was heard from high,

"Arise, ye more than dead."

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,

In order to their stations leap,

And Music's power obey.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began;

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,

The diapason[96] closing full in man.

II.

What passion cannot music raise and quell?

When Jubal struck the chorded shell,

His listening brethren stood around,

And, wondering, on their faces fell

To worship that celestial sound:

Less than a God they thought there could not dwell

Within the hollow of that shell,

That spoke so sweetly, and so well.

What passion cannot music raise and quell?

III.

The trumpet's loud clangor

Excites us to arms,

With shrill notes of anger,

And mortal alarms.

The double, double, double beat

Of the thundering drum,

Cries, hark! the foes come:

Charge, charge! 'tis too late to retreat.

IV.

The soft complaining flute,

In dying notes, discovers

The woes of hopeless lovers;

Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.

V.

Sharp violins proclaim

Their jealous pangs, and desperation,

Fury, frantic indignation,

Depth of pains, and height of passion,

For the fair, disdainful dame.

VI.

But, oh! what art can teach,

What human voice can reach,

The sacred organ's praise?

Notes inspiring holy love,

Notes that wing their heavenly ways

To mend the choirs above.

VII.

Orpheus could lead the savage race;

And trees uprooted left their place,

Sequacious of the lyre:

But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher;

When to her organ[97] vocal breath was given,

An angel heard, and straight appeared,

Mistaking earth for heaven.

GRAND CHORUS.

As from the power of sacred lays

The spheres began to move,

And sung the great Creator's praise

To all the blessed above;

So when the last and dreadful hour

This crumbling pageant shall devour,

The trumpet shall be heard on high,

The dead shall live, the living die,

And Music shall untune the sky.

THE
TEARS OF AMYNTA,

FOR THE

DEATH OF DAMON.

A SONG.

I.

O n a bank, beside a willow,

Heaven her covering, earth her pillow,

Sad Amynta sighed alone;

From the cheerless dawn of morning

Till the dews of night returning,

Singing thus, she made her moan:

Hope is banished,

Joys are vanished,

Damon, my beloved, is gone!

II.

Time, I dare thee to discover

Such a youth, and such a lover;

Oh, so true, so kind was he!

Damon was the pride of nature,

Charming in his every feature;

Damon lived alone for me:

Melting kisses,

Murmuring blisses;

Who so lived and loved as we!

III.

Never shall we curse the morning,

Never bless the night returning,

Sweet embraces to restore:

Never shall we both lie dying,

Nature failing, love supplying

All the joys he drained before.

Death, come end me,

To befriend me;

Love and Damon are no more.

A SONG.

I.

Sylvia, the fair, in the bloom of fifteen,

Felt an innocent warmth as she lay on the green;

She had heard of a pleasure, and something she guest

By the towzing, and tumbling, and touching her breast.

She saw the men eager, but was at a loss,

What they meant by their sighing, and kissing so close;

By their praying and whining,

And clasping and twining,

And panting and wishing,

And sighing and kissing,

And sighing and kissing so close.

II.

Ah! she cried, ah, for a languishing maid,

In a country of Christians, to die without aid!

Not a Whig, or a Tory, or Trimmer at least,

Or a Protestant parson, or Catholic priest,

To instruct a young virgin, that is at a loss,

What they meant by their sighing, and kissing so close!

By their praying and whining,

And clasping and twining,

And panting and wishing,

And sighing and kissing,

And sighing and kissing so close.

III.

Cupid, in shape of a swain, did appear,

He saw the sad wound, and in pity drew near;

Then showed her his arrow, and bid her not fear,

For the pain was no more than a maiden may bear.

When the balm was infused, she was not at a loss,

What they meant by their sighing, and kissing so close;

By their praying and whining,

And clasping and twining,

And panting and wishing,

And sighing and kissing,

And sighing and kissing so close.

THE
LADY'S SONG.

The obvious application of this song is to the banishment of King James, and his beautiful consort Mary of Este.

I.

A  choir of bright beauties in spring did appear,

To chuse a May-lady to govern the year:

All the nymphs were in white, and the shepherds in green,

The garland was given, and Phyllis was queen;

But Phyllis refused it, and sighing did say,

I'll not wear a garland while Pan is away.

II.

While Pan and fair Syrinx are fled from our shore,

The Graces are banished, and Love is no more;

The soft god of pleasure, that warmed our desires,

Has broken his bow, and extinguished his fires,

And vows that himself and his mother will mourn,

Till Pan and fair Syrinx in triumph return.

III.

Forbear your addresses, and court us no more,

For we will perform what the deity swore:

But, if you dare think of deserving our charms,

Away with your sheep hooks, and take to your arms;

Then laurels and myrtles your brows shall adorn,

When Pan, and his son, and fair Syrinx, return.

A SONG.

I.

F air, sweet, and young, receive a prize

Reserved for your victorious eyes:

From crowds, whom at your feet you see,

O pity, and distinguish me!

As I from thousand beauties more

Distinguish you, and only you adore.

II.

Your face for conquest was designed,

Your every motion charms my mind;

Angels, when you your silence break,

Forget their hymns, to hear you speak;

But when at once they hear and view,

Are loath to mount, and long to stay with you.

III.

No graces can your form improve,

But all are lost, unless you love;

While that sweet passion you disdain,

Your veil and beauty are in vain:

In pity then prevent my fate,

For after dying all reprieve's too late.

A SONG.

H  igh state and honours to others impart,

But give me your heart;

That treasure, that treasure alone,

I beg for my own.

So gentle a love, so fervent a fire,

My soul does inspire;

That treasure, that treasure alone,

I beg for my own.

Your love let me crave;

Give me in possessing

So matchless a blessing;

That empire is all I would have.

Love's my petition,

All my ambition;

If e'er you discover

So faithful a lover,

So real a flame,

I'll die, I'll die,

So give up my game.

RONDELAY.

I.

C  hloe found Amyntas lying,

All in tears, upon the plain,

Sighing to himself, and crying,

Wretched I, to love in vain!

Kiss me, dear, before my dying;

Kiss me once, and ease my pain.

II.

Sighing to himself, and crying,

Wretched I, to love in vain!

Ever scorning, and denying

To reward your faithful swain.

Kiss me, dear, before my dying;

Kiss me once, and ease my pain.

III.

Ever scorning, and denying

To reward your faithful swain.—

Chloe, laughing at his crying,

Told him, that he loved in vain.

Kiss me, dear, before my dying;

Kiss me once, and ease my pain,

IV.

Chloe, laughing at his crying,

Told him, that he loved in vain;

But, repenting, and complying,

When he kissed, she kissed again:

Kissed him up before his dying;

Kissed him up, and eased his pain.

A SONG.

I.

G  o tell Amynta, gentle swain,

I would not die, nor dare complain:

Thy tuneful voice with numbers join,

Thy words will more prevail than mine.

To souls oppressed, and dumb with grief,

The gods ordain this kind relief,

That music should in sounds convey,

What dying lovers dare not say.

II.

A sigh or tear, perhaps, she'll give,

But love on pity cannot live.

Tell her that hearts for hearts were made,

And love with love is only paid.

Tell her my pains so fast increase,

That soon they will be past redress;

But, ah! the wretch that speechless lies,

Attends but death to close his eyes.

A SONG
TO A
FAIR YOUNG LADY,

GOING OUT OF THE TOWN IN THE SPRING.

I.

A sk not the cause, why sullen spring

So long delays her flowers to bear?

Why warbling birds forget to sing,

And winter storms invert the year?

Chloris is gone, and fate provides

To make it spring where she resides.

II.

Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;

She cast not back a pitying eye;

But left her lover in despair,

To sigh, to languish, and to die.

Ah, how can those fair eyes endure,

To give the wounds they will not cure!

III.

Great god of love, why hast thou made

A face that can all hearts command,

That all religions can invade,

And change the laws of every land?

Where thou hadst placed such power before,

Thou shouldst have made her mercy more.

IV.

When Chloris to the temple comes,

Adoring crowds before her fall;

She can restore the dead from tombs,

And every life but mine recal.

I only am, by love, designed

To be the victim for mankind.

ALEXANDER'S FEAST,

OR

THE POWER OF MUSIC;

AN ODE IN HONOUR OF ST CECILIA'S DAY.

This celebrated Ode was written for the Saint's Festival in 1697, when the following stewards officiated: Hugh Colvill, Esq.; Capt. Thomas Newman; Orlando Bridgeman, Esq.; Theophilus Buller, Esq.; Leonard Wessell, Esq.; Paris Slaughter, Esq.; Jeremiah Clarke, Gent.; and Francis Rich, Gent. The merits of this unequalled effusion of lyrical poetry, are fully discussed in the general criticism.

I.

'T  was at the royal feast, for Persia won

By Philip's warlike son:

Aloft, in awful state,

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne.

His valiant peers were placed around;

Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:

(So should desert in arms be crowned.)

The lovely Thais, by his side,

Sate like a blooming eastern bride,

In flower of youth and beauty's pride.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

CHORUS.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

II.

Timotheus, placed on high

Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touched the lyre:

The trembling notes ascend the sky,

And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove,

Who left his blissful seats above,

(Such is the power of mighty love.)

A dragon's fiery form belied the god;

Sublime on radiant spheres he rode,

When he to fair Olympia pressed,

And while he sought her snowy breast;

Then, round her slender waist he curled,

And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.—

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,

A present deity! they shout around;

A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound.

With ravished ears,

The monarch hears;

Assumes the god,

Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

CHORUS.

With ravished ears,

The monarch hears;

Assumes the god,

Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

III.

The praise of Bacchus, then, the sweet musician sung;

Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.

The jolly god in triumph comes;

Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;

Flushed with a purple grace

He shews his honest face:

Now, give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.

Bacchus, ever fair and young,

Drinking joys did first ordain;

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,

Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

CHORUS.

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,

Drinking is the soldiers pleasure;

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

IV.

Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain:

Fought all his battles o'er again;

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.—

The master saw the madness rise,

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;

And, while he heaven and earth defied,

Changed his hand, and checked his pride.

He chose a mournful muse,

Soft pity to infuse;

He sung Darius great and good,

By too severe a fate,

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,

Fallen from his high estate,

And weltering in his blood:

Deserted, at his utmost need,

By those his former bounty fed;

On the bare earth exposed he lies,

With not a friend to close his eyes.

With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,

Revolving, in his altered soul,

The various turns of chance below;

And, now and then, a sigh he stole,

And tears began to flow.

CHORUS.

Revolving, in his altered soul,

The various turns of chance below;

And, now and then, a sigh he stole,

And tears began to flow.

V.

The mighty master smiled, to see

That love was in the next degree;

'Twas but a kindred-sound to move,

For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,

Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures:

War, he sung, is toil and trouble;

Honour, but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,

Fighting still, and still destroying:

If the world be worth thy winning,

Think, O think it worth enjoying;

Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee—

The many rend the skies with loud applause;

So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.

The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair,

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,

Sighed and looked, and sighed again;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,

The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

CHORUS.

The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair,

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,

Sighed and looked, and sighed again;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,

The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

VI.

Now strike the golden lyre again;

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.

Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.

Hark, hark! the horrid sound

Has raised up his head;

As awaked from the dead,

And amazed, he stares around.

Revenge, revenge! Timotheus cries,

See the furies arise;

See the snakes, that they rear,

How they hiss in their hair,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,

And, unburied, remain

Inglorious on the plain:

Give the vengeance due

To the valiant crew.

Behold how they toss their torches on high,

How they point to the Persian abodes,

And glittering temples of their hostile gods.—

The princes applaud, with a furious joy,

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;

Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

CHORUS.

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;

Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

VII.

Thus, long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,

While organs yet were mute,

Timotheus, to his breathing flute,

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.

At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,

Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.

Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;

He raised a mortal to the skies,

She drew an angel down.

GRAND CHORUS.

At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,

Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.

Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;

He raised a mortal to the skies,

She drew an angel down.

VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS,

PARAPHRASED.

C  reator spirit, by whose aid

The world's foundations first were laid,

Come visit every pious mind;

Come pour thy joys on human kind;

From sin and sorrow set us free,

And make thy temples worthy thee.

O source of uncreated light,

The Father's promised Paraclete!

Thrice holy fount, thrice holy fire,

Our hearts with heavenly love inspire;

Come, and thy sacred unction bring

To sanctify us, while we sing.

Plenteous of grace, descend from high,

Rich in thy seven-fold energy!

Thou strength of his Almighty hand,

Whose power does heaven and earth command.

}

{  Proceeding spirit, our defence,

{  Who do'st the gifts of tongues dispense,

{  And crown'st thy gift with eloquence.

Refine and purge our earthly parts;

But, O, inflame and fire our hearts!

Our frailties help, our vice controul,

Submit the senses to the soul;

And, when rebellious they are grown,

Then lay thy hand, and hold them down.

Chace from our minds the infernal foe;

And peace, the fruit of love, bestow;

And, lest our feet should step astray,

Protect and guide us in the way.

Make us eternal truths receive,

And practise all that we believe;

Give us thyself, that we may see

The Father, and the Son, by thee.

Immortal honour, endless fame,

Attend the Almighty Father's name;

The Saviour Son be glorified,

Who for lost man's redemption died;

And equal adoration be,

Eternal Paraclete, to thee.

FABLES.

TALES FROM CHAUCER.

TO

HIS GRACE

THE

DUKE OF ORMOND.[98]

Anno 1699.

my lord,

S ome estates are held, in England, by paying a fine at the change of every lord. I have enjoyed the patronage of your family, from the time of your excellent grandfather to this present day. I have dedicated the translations of the "Lives of Plutarch" to the first duke;[99] and have celebrated the memory of your heroic father.[100] Though I am very short of the age of Nestor, yet I have lived to a third generation of your house; and, by your grace's favour, am admitted still to hold from you by the same tenure.

I am not vain enough to boast, that I have deserved the value of so illustrious a line; but my fortune is the greater, that, for three descents, they have been pleased to distinguish my poems from those of other men, and have accordingly made me their peculiar care. May it be permitted me to say, that as your grandfather and father were cherished and adorned with honours by two successive monarchs, so I have been esteemed and patronized by the grandfather, the father, and the son, descended from one of the most ancient, most conspicuous, and most deserving families in Europe.

It is true, that by delaying the payment of my last fine, when it was due by your grace's accession to the titles and patrimonies of your house, I may seem, in rigour of law, to have made a forfeiture of my claim; yet my heart has always been devoted to your service; and since you have been graciously pleased, by your permission of this address, to accept the tender of my duty, it is not yet too late to lay these poems at your feet.

The world is sensible, that you worthily succeed not only to the honours of your ancestors, but also to their virtues. The long chain of magnanimity, courage, easiness of access, and desire of doing good, even to the prejudice of your fortune, is so far from being broken in your grace, that the precious metal yet runs pure to the newest link of it; which I will not call the last, because I hope and pray it may descend to late posterity; and your flourishing youth, and that of your excellent duchess, are happy omens of my wish.

It is observed by Livy, and by others, that some of the noblest Roman families retained a resemblance of their ancestry, not only in their shapes and features, but also in their manners, their qualities, and the distinguishing characters of their minds. Some lines were noted for a stern, rigid virtue; savage, haughty, parsimonious, and unpopular; others were more sweet and affable, made of a more pliant paste, humble, courteous, and obliging; studious of doing charitable offices, and diffusive of the goods which they enjoyed. The last of these is the proper and indelible character of your grace's family. God Almighty has endued you with a softness, a beneficence, an attractive behaviour winning on the hearts of others, and so sensible of their misery, that the wounds of fortune seem not inflicted on them, but on yourself.[101] You are so ready to redress, that you almost prevent their wishes, and always exceed their expectations; as if what was yours was not your own, and not given you to possess, but to bestow on wanting merit. But this is a topic which I must cast in shades, lest I offend your modesty; which is so far from being ostentatious of the good you do, that it blushes even to have it known; and, therefore, I must leave you to the satisfaction and testimony of your own conscience, which, though it be a silent panegyric, is yet the best.

You are so easy of access, that Poplicola[102] was not more, whose doors were opened on the outside to save the people even the common civility of asking entrance; where all were equally admitted; where nothing that was reasonable was denied; where misfortune was a powerful recommendation; and where, I can scarce forbear saying, that want itself was a powerful mediator, and was next to merit.

The history of Peru assures us, that their Incas, above all their titles, esteemed that the highest, which called them lovers of the poor;—a name more glorious than the Felix, Pius, and Augustus, of the Roman emperors, which were epithets of flattery, deserved by few of them; and not running in a blood like the perpetual gentleness, and inherent goodness, of the Ormond family.

Gold, as it is the purest, so it is the softest and most ductile of all metals. Iron, which is the hardest, gathers rust, corrodes itself, and is, therefore, subject to corruption. It was never intended for coins and medals, or to bear the faces and inscriptions of the great. Indeed, it is fit for armour, to bear off insults, and preserve the wearer in the day of battle; but, the danger once repelled, it is laid aside by the brave, as a garment too rough for civil conversation; a necessary guard in war, but too harsh and cumbersome in peace, and which keeps off the embraces of a more humane life.

For this reason, my lord, though you have courage in an heroical degree, yet I ascribe it to you but as your second attribute: mercy, beneficence, and compassion, claim precedence, as they are first in the divine nature. An intrepid courage, which is inherent in your grace, is at best but a holiday-kind of virtue, to be seldom exercised, and never but in cases of necessity; affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word, which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue, I mean good-nature, are of daily use. They are the bread of mankind, and staff of life. Neither sighs, nor tears, nor groans, nor curses of the vanquished, follow acts of compassion and of charity; but a sincere pleasure, and serenity of mind, in him who performs an action of mercy, which cannot suffer the misfortunes of another without redress, lest they should bring a kind of contagion along with them, and pollute the happiness which he enjoys.

Yet since the perverse tempers of mankind, since oppression on one side, and ambition on the other, are sometimes the unavoidable occasions of war, that courage, that magnanimity, and resolution, which is born with you, cannot be too much commended: And here it grieves me that I am scanted in the pleasure of dwelling on many of your actions; but αἰδέομαι Τρῶας is an expression which Tully often uses, when he would do what he dares not, and fears the censure of the Romans.

I have sometimes been forced to amplify on others; but here, where the subject is so fruitful, that the harvest overcomes the reaper, I am shortened by my chain, and can only see what is forbidden me to reach; since it is not permitted me to commend you according to the extent of my wishes, and much less is it in my power to make my commendations equal to your merits.

Yet, in this frugality of your praises, there are some things which I cannot omit, without detracting from your character. You have so formed your own education, as enables you to pay the debt you owe your country, or, more properly speaking, both your countries; because you were born, I may almost say, in purple, at the castle of Dublin, when your grandfather was lord-lieutenant, and have since been bred in the court of England.

If this address had been in verse, I might have called you, as Claudian calls Mercury, Numen commune, gemino faciens commercia mundo. The better to satisfy this double obligation, you have early cultivated the genius you have to arms, that when the service of Britain or Ireland shall require your courage and your conduct, you may exert them both to the benefit of either country. You began in the cabinet what you afterwards practised in the camp; and thus both Lucullus and Cæsar (to omit a crowd of shining Romans) formed themselves to the war, by the study of history, and by the examples of the greatest captains, both of Greece and Italy, before their time. I name those two commanders in particular, because they were better read in chronicle than any of the Roman leaders; and that Lucullus, in particular, having only the theory of war from books, was thought fit, without practice, to be sent into the field, against the most formidable enemy of Rome. Tully, indeed, was called the learned consul in derision; but then he was not born a soldier; his head was turned another way: when he read the tactics, he was thinking on the bar, which was his field of battle. The knowledge of warfare is thrown away on a general, who dares not make use of what he knows. I commend it only in a man of courage and resolution; in him it will direct his martial spirit, and teach him the way to the best victories, which are those that are least bloody, and which, though achieved by the hand, are managed by the head. Science distinguishes a man of honour from one of those athletic brutes whom, undeservedly, we call heroes. Cursed be the poet, who first honoured with that name a mere Ajax, a man-killing idiot! The Ulysses of Ovid upbraids his ignorance, that he understood not the shield for which he pleaded; there was engraven on it plans of cities, and maps of countries, which Ajax could not comprehend, but looked on them as stupidly as his fellow-beast, the lion. But, on the other side, your grace has given yourself the education of his rival; you have studied every spot of ground in Flanders, which, for these ten years past, has been the scene of battles, and of sieges. No wonder if you performed your part with such applause, on a theatre which you understood so well.

If I designed this for a poetical encomium, it were easy to enlarge on so copious a subject; but, confining myself to the severity of truth, and to what is becoming me to say, I must not only pass over many instances of your military skill, but also those of your assiduous diligence in the war, and of your personal bravery, attended with an ardent thirst of honour; a long train of generosity; profuseness of doing good; a soul unsatisfied with all it has done, and an unextinguished desire of doing more. But all this is matter for your own historians; I am, as Virgil says, Spatiis exclusus iniquis.

Yet, not to be wholly silent of all your charities, I must stay a little on one action, which preferred the relief of others to the consideration of yourself. When, in the battle of Landen, your heat of courage (a fault only pardonable to your youth) had transported you so far before your friends, that they were unable to follow, much less to succour you; when you were not only dangerously, but, in all appearance, mortally wounded; when in that desperate condition you were made prisoner, and carried to Namur, at that time in possession of the French;[103] then it was, my lord, that you took a considerable part of what was remitted to you of your own revenues, and, as a memorable instance of your heroic charity, put it into the hands of Count Guiscard, who was governor of the place, to be distributed among your fellow-prisoners. The French commander, charmed with the greatness of your soul, accordingly consigned it to the use for which it was intended by the donor; by which means the lives of so many miserable men were saved, and a comfortable provision made for their subsistence, who had otherwise perished, had you not been the companion of their misfortune; or rather sent by Providence, like another Joseph, to keep out famine from invading those, whom, in humility, you called your brethren. How happy was it for those poor creatures, that your grace was made their fellow-sufferer? And how glorious for you, that you chose to want, rather than not relieve the wants of others? The heathen poet, in commending the charity of Dido to the Trojans, spoke like a Christian:

on ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.

All men, even those of a different interest, and contrary principles, must praise this action as the most eminent for piety, not only in this degenerate age, but almost in any of the former; when men were made de meliore luto; when examples of charity were frequent, and when there were in being,

————Teucri pulcherrima proles,

Magnanimi heroes, nati melioribus annis.

No envy can detract from this; it will shine in history, and, like swans, grow whiter the longer it endures; and the name of Ormond will be more celebrated in his captivity, than in his greatest triumphs.

But all actions of your grace are of a piece, as waters keep the tenor of their fountains: your compassion is general, and has the same effect as well on enemies as friends. It is so much in your nature to do good, that your life is but one continued act of placing benefits on many; as the sun is always carrying his light to some part or other of the world. And were it not that your reason guides you where to give, I might almost say, that you could not help bestowing more than is consisting with the fortune of a private man, or with the will of any but an Alexander.

What wonder is it then, that, being born for a blessing to mankind, your supposed death in that engagement was so generally lamented through the nation? The concernment for it was as universal as the loss; and though the gratitude might be counterfeit in some, yet the tears of all were real: where every man deplored his private part in that calamity, and even those who had not tasted of your favours, yet built so much on the fame of your beneficence, that they bemoaned the loss of their expectations.

This brought the untimely death of your great father into fresh remembrance,—as if the same decree had passed on two short successive generations of the virtuous; and I repeated to myself the same verses which I had formerly applied to him:

Ostendunt terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra

Esse sinent.

But, to the joy not only of all good men, but mankind in general, the unhappy omen took not place. You are still living, to enjoy the blessings and applause of all the good you have performed, the prayers of multitudes whom you have obliged, for your long prosperity, and that your power of doing generous and charitable actions may be as extended as your will; which is by none more zealously desired than by

Your Grace's most humble,

Most obliged, and

Most obedient servant,

John Dryden.

PREFACE
PREFIXED TO
THE FABLES.

It is with a poet, as with a man who designs to build, and is very exact, as he supposes, in casting up the cost beforehand; but, generally speaking, he is mistaken in his account, and reckons short in the expence he first intended. He alters his mind as the work proceeds, and will have this or that convenience more, of which he had not thought when he began. So has it happened to me; I have built a house, where I intended but a lodge; yet with better success than a certain nobleman, who, beginning with a dog-kennel, never lived to finish the palace he had contrived.[104]

From translating the First of Homer's "Iliads," (which I intended as an essay to the whole work,) I proceeded to the translation of the Twelfth Book of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," because it contains, among other things, the causes, the beginning, and ending, of the Trojan war. Here I ought in reason to have stopped; but the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses lying next in my way, I could not balk them. When I had compassed them, I was so taken with the former part of the Fifteenth Book, which is the masterpiece of the whole "Metamorphoses," that I enjoined myself the pleasing task of rendering it into English. And now I found, by the number of my verses, that they began to swell into a little volume; which gave me an occasion of looking backward on some beauties of my author, in his former books: There occurred to me the "Hunting of the Boar," "Cinyras and Myrrha," the good-natured story of "Baucis and Philemon," with the rest, which I hope I have translated closely enough, and given them the same turn of verse which they had in the original;[105] and this I may say, without vanity, is not the talent of every poet. He who has arrived the nearest to it, is the ingenious and learned Sandys, the best versifier of the former age; if I may properly call it by that name, which was the former part of this concluding century. For Spenser and Fairfax both flourished in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; great masters in our language, and who saw much farther into the beauties of our numbers, than those who immediately followed them. Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, and Mr Waller of Fairfax; for we have our lineal descents and clans as well as other families. Spenser more than once insinuates, that the soul of Chaucer was transfused into his body;[106] and that he was begotten by him two hundred years after his decease. Milton has acknowledged to me, that Spenser was his original; and many besides myself have heard our famous Waller own, that he derived the harmony of his numbers from "Godfrey of Bulloigne," which was turned into English by Mr Fairfax.[107]

But to return. Having done with Ovid for this time, it came into my mind, that our old English poet, Chaucer, in many things resembled him, and that with no disadvantage on the side of the modern author, as I shall endeavour to prove when I compare them; and as I am, and always have been, studious to promote the honour of my native country, so I soon resolved to put their merits to the trial, by turning some of the "Canterbury Tales" into our language, as it is now refined; for by this means, both the poets being set in the same light, and dressed in the same English habit, story to be compared with story, a certain judgment may be made betwixt them by the reader, without obtruding my opinion on him. Or, if I seem partial to my countryman and predecessor in the laurel, the friends of antiquity are not few; and, besides many of the learned, Ovid has almost all the beaux, and the whole fair sex, his declared patrons. Perhaps I have assumed somewhat more to myself than they allow me, because I have adventured to sum up the evidence; but the readers are the jury, and their privilege remains entire, to decide according to the merits of the cause; or, if they please, to bring it to another hearing before some other court. In the mean time, to follow the thread of my discourse, (as thoughts, according to Mr Hobbes, have always some connection,) so from Chaucer I was led to think on Boccace, who was not only his contemporary, but also pursued the same studies; wrote novels in prose, and many works in verse; particularly is said to have invented the octave rhyme, or stanza of eight lines, which ever since has been maintained by the practice of all Italian writers, who are, or at least assume the title of heroic poets. He and Chaucer, among other things, had this in common, that they refined their mother-tongues; but with this difference, that Dante had begun to file their language, at least in verse, before the time of Boccace, who likewise received no little help from his master Petrarch; but the reformation of their prose was wholly owing to Boccace himself, who is yet the standard of purity in the Italian tongue, though many of his phrases are become obsolete, as, in process of time, it must needs happen. Chaucer (as you have formerly been told by our learned Mr Rymer[108]) first adorned and amplified our barren tongue from the Provençal, which was then the most polished of all the modern languages; but this subject has been copiously treated by that great critic, who deserves no little commendation from us his countrymen. For these reasons of time, and resemblance of genius, in Chaucer and Boccace, I resolved to join them in my present work; to which I have added some original papers of my own, which, whether they are equal or inferior to my other poems, an author is the most improper judge; and therefore I leave them wholly to the mercy of the reader. I will hope the best, that they will not be condemned; but if they should, I have the excuse of an old gentleman, who, mounting on horseback before some ladies, when I was present, got up somewhat heavily, but desired of the fair spectators, that they would count fourscore and eight before they judged him. By the mercy of God, I am already come within twenty years of his number; a cripple in my limbs,—but what decays are in my mind the reader must determine. I think myself as vigorous as ever in the faculties of my soul, excepting only my memory, which is not impaired to any great degree; and if I lose not more of it, I have no great reason to complain. What judgment I had, increases rather than diminishes; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to chuse or to reject, to run them into verse, or to give them the other harmony of prose: I have so long studied and practised both, that they are grown into a habit, and become familiar to me. In short, though I may lawfully plead some part of the old gentleman's excuse, yet I will reserve it till I think I have greater need, and ask no grains of allowance for the faults of this my present work, but those which are given of course to human frailty. I will not trouble my reader with the shortness of time in which I writ it, or the several intervals of sickness. They who think too well of their own performances, are apt to boast in their prefaces how little time their works have cost them, and what other business of more importance interfered; but the reader will be as apt to ask the question, why they allowed not a longer time to make their works more perfect? and why they had so despicable an opinion of their judges, as to thrust their indigested stuff upon them, as if they deserved no better?

With this account of my present undertaking, I conclude the first part of this discourse: in the second part, as at a second sitting, though I alter not the draught, I must touch the same features over again, and change the dead-colouring of the whole. In general I will only say, that I have written nothing which savours of immorality or profaneness; at least, I am not conscious to myself of any such intention. If there happen to be found an irreverent expression, or a thought too wanton, they are crept into my verses through my inadvertency. If the searchers find any in the cargo, let them be staved or forfeited, like counterbanded goods; at least, let their authors be answerable for them, as being but imported merchandize, and not of my own manufacture. On the other side, I have endeavoured to chuse such fables, both ancient and modern, as contain in each of them some instructive moral; which I could prove by induction, but the way is tedious, and they leap foremost into sight, without the reader's trouble of looking after them. I wish I could affirm, with a safe conscience, that I had taken the same care in all my former writings; for it must be owned, that supposing verses are never so beautiful or pleasing, yet, if they contain any thing which shocks religion or good manners, they are at best what Horace says of good numbers without good sense, Versus inopes rerum, nugæque canoræ. Thus far, I hope, I am right in court, without renouncing to my other right of self-defence, where I have been wrongfully accused, and my sense wire-drawn into blasphemy, or bawdry, as it has often been by a religious lawyer,[109] in a late pleading against the stage; in which he mixes truth with falsehood, and has not forgotten the old rule of calumniating strongly, that something may remain.

I resume the thread of my discourse with the first of my translations, which was the first "Ilias" of Homer.[110] If it shall please God to give me longer life, and moderate health, my intentions are to translate the whole "Ilias;" provided still that I meet with those encouragements from the public, which may enable me to proceed in my undertaking with some cheerfulness. And this I dare assure the world beforehand, that I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil, though I say not the translation will be less laborious; for the Grecian is more according to my genius than the Latin poet. In the works of the two authors we may read their manners, and natural inclinations, which are wholly different. Virgil was of a quiet, sedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words: Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties, both of numbers and of expressions, which his language, and the age in which he lived, allowed him. Homer's invention was more copious, Virgil's more confined; so that if Homer had not led the way, it was not in Virgil to have begun heroic poetry; for nothing can be more evident, than that the Roman poem is but the second part of the "Ilias;" a continuation of the same story, and the persons already formed. The manners of Æneas are those of Hector, superadded to those which Homer gave him. The adventures of Ulysses in the "Odysses," are imitated in the first Six Books of Virgil's "Æneis;" and though the accidents are not the same, (which would have argued him of a servile copying, and total barrenness of invention,) yet the seas were the same in which both the heroes wandered; and Dido cannot be denied to be the poetical daughter of Calypso. The six latter Books of Virgil's poem are the four-and-twenty "Iliads" contracted; a quarrel occasioned by a lady, a single combat, battles fought, and a town besieged. I say not this in derogation to Virgil, neither do I contradict any thing which I have formerly said in his just praise; for his episodes are almost wholly of his own invention, and the form which he has given to the telling makes the tale his own, even though the original story had been the same. But this proves, however, that Homer taught Virgil to design; and if invention be the first virtue of an epic poet, then the Latin poem can only be allowed the second place. Mr Hobbes, in the preface to his own bald translation of the "Ilias," (studying poetry as he did mathematics, when it was too late,) Mr Hobbes,[111] I say, begins the praise of Homer where he should have ended it. He tells us, that the first beauty of an epic poem consists in diction; that is, in the choice of words, and harmony of numbers. Now the words are the colouring of the work, which, in the order of nature, is last to be considered; the design, the disposition, the manners, and the thoughts, are all before it: where any of those are wanting or imperfect, so much wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human life, which is in the very definition of a poem. Words, indeed, like glaring colours, are the first beauties that arise, and strike the sight; but, if the draught be false or lame, the figures ill disposed, the manners obscure or inconsistent, or the thoughts unnatural, then the finest colours are but daubing, and the piece is a beautiful monster at the best. Neither Virgil nor Homer were deficient in any of the former beauties; but in this last, which is expression, the Roman poet is at least equal to the Grecian, as I have said elsewhere: supplying the poverty of his language by his musical ear, and by his diligence.

But to return. Our two great poets being so different in their tempers, one choleric and sanguine, the other phlegmatic and melancholic; that which makes them excel in their several ways is, that each of them has followed his own natural inclination, as well in forming the design, as in the execution of it. The very heroes show their authors: Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful,

Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, &c.

Æneas patient, considerate, careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies; ever submissive to the will of heaven:

——quò fata trahunt retrahuntque, sequamur.

I could please myself with enlarging on this subject, but am forced to defer it to a fitter time. From all I have said, I will only draw this inference, that the action of Homer, being more full of vigour than that of Virgil, according to the temper of the writer, is of consequence more pleasing to the reader. One warms you by degrees; the other sets you on fire all at once, and never intermits his heat. It is the same difference which Longinus makes betwixt the effects of eloquence in Demosthenes and Tully; one persuades, the other commands. You never cool while you read Homer, even not in the Second Book (a graceful flattery to his countrymen); but he hastens from the ships, and concludes not that book till he has made you amends by the violent playing of a new machine. From thence he hurries on his action with variety of events, and ends it in less compass than two months. This vehemence of his, I confess, is more suitable to my temper; and, therefore, I have translated his First Book with greater pleasure than any part of Virgil; but it was not a pleasure without pains. The continual agitations of the spirits must needs be a weakening of any constitution, especially in age; and many pauses are required for refreshment betwixt the heats; the "Ilias," of itself, being a third part longer than all Virgil's works together.

This is what I thought needful in this place to say of Homer. I proceed to Ovid and Chaucer; considering the former only in relation to the latter. With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue; from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of the poets were not unlike. Both of them were well-bred, well-natured, amorous, and libertine, at least in their writings; it may be, also in their lives. Their studies were the same,—philosophy and philology. Both of them were knowing in astronomy; of which Ovid's "Books of the Roman Feasts," and Chaucer's "Treatise of the Astrolabe," are sufficient witnesses. But Chaucer was likewise an astrologer, as were Virgil, Horace, Persius, and Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and clearness; neither were great inventors: for Ovid only copied the Grecian fables, and most of Chaucer's stories were taken from his Italian contemporaries, or their predecessors. Boccace his "Decameron" was first published; and from thence our Englishman has borrowed many of his "Canterbury Tales." Yet that of "Palamon and Arcite" was written, in all probability, by some Italian wit, in a former age as I shall prove hereafter. The tale of "Grisilde" was the invention of Petrarch; by him sent to Boccace, from whom it came to Chaucer.[112] "Troilus and Cressida" was also written by a Lombard author,[113] but much amplified by our English translator, as well as beautified; the genius of our countrymen in general, being rather to improve an invention than to invent themselves, as is evident not only in our poetry, but in many of our manufactures.—I find I have anticipated already, and taken up from Boccace before I come to him: but there is so much less behind; and I am of the temper of most kings, who love to be in debt, are all for present money, no matter how they pay it afterwards: besides, the nature of a preface is rambling, never wholly out of the way, nor in it. This I have learned from the practice of honest Montaigne, and return at my pleasure to Ovid and Chaucer, of whom I have little more to say.

Both of them built on the inventions of other men; yet since Chaucer had something of his own, as "The Wife of Bath's Tale," "The Cock and the Fox,"[114] which I have translated, and some others, I may justly give our countryman the precedence in that part; since I can remember nothing of Ovid which was wholly his. Both of them understood the manners; under which name I comprehend the passions, and, in a larger sense, the descriptions of persons, and their very habits. For an example, I see Baucis and Philemon as perfectly before me, as if some ancient painter had drawn them; and all the Pilgrims in the "Canterbury Tales," their humours, their features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard[115] in Southwark. Yet even there, too, the figures of Chaucer are much more lively, and set in a better light; which though I have not time to prove, yet I appeal to the reader, and am sure he will clear me from partiality.—The thoughts and words remain to be considered, in the comparison of the two poets, and I have saved myself one half of that labour, by owning that Ovid lived when the Roman tongue was in its meridian; Chaucer, in the dawning of our language: therefore that part of the comparison stands not on an equal foot, any more than the diction of Ennius and Ovid, or of Chaucer and our present English. The words are given up, as a post not to be defended in our poet, because he wanted the modern art of fortifying. The thoughts remain to be considered; and they are to be measured only by their propriety; that is, as they flow more or less naturally from the persons described, on such and such occasions. The vulgar judges, which are nine parts in ten of all nations, who call conceits and jingles wit, who see Ovid full of them, and Chaucer altogether without them, will think me little less than mad for preferring the Englishman to the Roman. Yet, with their leave, I must presume to say, that the things they admire are only glittering trifles, and so far from being witty, that in a serious poem they are nauseous, because they are unnatural. Would any man, who is ready to die for love, describe his passion like Narcissus? Would he think of inopem me copia fecit, and a dozen more of such expressions, poured on the neck of one another, and signifying all the same thing? If this were wit, was this a time to be witty, when the poor wretch was in the agony of death? This is just John Littlewit, in "Bartholomew Fair," who had a conceit (as he tells you) left him in his misery; a miserable conceit. On these occasions the poet should endeavour to raise pity; but, instead of this, Ovid is tickling you to laugh. Virgil never made use of such machines when he was moving you to commiserate the death of Dido: he would not destroy what he was building. Chaucer makes Arcite violent in his love, and unjust in the pursuit of it; yet, when he came to die, he made him think more reasonably: he repents not of his love, for that had altered his character; but acknowledges the injustice of his proceedings, and resigns Emilia to Palamon. What would Ovid have done on this occasion? He would certainly have made Arcite witty on his death-bed;—he had complained he was farther off from possession, by being so near, and a thousand such boyisms, which Chaucer rejected as below the dignity of the subject. They who think otherwise, would, by the same reason, prefer Lucan and Ovid to Homer and Virgil, and Martial to all four of them. As for the turn of words, in which Ovid particularly excels all poets, they are sometimes a fault, and sometimes a beauty, as they are used properly or improperly; but in strong passions always to be shunned, because passions are serious, and will admit no playing. The French have a high value for them; and, I confess, they are often what they call delicate, when they are introduced with judgment; but Chaucer writ with more simplicity, and followed nature more closely than to use them.[116] I have thus far, to the best of my knowledge, been an upright judge betwixt the parties in competition, not meddling with the design nor the disposition of it; because the design was not their own; and in the disposing of it they were equal.—It remains that I say somewhat of Chaucer in particular.

In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense; learned in all sciences; and, therefore, speaks properly on all subjects. As he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off; a continence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets[117] is sunk in his reputation, because he could never forgive any conceit which came in his way; but swept, like a drag-net, great and small. There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill sorted; whole pyramids of sweet-meats for boys and women, but little of solid meat for men. All this proceeded not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment. Neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of other poets, but only indulged himself in the luxury of writing; and perhaps knew it was a fault, but hoped the reader would not find it. For this reason, though he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer esteemed a good writer; and for ten impressions, which his works have had in so many successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased once a twelvemonth; for, as my last Lord Rochester said, though somewhat profanely, "Not being of God, he could not stand."

Chaucer followed nature every where, but was never so bold to go beyond her; and there is a great difference of being poeta and nimis poeta, if we may believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest behaviour and affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us; but it is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends, it was auribus istius temporis accommodata. They who lived with him, and some time after him, thought it musical; and it continues so, even in our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lidgate and Gower, his contemporaries:—there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect. It is true, I cannot go so far as he[118] who published the last edition of him; for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine: but this opinion is not worth confuting; it is so gross and obvious an error, that common sense (which is a rule in every thing but matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader, that equality of numbers, in every verse which we call heroic, was either not known, or not always practised, in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise. We can only say, that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first. We must be children before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of time a Lucilius, and a Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace; even after Chaucer there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a Fairfax, before Waller and Denham were in being; and our numbers were in their nonage till these last appeared. I need say little of his parentage, life, and fortunes; they are to be found at large in all the editions of his Works. He was employed abroad, and favoured, by Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV., and was poet, as I suppose, to all three of them.[119] In Richard's time, I doubt, he was a little dipt in the rebellion of the Commons;[120] and being brother-in-law to John of Gaunt, it was no wonder if he followed the fortunes of that family; and was well with Henry IV. when he had deposed his predecessor. Neither is it to be admired, that Henry, who was a wise as well as a valiant prince, who claimed by succession, and was sensible that his title was not sound, but was rightfully in Mortimer, who had married the heir of York; it was not to be admired, I say, if that great politician should be pleased to have the greatest wit of those times in his interests, and to be the trumpet of his praises. Augustus had given him the example, by the advice of Mæcenas, who recommended Virgil and Horace to him; whose praises helped to make him popular while he was alive, and after his death have made him precious to posterity. As for the religion of our poet, he seems to have some little bias towards the opinions of Wickliffe, after John of Gaunt his patron; somewhat of which appears in the tale of "Pierce Plowman:"[121] yet I cannot blame him for inveighing so sharply against the vices of the clergy in his age: their pride, their ambition, their pomp, their avarice, their worldly interest, deserved the lashes which he gave them, both in that, and in most of his "Canterbury Tales." Neither has his contemporary Boccace spared them: Yet both those poets lived in much esteem with good and holy men in orders; for the scandal which is given by particular priests' reflects not on the sacred function. Chaucer's Monk, his Canon, and his Friar, took not from the character of his Good Parson. A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests. We are only to take care, that we involve not the innocent with the guilty in the same condemnation. The good cannot be too much honoured, nor the bad too coarsely used; for the corruption of the best becomes the worst. When a clergyman is whipped, his gown is first taken off, by which the dignity of his order is secured.[122] If he be wrongfully accused, he has his action of slander; and it is at the poet's peril if he transgress the law. But they will tell us, that all kind of satire, though never so well deserved by particular priests, yet brings the whole order into contempt. Is then the peerage of England any thing dishonoured when a peer suffers for his treason? If he be libelled, or any way defamed, he has his scandulum magnatum to punish the offender. They who use this kind of argument, seem to be conscious to themselves of somewhat which has deserved the poet's lash, and are less concerned for their public capacity than for their private; at least there is pride at the bottom of their reasoning. If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties; for, since they say the honour of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges? How far I may be allowed to speak my opinion in this case, I know not; but I am sure a dispute of this nature caused mischief in abundance betwixt a king of England and an archbishop of Canterbury;[123] one standing up for the laws of his land, and the other for the honour, as he called it, of God's church; which ended in the murder of the prelate, and in the whipping of his majesty from post to pillar for his penance. The learned and ingenious Dr Drake[124] has saved me the labour of enquiring into the esteem and reverence which the priests have had of old; and I would rather extend than diminish any part of it: yet I must needs say, that when a priest provokes me without any occasion given him, I have no reason, unless it be the charity of a Christian, to forgive him: prior læsit is justification sufficient in the civil law. If I answer him in his own language, self-defence, I am sure, must be allowed me; and if I carry it farther, even to a sharp recrimination, somewhat may be indulged to human frailty. Yet my resentment has not wrought so far, but that I have followed Chaucer in his character of a holy man, and have enlarged on that subject with some pleasure; reserving to myself the right, if I shall think fit hereafter, to describe another sort of priests, such as are more easily to be found than the Good Parson; such as have given the last blow to Christianity in this age, by a practice so contrary to their doctrine. But this will keep cold till another time. In the mean while, I take up Chaucer where I left him.

He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compass of his "Canterbury Tales" the various manners and humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation, in his age. Not a single character has escaped him. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished from each other; and not only in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies and persons. Baptista Porta[125] could not have described their natures better, than by the marks which the poet gives them. The matter and manner of their tales, and of their telling, are so suited to their different educations, humours, and callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity: their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearned, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learned. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different: the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook, are several men, and distinguished from each other as much as the mincing Lady-Prioress and the broad-speaking, gap-toothed,[126] Wife of Bath. But enough of this; there is such a variety of game springing up before me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow. It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our forefathers and great-grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days: their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of monks, and friars, and canons, and lady-abbesses, and nuns; for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though every thing is altered. May I have leave to do myself the justice, (since my enemies will do me none,[127] and are so far from granting me to be a good poet, that they will not allow me so much as to be a Christian, or a moral man,) may I have leave, I say, to inform my reader, that I have confined my choice to such tales of Chaucer as savour nothing of immodesty. If I had desired more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the Sumner, and, above all, the Wife of Bath, in the prologue to her tale, would have procured me as many friends and readers, as there are beaux and ladies of pleasure in the town. But I will no more offend against good manners. I am sensible, as I ought to be, of the scandal I have given by my loose writings; and make what reparation I am able, by this public acknowledgment. If any thing of this nature, or of profaneness, be crept into these poems, I am so far from defending it, that I disown it, totum hoc indictum volo. Chaucer makes another manner of apology for his broad speaking, and Boccace makes the like; but I will follow neither of them. Our countryman, in the end of his characters, before the "Canterbury Tales," thus excuses the ribaldry, which is very gross in many of his novels:

But firste, I praie you of your curtesie,

That ye ne arette it not my vilanie,

Though that I plainly speke in this matere,

To tellen you hir wordes, and hir chere:

Ne though I speke hir wordes proprely,

For this ye knowen al so well as I,

Who so shall telle a tale after a man,

He moste reherse as neighe as ever he can;

Everich word, if it be in his charge,

All speke he, never so rudely and so large:

Or elles he moste tellen his tale untrewe,

Or feinen thinges, or finden wordes newe:

He may not spare, although he were his brother,

He moste as wel sayn o word as an other.

Crist spake himself ful brode in holy writ,

And wel ye wote no vilanie is it,

Eke Plato sayeth, who so can him rede,

The wordes moste ben cosin to the dede.

Yet if a man should have inquired of Boccace or of Chaucer, what need they had of introducing such characters, where obscene words were proper in their mouths, but very indecent to be heard? I know not what answer they could have made; for that reason, such tale shall be left untold by me. You have here a specimen of Chaucer's language, which is so obsolete, that his sense is scarce to be understood; and you have likewise more than one example of his unequal numbers, which were mentioned before. Yet many of his verses consist of ten syllables, and the words not much behind our present English: as for example, these two lines, in the description of the carpenter's young wife:

Winsing she was, as is a jolly colt,

Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.

I have almost done with Chaucer, when I have answered some objections relating to my present work. I find some people are offended that I have turned these tales into modern English; because they think them unworthy of my pains, and look on Chaucer as a dry, old-fashioned wit, not worthy reviving. I have often heard the late Earl of Leicester[128] say, that Mr Cowley himself was of that opinion; who, having read him over at my lord's request, declared he had no taste of him. I dare not advance my opinion against the judgment of so great an author; but I think it fair, however, to leave the decision to the public. Mr Cowley was too modest to set up for a dictator; and being shocked perhaps with his old style, never examined into the depth of his good sense. Chaucer, I confess, is a rough diamond, and must first be polished, ere he shines. I deny not likewise, that, living in our early days of poetry, he writes not always of a piece; but sometimes mingles trivial things with those of greater moment. Sometimes also, though not often, he runs riot, like Ovid, and knows not when he has said enough. But there are more great wits beside Chaucer, whose fault is their excess of conceits, and those ill sorted. An author is not to write all he can, but only all he ought. Having observed this redundancy in Chaucer, (as it is an easy matter for a man of ordinary parts to find a fault in one of greater,) I have not tied myself to a literal translation; but have often omitted what I judged unnecessary, or not of dignity enough to appear in the company of better thoughts. I have presumed farther, in some places, and added somewhat of my own where I thought my author was deficient, and had not given his thoughts their true lustre, for want of words in the beginning of our language. And to this I was the more emboldened, because (if I may be permitted to say it of myself) I found I had a soul congenial to his, and that I had been conversant in the same studies. Another poet, in another age, may take the same liberty with my writings; if at least they live long enough to deserve correction. It was also necessary sometimes to restore the sense of Chaucer, which was lost or mangled in the errors of the press. Let this example suffice at present: in the story of Palamon and Arcite, where the temple of Diana is described, you find these verses, in all the editions of our author:

Ther saw I Dane yturned til a tree,

I mene not hire the goddesse Diane,

But Venus daughter, which that hight Dane.

which, after a little consideration, I knew was to be reformed into this sense,—that Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was turned into a tree.[129] I durst not make thus bold with Ovid, lest some future Milbourne should arise, and say, I varied from my author, because I understood him not.

But there are other judges, who think I ought not to have translated Chaucer into English, out of a quite contrary notion: they suppose there is a certain veneration due to his old language; and that it is little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are farther of opinion, that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in this transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. Of this opinion was that excellent person, whom I mentioned, the late Earl of Leicester, who valued Chaucer as much as Mr Cowley despised him. My lord dissuaded me from this attempt, (for I was thinking of it some years before his death,) and his authority prevailed so far with me, as to defer my undertaking while he lived, in deference to him: yet my reason was not convinced with what he urged against it. If the first end of a writer be to be understood, then, as his language grows obsolete, his thoughts must grow obscure:

Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere; cadentque

Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,

Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.

When an ancient word, for its sound and significancy, deserves to be revived, I have that reasonable veneration for antiquity to restore it. All beyond this is superstition. Words are not like landmarks, so sacred as never to be removed; customs are changed, and even statutes are silently repealed, when the reason ceases for which they were enacted. As for the other part of the argument,—that his thoughts will lose of their original beauty by the innovation of words,—in the first place, not only their beauty, but their being is lost, where they are no longer understood, which is the present case. I grant that something must be lost in all transfusion, that is, in all translations; but the sense will remain, which would otherwise be lost, or at least be maimed, when it is scarce intelligible, and that but to a few. How few are there, who can read Chaucer, so as to understand him perfectly? And if imperfectly, then with less profit, and no pleasure. It is not for the use of some old Saxon friends, that I have taken these pains with him: let them neglect my version, because they have no need of it. I made it for their sakes, who understand sense and poetry as well as they, when that poetry and sense is put into words which they understand. I will go farther, and dare to add, that what beauties I lose in some places, I give to others which had them not originally: but in this I may be partial to myself; let the reader judge, and I submit to his decision. Yet I think I have just occasion to complain of them, who, because they understand Chaucer, would deprive the greater part of their countrymen of the same advantage, and hoard him up, as misers do their grandam gold, only to look on it themselves, and hinder others from making use of it. In sum, I seriously protest, that no man ever had, or can have, a greater veneration for Chaucer than myself. I have translated some part of his works, only that I might perpetuate his memory, or at least refresh it, amongst my countrymen. If I have altered him any where for the better, I must at the same time acknowledge, that I could have done nothing without him. Facile est inventis addere is no great commendation; and I am not so vain to think I have deserved a greater. I will conclude what I have to say of him singly, with this one remark: A lady of my acquaintance, who keeps a kind of correspondence with some authors of the fair sex in France, has been informed by them, that Mademoiselle de Scuderi, who is as old as Sibyl, and inspired like her by the same god of poetry, is at this time translating Chaucer into modern French.[130] From which I gather, that he has been formerly translated into the old Provençal; for how she should come to understand old English, I know not. But the matter of fact being true, it makes me think that there is something in it like fatality; that, after certain periods of time, the fame and memory of great wits should be renewed, as Chaucer is both in France and England. If this be wholly chance, it is extraordinary; and I dare not call it more, for fear of being taxed with superstition.

Boccace comes last to be considered, who, living in the same age with Chaucer, had the same genius, and followed the same studies. Both writ novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue. But the greatest resemblance of our two modern authors being in their familiar style, and pleasing way of relating comical adventures, I may pass it over, because I have translated nothing from Boccace of that nature. In the serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's side; for though the Englishman has borrowed many tales from the Italian, yet it appears, that those of Boccace were not generally of his own making, but taken from authors of former ages, and by him only modelled; so that what there was of invention, in either of them, may be judged equal. But Chaucer has refined on Boccace, and has mended the stories, which he has borrowed, in his way of telling; though prose allows more liberty of thought, and the expression is more easy when unconfined by numbers. Our countryman carries weight, and yet wins the race at disadvantage. I desire not the reader should take my word; and, therefore, I will set two of their discourses, on the same subject, in the same light, for every man to judge betwixt them. I translated Chaucer first, and, amongst the rest, pitched on the "Wife of Bath's Tale;" not daring, as I have said, to adventure on her prologue, because it is too licentious.[131] There Chaucer introduces an old woman, of mean parentage, whom a youthful knight, of noble blood, was forced to marry, and consequently loathed her. The crone, being in bed with him, on the wedding-night, and finding his aversion, endeavours to win his affection by reason, and speaks a good word for herself, (as who could blame her?) in hope to mollify the sullen bridegroom. She takes her topics from the benefits of poverty, the advantages of old age and ugliness, the vanity of youth, and the silly pride of ancestry and titles, without inherent virtue, which is the true nobility. When I had closed Chaucer, I returned to Ovid, and translated some more of his fables; and, by this time, had so far forgotten the "Wife of Bath's Tale," that, when I took up Boccace, unawares I fell on the same argument, of preferring virtue to nobility of blood and titles, in the story of Sigismunda; which I had certainly avoided, for the resemblance of the two discourses, if my memory had not failed me. Let the reader weigh them both; and, if he thinks me partial to Chaucer, it is in him to right Boccace.

I prefer, in our countryman, far above all his other stories, the noble poem of "Palamon and Arcite," which is of the epic kind, and perhaps not much inferior to the Ilias, or the Æneis. The story is more pleasing than either of them, the manners as perfect, the diction as poetical, the learning as deep and various, and the disposition full as artful, only it includes a greater length of time, as taking up seven years at least: but Aristotle has left undecided the duration of the action, which yet is easily reduced into the compass of a year, by a narration of what preceded the return of Palamon to Athens. I had thought, for the honour of our nation, and more particularly for his, whose laurel, though unworthy, I have worn after him, that this story was of English growth, and Chaucer's own: but I was undeceived by Boccace; for, casually looking on the end of his seventh Giornata, I found Dioneo (under which name he shadows himself,) and Fiametta, (who represents his mistress, the natural daughter of Robert, king of Naples,) of whom these words are spoken:—"Dioneo e Fiametta gran pezza Eantarono insieme d'Arcita, e di Palemone;" by which it appears, that this story was written before the time of Boccace; but the name of its author being wholly lost, Chaucer is now become an original; and I question not but the poem has received many beauties, by passing through his noble hands.[132] Besides this tale, there is another of his own invention, after the manner of the Provençals, called "The Flower and the Leaf," with which I was so particularly pleased, both for the invention and the moral, that I cannot hinder myself from recommending it to the reader.

As a corollary to this preface, in which I have done justice to others, I owe somewhat to myself; not that I think it worth my time to enter the lists with one Milbourne, and one Blackmore, but barely to take notice, that such men there are, who have written scurrilously against me, without any provocation. Milbourne, who is in orders, pretends, amongst the rest, this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on priesthood: if I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little.[133] Let him be satisfied, that he shall not be able to force himself upon me for an adversary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own translations of Virgil have answered his criticisms on mine. If, as they say, he has declared in print, he prefers the version of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment; for it is agreed, on all hands, that he writes even below Ogilby. That, you will say, is not easily to be done; but what cannot Milbourne bring about? I am satisfied, however, that, while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks, as if I had desired him, underhand, to write so ill against me; but, upon my honest word, I have not bribed him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. It is true, I should be glad if I could persuade him to continue his good offices, and write such another critique on any thing of mine; for I find, by experience, he has a great stroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a better opinion of them. He has taken some pains with my poetry; but nobody will be persuaded to take the same with his. If I had taken to the church, as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts, I should have had more sense, if not more grace, than to have turned myself out of my benefice, by writing libels on my parishioners. But his account of my manners, and my principles, is of a piece with his cavils and his poetry; and so I have done with him for ever.

As for the City Bard, or Knight Physician, I hear his quarrel to me is, that I was the author of "Absalom and Achitophel," which, he thinks, is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.

But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing ill is to be spoken of the dead; and, therefore, peace be to the manes of his "Arthurs."[134] I will only say, that it was not for this noble knight that I drew the plan of an epic poem on King Arthur, in my preface to the translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected them, as Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were thrown before him by Entellus: yet from that preface, he plainly took his hint; for he began immediately upon the story, though he had the baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor, but, instead of it, to traduce me in a libel.

I shall say the less of Mr Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove, that, in many places, he has perverted my meaning by his glosses, and interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were not guilty; besides, that he is too much given to horse-play in his raillery, and comes to battle like a dictator from the plough. I will not say, "the zeal of God's house has eaten him up;" but I am sure it has devoured some part of his good manners and civility. It might also be doubted, whether it were altogether zeal which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding; perhaps, it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays: a divine might have employed his pains to better purpose, than in the nastiness of Plautus and Aristophanes, whose examples, as they excuse not me, so it might be possibly supposed, that he read them not without some pleasure. They, who have written commentaries on those poets, or on Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have explained some vices, which, without their interpretation, had been unknown to modern times. Neither has he judged impartially betwixt the former age and us. There is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher's, called "The Custom of the Country," than in all ours together.[135] Yet this has been often acted on the stage, in my remembrance. Are the times so much more reformed now, than they were five-and-twenty years ago? If they are, I congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow poets, though I abandon my own defence: they have some of them answered for themselves; and neither they nor I can think Mr Collier so formidable an enemy, that we should shun him. He has lost ground, at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too far, like the Prince of Condé, at the battle of Senneph:[136] from immoral plays, to no plays, ab abusu ad usum, non valet consequentia. But, being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge. As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels, that they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them. Blackmore and Milbourne are only distinguished from the crowd, by being remembered to their infamy:

——Demetri, teque, Tigelli,

Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.

PALAMON AND ARCITE;

OR,

THE KNIGHT'S TALE.

PALAMON AND ARCITE.

"The Knight's Tale," whether we consider Chaucer's original poem, or the spirited and animated version of Dryden, is one of the finest pieces of composition in our language. We have treated of its merits so amply in the general criticism on Dryden's poetry, that little remains here save to trace the antiquity of the fable.

The history of Theseus, as, indeed, it is a sort of legend of knight-errantry, was an early favourite during the middle ages. It is probable, that the anecdote of Palamon and Arcite was early engrafted upon the story of the siege of Thebes. But the original from which Chaucer appears to have immediately derived his materials, is the "Teseide" of Boccacio, an epic poem, composed in ottava rima, of which Tyrwhitt has given an analysis. The work of Chaucer cannot, however, properly be termed a translation; on the contrary, the tale has acquired its most beautiful passages under the hand of the English bard. He abridged the prolix, and enlarged the poetical, parts of the work; compressed the whole into one concise and interesting tale; and left us an example of a beautiful heroic poem, if a work is entitled to that name which consists only of two thousand lines.

This romantic legend is, by Chaucer, with great propriety, put into the mouth of the Knight, a distinguished character among the Pilgrims; who, in their journey to the shrine of St Thomas at Canterbury, had agreed to beguile the way by telling each a tale in turn. Hence the second title of "The Knight's Tale."

TO

HER GRACE

THE DUCHESS OF ORMOND.[137]

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM OF

PALAMON AND ARCITE.

madam,

T he bard, who first adorned our native tongue,

Tuned to his British lyre this ancient song;

Which Homer might without a blush rehearse,

And leaves a doubtful palm in Virgil's verse:

He matched their beauties, where they most excel;

Of love sung better, and of arms as well.

Vouchsafe, illustrious Ormond, to behold

What power the charms of beauty had of old;

Nor wonder if such deeds of arms were done,

Inspired by two fair eyes that sparkled like your own.

If Chaucer by the best idea wrought,

And poets can divine each other's thought,

The fairest nymph before his eyes he set,

And then the fairest was Plantagenet;[138]

Who three contending princes made her prize,

And ruled the rival nations with her eyes;

Who left immortal trophies of her fame,

And to the noblest order gave the name.

Like her, of equal kindred to the throne,

You keep her conquests, and extend your own:

}

{  As when the stars in their ethereal race,

{  At length have rolled around the liquid space,

{  At certain periods they resume their place,

From the same point of heaven their course advance,

And move in measures of their former dance;

Thus, after length of ages, she returns,

Restored in you, and the same place adorns;

Or you perform her office in the sphere,

Born of her blood, and make a new platonic year.[139]

O true Plantagenet, O race divine,

(For beauty still is fatal to the line,)

Had Chaucer lived that angel-face to view,

Sure he had drawn his Emily from you;

Or had you lived to judge the doubtful right,

Your noble Palamon had been the knight;

And conquering Theseus from his side had sent

Your generous lord, to guide the Theban government.

Time shall accomplish that; and I shall see

A Palamon in him, in you an Emily.

Already have the Fates your path prepared,

And sure presage your future sway declared:

When westward, like the sun, you took your way,

And from benighted Britain bore the day,

Blue Triton gave the signal from the shore,

The ready Nereids heard, and swam before

To smooth the seas; a soft Etesian gale

But just inspired, and gently swelled the sail:

}

{  Portunus took his turn, whose ample hand[140]

{  Heaved up the lightened keel, and sunk the sand,

{  And steered the sacred vessel safe to land.

The land, if not restrained, had met your way,

Projected out a neck, and jutted to the sea.[141]

Hibernia, prostrate at your feet, adored,

In you, the pledge of her expected lord;

Due to her isle, a venerable name;

His father and his grandsire known to fame;

}

{  Awed by that house, accustomed to command,

{  The sturdy kerns in due subjection stand,

{  Nor bear the reins in any foreign hand,

At your approach, they crowded to the port;

And scarcely landed, you create a court:

As Ormond's harbinger[142] to you they run,

For Venus is the promise of the sun.

The waste of civil wars, their towns destroyed,

Pales unhonoured, Ceres unemployed,

Were all forgot; and one triumphant day

Wiped all the tears of three campaigns away.[143]

Blood, rapines, massacres, were cheaply bought,

So mighty recompence your beauty brought.

As when the dove returning bore the mark

Of earth restored to the long-labouring ark,

}

{  The relics of mankind, secure of rest,

{  Ope'd every window to receive the guest,

{  And the fair bearer of the message blessed:

}

{  So, when you came, with loud repeated cries,

{  The nation took an omen from your eyes,

{  And God advanced his rainbow in the skies,

To sign inviolable peace restored;

The saints, with solemn shouts, proclaimed the new accord.

When at your second coming you appear,

(For I foretel that millenary year,)

The sharpened share shall vex the soil no more,

But earth unbidden shall produce her store;

The land shall laugh, the circling ocean smile,

And heaven's indulgence bless the holy isle.

Heaven, from all ages, has reserved for you

That happy clime, which venom never knew;

Or if it had been there, your eyes alone

Have power to chase all poison, but their own.

Now in this interval, which fate has cast

Betwixt your future glories and your past,

This pause of power, 'tis Ireland's hour to mourn;

While England celebrates your safe return,

By which you seem the seasons to command,

And bring our summers back to their forsaken land.

}

{  The vanquished isle our leisure must attend,

{  Till the fair blessing we vouchsafe to send;

{  Nor can we spare you long, though often we may lend.

The dove was twice employed abroad, before

The world was dried, and she returned no more.

Nor dare we trust so soft a messenger,

New from her sickness,[144] to that northern air;

Rest here a while your lustre to restore,

That they may see you, as you shone before;

For yet, the eclipse not wholly past, you wade

Through some remains, and dimness of a shade.

A subject in his prince may claim a right,

Nor suffer him with strength impaired to fight;

Till force returns, his ardour we restrain,

And curb his warlike wish to cross the main.

Now past the danger, let the learned begin

The inquiry, where disease could enter in;

How those malignant atoms forced their way;

What in the faultless frame they found to make their prey,

}

{  Where every element was weighed so well,

{  That heaven alone, who mixed the mass, could tell

{  Which of the four ingredients could rebel;

And where, imprisoned in so sweet a cage,

A soul might well be pleased to pass an age.

And yet the fine materials made it weak;

Porcelain, by being pure, is apt to break;

}

{  Even to your breast the sickness durst aspire,

{  And, forced from that fair temple to retire,

{  Profanely set the holy place on fire.

In vain your lord, like young Vespasian,[145] mourned,

When the fierce flames the sanctuary burned;

And I prepared to pay in verses rude

A most detested act of gratitude:

Even this had been your elegy, which now

Is offered for your health, the table of my vow.

Your angel sure our Morley's[146] mind inspired,

To find the remedy your ill required;

As once the Macedon, by Jove's decree,

Was taught to dream an herb for Ptolemy:

Or heaven, which had such over-cost bestowed,

As scarce it could afford to flesh and blood,

So liked the frame, he would not work anew,

To save the charges of another you.

}

{  Or by his middle science did he steer,

{  And saw some great contingent good appear

{  Well worth a miracle to keep you here:

And for that end, preserved the precious mould,

Which all the future Ormonds was to hold;

And meditated, in his better mind,

An heir from you, which may redeem the failing kind.

Blest be the power, which has at once restored

The hopes of lost succession to your lord;

}

{  Joy to the first and last of each degree,

{  Virtue to courts, and, what I longed to see,

{  To you the Graces, and the Muse to me.

O daughter of the rose, whose cheeks unite

The differing titles of the red and white;

Who heaven's alternate beauty well display,

The blush of morning, and the milky way;

Whose face is paradise, but fenced from sin;

For God in either eye has placed a cherubin.

All is your lord's alone; even absent, he

Employs the care of chaste Penelope.

For him you waste in tears your widowed hours;

For him your curious needle paints the flowers:

Such works of old imperial dames were taught;

Such, for Ascanius, fair Elisa wrought.

The soft recesses of your hours improve

The three fair pledges of your happy love:

All other parts of pious duty done,

You owe your Ormond nothing but a son;[147]

To fill in future times his father's place,

And wear the garter of his mother's race.

PALAMON AND ARCITE

OR,

THE KNIGHT'S TALE.

BOOK I.

In days of old, there lived, of mighty fame,

A valiant prince, and Theseus was his name;

A chief, who more in feats of arms excelled,

The rising nor the setting sun beheld.

Of Athens he was lord; much land he won,

And added foreign countries to his crown.

In Scythia with the warrior queen he strove,

Whom first by force he conquered, then by love;

He brought in triumph back the beauteous dame,

With whom her sister, fair Emilia, came.

}

{  With honour to his home let Theseus ride,

{  With love to friend, and fortune for his guide,

{  And his victorious army at his side.

I pass their warlike pomp, their proud array,

Their shouts, their songs, their welcome on the way;

}

{  But, were it not too long, I would recite

{  The feats of Amazons, the fatal fight

{  Betwixt the hardy queen, and hero knight;

The town besieged, and how much blood it cost

The female army, and the Athenian host;

The spousals of Hippolita the queen;

What tilts and tourneys at the feast were seen;

The storm at their return, the ladies' fear;

But these, and other things, I must forbear.

The field is spacious I design to sow,

With oxen far unfit to draw the plow:

The remnant of my tale is of a length

To tire your patience, and to waste my strength;

And trivial accidents shall be forborne,

That others may have time to take their turn;

}

{  As was at first enjoined us by mine host,

{  That he whose tale is best, and pleases most,

{  Should win his supper at our common cost.

}

{  And therefore where I left, I will pursue

{  This ancient story, whether false or true,

{  In hope it may be mended with a new.

The prince I mentioned, full of high renown,

In this array drew near the Athenian town;

When in his pomp and utmost of his pride,

Marching, he chanced to cast his eye aside,

And saw a choir of mourning dames, who lay,

By two and two, across the common way:

At his approach they raised a rueful cry,

And beat their breasts, and held their hands on high;

Creeping and crying, till they seized at last,

His courser's bridle, and his feet embraced.

Tell me, said Theseus, what and whence you are,

And why this funeral pageant you prepare?

Is this the welcome of my worthy deeds,

To meet my triumph, in ill-omened weeds?

Or envy you my praise, and would destroy

With grief my pleasures, and pollute my joy?

Or are you injured, and demand relief?

Name your request, and I will ease your grief.—

The most in years, of all the mourning train,

Began; but swooned first away for pain:

Then, scarce recovered, spoke;—Nor envy we

Thy great renown, nor grudge thy victory:

'Tis thine, O king, the afflicted to redress,

And fame has filled the world with thy success:

We wretched women sue for that alone,

Which of thy goodness is refused to none;

Let fall some drops of pity on our grief,

If what we beg be just, and we deserve relief;

For none of us, who now thy grace implore,

But held the rank of sovereign queen before;

Till, thanks to giddy chance, which never bears,

That mortal bliss should last for length of years,

She cast us headlong from our high estate,

And here in hope of thy return we wait;

And long have waited in the temple nigh,

Built to the gracious goddess Clemency.

But reverence thou the power, whose name it bears;

Relieve the oppressed, and wipe the widow's tears.

I, wretched I, have other fortune seen,

The wife of Capaneus, and once a queen:

At Thebes he fell; curst be the fatal day!

And all the rest thou seest in this array,

To make their moan, their lords in battle lost

Before that town besieged by our confederate host;

But Creon, old and impious, who commands

The Theban city, and usurps the lands,

Denies the rites of funeral fires to those

Whose breathless bodies yet he calls his foes.

Unburned, unburied, on a heap they lie;

Such is their fate, and such his tyranny;

No friend has leave to bear away the dead,

But with their lifeless limbs his hounds are fed.—

At this she shrieked aloud; the mournful train

Echoed her grief, and, grovelling on the plain,

With groans, and hands upheld, to move his mind,

Besought his pity to their helpless kind.

The prince was touched, his tears began to flow,

And, as his tender heart would break in two,

He sighed; and could not but their fate deplore,

So wretched now, so fortunate before.

Then lightly from his lofty steed he flew,

And raising one by one the suppliant crew,

To comfort each, full solemnly he swore,

"That, by the faith which knights to knighthood bore,

And whate'er else to chivalry belongs,

He would not cease, till he revenged their wrongs;

That Greece should see performed what he declared;

And cruel Creon find his just reward."—

He said no more, but, shunning all delay,

Rode on, nor entered Athens on his way;

But left his sister and his queen behind,

And waved his royal banner in the wind,

Where, in an argent field, the god of war

Was drawn triumphant on his iron car;

Red was his sword, and shield, and whole attire,

And all the godhead seemed to glow with fire;

Even the ground glittered where the standard flew,

And the green grass was dyed to sanguine hue.

High on his pointed lance, his pennon bore[148]

His Cretan fight, the conquered Minotaur:

The soldiers shout around with generous rage,

And in that victory their own presage.

He praised their ardour; inly pleased to see

His host the flower of Grecian chivalry.

All day he marched, and all the ensuing night,

And saw the city with returning light.

The process of the war I need not tell,

How Theseus conquered, and how Creon fell;

Or after, how by storm the walls were won,

Or how the victor sacked and burned the town;

How to the ladies he restored again

The bodies of their lords in battle slain;

And with what ancient rites they were interred,—

All these to fitter times shall be deferred:

I spare the widows' tears, their woful cries,

And howling at their husbands' obsequies;

How Theseus at these funerals did assist,

And with what gifts the mourning dames dismissed.

Thus when the victor-chief had Creon slain,

And conquered Thebes, he pitched upon the plain

His mighty camp, and, when the day returned,

The country wasted, and the hamlets burned,

And left the pillagers, to rapine bred,

Without controul, to strip and spoil the dead.

There, in a heap of slain, among the rest,

Two youthful knights they found beneath a load oppressed

Of slaughtered foes, whom first to death they sent,

The trophies of their strength, a bloody monument.

Both fair, and both of royal blood they seemed,

Whom kinsmen to the crown the heralds deemed;

That day in equal arms they fought for fame;

Their swords, their shields, their surcoats, were the same.

Close by each other laid, they pressed the ground,

Their manly bosoms pierced with many a grisly wound;

Nor well alive, nor wholly dead they were,

But some faint signs of feeble life appear;

The wandring breath was on the wing to part,

Weak was the pulse, and hardly heaved the heart.

These two were sister's sons; and Arcite one,

Much famed in fields, with valiant Palamon.

From these their costly arms the spoilers rent,

And softly both conveyed to Theseus' tent;

Whom, known of Creon's line, and cured with care,

He to his city sent as prisoners of the war,

Hopeless of ransom, and condemned to lie

In durance, doomed a lingering death to die.

}

{  This done, he marched away with warlike sound,

{  And to his Athens turned with laurels crowned,

{  Where happy long he lived, much loved, and more renowned.

But in a tower, and never to be loosed,

The woful captive kinsmen are inclosed.

Thus year by year they pass, and day by day,

Till once,—'twas on the morn of cheerful May,—

The young Emilia, fairer to be seen

Than the fair lily on the flowery green,

More fresh than May herself in blossoms new,

For with the rosy colour strove her hue,

Waked, as her custom was, before the day,

To do the observance due to sprightly May;

For sprightly May commands our youth to keep

The vigils of her night, and breaks their sluggard sleep;

Each gentle breast with kindly warmth she moves;

Inspires new flames, revives extinguished loves.

In this remembrance, Emily, ere day,

Arose, and dressed herself in rich array;

Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair,

Adown her shoulders fell her length of hair;

A ribband did the braided tresses bind,

The rest was loose, and wantoned in the wind:

Aurora had but newly chased the night,

And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light,

}

{  When to the garden walk she took her way,

{  To sport and trip along in cool of day,

{  And offer maiden vows in honour of the May.

At every turn she made a little stand,

And thrust among the thorns her lily hand

To draw the rose, and every rose she drew,

She shook the stalk, and brushed away the dew;

Then party-coloured flowers of white and red

She wove, to make a garland for her head

This done, she sung and carolled out so clear,

That men and angels might rejoice to hear;

Even wondering Philomel forgot to sing,

And learned from her to welcome in the spring.

The tower, of which before was mention made,

Within whose keep the captive knights were laid,

Built of a large extent, and strong withal,

Was one partition of the palace wall;

The garden was enclosed within the square,

Where young Emilia took the morning-air.

It happened Palamon, the prisoner knight,

Restless for woe, arose before the light,

And with his jailor's leave desired to breathe

An air more wholesome than the damps beneath.

This granted, to the tower he took his way,

Cheered with the promise of a glorious day;

}

{  Then cast a languishing regard around,

{  And saw, with hateful eyes, the temples crowned

{  With golden spires, and all the hostile ground.

He sighed, and turned his eyes, because he knew

'Twas but a larger jail he had in view;

Then looked below, and from the castle's height

Beheld a nearer and more pleasing sight;

}

{  The garden, which before he had not seen,

{  In spring's new livery clad with white and green,

{  Fresh flowers in wide parterres, and shady walks between.

This viewed, but not enjoyed, with arms across

He stood, reflecting on his country's loss;

Himself an object of the public scorn,

And often wished he never had been born.

At last, for so his destiny required,

With walking giddy, and with thinking tired,

He through a little window cast his sight,

Though thick of bars, that gave a scanty light;

But even that glimmering served him to descry

The inevitable charms of Emily.

Scarce had he seen, but, seized with sudden smart,

Stung to the quick, he felt it to his heart;

Struck blind with overpowering light, he stood,

Then started back amazed, and cried aloud.

Young Arcite heard, and up he ran with haste,

To help his friend, and in his arms embraced;

And asked him why he looked so deadly wan,

And whence and how his change of cheer began?

Or who had done the offence? "But if," said he,

"Your grief alone is hard captivity;

For love of heaven with patience undergo

A cureless ill, since fate will have it so:

So stood our horoscope in chains to lie,

And Saturn in the dungeon of the sky,

Or other baleful aspect, ruled our birth,

When all the friendly stars were under earth:

Whate'er betides, by destiny 'tis done;

And better bear like men, than vainly seek to shun.

Nor of my bonds, said Palamon again,

Nor of unhappy planets, I complain;

But when my mortal anguish caused my cry,

That moment I was hurt through either eye;

Pierced with a random shaft, I faint away,

And perish with insensible decay:

A glance of some new goddess gave the wound,

Whom, like Acteon, unaware I found.

}

{  Look how she walks along yon shady space!

{  Not Juno moves with more majestic grace,

{  And all the Cyprian queen is in her face.

If thou art Venus, (for thy charms confess,

That face was formed in heaven, nor art thou less;

Disguised in habit, undisguised in shape,)

O help us captives from our chains to 'scape!

But if our doom be past in bonds to lie

For life, and in a loathsome dungeon die,

Then be thy wrath appeased with our disgrace,

And shew compassion to the Theban race,

Oppressed by tyrant power!"—While yet he spoke,

Arcite on Emily had fixed his look;

The fatal dart a ready passage found,

And deep within his heart infixed the wound:

So that if Palamon were wounded sore,

Arcite was hurt as much as he, or more:

Then from his inmost soul he sighed, and said,

The beauty I behold has struck me dead:

Unknowingly she strikes, and kills by chance;

Poison is in her eyes, and death in every glance.

O, I must; nor ask alone, but move

Her mind to mercy, or must die for love.—

Thus Arcite: And thus Palamon replies,

(Eager his tone, and ardent were his eyes,)

}

{  Speak'st thou in earnest, or in jesting vein?

{  Jesting, said Arcite, suits but ill with pain.

{  It suits far worse, (said Palamon again,

And bent his brows,) with men who honour weigh,

Their faith to break, their friendship to betray;

But worst with thee, of noble lineage born,

My kinsman, and in arms my brother sworn.

Have we not plighted each our holy oath,

That one should be the common good of both;

One soul should both inspire, and neither prove

His fellow's hindrance in pursuit of love?

To this before the gods we gave our hands,

And nothing but our death can break the bands.

This binds thee, then, to further my design,

As I am bound by vow to further thine:

Nor canst, nor dar'st thou, traitor, on the plain,

Appeach my honour, or thy own maintain;

Since thou art of my council, and the friend

Whose faith I trust, and on whose care depend.

And wouldst thou court my lady's love, which I

Much rather than release would choose to die?

But thou, false Arcite, never shalt obtain

Thy bad pretence; I told thee first my pain:

For first my love began ere thine was born;

Thou, as my council, and my brother sworn,

Art bound to assist my eldership of right,

Or justly to be deemed a perjured knight.—

Thus Palamon: But Arcite, with disdain,

In haughty language, thus replied again,—

Forsworn thyself: the traitor's odious name

I first return, and then disprove thy claim.

If love be passion, and that passion nurst

With strong desires, I loved the lady first.

Canst thou pretend desire, whom zeal inflamed

To worship, and a power celestial named?

Thine was devotion to the blest above,

I saw the woman, and desired her love;

First owned my passion, and to thee commend

The important secret, as my chosen friend.

Suppose (which yet I grant not) thy desire

A moment elder than my rival fire;

Can chance of seeing first thy title prove?

And know'st thou not, no law is made for love?

Law is to things which to free choice relate;

Love is not in our choice, but in our fate:

Laws are but positive; love's power, we see,

Is nature's sanction, and her first decree.

Each day we break the bond of human laws

For love, and vindicate the common cause.

Laws for defence of civil rights are placed;

Love throws the fences down, and makes a general waste:

Maids, widows, wives, without distinction fall;

The sweeping deluge, love, comes on, and covers all.

}

{  If then the laws of friendship I transgress,

{  I keep the greater, while I break the less;

{  And both are mad alike, since neither can possess.

Both hopeless to be ransomed, never more

To see the sun, but as he passes o'er.—

Like Æsop's hounds contending for the bone,

Each pleaded right, and would be lord alone:

The fruitless fight continued all the day;

A cur came by, and snatched the prize away.

As courtiers therefore jostle for a grant,

And when they break their friendship, plead their want;

So thou, if fortune will thy suit advance,

Love on, nor envy me my equal chance:

For I must love, and am resolved to try

My fate, or, failing in the adventure, die.

Great was their strife, which hourly was renewed,

Till each with mortal hate his rival viewed:

Now friends no more, nor walking hand in hand,

But when they met, they made a surly stand,

And glared like angry lions as they passed,

And wished that every look might be their last.

It chanced at length, Perithous came, to attend

This worthy Theseus, his familiar friend:

Their love in early infancy began,

And rose as childhood ripened into man,

}

{  Companions of the war; and loved so well,

{  That when one died, as ancient stories tell,

{  His fellow to redeem him went to hell.

But to pursue my tale; to welcome home

His warlike brother, is Perithous come:

Arcite of Thebes was known in arms long since,

And honoured by this young Thessalian prince.

Theseus, to gratify his friend and guest,

Who made our Arcite's freedom his request,

Restored to liberty the captive knight,

But on these hard conditions I recite:—

That if hereafter Arcite should be found

Within the compass of Athenian ground,

By day or night, or on whate'er pretence,

His head should pay the forfeit of the offence.

To this Perithous for his friend agreed,

And on his promise was the prisoner freed.

Unpleased and pensive hence he takes his way,

At his own peril; for his life must pay.

Who now but Arcite mourns his bitter fate,

Finds his dear purchase, and repents too late?

What have I gained, he said, in prison pent,

If I but change my bonds for banishment?

And banished from her sight, I suffer more

In freedom, than I felt in bonds before;

Forced from her presence, and condemned to live,

Unwelcome freedom, and unthanked reprieve:

Heaven is not, but where Emily abides,

And where she's absent, all is hell besides.

Next to my day of birth, was that accurst,

Which bound my friendship to Perithous first:

Had I not known that prince, I still had been

In bondage, and had still Emilia seen:

For though I never can her grace deserve,

'Tis recompence enough to see and serve.

O Palamon, my kinsman and my friend,

How much more happy fates thy love attend!

Thine is the adventure; thine the victory;

Well has thy fortune turned the dice for thee:

Thou on that angel's face may'st feed thine eyes,

In prison, no; but blissful paradise!

Thou daily seest that sun of beauty shine,

And lov'st at least in love's extremest line.

}

{  I mourn in absence, love's eternal night;

{  And who can tell but since thou hast her sight,

{  And art a comely, young, and valiant knight,

Fortune (a various power) may cease to frown,

And, by some ways unknown, thy wishes crown?

But I, the most forlorn of human kind,

Nor help can hope, nor remedy can find;

But doomed to drag my loathsome life in care,

For my reward, must end it in despair.

Fire, water, air, and earth, and force of fates,

That governs all, and heaven that all creates,

Nor art, nor nature's hand can ease my grief;

Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief:

Then farewell youth, and all the joys that dwell

With youth and life, and life itself, farewell!

But why, alas! do mortal men in vain

Of fortune, fate, or Providence, complain?

God gives us what he knows our wants require,

And better things than those which we desire:

Some pray for riches; riches they obtain;

But, watched by robbers, for their wealth are slain:

Some pray from prison to be freed; and come,

When guilty of their vows, to fall at home;

Murdered by those they trusted with their life,

A favoured servant, or a bosom wife.

Such dear-bought blessings happen every day,

Because we know not for what things to pray.

Like drunken sots about the streets we roam;

Well knows the sot he has a certain home,

Yet knows not how to find the uncertain place,

And blunders on, and staggers every pace.

Thus all seek happiness; but few can find,

For far the greater part of men are blind.

This is my case, who thought our utmost good

Was in one word of freedom understood:

The fatal blessing came; from prison free,

I starve abroad, and lose the sight of Emily.—

Thus Arcite; but if Arcite thus deplore

His sufferings, Palamon yet suffers more.

For when he knew his rival freed and gone,

He swells with wrath, he makes outrageous moan,

He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground;

The hollow tower with clamours rings around:

With briny tears he bathed his fettered feet,

And dropped all o'er with agony of sweat.

Alas! he cried, I, wretch! in prison pine,

Too happy rival, while the fruit is thine:

Thou liv'st at large, thou draw'st thy native air,

Pleased with thy freedom, proud of my despair:

Thou may'st, since thou hast youth and courage joined,

A sweet behaviour and a solid mind,

Assemble ours, and all the Theban race,

To vindicate on Athens thy disgrace;

And after, by some treaty made, possess

Fair Emily, the pledge of lasting peace.

So thine shall be the beauteous prize, while I

Must languish in despair, in prison die.

Thus all the advantage of the strife is thine,

Thy portion double joys, and double sorrows mine.—

The rage of jealousy then fired his soul,

And his face kindled like a burning coal:

Now cold despair, succeeding in her stead,

To livid paleness turns the glowing red.

His blood, scarce liquid, creeps within his veins,

Like water which the freezing wind constrains.

Then thus he said:—Eternal deities,

Who rule the world with absolute decrees,

And write whatever time shall bring to pass,

With pens of adamant, on plates of brass;

What, is the race of human kind your care

Beyond what all his fellow-creatures are?

He with the rest is liable to pain,

And like the sheep, his brother-beast, is slain.

Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure,

All these he must, and, guiltless, oft endure;

Or does your justice, power, or presence fail,

When the good suffer, and the bad prevail?

What worse to wretched virtue could befal,

If fate or giddy fortune governed all?

Nay, worse than other beasts is our estate;

Them, to pursue their pleasures, you create;

We, bound by harder laws, must curb our will,

And your commands, not our desires, fulfil:

Then when the creature is unjustly slain,

Yet, after death at least, he feels no pain;

But man, in life surcharged with woe before,

Not freed when dead, is doomed to suffer more.

A serpent shoots his sting at unaware;

An ambushed thief forelays a traveller;

The man lies murdered, while the thief and snake,

One gains the thickets, and one thrids the brake.

This let divines decide; but well I know,

Just, or unjust, I have my share of woe:

Through Saturn seated in a luckless place,

And Juno's wrath, that persecutes my race;

Or Mars and Venus, in a quartil, move

My pangs of jealousy for Arcite's love.—

Let Palamon oppressed in bondage mourn,

While to his exiled rival we return.

By this, the sun, declining from his height,

The day had shortened to prolong the night:

The lengthened night gave length of misery,

Both to the captive lover and the free.

For Palamon in endless prison mourns,

And Arcite forfeits life if he returns.

The banished never hopes his love to see,

Nor hopes the captive lord his liberty:

'Tis hard to say who suffers greater pains;

One sees his love, but cannot break his chains;

One free, and all his motions uncontrouled,

Beholds whate'er he would, but what he would behold.[149]

Judge as you please, for I will haste to tell

What fortune to the banished knight befel.

When Arcite was to Thebes returned again,

The loss of her he loved renewed his pain;

What could be worse, than never more to see

His life, his soul, his charming Emily?

He raved with all the madness of despair,

He roared, he beat his breast, he tore his hair.

Dry sorrow in his stupid eyes appears,

For, wanting nourishment, he wanted tears:

His eye-balls in their hollow sockets sink,

Bereft of sleep; he loaths his meat and drink.

He withers at his heart, and looks as wan

As the pale spectre of a murdered man:

That pale turns yellow, and his face receives

The faded hue of sapless boxen leaves:

In solitary groves he makes his moan,

Walks early out, and ever is alone:

Nor, mixed in mirth, in youthful pleasures shares,

But sighs when songs and instruments he hears.

}

{  His spirits are so low, his voice is drowned;

{  He hears as from afar, or in a swoon,

{  Like the deaf murmurs of a distant sound:

Uncombed his locks, and squalid his attire,

Unlike the trim of love and gay desire;

But full of museful mopings, which presage

The loss of reason, and conclude in rage.

This when he had endured a year and more,

Now wholly changed from what he was before,

It happened once, that, slumbering as he lay,

He dreamed, (his dream began at break of day,)

That Hermes o'er his head in air appeared,

And with soft words his drooping spirits cheered:

His hat, adorned with wings, disclosed the God,

And in his hand he bore the sleep-compelling rod;

Such as he seemed, when, at his sire's command,

On Argus' head he laid the snaky wand.

Arise, he said, to conquering Athens go,

There fate appoints an end of all thy woe.—[150]

The fright awakened Arcite with a start,

Against his bosom bounced his heaving heart;

But soon he said, with scarce-recovered breath,

And thither will I go, to meet my death,

Sure to be slain; but death is my desire,

Since in Emilia's sight I shall expire.—

By chance he spied a mirror while he spoke,

And gazing there beheld his altered look;

Wondering, he saw his features and his hue

So much were changed, that scarce himself he knew.

A sudden thought then starting in his mind,—

Since I in Arcite cannot Arcite find,

The world may search in vain with all their eyes,

But never penetrate through this disguise.

Thanks to the change which grief and sickness give,

In low estate I may securely live,

And see, unknown, my mistress day by day.—

He said, and clothed himself in coarse array;

A labouring hind in shew: then forth he went,

And to the Athenian towers his journey bent:

One squire attended in the same disguise,

Made conscious of his master's enterprize.

Arrived at Athens, soon he came to court,

Unknown, unquestioned in that thick resort;

Proffering for hire his service at the gate,

To drudge, draw water, and to run or wait.

So fair befel him, that for little gain

He served at first Emilia's chamberlain;

And, watchful all advantages to spy,

Was still at hand, and in his master's eye;

And, as his bones were big, and sinews strong,

Refused no toil that could to slaves belong;

But from deep wells with engines water drew,

And used his noble hands the wood to hew.

He passed a year at least attending thus

On Emily, and called Philostratus.

But never was there man of his degree

So much esteemed, so well beloved as he.

So gentle of condition was he known,

That through the court his courtesy was blown:

All think him worthy of a greater place,

And recommend him to the royal grace;

That, exercised within a higher sphere,

His virtues more conspicuous might appear.

Thus by the general voice was Arcite praised,

And by great Theseus to high favour raised;

Among his menial servants first enrolled,

And largely entertained with sums of gold;

Besides what secretly from Thebes was sent,

Of his own income, and his annual rent.

This well employed, he purchased friends and fame,

But cautiously concealed from whence it came.

Thus for three years he lived with large increase,

In arms of honour, and esteem in peace;

To Theseus' person he was ever near,

And Theseus for his virtues held him dear.