Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу автора  The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 09

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. IX.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,
BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.

1808.

CONTENTS
OF
VOLUME NINTH.

PAGE.

Poems, Historical and Political. Heroic Stanzas to the Memory of Oliver Cromwell,

3

Notes,

15

Astrea Redux,

25

Notes,

41

To his Sacred Majesty, a Panegyric on his Coronation,

53

Notes,

59

To Lord Chancellor Hyde, presented on New-year's-day, 1662,

63

Satire on the Dutch,

71

To her Royal Highness the Duchess of York, on the

Victory gained by the Duke over the Dutch, &c.

73

Notes,

79

Annus Mirabilis, the Year of Wonders, 1666, an Historical Poem,

81

Dedication to the Metropolis of Great Britain,

89

An Account of Annus Mirabilis, in a Letter

to the Hon. Sir Robert Howard,

92

Notes,

158

Absalom and Achitophel, Part I.

195

To the Reader,

208

Notes on Part I.

249

Part II.

319

Notes on Part II.

354

The Medal, a Satire against Sedition,

407

Epistle to the Whigs,

417

Notes,

441

POEMS,

HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL.

HEROIC STANZAS
TO
THE MEMORY OF OLIVER CROMWELL.

These verses compose the earliest of our author's political poems, and are among the first which he wrote, of any length or consequence. The first edition is now before me, by the favour of my friend Richard Heber, Esq.; and, while correcting this sheet, I received another copy from Mr Finlay, author of the "Vale of Ellerslie." It is of the last degree of rarity, since it has escaped the researches even of Mr Malone. The full title is, "A Poem upon the Death of his late Highness Oliver, Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland; written by Mr Dryden. London, printed for William Wilson, and are to be sold in Well-Yard, near Little St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1659," 4to. Upon comparing this rare edition with those of a later date, no material alterations occur, excepting that the spelling is modernized, and the title abridged.

Some of our author's biographers have deemed it necessary to apologise for his chusing this subject, by referring to his near connection with Sir Gilbert Pickering, the friend and confident of the deceased usurper. There is, however, little reason to suppose, that Dryden did any violence to his own inclinations, to gratify the political feelings of his kinsman and patron. He had been bred in anti-monarchical principles, and did not probably change, till the nation changed with him. The character of Cromwell was in itself an inviting theme to so true a poet. The man, of whom Clarendon said, that "even his enemies could not condemn him, without commending him at the same time," and of whose exploits Cowley has given so animating a detail; whom, in short, his very enemies could not mention without wonder, if they with-held applause,—afforded to those who favoured his politics many a point of view, in which the splendour of his character might hide its blemishes.[1] It is remarkable, however, that, in handling this theme, Dryden has observed a singular and happy delicacy. The topic of the civil war is but slightly dwelt on; and, although Cromwell is extolled, his eulogist abstains from any reflections against those, through whom he cut his way to greatness. He considers the Protector when in his meridian height, but passes over the steps by which he attained that elevation. It is also remarkable, that although Sir Gilbert Pickering was one of Richard Cromwell's council, our author abstains from any compliment to that pageant of authority; when a panegyrick upon the son was a natural topic of consolation after mourning over the loss of his father. Sprat, upon the same occasion, did not omit this obvious topic, but launched forth into prophecies, to which the event did very little credit.[2]

Notwithstanding these symptoms of caution and moderation, the subject of this first public essay of our author's poetical talents was repeatedly urged against him during the political controversies in which, through the reigns of Charles II. and his brother, he was constantly engaged. One offended antagonist carried his malice so far, as actually to reprint an edition of the Elegy, with a dull postscript, in which he makes Dryden acknowledge his alleged apostacy.[3]

Of the poetical merits of the Elegy, we have elsewhere spoken more fully. The manly and solemn march of the stanza gave promise of that acute poetical ear, which afterwards enabled Dryden to harmonize our verification. The ideas, though often far-fetched, and sometimes ambiguously expressed, indicate the strength and vigour of his mind. They give obvious tokens of a regeneration of taste; for though, in many instances, the conceits are very extravagant, yet they are, in general, much more moderate than those in the Elegy upon Lord Hastings, whose whole soul was rendered a celestial sphere, by the virtues which were stuck in it; and his body little less brilliantly ornamented by the pustules of small pox, which were first rose-buds, and then stars. The symptoms of emerging from the false taste and impertinent witticisms of Donne and Cowley, were probably more owing to our author's natural feeling of what were the proper attributes of poetry, than to any change in the taste of the age. Sprat, who also solemnizes the decease of Cromwell, runs absolutely riot in pindarics, and furnishes as excellent an instance of useless labour, and wit rendered ridiculous by misapplication, as can be found in Cowley himself. Cromwell's elevation is compared to the raising up of the brazen serpent, in the Pentateuch;[5] the classic metamorphosis of Ajax's blood into the hyacinth[6] furnishes a simile for the supposed revival of letters through the blood spilled by Cromwell; his sword is preferred to the flaming brand of the cherub, because it had made a paradise, which the other only guarded; finally, the Protector's temper grew milder in the progress of his warfare, as his armour, being made of steel, grew smoother by use.[7] It must be allowed, that there are, in Dryden's poem, many, and greatly too many, epigrammatic turns; each is, however, briefly winded up in its own stanza; while the structure of Sprat's poem enabled him to hunt down his conceits through all the doubling and winding of his long pindaric strophé. Dryden, for example, says, that Cromwell strewed the island with victories,

Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown.

Sprat spins out nearly the same idea, in the following extraordinary manner:

Others' great actions are

But thinly scattered, here and there;

At best, but all one single star;

But thine the milky way;

All one continued light of undistinguished day.

They thronged so close, that nought else could be seen,

Scarce any common sky did come between.

By turning the reader's attention to this comparison betwixt the poems of Sprat and Dryden, I mean to shew, that our author was already weaning himself from that franticly witty stile of composition, which the most ingenious of his contemporaries continued to practise and admire; although he did not at once abandon it, but retrenched his quaint conceits before he finally discarded them.

The poem of Waller on Cromwell's death, excepting one unhappy and celebrated instance of the bathos,[8] is the best of his compositions; and, separately considered, must be allowed to be superior to that of Dryden, by whom he was soon after so far distanced in the poetical career.

HEROIC STANZAS

CONSECRATED

TO THE MEMORY OF

HIS HIGHNESS OLIVER,

LATE LORD PROTECTOR OF THIS COMMONWEALTH,

WRITTEN AFTER THE CELEBRATING OF HIS FUNERAL.

I.

And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,

Who would before have borne him to the sky,

Like eager Romans, ere all rites were past,

Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly.[9]

II.

Though our best notes are treason to his fame,

Joined with the loud applause of public voice;

Since heaven, what praise we offer to his name,

Hath rendered too authentic by its choice.

III.

Though in his praise no arts can liberal be,

Since they, whose muses have the highest flown,

Add not to his immortal memory,

But do an act of friendship to their own:

IV.

Yet 'tis our duty, and our interest too,

Such monuments as we can build to raise;

Lest all the world prevent what we should do,

And claim a title in him by their praise.

V.

How shall I then begin, or where conclude,

To draw a fame so truly circular?

For in a round, what order can be shewed,

Where all the parts so equal perfect are?

VI.

His grandeur he derived from heaven alone;

For he was great, ere fortune made him so:

And wars, like mists that rise against the sun,

Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.

VII.

No borrowed bays his temples did adorn,

But to our crown he did fresh jewels bring;

Nor was his virtue poisoned soon as born,

With the too early thoughts of being king.

VIII.

Fortune, (that easy mistress to the young,

But to her ancient servants coy and hard,)

Him at that age her favourites ranked among,

When she her best-loved Pompey did discard.[10]

IX.

He, private, marked the faults of others' sway,

And set as sea-marks for himself to shun;

Not like rash monarchs, who their youth betray

By acts their age too late would wish undone.

X.

And yet dominion was not his design;

We owe that blessing, not to him, but heaven,

Which to fair acts unsought rewards did join;

Rewards, that less to him, than us, were given.

XI.

Our former chiefs, like sticklers of the war,

First sought to inflame the parties, then to poise:

The quarrel loved but did the cause abhor;

And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.[11]

XII.

War, our consumption, was their gainful trade;

We inward bled whilst they prolonged our pain;

He fought to end our fighting, and essayed

To staunch the blood, by breathing of the vein.[12]

XIII.

Swift and resistless through the land he past,

Like that bold Greek, who did the East subdue;

And made to battles such heroic haste,

As if on wings of victory he flew.

XIV.

He fought, secure of fortune as of fame,

Till by new maps the island might be shewn;

Of conquests, which he strewed where'er he came,

Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown.[13]

XV.

His palms, though under weights they did not stand,

Still thrived;[14] no winter could his laurels fade:

Heaven, in his portrait, shewed a workman's hand,

And drew it perfect, yet without a shade.

XVI.

Peace was the prize of all his toil and care,

Which war had banished, and did now restore:

Bolognia's walls thus mounted in the air,

To seat themselves more surely than before.[15]

XVII.

Her safety rescued Ireland to him owes;[16]

And treacherous Scotland, to no interest true,

Yet blest that fate which did his arms dispose

Her land to civilize, as to subdue.[17]

XVIII.

Nor was he like those stars which only shine,

When to pale mariners they storms portend;

He had his calmer influence, and his mien

Did love and majesty together blend.

XIX.

'Tis true, his countenance did imprint an awe,

And naturally all souls to his did bow;

As wands of divination downward draw,

And point to beds where sovereign gold doth grow.[18]

XX.

When past all offerings to Feretrian Jove,[19]

He Mars deposed, and arms to gowns made yield;

Successful councils did him soon approve,

As fit for close intrigues, as open field.

XXI.

To suppliant Holland he vouchsafed a peace,

Our once bold rival of the British main;

Now tamely glad her unjust claim to cease,

And buy our friendship with her idol, gain.[20]

XXII.

Fame of the asserted sea, through Europe blown,

Made France and Spain ambitious of his love;

Each knew that side must conquer he would own,

And for him fiercely, as for empire, strove.

XXIII.

No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embraced,

Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweighed:[21]

His fortune turned the scale where'er 'twas cast,

Though Indian mines were in the other laid.

XXIV.

When absent, yet we conquered in his right;

For, though some meaner artist's skill were shown,

In mingling colours, or in placing light,

Yet still the fair designment was his own.

XXV.

For, from all tempers he could service draw;

The worth of each, with its alloy, he knew;

And, as the confident of Nature, saw

How she complexions did divide and brew.[22]

XXVI.

Or he their single virtues did survey,

By intuition, in his own large breast;

Where all the rich ideas of them lay,

That were the rule and measure to the rest.

XXVII.

When such heroic virtue heaven sets out,

The stars, like commons, sullenly obey;

Because it drains them when it comes about,

And therefore is a tax they seldom pay.[23]

XXVIII.

From this high spring our foreign conquests flow,

Which yet more glorious triumphs do portend;

Since their commencement to his arms they owe,

If springs as high as fountains may ascend.

XXIX.

He made us freemen of the continent,

Whom nature did like captives treat before;

To nobler preys the English lion sent,

And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.[24]

XXX.

That old unquestioned pirate of the land,

Proud Rome, with dread the fate of Dunkirk heard;

And, trembling, wished behind more Alps to stand,

Although an Alexander were her guard.[25]

XXXI.

By his command we boldly crossed the line.[26]

And bravely fought where southern stars arise;

We traced the far-fetched gold unto the mine,

And that, which bribed our fathers, made our prize.

XXXII.

Such was our prince; yet owned a soul above

The highest acts it could produce to show:

Thus, poor mechanic arts in public move,

Whilst the deep secrets beyond practice go.

XXXIII.

Nor died he when his ebbing fame went less,

But when fresh laurels courted him to live:

He seemed but to prevent some new success,

As if above what triumphs earth could give.

XXXIV.

His latest victories still thickest came,

As near the centre motion doth increase;

'Till he, pressed down by his own weighty name,

Did, like the vestal, under spoils decease.[27]

XXXV.

But first the ocean as a tribute sent

The giant prince of all her watry herd;

And the isle, when her protecting Genius went,

Upon his obsequies loud sighs conferred.[28]

XXXVI.

No civil broils have since his death arose,

But faction now by habit does obey;

And wars have that respect for his repose,

As winds for halcyons when they breed at sea.

XXXVII.

His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;[29]

His name a great example stands, to show,

How strangely high endeavours may be blessed,

Where piety and valour jointly go.

NOTES
ON
HEROIC STANZAS.

Note I.

And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,

Who would before have borne him to the sky,

Like eager Romans, ere all rites were past,

Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly.—St. I. p. 8.

Cromwell's disease, a fever and tertian ague, was accompanied by fits of swooning, which occasioned, more than once, a premature report of his death. It was probably this circumstance, which made some of his fanatical chaplains doubt the fact, after it had actually taken place. "Say not he is dead," exclaimed one of them, like Omar over the corpse of Mahomet; "for, if ever the Lord heard my prayers, he has assured me of the life of the Protector." The two last lines of the stanza allude to the Roman custom of letting an eagle fly from the funeral pile of a deceased emperor, which represented his spirit soaring to the regions of bliss, or his guardian genius convoying it thither. It is described at length in the fourth book of Herodian, who says, that, after this ceremony of consecration, the deceased emperor was enrolled among the Roman deities.

Note II.

Fortune, (that easy mistress to the young,

But to her ancient servants coy and hard,)

Him at that age her favourites ranked among,

When she her best-loved Pompey did discard.—St. VIII. p. 9.

Cromwell was upwards of forty before he made any remarkable figure; and Pompey, when he had attained the same period of life, was deserted by the good fortune which had accompanied his more early career.

Note III.

Our former chiefs, like sticklers of the war,

First sought to inflame the parties, then to poise:

The quarrel loved, but did the cause abhor;

And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.—St. XI. p. 10.

Essex, Manchester, Sir William Waller, and the earlier generals of the Parliament, were all of the Presbyterian party, who, though they had drawn the sword against the king, had no will to throw away the scabbard. They were disposed so to carry on the war, that, neither party being too much weakened, a sound and honourable peace might have been accomplished on equal terms. But the Independants flew at higher game; and, as the more violent party usually prevail during times of civil discord, they attained their object. Cromwell openly accused the Earl of Manchester of having refused to put an end to the war, after the last battle at Newbury, when a single charge upon the King's rear might have dissipated his army for ever. "I offered," he averred, "to perform the work with my own brigade of horse; let Manchester and the rest look on, if they thought fit: but he obstinately refused to permit the attempt, alleging, that, if the king's army was beaten, he would find another; but if that of the Parliament was overthrown, there would be an end of their cause, and they would be all punished as traitors." This suspicion of the compromising temper of the Presbyterian leaders, led to the famous self-denying ordinance, by which all members of both houses were declared incapable of holding a military command. By this new model, all the power of the army was thrown, nominally, into the hands of Fairfax, but, really and effectually, into that of Cromwell, who was formally excepted from the operation of the act, and of the Independants; men determined to push the war to extremity, and who at length triumphed over both King and Parliament.

Note IV.

He fought to end our fighting, and essayed

To staunch the blood, by breathing of the vein.—St. XII. p. 10.

This passage, which seems to imply nothing farther than that Cromwell conducted the war so as to push it to a conclusion, was afterwards invidiously interpreted by Dryden's enemies, as containing an explicit approbation of the execution of Charles I.

Thus, in the panegyric quoted in the introductory remarks to this poem,

Such wonders have thy powerful raptures shewn,

Pythagoras' transmigration thou'st outdone;

His souls of heroes and great chiefs expired,

Down into birds and noble beasts retired:

But then to savages and monsters dire,

Canst infuse sparks even of celestial fire;

Make treason glory, murderers heroes live,

And even to regicides canst godhead give.

Thus in thy songs the yet warm bloody dart,

Fresh reeking in a martyred monarch's heart,

Burnished by verse, and polished by thy lines,

The rubies in imperial crowns outshines;

Whilst in applause to that sad day's success,

So black a theme in so divine a dress,

Thy soaring flights Prometheus' thefts excel,

Whilst thou steal'st fire from heaven to enlighten hell.

The same accusation is urged in another libel, called "The Laureat:"

Nay, had our Charles, by Heaven's severe decree,

Been found, and murdered in the royal tree,

Even thou hadst praised the fact. His father slain,

Thou call'dst but gently breathing of a vein.

}

{  Impious and villainous, to bless the blow

{  That laid at once three lofty nations low,

{  And gave the royal cause a fatal overthrow!

Another witling, to add to the heinousness of this expression, assures us, that Dryden had at first declared for the king, then for the parliament, and, finally, for Cromwell:

I for the Royal Martyr first declared,

But, ere his head was off, I was prepared

To own the Rump, and for that cause did rhime;

But, those kicked out, next moment turned to him

Who routed them: called him my sovereign,

And praised his opening of the kingly vein.

Dialogue in Bedlam between Oliver's Porter, Fidler, and Poet.

These are examples of the inveteracy, with which Dryden's enemies were ready to wrest his expressions from the common interpretation into one more strong and unwarrantable. Dryden, sufficiently embarrassed by the praises he had bestowed on the Usurper, a charge from which he could not vindicate himself, took no notice of the uncandid lengths to which it was carried.

Note V.

He fought, secure of fortune as of fame,

Till by new maps the island might be shewn;

Of conquests, which he strewed where'er he came,

Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown.—St. XIV. p. 10.

Notwithstanding the inconstancy of Victory during the civil war, she never deserted the banner of Cromwell. Even in undecided conflicts, the brigade, or wing, with which he fought, had always the superiority. The royalists never once saw him fly before them, during all the pitched battles in which he was engaged in England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Note VI.

His palms, though under weights they did not stand,—St. XV. p. 10.

It was anciently a popular notion, that the palm-tree throve best when pressed down with weights. An old scholiast defines it as "arbor nobilissima illa, quæ nulli cedit ponderi, sed contra assurgit et reluctatur."—Fabri Thesaurus ad verbum palma.

Note VII.

Bolognia's walls thus mounted in the air,

To seat themselves more surely than before.—St. XVI. p. 11.

This odd simile is borrowed from a very singular, and somewhat dubious event, said to have happened during the siege of Bologna in 1512. A mine had been run by the Spanish besieging army under a part of the wall, on which was built a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Upon the explosion, the chapel and portion of the wall which formed its support were heaved into the air, so high, that (in spite of all the smoke and dust accompanying such an eruption) an elegant historian assures us, the besiegers could see, through the vacant space, the buildings of the town, and the defenders ready to man the breach. Nevertheless, the chapel and fragment of wall descended so exactly into the space they had formerly occupied, that the breach was completely and accurately repaired. The chapel acquired by this incident a great reputation for miraculous sanctity. The event is more fully narrated in the following passage of the original:

"Finita in ultimo la mina, e stando l'esercito armato per dare incontinente la battaglia, la quale perchè si desse con maggiori forze, era stata richiamata l'antiguardia, fece il Navarra dare il fuoco alla mina; la quale con grandissimo impeto, e romore gittò talmente in alto la cappella, che per quello spatio, che rimase tra'l terreno, e'l muro gittato in alto, fu da quelli, ch' erano fuora, veduta apertamente la città dentro, et i soldati che stavano preparati per difenderla; ma subito scendendo in giừ ritornò il muro intero nel luogo medesimo, onde la violentia del fuoco l'areva sbarrato, e si ricongiunse insieme, come se mai non fusse stato mosso: onde si non si potendo assaltare da quella parte, i capitani giudicurono non si dovere dare solamente dall' altra. Attribuirono questo caso i Bolognesi a miracolo, riputando impossibile, che, senza l'ajutorio divino, fusse potuto riconguignersi cosi appunto ne' medesimi fondamenti; onde fu dipoi ampliata quella cappella, e frequentata con non piccola divotione del popolo." L'Istoria di Guicciardini, Libro Decimo.

Note VIII.

Her safety rescued Ireland to him owes.—St. XVII. p. 11.

The gallant Ormond, who commanded for the king in Ireland, had reduced the island almost entirely under the royal authority, excepting the cities of Dublin and Londonderry, when the arrival of Cromwell, appointed lord governor by the parliament, entirely changed the scene. In less than ten months, that fated general over-ran the whole kingdom. Tredagh he took by storm; and such terror was struck into the minds of the Irish, by the bloody execution attending and following that assault, that almost all the other garrisons surrendered without resistance, or revolted to the parliament.

Note IX.

——Treacherous Scotland, to no interest true,

Yet blest that fate which did his arms dispose

Her land to civilize, as to subdue.—St. XVII. p. 11.

Cromwell's wars in Scotland form a brilliant part of his history. After narrowly escaping the snares of the veteran Lesley, whose admirable manœuvres compelled him, with woeful anticipations of farther misfortune, to retreat towards Dunbar, he was enabled, by the rashness of the Scottish kirkmen, totally to defeat that fine army. Edinburgh castle next surrendered; and the war being carried across the Forth, the Scots were again routed with slaughter at Inverkeithing. Then followed the irruption of the king into England, and the fatal defeat at Worcester, which Cromwell used to call his "crowning mercy."

Scotland is here called treacherous, because, having been the first to take up arms against King Charles I. she was the last to lay them down in behalf of his son; or rather, because the Presbyterian party in that country joined the young King against the Independants, as they had joined the Parliament against the Prelatists: for, the war, which in England related chiefly to dissentions concerning the Civil government, was in Scotland entirely to be referred to religious controversy.

Cromwell certainly did much to civilize Scotland. Some of his benefits were intentionally conferred, others flowed indirectly from the measures he adopted for the consolidation of his own authority. The English judges, whom he appointed, introduced into the administration of justice a purity and vigour, with which Scotland had been hitherto unacquainted.[30] By the impoverishment, exile, and annihilation of the principal baronial families, the chains of feudal bondage were lightened upon the peasantry; and the pay of 18,000 men, levied to maintain the constituted authorities, enriched the lower orders, amongst whom it was spent. The English soldiers also introduced into Scotland some of the arts of a more civilized country. We may, however, hesitate to believe, that they taught the citizens of Aberdeen to make shoes and plant kail; because Dr Johnson, upon whose authority the tradition is given, informs us, that the peasantry live upon that vegetable alone, and that, when they had not kail, they probably had nothing; in which case, the English military guests had better have learned from their Aberdonian hosts the art of living upon nothing, than taught them a branch of gardening which their habits of abstinence rendered totally superfluous. But the garrisons established by Cromwell upon the skirts, and in the passes of the Highlands, restrained the predatory clans, and taught them, in no gentle manner, that respect for the property of their Lowland neighbours, which their lawful monarchs had vainly endeavoured to inculcate. An officer of engineers, quartered at Inverness shortly after 1720, says, that the name of Oliver still struck terror through the Highlands; and one very ancient laird declared to him, the appearance of the Protector's colours were so strongly impressed on his memory, that he still thought he saw them before his eyes, spread out by the wind, and bearing, in great golden characters, the word Emanuel.—Letters from the North of Scotland, Vol. I. p. 274.

Note X.

As wands of divination downward draw,

And point to beds where sovereign gold doth grow.—St. XIX. p. 11.

The rod of divination, an admirable implement for a mineralogist, was a piece of forked hazel, which, being poised on the back of the hand, and so carried with great caution, inclined itself sympathetically to the earth, where mines or hidden treasures lay concealed beneath the surface. Derrick refers readers for further information concerning the properties of this marvellous rod, and the way of using it, to La Physique Occultee, ou Traité de la Baguette Divinatoire, published at Amsterdam, 1613.

Note XI.

To suppliant Holland he vouchsafed a peace,

Our once bold rival of the British main;

Now tamely glad her unjust claim to cease,

And buy our friendship with her idol, gain.—St. XXI. p. 12.

The war betwixt the republics had been disastrous to the Dutch, and the peace of 1654 was degrading to the States, though not proportionally disadvantageous. They consented to desert the cause of the exiled Stuarts, and to punish the authors of the massacre at Amboyna; they yielded to the English the honour of the flag in the narrow seas; they agreed to pay to the East India Company eighty-five thousand pounds, in compensation of damage done to them; and they consented to the cession of the island of Polerone in the East Indies: lastly, by a secret article, the province of Holland guaranteed an assurance, that neither the young Prince of Orange, whose connection with the exiled family rendered him an object of the Protector's suspicion, nor any of his family, should be invested with the office of Stadtholder.

Note XII.

No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embraced,

Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweighed.—St. XXIII. p. 12.

In 1655, Cromwell allied himself with the rising power of France against the declining monarchy of Spain; less guided, probably, by any general views of political expedience, than by the consideration, that the American and West India settlements of the latter power lay open to assault from the English fleet; while, had he embraced the other side, his own dominions were exposed to an invasion from the exiled king, with French auxiliaries. The splendid triumphs of Blake gave some ground for the poetical flourishes in the text.

Note XIII.

And, as the confident of Nature, saw

How she complexions did divide and brew.—St. XXV. p. 12.

It was still fashionable, in the seventeenth century, to impute the distinguishing shades of human character to the influence of complexion. The doctrine is concisely summed up in the following lines, which occur in an old MS. in the British Museum:

With a red man rede thy rede,

With a brown man break thy bread,

On a pale man draw thy knife,

From a black man keep thy wife.

Note XIV.

He made us freemen of the continent,

Whom nature did like captives treat before;

To nobler preys the English lion sent,

And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.—St. XXIX. p. 13.

The poet alludes to the exertions of the six thousand British auxiliaries, whom Cromwell sent to join Marshal Turenne in Flanders. These veterans, seasoned to the desperate and close mode of fighting, which the inveteracy of civil war had introduced, astonished the French by their audacity, and their contempt of the usual military precautions and calculations. There is a curious account, by Sir Thomas Morgan, of their exploits at Dunkirk and Ypres, which occurs in the third volume of the Harleian Miscellany, p. 326. The Duke of York was then with the Spanish army; and Dryden, on the change of times, lived to celebrate him for his gallant opposition to that body, which he here personifies as the British Lion. See the Dedication of the "Conquest of Granada," Vol. IV. p. 11. The English were made "free-men of the continent" by the cession of Dunkirk; and it is believed, that this was the first step towards giving England a share in the partition of Flanders, when that strange project was disconcerted by the death of Cromwell. There was no avoiding allusion to the British Lion. Sprat has also sent him forth, seeking whom he may devour:

——From his eyes

Made the same dreadful lightning rise,

Made him again affright the neighbouring floods,

His mighty thunder sound through all the woods.

Note XV.

That old unquestioned pirate of the land,

Proud Rome, with dread the fate of Dunkirk heard;

And, trembling, wished behind more Alps to stand,

Although an Alexander were her guard.—St. XXX. p. 13.

The pope being called Alexander the Sixth, Dryden did not disdain to turn this stanza upon an allusion to the Macedonian hero; although it is obvious, that the pontiff was not a more effectual guardian to his city by bearing that warlike name, than if he had been called Benedict or Innocent. True it is, however, that the pope feared, and with great reason, some hostile attack from the powerful English squadron which swept the Mediterranean, under the command of Blake. Conscious that his papal character rendered him the object of the most inveterate enmity to the military saints of Cromwell's commonwealth, he had every reason to believe that they would find pride, pleasure, and profit, in attacking Antichrist, even in Babylon itself.

Note XVI.

By his command we boldly crossed the line, &c.—St. XXXI. p. 13.

A powerful army and squadron were sent by Cromwell, under the command of Penn and Venables, to attack Hispaniola. The commanders quarrelled, and the main design misgave: they took, however, the island of Jamaica, whose importance long remained unknown; for, notwithstanding the manner in which Dryden has glossed over these operations in the West Indies, they were at the time universally considered as having been unfortunate. See "The World's mistake in Oliver Cromwell."

Note XVII.

Till he, pressed down by his own weighty name,

Did, like the vestal, under spoils decease.—St. XXXIV. p. 14.

Tarpeia, the virgin who betrayed a gate of Rome to the Sabines, demanded, in recompense, what they wore on their left arms, meaning their golden bracelets. But the Sabines, detesting her treachery, or not disposed to gratify her avarice, chose to understand, that her request related to their bucklers, and flung them upon her in such numbers as to kill her.

Note XVIII.

But first the ocean as a tribute sent

The giant prince of all her watery herd;

And the isle, when her protecting Genius went,

Upon his obsequies loud sighs conferred.—St. XXXV. p. 14.

The circumstance, of the dreadful storm which happened on the day of Cromwell's death, is noticed by all writers. Many vessels were dashed on the coast, and trees and houses were overthrown, upon the land. It seemed as if that active spirit, which had rode in the whirlwind while he lived, could not depart without an universal convulsion of nature. Waller has touched upon this remarkable incident with great felicity:

We must resign; heaven his great soul does claim,

In storms as loud as his immortal fame;

His dying groans, his last breath, shakes our isle,

And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile;

About his palace their broad roots were tost

Into the air:—so Romulus was lost;

New Rome in such a tempest missed her king,

And from obeying fell to worshipping.

But, while the authors of these threnodies explained this prodigious storm as attendant on the deification of the Protector, or at least the effects of the Genius of Britain's unbounded lamentation, the cavaliers unanimously agreed, that the tempest accompanied the transportation of his spirit to the infernal regions.

Note XIX.

His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest.—St. XXXVII. p. 14.

This prophecy, like that announcing the final close of civil broils, in the preceding stanza, was not doomed to be accomplished. The contending factions resumed their struggles in a month after the Protector's death; his body was dragged from the burial place of princes, to be exposed on the gibbet; and his head placed on the end of Westminster Hall. There is, however, an unauthenticated story, that Cromwell, foreseeing the Restoration, had commanded his remains to be interred secretly, and by night, in the field of Naseby, as near as possible to the spot where his prowess had gained that bloody day; and that, by a piece of refined and ingenious malice, his friends caused the body of Charles to be deposited in the empty coffin, which had received the funeral honours rendered to the Protector; thus turning the disgrace, which the royalists intended for the body of Cromwell, upon that of the royal martyr. The story may be found in the Harleian Miscellany, Vol. II. p. 269. But it is unworthy of credit, and seems to have been grounded upon the circumstance, that Cromwell's body, being in a very corrupted state, was buried privately before the grand procession. The restoration of the house of Stuart seemed then to be an event much out of the reach of calculation, even to persons less sanguine than Cromwell.

ASTRÃA REDUX.
A POEM.

After so many years of civil war and domestic tyranny, the Restoration, an almost hopeless event, established the crown upon the head of the lawful successor, and the government upon its original footing. Dryden, among the numerous, I had almost said innumerable, bards,[31] who celebrated, or attempted to celebrate, this surprising event, distinguished himself by the following poem, to which he has given the apt name of Astræa Redux, from the hopes of justice and liberty returning with the lawful king.

The tone of praise, which Dryden has adopted, exhibits his usual felicity. There do not here occur any of these rants about the antiquity of the royal line,[32] and the indefeasible right of the lawful successor, which are the common topics of the herd, who offered poetical congratulation to the restored monarch. Dryden rejoices with the chastised triumph of one, that had not forgot what it was to mourn. He looks back, as well as forwards; and it is upon the past sufferings of the people, and of the monarch, that he grounds the hope and expectation of their future happiness. The poet was perhaps sensible, that the claim of loyal merit was rather new in his family and person, and ought not therefore to be expressed with the extravagant colouring of the cavaliers. He ventures indeed upon prophecy, although past experience might have taught him it was dangerous ground. One prediction, however, has been (magno licet intervallo) accomplished to its fullest extent in our own age:

Your much-loved fleet shall, with a wide command,

Besiege the petty monarchs of the land.

The poem exhibits the taste which belongs to the earlier class of Dryden's compositions, bearing the same marks of attachment to the stile of Waller and Davenant. Some of the similes are brought out with singular ingenuity. Nothing can be more elegant than the turn he gives to the slow, gentle, and almost imperceptible manner, in which the great change which he celebrates was accomplished:

—— —— While we

The effect did feel, but scarce the manner see.

Frosts, that constrain the ground, and birth deny

To flowers that in its womb expecting lie,

Do seldom their usurping power withdraw,

But raging floods pursue their hasty thaw;

Our thaw was mild, the frost not chased away,

But kindly lost in heat of lengthened day.

On the other hand, it is surely unnecessary to point out to the reader the confusion of metaphor, where Virtue is said to dress the wounds of Charles with laurels;[33] the impertinent antithesis of finding "light alone in dark afflictions;" and the extravagance of representing the winds, that wafted Charles, as out of breath with joy. These, and other outrageous flights of wit, have been noticed and blamed by Johnson. I am not certain whether that great critic is equally just, in severely censuring the passage in which there is a short allusion to Heathen mythology.[34] Where the tender, the passionate, or the sublime, ought to prevail, an allusion to classical fiction seldom fails to interrupt the tone of feeling which the author should seek to preserve; but in a poem, of which elegance of expression and ingenuity of device are the principal attributes, an allusion to the customs of Greece, or of Rome, while it gives a classic air to the composition, seems as little misplaced, as an apt quotation from the authors in which they are recorded.

The first edition of this poem is printed in folio by J. M. for Henry Herringman, 1660. It affords few and trifling corrections.

ASTRÃA REDUX.

A POEM,

ON THE HAPPY RESTORATION AND RETURN OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY, CHARLES THE SECOND, 1660.

Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna.     Virg.

The last great age, foretold by sacred rhimes,

Renews its finished course; Saturnian times

Roll round again.

Now with a general peace the world was blest,

While ours, a world divided from the rest,

A dreadful quiet fell, and worser far

Than arms, a sullen interval of war.

Thus when black clouds draw down the lab'ring skies,

Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,

An horrid stillness first invades the ear,

And in that silence we the tempest fear.[35]

The ambitious Swede, like restless billows tost,

On this hand gaining what on that he lost,

Though in his life he blood and ruin breathed,

To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeathed;[36]

And heaven, that seemed regardless of our fate,

For France and Spain did miracles create;

Such mortal quarrels to compose in peace,

As nature bred, and interest did increase.

We sighed to hear the fair Iberian bride

Must grow a lily to the lily's side;[37]

While our cross stars denied us Charles' bed,

Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed.

For his long absence church and state did groan;

Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne:

Experienced age in deep despair was lost,

To see the rebel thrive, the loyal crost:

Youth, that with joys had unacquainted been,

Envied gray hairs, that once good days had seen:

We thought our sires, not with their own content,

Had, ere we came to age, our portion spent.

Nor could our nobles hope their bold attempt,

Who ruined crowns, would coronets exempt:

For when, by their designing leaders taught

To strike at power, which for themselves they sought,

The vulgar, gulled into rebellion, armed,

Their blood to action by the prize was warmed.

The sacred purple, then, and scarlet gown,

Like sanguine dye to elephants, was shewn.[38]

Thus, when the bold Typhœus scaled the sky,

And forced great Jove from his own heaven to fly,

(What king, what crown, from treason's reach is free,

If Jove and Heaven can violated be?)

The lesser gods, that shared his prosperous state,

All suffered in the exiled Thunderer's fate.

The rabble now such freedom did enjoy,

As winds at sea, that use it to destroy:

Blind as the Cyclop, and as wild as he,

They owned a lawless savage liberty,

Like that our painted ancestors so prized,

Ere empire's arts their breasts had civilized.

How great were then our Charles' woes, who thus

Was forced to suffer for himself and us!

He, tossed by fate, and hurried up and down,

Heir to his father's sorrows, with his crown,

Could taste no sweets of youth's desired age,

But found his life too true a pilgrimage.

Unconquered yet in that forlorn estate,

His manly courage overcame his fate:

His wounds he took, like Romans, on his breast,

Which by his virtue were with laurels drest.

As souls reach heaven, while yet in bodies pent,

So did he live above his banishment.

That sun, which we beheld with cozened eyes

Within the water, moved along the skies.

How easy 'tis, when destiny proves kind,

With full-spread sails to run before the wind!

But those, that 'gainst stiff gales laveering go,

Must be at once resolved, and skilful too.

He would not, like soft Otho, hope prevent,

But stayed, and suffered fortune to repent.[39]

These virtues Galba in a stranger sought,

And Piso to adopted empire brought,[40]

How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express,

That must his sufferings both regret and bless!

For, when his early valour heaven had crost,

And all at Worc'ster but the honour lost;[41]

Forced into exile from his rightful throne,

He made all countries where he came his own;

And, viewing monarchs' secret arts of sway,

A royal factor for his kingdoms lay.

Thus, banished David spent abroad his time,

When to be God's anointed was his crime;

And, when restored, made his proud neighbours rue

Those choice remarks he from his travels drew.

Nor is he only by afflictions shown

To conquer others' realms, but rule his own;

Recovering hardly what he lost before,

His right endears it much, his purchase more.

Inured to suffer ere he came to reign,

No rash procedure will his actions stain:

To business ripened by digestive thought,

His future rule is into method brought;

As they, who, first, proportion understand,

With easy practice reach a master's hand.

Well might the ancient poets then confer

On Night the honoured name of Counsellor;

Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind,

We light alone in dark afflictions find.

In such adversities to sceptres trained,

The name of Great his famous grandsire gained;[42]

Who yet, a king alone in name and right,

With hunger, cold, and angry Jove did fight;

Shocked by a covenanting League's vast powers,

As holy and as catholic as ours:[43]

'Till Fortune's fruitless spite had made it known,

Her blows not shook, but riveted, his throne.

Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease,

No action leave to busy chronicles:

Such, whose supine felicity but makes

In story chasms, in epocha[44] mistakes;

O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down,

Till with his silent sickle they are mown.

Such is not Charles[45] his too too active age,

Which, governed by the wild distempered rage

Of some black star, infecting all the skies,

Made him at his own cost, like Adam, wise.

Tremble, ye nations, which, secure before,

Laughed at those arms that 'gainst ourselves we bore;

Rouzed by the lash of his own stubborn tail,

Our Lion now will foreign foes assail.

With alga, who the sacred altar strews?

To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes:

A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain,

A lamb to you, ye tempests of the main:[46]

For those loud storms, that did against him roar,

Have cast his shipwrecked vessel on the shore.

Yet, as wise artists mix their colours so,

That by degrees they from each other go;

Black steals unheeded from the neighbouring white,

Without offending the well-cozened sight:

So on us stole our blessed change; while we

The effect did feel, but scarce the manner see.

Frosts, that constrain the ground, and birth deny

To flowers that in its womb expecting lie,

Do seldom their usurping power withdraw,

But raging floods pursue their hasty thaw;

Our thaw was mild, the cold not chased away,

But lost in kindly heat of lengthened day.

Heaven would no bargain for its blessings drive,

But what we could not pay for, freely give.

The Prince of Peace would, like himself, confer

A gift unhoped, without the price of war:

Yet, as he knew his blessing's worth, took care,

That we should know it by repeated prayer;

Which stormed the skies, and ravished Charles from thence,

As heaven itself is took by violence.

Booth's forward valour only served to show,

He durst that duty pay, we all did owe:[47]

The attempt was fair; but heaven's prefixed hour

Not come: so, like the watchful traveller,

That by the moon's mistaken light did rise,

Lay down again, and closed his weary eyes.

'Twas Monk, whom Providence designed to loose

Those real bonds false freedom did impose.

The blessed saints, that watched this turning scene,

Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean,

To see small clues draw vastest weights along,

Not in their bulk, but in their order strong.

Thus, pencils can, by one slight touch, restore

Smiles to that changed face that wept before.

With ease such fond chimeras we pursue,

As fancy frames for fancy to subdue:

But when ourselves to action we betake,

It shuns the mint, like gold that chemists make.[48]

How hard was then his task, at once to be

What in the body natural we see!

Man's architect distinctly did ordain

The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain,

Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense;

The springs of motion from the seat of sense.

'Twas not the hasty product of a day,

But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay.

He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,

Would let them play a while upon the hook.

Our healthful food the stomach labours thus,

At first embracing what it straight doth crush.

Wise leaches will not vain receipts obtrude,

While growing pains pronounce the humours crude:

Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,

Till some safe crisis authorize their skill.

Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear,

To 'scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear,

And guard with caution that polluted nest,

Whence Legion twice before was dispossest:[49]

Once sacred house, which when they entered in,

They thought the place could sanctify a sin;

Like those, that vainly hoped kind heaven would wink,

While to excess on martyrs' tombs they drink.

And, as devouter Turks first warn their souls

To part, before they taste forbidden bowls,[50]

So these, when their black crimes they went about,

First timely charmed their useless conscience out.

Religion's name against itself was made;

The shadow served the substance to invade:

Like zealous missions, they did care pretend

Of souls, in shew, but made the gold their end.

The incensed powers beheld with scorn, from high,

An heaven so far distant from the sky,

Which durst, with horses' hoofs that beat the ground,

And martial brass, bely the thunder's sound[51].

'Twas hence, at length, just vengeance thought it fit

To speed their ruin by their impious wit:

Thus Sforza, cursed with a too fertile brain,

Lost by his wiles the power has wit did gain.[52]

Henceforth their fougue must spend at lesser rate,

Than in its flames to wrap a nation's fate.

Suffered to live, they are like Helots set,

A virtuous shame within us to beget;[53]

For, by example most we sinned before,

And, glass-like,[54] clearness mixed with frailty bore.

But since, reformed by what we did amiss,

We by our sufferings learn to prize our bliss:

Like early lovers, whose unpractised hearts

Were long the may-game of malicious arts,

When once they find their jealousies were vain,

With double heat renew their fires again.

'Twas this produced the joy, that hurried o'er

Such swarms of English to the neighbouring shore,[55]

To fetch that prize, by which Batavia made

So rich amends for our impoverished trade.

Oh, had you seen from Scheveline's barren shore,[56]

(Crowded with troops, and barren now no more,)

Afflicted Holland to his farewell bring

True sorrow, Holland to regret a king![57]

While waiting him his royal fleet did ride,

And willing winds to their lower'd sails denied.

The wavering streamers, flags, and standart[58] out,

The merry seamen's rude but chearful shout;

}

{  And last the cannons' voice that shook the skies,

{  And, as it fares in sudden ecstasies,

{  At once bereft us both of ears and eyes.

The Naseby, now no longer England's shame,

But better to be lost in Charles his name,[59]

(Like some unequal bride in nobler sheets)

Receives her lord; the joyful London meets

The princely York, himself alone a freight;

The Swiftsure groans beneath great Gloster's weight:[60]

Secure as when the halcyon breeds, with these,

He, that was born to drown, might cross the seas.

Heaven could not own a Providence, and take

The wealth three nations ventured at a stake.

The same indulgence Charles his voyage blessed,

Which in his right had miracles confessed.

The winds, that never moderation knew,

Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;

Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge

Their straightened lungs, or conscious of their charge.

The British Amphytrite, smooth and clear,

In richer azure never did appear;

Proud her returning prince to entertain

With the submitted fasces of the main.

And welcome now, great monarch, to your own!

Behold the approaching clifts of Albion.

It is no longer motion cheats your view;

As you meet it, the land approacheth you.

The land returns, and, in the white it wears,

The marks of penitence and sorrow bears.[61]

But you, whose goodness your descent doth shew,

Your heavenly parentage and earthly too,

By that same mildness, which your father's crown

Before did ravish, shall secure your own.

Not tied to rules of policy, you find

Revenge less sweet than a forgiving mind.

Thus, when the Almighty would to Moses give

A sight of all he could behold and live;

A voice before his entry did proclaim,

Long-suffering, goodness, mercy, in his name.[62]

Your power to justice doth submit your cause,

Your goodness only is above the laws;[63]

Whose rigid letter, while pronounced by you,

Is softer made. So winds, that tempests brew,

When through Arabian groves they take their flight,

Made wanton with rich odours, lose their spite.

And as those lees, that trouble it, refine

The agitated soul of generous wine;

So tears of joy, for your returning spilt,

Work out, and expiate our former guilt.

Methinks I see those crowds on Dover's strand,

Who, in their haste to welcome you to land,

Choked up the beach with their still growing store,

And made a wilder torrent on the shore:

While, spurred with eager thoughts of past delight,

Those, who had seen you, court a second sight;

Preventing still your steps, and making haste

To meet you often wheresoe'er you past.

How shall I speak of that triumphant day,

When you renewed the expiring pomp of May!

A month that owns an interest in your name:

You and the flowers are its peculiar claim.[64]

That star, that at your birth shone out so bright,

It stained the duller sun's meridian light,

Did once again its potent fires renew,[65]

Guiding our eyes to find and worship you.

And now Time's whiter series is begun,

Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run:

Those clouds, that overcast your morn, shall fly,

Dispelled, to farthest corners of the sky.

Our nation, with united interest blest,

Not now content to poize, shall sway the rest.

Abroad your empire shall no limits know,

But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow;

Your much-loved fleet shall, with a wide command,

Besiege the petty monarchs of the land;

And, as old Time his offspring swallowed down,[66]

Our ocean in its depths all seas shall drown.

Their wealthy trade from pirates' rapine free,

Our merchants shall no more adventurers be;

Nor in the farthest east those dangers fear,

Which humble Holland must dissemble here.

Spain to your gift alone her Indies owes;

For, what the powerful takes not, he bestows:

And France, that did an exile's presence fear,[67]

May justly apprehend you still too near.

At home the hateful names of parties cease,

And factious souls are wearied into peace.

The discontented now are only they,

Whose crimes before did your just cause betray;

Of those your edicts some reclaim from sin,

But most your life and blest example win.

Oh happy prince, whom heaven hath taught the way

By paying vows to have more vows to pay!

Oh happy age! Oh times like those alone,

By fate reserved for great Augustus' throne!

When the joint growth of arms and arts foreshew

The world a monarch, and that monarch you.

NOTES
ON
ASTRÃA REDUX.

Note I.

An horrid stillness first invades the ear,

And in that silence we the tempest fear.—P. 30.

The small wits of the time made themselves very merry with this couplet; because stillness, being a mere absence of sound, could not, it was said, be personified, as an active agent, or invader. Captain Ratcliff thus states the objection in his "News from Hell:"

Laureat, who was both learned and florid,

Was damned, long since, for "silence horrid;"

Nor had there been such clatter made,

But that this Silence did "invade."

Invade! and so't might well, 'tis clear;

But what did it invade?—an ear.

And for some other things, 'tis true,

"We follow Fate, that does pursue."

In the "Dialogue in Bedlam," between Oliver's porter, fiddler, and poet, the first of these persons thus addresses L'Estrange and Dryden, "the scene being adorned with several of the poet's own flowers:"

O glory, glory! who are these appear?

My fellow-servants, poet, fiddler, here?

Old Hodge the constant, Johny the sincere!

Who sent you hither? and, pray tell me, why?

A horrid silence does invade my eye,

While not one sound of voice from you I spy.

But, as Dr Johnson justly remarks, we hesitate not to say, the world is invaded by darkness, which is a privation of light; and why not by silence, which is a privation of sound?

Note II.

The ambitious Swede, like restless billows tost,

On this hand gaining what on that he lost,

Though in his life he blood and ruin breathed,

To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeathed.—P. 30.

The royal line of Sweden has produced more heroic and chivalrous monarchs, than any dynasty of Europe. The gallant Charles X. who is here mentioned, did not degenerate from this warlike stem. He was a nephew of the great Gustavus Adolphus; and, like him, was continually engaged in war, particularly against Poland and Austria. He died at Gottenburgh in 1660, and the peace of Sweden was soon afterwards restored by the treaty of Copenhagen.

Note III.

We sighed to hear the fair Iberian bride

Must grow a lily to the lily's side.—P. 31.

The death of Cromwell, and the unsettled state of England, prevented the execution of those ambitious schemes, which Cardinal Mazarine, then prime minister of France, had hoped to accomplish by the assistance of Britain. The Cardinal was therefore, in 1659, induced to accede to the treaty of the Pyrenees, by which peace was restored betwixt France and Spain; the union being cemented by the marriage of the Infanta to Louis XIV.—Charles II., then a needy fugitive, was in attendance upon the ministers of France and Spain, when they met on the frontiers for this great object; but he, who was soon to be so powerful a monarch, experienced on that occasion nothing but slights from Mazarine, and cold civility from Don Lewis de Haro.

Note IV.

The sacred purple, then, and scarlet gown,

Like sanguine dye to elephants, was shown.—P. 31.

This does not mean, as Derrick conceived, that these emblems of authority had as little effect upon the mob as if they had been shown to an elephant; but that the sight of them animated the people to such senseless fury, as elephants, and many other animals, are said to shew, upon seeing any object of a red colour.

Note V.

He would not, like soft Otho, fate prevent,

But stayed, and suffered fortune to repent.—P. 32.

The emperor Otho, whose mind and manners exhibited so many contradictions, is described as one of the most effeminate of men in his outward habits; his mind, however, was active and energetic. "Non erat Othonis, mollis et corpori similis, animus." Taciti, Lib. i. Historiarum.—He slew himself after the battle of Brixellum, in which he was vanquished by Vitellius. The prætorian guards, and his other followers, in vain urged him to try his fortune again in the field. Whether from that impatience of sustaining adversity, which luxurious habits seldom fail to produce, or from the generous desire of ending a disastrous civil war, he retained and executed his resolution. It is, however, no extraordinary compliment to Charles, that he did not, after his defeat at Worcester, follow an example more classical than inviting.

Note VI.

These virtues Galba in a stranger sought,

And Piso to adopted empire brought.—P. 32.

Galba adopted Piso Frugi Licinianus as his successor in the empire. He was a stranger to his blood, and only endeared to him by his good qualities. Tacitus puts these words in the mouth of Galba upon this occasion: "Nunc me, deorum hominumque consensu, ad imperium vocatum, preclara indoles tua, et amor patriæ impulit, ut principatum, de quo majores nostri armis certabant, bello adeptus, quiescenti offeram; exemplo divi Augusti, qui sororis filium Marcellum, dein generum Agrippam, mox nepotes suos, postremo Tiberium Neronem privignum, in proximo sibi fastigio, collocavit. Sed Augustus in domo successorem quæsivit, ego in republica: non quia propinquos aut socios belli non habeam; sed neque ipse imperium ambitione accessi, et judicii mei documentum sit non meæ tantum necessitudines quas tibi postposui sed et tuæ."—Lib. I. Historiarum, cap. xv.

Note VII.

All at Worc'ster but the honour lost.—P. 32.

This is in imitation of the famous letter which Francis the First of France wrote to his mother after the battle of Pavia: "Madam, all is lost except our honour." That of Charles II. certainly was not lost at Worcester. He gave many marks of personal courage, and was only hurried off the field by the torrent of fugitives. He halted a large body of horse, and implored them to return, and but look upon the enemy; yet, though he advanced at their head, they all deserted him but a few of his immediate attendants.

Note VIII.

Shocked by a covenanting League's vast powers,

As holy and as catholic as ours.—P. 33.

The parallel between the French League and the Covenant had already occurred to Dryden as a proper subject for the stage; for, in the first year after the Restoration, he wrote several scenes of "The Duke of Guise," though it was not finished or acted till long afterwards. See Vol. VII. p. 137.

Note IX.

With alga, who the sacred altar strews?

To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes:

A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain;

A lamb to you, ye tempests of the main.—P. 34.

The ceremonies of classical antiquity, observed by those who escaped from shipwreck, are here detailed. The alga, or sea-weed, sprinkled on the altar, alluded to the cause of their sacrifice. Portunus, otherwise called Portumnus, was a sea-god of some reputation. The Greeks called him Palæmon, which was formerly his earthly name. He is mentioned by Virgil:

Et Pater ipse, manu magnâ, Portunus euntem

Impulit. Ãneidos, lib. v.

Note X.

Booth's forward valour only served to show,

He durst that duty pay, we all did owe.—P. 34.

Upon the death of Cromwell, in 1659, the cavaliers resolved upon a general rising; but their intentions being betrayed by Sir Richard Willis, the insurrection only took place at Chester, which was seized by Sir George Booth and Sir William Middleton. They ventured imprudently into the open field to face Lambert, by whom they were totally routed; so that the royal party in England never seemed to lie under such total depression, as when it was about to triumph over all opposition.

Note XI.

It shuns the mint, like gold that chemists make.—P. 35.

It is said, believe who list, that the ingenious Mr Robert Boyle invented a metal, which had all the properties of gold, except malleability.

Note XII.

——That polluted nest,

Whence Legion twice before was dispossest.—P. 35.

Alluding to Cromwell's dissolution of the Long Parliament, with the memorable words, "Ye are no longer a parliament; I tell you, ye are no longer a parliament; the Lord has done with you." General Harrison then pulled the speaker from the chair; and Worsley, with two file of musketeers, expelled the refractory members, Cromwell loading each of them with personal revilings. When the house was cleared, he, with great composure, locked the doors, and took the key home in his pocket. Legion was a second time dispossessed by the same kind of exorcism, when the House of Commons was occupied by that extraordinary assembly, usually called, from the name of a distinguished member, "Praise God Barebone's Parliament." This motley assembly of crazy fanatics, having shewn some disposition to extend the reign of the saints, in a manner rather inconsistent with Cromwell's views of exclusive domination, were suddenly dissolved by him. A remnant, headed by the frantic enthusiast Harrison, continued to sit till their deliberations were interrupted by White with a party of soldiers, who demanded, "what they did there?" "We are seeking the Lord," answered they. "Then go seek him elsewhere," rejoined the commander; "for to my knowledge he has not been here these many years." Or Dryden may have referred to the terms upon which Cromwell parted with his last parliament; to whom he swore, by the living God, they should not sit an hour longer; and calling upon the Lord to be judge between them, (to which many members answered, Amen,) turned them about their business. Indeed, when we consider, that the Long Parliament was, after Cromwell's death, restored and cashiered more than once, the line might have more properly run,

Whence Legion oft before was dispossessed.

Note XIII.

And, as devouter Turks first warn their souls

To part, before they taste forbidden bowls.—P. 36.

When a Turk is disposed to transgress the precept of the Koran, by drinking wine, he requests the favour of his soul to go into some retired corner of his body, in order to avoid contamination from the horrible potion.

Note XIV.

Thus Sforza, cursed with a too fertile brain,

Lost by his wiles the power his wit did gain.—P. 36.

This subtle politician was Lodovico, son of Francisco Sforza. He was one of the most restless and intriguing spirits, that Italy, the mother of political genius, has ever produced. His natural brother, Francisco Sforza, had acquired, by marriage, the duchy of Milan, which he left to his son Giovanni Galeazzo Sforza. Lodovico, under pretence of acting as his nephew's tutor, took into his own hands the supreme power; and, tired of governing under the name of another, at length deposed and murdered the young duke. In order to secure himself in his usurped domination, he invited the French into Italy, which they over-ran and conquered under Charles VIII. He became soon suspicious of these too powerful allies, and leagued with the Venetians to cut off the retreat of the French from Naples. In 1594, he made a pretended peace with Charles; and, in the year following, invited into Italy the Emperor Maximilian, by whose assistance he hoped to secure himself in Pisa, of which he had taken possession, and to conquer the Florentines, with whom he was at war. In all these, and many other ambiguous and versatile transactions, Sforza was so happy, that he used to call himself the Son of Fortune, as he was termed by others the Moor, from his dark complection, acute genius, and cruel disposition. But, in 1599, Lewis XII., who had pretensions upon the dukedom of Milan, as the grandson of Valentine Visconti, daughter of Giovanni Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, invaded the Milanese territory with a force which Sforza was unable to resist, and compelled him to fly into Germany with his treasures. In 1600, Sforza again returned to Italy at the head of an army of Swiss mercenaries, and repossessed himself of Milan, Como, and other places of importance. The Swiss, however, mutinied at Novara, and not only refused to fight in his behalf, but even to guard him to a place of security. As these unworthy Helvetians had made a private convention with the French, they permitted them to seize the person of Sforza, who was discovered among the ranks of his faithless mercenaries, dressed and armed like a private Swiss soldier; a lamentable instance of the inconstancy of fortune. He was carried prisoner to France, where he ended his days in prison, A. D. 1608.

Note XV.

Henceforth their fougue must spend at lesser rate,

Than in its flames to wrap a nation's fate;

Suffered to live, they are like Helots set,

A virtuous shame within us to beget.—P. 36.

Those persons, who had sat in any illegal high court of justice, with a few others, were, at the Restoration, declared incapable of bearing any public office. In expressing their violent spirit, our author uses the unnecessary Gallicism fougue, although it might have been as well described by the English fire. Thus disqualified, the poet compares these republicans to the Spartan slaves, made drunk to excite the contempt of the youth for that degrading vice. By the bye, Dryden's kinsman, Sir Gilbert Pickering, was among the persons so incapacitated.

Note XVI.

'Twas this produced the joy, that hurried o'er

Such swarms of English to the neighbouring shore.—P. 37.

"Several persons now came to Breda, not as heretofore to Cologne and to Brussells, under disguises, and in fear of being discovered, but with bare faces, and the pride and vanity to be taken notice of, to present their duty to the king; some being employed to procure pardons for those who thought themselves in danger, and to stand in need of them; others brought good presents in English gold to the king, that their names, and the names of their friends who sent them, might be remembered among the first, who made demonstrations of their affections that way to his majesty, by supplying his necessities; which had been discontinued for many years, to a degree that cannot be believed, and ought not to be remembered." Clarendon, Vol. III. Part. II. p. 766. "In the mean time, Breda swarmed with English; a multitude repairing thither from all other places, as well as London, with presents, and protestations, how much they had longed and prayed for this blessed change, and magnifying their sufferings under the late tyrannical government, when some of them had been zealous instruments and promoters of it." Ibidem, p. 767.

Note XVII.

Scheveline's barren shore.—P. 37.

A small village near the Hague, at which Charles embarked on his joyful voyage.

Note XVIII.

——Holland to regret a king.—P. 37.

The States not only maintained Charles in royal splendour during his residence at Breda, and at the Hague, but loaded him with valuable gifts at his departure, particularly a bed worth L. 1000, and linen valued at L. 1000; both which articles his hardships had taught him to value, by sad experience of the want of them.

Note XIX.

The Naseby, now no longer England's shame,

But better to be lost in Charles his name.—P. 37.

When the English fleet came on the coast of Holland, the Duke of York took possession of it, as Lord High Admiral. "After he had spent the day there in receiving information of the state of the fleet, and a catalogue of the names of the several ships, his Highness returned with it that night to the king, that his majesty might make alterations, and new christen these ships, which too much preserved the memory of the late governors, and of the republic."—Clarendon. The Naseby was too odious a name to be preserved, and it was changed to the Royal Charles, and the Swiftsure to the James. The Royal Charles fell into the hands of the Dutch at the surprize of Chatham.

Note XX.

——Great Gloster's weight.—P. 37.

Henry of Oatlands, Duke of Glocester, third son of Charles I. He embarked on this occasion with his brother, by whom he was dearly beloved. He died of the small-pox on the 13th September following, deeply and generally lamented.

Note XXI.

It is no longer motion cheats your view;

As you meet it, the land approacheth you:

The land returns, and, in the white it wears,

The marks of penitence and sorrow bears.—P. 38.

Johnson remarks, that this extraordinary piece of complaisance in the land is not without a precedent. A French poet read to Malherbe some verses, in which he mentioned the kingdom of France as advancing to meet the king. "Though this happened in my time," observed the critic, "it is strange I should not remember it." In the next couplet, Albion does penance in a sheet, because her cliffs are chalky; had they been black, she would have been in mourning of course. But the civility of such inanimate objects, according to the poets of this reign, was truly wonderful, considering their present insensibility. In a poem, "On the Arrival of her Royal Highness, and Happy Marriage to the Most Illustrious Prince James Duke of York, &c. 1673," not only do dolphins dance about the vessel, but, yet more surprising,

When first she launched, the ambitious waves no more

Would kiss the lips of the forsaken shore;

But, proud of such rich freight, began t' aspire,

As if they'd quench the elemental fire:

So that philosophers since scarce agree,

Whether the earth or ocean highest be.

The trembling compass had forgot to stir,

Instead o'the north pole, pointing still at her;

At which the pilot wonders, till he spies

Two north poles culminant at once,—her eyes.

Note XXII.

Thus, when the Almighty would to Moses give

A sight of all he could behold and live;

A voice before his entry did proclaim,

Long suffering, goodness, mercy, in His name.—P. 36.

"And he said, Thou shall not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live.

"And the Lord said, Behold there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock;

"And it shall come to pass, when my glory cometh by, that I will put thee into a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by;

"And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen." Exodus, Chap. XXXIII. verses 20, 21, 22, 23.

"And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

"And the Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." Exodus, Chap. XXXIV. verses 5, 6.

Note XXIII.

Your power to justice doth submit your cause,

Your goodness only is above the laws.—P. 36.

By the declaration of King Charles II., dated at Breda, 14th April, 1660, a free pardon was promised to all subjects, of what degree or quality soever, for their share in the late civil war, excepting only such as should hereafter be excepted by Parliament. The House of Peers, irritated by their sufferings during the late troubles, were disposed to make very general exceptions from the proposed indemnity. But the king came in person to the house, and beseeched them, in the most affecting terms, to extend the benefit of the bill to all who had not been the immediate instruments of his father's death. Upon which principle, the "Act of Oblivion" was constructed accordingly. Even among the judges of his father, the King distinguished Ingoldsby, and others, as fit objects of mercy. Thus the law's rigid letter, as pronounced by him, was "softer made."

Note XXIV.

How shall I speak of that triumphant day,

When you renewed the expiring pomp of May!

A month that owns an interest in your name;

You and the flowers are its peculiar claim.—P. 37.

Charles II. was born on the 29th of May, 1630, and upon the same day of the same month, 1660, he "renewed the expiring pomp of May," by making his triumphal entry into his metropolis, for the purpose of resuming the throne of his forefathers. The immense crowds which assembled to witness an event, which was to close the wounds of civil discord, seemed, says Clarendon, as if the whole kingdom had been gathered together. For a full account of his triumphant procession, with the cloth of gold, and cloth of silver, velvet cloaks, gold chains, kettle-drums, trumpets, and common council-men, see Baker's Chronicle. One part of the show was particularly striking to the actors in the late commotions: "I must confess," says the republican Ludlow, "it was a strange sight to me, to see the horse that had formerly belonged to our army, now put upon an employment, so different from that which they had at first undertaken; especially when I considered, that, for the most part, they had not been raised out of the meanest of the people, and without distinction, as other armies had been; but that they consisted of such as had engaged themselves from a spirit of liberty, in defence of their rights and religion." Ludlow's Memoirs, Vol. III. p. 16.

Note XXV.

That star, that at your birth shone out so bright,

It stained the duller sun's meridian light,

Did once again its potent fires renew.—P. 37.

There was a star visible on Charles' birth-day, 29th May, 1630; a circumstance much dwelt upon, by his party, during the civil wars. Lilly, the astrologer, who embraced the cause of the Commonwealth, assures us, it was nothing more than the planet Venus, which is sometimes visible in the day-time; and truly, if we judge of the matter by its influence on the merry monarch, Venus has the best title to be held the dominant power at his nativity. Lilly also repeats the following lines, presented to Charles I. (by the astrologer himself, I suppose,) when he went to St Paul's, to return thanks for the birth of his son:

Rex ubi Paulinias accessit gratus ad aras,

Immicuit medio lucida stella polo:

Dic divina mihi tractans ænigmata cœli,

Hæc oriens nobis quid sibi stella velit?

Magnus in occiduo princeps modo nascitur orbe,

Moxque sub eclipsi regna orientis erunt.

Lilly's Monarchy, or no Monarchy.

Our author seems to allude to this star in the "Duke of Guise," where, speaking literally of Henry III., but covertly of Charles II., he makes Melanax say,

————He cannot be deposed,

He may be killed; a violent fate attends him,

But at his birth there shone a regal star.

Vol. VII. p. 74.

A poetical follower of Monmouth introduces the Duke of York murmuring against the good fortune of his brother, and exclaiming,

Curse on that planet, whose benign ray

Gilds the bright pavement of the Milky Way;

And is so good, so influential

To the great master of the Milky Hall.

The same star, it would seem, was again visible in 1660.

Note XXVI.

And as old Time his offspring swallowed down.—P. 37.

The minutes, hours, days, and other subdivisions of time, may be accounted his children, which he is fancifully said to devour, as he passes over them.

Note XXVII.

And France, that did an exile's presence fear.—P. 37.

Charles was obliged to leave France, less because his presence was feared in itself, than the displeasure of Cromwell, for affording him shelter.

TO
HIS SACRED MAJESTY,
A
PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION.

The ceremony of Charles the Second's coronation was deferred until the year succeeding his Restoration, when it was solemnized with extreme magnificence, on the 22d April, 1661, being St George's day. Charles moved from the Tower to Whitehall, through a series of triumphal arches, stages, and pageants, all of which presented, at once, the joy and wealth of his people before the eyes of the monarch. The poets, it may readily be believed, joined in the general gratulation; but, from the rudeness of their style, and puerility of their conceits, Charles, whose taste was undoubted, must have soon distinguished our author's superior energy of diction, and harmony of language. In most respects we may consider this piece as written in the style of the preceding, yet with less affectation of witty and far-fetched allusion. The description of the spring, beginning, "Now our sad ruins are removed from sight," is elegantly fancied, and so smoothly expressed, that even the flow of the language seems to mark the mild and delightful influence of the season it describes. Much quaintness remains to be weeded out. The name of the king is sent on high, wrapped soft and warm in music, like flames on the wings of incense; and, anon, music has found a tomb in Charles, and lies drowned in her own sweetness; while the fragrant scent, begun from the royal person, and confined within the hallowed dome, flies round and descends on him in richer dew. Above all, we are startled to hear of

A queen, near whose chaste womb, ordained by fate,

The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait.

Neither, if we read (with the first edition) from instead of near, is the intelligibility, or decorum of the passage much improved. If any of the souls of these unborn monarchs waited for bodies from Queen Catharine, they waited long in vain. But with all these defects, there is in this little piece that animation of language and idea, which always affords the most secure promise of genius.

The first edition is printed for Henry Herringman, 1661.

TO HIS

SACRED MAJESTY,

A

PANEGYRIC

ON

HIS CORONATION.

In that wild deluge where the world was drowned,

When life and sin one common tomb had found,

The first small prospect of a rising hill

With various notes of joy the ark did fill:

Yet when that flood in its own depths was drowned,

It left behind it false and slippery ground;

And the more solemn pomp was still deferred,

'Till new-born nature in fresh looks appeared.

Thus, Royal Sir, to see you landed here,

Was cause enough of triumph for a year:

Nor would your care those glorious joys repeat,

'Till they at once might be secure and great;

'Till your kind beams, by their continued stay,

Had warmed the ground, and called the damps away.

Such vapours, while your powerful influence dries,

Then soonest vanish when they highest rise.

Had greater haste these sacred rites prepared,

Some guilty months had in your triumphs shared;[68]

But this untainted year is all your own,

Your glories may without our crimes be shown.

We had not yet exhausted all our store,

When you refreshed our joys by adding more:

As heaven, of old, dispensed celestial dew,

You gave us manna, and still gave us new.

Now our sad ruins are removed from sight,

The season too comes fraught with new delight:

Time seems not now beneath his years to stoop,

Nor do his wings with sickly feathers droop:

Soft western winds waft o'er the gaudy spring,

And opened scenes of flowers and blossoms bring,

To grace this happy day, while you appear,

Not king of us alone, but of the year.

All eyes you draw, and with the eyes the heart;

Of your own pomp yourself the greatest part:

Loud shouts the nation's happiness proclaim,

And heaven this day is feasted with your name.

Your cavalcade the fair spectators view,

From their high standings, yet look up to you.

From your brave train each singles out a prey,

And longs to date a conquest from your day.

Now charged with blessings while you seek repose,

Officious slumbers haste your eyes to close;

And glorious dreams stand ready to restore

The pleasing shapes of all you saw before.

Next to the sacred temple you are led,

Where waits a crown for your more sacred head.

How justly from the church that crown is due,

Preserved from ruin, and restored by you!

The grateful choir their harmony employ,

Not to make greater, but more solemn joy.

Wrapt soft and warm your name is sent on high,

As flames do on the wings of incense fly.

Music herself is lost; in vain she brings

Her choicest notes to praise the best of kings:

Her melting strains in you a tomb have found,

And lie like bees in their own sweetness drowned.

He, that brought peace, all[69] discord could atone,

His name is music of itself alone.

Now while the sacred oil anoints your head,

And fragrant scents, begun from you, are spread

Through the large dome, the people's joyful sound,

Sent back, is still preserved in hallowed ground;

Which in one blessing mixed descends on you,

As heightened spirits fall in richer dew.

Not that our wishes do increase your store;

Full of yourself you can admit no more.

We add not to your glory, but employ

Our time, like angels, in expressing joy.

Nor is it duty, or our hopes alone,

Create that joy, but full fruition:

We know those blessings, which we must possess,

And judge of future by past happiness.

No promise can oblige a prince so much

Still to be good, as long to have been such.

A noble emulation heats your breast,

And your own fame now robs you of your rest.

Good actions still must be maintained with good,

As bodies nourished with resembling food.

You have already quenched sedition's brand;

And zeal, which burnt it, only warms the land.

The jealous sects, that dare not trust their cause

So far from their own will as to the laws,

You for their umpire and their synod take,

And their appeal alone to Cæsar make.[70]

Kind heaven so rare a temper did provide,

That guilt repenting might in it confide.

Among our crimes oblivion may be set;

But 'tis our king's perfection to forget.

Virtues unknown to these rough northern climes,

From milder heavens you bring, without their crimes.

Your calmness does no after-storms provide,

Nor seeming patience mortal anger hide.

When empire first from families did spring,

Then every father governed as a king;

But you, that are a sovereign prince, allay

Imperial power with your paternal sway.

From those great cares when ease your soul unbends,

Your pleasures are designed to noble ends;

Born to command the mistress of the seas,

Your thoughts themselves in that blue empire please.

Hither in summer evenings you repair,

To taste the fraischeur of the purer air:

Undaunted here you ride, when winter raves,

With Cæsar's heart that rose above the waves.

More I could sing, but fear my numbers stays;

No loyal subject dares that courage praise.

In stately frigates most delight you find,[71]

Where well-drawn battles fire your martial mind.

What to your cares we owe, is learnt from hence,

When even your pleasures serve for our defence.

Beyond your court flows in the admitted tide,[72]

Where in new depths the wondering fishes glide:

Here in a royal bed the waters sleep;

When tired at sea, within this bay they creep.

Here the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects,[73]

So safe are all things which our king protects.

From your loved Thames a blessing yet is due,

Second alone to that it brought in you;

A queen, near whose chaste womb, ordained by fate,

The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait.

It was your love before made discord cease:

Your love is destined to your country's peace.

Both Indies,[74] rivals in your bed, provide

With gold or jewels to adorn your bride;

This to a mighty king presents rich ore,

While that with incense does a god implore.

Two kingdoms wait your doom; and, as you choose,

This must receive a crown, or that must lose.

Thus from your Royal Oak, like Jove's of old,

Are answers sought, and destinies foretold:

Propitious oracles are begged with vows,

And crowns that grow upon the sacred boughs[75].

Your subjects, while you weigh the nation's fate,

Suspend to both their doubtful love or hate.

Choose only, sir, that so they may possess

With their own peace their children's happiness.

NOTES
ON
THE PANEGYRIC ON THE CORONATION.

Note I.

Some guilty months had in your triumphs shared.

After the Restoration, several of the regicides were condemned to death; but the king, with unexampled lenity, remitted the capital punishment of many of these deep offenders. Only six of the king's judges were executed; and, when to that number are added, the fanatic Peters, who compared the suffering monarch to Barabbas, Coke, the solicitor, who pleaded against Charles on his mock trial, and Hacker, who commanded the guard, and brutally instigated, and even compelled them to cry for execution, we have the number of nine, who suffered for a fact, the most enormous in civilized history, till our age produced a parallel. There was also an insurrection of the fierce and hot-brained sect of fanatics, who called themselves fifth-monarchy men, and devoutly believed, that the Millennium, and the reign of the saints, was about to begin. Willing to contribute their share to this happy consummation, these enthusiasts, headed by the fanatic Venner, rushed into the streets of London; and, though but sixty in number, were not overpowered without long resistance, and much bloodshed. These incidents, Dryden, always happy in his allusion to the events of the day, assigns as a reason for deferring the coronation to an untainted year. Perhaps, however, he only meant to say, that, as Charles was not restored till May, 1660, the preceding months of that year were unworthy to share in the honour, which the coronation would have conferred upon it.

Note II.

The jealous sects——

You for their umpire, and their synod take,

And their appeal alone to Cæsar make.

The conferences held at Savoy House, betwixt the presbyterians and the bishops, excited hopes among those who did not understand the temper of theological controversy, that these two powerful divisions of the protestant church might be reconciled to each other. The quakers, anabaptists, and other inferior sects, applied, by petitions and humble addresses, to the king, to be permitted to worship God, according to their consciences. Thus, the whole modelling of ecclesiastical matters seemed to be in the hands of the king.

Note III.

In stately frigates most delight you find.

Charles the Second had a strong mechanical genius, and understood ship-building, in particular, more completely than became a monarch, if it were possible that a king of England could be too intimately acquainted with what concerns the bulwark of his empire. The king's skill in matters of navigation is thus celebrated by the author of a Poem upon his Majesty's Coronation, the 22d April, 1661, being St George's day.

The seaman's art, and his great end commerce,

Through all the corners of the universe,

Are not alone the subject of your care,

But your delight, and you their polar-star;

And even mechanic arts do find from you,

Both entertainment and improvement too.

Note IV.

Beyond your court flows in the admitted tide.

By the improvements made by Charles the Second on St James's Park, there was a connection made with the river, which Waller has celebrated in these lines, as a work of superior merit to founding a city.

Instead of rivers rolling by the side

Of Eden's garden, here flows in the tide.

The sea, which always served his empire, now

Pays tribute to our prince's pleasure too.

Of famous cities we the founders know;

But rivers old as seas, to which they go,

Are nature's bounty: 'tis of more renown,

To make a river, than to build a town.

On St James's Park, as lately improved by His Majesty.

Note V.

Here the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects.

The canal in St James's park formed a decoy for water-fowl, with which it was stocked. This circumstance, like the former, is noticed by Waller:

Whilst over head a flock of new-sprung fowl

Hangs in the air and does the sun controul.

Darkening the air, they hover o'er, and shrowd

The wanton sailors with a feathered cloud.

The water-fowl, thus celebrated, were particular favourites of the king, who fed them with his own hand. His affection for his dogs and ducks is noticed in many a libel.

Note VI.

Thus from your Royal Oak, like Jove's of old,

Are answers sought, and destinies foretold;

Propitious oracles are begged with vows,

And crowns that grow upon the sacred boughs.

This is in allusion to a device exhibited over the triumphal arch, in Leadenhall street, through which the king passed in his way from the Tower to Whitehall, on the day of his coronation. Behind a picture of the king appeared, deciphered in a large table, "the Royal Oak, bearing crowns and sceptres, instead of acorns; amongst the leaves in a label

Miraturque novas frondes et non suà poma.

As designing its reward, for the shelter it afforded his majesty, after the fight at Worcester."[76] These devices were invented by John Ogilby, gent., to the conduct of whom the poetical part of the coronation, as it is termed in his writ of privilege, was solely entrusted. The same fancy is commemorated, by the author of "Loyal Reflections on his Majesty's Restoration, Procession, and Coronation," who thus apostrophises the Royal Oak:

Thou vegetive soul, whose glory 'tis and pride

To suffer wounds, or sink, not to divide;

Whose branches Ogilby's rich fancy made

Bear crowns for nuts, but thy best fruit was shade.

When Charles lodged in thy boughs, thou couldst not want

Many degrees to be a sensitive plant.

TO
LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE.
&c.

The great statesman, to whom Dryden made this new-year's offering, was the well known Earl of Clarendon, of whose administration Hume gives the following striking account:

"Clarendon not only behaved with wisdom and justice in the office of chancellor: all the counsels, which he gave the king, tended equally to promote the interest of prince and people. Charles, accustomed, in his exile, to pay entire deference to the judgment of this faithful servant, continued still to submit to his direction; and for some time no minister was ever possessed of more absolute authority. He moderated the forward zeal of the royalists, and tempered their appetite for revenge. With the opposite party, he endeavoured to preserve, inviolate, all the king's engagements. He kept an exact register of the promises which had been made, for any service; and he employed all his industry to fulfil them."

Notwithstanding the merits of Clarendon, and our author's prophecy in the following verses, that

He had already wearied fortune so,

She could no longer be his friend or foe;

this great statesman was doomed to be one of the numberless victims to the uncertainty of court favour. His fall took place in 1667, when he was attainted and banished. The popular discontent was chiefly excited against him, by a groundless charge of corruption; an accusation to which the vulgar lend a greedy and implicit faith, because ignorance is always suspicious, and low minds, not knowing how seldom avarice is the companion of ambition, conceive the opportunities of peculation to be not only numerous, but irresistibly tempting. Accordingly, the heroes of Athens, as well as the patriots of Rome, were usually stigmatized with this crime; bare suspicion of which, it would seem, is usually held adequate to the fullest proof. Nor have instances been wanting in our own days, of a party adopting the same mode, to blacken the character of those, whose firmness and talents impeded their access to power, and public confidence.

In the address to the Chancellor, Dryden has indulged his ingenuity in all the varied and prolonged comparisons and conceits, which were the taste of his age. Johnson has exemplified Dryden's capacity of producing these elaborate trifles, by referring to the passage, which compares the connection between the king and his minister, to the visible horizon. "It is," says he, "so successfully laboured, that though at last it gives the mind more perplexity than pleasure, and seems hardly worth the study that it costs; yet it must be valued, as the proof of a mind at once subtle and comprehensive." The following couplet, referring to the friendship of Charles I, when in his distresses, for Clarendon, contains a comparison, which is eminently happy:

Our setting sun, from his declining seat,

Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat.

In general, this poem displays more uniform adherence to the metaphysical style of Cowley, and his contemporaries, than occurs in any of Dryden's other compositions. May we not suppose, that, in addressing Clarendon, he adopted the style of those muses, with whom the Chancellor had conversed in his earlier days, in preference to the plainer and more correct taste, which Waller, and Denham, had begun to introduce; but which, to the aged statesman, could have brought no recollection of what he used to consider as poetry? Certain, at least, it is, that, to use the strong language of Johnson, Dryden never after ventured "to bring on the anvil such stubborn and unmanageable thoughts;" and these lines afford striking evidence, how the lever of genius, like that of machinery applied to material substances, can drag together, and compel the approximation of the most unsociable ideas. Our admiration of both, however, is much qualified, when they are applied rather to make exhibition of their own powers, than for any better purpose.

TO

THE LORD-CHANCELLOR HYDE.

presented on new-year's day, 1662.

MY LORD,

While flattering crouds officiously appear

To give themselves, not you, an happy year,

And by the greatness of their presents prove

How much they hope, but not how well they love,—

The Muses, who your early courtship boast,

Though now your flames are with their beauty lost,

Yet watch their time, that, if you have forgot

They were your mistresses, the world may not.

Decayed by time and wars, they only prove

Their former beauty by their former love;

And now present, as ancient ladies do,

That, courted long, at length are forced to woo:

For still they look on you with such kind eyes,

As those, that see the Church's sovereign rise,

From their own order chose, in whose high state

They think themselves the second choice of fate.

When our great monarch into exile went,

Wit and religion suffered banishment.

Thus once, when Troy was wrapped in fire and smoke,

The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook;

They with the vanquished prince and party go,

And leave their temples empty to the foe.

At length the Muses stand, restored again

To that great charge which nature did ordain;

And their loved druids seem revived by fate,

While you dispense the laws, and guide the state.

The nation's soul, our monarch, does dispense,

Through you, to us his vital influence:

You are the channel, where those spirits flow,

And work them higher, as to us they go.

In open prospect nothing bounds our eye,

Until the earth seems joined unto the sky:

So in this hemisphere, our utmost view

Is only bounded by our king and you;

Our sight is limited where you are joined,

And beyond that no farther heaven can find.

So well your virtues do with his agree,

That, though your orbs of different greatness be,

Yet both are for each other's use disposed,

His to inclose, and yours to be inclosed:

Nor could another in your room have been,

Except an emptiness had come between.

Well may he, then, to you his cares impart,

And share his burden where he shares his heart.

In you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find

Their share of business in your labouring mind.

So, when the weary sun his place resigns,

He leaves his light, and by reflection shines.

Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws

Exclude soft mercy from a private cause,

In your tribunal most herself does please;

There only smiles because she lives at ease;

And, like young David, finds her strength the more,

When disincumbered from those arms she wore.

Heaven would your royal master should exceed

Most in that virtue, which we most did need;

And his mild father (who too late did find

All mercy vain but what with power was joined)

His fatal goodness left to fitter times,

Not to increase, but to absolve our crimes:

But when the heir of this vast treasure knew

How large a legacy was left to you,

(Too great for any subject to retain)

He wisely tied it to the crown again;

Yet, passing through your hands, it gathers more,

As streams, through mines, bear tincture of their ore.

While emp'ric politicians use deceit,

Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat;

You boldly shew that skill which they pretend,

And work by means as noble as your end;

Which should you veil, we might unwind the clue,

As men do nature, till we came to you.

And, as the Indies were not found before

Those rich perfumes, which, from the happy shore,

The winds upon their balmy wings conveyed,

Whose guilty sweetness first their world betrayed;

So, by your counsels, we are brought to view

A rich and undiscovered world in you.

By you our monarch does that fame assure,

Which kings must have, or cannot live secure:

For prosperous princes gain their subjects' heart,

Who love that praise in which themselves have part.

By you he fits those subjects to obey,

As heaven's eternal monarch does convey

His power unseen, and man, to his designs,

By his bright ministers, the stars, inclines.

Our setting sun, from his declining seat,

Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat;

And, when his love was bounded in a few

That were unhappy, that they might be true,

Made you the favourite of his last sad times,

That is a sufferer in his subjects' crimes:

Thus, those first favours you received, were sent,

Like heaven's rewards, in earthly punishment:

Yet fortune, conscious of your destiny,

E'en then took care to lay you softly by,

And wrapped your fate among her precious things,

Kept fresh to be unfolded with your king's.

Shewn all at once, you dazzled so our eyes,

As new-born Pallas did the gods surprise,

When, springing forth from Jove's new-closing wound,

She struck the warlike spear into the ground;

Which sprouting leaves did suddenly inclose,

And peaceful olives shaded as they rose.

How strangely active are the arts of peace,

Whose restless motions less than war's do cease!

Peace is not freed from labour, but from noise;

And war more force, but not more pains employs.

Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind,

That, like the earth, it leaves our sense behind,

While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere,

That rapid motion does but rest appear.

For, as in nature's swiftness, with the throng

Of flying orbs while ours is borne along,

All seems at rest to the deluded eye,

Moved by the soul of the same harmony;

So, carried on by your unwearied care,

We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.

Let envy, then, those crimes within you see,

From which the happy never must be free;

(Envy, that does with misery reside,

The joy and the revenge of ruined pride.)

Think it not hard, if, at so cheap a rate,

You can secure the constancy of fate,

Whose kindness sent what does their malice seem,

By lesser ills the greater to redeem;

Nor can we this weak shower a tempest call,

But drops of heat that in the sun-shine fall.

You have already wearied Fortune so,

She cannot farther be your friend or foe;

But sits all breathless, and admires to feel

A fate so weighty, that it stops our wheel.

In all things else above our humble fate,

Your equal mind yet swells not into state,

But, like some mountain in those happy isles,

Where in perpetual spring young nature smiles,

Your greatness shews; no horror to affright,

But trees for shade, and flowers to court the sight:

Sometimes the hill submits itself a while

In small descents, which do its height beguile;

And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play,

Whose rise not hinders, but makes short, our way.

Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know,

Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below;

And, like Olympus' top, the impression wears

Of love and friendship writ in former years.

Yet unimpaired with labours, or with time,

Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.

Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget,

And measure change, but share no part of it.

And still it shall without a weight increase,

Like this new-year, whose motions never cease:

For, since the glorious course you have begun

Is led by Charles, as that is by the sun,

It must both weightless and immortal prove,

Because the centre of it is above.

SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.

This Satire was, as the title informs us, written in 1662: probably towards the latter end of the year, when Charles, having quarrelled with De Wit, then at the head of the public affairs of Holland, was endeavouring to patch up an union with France, to which kingdom he was naturally partial, against the States, whom he hated, both as a republic, and an association of vulgar merchants. This impolitic alliance did not then take place, notwithstanding the sale of Dunkirk, (conquered by the arms of Cromwell,) to France, for L.400,000. On the contrary, in 1665 France armed in defence of Holland. But this was contrary to the expectations and wishes of Charles; and accordingly Dryden, in 1662, alludes to the union of the two crowns against the States as a probable event.

The verses are adapted to the comprehension of the vulgar, whom they were intended to inflame. Bold invective, and coarse raillery, supply the place of the wit and argument, with which Dryden, when the time fitted, knew so well how to arm his satire.

The verses, such as they are, appeared to the author well qualified for the purpose intended; for, when, in 1672, his tragedy of "Amboyna" was brought forward, to exasperate the nation against Holland, the following verses were almost literally woven into the prologue and epilogue of that piece. See Vol. V. pp. 10. 87. Nevertheless, as forming a link in our author's poetical progress, the present Editor has imitated his predecessors, in reprinting them among his satires and political pieces.

SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1662.

As needy gallants, in the scrivener's hands,

Court the rich knaves that gripe their mortgaged lands;

The first fat buck of all the season's sent,

And keeper takes no fee in compliment;

The dotage of some Englishmen is such,

To fawn on those who ruin them,—the Dutch.

They shall have all, rather than make a war

With those who of the same religion are.

The Straits, the Guinea-trade, the herrings too;

Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle you.

Some are resolved not to find out the cheat,

But, cuckold-like, love them that do the feat.

What injuries soe'er upon us fall,

Yet still the same religion answers all:—

Religion wheedled us to civil war,

Drew English blood, and Dutchmen's now would spare.

Be gulled no longer, for you'll find it true,

They have no more religion, faith! than you.

Interest's the god they worship in their state;

And we, I take it, have not much of that.

Well monarchies may own religion's name;

But states are atheists in their very frame.

They share a sin: and such proportions fall,

That, like a stink, 'tis nothing to them all.

Think on their rapine, falsehood, cruelty,

And that, what once they were they still would be.

To one well-born the affront is worse and more,

When he's abused and baffled by a boor.

With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do;

They've both ill nature and ill manners too.

Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation;

For they were bred ere manners were in fashion:

And their new commonwealth hath set them free

Only from honour and civility.

Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,

Than did their lubber state mankind bestride;

Their sway became them with as ill a main,

As their own paunches swell above their chin.

Yet is their empire no true growth, but humour,

And only two kings' touch can cure the tumour.[77]

As Cato fruits of Afric did display,

Let us before our eyes their Indies lay:

All loyal English will like him conclude,—

Let Cæsar live, and Carthage be subdued.[78]

TO
HER ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE DUCHESS OF YORK,

ON THE VICTORY GAINED BY THE DUKE OVER THE DUTCH, &c.

The Duchess, here addressed, was Anne Hyde, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, and first wife of James, Duke of York, afterwards James II. She appears to have been a woman of first-rate talents, as well as exemplary prudence. Of the last qualification she gave a singular proof, when her marriage with the Duke was declared. She had admitted James to her bed while abroad, under a solemn promise of marriage. Many endeavoured to dissuade him from completing this unequal alliance; and that a motive, at least an apology, might be supplied for a retreat from his engagements, Lord Falmouth, Killigrew, and other courtiers, did not hesitate to boast of favours received from the lady. When the king's regard for his minister, and James's attachment to his betrothed wife, occasioned the confirmation of the marriage, these zealous witnesses found themselves in an unpleasing predicament, till the Duchess took an opportunity of assuring them, that she was far from harbouring the least resentment at the reports they had raised, since they believed them calculated to promote the interest of their master and her husband.[79] It may be presumed, that Dryden had already attached himself to the fortunes of the Duke of York, since he so early addressed the princess, whose posthumous avowal of the Catholic faith he afterwards attempted to vindicate.

The victory of the 23d June, 1665, was gained by the British fleet, commanded by the Duke of York, over the Dutch, under the famous Opdam. It was, like all naval actions between the English and the Dutch, a fierce, obstinate, and bloody conflict. The fleets met near Harwich on the 2d June; but the Dutch declined action upon that day, from a superstitious recollection that it was the anniversary of a dreadful defeat, received from Blake and Monk in 1653, in which they lost their famous Admiral, Von Tromp. But on the morning of the third, the fleets joined battle so near the shore, that the thunder of the combat was heard all along the English coast. York and Opdam singled each other out, and lay alongside in close action, till the Dutch vessel (a second rate) was blown up, and all on board perished. The Dutch fleet then dispersed and fled, losing nineteen ships sunk and taken, while the English lost only one. During this dreadful battle the Duke of York displayed the greatest personal courage. He was in the thickest of the fire, when one cannon-shot killed Lord Falmouth, Lord Muskerry, and Mr Boyle, by his side, and covered him with the gore of the most faithful and attached companions of his fortune. Yet this day, the brightest which ever shone on him, was not without a cloud. When the Dutch fleet were scattered, and an active pursuit was all that remained to the victors, Brounker, a gentleman of the Duke's bed-chamber, commanded Sir John Harman, in the Duke's name, to slacken sail. James was then asleep, and the flimsy pretext of not disturbing his repose was set up as a reason for this most untimely interference. The affair was never well explained. The Duke dismissed Brounker from his service, and a parliamentary investigation of his conduct took place.[80] But no adequate punishment was inflicted, and the nation saw, with displeasure, the fruits of a dear-bought and splendid victory lost by the unauthorized interference of an officious minion.

The Duchess, as we learn, amongst other authorities, from an old libel, came down to Harwich to see her husband embark, and afterwards made the triumphant progress to the north, which is here commemorated. The splendour of her reception at Harwich is thus censured by the Satirist:

One thrifty ferry-boat, of mother-pearl,

Sufficed of old the Citherean girl;

Yet navies are but fopperies, when here

A small sea mask, and built to court your dear:

Three goddesses in one, Pallas for art,

Venus for sport, but Juno in your heart.

O Duchess, if thy nuptial pomp was mean,

'Tis paid with interest in thy naval scene.

Never did Roman Mark, within the Nile,

So feast the fair Egyptian crocodile;

Nor the Venetian Duke, with such a state,

The Adriatic marry at that rate.

The poem itself is adapted to the capacity and taste of a lady; and, if we compare it with that which Dryden had two years before addressed to the Chancellor, it strengthens, I think, very strongly the supposition, that the old taste of extravagant and over-laboured conceits, with which the latter abounds, was a stile purposely adapted to gratify the great Statesman to whom it was addressed, whose taste must necessarily have been formed upon the ancient standard. The address, which follows, is throughout easy and complimentary, much in the stile of Waller, as appears from comparing it with that veteran bard's poem on the same subject. Although upon a sublime subject, Dryden treats it in the light most capable of giving pleasure to a fair lady; and the journey of the duchess to the north is proposed as a theme, nearly as important as the celebrated victory of her husband.

Accordingly Dryden himself tells us, in the introductory letter to the "Annus Mirabilis," that, in these lines, he only affected smoothness of measure and softness of expression; and the verses themselves were originally introduced in that letter, to vindicate the character there given of them.

TO
HER ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE DUCHESS,
ON THE
MEMORABLE VICTORY GAINED BY THE DUKE OVER THE HOLLANDERS, JUNE THE 3. 1665.

AND ON

HER JOURNEY AFTERWARDS INTO THE NORTH.

MADAM,

When, for our sakes, your hero you resigned

To swelling seas, and every faithless wind;

When you released his courage, and set free

A valour fatal to the enemy;

You lodged your country's cares within your breast,

(The mansion where soft love should only rest,)

And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,

The noblest conquest you had gained at home.

Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide!

Your honour gave us what your love denied;

And 'twas for him much easier to subdue

Those foes he fought with, than to part from you.

That glorious day, which two such navies saw,

As each unmatched might to the world give law,

Neptune, yet doubtful whom he should obey,

Held to them both the trident of the sea:

The winds were hushed, the waves in ranks were cast,

As awfully as when God's people past:

Those, yet uncertain on whose sails to blow,

These, where the wealth of nations ought to flow.

}

{  Then with the duke your Highness ruled the day:

{  While all the brave did his command obey,

{  The fair and pious under you did pray.

How powerful are chaste vows! the wind and tide

You bribed to combat on the English side.

Thus to your much-loved lord you did convey

An unknown succour, sent the nearest way.

New vigour to his wearied arms you brought,

(So Moses was upheld while Israel fought)[81]

While, from afar, we heard the cannon play,

Like distant thunder on a shiny day.[82]

For absent friends we were ashamed to fear,

When we considered what you ventured there.

Ships, men, and arms, our country might restore,

But such a leader could supply no more.

With generous thoughts of conquest he did burn,

Yet fought not more to vanquish than return.

Fortune and victory he did pursue,

To bring them, as his slaves, to wait on you:

Thus beauty ravished the rewards of fame,

And the fair triumphed, when the brave o'ercame.

Then, as you meant to spread another way

By land your conquests, far as his by sea,

Leaving our southern clime, you marched along

The stubborn north, ten thousand Cupids strong.

Like commons the nobility resort,

In crowding heaps, to fill your moving court:

To welcome your approach the vulgar run,

Like some new envoy from the distant sun;

And country beauties by their lovers go,

Blessing themselves, and wondering at the show.

So, when the new-born Phœnix first is seen,

Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,

And, while she makes her progress through the east,

From every grove her numerous train's increased:

Each poet of the air her glory sings,

And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.

NOTES
ON
THE PRECEDING POEM.

Note I.

So Moses was upheld while Israel fought.

"And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

"But Moses' hands were heavy, and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon: and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side, and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

"And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword." Exodus, chap. xvii. 11, 12, 13th verses.

Note II.

While, from afar, we heard the cannon play,

Like distant thunder on a shiny day.

The noise of the battle was distinctly heard at London, as appears from the Introduction to our author's "Essay on Dramatic Poetry," where the dialogue is supposed to pass in a barge, in which the speakers had embarked to hear more distinctly, "those undulations of sound, which, though almost vanishing before they reached them, seemed yet to retain somewhat of their first horror which they had betwixt the fleets." And, by the sound seeming to retire from them, Eugenius draws an omen of the enemy's defeat. This whole scene is imagined with so much liveliness, that we can hardly doubt Dryden was actually an ear-witness of the combat.

ANNUS MIRABILIS;
THE
YEAR OF WONDERS,
1666,
AN HISTORICAL POEM.

ANNUS MIRABILIS.

This is the first poem of any length which Dryden gave to the public. Formerly he had only launched out in occasional verses, and, in some instances, on subjects of no prominent importance. He now spread a broader canvas, and prepared to depict a more extensive and magnificent scene. The various incidents of an eventful war between two powerful nations, who disputed the trident of the ocean, and the tremendous fire, which had laid London in ashes, were subjects which still continued to agitate the bosoms of his countrymen. These, therefore, he ventured to assume as the theme of his poem; and his choice is justified by the effects which it yet produces upon the reader.

There would have been no doubt, even had the author himself been silent, that he followed D'Avenant in the choice of the elegiac stanza, in which the Annus Mirabilis is composed. It is sounding and harmonious to the ear; and perhaps Dryden still annexed to the couplet the idea of that harshness, which was so long its characteristick in the hands of our early English writers. But the four-lined stanza has also its peculiar disadvantages; and they are admirably stated by the judicious critic, who first turned the Editor's eyes, and probably those of many others, on the neglected poem of "Gondibert."—"The necessity of comprising a sentence within the limits of the measure, is the tyranny of Procrustes to thought. For the sake of a disagreeable uniformity, expression must constantly be cramped or extenuated. In general, the latter expedient will be practised as the easiest; and thus both sentiment and language will be enfeebled by unmeaning expletives."[83] It is nevertheless true, that Dryden has very seldom suffered his poem to languish. Every stanza presents us either with vivid description, or with some strong thought, which is seldom suffered to glide into tenuity. But this structure of verse has often laid him under an odd and rather unpleasing necessity, of filling up his stanza, by coupling a simile, or a moral, expressed in the two last lines, along with the fact, which had been announced in the two first. When these comments, or illustrations, however good in themselves, appear to be intruded upon the narrative or description, and not naturally to flow out of either, they must be considered as defects in composition; and a kind of versification, which compels frequent recurrence to such expedients for filling up the measure, has a disadvantage, for which mere harmony can hardly compensate. In the passages which follow, there is produced a stiff and awkward kind of balance between the story and the poet's reflections and illustrations.

Lawson among the foremost met his fate,

Whom sea-green Sirens from the rocks lament:

Thus as an offering for the Grecian state,

He first was killed, who first to battle went.

To nearest ports their shattered ships repair,

Where by our dreadful cannon they lay awed

So reverently men quit the open air,

Where thunder speaks the angry gods abroad.

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,

Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coasts they bring;

There first the North's cold bosom spices bore,

And winter brooded on the eastern spring.

When, after such verses, we find one in which the author expresses a single idea so happily, as just to fill up the quatrain, the difference is immediately visible, betwixt a simile easily and naturally introduced, and stanzas made up and levelled with what a poet of those times would perhaps have ventured to call the travelled earth of versification:

And now four days the sun had seen our woes;

Four nights the moon beheld the incessant fire;

It seemed as if the stars more sickly rose,

And farther from the feverish north retire.

Of all these difficulties our author seems to have been aware, from his preliminary epistle to Sir Robert Howard; and it was probably the experimental conviction, that they were occasionally invincible, which induced him thenceforward to desert the quatrain; although he has decided that stanza to be more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use among us.

The turn of composition, as well as the structure of the verse, is adopted from "Gondibert." But Dryden, more completely master of the English language, and a writer of much more lively imagination and expression, has, in general, greatly exceeded his master in conceiving and bringing out the far-fetched ideas and images, with which each has graced his poem. D'Avenant is often harsh and turgid, and the construction of his sentences extremely involved. Dryden has his obscure, and even unintelligible, passages; but they arise from the extravagance of the idea, not from the want of power to express it. For example, D'Avenant says,

Near her seems crucified that lucky thief,

In heaven's dark lottery prosperous more than wise,

Who groped at last by chance for heaven's relief,

And throngs undoes with hopes by one drawn prize.

We here perfectly understand the author's meaning, through his lumbering and unpoetical expression; but, in the following stanza, Dryden is unintelligible, because he had conceived an idea approaching to nonsense, while the words themselves are both poetical and expressive:

Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go,

And view the ocean leaning on the sky;

From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,

And on the lunar world securely pry.

In short, Dryden never fails in the power of elegant expression, till he ventures upon something which it is impossible to express.

The love of conceit and point, that inveterate though decaying disease of the literature of the time, has not failed to infect the Annus Mirabilis. That monstrous verse, in which the extinction of the fire is described, cannot be too often quoted, both to expose the meanness of the image, and the confusion of the metaphor; for it will be noticed, that the extinguisher, so unhappily conceived, is not even employed in its own mean office. The flames of London are first a tallow candle; and secondly hawks, which, while pouncing on their quarry, are hooded with an extinguisher:

An hollow crystal pyramid he takes,

In firmamental waters dipt above;

Of it a broad extinguisher he makes,

And hoods the flames that to their quarry drove.

Passages also occur, in which, from the author's zealous desire to be technically minute, the style becomes low and vulgar. There is no doubt, that, as Dryden has observed, the proper terms of art may be not only justly, but with the highest advantage, employed in poetry; but such technical phrases require to be selected with great judgment: they must bear relation to some striking and important object, or they are mean and trivial; and they must be at once generally intelligible, and more expressive in themselves than ordinary language, or they are unnecessarily obscure and pedantic. Dryden has failed in both these points, in his account of the repairs of the fleet.[84] Stanza 148, in particular, combines the faults of meanness and unnecessary obscurity, from the affected use of the dialect of the dock-yard:

Some the galled ropes with dawby marline bind,

Or searcloth masts with strong tarpawling coats:

To try new shrouds one mounts into the wind,

And one below their ease or stiffness notes.

Other examples might be produced of the faults of this remarkable poem; but it is time to say, that they are much overbalanced by its beauties. If Dryden is sometimes obscure, from the extravagance of his imagination, or the far-fetched labour of his similes, and if his desire to use appropriate language has occasionally led him into low and affected minuteness, this poem exhibits a far greater number of instances of happy and judicious illustration, beautiful description, and sublime morality. The comparison of the secret rise of the fire of London to the obscure birth of an usurper, is doubly striking, when we consider how closely the passage may be understood to bear reference to the recent domination of the Protector.[85] I will not load these preliminary observations, by inserting the whole of the striking passage, on the different manner in which the night, after the battle of the first of June, was passed on board the English and Dutch fleets; but certainly the 71st stanza will not lose, by being an hundred times quoted:

In dreams they fearful precipices tread;

Or, shipwrecked, labour to some distant shore;

Or in dark churches walk among the dead;

They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more.

The verses, in which Prince Rupert and his enemy are compared to a greyhound and hare, after a course so desperate as totally to exhaust both, have been always considered as exquisitely beautiful.[86] The description of the Loyal London partakes of the beauties and faults which are dispersed through the poem. Nothing can be more majestic than her description, "firing the air with her sanguine streamers," and "riding upon her shadow in floating gold." We lament, that the weaver should have been so fascinated with his labours as to commence seaman; and still more, that, after describing her "roomy decks," and "depth of draught," she should furnish no grander simile than that of

——a sea-wasp floating on the waves.

More unqualified approbation may be justly afforded to the whole description of the Dutch homeward-bound fleet, captured in sight of their desired haven; and the fine moral lessons which the poet takes the opportunity to inculcate, from so unexpected an incident. The 34th stanza has a tenderness and simplicity, which every lover of true poetry must admire:

This careful husband had been long away,

Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn;

Who on their fingers learned to tell the day

On which their father promised to return.

I will only point out to attention the beautiful and happily expressed simile of the eagle in stanzas 107 and 108, and then, in imitation of honest John Bunyan,

No more detain the readers in the porch,

Or keep them from the day-light with a torch.

The title of Annus Mirabilis did not, according to Mr Malone, originate with Dryden; a prose tract, so intitled, being published in 1662.[87] Neither was he the last that used it; for, the learned editor of "Predictions and Observations, collected from Mr J. Partridge's Almanacks for 1687 and 1688," has so entitled his astrological lucubrations.

The Annus Mirabilis was first printed in octavo, in 1667, the year succeeding that which was the subject of the poem. The quarto edition of 1688, which seems very correct, has been employed in correcting that of Derrick in a few trifling instances.

TO THE
METROPOLIS OF GREAT-BRITAIN,
THE MOST RENOWNED AND LATE FLOURISHING
CITY OF LONDON,
IN ITS
REPRESENTATIVES,

THE LORD-MAYOR AND COURT OF ALDERMEN, THE SHERIFFS, AND COMMON-COUNCIL OF IT.

As, perhaps, I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature to the metropolis of any nation, so it is likewise consonant to justice, that he, who was to give the first example of such a dedication, should begin it with that city, which has set a pattern to all others, of true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy. Other cities have been praised for the same virtues, but I am much deceived if any have so dearly purchased their reputation: their fame has been won them by cheaper trials than an expensive, though necessary war, a consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fire. To submit yourselves with that humility to the judgments of heaven, and, at the same time, to raise yourselves with that vigour above all human enemies; to be combated at once from above, and from below; to be struck down, and to triumph,—I know not whether such trials have been ever paralleled in any nation: the resolution and successes of them never can be. Never had prince or people more mutual reason to love each other, if suffering for each other can endear affection. You have come together a pair of matchless lovers, through many difficulties; he, through a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and the interposition of many rivals, who violently ravished and with-held you from him; and certainly you have had your share in sufferings. But providence has cast upon you want of trade, that you might appear bountiful to your country's necessities; and the rest of your afflictions are not more the effects of God's displeasure (frequent examples of them having been in the reign of the most excellent princes) than occasions for the manifesting of your christian and civil virtues. To you, therefore, this Year of Wonders is justly dedicated, because you have made it so; you, who are to stand a wonder to all years and ages; and who have built yourselves an immortal monument on your own ruins. You are now a Phœnix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity; but heaven never made so much piety and virtue to leave it miserable. I have heard, indeed, of some virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation: Providence is engaged too deeply, when the cause becomes so general; and I cannot imagine it has resolved that ruin of the people at home, which it has blessed abroad with such successes. I am therefore to conclude, that your sufferings are at an end; and that one part of my poem has not been more an history of your destruction, than the other a prophecy of your restoration. The accomplishment of which happiness, as it is the wish of all true Englishmen, so is it by none more passionately desired, than by

The greatest of your admirers,

And most humble of your servants,

John Dryden.

AN
ACCOUNT OF THE ENSUING POEM,
IN A LETTER TO THE
HON. SIR ROBERT HOWARD.[88]

Sir,

I am so many ways obliged to you, and so little able to return your favours, that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but you have been solicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long since I gave you the trouble of perusing a play for me,[89] and now, instead of an acknowledgment, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a poem. But since you are to bear this persecution, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr,—you could never suffer in a nobler cause; for I have chosen the most heroic subject, which any poet could desire. I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes, of a most just and necessary war; in it, the care, management, and prudence of our king; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and three glorious victories, the result of all. After this, I have, in the Fire, the most deplorable, but withal the greatest, argument that can be imagined; the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast and miserable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not serving my king and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged to it; and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the nobles of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should not have written this but to a person, who has been ever forward to appear in all employments, whither his honour and generosity have called him. The latter part of my poem, which describes the Fire, I owe, first, to the piety and fatherly affection of our monarch to his suffering subjects; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both which were so conspicuous, that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. I have called my poem historical, not epic, though both the actions and actors are as much heroic as any poem can contain. But, since the action is not properly one, nor that accomplished in the last successes, I have judged it too bold a title for a few stanzas, which are little more in number than a single Iliad, or the longest of the Ãneids. For this reason, (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too severely to the laws of history) I am apt to agree with those, who rank Lucan rather among historians in verse, than Epic poets; in whose room, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more justly be admitted. I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us; in which I am sure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the slavery of any rhyme; and were less constrained in the quantity of every syllable, which they might vary with spondees or dactyls, besides so many other helps of grammatical figures, for the lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the close of that one syllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the sense of all the rest. But in this necessity of our rhymes, I have always found the couplet verse most easy, (though not so proper for this occasion,) for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labour of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it farther on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the troublesome sense of four lines together. For, those, who write correctly in this kind, must needs acknowledge, that the last line of the stanza is to be considered in the composition of the first. Neither can we give ourselves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the sake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using the variety of female rhymes,[90] all which our fathers practised; and for the female rhymes, they are still in use amongst other nations; with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French alternately, as those who have read the Alaric, the Pucelle, or any of their later poems, will agree with me. And besides this, they write in Alexandrines, or verses of six feet; such as, amongst us, is the old translation of Homer by Chapman:[91] all which, by lengthening of their chain, makes the sphere of their activity the larger.

I have dwelt too long upon the choice of my stanza, which you may remember is much better defended in the preface to "Gondibert;" and therefore I will hasten to acquaint you with my endeavours in the writing. In general I will only say, I have never yet seen the description of any naval fight in the proper terms which are used at sea; and if there be any such, in another language, as that of Lucan in the third of his Pharsalia, yet I could not avail myself of it in the English; the terms of art in every tongue bearing more of the idiom of it than any other words. We hear indeed among our poets, of the thundering of guns, the smoke, the disorder, and the slaughter; but all these are common notions. And certainly, as those, who in a logical dispute keep in general terms, would hide a fallacy; so those, who do it in any poetical description, would veil their ignorance:[92]

Descriptas servare vices, operumque colores,

Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, poeta salutor?

For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea, yet I have thought it no shame to learn; and if I have made some few mistakes, it is only, as you can bear me witness, because I have wanted opportunity to correct them; the whole poem being first written, and now sent you from a place, where I have not so much as the converse of any seaman. Yet though the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was more than recompensed by the pleasure. I found myself so warm in celebrating the praises of military men, two such especially as the prince and general, that it is no wonder if they inspired me with thoughts above my ordinary level. And I am well satisfied, that, as they are incomparably the best subject I ever had, excepting only the royal family, so also, that this I have written of them is much better than what I have performed on any other. I have been forced to help out other arguments, but this has been bountiful to me; they have been low and barren of praise,[93] and I have exalted them, and made them fruitful; but here—Omnia sponte suà reddit justissima tellus. I have had a large, a fair, and a pleasant field; so fertile, that, without my cultivating, it has given me two harvests in a summer, and in both oppressed the reaper. All other greatness in subjects is only counterfeit; it will not endure the test of danger; the greatness of arms is only real. Other greatness burdens a nation with its weight; this supports it with its strength. And as it is the happiness of the age, so it is the peculiar goodness of the best of kings, that we may praise his subjects without offending him. Doubtless it proceeds from a just confidence of his own virtue, which the lustre of no other can be so great as to darken in him; for the good or the valiant are never safely praised under a bad or a degenerate prince.

But to return from this digression to a farther account of my poem; I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have endeavoured to adorn it with noble thoughts, so much more to express those thoughts with elocution. The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit;[94] and wit in the poet, or wit-writing, (if you will give me leave to use a school-distinction) is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, 'till it springs the quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things, which it designs to represent. Wit written is that which is well defined, the happy result of thought, or product of imagination. But to proceed from wit, in the general notion of it, to the proper wit of an Heroic or Historical Poem, I judge it chiefly to consist in the delightful imagining of persons, actions, passions, or things. It is not the jerk or sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis, (the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme,) nor the gingle of a more poor paronomasia;[95] neither is it so much the morality of a grave sentence, affected by Lucan, but more sparingly used by Virgil; but it is some lively and apt description, dressed in such colours of speech, that it sets before your eyes the absent object, as perfectly, and more delightfully than nature. So then the first happiness of the poet's imagination is properly invention, or finding of the thought; the second is fancy, or the variation, deriving, or moulding, of that thought, as the judgment represents it proper to the subject; the third is elocution, or the art of clothing and adorning that thought, so found and varied, in apt, significant, and sounding words. The quickness of the imagination is seen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expression. For the two first of these, Ovid is famous amongst the poets; for the latter, Virgil. Ovid images more often the movements and affections of the mind, either combating between two contrary passions, or extremely discomposed by one. His words therefore are the least part of his care; for he pictures nature in disorder, with which the study and choice of words is inconsistent. This is the proper wit of dialogue or discourse, and consequently of the drama, where all that is said is supposed to be the effect of sudden thought; which, though it excludes not the quickness of wit in repartees, yet admits not a too curious election of words, too frequent allusions, or use of tropes, or, in fine, any thing that shews remoteness of thought, or labour in the writer. On the other side, Virgil speaks not so often to us in the person of another, like Ovid, but in his own: he relates almost all things as from himself, and thereby gains more liberty than the other, to express his thoughts with all the graces of elocution, to write more figuratively, and to confess as well the labour as the force of his imagination. Though he describes his Dido well and naturally, in the violence of her passions, yet he must yield in that to the Myrrha, the Biblis, the Althæa, of Ovid; for, as great an admirer of him as I am, I must acknowledge, that if I see not more of their souls than I see of Dido's, at least I have a greater concernment for them: and that convinces me, that Ovid has touched those tender strokes more delicately than Virgil could. But when action or persons are to be described, when any such image is to be set before us, how bold, how masterly, are the strokes of Virgil! We see the objects he presents us with in their native figures, in their proper motions; but so we see them, as our own eyes could never have beheld them so beautiful in themselves. We see the soul of the poet, like that universal one of which he speaks, informing and moving through all his pictures:

——Totamque infusa per artus

Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.

We behold him embellishing his images, as he makes Venus breathing beauty upon her son Ãneas:

——lumenque juventæ

Purpureum, & lætos oculis afflârat honores:

Quale manus addunt ebori decus, aut ubi flavo

Argentum, Pariusve lapis, circundatur auro.

See his Tempest, his Funeral Sports, his Combat of Turnus and Ãneas: and in his "Georgics," which I esteem the divinest part of all his writings, the Plague, the Country, the Battle of the Bulls, the labour of the Bees; and those many other excellent images of nature, most of which are neither great in themselves, nor have any natural ornament to bear them up; but the words wherewith he describes them are so excellent, that it might be well applied to him, which was said by Ovid, Materium superabat opus: the very sound of his words has often somewhat that is connatural to the subject; and while we read him, we sit, as in a play, beholding the scenes of what he represents. To perform this, he made frequent use of tropes, which you know change the nature of a known word, by applying it to some other signification; and this is it which Horace means in his Epistle to the Piso's:

Dixeris egregiè, notum si callida verbum

Reddiderit junctura novum.——

But I am sensible I have presumed too far to entertain you with a rude discourse of that art, which you both know so well, and put into practice with so much happiness. Yet before I leave Virgil, I must own the vanity to tell you, and by you the world, that he has been my master in this poem. I have followed him every where, I know not with what success, but I am sure with diligence enough; my images are many of them copied from him, and the rest are imitations of him. My expressions also are as near as the idioms of the two languages would admit of in translation. And this, sir, I have done with that boldness, for which I will stand accountable to any of our little critics, who, perhaps, are no better acquainted with him than I am. Upon your first perusal of this poem, you have taken notice of some words, which I have innovated (if it be too bold for me to say refined) upon his Latin; which, as I offer not to introduce into English prose, so I hope they are neither improper, nor altogether inelegant in verse; and, in this, Horace will again defend me:

Et nova, fictaque nuper, habebunt verba fidem, si

Græco fonte cadunt, parcè detorta.——

The inference is exceeding plain; for, if a Roman poet might have liberty to coin a word, supposing only that it was derived from the Greek, was put into a Latin termination, and that he used this liberty but seldom, and with modesty; how much more justly may I challenge that privilege to do it with the same prerequisites, from the best and most judicious of Latin writers? In some places, where either the fancy or the words were his, or any other's, I have noted it in the margin, that I might not seem a plagiary;[96] in others I have neglected it, to avoid as well tediousness, as the affectation of doing it too often. Such descriptions or images well wrought, which I promise not for mine, are, as I have said, the adequate delight of heroic poesy; for they beget admiration, which is its proper object; as the images of the burlesque, which is contrary to this, by the same reason beget laughter: for, the one shews nature beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other shews her deformed, as in that of a lazar, or of a fool with distorted face and antique gestures, at which we cannot forbear to laugh, because it is a deviation from nature. But though the same images serve equally for the Epic poesy, and for the Historic and Panegyric, which are branches of it, yet a several sort of sculpture is to be used in them. If some of them are to be like those of Juvenal, stantes in curribus Ãmiliani, heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots, and in their full proportion; others are to be like that of Virgil, spirantia mollius æra: there is somewhat more of softness and tenderness to be shewn in them. You will soon find I write not this without concern. Some, who have seen a paper of verses, which I wrote last year to her highness the Duchess, have accused them of that only thing I could defend in them. They said, I did humi serpere,—that I wanted not only height of fancy, but dignity of words, to set it off. I might well answer with that of Horace, Nunc non erat his locus; I knew I addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression, and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defence. But I will not farther bribe your candour, or the reader's. I leave them to speak for me; and, if they can, to make out that character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them.[97]

And now, sir, it is time I should relieve you from the tedious length of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer. In conclusion, I must leave my poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not of the number of those, of whom the younger Pliny speaks; Nec sunt parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant: I am rather too secure of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errors may make you more remiss in correcting them; if you will not withal consider, that they come into the world with your approbation, and through your hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an absent person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation; and therefore I hope it will stir you up to make my poem fairer by many of your blots: if not, you know the story of the gamester who married the rich man's daughter, and when her father denied the portion, christened all the children by his sirname, that if, in conclusion, they must beg, they should do so by one name, as well as by the other. But, since the reproach of my faults will light on you, it is but reason I should do you that justice to the readers, to let them know, that, if there be any thing tolerable in this poem, they owe the argument to your choice, the writing to your encouragement, the correction to your judgment, and the care of it to your friendship, to which he must ever acknowledge himself to owe all things, who is,

Sir,

The most obedient, and most

Faithful of your servants,

John Dryden.

From Charlton, in Wiltshire,
Nov. 10, 1666.

ANNUS MIRABILIS;
THE
YEAR OF WONDERS,
1666.

1.

In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,

Crouching at home and cruel when abroad;

Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;

Our king they courted, and our merchants awed.[98]

2.

Trade, which like blood should circularly flow,

Stopped in their channels, found its freedom lost;

Thither the wealth of all the world did go,

And seemed but shipwrecked on so base a coast.

3.

For them alone the heavens had kindly heat,

In eastern quarries ripening precious dew;[99]

For them the Idumæan balm did sweat,

And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.

4.

The sun but seemed the labourer of the year;

Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,[100]

To swell those tides, which from the Line did bear

Their brim-full vessels to the Belgian shore.

5.

Thus, mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,

And swept the riches of the world from far;

Yet stooped to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong;

And this may prove our second Punic war.[101]

6.

What peace can be, where both to one pretend?

(But they more diligent, and we more strong,)

Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;

For they would grow too powerful, were it long.

7.

Behold two nations then, engaged so far,

That each seven years the fit must shake each land;

Where France will side to weaken us by war,

Who only can his vast designs withstand.

8.

See how he feeds the Iberian[102] with delays,

To render us his timely friendship vain;

And while his secret soul on Flanders preys,

He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain.[103]

9.

Such deep designs of empire does he lay

O'er them, whose cause he seems to take in hand;

And prudently would make them lords at sea,

To whom with ease he can give laws by land.

10.

This saw our king; and long within his breast

His pensive counsels balanced to and fro;

He grieved the land he freed should be oppressed,

And he less for it than usurpers do.[104]

11.

His generous mind the fair ideas drew

Of fame and honour, which in dangers lay;

Where wealth, like fruit on precipices, grew,

Not to be gathered but by birds of prey.

12.

The loss and gain each fatally were great;

And still his subjects called aloud for war:

But peaceful kings, o'er martial people set,

Each other's poize and counterbalance are.

13.

He first surveyed the charge with careful eyes,

Which none but mighty monarchs could maintain;

Yet judged, like vapours that from limbecks rise,

It would in richer showers descend again.

14.

At length resolved to assert the watery ball,

He in himself did whole Armadas bring;

Him aged seamen might their master call,

And chuse for general, were he not their king.[105]

15.

It seems as every ship their sovereign knows,

His awful summons they so soon obey;—

So hear the scaly herd when Proteus blows,

And so to pasture follow through the sea.[106]

16.

To see this fleet upon the ocean move,

Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies;

And heaven, as if there wanted lights above,

For tapers made two glaring comets rise.[107]

17.

Whether they unctuous exhalations are,

Fired by the sun, or seeming so alone;

Or each some more remote and slippery star,

Which loses footing when to mortals shewn;

18.

Or one, that bright companion of the sun,[108]

Whose glorious aspect sealed our new-born king;

And now, a round of greater years begun,

New influence from his walks of light did bring.

19.

Victorious York did first, with famed success,

To his known valour make the Dutch give place;[109]

Thus heaven our monarch's fortune did confess,

Beginning conquest from his royal race.

20.

But since it was decreed, auspicious king,

In Britain's right that thou shouldst wed the main,

Heaven, as a gage, would cast some precious thing,

And therefore doomed that Lawson should be slain.[110]

21.

Lawson amongst the foremost met his fate,

Whom sea-green Sirens from the rocks lament;

Thus, as an offering for the Grecian state,

He first was killed, who first to battle went.[111]

22.

Their chief blown up, in air, not waves, expired,

To which his pride presumed to give the law;[112]

The Dutch confessed heaven present, and retired,

And all was Britain the wide ocean saw.

23.

To nearest ports their shattered ships repair,

Where by our dreadful cannon they lay awed;

So reverently men quit the open air,

Where thunder speaks the angry gods abroad.

24.

And now approached their fleet from India, fraught

With all the riches of the rising sun;

And precious sand from southern climates brought,

The fatal regions where the war begun.[113]

25.

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,[114]

Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coast they bring;

There first the North's cold bosom spices bore,

And winter brooded on the eastern spring.

26.

By the rich scent we found our perfumed prey,

Which, flanked with rocks, did close in covert lie;

And round about their murdering cannon lay,

At once to threaten and invite the eye.

27.

Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard,

The English undertake the unequal war;

Seven ships alone, by which the port is barred,

Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.

28.

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those;

These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy;

And to such height their frantic passion grows,

That what both love, both hazard to destroy.

29.

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,

And now their odours armed against them fly;

Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall,

And some by aromatic splinters die.

30.

And though by tempests of the prize bereft,

In heaven's inclemency some ease we find;

Our foes we vanquished by our valour left,

And only yielded to the seas and wind.

31.

Nor wholly lost we so deserved a prey;

For storms, repenting, part of it restored;

Which as a tribute from the Baltic sea,

The British ocean sent her mighty lord.[115]

32.

Go, mortals, now, and vex yourselves in vain

For wealth, which so uncertainly must come;

When what was brought so far, and with such pain,

Was only kept to lose it nearer home.

33.

The son, who twice three months on th' ocean tost,

Prepared to tell what he had passed before,

Now sees in English ships the Holland coast,

And parents' arms, in vain, stretched from the shore.

34.

This careful husband had been long away,

Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn;

Who on their fingers learned to tell the day,

On which their father promised to return.

35.

Such are the proud designs of human-kind,

And so we suffer shipwreck every where![116]

Alas, what port can such a pilot find,

Who in the night of fate must blindly steer!

36.

The undistinguished seeds of good and ill,

Heaven in his bosom from our knowledge hides;

And draws them in contempt of human skill,

Which oft, for friends mistaken, foes provides.

37.

Let Munster's prelate ever be accurst,

In whom we seek the German faith in vain;[117]

Alas, that he should teach the English first,

That fraud and avarice in the church could reign!

38.

Happy, who never trust a stranger's will,

Whose friendship's in his interest understood;

Since money given but tempts him to be ill,

When power is too remote to make him good.

39.

Till now, alone the mighty nations strove;

The rest, at gaze, without the lists did stand;

And threatening France, placed like a painted Jove,

Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.

40.

That eunuch guardian of rich Holland's trade,

Who envies us what he wants power to enjoy;

Whose noiseful valour does no foe invade,

And weak assistance will his friends destroy.

41.

Offended that we fought without his leave,

He takes this time his secret hate to shew;

Which Charles does with a mind so calm receive,

As one that neither seeks nor shuns his foe.

42.

With France, to aid the Dutch, the Danes unite;

France as their tyrant, Denmark as their slave.[118]

But when with one three nations join to fight,

They silently confess that one more brave.

43.

Lewis had chased the English from his shore,

But Charles the French as subjects does invite;[119]

Would heaven for each some Solomon restore,

Who, by their mercy, may decide their right.

44.

Were subjects so but only by their choice,

And not from birth did forced dominion take,

Our prince alone would have the public voice,

And all his neighbours' realms would deserts make.

45.

He without fear a dangerous war pursues,

Which without rashness he began before;

As honour made him first the danger chuse,

So still he makes it good on virtue's score.

46.

The doubled charge his subjects' love supplies,

Who in that bounty to themselves are kind:

So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise,

And in his plenty their abundance find.[120]

47.

With equal power he does two chiefs create,

Two such as each seemed worthiest when alone;[121]

Each able to sustain a nation's fate,

Since both had found a greater in their own.

48.

Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame,

Yet neither envious of the other's praise;

Their duty, faith, and interest too the same,

Like mighty partners equally they raise.

49.

The Prince long time had courted fortune's love,

But once possessed did absolutely reign;

Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove,

And conquered first those beauties they would gain.

50.

The Duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain,

That Carthage, which he ruined, rise once more;

And shook aloft the fasces of the main,

To fright those slaves with what they felt before.

51.

Together to the watery camp they haste,

Whom matrons passing to their children show;

Infants first vows for them to heaven are cast,

And future people bless them as they go.[122]

52.

With them no riotous pomp, nor Asian train,

To infect a navy with their gaudy fears;

To make slow fights, and victories but vain;

But war severely, like itself, appears.

53.

Diffusive of themselves, where'er they pass,

They make that warmth in others they expect;

Their valour works like bodies on a glass,

And does its image on their main project.

54.

Our fleet divides, and straight the Dutch appear,

In number, and a famed commander, bold;[123]

The narrow seas can scarce their navy bear,

Or crowded vessels can their soldiers hold.

55.

The Duke, less numerous, but in courage more,

On wings of all the winds to combat flies;

His murdering guns a loud defiance roar,

And bloody crosses on his flag-staffs rise.

56.

Both furl their sails, and strip them for the fight;

Their folded sheets dismiss the useless air;

The Elean plains could boast no nobler sight,[124]

When struggling champions did their bodies bare.

57.

Born each by other in a distant line,

The sea-built forts in dreadful order move;

So vast the noise, as if not fleets did join,

But lands unfixed, and floating nations strove.[125]

58.

Now passed, on either side they nimbly tack;

Both strive to intercept and guide the wind;

And, in its eye, more closely they come back,[126]

To finish all the deaths they left behind.

59.

On high-raised decks the haughty Belgians ride,

Beneath whose shade our humble frigates go;

Such port the elephant bears, and so defied

By the rhinoceros, her unequal foe.

60.

And as the built,[127] so different is the fight,

Their mounting shot is on our sails designed;

Deep in their hulls our deadly bullets light,

And through the yielding planks a passage find.[128]

61.

Our dreaded admiral from far they threat,

Whose battered rigging their whole war receives;

All bare, like some old oak which tempests beat,

He stands, and sees below his scattered leaves.

62.

Heroes of old, when wounded, shelter sought;

But he, who meets all danger with disdain,

Even in their face his ship to anchor brought,

And steeple-high stood propt upon the main.[129]

63.

At this excess of courage, all amazed,

The foremost of his foes awhile withdraw;

With such respect in entered Rome they gazed,

Who on high chairs the god-like Fathers saw.[130]

64.

And now, as where Patroclus' body lay,

Here Trojan chiefs advanced, and there the Greek;

Ours o'er the Duke their pious wings display,

And theirs the noblest spoils of Britain seek.

65.

Meantime his busy mariners he hastes,

His shattered sails with rigging to restore;

And willing pines ascend his broken masts,

Whose lofty heads rise higher than before.

66.

Straight to the Dutch he turns his dreadful prow,

More fierce the important quarrel to decide;

Like swans, in long array, his vessels show,

Whose crests advancing do the waves divide.

67.

They charge, recharge, and all along the sea

They drive, and squander the huge Belgian fleet;

Berkley alone, who nearest danger lay,

Did a like fate with lost Creusa meet.[131]

68.

The night comes on, we eager to pursue

The combat still, and they ashamed to leave;

Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew,

And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive.

69.

In the English fleet each ship resounds with joy,

And loud applause of their great leader's fame;

In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy,

And, slumbering, smile at the imagined flame.

70.

Not so the Holland fleet, who, tired and done,

Stretched on their decks, like weary oxen, lie;

Faint sweats all down their mighty members run,

Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply.

71.

In dreams they fearful precipices tread;

Or, shipwrecked, labour to some distant shore;

Or in dark churches walk among the dead;

They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more,

72.

The morn they look on with unwilling eyes,

Till from their main-top joyful news they hear

Of ships, which, by their mould, bring new supplies,

And in their colours Belgian lions bear.[132]

73.

Our watchful general had discerned from far

This mighty succour, which made glad the foe;

He sighed, but, like a father of the war,

His face spake hope, while deep his sorrows flow.[133]

74.

His wounded men he first sends off to shore,

Never, till now, unwilling to obey;

They, not their wounds, but want of strength, deplore,

And think them happy, who with him can stay.

75.

Then to the rest, "Rejoice," said he, "to-day;

In you the fortune of Great Britain lies;

Among so brave a people, you are they,

Whom heaven has chose to fight for such a prize.

76.

"If number English courages could quell,

We should at first have shun'd, not met, our foes,

Whose numerous sails the fearful only tell;[134]

Courage from hearts, and not from numbers grows."[135]

77.

He said, nor needed more to say; with haste,

To their known stations, cheerfully they go;

And, all at once, disdaining to be last,

Solicit every gale to meet the foe.

78.

Nor did the encouraged Belgians long delay,

But, bold in others, not themselves, they stood;

So thick, our navy scarce could steer their way,

But seemed to wander in a moving wood.

79.

Our little fleet was now engaged so far,

That, like the sword-fish in the whale they fought;[136]

The combat only seemed a civil war,

Till through their bowels we our passage wrought.

80.

Never had valour, no not ours before

Done aught like this upon the land or main;

Where, not to be o'ercome, was to do more

Than all the conquests former kings did gain.

81.

The mighty ghosts of our great Harries rose,

And armed Edwards looked with anxious eyes,

To see this fleet among unequal foes,

By which fate promised them their Charles should rise.

82.

Meantime the Belgians tack upon our rear,

And raking chase-guns through our sterns they send;

Close by their fire-ships, like jackals, appear,

Who on their lions for the prey attend.[137]

83.

Silent, in smoke of cannon, they come on;

Such vapours once did fiery Cacus hide:[138]

In these, the height of pleased revenge is shewn,

Who burn contented by another's side.

84.

Sometimes from fighting squadrons of each fleet,

Deceived themselves, or to preserve some friend,

Two grappling Ãtnas on the ocean meet,

And English fires with Belgian flames contend.

85.

Now, at each tack, our little fleet grows less;

And, like maimed fowl, swim lagging on the main.

Their greater loss their numbers scarce confess,

While they lose cheaper than the English gain.

86.

Have you not seen, when whistled from the fist,

Some falcon stoops at what her eye designed,

And with her eagerness the quarry missed,

Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind?[139]

87.

The dastard crow, that to the wood made wing,

And sees the groves no shelter can afford,

With her loud caws her craven kind does bring,

Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird.

88.

Among the Dutch thus Albemarle did fare:

He could not conquer, and disdained to fly;

Past hope of safety, 'twas his latest care,

Like falling Cæsar, decently to die.

89.

Yet pity did his manly spirit move,

To see those perish who so well had fought;

And generously with his despair he strove,

Resolved to live till he their safety wrought.

90.

Let other muses write his prosperous fate,

Of conquered nations tell, and kings restored;

But mine shall sing of his eclipsed estate,

Which, like the sun's, more wonders does afford.

91.

He drew his mighty frigates all before,

On which the foe his fruitless force employs;

His weak ones deep into his rear he bore,

Remote from guns, as sick men from the noise.[140]

92.

His fiery cannon did their passage guide,

And following smoke obscured them from the foe:

Thus Israel, safe from the Egyptians' pride.

By flaming pillars, and by clouds did go.

93.

Elsewhere the Belgian force we did defeat,

But here our courages did theirs subdue;

So Xenophon once led that famed retreat,

Which first the Asian empire overthrew.

94.

The foe approached; and one for his bold sin

Was sunk, as he that touched the ark was slain:[141]

The wild waves mastered him, and sucked him in,

And smiling eddies dimpled on the main.

95.

This seen, the rest at awful distance stood;

As if they had been there as servants set,

To stay, or to go on, as he thought good,

And not pursue, but wait on his retreat.

96.

So Libyan huntsmen, on some sandy plain,

From shady coverts roused, the lion chace;

The kingly beast roars out with loud disdain,

And slowly moves, unknowing to give place.[142]

97.

But if some one approach to dare his force,

He swings his tail, and swiftly turns him round:

With one paw seizes on his trembling horse,

And with the other tears him to the ground.

98.

Amidst these toils succeeds the balmy night;

Now hissing waters the quenched guns restore;

And weary waves, withdrawing from the fight,

Lie lulled and panting on the silent shore.[143]

99.

The moon shone clear on the becalmed flood,

Where, while her beams like glittering silver play,

Upon the deck our careful general stood,

And deeply mused on the succeeding day.[144]

100.

"That happy sun," said he, "will rise again,

Who twice victorious did our navy see;

And I alone must view him rise in vain,

Without one ray of all his star for me.

101.

"Yet, like an English general will I die,

And all the ocean make my spacious grave:

Women and cowards on the land may lie;

The sea's a tomb that's proper for the brave."

102.

Restless he passed the remnant of the night,

Till the fresh air proclaimed the morning nigh;

And burning ships, the martyrs of the fight,

With paler fires beheld the eastern sky.

103.

But now his stores of ammunition spent,

His naked valour is his only guard;

Rare thunders are from his dumb cannon sent,

And solitary guns are scarcely heard.

104.

Thus far had fortune power, here forced to stay,

No longer durst with fortune be at strife;

This as a ransom Albemarle did pay,

For all the glories of so great a life.

105.

For now brave Rupert from afar appears,

Whose waving streamers the glad general knows;

With full-spread sails his eager navy steers,

And every ship in swift proportion grows.[145]

106.

The anxious prince had heard the cannon long,

And, from that length of time, dire omens drew

Of English overmatched, and Dutch too strong,

Who never fought three days, but to pursue.

107.

Then, as an eagle, who with pious care

Was beating widely on the wing for prey,

To her now silent eiry does repair,

And finds her callow infants forced away;

108.

Stung with her love, she stoops upon the plain,

The broken air loud whistling as she flies;

She stops and listens, and shoots forth again,

And guides her pinions by her young ones cries.

109.

With such kind passion hastes the prince to fight,

And spreads his flying canvas to the sound;

Him, whom no danger, were he there, could fright,

Now absent, every little noise can wound.

110.

As in a drought the thirsty creatures cry,

And gape upon the gathered clouds for rain;

And first the martlet meets it in the sky,

And with wet wings joys all the feathered train;

111.

With such glad hearts did our despairing men

Salute the appearance of the prince's fleet;

And each ambitiously would claim the ken,

That with first eyes did distant safety meet.

112.

The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before,

To reap the harvest their ripe ears did yield,

Now look like those, when rolling thunders roar,

And sheets of lightning blast the standing field.

113.

Full in the prince's passage, hills of sand,

And dangerous flats, in secret ambush lay;

Where the false tides skim o'er the covered land,

And seamen, with dissembled depths, betray.

114.

The wily Dutch, who, like fallen angels, feared

This new Messiah's coming, there did wait,

And round the verge their braving vessels steered,

To tempt his courage with so fair a bait.

115.

But he, unmoved, contemns their idle threat,

Secure of fame whene'er he please to fight;

His cold experience tempers all his heat,

And inbred worth doth boasting valour slight.

116.

Heroic virtue did his actions guide,

And he the substance, not the appearance, chose;

To rescue one such friend he took more pride,

Than to destroy whole thousands of such foes.

117.

But when approached, in strict embraces bound,

Rupert and Albemarle together grow;

He joys to have his friend in safety found,

Which he to none but to that friend would owe.

118.

The cheerful soldiers, with new stores supplied,

Now long to execute their spleenful will;

And, in revenge for those three days they tried,

Wish one, like Joshua's, when the sun stood still.

119.

Thus reinforced, against the adverse fleet,[146]

Still doubling ours, brave Rupert leads the way;

With the first blushes of the morn they meet,

And bring night back upon the new-born day.

120.

His presence soon blows up the kindling fight,

And his loud guns speak thick like angry men;

It seemed as slaughter had been breathed all night,

And death new-pointed his dull dart agen.

121.

The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew,

And matchless courage, since the former fight;

Whose navy like a stiff-stretched cord did shew,

Till he bore in, and bent them into flight.

122.

The wind he shares, while half their fleet offends

His open side, and high above him shows;

Upon the rest at pleasure he descends,

And, doubly harmed, he double harms bestows.

123.

Behind, the general mends his weary pace,

And sullenly to his revenge he sails;

So glides some trodden serpent on the grass,

And long behind his wounded volume trails.[147]

124.

The increasing sound is borne to either shore,

And for their stakes the throwing nations fear;

Their passions double with the cannons' roar,

And with warm wishes each man combats there.

125.

Plied thick and close as when the fight begun,

Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away:

So sicken waneing moons too near the sun,

And blunt their crescents on the edge of day.

126.

And now, reduced on equal terms to fight,

Their ships like wasted patrimonies show;

Where the thin scattering trees admit the light,

And shun each other's shadows as they grow.

127.

The warlike prince had sever'd from the rest

Two giant ships, the pride of all the main;

Which with his one so vigorously he pressed,

And flew so home, they could not rise again.

128.

Already battered, by his lee they lay;

In vain upon the passing winds they call;

The passing winds through their torn canvas play,

And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall.

129.

Their opened sides receive a gloomy light,

Dreadful as day let into shades below;

Without, grim death rides barefaced in their sight,

And urges entering billows as they flow.

130.

When one dire shot, the last they could supply,

Close by the board the prince's main-mast bore:

All three, now helpless, by each other lie,

And this offends not, and those fear no more.

131.

So have I seen some fearful hare maintain

A course, till tired before the dog she lay;

Who, stretched behind her, pants upon the plain,

Past power to kill, as she to get away.

132.

With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey;

His warm breath blows her flix[148] up as she lies;

She, trembling, creeps upon the ground away,

And looks back to him with beseeching eyes.

133.

The prince unjustly does his stars accuse,

Which hindered him to push his fortune on;

For what they to his courage did refuse,

By mortal valour never must be done.

134.

This lucky hour the wise Batavian takes,

And warns his tattered fleet to follow home;

Proud to have so got off with equal stakes,

Where 'twas a triumph not to be o'ercome.[149]

135.

The general's force, as kept alive by fight,

Now not opposed, no longer can pursue;

Lasting till heaven had done his courage right;

When he had conquered, he his weakness knew.

136.

He casts a frown on the departing foe,

And sighs to see him quit the watery field;

His stern fixed eyes no satisfaction show,

For all the glories which the fight did yield.

137.

Though, as when fiends did miracles avow,

He stands confessed e'en by the boastful Dutch;

He only does his conquest disavow,

And thinks too little what they found too much.

138.

Returned, he with the fleet resolved to stay;

No tender thoughts of home his heart divide;

Domestic joys and cares he puts away,

For realms are households which the great must guide.[150]

139.

As those, who unripe veins in mines explore,

On the rich bed again the warm turf lay,

Till time digests the yet imperfect ore,

And know it will be gold another day;[151]

140.

So looks our monarch on this early fight,

Th' essay and rudiments of great success;

Which all-maturing time must bring to light,

While he, like heaven, does each day's labour bless.

141.

Heaven ended not the first or second day,

Yet each was perfect to the work designed:

God and kings work, when they their work survey,

A passive aptness in all subjects find.

142.

In burdened vessels first, with speedy care,

His plenteous stores do season'd timber send;

Thither the brawny carpenters repair,

And as the surgeons of maimed ships attend.

143.

With cord and canvas from rich Hamburgh sent,

His navy's molted wings he imps[152] once more;

Tall Norway fir, their masts in battle spent,

And English oak, sprung leaks and planks restore.

144.

All hands employed, the royal work grows warm;

Like labouring bees on a long summer's day,

Some sound the trumpet for the rest to swarm,

And some on bells of tasted lilies play.

145.

With glewy wax some new foundations lay,

Of virgin-combs, which from the roof are hung;

Some armed within doors, upon duty stay,

Or tend the sick, or educate the young.[153]

146.

So here some pick out bullets from the sides,

Some drive old oakum through each seam and rift;

Their left hand does the caulking-iron guide,

The rattling mallet with the right they lift.

147.

With boiling pitch another near at hand,

From friendly Sweden[154] brought, the seams in-stops;

Which well paid o'er, the salt sea waves withstand,

And shakes them from the rising beak in drops.

148.

Some the galled ropes with dawby marline[155] bind,

Or searcloth masts with strong tarpawling[156] coats;

To try new shrouds, one mounts into the wind,

And one below their ease or stiffness notes.

149.

Our careful monarch stands in person by,

His new-cast cannons' firmness to explore;

The strength of big-corn'd powder loves to try,

And ball and cartridge sorts for every bore.

150.

Each day brings fresh supplies of arms and men,

And ships which all last winter were abroad;

And such as fitted since the fight had been,

Or new from stocks, were fallen into the road.

151.

The goodly London, in her gallant trim,

The Phœnix-daughter of the vanished old,[157]

Like a rich bride does to the ocean swim,

And on her shadow rides in floating gold.

152.

Her flag aloft, spread ruffling to the wind,

And sanguine streamers, seem the flood to fire;

The weaver, charmed with what his loom designed,

Goes on to sea, and knows not to retire.

153.

With roomy decks, her guns of mighty strength,

Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves;

Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length,

She seems a sea-wasp flying on the waves.

154.

This martial present, piously designed,

The loyal city give their best-loved king;

And, with a bounty ample as the wind,

Built, fitted, and maintained, to aid him bring.

155.

By viewing nature, nature's handmaid, art,

Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow:

Thus fishes first to shipping did impart,

Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow.

156.

Some log, perhaps, upon the waters swam,

An useless drift, which, rudely cut within;

And hollow'd, first a floating trough became,

And cross some rivulet passage did begin.

157.

In shipping such as this, the Irish kern,

And untaught Indian, on the stream did glide;

Ere sharp-keel'd boats to stem the flood did learn,

Or fin-like oars did spread from either side.

158.

Add but a sail, and Saturn so appeared,

When from lost empire he to exile went,

And with the golden age to Tyber steer'd,

Where coin and commerce first he did invent.

159.

Rude as their ships was navigation then;

No useful compass or meridian known;

Coasting, they kept the land within their ken,

And knew no north but when the Pole-star shone.

160.

Of all, who since have used the open sea,

Than the bold English none more fame have won;

Beyond the year, and out of heaven's high way,[158]

They make discoveries where they see no sun.

161.

But what so long in vain, and yet unknown,

By poor mankind's benighted wit is sought,

Shall in this age to Britain first be shewn,

And hence be to admiring nations taught.

162.

The ebbs of tides, and their mysterious flow,

We, as art's elements, shall understand;

And as by line upon the ocean go,

Whose paths shall be familiar as the land.

163.

Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce,[159]

By which remotest regions are allied;

Which makes one city of the universe,

Where some may gain, and all may be supplied.

164.

Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go,

And view the ocean leaning on the sky:

From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,

And on the lunar world securely pry.

165.

This I foretel from your auspicious care,[160]

Who great in search of God and nature grow;

Who best your wise Creator's praise declare,

Since best to praise His works is best to know.

166.

O truly royal! who behold the law,

And rule of beings in your Maker's mind;[161]

And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw,

To fit the levelled use of human-kind.

167.

But first the toils of war we must endure,

And from the injurious Dutch redeem the seas;

War makes the valiant of his right secure,

And gives up fraud to be chastised with ease.

168.

Already were the Belgians on our coast,[162]

Whose fleet more mighty every day became

By late success, which they did falsely boast,

And now, by first appearing, seemed to claim.

169.

Designing, subtile, diligent, and close,

They knew to manage war with wise delay;

Yet all those arts their vanity did cross,

And by their pride their prudence did betray.

170.

Nor staid the English long; but, well supplied,

Appear as numerous as the insulting foe;

The combat now by courage must be tried,

And the success the braver nation show.

171.

There was the Plymouth squadron now come in,

Which in the Straits last winter was abroad;

Which twice on Biscay's working bay had been,

And on the midland sea the French had awed.

172.

Old expert Allen, loyal all along,

Famed for his action on the Smyrna fleet;[163]

And Holmes, whose name shall live in epic song,

While music numbers, or while verse has feet.[164]

173.

Holmes, the Achates of the general's fight,

Who first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold;

As once old Cato, in the Roman sight,

The tempting fruits of Afric did unfold.

174.

With him went Spragge, as bountiful as brave,

Whom his high courage to command had brought;[165]

Harman, who did the twice-fired Harry save,

And in his burning ship undaunted fought.[166]

175.

Young Hollis on a muse by Mars begot,

Born, Cæsar-like, to write and act great deeds;

Impatient to revenge his fatal shot,

His right hand doubly to his left succeeds.[167]

176.

Thousands were there in darker fame that dwell,

Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn;

And, though to me unknown, they sure fought well,

Whom Rupert led, and who were British born.

177.

Of every size an hundred fighting sail;

So vast the navy now at anchor rides,

That underneath it the pressed waters fail,

And with its weight it shoulders off the tides.

178.

Now, anchors weighed, the seamen shout so shrill,

That heaven and earth, and the wide ocean, rings;

A breeze from westward waits their sails to fill,

And rests in those high beds his downy wings.

179.

The wary Dutch this gathering storm foresaw,

And durst not bide it on the English coast;

Behind their treacherous shallows they withdraw,

And there lay snares to catch the British host.

180.

So the false spider, when her nets are spread,

Deep ambushed in her silent den does lie,

And feels far off the trembling of her thread,

Whose filmy cord should bind the struggling fly;

181.

Then, if at last she find him fast beset,

She issues forth, and runs along her loom;

She joys to touch the captive in her net,

And drag the little wretch in triumph home.

182.

The Belgians hoped, that, with disordered haste,

Our deep-cut keels upon the sands might run;

Or, if with caution leisurely were past,

Their numerous gross[168] might charge us one by one.

183.

But with a fore-wind pushing them above,

And swelling tide that heaved them from below,

O'er the blind flats our warlike squadrons move,

And with spread sails to welcome battle go.

184.

It seemed as there the British Neptune stood,

With all his hosts of waters at command;

Beneath them to submit the officious flood,

And with his trident shoved them off the sand.[169]

185.

To the pale foes they suddenly draw near,

And summon them to unexpected fight:

They start like murderers when ghosts appear,

And draw their curtains in the dead of night.

186.

Now van to van the foremost squadrons meet,

The midmost battles hastening up behind;[170]

Who view far off the storm of falling sleet,

And hear their thunder rattling in the wind.

187.

At length the adverse admirals appear,

The two bold champions of each country's right;

Their eyes describe the lists as they come near,

And draw the lines of death before they fight.

188.

The distance judged for shot of every size,

The linstocks touch, the ponderous ball expires:[171]

The vigorous seaman every port-hole plies,

And adds his heart to every gun he fires!

189.

Fierce was the fight on the proud Belgians' side,

For honour, which they seldom sought before;

But now they by their own vain boasts were tied,

And forced, at least in shew, to prize it more.

190.

But sharp remembrance on the English part,

And shame of being matched by such a foe,

Rouse conscious virtue up in every heart,

And seeming to be stronger, makes them so.[172]

191.

Nor long the Belgians could that fleet sustain,

Which did two generals' fates, and Cæsar's bear;

Each several ship a victory did gain,

As Rupert or as Albemarle were there.

192.

Their battered admiral too soon withdrew,

Unthanked by ours for his unfinished fight;

But he the minds of his Dutch masters knew,

Who called that providence, which we called flight.

193.

Never did men more joyfully obey,

Or sooner understood the sign to fly;

With such alacrity they bore away,

As if, to praise them, all the States stood by.

194.

O famous leader of the Belgian fleet,

Thy monument inscribed such praise shall wear,

As Varro, timely flying, once did meet,

Because he did not of his Rome despair.[173]

195.

Behold that navy, which, a while before,

Provoked the tardy English close to fight;

Now draw their beaten vessels close to shore,

As larks lie dared, to shun the hobbies'[174] flight.

196.

Whoe'er would English monuments survey,

In other records may our courage know;

But let them hide the story of this day,

Whose fame was blemished by too base a foe.

197.

Or if too busily they will inquire

Into a victory, which we disdain;

Then let them know, the Belgians did retire,

Before the patron saint of injured Spain.[175]

198.

Repenting England this revengeful day

To Philip's manes[176] did an offering bring;

England, which first, by leading them astray,

Hatched up rebellion to destroy her king.

199.

Our fathers bent their baneful industry,

To check a monarchy that slowly grew;

But did not France or Holland's fate foresee,

Whose rising power to swift dominion flew.

200.

In fortune's empire blindly thus we go,

And wander after pathless destiny;

Whose dark resorts since prudence cannot know,

In vain it would provide for what shall be.

201.

But whate'er English to the blessed shall go,

And the fourth Harry or first Orange meet;

Find him disowning of a Bourbon foe,

And him detesting a Batavian fleet.[177]

202.

Now on their coasts our conquering navy rides,

Way-lays their merchants, and their land besets;

Each day new wealth without their care provides;

They lie asleep with prizes in their nets.

203.

So close behind some promontory lie

The huge leviathans to attend their prey;

And give no chace, but swallow in the fry,

Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.

204.

Nor was this all; in ports and roads remote,

Destructive fires among whole fleets we send;

Triumphant flames upon the water float,

And out-bound ships at home their voyage end.[178]

205.

Those various squadrons, variously designed,

Each vessel freighted with a several load,

Each squadron waiting for a several wind,

All find but one,—to burn them in the road.

206.

Some bound for Guinea, golden sand to find,

Bore all the gauds the simple natives wear;

Some for the pride of Turkish courts designed,

For folded turbans finest Holland bear.

207.

Some English wool vexed in a Belgian loom,

And into cloth of spongy softness made,

Did into France, or colder Denmark, doom,

To ruin with worse ware our staple trade.

208.

Our greedy seamen rummage every hold,

Smile on the booty of each wealthier chest;

And, as the priests who with their gods make bold,

Take what they like, and sacrifice the rest.

209.

But ah! how insincere are all our joys!

Which sent from heaven, like lightning, make no stay;

Their palling taste the journey's length destroys,

Or grief, sent post, o'ertakes them on the way.

210.

Swelled with our late successes on the foe,

Which France and Holland wanted power to cross,

We urge an unseen fate to lay us low,

And feed their envious eyes with English loss.

211.

Each element his dread command obeys,

Who makes or ruins with a smile or frown;

Who, as by one he did our nation raise,

So now he with another pulls us down.

212.

Yet London, empress of the northern clime,

By an high fate thou greatly didst expire;

Great as the world's, which, at the death of time,

Must fall, and rise a nobler frame by fire.[179]

213.

As when some dire usurper heaven provides,

To scourge his country with a lawless sway;

His birth, perhaps, some petty village hides,

And sets his cradle out of fortune's way:

214.

Till fully ripe his swelling fate breaks out,

And hurries him to mighty mischiefs on;

His prince, surprised at first, no ill could doubt,

And wants the power to meet it when 'tis known:

215.

Such was the rise of this prodigious fire,

Which in mean buildings first obscurely bred,

From thence did soon to open streets aspire,

And straight to palaces and temples spread.

216.

The diligence of trades and noiseful gain,

And luxury more late, asleep were laid;

All was the night's; and, in her silent reign,

No sound the rest of nature did invade.

217.

In this deep quiet, from what source unknown,

Those seeds of fire their fatal birth disclose;

And, first, few scattering sparks about were blown,

Big with the flames that to our ruin rose.

218.

Then in some close-pent room it crept along,

And, smouldering as it went, in silence fed;

Till th' infant monster, with devouring strong,

Walked boldly upright with exalted head.

219.

Now, like some rich or mighty murderer,

Too great for prison, which he breaks with gold;

Who fresher for new mischiefs does appear,

And dares the world to tax him with the old:

220.

So 'scapes the insulting Fire his narrow jail,

And makes small outlets into open air;

There the fierce winds his tender force assail,

And beat him downward to his first repair.

221.

The winds, like crafty courtezans, with-held

His flames from burning, but to blow them more;

And, every fresh attempt, he is repelled

With faint denials, weaker than before.[180]

222.

And now, no longer letted of his prey,

He leaps up at it with enraged desire;

O'erlooks the neighbours with a wide survey,

And nods at every house his threatning fire.

223.

The ghosts of traitors from the bridge descend,

With bold fanatic spectres to rejoice;

About the fire into a dance they bend,

And sing their sabbath notes with feeble voice.[181]

224.

Our guardian angel saw them where they sate,

Above the palace of our slumbering king;

He sighed, abandoning his charge to fate,

And, drooping, oft looked back upon the wing.

225.

At length the crackling noise and dreadful blaze

Called up some waking lover to the sight;

And long it was ere he the rest could raise,

Whose heavy eyelids yet were full of night.

226.

The next to danger, hot pursued by fate,

Half-clothed, half-naked, hastily retire;

And frighted mothers strike their breasts too late,

For helpless infants left amidst the fire.

227.

Their cries soon waken all the dwellers near;

Now murmuring noises rise in every street;

The more remote run stumbling with their fear,

And in the dark men jostle as they meet.

228.

So weary bees in little cells repose;

But if night-robbers lift the well-stored hive,

An humming through their waxen city grows,

And out upon each other's wings they drive.

229.

Now streets grow thronged, and busy as by day;

Some run for buckets to the hallowed quire;

Some cut the pipes, and some the engines play,

And some, more bold, mount ladders to the fire.

230.

In vain; for from the east a Belgian wind

His hostile breath through the dry rafters sent;

The flames, impelled, soon left their foes behind,

And forward with a wanton fury went.

231.

A key of fire ran all along the shore,

And lightened all the river with a blaze;[182]

The wakened tides began again to roar,

And wondering fish in shining waters gaze.

232.

Old father Thames raised up his reverend head,

But feared the fate of Simois would return;[183]

Deep in his ooze he sought his sedgy bed,

And shrunk his waters back into his urn.

233.

The fire, mean-time, walks in a broader gross;[184]

To either hand his wings he opens wide;

He wades the streets, and straight he reaches cross,

And plays his longing flames on the other side.

234.

At first they warm, then scorch, and then they take;

Now with long necks from side to side they feed;

At length, grown strong, their mother-fire forsake,

And a new colony of flames succeed.

235.

To every nobler portion of the town

The curling billows roll their restless tide;

In parties now they straggle up and down,

As armies, unopposed, for prey divide.

236.

One mighty squadron with a side-wind sped,

Through narrow lanes his cumbered fire does haste;

By powerful charms of gold and silver led,

The Lombard bankers and the Change to waste.

237.

Another backward to the Tower would go,

And slowly eats his way against the wind;

But the main body of the marching foe

Against the imperial palace is designed.

238.

Now day appears, and with the day the king,[185]

Whose early care had robbed him of his rest;

Far off the cracks of falling houses ring,

And shrieks of subjects pierce his tender breast.

239.

Near as he draws, thick harbingers of smoke,

With gloomy pillars, cover all the place;

Whose little intervals of night are broke

By sparks, that drive against his sacred face.

240.

More than his guards his sorrows made him known,

And pious tears, which down his cheeks did shower;

The wretched in his grief forgot their own,

So much the pity of a king has power.

241.

He wept the flames of what he loved so well,

And what so well had merited his love;

For never prince in grace did more excel,

Or royal city more in duty strove.

242.

Nor with an idle care did he behold;

Subjects may grieve, but monarchs must redress;

He chears the fearful, and commends the bold,

And makes despairers hope for good success.

243.

Himself directs what first is to be done,

And orders all the succours which they bring;

The helpful and the good about him run,

And form an army worthy such a king.

244.

He sees the dire contagion spread so fast,

That where it seizes all relief is vain;

And therefore must unwillingly lay waste

That country, which would else the foe maintain.

245.

The powder blows up all before the fire;[186]

The amazed flames stand gathered on a heap;

And from the precipice's brink retire,

Afraid to venture on so large a leap.

246.

Thus fighting fires a while themselves consume,

But straight, like Turks forced on to win or die,

They first lay tender bridges of their fume,

And o'er the breach in unctuous vapours fly.

247.

Part stay for passage, till a gust of wind

Ships o'er their forces in a shining sheet;

Part creeping under ground, their journey blind,

And climbing from below their fellows meet.

248.

Thus to some desert plain, or old wood-side,

Dire night-hags come from far to dance their round;

And o'er broad rivers on their fiends they ride,

Or sweep in clouds above the blasted ground.

249.

No help avails; for, hydra-like, the fire

Lifts up his hundred heads to aim his way;

And scarce the wealthy can one half retire,

Before he rushes in to share the prey.

250.

The rich grow suppliant, and the poor grow proud;

Those offer mighty gain, and these ask more;

So void of pity is the ignoble crowd,

When others' ruin may increase their store.

251.

As those who live by shores with joy behold

Some wealthy vessel split or stranded nigh;

And from the rocks leap down for shipwrecked gold,

And seek the tempests which the others fly:

252.

So these but wait the owners' last despair,

And what's permitted to the flames invade;

E'en from their jaws they hungry morsels tear,

And on their backs the spoils of Vulcan lade.

253.

The days were all in this lost labour spent;

And when the weary king gave place to night,

His beams he to his royal brother lent,

And so shone still in his reflective light.[187]

254.

Night came, but without darkness or repose,

A dismal picture of the general doom;

Where souls, distracted when the trumpet blows,

And half unready, with their bodies come.

255.

Those who have homes, when home they do repair,

To a last lodging call their wandering friends;

Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care,

To look how near their own destruction tends.

256.

Those, who have none, sit round where once it was,

And with full eyes each wonted room require;

Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place,

As murdered men walk where they did expire.

257.

Some stir up coals and watch the vestal fire,

Others in vain from sight of ruin run;

And while through burning lab'rinths they retire,

With loathing eyes repeat what they would shun.

258.

The most in fields, like herded beasts, lie down,

To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor;[188]

And while their babes in sleep their sorrows drown,

Sad parents watch the remnants of their store.

259.

While by the motion of the flames they guess

What streets are burning now, and what are near,

An infant, waking, to the paps would press,

And meets, instead of milk, a falling tear.

260.

No thought can ease them but their sovereign's care,

Whose praise the afflicted as their comfort sing;

E'en those, whom want might drive to just despair,

Think life a blessing under such a king.

261.

Meantime he sadly suffers in their grief,

Outweeps an hermit, and outprays a saint;

All the long night he studies their relief,

How they may be supplied, and he may want.

262.

"O God," said he, "thou patron of my days,

Guide of my youth in exile and distress!

Who me, unfriended, brought'st by wond'rous ways,

The kingdom of my fathers to possess:

263.

"Be thou my judge, with what unwearied care

I since have laboured for my people's good;

To bind the bruises of a civil war,

And stop the issues of their wasting blood.

264.

"Thou, who hast taught me to forgive the ill,

And recompense, as friends, the good misled;

If mercy be a precept of thy will,

Return that mercy on thy servant's head.

265.

"Or if my heedless youth has stepped astray,

Too soon forgetful of thy gracious hand,

On me alone thy just displeasure lay,

But take thy judgments from this mourning land.

266.

"We all have sinned; and thou hast laid us low,

As humble earth, from whence at first we came:

Like flying shades before the clouds we show,

And shrink like parchment in consuming flame.

267.

"O let it be enough what thou hast done;

When spotted deaths ran arm'd through every street,

With poisoned darts, which not the good could shun,

The speedy could out-fly, or valiant meet.[189]

268.

"The living few, and frequent funerals then,

Proclaimed thy wrath on this forsaken place;

And now those few, who are returned again,

Thy searching judgments to their dwellings trace.

269.

"O pass not, Lord, an absolute decree,

Or bind thy sentence unconditional;

But in thy sentence our remorse foresee,

And in that foresight this thy doom recal.

270.

"Thy threatnings, Lord, as thine, thou may'st revoke;

But, if immutable and fixed they stand,

Continue still thyself to give the stroke,

And let not foreign foes oppress thy land."[190]

271.

The Eternal heard, and from the heavenly quire

Chose out the cherub with the flaming sword;

And bade him swiftly drive the approaching fire

From where our naval magazines were stored.

272.

The blessed minister his wings displayed,

And like a shooting star he cleft the night:

He charged the flames, and those that disobeyed,

He lashed to duty with his sword of light.

273.

The fugitive flames, chastised, went forth to prey

On pious structures, by our fathers reared;

By which to heaven they did affect the way,

Ere faith in churchmen without works was heard.

274.

The wanting orphans saw, with watery eyes,

Their founders' charity in dust laid low;

And sent to God their ever-answered cries;

For he protects the poor, who made them so.

275.

Nor could thy fabric, Paul's, defend thee long,

Though thou wert sacred to thy Maker's praise;

Though made immortal by a poet's song,

And poets' songs the Theban walls could raise.[191]

276.

The daring flames peeped in, and saw from far

The awful beauties of the sacred quire;

But since it was prophaned by civil war,

Heaven thought it fit to have it purged by fire.

277.

Now down the narrow streets it swiftly came,

And, widely opening, did on both sides prey;

This benefit we sadly owe the flame,

If only ruin must enlarge our way.

278.

And now four days the sun had seen our woes;

Four nights the moon beheld the incessant fire;

It seemed as if the stars more sickly rose,

And farther from the feverish north retire.

279.

In the empyrean heaven, the blessed abode,

The Thrones and the Dominions prostrate lie,

Not daring to behold their angry God;

And an hushed silence damps the tuneful sky.

280.

At length the Almighty cast a pitying eye,

And mercy softly touched his melting breast;

He saw the town's one half in rubbish lie,

And eager flames drive on to storm the rest.[192]

281.

An hollow crystal pyramid he takes,

In firmamental waters dipt above;

Of it a broad extinguisher he makes,

And hoods the flames that to their quarry drove.

282.

The vanquished fires withdraw from every place,[193]

Or, full with feeding, sink into a sleep:

Each household genius shows again his face,

And from the hearths the little Lares creep.

283.

Our king this more than natural change beholds;

With sober joy his heart and eyes abound:

To the All-good his lifted hands he folds,

And thanks him low on his redeemed ground.

284.

As when sharp frosts had long constrained the earth,

A kindly thaw unlocks it with cold rain;

And first the tender blade peeps up to birth,

And straight the green fields laugh with promised grain.

285.

By such degrees the spreading gladness grew

In every heart which fear had froze before;

The standing streets with so much joy they view,

That with less grief the perished they deplore.

286.

The father of the people opened wide

His stores, and all the poor with plenty fed:

Thus God's anointed God's own place supplied,

And filled the empty with his daily bread.

287.

This royal bounty brought its own reward,

And in their minds so deep did print the sense,

That if their ruins sadly they regard,

'Tis but with fear the sight might drive him thence.

288.

But so may he live long, that town to sway,

Which by his auspice they will nobler make,

As he will hatch their ashes by his stay,

And not their humble ruins now forsake.[194]

289.

They have not lost their loyalty by fire;

Nor is their courage or their wealth so low,

That from his wars they poorly would retire,

Or beg the pity of a vanquished foe.

290.

Not with more constancy the Jews, of old,

By Cyrus from rewarded exile sent,

Their royal city did in dust behold,

Or with more vigour to rebuild it went.[195]

291.

The utmost malice of the stars is past,

And two dire comets, which have scourged the town,

In their own plague and fire have breathed their last,

Or dimly in their sinking sockets frown.

292.

Now frequent trines the happier lights among,

And high-raised Jove, from his dark prison freed,

Those weights took off that on his planet hung,

Will gloriously the new-laid works succeed.[196]

293.

Methinks already from this chemic flame,

I see a city of more precious mould;

Rich as the town[197] which gives the Indies name,

With silver paved, and all divine with gold.

294.

Already labouring with a mighty fate,

She shakes the rubbish from her mountain brow,

And seems to have renewed her charter's date,

Which heaven will to the death of time allow.

295.

More great than human now, and more august,[198]

Now deified she from her fires does rise;

Her widening streets on new foundations trust,

And opening into larger parts she flies.[199]

296.

Before, she like some shepherdess did show,

Who sat to bathe her by a river's side;

Not answering to her fame, but rude and low,

Nor taught the beauteous arts of modern pride.

297.

Now, like a maiden queen, she will behold,

From her high turrets, hourly suitors come;

The East with incense, and the West with gold,

Will stand like suppliants to receive her doom.

298.

The silver Thames, her own domestic flood,

Shall bear her vessels like a sweeping train;

And often wind, as of his mistress proud,

With longing eyes to meet her face again.

299.

The wealthy Tagus, and the wealthier Rhine,

The glory of their towns no more shall boast;

And Seyne, that would with Belgian rivers join,[200]

Shall find her lustre stained, and traffic lost.

300.

The venturous merchant, who designed more far,

And touches on our hospitable shore,

Charmed with the splendour of this northern star,

Shall here unlade him, and depart no more.

301.

Our powerful navy shall no longer meet,

The wealth of France or Holland to invade;

The beauty of this town, without a fleet,

From all the world shall vindicate her trade.

302.

And while this famed emporium we prepare,

The British ocean shall such triumphs boast,

That those, who now disdain our trade to share,

Shall rob like pirates on our wealthy coast.

303.

Already we have conquered half the war,

And the less dangerous part is left behind;

Our trouble now is but to make them dare,

And not so great to vanquish as to find.[201]

304.

Thus to the eastern wealth through storms we go,

But now, the Cape once doubled, fear no more;

A constant trade-wind will securely blow,

And gently lay us on the spicy shore.[202]