The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 1
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Title: The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 1
Author: John Dryden
Editor: George Gilfillan
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #11488]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN DRYDEN, VOLUME 1 ***
EDINBURGH
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY,
PAUL'S WORK.
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF JOHN DRYDEN.
With Life, Critical Dissertation, and
Explanatory Notes
BY THE
REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.
VOL. I.
M. DCCC. LV.
THE LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN.
John Dryden was born on the 9th of August 1631, at a place variously
denominated Aldwincle, or Oldwincle, All Saints; or at Oldwincle, St
Peter's, in Northamptonshire. The name Dryden or Driden, is from the
North. There are Drydens still in the town of Scotland where we now
write; and the poet's ancestors lived in the county of Cumberland. One
of them, named John, removed from a place called Staff-hill, to
Northamptonshire, where he succeeded to the estate of Canons-Ashby, by
marriage with the daughter of Sir John Cope. John Dryden was a
schoolmaster, a Puritan, and honoured, it is said, with the friendship
of the celebrated Erasmus, after whom he named his son, who succeeded to
the estate of Canons-Ashby, and, besides becoming a sheriff of the
county of Northamptonshire, was created a knight under James I. Sir
Erasmus had three sons, the third of whom, also an Erasmus, became the
father of our poet. His mother was Mary, the daughter of the Rev. Henry
Pickering, whose father, a zealous Puritan, had been one of the marked
victims in the Gunpowder Plot. Dryden thus had connexions both on his
father's and mother's side with that party, by deriding, defaming, and
opposing which he afterwards gained much of his poetical glory.
The poet was the eldest of fourteen children--four sons and ten
daughters. The honour of his birth is claimed, as already stated, by two
parishes, that of Oldwincle, All Saints, and that of Oldwincle, St
Peter's, as Homer's was of old by seven cities. His brothers and
sisters have been followed, by eager biographers, into their diverging
and deepening paths of obscurity--paths in which we do not choose to
attend them. Dryden received the rudiments of his education at Tichmarsh
or at Oundle--for here, too, we have conflicting statements. It is
certain, however, that he was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster,
under the tuition of Dr Busby, whom he always respected, and who
discovered in him poetical power. He encouraged him to write, as a
Thursday's night's task, a translation of the third Satire of Persius, a
writer precisely of that vigorously rhetorical, rapidly satirical, and
semi-poetical school, which Dryden was qualified to appreciate and to
mirror; besides other pieces of a similar kind which are lost. During
the last year of his residence at Westminster, and when only eighteen
years of age, he wrote one among the ninety-eight elegies which were
called forth by the sudden death of Henry Lord Hastings, and published
under the title of "Lachrymæ Musarum." Hastings seems to have been an
amiable person, but he was besides a lord, and _hinc illoe lachrymæ_.
We know not of what quality the other tears were, but assuredly Dryden's
is one of very suspicious sincerity, and of very little poetical merit.
But even the crocodile tears of a great genius, if they fall into a
fanciful shape, must be preserved; and we have preserved his,
accordingly, notwithstanding the false taste as well as doubtful truth
and honesty of this his earliest poem.
Shortly after, Dryden obtained a Westminster scholarship, and on the
11th of May 1650, entered on Trinity College, Cambridge. His tutor was
one John Templer, famous then as one of the many who had attempted to
put a hook in the jaws of old Hobbes, the Leviathan of his time, but
whose reply, as well as Hobbes' own book (like a whale disappearing from
a Shetland "voe" into the deep, with all the hooks and harpoons of his
enemies along with him) has been almost entirely forgotten. At
Cambridge, Dryden was noted for regularity and diligence, and took the
degree of B.A. in January 1653-4, and in 1657 was made A.M. by a
dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Once, indeed, he was
rusticated for a fortnight on account of some disobedience to the
vice-master. He resided, however, at his university three years after
the usual term; and although he did not become a Fellow, and made no
secret, in after days, of preferring Oxford to Cambridge, yet the reason
of this seems to have lain, not in any personal disgust, but in some
other cause, which, says Scott, "we may now search for in vain."
Up till June 1654, his father had continued to reside at his estate at
Blakesley, in Northamptonshire, when he died, leaving Dryden two-thirds
of a property, which was worth, in all, only £60 a-year. The other third
was bequeathed to his mother, during her lifetime. With this miserable
modicum of £40 a-year, the poet returned to Cambridge, and continued
there, doing little, and little known as one who could do anything, till
the year 1657. The only records of the diligence of his college years,
are the lines on the death of Lord Hastings, and one or two other
inconsiderable copies of verses. He probably, however, employed much
time in private study.
While at Cambridge, he met with a young lady, a cousin of his own--Honor
Driden, daughter of Sir John Driden of Chesterton--of whom he became
deeply enamoured. His suit was, however, rejected, although he continued
all his life on intimate terms with the family. Miss Driden died
unmarried, many years after her poet lover; and like the "Lass of
Ballochmyle" with Burns' homage, learned to value it more after he
became celebrated, and carefully preserved the solitary letter which
Dryden wrote her.
But now the university was to lose, and the world of London to receive,
the poet. In the year 1657, when about six-and-twenty years of age,
Dryden repaired to London, "clad in homely drugget," and with more
projects in his head than pence in his pocket. He was first employed by
his relative, Sir Gilbert Pickering--called the "Fiery Pickering," from
his Roundhead zeal--as a clerk or secretary. Here he came in contact
with Cromwell; and saw very clearly those great qualities of sagacity,
determination, courage, statesmanship, insight and genuine godliness,
which made him, next to Alfred the Great, the first monarch who ever
sat on the English throne. Two years after Dryden came to London,
Cromwell expired, and the poet wrote and published his Heroic Stanzas on
the hero's death, which we consider really his earliest poem. When
Richard resigned, Dryden, in common with the majority of the nation, saw
that the Roundhead cause was lost, and hastened to carry over his
talents to the gaining side. For this we do not blame him very severely,
although it certainly had been nobler if, like Milton, he had clung to
his party. Sir Walter Scott remarks, that Dryden never retracted the
praise he gave to Cromwell. In "Absalom and Achitophel" he sneers at
Richard as Ishbosheth, but says nothing against the deceased giant Saul.
It is clear, too, that at first his desertion of the Cromwell party was
a loss to the poet. He lost the chance of their favour, in case a
reaction should come, his situation as secretary, and the shelter of
Pickering's princely mansion. As might have been expected, his ancient
friends were indignant at the change, and not less so at the alteration
he thought proper at the same time to make in the spelling of his
name--from Driden to Dryden.
He went to reside in the obscure house of one Herringman, a bookseller,
in the New Exchange, and became for life a professional author. His
enemies afterwards reproached him bitterly for his mean circumstances at
this period of his life, and asserted that he was a mere drudge to
Herringman. He, at all events, did little in his own proper poetic
calling for two years. A poem on the Coronation of Charles, well fitted
to wipe away the stain of Cromwellism, and to attract upon the poet the
eye of that Rising-Sun, whose glory he sang with more zeal than truth; a
panegyric on the Lord Chancellor; and a satire on the Dutch; were all,
and are all short, and all savour of a vein somewhat hide-bound. He
planned, indeed, too, and partly wrote, one or more plays, and was
considered of consequence enough to be elected a member of the Royal
Society in 1662. Previous to this he had been introduced, through
Herringman, to Sir Robert Howard, son of the first Earl of Berkshire,
and a relation of Edward Howard, the author of "British Princes," and
the object of the witty wrath of Butler. Sir Robert, too, had a
poetical propensity, and Dryden and he became and continued intimate for
a number of years, the poet assisting the knight in his literary
compositions, particularly in a play entitled "The Indian Queen;" and
the latter inviting the former to the family seat at Charlton, where
Dryden met in an unlucky hour his future wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard,
the sister of Sir Robert. It was on the 1st of December 1663, in St
Swithin's, London, and with the consent of the Earl, who settled about
£60 a-year on his daughter, that this unhappy union took place. The lady
seems to have had absolutely none of the qualities which tend either to
command a husband's respect or to conciliate his regard, but is
described as a woman of violent temper and weak understanding. Much of
the bitterness of Dryden's satire, some of the coarse licentiousness of
his plays, and all the sarcasms at matrimony which he has scattered in
multitudes, throughout his works, may be traced to his domestic
unhappiness.
Otherwise, the match had some advantages. It broke up, for a time at
least, some licentious connexions he had formed, particularly, after a
time, one with Mrs Reeves the actress, with whom, having laid aside his
Norwich drugget, he used to eat tarts at the Mulberry Gardens, "with a
sword and a Chadreux wig." It secured to him, including his own
property, an income of about £100 a-year--a sum equal to £300 now--and
which, on the death of his mother, three years later, was increased by
£20 more, or £60 at the present value of money. He was thus protected
for life against the meaner and more miserable necessities of the
literary man, under which many of his unfortunate rivals were crushed;
and if he could not always command luxuries, he was always sure of
bread.
To improve his circumstances, however, and to enable him to keep up a
style of living in unison with his lady's rank, he must write, and the
question arose, what mode of composition was likely to be the most
lucrative? Were he to continue to indite panegyrical verses, like those
to Clarendon, he stood a chance of having a few guineas tossed to him
now and then by a patron, like a crust to an unfortunate cur. Were he
to translate, or write prefaces for the booksellers, he might pay his
bill for salt, if diligent enough. For Satires as yet there was little
demand. The follies of the more fanatical of the Puritans were too
recent, although they were beginning to ripen for the hand of Butler;
and the far grosser absurdities of the Cavaliers were yet in blossom.
There remained nothing for an aspiring author but the stage, which
during the previous _regime_ had been abolished. While the French
Revolution was in progress, ay, even in the depths of the reign of
terror, the theatres were all open, and all crowded; but when Cromwell
was enacting his solemn and solitary part, before God, angels, and men,
the petty potentates--the gods and goddesses of the stage--vanished into
thin air. At his tremendous stamp their cue had been "_Exeunt omnes_"
and if the spirit of Shakspeare himself had witnessed the departure, he
would have added his Amen. And had he watched in their stead the
gigantic actor treading his trembling stage alone, with all the world
looking on, he might have remembered and re-applied his own magnificent
words--
"O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And _monarchs_ to _behold_ the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike _Cromwell_ like himself
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment."
No sooner had this great man passed away, and an earnest age with him,
and Charles mounted the throne, than from the darkest recesses of the
stews and the taverns, from the depths within depths of Alsatia or Paris,
the whole tribe of dancers, fiddlers, drabs, mimes, stage-players, and
playwrights, knowing that their enemy was dead, and their hour of harvest
had come, emerged in swarming multitudes--multitudes swelled by the vast
tribe of play-goers, who had been counting the hours since a Falstaff
had made them laugh, an Ophelia made them weep, and a Lear made them
tremble. And had this only issued in the revival of the drama of
Shakspeare and Johnson, few could have had much to say in objection; for
that, in general, was as pure as it was powerful. But, alas, besides
them there had been a Beaumont, a Fletcher, and a Massinger, with their
unutterable abominations. Nay, the king and courtiers had imported from
France a taste which required for its gratification a licentiousness
still more abandoned, and to be cast, besides, into forms and shapes, as
stiff, stately, and elaborate as the material was vile, and were not
contented with pollution unless served up in a new, piquant, and
unnatural manner. Our poet understood this movement of his time right
well, and determined to conform to it. He knew that he could, better
than any man living, pander to the popular appetite for the
melodramatic, for the grandiloquent, and for the obscene. He knew the
taste of Charles, and that he, above all cooks, could dress up a
_ragout_ of that putrid perfection which his king relished. And he set
himself with his whole might so to do, and for thirty years and more
continued his degradation of genius--a degradation unexampled, whether
we consider the powers of the writer, the coarseness, quantity, and
elaboration of the pollutions he perpetrated, or the length of time in
which he was employed, in thus "profaning the God-given strength and
marring the lofty line."
His other biographers--Dr Johnson, alone, with brevity and seeming
reluctance--have enumerated and characterised all Dryden's plays. We
have decided only to speak of them very generally, and that for the
following reasons:--1st, We are reprinting none of them; 2dly, From what
we have read of them, we are certain that, even as works of art, they
are utterly unworthy of their author, and that in morals they are, as a
whole, a disgrace to human nature. We are not the least lenient or
indulgent of critics. We have every wish to pity the errors, and to bear
with the frequent escapades and aberrations of genius. But when we see,
as in Dryden's case, what we are forced to consider either a deliberate
and systematic attempt to poison the sources of virtue, or, at least, an
elaborate and incessant habit of conformity to the bad tastes of a bad
age, we can think of no plea fully available for his defence. Vain to
say, "he wrote for bread." He did not--he wrote only for the luxuries,
not the staff of life. Vain to say, "he consulted the taste of his
audience, and suited their atmosphere." But why did he _select_ that
atmosphere as his? And why so much gratuitous and superfluous iniquity
in his works? "But he wrote to gratify his monarch." This would form a
good enough excuse for a Sporus, "a white curd of ass' milk," but not
for a strong man like Dryden. But he was "no worse than others of his
age." Pitiful apology! since, being the ablest man of his day, and
therefore bound to be before it, he was in reality behind it, his plays
excelling all contemporary productions in wickedness as well as in wit.
But his own "conduct was latterly irreproachable." This we doubt, and
Scott doubts so too. But even though it were true, it were damaging,
because it would deprive him of the plea of passion, and reduce him from
the warm human painter to the cold demon-like sculptor of unclean and
abominable ideas. It never can be forgotten, that whenever Dryden
translated a filthy play, he made it filthier than in the original, and
that he has once and again scattered his satyr-like fancies in spots
such as the Paradise of Milton, and the Enchanted Isle of Shakspeare,
which every imagination and every heart previously had regarded as holy
ground. The only extenuating circumstance we can mention is, that his
pruriency was latterly in part relinquished and much deplored by
himself, and that his poetry is, on the whole, free from it. In our
critical paper, prefixed to the Second Volume, we intend to examine the
question, how far an author's faults are, or are not, to be charged upon
his age.
His next poem was "Annus Mirabilis," published in 1667, and counted
justly one of his most vigorous, though also one of the faultiest of his
poems. It includes glowing, although somewhat quaint and fantastic,
descriptions of the Dutch War and the Great Fire in London. In 1668, by
the death of Sir William Davenant, the post of Poet-Laureate became
vacant, and Dryden was appointed to it. He was also appointed
historiographer-royal. The salary of these two offices amounted to £200
a year, besides the famous annual butt of canary, while his profits from
the theatre were equivalent to £300. His whole income was thus, at the
very least, equal to a thousand pounds of our money--a great sum for a
poet in that or in any age. He published, the same year, an Essay on
"Dramatic Poetry," vindicating his own practice of rhymed heroic verse
in plays;--a stupid French innovation, which all the ingenuity of a
Dryden defended in vain. It was cast into the shape of a dialogue,--the
Duke of Dorset being one of the respondents,--and formed the first
specimen of Dryden's easy, rambling, but most vivid, vigorous, and
entertaining prose. No one was ever more ready than he to render reasons
for his writings,--for their faults as well as merits,--and to show by
more ingenious arguments, that, if they failed, they _ought_ to have
succeeded.
At this time we may consider Dryden's prosperity, although not his
powers, to have culminated. He had a handsome income, a run of
unparalleled popularity as a playwright; he was Poet-Laureate, a
favourite at court, and on terms of intimacy with many of the nobility,
and many of the eminent men of letters. The public would have at that
time bid high for his very snuff-papers, and were thankful for whatever
garbage he chose to throw at them from the stage. How different his
position from that of the great blind old man, at this time residing in
Bunhill-fields in obscurity and sorrow, and preparing to put off his
tabernacle, and take his flight to the Heavens of God! The one heard
every night the "claps of multitudes,"--the other the whispers of
angels, saying to his soul, "Sister-spirit, come away." The one was
revelling in reputation,--the other was listening to the far-off echoes
of a coming fame as wide as the world, and as permanent as the existence
of man. To do Dryden justice, he admired Milton; and although he did,
and that, too, immediately after Milton departed, venture to travestie
the "Paradise Lost" into a rhymed play, as dull as it is disgusting; and
although he knew that Milton had called him, somewhat harshly, a "good
rhymer, but no poet," yet he praised his genius at a time when it was
as little appreciated, as was the grandeur of his character.
But now the slave, in the chariot of Dryden's triumph, was about to
appear. First came, in 1671, the "Rehearsal," a play concocted among
various wits of the time, including Sprat, Clifford, poor Butler, of
"Hudibras," and chiefly the Duke of Buckingham. The object of this play
was to turn rhymed heroic tragedy, and especially the great playwright
of the day, under the name of Bayes, his person, manners, conversation,
and habits, into unmitigated ridicule. The plan has often since been
followed, with various success. Minor wits have delighted in clubbing
their small but poisoned missiles, and in aiming flights of minnikin
arrows at the Gullivers of their different periods. Thus Pope was
assailed by the "Dunces," whom he afterwards preserved in amber--that
terrible old lion, Bentley, by Boyle and his associates; and Wordsworth,
by the critics or criticasters of his day. Dryden acted with greater
prudence than any of those we have named, except indeed Bentley, who,
being assailed upon points involving the integrity of his scholarship,
and on which demonstrative contradiction was possible, felt himself
compelled to leave his lair, and to rend his enemies in pieces. But
Dryden--feeling on this occasion, at least, that a squib, however
personal and severe, cannot harm any man worthy of the name; and that
the very force of the laughter it produces, drives out the
sting--determined to answer it by silence, and to bide his time.
"Zimri," in Absalom and Achitophel, shows how deep had been his secret
oath of vengeance, and how carefully the sweltered "venom" had been
kept, in which at last he baptizes Buckingham, and embalms him at the
same time for the wonder and contempt of posterity. Here is the danger
of the smaller wits in a controversy of this kind. Their squibs excite a
sensation at the moment, and sometimes annoy the assaulted giant much,
and his friends and publishers more; but he continues to live and grow,
while their spiteful effusions perish; or worse, are preserved to the
everlasting shame of their authors, on the lowest shelf of the records
of their enemy's fame.
Two years after, occurred the famous controversy between Dryden and
Settle. Poor Elkanah Settle seemed raised up like another Mordecai to
poison the peace and disturb the false self-satisfaction of
Dryden,--raised up, rather--shall we say?--to wean the poet from a
sphere where his true place and power were not, and to prepare him for
other stages, where he was yet destined far more powerfully to play his
part. At all events, this should have been his inference from the
success of Settle. It should have taught him that a scene where a
pitiful poetaster, backed by mob-favour and the word of a Rochester,
could eclipse his glory, was no scene for him; and he ought instantly,
with proud humility, to have left the theatre for ever. Instead of this,
he fell into a violent passion with one who, like himself, had levelled
his desires to the "claps of multitudes," and had ravished the larger
share of the coveted prize! And so there commenced a long and ludicrous
controversy--dishonourable to Settle much; to Rochester and Dryden
more--between a mere insolent twaddler and a man of real and
transcendent genius. The particulars of the struggle are too humiliating
and contemptible to deserve a minute record. Suffice it, that Dryden,
assisted by his future foe, Shadwell, wrote a scurrilous attack on
Settle, and his successful play, "The Empress of Morocco;" to which
Settle, nothing daunted, replied in terms of equal coarseness, and that
Rochester, the patron of Settle, became mixed up in the fray, till,
having been severely handled by Dryden in his "Essay on Satire,"--a
production generally, and we think justly, attributed to Mulgrave and
Dryden in conjunction,--he took a mean and characteristic revenge. He
hired bravoes, who, waiting for Dryden as he was returning, on the 18th
December 1679, from Will's coffee-house to his own house in Gerard
Street, rushed out and severely beat and wounded him. That Dryden was
the author of the lines on Rochester has been doubted, although we think
they very much resemble a rough and hurried sketch from his pen; that
Rochester deserved the truculent treatment he received in them, this
anecdote sufficiently proves. It was partly, indeed, the manner of the
age. Had this nobleman existed _now_, and been pilloried by a true and
powerful pen, he would, in addition to his own anonymous assaults, have
stirred up a posse of his creatures to assist him in seeking, by
falsehoods, hypercriticisms, and abuse, to diminish the influence and
take away the good name of his opponent. The Satanic spirit is always
the same--its weapons and instruments are continually changing.
Soon after this, Dryden translated the Epistles of Ovid, thus breathing
himself for the far greater efforts which were before him. His mind
seems, for a season, to have balanced between various poetic plans. On
the one hand, the finger of his good genius showed him the fair heights
of epic song, waiting to be crowned by the coming of a new Virgil; on
the other side, the fierce fires of his passions pointed him downwards
to his many rivals and foes--the Cliffords, Leighs, Ravenscrofts,
Rochesters, and Settles--who seemed lying as a mark for his satiric
vengeance. He meditated, we know, an epic on Arthur, the hero of the
Round Table, and had, besides, many arrears of wrath lying past for
discharge; but circumstances arose which turned his thoughts away, for a
season, in a different direction from either Arthur or his personal
foes.
The political aspects of the times were now portentous in the extreme.
Charles II. had, partly by crime, partly by carelessness, and partly by
ill-fortune, become a most unpopular monarch, and the more so, because
the nation had no hope even from his death, since it was sure to hand
them over to the tender mercies of his brother, who had all his faults,
and some, in addition, of his own, without any of his merits. There was
but one hope, and that turned out a mere aurora borealis, connected with
the Duke of Monmouth, who, through his extraction by a bend sinister
from Charles, as well as through his popular manners, Protestant
principles, and gracious exterior, had become such a favourite with the
people, that strong efforts were made to exclude the Duke of York, and
to exalt him to the succession. These, however, were unsuccessful; and
Shaftesbury, their leading spirit, was accused of treason, and confined
to the Tower. It was at this crisis, when the nobility of the land were
divided, when its clergy were divided, when its literary men were
divided,--not in a silent feud, but in a raging rupture, that Dryden,
partly at the instigation of the Court, partly from his own impulse,
lifted up his powerful pen,--the sceptre of the press,--and, with
wonderful facility and felicity, wrote, and on the 17th November 1681,
published, the satire of "Absalom and Achitophel." Its poetical
merits--the choice of the names and period, although this is borrowed
from a previous writer--the appearance of the poem at the most critical
hour of the crisis--and, above all, the portraitures of character, so
easy and so graphic, so free and so fearless, distinguished equally by
their animus and their animation, and with dashes of generous painting
relieving and diversifying the general caricature of the
style,--rendered it instantly and irresistibly popular. It excited one
universal cry--from its friends, of admiration, and from its enemies, of
rage. Imitations and replies multiplies around it, and sounded like
assenting or like angry echoes. It did not, indeed, move the grand jury
to condemn Shaftesbury; but when, on his acquittal, a medal was struck
by his friends, bearing on one side the head and name of Shaftesbury,
and on the other, the sun obscured by a cloud rising over the Tower and
City of London, Dryden's aid was again solicited by the Court and the
King in person, to make this the subject of a second satire; and, with
great rapidity, he produced "The Medal--a Satire against Sedition,"
which, completing and colouring the photograph of Shaftesbury, formed
the real Second Part of "Absalom and Achitophel." What bore that name
came a year afterwards, when the times were changed, was written partly
by a feebler hand--Nahum Tate; and flew at inferior game--Dryden's own
personal rivals and detractors.
The principal of these was Shadwell, who had been an early friend of
Dryden's, and who certainly possessed a great deal of wit and talent, if
he did not attain to the measure of poetic genius. His principal power
lay in low comedy--his chief fault lay in his systematic and avowed
imitation of the rough and drunken manners of Ben Jonson. In the eye of
Dryden--whose own habits were convivial, although not to the same
extent--the real faults of his opponent were his popularity as a comic
writer, and his politics. Shadwell was a zealous Protestant, and the
bitterest of the many who replied to the "Medal." For this he became the
hero of "MacFlecknoe"--a masterly satire, holding him up to infamy and
contempt--besides sitting afterwards for the portrait of Og, in the
second part of "Absalom and Achitophel." Shadwell had, by and by, his
revenge, by obtaining the laureateship, after the Revolution, in room of
Dryden, and no doubt used the opportunity of drowning the memory of
defeat in the butt of generous canary which had now for ever passed the
door of his formidable rival.
Dryden's circumstances, at this time, were considerably straitened. His
pension as laureate was not regularly paid; the profits from the theatre
had somewhat fallen off. He tried in various ways, by prefacing a
translation of "Plutarch's Lives," by publishing a miscellany of
versions from Greek and Latin authors, and by writing prologues to plays
and prefaces to books, to supply his exhausted exchequer. His
good-humoured but heartless monarch set him on another task, for which
he was never paid, writing a translation of Maimbourg's "History of the
League," the object of which was to damage Shaftesbury and his party, by
branding them as enemies to monarchy. In 1682 he wrote his "Religio
Laici."
Not long after, in February 1684, Charles II. became, for the first time
in his life, serious, as he felt death--the proverbial terror of
kings--rapidly rushing upon him. He tried to hide the great and terrible
fact from his eyes under the shield of a wafer. He died suddenly--a
member of the "holy Roman Catholic Church,"--and much regretted by all
his mistresses; and apparently by Dryden, who had been preparing the
opera of "Albion and Albanius," to commemorate the king's triumph over
the Whigs, when this event turned his harp into mourning, and his organ
into the voice of them that weep. He set himself to write a poem which
should at once express regret for the set, and homage to the rising,
sun. This was his "Threnodia Augustalis," a very unequal poem, but full
of inimitable passages, and discovering all that careless greatness
which characterised the genius of the poet.
Charles II. had, at Dryden's request, to whom arrears for four years had
been due, raised his laureate salary to £300. The additional hundred
dropped at the king's death, and James was mean enough even to curtail
the annual butt of sack. He probably had little hope of converting the
author of "Religio Laici" to his faith, else he would not have withheld
what Charles had so recently granted. Afterwards, when he ascertained
that an interesting process was going on in Dryden's mind, tending to
Popery, he perhaps thought that a little money cast into the crucible
might materially determine the projection in the proper way; or perhaps
the _prospect_ produced, or at least accelerated, the _process_. We
admire much in Scott's elaborate and ingenious defence of Dryden's
change of faith; and are ready to grant that it was only a Pyrrhonist,
not a Protestant, who became a Papist after all--but there was, as Dr
Johnson also thinks, an ugly _coincidence_ between the pension and the
conversion. Grant that it was not bestowed for the first time by James,
it had been withheld by him, and its restoration immediately followed
the change of his faith. Dr Johnson was pleased, when Andrew Miller said
that he "thanked God he was done with him," to know that Miller "thanked
God for anything;" and so, when we consider the blasphemy, profanity,
and filth of Dryden's plays, and the unsettled and veering state of his
religious and political opinions, we are almost glad to find him
becoming "anything," although it was only the votary of a dead and
corrupted form of Christianity. You like to see the fierce, capricious,
and destructive torrent fixed, although it be fixed in ice.
That he found comfort in his new religion, and proved his sincerity by
rearing up his children in the faith which his wife had also embraced,
and by remaining a Roman Catholic after the Revolution, and to his own
pecuniary loss, has often been asserted. But surely there is a point
where the most inconsistent man is obliged to stop, if he would escape
the character of an absolute weather-cock; and that there are charms and
comforts in the Popish creed for one who felt with Dryden, that he had,
partly in his practice, and far more in his writings, sinned against the
laws of morality and common decency, we readily grant. Whether these
charms he legitimate, and these comforts sound, is a very different
question. Had Dryden, besides, turned Protestant again, we question if
it would have saved him his laureate pensions, and it would certainly
have blasted him for ever, under the charge of ingratitude to his
benefactor James. On the whole, this passage of the poet's life is not
very creditable to his memory, and his indiscriminate admirers had
better let it alone. It would have strained the ingenuity and the
enthusiasm of Claud Halcro himself to have extracted matter for a
panegyrical ode on this conversion of "glorious John."
Admitted into the bosom of the Church, he soon found that he must prove
his faith by his works. He was employed by James to defend the reasons
of conversion to the Catholic faith alleged by Anne Duchess of York, and
the two other papers on the same subject which, found in Charles' strong
box, James had imprudently given to the world. This led him to a contest
with Stillingfleet, in which Dryden came off only second best. He next,
in an embowered walk, in a country retirement at Rushton, near his
birthplace, composed his strange, unequal, but brilliant and ingenious
poem, "The Hind and the Panther," the object of which was to advocate
King James' repeal of the Test Act, and to prove the immeasurable
superiority of the Church of Rome to that of England, as well as to all
the dissenting sects. This piece produced a prodigious clamour against
the author. Its plan was pronounced ridiculous--its argument
one-sided--its zeal assumed--and Montague and Prior, two young men then
rising into eminence, wrote a clever parody on it, entitled the "Town
and Country Mouse." In addition to this, he wrote a translation of
Varilla's "History of Heresies," and a life of Francis Xavier, the
famous apostle of the Indies, whose singular story, a tale of heroic
endurance and unexampled labours, but bedropt with the most flagrant
falsehoods, whether it be read in Dryden's easy and fascinating
narrative, or in the more gorgeous and coloured account of Sir James
Stephen, in the "Edinburgh Review," forms one of the most impressive
displays of human strength and folly, of the greatness of devoted
enthusiasm, and of the weakness and credulity of abject superstition.
In spite of all these attempts to bolster up a tottering throne and an
_effete_ faith, the Revolution came, and Dryden's hopes and prospects
sank like a vision of the night. And now came the hour of his enemies'
revenge! How the Settles, the Shadwells, and the Ravenscrofts, rejoiced
at the downfall of their great foe! and what ironical condolence, or
bitter satirical exultation, they poured over his humiliation! And,
worst of all, he durst not reply. "His powers of satire," says Scott,
"at this period, were of no more use to Dryden than a sword to a man who
cannot draw it." The fate of Milton in miniature had now befallen him;
and it says much for the strength of his mind, that, as in Milton's
case, Dryden's purest and best titles to fame date from his discomfiture
and degradation. Antæus-like, he had now reached the ground, and the
touch of the ground to him, as to all giants, was inspiration.
His history, from this date, becomes, still more than in the former
portions of it, a history of his publications. He was forced back by
necessity to the stage. In 1690, and in the next two years, he produced
four dramas,--one of them, indeed, adapted from the French, but the
other three, original; and one, Don Sebastian, deemed to rank among the
best of his dramatic works. In 1693, another volume of miscellanies,
with more translations, appeared. He also published, about this time, a
new version of "Juvenal and Persius," portions of which were contributed
by his sons John and Charles. His last play, "Love Triumphant," was
enacted--as his first, the "Wild Gallant," had been--without success;
and it is remarkable, that while the curtain dropped heavily and slowly
upon Dryden, it was opening upon Congreve, whose first comedy was
enacted the same year with Dryden's last, and who became the lawful heir
of much of Dryden's licentiousness, and of more than his elegance and
wit.
He next commenced the translation of "Virgil," which in the course of
three years he completed, and gave to the world. It was published in
July 1697. He had dashed it off with the utmost freedom and fire, and no
work was ever more thoroughly identified with its translator. It is
_Dryden's_ "Virgil," every line of it. A great and almost national
interest was felt in the undertaking, such as would be felt now, were it
announced that Tennyson was engaged in a translation of Goethe. Addison
supplied arguments, and an essay on the "Georgics." A dedication to the
new king was expected by the Court, but inexorably declined by the poet.
It came forth, notwithstanding, amidst universal applause; nor was the
remuneration for the times small, amounting to at least £1200 or £1400.
So soon as this great work was off his hands, by way, we suppose, as
Scott was used to say, of "refreshing the machiner," Dryden wrote his
famous ode, "Alexander's Feast," for a meeting of the Musical Society on
St Cecilia's day,--wrote it, according to Bolingbroke, at one sitting,
although he spent, it is said, a fortnight in polishing it into its
present rounded and perfect form. It took the public by storm, and
excited a greater sensation than any of the poet's productions, except
"Absalom and Achitophel." Dryden himself, when complimented on it as the
finest ode in the language, owned the soft impeachment, and said, "A
nobler ode never was produced, and never will;" and in a manner, if not
absolutely, he was right.
Dryden was now again at sea for a subject. Sometimes he revolved once
more his favourite plan of an Epic poem, and "Edward the Black Prince"
loomed for a season before him as its hero. Sometimes he looked up with
an ambitious eye to Homer, and we see his hand "pawing" like the hoof of
the war-horse in Job, as he smelled his battle afar off, and panted to
do for Achilles and Hector what he had done for Turnus and Æneas. He
meant to have turned the "Iliad" into blank verse; but, after all,
translated the only book of it which he published into rhyme. But, in
fine, he determined to modernise some of the fine old tales of Boccacio
and Chaucer; and in March 1699-1700, appeared his brilliant "Fables,"
with some other poems from his pen, for which he received £300 at
Jonson's hands.
This was his last publication of size, although he was labouring on when
death surprised him, and within the last three weeks of his life had
written the "Secular Margin," and the prologue and the epilogue to
Fletcher's "Pilgrim,"--productions remarkable as showing the ruling
passion strong in death,--the squabbling litterateur and satirist
combating and kicking his enemies to the last,--Jeremy Collier, for
having accused him of licentiousness in his dramas; Milbourne, for
having attacked his "Georgics;" and poor Blackmore for having doubted
the orthodoxy of "Religio Laici," and the decency of "Amphitryon" and
"Limberham."
He had now to go a pilgrimage himself to a far country. He had long been
troubled with gout and gravel; but next came erysipelas in one of his
legs; and at last mortification, superinduced by a neglected
inflammation in his toe, carried him off at three o'clock on Wednesday
morning the 1st of May 1700. He died a Roman Catholic, and in "entire
resignation to the Divine will." He died so poor, that he was buried by
subscription, Lords Montague and Jeffries delaying the interment till
the necessary funds were raised. The body, after lying embalmed and in
state for ten days in the College of Physicians, was buried with great
pomp in Westminster Abbey, where now, between the graves of Chaucer and
Cowley, reposes the dust of Dryden.
His lady survived him fourteen years, and died insane. His eldest son
Charles was drowned in 1704 at Datchett, while seeking to swim across
the Thames. John died at Rome of a fever in 1701. Erasmus, who was
supposed to inherit his mother's malady, died in 1710; and the title
which he had derived from Sir Robert passed to his uncle, the brother of
the poet, and thence to his grandson. Sir Henry Edward Leigh Dryden, of
Canons-Ashby, is now the representative of the ancient family.
We reserve till our next volume a criticism on Dryden's genius and
works. As to his habits and manners, little is known, and that little is
worn threadbare by his many biographers. In appearance he became, in
his maturer years, fat and florid, and obtained the name of "Poet
Squab." His portraits show a shrewd, but rather sluggish face, with long
gray hair floating down his cheeks, not unlike Coleridge, but without
his dreamy eye, like a nebulous star. His conversation was less
sprightly than solid. Sometimes men suspected that he had "sold all his
thoughts to his booksellers." His manners are by his friends pronounced
"modest;" and the word modest has since been amiably confounded by his
biographers with "pure." Bashful he seems to have been to awkwardness;
but he was by no means a model of the virtues. He loved to sit at Will's
coffee-house, and be the arbiter of criticism. His favourite stimulus
was snuff, and his favourite amusement angling. He had a bad address, a
down look, and little of the air of a gentleman. Addison is reported to
have taught him latterly the intemperate use of wine; but this was said
by Dennis, who admired Dryden, and who hated Addison; and his testimony
is impotent against either party. We admire the simplicity of the
critics who can read his plays, and then find himself a model of
continence and virtue. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh;" and a more polluted mouth than Dryden's never uttered its
depravities on the stage. We cannot, in fine, call him personally a very
honest, a very high-minded, or a very good man, although we are willing
to count him amiable, ready to make very considerable allowance for his
period and his circumstances, not disposed to think him so much a
renegado and deliberate knave as a fickle, needy, and childish
changeling, in the matter of his "perversion" to Popery; although we
yield to none in admiration of the varied, highly-cultured, masculine,
and magnificent forces of his genius.
CONTENTS
ON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS
HEROIC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF OLIVER CROMWELL
ASTRÆA REDUX. A POEM ON THE HAPPY RESTORATION AND RETURN
OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY CHARLES II., 1660
TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY. A PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE. PRESENTED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1662
SATIRE ON THE DUTCH
TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS, ON THE MEMORABLE VICTORY GAINED
BY THE DUKE OVER THE HOLLANDERS, JUNE 3, 1665; AND ON HER
JOURNEY AFTERWARDS INTO THE NORTH
ANNUS MIRABILIS: THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666. AN HISTORICAL POEM
AN ESSAY UPON SATIRE. BY MR DRYDEN AND THE EARL OF MULGRAVE, 1679
ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL
THE MEDAL. A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION
RELIGIO LAICI; OR, A LAYMAN'S FAITH. AN EPISTLE
THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS: A FUNERAL PINDARIC POEM, SACRED TO
THE HAPPY MEMORY OF KING CHARLES II
VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS, PARAPHRASED
THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. A POEM, IN THREE PARTS
MAC FLECKNOE
BRITANNIA REDIVIVA. A POEM ON THE PRINCE, BORN JUNE 10, 1688
DRYDEN'S POEMS.
ON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.[1]
Must noble Hastings immaturely die,
The honour of his ancient family;
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet?
Must Virtue prove Death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?
Is death, Sin's wages, Grace's now? shall Art
Make us more learned, only to depart?
If merit be disease; if virtue death;
To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath 10
Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? study, self-murder deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully.
Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise,
Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise:
Than whom great Alexander may seem less,
Who conquer'd men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations spake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy. 20
His native soil was the four parts o' the Earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apostle; and, with reverence may
I speak it, inspired with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him, a child, what men in vain
Oft strive, by art though further'd, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his sublime soul
Did move on Virtue's and on Learning's pole:
Whose regular motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes[2] sphere, the Heavens did show. 30
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, fill'd up all the parts.
Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear
Scatter'd in others; all, as in their sphere,
Were fix'd, conglobate in his soul; and thence
Shone through his body, with sweet influence;
Letting their glories so on each limb fall,
The whole frame render'd was celestial.
Come, learned Ptolemy[3] and trial make,
If thou this hero's altitude canst take: 40
But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus astronomical.
Lived Tycho[4] now, struck with this ray which shone
More bright i' the morn, than others' beam at noon.
He'd take his astrolabe, and seek out here
What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere.
Replenish'd then with such rare gifts as these,
Where was room left for such a foul disease?
The nation's sin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds
Our day-spring in so sad benighting clouds: 50
Heaven would no longer trust its pledge; but thus
Recall'd it; rapt its Ganymede from us.
Was there no milder way but the small-pox,
The very filthiness of Pandora's box?
So many spots, like næves on Venus' soil,
One jewel set off with so many a foil;
Blisters with pride swell'd, which through's flesh did sprout
Like rose-buds, stuck i' th' lily-skin about.
Each little pimple had a tear in it,
To wail the fault its rising did commit: 60
Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife,
Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
The cabinet of a richer soul within?
No comet need foretell his change drew on,
Whose corpse might seem a constellation.
Oh! had he died of old, how great a strife
Had been, who from his death should draw their life!
Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er
Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæsar, were,-- 70
Learn'd, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this
An universal metempsychosis!
Must all these aged sires in one funeral
Expire? all die in one so young, so small?
Who, had he lived his life out, his great fame
Had swoln 'bove any Greek or Roman name.
But hasty Winter, with one blast, hath brought
The hopes of Autumn, Summer, Spring, to nought.
Thus fades the oak i' the sprig, i' the blade the corn;
Thus without young, this Phoenix dies, new born: 80
Must then old three-legg'd graybeards, with their gout,
Catarrhs, rheums, aches, live three long ages out?
Time's offals, only fit for the hospital!
Or to hang antiquaries' rooms withal!
Must drunkards, lechers, spent with sinning, live
With such helps as broths, possets, physic give?
None live, but such as should die? shall we meet
With none but ghostly fathers in the street?
Grief makes me rail; sorrow will force its way;
And showers of tears, tempestuous sighs best lay. 90
The tongue may fail; but overflowing eyes
Will weep out lasting streams of elegies.
But thou, O virgin-widow, left alone,
Now thy beloved, heaven-ravish'd spouse is gone,
Whose skilful sire in vain strove to apply
Medicines, when thy balm was no remedy,--
With greater than Platonic love, O wed
His soul, though not his body, to thy bed:
Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth
The ideas of his virtue, knowledge, worth; 100
Transcribe the original in new copies, give
Hastings o' the better part: so shall he live
In's nobler half; and the great grandsire be
Of an heroic divine progeny:
An issue, which to eternity shall last,
Yet but the irradiations which he cast.
Erect no mausoleums: for his best
Monument is his spouse's marble breast.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: 'Lord Hastings:' the nobleman herein lamented, was styled
Henry Lord Hastings, son to Ferdinand Earl of Huntingdon. He died before
his father in 1649, being then in his twentieth year, and on the day
preceding that which had been fixed for his marriage.]
[Footnote 2: 'Archimedes:' a famous geometrician, who was killed at the
taking of Syracuse, in the 542d year of Rome. He made a glass sphere,
wherein the motions of the heavenly bodies were wonderfully described.]
[Footnote 3: 'Ptolemy:' Claudius Ptolemæus, a celebrated mathematician
in the reign of M. Aurelius Antoninus.]
[Footnote 4: 'Tycho:' Tycho Brahe]
* * * * *
HEROIC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF OLIVER CROMWELL,
WRITTEN AFTER HIS FUNERAL.
1 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[5] fly.
2 Though our best notes are treason to his fame,
Join'd with the loud applause of public voice;
Since Heaven, what praise we offer to his name,
Hath render'd too authentic by its choice.
3 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:
4 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.
5 How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
To draw a fame so truly circular?
For in a round what order can be show'd,
Where all the parts so equal perfect are?
6 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.
7 No borrow'd bays his temples did adorn,
But to our crown he did fresh jewels bring;
Nor was his virtue poison'd soon as born,
With the too early thoughts of being king.
8 Fortune (that easy mistress to the young,
But to her ancient servants coy and hard),
Him at that age her favourites rank'd among,
When she her best-loved Pompey did discard.
9 He, private, mark'd 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.
10 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.
11 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.
12 War, our consumption, was their gainful trade:
We inward bled, whilst they prolong'd our pain;
He fought to end our fighting, and essay'd
To staunch the blood by breathing of the vein.
13 Swift and resistless through the land he past,
Like that bold Greek[6] who did the East subdue,
And made to battles such heroic haste,
As if on wings of victory he flew.
14 He fought secure of fortune as of fame:
Still by new maps the island might be shown,
Of conquests, which he strew'd where'er he came,
Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown.
15 His palms,[7] though under weights they did not stand,
Still thrived; no winter could his laurels fade:
Heaven in his portrait show'd a workman's hand,
And drew it perfect, yet without a shade.
16 Peace was the prize of all his toil and care,
Which war had banish'd, and did now restore:
Bologna's walls[8] thus mounted in the air,
To seat themselves more surely than before.
17 Her safety rescued Ireland to him owes;
And treacherous Scotland, to no interest true,
Yet blest that fate which did his arms dispose
Her land to civilize, as to subdue.
18 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.
19 'Tis true, his countenance did imprint an awe;
And naturally all souls to his did bow,
As wands[9] of divination downward draw,
And point to beds where sovereign gold doth grow.
20 When past all offerings to Feretrian Jove,
He Mars deposed, and arms to gowns made yield;
Successful councils did him soon approve
As fit for close intrigues, as open field.
21 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.
22 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.
23 No sooner was the Frenchman's cause[10] embraced,
Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweigh'd;
His fortune turn'd the scale where'er 'twas cast,
Though Indian mines were in the other laid.
24 When absent, yet we conquer'd 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.
25 For from all tempers he could service draw;
The worth of each, with its alloy, he knew;
And, as the confidant of Nature, saw
How she complexions did divide and brew.
26 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.
27 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.
28 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.
29 He made us freemen of the Continent,[11]
Whom Nature did like captives treat before;
To nobler preys the English lion sent,
And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.
30 That old unquestion'd pirate of the land,
Proud Rome, with dread the fate of Dunkirk heard;
And trembling wish'd behind more Alps to stand,
Although an Alexander[12] were her guard.
31 By his command we boldly cross'd the line,
And bravely fought where southern stars arise;
We traced the far-fetch'd gold unto the mine,
And that which bribed our fathers made our prize.
32 Such was our prince; yet own'd 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.
33 Nor died he when his ebbing fame went less,
But when fresh laurels courted him to live:
He seem'd but to prevent some new success,
As if above what triumphs earth could give.
34 His latest victories still thickest came,
As near the centre motion doth increase;
Till he, press'd down by his own weighty name,
Did, like the vestal,[13] under spoils decease.
35 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[14] conferr'd.
36 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.
37 His ashes in a peaceful urn[15] shall rest;
His name a great example stands, to show
How strangely high endeavours may be blest,
Where piety and valour jointly go.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: 'Sacred eagle:' the Romans let fly an eagle from the pile
of a dead Emperor.]
[Footnote 6: 'Bold Greek:' Alexander the Great.]
[Footnote 7: 'Palms' were thought to grow best under pressure.]
[Footnote 8: 'Bologna's walls,' &c.: alluding to a Popish story about
the wall of Bologna, on which was an image of the Virgin, being blown
up, and falling exactly into its place again.]
[Footnote 9: 'Wands:' see the 'Antiquary.']
[Footnote 10: 'Frenchman's cause:' the treaty of alliance which Cromwell
entered into with France against the Spaniards.]
[Footnote 11: 'Freemen of the Continent:' by the taking of Dunkirk.]
[Footnote 12: 'Alexander:' Alexander VII., at this time Pope.]
[Footnote 13: 'Vestal:' Tarpeia.]
[Footnote 14: 'Loud sighs:' the tempest which occurred at Cromwell's
death.]
[Footnote 15: 'Peaceful urn:' Dryden no true prophet--Cromwell's bones
having been dragged out of the royal vault, and exposed on the gibbet in
1660.]
* * * * *
ASTRÆA REDUX.
A POEM ON THE HAPPY RESTORATION AND RETURN OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY CHARLES
II., 1660.
"Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna."--VIRG.
"The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finish'd 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 felt, and worser far
Than arms, a sullen interval of war:
Thus when black clouds draw down the labouring skies,
Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,
An horrid stillness first invades the ear,
And in that silence we the tempest fear.
The ambitious Swede,[16] like restless billows tost,
On this hand gaining what on that he lost, 10
Though in his life he blood and ruin breathed,
To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeath'd.
And Heaven, that seem'd 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 sigh'd to hear the fair Iberian bride[17]
Must grow a lily to the lily's side;
While our cross stars denied us Charles' bed,
Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed. 20
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 cross'd:
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 30
Who ruin'd crowns would coronets exempt:
For when by their designing leaders taught
To strike at power, which for themselves they sought,
The vulgar, gull'd into rebellion, arm'd;
Their blood to action by the prize was warm'd.
The sacred purple, then, and scarlet gown,
Like sanguine dye to elephants, was shown.
Thus when the bold Typhoeus 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?) 40
The lesser gods, that shared his prosperous state,
All suffer'd 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 own'd 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! 50
He, tost 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.
Unconquer'd 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. 60
That sun, which we beheld with cozen'd 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,[18] hope prevent,
But stay'd, and suffer'd fortune to repent.
These virtues Galba[19] in a stranger sought,
And Piso to adopted empire brought. 70
How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express,
That must his sufferings both regret and bless?
For when his early valour Heaven had cross'd;
And all at Worcester but the honour lost;
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 banish'd David spent abroad his time,
When to be God's anointed was his crime; 80
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 other 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, ripen'd by digestive thought,
His future rule is into method brought: 90
As they who first proportion understand,
With easy practice reach a master's hand.
Well might the ancient poets then confer
On Night the honour'd name of Counsellor,
Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind,
We light alone in dark afflictions find.
In such adversities to sceptre train'd,
The name of Great his famous grandsire[20] gain'd:
Who yet a king alone in name and right,
With hunger, cold, and angry Jove did fight; 100
Shock'd by a covenanting league's vast powers,
As holy and as catholic as ours:
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 epoch's mistakes;
O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down,
Till, with his silent sickle, they are mown. 110
Such is not Charles' too, too active age,
Which, govern'd by the wild distemper'd rage
Of some black star infecting all the skies,
Made him at his own cost, like Adam, wise.
Tremble, ye nations, which, secure before,
Laugh'd at those arms that 'gainst ourselves we bore;
Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail,
Our lion now will foreign foes assail.
With alga[21] who the sacred altar strews?
To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes: 120
A bull to thee, Portumnus,[22] shall be slain,
A lamb to you, ye Tempests of the main:
For those loud storms that did against him roar,
Have cast his shipwreck'd 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-cozen'd sight:
So on us stole our blessed change; while we
The effect did feel, but scarce the manner see. 130
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 lengthen'd 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: 140
Yet, as he knew his blessing's worth, took care,
That we should know it by repeated prayer;
Which storm'd the skies, and ravish'd Charles from thence,
As heaven itself is took by violence.
Booth's[23] forward valour only served to show
He durst that duty pay we all did owe.
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. 150
'Twas Monk whom Providence design'd to loose
Those real bonds false freedom did impose.
The blessed saints that watch'd 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: 160
But when ourselves to action we betake,
It shuns the mint like gold that chemists make.
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-ripen'd fruit of wise delay. 170
He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,
Would let him play a while upon the hook.
Our healthful food the stomach labours thus,
At first embracing what it straight doth crush.
Wise leeches will not vain receipts obtrude,
While growing pains pronounce the humours crude:
Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,
Till some safe crisis authorise their skill.
Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear,
To 'scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear, 180
And guard with caution that polluted nest,
Whence Legion twice before was dispossess'd:
Once sacred house; which, when they enter'd 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:
So these, when their black crimes they went about,
First timely charm'd their useless conscience out. 190
Religion's name against itself was made;
The shadow served the substance to invade:
Like zealous missions, they did care pretend
Of souls in show, 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, belie the thunder's sound.
'Twas hence at length just vengeance thought it fit
To speed their ruin by their impious wit. 200
Thus Sforza, cursed with a too fertile brain,
Lost by his wiles the power his wit did gain.
Henceforth their fougue[24] must spend at lesser rate,
Than in its flames to wrap a nation's fate.
Suffer'd to live, they are like helots set,
A virtuous shame within us to beget.
For by example most we sinn'd before,
And glass-like clearness mix'd with frailty bore.
But, since reform'd by what we did amiss,
We by our sufferings learn to prize our bliss: 210
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,
To fetch that prize, by which Batavia made
So rich amends for our impoverish'd trade.
Oh! had you seen from Schevelin's[25] barren shore,
(Crowded with troops, and barren now no more,) 220
Afflicted Holland to his farewell bring
True sorrow, Holland to regret a king!
While waiting him his royal fleet did ride,
And willing winds to their lower'd sails denied.
The wavering streamers, flags, and standard out,
The merry seamen's rude but cheerful shout:
And last the cannon's voice, that shook the skies,
And as it fares in sudden ecstasies,
At once bereft us both of ears and eyes.
The Naseby,[26] now no longer England's shame, 230
But better to be lost in Charles' name,
(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[27] weight:
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' voyage bless'd, 240
Which in his right had miracles confess'd.
The winds that never moderation knew,
Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;
Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge
Their straighten'd lungs, or conscious of their charge.
The British Amphitrite, 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! 250
Behold the approaching cliffs 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.
But you, whose goodness your descent doth show,
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 260
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.
Your power to justice doth submit your cause,
Your goodness only is above the laws;
Whose rigid letter, while pronounced by you,
Is softer made. So winds that tempests brew,
When through Arabian groves they take their flight, 270
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, spurr'd with eager thoughts of past delight, 280
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 renew'd the expiring pomp of May![28]
(A month that owns an interest in your name:
You and the flowers are its peculiar claim.)
That star[29] that at your birth shone out so bright,
It stain'd the duller sun's meridian light,
Did once again its potent fires renew, 290
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,
Dispell'd to farthest corners of the sky.
Our nation with united interest blest,
Not now content to poise, 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, 300
Besiege the petty monarchs of the land:
And as old Time his offspring swallow'd down,
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, 310
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, 320
By fate reserved for great Augustus' throne!
When the joint growth of arms and arts foreshow
The world a monarch, and that monarch you.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 16: 'Ambitious Swede:' Charles X., named also Gustavus, nephew
to the great Gustavus Adolphus.]
[Footnote 17: 'Iberian bride:' the Infanta of Spain was betrothed to
Louis XIV.]
[Footnote 18: 'Otho:' see Juvenal.]
[Footnote 19: 'Galba:' Roman emperor, who adopted Piso.]
[Footnote 20: 'Famous grandsire:' Charles II. was grandson by the
mother's side to Henry IV. of France.]
[Footnote 21: 'With alga,' &c. : these lines refer to the ceremonies used
by such heathens as escaped from shipwreck. _Alga marina_, or sea-weed,
was strewed about the altar, and a lamb sacrificed to the winds.]
[Footnote 22: 'Portumnus:' Palæmon, or Melicerta, god of shipwrecked
mariners.]
[Footnote 23: 'Booth's:' Sir George Booth, an unsuccessful and premature
warrior on the Royal side in 1659.]
[Footnote 24: 'Fougue:' a French word used for the fire and spirit of a
horse.]
[Footnote 25: 'Schevelin:' a village about a mile from the Hague, at
which Charles II. embarked for England.]
[Footnote 26: 'Naseby:' the ship in which Charles II. returned from
exile.]
[Footnote 27: 'Great Gloster:' Henry, Duke of Gloucester, third son of
Charles I., landed at Dover with his brother in 1660, and died of the
smallpox soon afterwards.]
[Footnote 28: Charles entered London on the 29th of May.]
[Footnote 29: 'Star:' said to have shone on the day of Charles' birth,
and outshone the sun.]
* * * * *
TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY.
A PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION.
In that wild deluge where the world was drown'd,
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 drown'd,
It left behind it false and slippery ground;
And the more solemn pomp was still deferr'd,
Till new-born nature in fresh looks appear'd.
Thus, Royal Sir, to see you landed here,
Was cause enough of triumph for a year: 10
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 warm'd the ground, and call'd 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:
But this untainted year is all your own;
Your glories may without our crimes be shown. 20
We had not yet exhausted all our store,
When you refresh'd our joys by adding more:
As Heaven, of old, dispensed celestial dew,
You gave us manna, and still give 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 open'd scenes of flowers and blossoms bring, 30
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. 40
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. 50
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 drown'd.
He that brought peace, all 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 60
Through the large dome; the people's joyful sound,
Sent back, is still preserved in hallow'd ground;
Which in one blessing mix'd descends on you;
As heighten'd 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: 70
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 maintain'd with good,
As bodies nourish'd with resembling food.
You have already quench'd sedition's brand;
And zeal, which burnt it, only warms the land. 80
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.
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. 90
Your calmness does no after-storms provide,
Nor seeming patience mortal anger hide.
When empire first from families did spring,
Then every father govern'd 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 design'd to noble ends:
Born to command the mistress of the seas,
Your thoughts themselves in that blue empire please. 100
Hither in summer evenings you repair
To taste the _fraicheur_ 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,
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. 110
Beyond your court flows in th' admitted tide,
Where in new depths the wondering fishes glide:
Here in a royal bed[30] the waters sleep;
When tired at sea, within this bay they creep.
Here the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects,
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, ordain'd by fate,
The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait. 120
It was your love before made discord cease:
Your love is destined to your country's peace.
Both Indies, 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: 130
Propitious oracles are begg'd with vows,
And crowns that grow upon the sacred boughs.
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.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 30: 'Royal bed:' the river led from the Thames through St
James' Park.]
* * * * *
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE.[31]
PRESENTED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1662.
My Lord,
While flattering crowds officiously appear
To give themselves, not you, a 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:
Decay'd by time and wars, they only prove
Their former beauty by your former love; 10
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 suffer'd banishment.
Thus once, when Troy was wrapp'd in fire and smoke,
The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook; 20
They with the vanquish'd 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. 30
In open prospect nothing bounds our eye,
Until the earth seems join'd 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 join'd,
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 enclose, and yours to be enclosed. 40
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, 50
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 disencumber'd from those arms she wore.
Heaven would our 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 join'd)
His fatal goodness left to fitter times,
Not to increase, but to absolve, our crimes: 60
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 empiric politicians use deceit,
Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat;
You boldly show that skill which they pretend,
And work by means as noble as your end: 70
Which should you veil, we might unwind the clew,
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 convey'd,
Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd;
So by your counsels we are brought to view
A rich and undiscover'd world in you.
By you our monarch does that fame assure,
Which kings must have, or cannot live secure: 80
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, 90
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,
Even then took care to lay you softly by;
And wrapp'd your fate among her precious things,
Kept fresh to be unfolded with your king's.
Shown all at once, you dazzled so our eyes,
As new born Pallas did the gods surprise, 100
When, springing forth from Jove's new-closing wound,
She struck the warlike spear into the ground;
Which sprouting leaves did suddenly enclose,
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; 110
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; 120
Envy, that does with misery reside,
The joy and the revenge of ruin'd 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 sunshine fall.
You have already wearied fortune so,
She cannot further be your friend or foe; 130
But sits all breathless, and admires to feel
A fate so weighty, that it stops her 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 shows: 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: 140
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, unimpair'd 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. 150
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.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 31: 'Hyde:' the far-famed historian Clarendon.]
* * * * *
SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.[32]
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. 10
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 gull'd 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 20
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. 30
Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation;
For they were bred ere manners were in fashion:
And their new commonwealth has 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 mien,
As their own paunches swell above their chin.
Yet is their empire no true growth but humour,
And only two kings'[33] touch can cure the tumour. 40
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.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 32: 'Satire:' the same nearly with his prologue to 'Amboyna.']
[Footnote 33: 'Two kings:' alluding to projected union between France
and England.]
* * * * *
TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS,[34]
ON THE MEMORABLE VICTORY GAINED BY THE DUKE OVER THE HOLLANDERS, JUNE 3,
1665. AND ON HER JOURNEY AFTERWARDS INTO THE NORTH.
Madam,
When, for our sakes, your hero you resign'd
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 gain'd at home.
Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide!
Your honour gave us what your love denied: 10
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 unmatch'd 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 hush'd, the waves in ranks were cast,
As awfully as when God's people pass'd;
Those, yet uncertain on whose sails to blow,
These, where the wealth of nations ought to flow. 20
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),
While, from afar, we heard the cannon play,[35] 30
Like distant thunder on a shiny day.
For absent friends we were ashamed to fear
When we consider'd 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 ravish'd the rewards of fame, 40
And the fair triumph'd 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 march'd 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, 50
Blessing themselves, and wondering at the show.
So when the new-born Phoenix first is seen,
Her feather'd 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.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 34: 'The Duchess:' daughter to the great Earl of Clarendon;
married privately to Duke of York. For account of this victory, see Hume
or Macaulay. The duchess accompanied the duke to Harwich, and thence
made a progress north-wards, referred to here.]
[Footnote 35: 'Heard the cannon play:' the cannon were heard in London a
hundred miles from Lowestoff where the battle was fought.]
* * * * *
ANNUS MIRABILIS:
THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666.
AN HISTORICAL POEM.
* * * * *
AN ACCOUNT OF THE ENSUING POEM, IN A LETTER TO THE HONOURABLE SIR ROBERT
HOWARD.
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 further 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, 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 having served 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 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 Æneids. 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
further 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; all which our fathers practised: and for
the female rhymes, they are still in use among other nations; with the
Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French
alternately; as those who have read the Alarique, the Pucelle, or any of
their later poems, will agree with me. And besides this, they write in
Alexandrius, or verses of six feet; such as amongst us is the old
translation of Homer by Chapman: 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.
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[36] 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, and I have exalted them, and made them fruitful; but
here--_Omnia sponte suâ 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 further
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; 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 designed, 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 imaging 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 jingle of a more poor
Paronomasia; 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 among 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
to be supposed 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, anything that shows 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 so corpore miscet.
We behold him embellishing his images, as he makes Venus breathing
beauty upon her son Æneas.
--lumenque juventæ
Purpureum, et 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 Æneas: 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, _Materiam
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 Pisos:
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 everywhere, 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; 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 shows
nature beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all
admire; the other shows 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 Æmiliani_, heroes drawn in their triumphal
chariots, and in their full proportion; others are to be like that of
Virgil, _Spirantia mollius oera_: there is somewhat more of softness and
tenderness to be shown 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 further 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.
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 surname, 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 anything 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.
* * * * *
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.
2 Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast.
3 For them alone the heavens had kindly heat;
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew:
For them the Idumæan balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.
4 The sun but seem'd the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides, which from the line did bear
Their brimful vessels to the Belgian shore.
5 Thus mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stoop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:
And this may prove our second Punic war.
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 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.
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 oppress'd,
And he less for it than usurpers do.
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 gather'd but by birds of prey.
12 The loss and gain each fatally were great;
And still his subjects call'd aloud for war;
But peaceful kings, o'er martial people set,
Each, other's poise and counterbalance are.
13 He first survey'd 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 Armadoes bring:
Him aged seamen might their master call,
And choose for general, were he not their king.
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.
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.
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 shown.
18 Or one, that bright companion of the sun,
Whose glorious aspect seal'd 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:
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 doom'd that Lawson[37] should be slain.
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 kill'd who first to battle went.
22 Their chief blown up in air, not waves, expired,
To which his pride presumed to give the law:
The Dutch confess'd Heaven present, and retired,
And all was Britain the wide ocean saw.
23 To nearest ports their shatter'd ships repair,
Where by our dreadful cannon they lay awed:
So reverently men quit the open air,
When thunder speaks the angry gods abroad.
24 And now approach'd 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.
25 Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,
Their waylaid wealth to Norway's coasts 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, flank'd 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 barr'd,
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 arm'd against them fly:
Some preciously by shatter'd 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 vanquish'd by our valour left,
And only yielded to the seas and wind.
31 Nor wholly lost[38] 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.
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 pass'd before,
Now sees in English ships the Holland coast,
And parents' arms in vain stretch'd from the shore.
34 This careful husband had been long away,
Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn;
Who on their fingers learn'd 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!
Alas, what port can such a pilot find,
Who in the night of fate must blindly steer!
36 The undistinguish'd 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[39] ever be accurst,
In whom we seek the German faith in vain:
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 show:
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,
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:
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 choose,
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.
47 With equal power he does two chiefs[40] create,
Two such as each seem'd worthiest when alone;
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 possess'd, did absolutely reign:
Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove,
And conquer'd first those beauties they would gain.
50 The Duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain,
That Carthage, which he ruin'd, 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.
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 men project.
54 Our fleet divides, and straight the Dutch appear,
In number, and a famed commander, bold:
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,
When struggling champions did their bodies bare.
57 Borne 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 unfix'd, and floating nations strove.
58 Now pass'd, on either side they nimbly tack;
Both strive to intercept and guide the wind:
And, in its eye, more closely they come back,
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 build, so different is the fight;
Their mounting shot is on our sails design'd:
Deep in their hulls our deadly bullets light,
And through the yielding planks a passage find.
61 Our dreaded admiral from far they threat,
Whose batter'd rigging their whole war receives:
All bare, like some old oak which tempests beat,
He stands, and sees below his scatter'd 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.
63 At this excess of courage, all amazed,
The foremost of his foes awhile withdraw:
With such respect in enter'd Rome they gazed,
Who on high chairs the god-like fathers saw.
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 shatter'd 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;
Berkeley[41] alone, who nearest danger lay,
Did a like fate with lost Creusa meet.
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,
Stretch'd 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, shipwreck'd, 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.
73 Our watchful general had discern'd from far
This mighty succour, which made glad the foe:
He sigh'd, but, like a father of the war,
His face spake hope, while deep his sorrows flow.
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 shunn'd, not met, our foes,
Whose numerous sails the fearful only tell:
Courage from hearts and not from numbers grows.
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 seem'd 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:
The combat only seem'd 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 look'd 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.
83 Silent in smoke of cannon they come on:
Such vapours once did fiery Cacus[42] hide:
In these the height of pleased revenge is shown,
Who burn contented by another's side.
84 Sometimes from fighting squadrons of each fleet,
Deceived themselves, or to preserve some friend,
Two grappling Ætnas on the ocean meet,
And English fires with Belgian flames contend.
85 Now at each tack our little fleet grows less;
And like maim'd 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 design'd,
And, with her eagerness the quarry miss'd,
Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind.
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[43] did fare:
He could not conquer, and disdain'd 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 conquer'd 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.
92 His fiery cannon did their passage guide,
And following smoke obscured them from the foe:
Thus Israel safe from the Egyptian's 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 approach'd; and one for his bold sin
Was sunk; as he that touch'd the ark was slain:
The wild waves master'd him and suck'd 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 Lybian huntsmen, on some sandy plain,
From shady coverts roused, the lion chase:
The kingly beast roars out with loud disdain,
And slowly moves, unknowing to give place.
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 quench'd guns restore;
And weary waves, withdrawing from the fight,
Lie lull'd and panting on the silent shore:
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.
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 pass'd 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,
Nor longer durst with virtue 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.
106 The anxious prince had heard the cannon long,
And from that length of time dire omens drew
Of English overmatch'd, 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 eyrie 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 gather'd clouds for rain,
And first the martlet meets it in the sky,
And with wet wings joys all the feather'd 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 cover'd land,
And seamen with dissembled depths betray.
114 The wily Dutch, who, like fallen angels, fear'd
This new Messiah's coming, there did wait,
And round the verge their braving vessels steer'd,
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 approach'd, 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,
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 seem'd as slaughter had been breathed all night,
And Death new pointed his dull dart again.
121 The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew,
And matchless courage since the former fight;
Whose navy like a stiff-stretch'd cord did show,
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 harm'd 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.
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 waning 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 prest,
And flew so home they could not rise again.
128 Already batter'd, by his lee they lay,
In rain upon the passing winds they call:
The passing winds through their torn canvas play,
And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall.
129 Their open'd 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 mainmast 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, stretch'd 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[44] 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 hinder'd 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 tatter'd fleet to follow home;
Proud to have so got off with equal stakes,
Where 'twas a triumph not to be o'ercome.
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 conquer'd he his weakness knew.
136 He casts a frown on the departing foe,
And sighs to see him quit the watery field:
His stern fix'd eyes no satisfaction show,
For all the glories which the fight did yield.
137 Though, as when fiends did miracles avow,
He stands confess'd e'en by the boastful Dutch:
He only does his conquest disavow,
And thinks too little what they found too much.
138 Return'd, 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.
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:
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 design'd;
God and king's work, when they their work survey,
A passive aptness in all subjects find.
142 In burden'd vessels first, with speedy care,
His plenteous stores do seasoned timber send;
Thither the brawny carpenters repair,
And as the surgeons of maim'd ships attend.
143 With cord and canvas from rich Hamburgh sent,
His navy's molted wings he imps once more:
Tall Norway fir, their masts in battle spent,
And English oak, sprung leaks and planks restore.
144 All hands employ'd, 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 gluey wax some new foundations lay
Of virgin-combs, which from the roof are hung:
Some arm'd, within doors upon duty stay,
Or tend the sick, or educate the young.
146 So here some pick out bullets from the sides,
Some drive old oakum through each seam and rift:
Their left hand does the calking-iron guide,
The rattling mallet with the right they lift.
147 With boiling pitch another near at hand,
From friendly Sweden brought, the seams instops:
Which well paid o'er, the salt sea waves withstand,
And shakes them from the rising beak in drops.
148 Some the gall'd ropes with dauby marline bind,
Or sear-cloth masts with strong tarpaulin 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 Phoenix daughter of the vanish'd old).
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, charm'd with what his loom design'd,
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 design'd,
The loyal city give their best-loved King:
And with a bounty ample as the wind,
Built, fitted, and maintain'd, 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 appear'd,
When from lost empire he to exile went,
And with the golden age to Tiber 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,
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 shown,
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,
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 foretell from your auspicious care,
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:
And thence, like limbecks, rich ideas draw,
To fit the levell'd use of human-kind.
197 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,
Whose fleet more mighty every day became
By late success, which they did falsely boast,
And now by first appearing seem'd to claim.
169 Designing, subtle, 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 stay'd 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,[45] loyal all along,
Famed for his action on the Smyrna fleet:
And Holmes, whose name shall live in epic song,
While music numbers, or while verse has feet.
173 Holmes, the Achates of the general's fight;
Who first bewitch'd 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:
Harman, who did the twice-fired Harry save,
And in his burning ship undaunted fought.
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.
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 press'd waters fail,
And with its weight it shoulders off the tides.
178 Now anchors weigh'd, 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 ambush'd 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 drags the little wretch in triumph home.
182 The Belgians hoped, that, with disorder'd haste,
Our deep-cut keels upon the sands might run:
Or, if with caution leisurely were past,
Their numerous gross 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 seem'd 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.
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,
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:
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 show to prize it more.
190 But sharp remembrance on the English part,
And shame of being match'd by such a foe,
Rouse conscious virtue up in every heart,
And seeming to be stronger makes them so.
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 batter'd admiral too soon withdrew,
Unthank'd by ours for his unfinish'd fight;
But he the minds of his Dutch masters knew,
Who call'd that Providence which we call'd 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[46] 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.
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 hobby's 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 blemish'd 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[47] of injured Spain.
198 Repenting England this revengeful day
To Philip's manes did an offering bring:
England, which first by leading them astray,
Hatch'd 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 bless'd shall go,
And the fourth Harry or first Orange meet;
Find him disowning of a Bourbon foe,
And him detesting a Batavian fleet.
202 Now on their coasts our conquering navy rides,
Waylays 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 chase, 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.
205 Those various squadrons variously design'd,
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 design'd,
For folded turbans finest Holland bear.
207 Some English wool, vex'd in a Belgian loom,
And into cloth of spungy 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 Swell'd 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!
213 As when some dire usurper[48] 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 the infant monster, with devouring strong,
Walk'd 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 courtesans, withheld
His flames from burning, but to blow them more:
And every fresh attempt he is repell'd
With faint denials weaker than before.
222 And now no longer letted[49] 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 threatening 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.
224 Our guardian angel saw them where they sate
Above the palace of our slumbering king:
He sigh'd, abandoning his charge to fate,
And, drooping, oft look'd back upon the wing.
225 At length the crackling noise and dreadful blaze
Call'd 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 throng'd and busy as by day:
Some run for buckets to the hallow'd 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 impell'd soon left their foes behind,
And forward with a wanton fury went.
231 A quay of fire ran all along the shore,
And lighten'd all the river with a blaze:
The waken'd tides began again to roar,
And wondering fish in shining waters gaze.
232 Old father Thames raised up his reverend head,
But fear'd the fate of Simois would return:
Deep in his ooze he sought his sedgy bed,
And shrunk his waters back into his urn.
233 The fire, meantime, walks in a broader gross;
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 cumber'd 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 design'd.
238 Now day appears, and with the day the King,
Whose early care had robb'd 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 cheers 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:
The amazèd flames stand gather'd 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 woodside,
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 shipwreck'd 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;
Even 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.
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 murder'd 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 labyrinths 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;
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:
Even those whom want might drive to just despair,
Think life a blessing under such a king.
261 Meantime he sadly suffers in their grief,
Out-weeps an hermit, and out-prays 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 wondrous ways,
The kingdom of my fathers to possess:
263 Be thou my judge, with what unwearied care
I since have labour'd 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 stepp'd 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 sinn'd, 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 poison'd darts which not the good could shun,
The speedy could out-fly, or valiant meet.
268 The living few, and frequent funerals then,
Proclaim'd thy wrath on this forsaken place;
And now those few who are return'd 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 recall.
270 Thy threatenings, Lord, as thine thou mayst revoke:
But if immutable and fix'd they stand,
Continue still thyself to give the stroke,
And let not foreign foes oppress thy land.
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 display'd,
And like a shooting star he cleft the night:
He charged the flames, and those that disobey'd
He lash'd to duty with his sword of light.
273 The fugitive flames chastised went forth to prey
On pious structures, by our fathers rear'd;
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 founder's 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.
276 The daring flames peep'd in, and saw from far
The awful beauties of the sacred quire:
But since it was profaned 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 seem'd as if the stars more sickly rose,
And farther from the feverish north retire.
279 In th' empyrean heaven, the bless'd abode,
The Thrones and the Dominions prostrate lie,
Not daring to behold their angry God;
And a hush'd silence damps the tuneful sky.
280 At length the Almighty cast a pitying eye,
And mercy softly touch'd his melting breast:
He saw the town's one half in rubbish lie,
And eager flames drive on to storm the rest.
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 vanquish'd fires withdraw from every place,
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 constrain'd the earth,
A kindly thaw unlocks it with mild 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 perish'd they deplore.
286 The father of the people open'd wide
His stores, and all the poor with plenty fed:
Thus God's anointed God's own place supplied,
And fill'd 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.
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 vanquish'd 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.
291 The utmost malice of their stars is past,
And two dire comets, which have scourged the town,
In their own plague and fire have breathed the 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 work succeed.
293 Methinks already from this chemic flame,
I see a city of more precious mould:
Rich as the town 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 mounting brow,
And seems to have renew'd her charter's date,
Which Heaven will to the death of time allow.
295 More great than human now, and more august,
Now deified she from her fires does rise:
Her widening streets on new foundations trust,
And opening into larger parts she flies.
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 Seine, that would with Belgian rivers join,
Shall find her lustre stain'd, and traffic lost.
300 The venturous merchant who design'd more far,
And touches on our hospitable shore,
Charm'd 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 conquer'd 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.
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.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 36: Prince Rupert and General Monk, Duke of Albemarle.]
[Footnote 37: 'Lawson:' Sir John Lawson, rear admiral of the red, killed
by a ball that wounded him in the knee.]
[Footnote 38: 'Wholly lost:' the Dutch ships on their return home, being
separated by a storm, the rear and vice-admirals of the East India
fleet, with four men of war, were taken by five English frigates. Soon
after, four men of war, two fire-ships, and thirty merchantmen, being
driven out of their course, joined our fleet instead of their own, and
were all taken. These things happened in 1665.]
[Footnote 39: 'Munster's prelate:' the famous Bertrand Von Der Chalen,
Bishop of Munster, excited by Charles, marched twenty thousand men into
the province of Overyssel, under the dominion of the republic of
Holland, where he committed great outrages.]
[Footnote 40: 'Two chiefs:' Prince Rupert and Monk.]
[Footnote 41: 'Berkeley:' Vice-admiral Berkeley fought till his men were
all killed, and was found in the cabin dead and covered with blood.]
[Footnote 42: 'Cacus:' see Virgil in Cowper's translation, 2d vol. of
this edition.]
[Footnote 43: 'Albemarle:' Monk.]
[Footnote 44: 'Flix:' old word for hare fur.]
[Footnote 45: 'Allen:' Sir Thomas Allen, admiral of the white. 'The
Achates:' Sir Robert Holmes was rear-admiral of the white.]
[Footnote 46: 'Leader:' De Ruyter.]
[Footnote 47: 'Patron saint:' St James, on whose day the victory was
gained.]
[Footnote 48: 'Usurper:' this seems a reference to Cromwell; if so, it
contradicts Scott's statement quoted above in the 'Life.']
[Footnote 49: 'Letted:' hindered.]
* * * * *
AN ESSAY UPON SATIRE.
BY ME DRYDEN AND THE EARL OF MULGRAVE,[50] 1679.
How dull, and how insensible a beast
Is man, who yet would lord it o'er the rest!
Philosophers and poets vainly strove
In every age the lumpish mass to move:
But those were pedants, when compared with these,
Who know not only to instruct, but please.
Poets alone found the delightful way,
Mysterious morals gently to convey
In charming numbers; so that as men grew
Pleased with their poems, they grew wiser too. 10
Satire has always shone among the rest,
And is the boldest way, if not the best,
To tell men freely of their foulest faults;
To laugh at their vain deeds, and vainer thoughts.
In satire too the wise took different ways,
To each deserving its peculiar praise.
Some did all folly with just sharpness blame,
Whilst others laugh'd and scorn'd them into shame.
But of these two, the last succeeded best,
As men aim rightest when they shoot in jest. 20
Yet, if we may presume to blame our guides,
And censure those who censure all besides,
In other things they justly are preferr'd.
In this alone methinks the ancients err'd,--
Against the grossest follies they declaim;
Hard they pursue, but hunt ignoble game.
Nothing is easier than such blots to hit,
And 'tis the talent of each vulgar wit:
Besides, 'tis labour lost; for who would preach
Morals to Armstrong,[51] or dull Aston teach? 30
'Tis being devout at play, wise at a ball,
Or bringing wit and friendship to Whitehall.
But with sharp eyes those nicer faults to find,
Which lie obscurely in the wisest mind;
That little speck which all the rest does spoil,
To wash off that would be a noble toil;
Beyond the loose writ libels of this age,
Or the forced scenes of our declining stage;
Above all censure too, each little wit
Will be so glad to see the greater hit; 40
Who, judging better, though concern'd the most,
Of such correction, will have cause to boast.
In such a satire all would seek a share,
And every fool will fancy he is there.
Old story-tellers too must pine and die,
To see their antiquated wit laid by;
Like her, who miss'd her name in a lampoon,
And grieved to find herself decay'd so soon.
No common coxcomb must be mentioned here:
Not the dull train of dancing sparks appear; 50
Nor fluttering officers who never fight;
Of such a wretched rabble who would write?
Much less half wits: that's more against our rules;
For they are fops, the other are but fools.
Who would not be as silly as Dunbar?
As dull as Monmouth, rather than Sir Carr?[52]
The cunning courtier should be slighted too,
Who with dull knavery makes so much ado;
Till the shrewd fool, by thriving too, too fast,
Like Æsop's fox becomes a prey at last. 60
Nor shall the royal mistresses be named,
Too ugly, or too easy to be blamed,
With whom each rhyming fool keeps such a pother,
They are as common that way as the other:
Yet sauntering Charles, between his beastly brace,[53]
Meets with dissembling still in either place,
Affected humour, or a painted face.
In loyal libels we have often told him,
How one has jilted him, the other sold him:
How that affects to laugh, how this to weep; 70
But who can rail so long as he can sleep?
Was ever prince by two at once misled,
False, foolish, old, ill-natured, and ill-bred?
Earnely[54] and Aylesbury[55] with all that race
Of busy blockheads, shall have here no place;
At council set as foils on Danby's[56] score,
To make that great false jewel shine the more;
Who all that while was thought exceeding wise,
Only for taking pains and telling lies.
But there's no meddling with such nauseous men; 80
Their very names have tired my lazy pen:
'Tis time to quit their company, and choose
Some fitter subject for sharper muse.
First, let's behold the merriest man alive[57]
Against his careless genius vainly strive;
Quit his dear ease, some deep design to lay,
'Gainst a set time, and then forget the day:
Yet he will laugh at his best friends, and be
Just as good company as Nokes and Lee.[58]
But when he aims at reason or at rule, 90
He turns himself the best to ridicule;
Let him at business ne'er so earnest sit,
Show him but mirth, and bait that mirth with wit;
That shadow of a jest shall be enjoy'd,
Though he left all mankind to be destroy'd.
So cat transform'd sat gravely and demure,
Till mouse appear'd, and thought himself secure;
But soon the lady had him in her eye,
And from her friend did just as oddly fly.
Reaching above our nature does no good; 100
We must fall back to our old flesh and blood;
As by our little Machiavel we find
That nimblest creature of the busy kind,
His limbs are crippled, and his body shakes;
Yet his hard mind which all this bustle makes,
No pity of its poor companion takes.
What gravity can hold from laughing out,
To see him drag his feeble legs about,
Like hounds ill-coupled? Jowler lugs him still
Through hedges, ditches, and through all that's ill. 110
'Twere crime in any man but him alone,
To use a body so, though 'tis one's own:
Yet this false comfort never gives him o'er,
That whilst he creeps his vigorous thoughts can soar;
Alas! that soaring to those few that know,
Is but a busy grovelling here below.
So men in rapture think they mount the sky,
Whilst on the ground the entranced wretches lie:
So modern fops have fancied they could fly.
As the new earl,[59] with parts deserving praise, 120
And wit enough to laugh at his own ways,
Yet loses all soft days and sensual nights,
Kind nature checks, and kinder fortune slights;
Striving against his quiet all he can,
For the fine notion of a busy man.
And what is that at best, but one whose mind
Is made to tire himself and all mankind?
For Ireland he would go; faith, let him reign;
For if some odd, fantastic lord would fain
Carry in trunks, and all my drudgery do, 130
I'll not only pay him, but admire him too.
But is there any other beast that lives,
Who his own harm so wittingly contrives?
Will any dog that has his teeth and stones,
Refinedly leave his bitches and his bones,
To turn a wheel, and bark to be employ'd,
While Venus is by rival dogs enjoy'd?
Yet this fond man, to get a statesman's name,
Forfeits his friends, his freedom, and his fame.
Though satire, nicely writ, with humour stings 140
But those who merit praise in other things;
Yet we must needs this one exception make,
And break our rules for silly Tropos'[60] sake;
Who was too much despised to be accused,
And therefore scarce deserves to be abused;
Raised only by his mercenary tongue,
For railing smoothly, and for reasoning wrong,
As boys, on holidays, let loose to play,
Lay waggish traps for girls that pass that way;
Then shout to see in dirt and deep distress 150
Some silly cit in her flower'd foolish dress:
So have I mighty satisfaction found,
To see his tinsel reason on the ground:
To see the florid fool despised, and know it,
By some who scarce have words enough to show it:
For sense sits silent, and condemns for weaker
The finer, nay sometimes the wittier speaker:
But 'tis prodigious so much eloquence
Should be acquirèd by such little sense;
For words and wit did anciently agree, 160
And Tully was no fool, though this man be:
At bar abusive, on the bench unable,
Knave on the woolsack, fop at council-table.
These are the grievances of such fools as would
Be rather wise than honest, great than good.
Some other kind of wits must be made known,
Whose harmless errors hurt themselves alone;
Excess of luxury they think can please,
And laziness call loving of their ease:
To live dissolved in pleasures still they feign, 170
Though their whole life's but intermitting pain:
So much of surfeits, headaches, claps are seen,
We scarce perceive the little time between:
Well-meaning men who make this gross mistake,
And pleasure lose only for pleasure's sake;
Each pleasure has its price, and when we pay
Too much of pain, we squander life away.
Thus Dorset, purring like a thoughtful cat,
Married, but wiser puss ne'er thought of that:
And first he worried her with railing rhyme, 180
Like Pembroke's mastives at his kindest time;
Then for one night sold all his slavish life,
A teeming widow, but a barren wife;
Swell'd by contact of such a fulsome toad,
He lugg'd about the matrimonial load;
Till fortune, blindly kind as well as he,
Has ill restored him to his liberty;
Which he would use in his old sneaking way,
Drinking all night, and dozing all the day;
Dull as Ned Howard,[61] whom his brisker times 190
Had famed for dulness in malicious rhymes.
Mulgrave had much ado to 'scape the snare,
Though learn'd in all those arts that cheat the fair:
For after all his vulgar marriage mocks,
With beauty dazzled, Numps was in the stocks;
Deluded parents dried their weeping eyes,
To see him catch his Tartar for his prize;
The impatient town waited the wish'd-for change,
And cuckolds smiled in hopes of sweet revenge;
Till Petworth plot made us with sorrow see, 200
As his estate, his person too was free:
Him no soft thoughts, no gratitude could move;
To gold he fled from beauty and from love;
Yet, failing there, he keeps his freedom still,
Forced to live happily against his will:
'Tis not his fault, if too much wealth and power
Break not his boasted quiet every hour.
And little Sid,[62] for simile renown'd,
Pleasure has always sought but never found:
Though all his thoughts on wine and women fall, 210
His are so bad, sure he ne'er thinks at all.
The flesh he lives upon is rank and strong,
His meat and mistresses are kept too long.
But sure we all mistake this pious man,
Who mortifies his person all he can:
What we uncharitably take for sin,
Are only rules of this odd capuchin;
For never hermit under grave pretence,
Has lived more contrary to common sense;
And 'tis a miracle we may suppose, 220
No nastiness offends his skilful nose:
Which from all stink can with peculiar art
Extract perfume and essence from a f--t.
Expecting supper is his great delight;
He toils all day but to be drunk at night:
Then o'er his cups this night-bird chirping sits,
Till he takes Hewet and Jack Hall[63] for wits.
Rochester I despise for want of wit,
Though thought to have a tail and cloven feet;
For while he mischief means to all mankind, 230
Himself alone the ill effects does find:
And so like witches justly suffer shame,
Whose harmless malice is so much the same.
False are his words, affected is his wit;
So often he does aim, so seldom hit;
To every face he cringes while he speaks,
But when the back is turn'd, the head he breaks:
Mean in each action, lewd in every limb,
Manners themselves are mischievous in him:
A proof that chance alone makes every creature, 240
A very Killigrew[64] without good nature.
For what a Bessus[65] has he always lived,
And his own kickings notably contrived!
For, there's the folly that's still mix'd with fear,
Cowards more blows than any hero bear;
Of fighting sparks some may their pleasures say,
But 'tis a bolder thing to run away:
The world may well forgive him all his ill,
For every fault does prove his penance still:
Falsely he falls into some dangerous noose, 250
And then as meanly labours to get loose;
A life so infamous is better quitting,
Spent in base injury and low submitting.
I'd like to have left out his poetry;
Forgot by all almost as well as me.
Sometimes he has some humour, never wit,
And if it rarely, very rarely, hit,
'Tis under so much nasty rubbish laid,
To find it out's the cinderwoman's trade;
Who for the wretched remnants of a fire, 260
Must toil all day in ashes and in mire.
So lewdly dull his idle works appear,
The wretched texts deserve no comments here;
Where one poor thought sometimes, left all alone,
For a whole page of dulness must atone.
How vain a thing is man, and how unwise!
Even he, who would himself the most despise!
I, who so wise and humble seem to be,
Now my own vanity and pride can't see;
While the world's nonsense is so sharply shown, 270
We pull down others' but to raise our own;
That we may angels seem, we paint them elves,
And are but satires to set up ourselves.
I, who have all this while been finding fault,
Even with my master, who first satire taught;
And did by that describe the task so hard,
It seems stupendous and above reward;
Now labour with unequal force to climb
That lofty hill, unreach'd by former time;
'Tis just that I should to the bottom fall, 280
Learn to write well, or not to write at all.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 50: 'Mulgrave:' Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. It was for this
satire, the joint composition of Dryden and Sheffield, that Rochester
hired bravoes to cudgel Dryden.]
[Footnote 51: 'Armstrong:' Sir Thomas Armstrong, a notorious character
of the time--hanged at Tyburn.]
[Footnote 52: 'Carr:' Sir Carr Scrope, a wit of the time.]
[Footnote 53: 'Beastly brace:' Duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwynn.]
[Footnote 54: 'Earnely:' Sir John Earnely, one of the lords of the
treasury.]
[Footnote 55: 'Aylesbury:' Robert, the first Earl of Aylesbury.]
[Footnote 56: 'Danby:' Thomas, Earl of Danby, lord high-treasurer of
England.]
[Footnote 57: 'Merriest man alive:' Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of
Shaftesbury.]
[Footnote 58: 'Nokes and Lee:' two celebrated comedians in Charles II.'s
reign.]
[Footnote 59: 'New earl:' Earl of Essex.]
[Footnote 60: 'Tropos:' Sir William Scroggs. See Macaulay.]
[Footnote 61: 'Ned Howard:' Edward Howard, Esq., a dull writer. See
Butler's works.]
[Footnote 62: 'Sid:' brother to Algernon Sidney.]
[Footnote 63: 'Hewet and Jack Hall:' courtiers of the day.]
[Footnote 64: 'Killigrew:' Thomas Killigrew, many years master of the
revels, and groom of the chamber to King Charles II.]
[Footnote 65: 'Bessus:' a remarkable cowardly character in Beaumont and
Fletcher's play of 'A King and no King.']
* * * * *
ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.[66]
TO THE READER.
It is not my intention to make an apology for my poem: some will think
it needs no excuse, and others will receive none. The design I am sure
is honest: but he who draws his pen for one party, must expect to make
enemies of the other. For wit and fool are consequence of Whig and Tory;
and every man is a knave or an ass to the contrary side. There is a
treasury of merits in the Fanatic church, as well as in the Popish; and
a pennyworth to be had of saintship, honesty, and poetry, for the lewd,
the factious, and the blockheads: but the longest chapter in Deuteronomy
has not curses enough for an Anti-Bromingham. My comfort is, their
manifest prejudice to my cause will render their judgment of less
authority against me. Yet if a poem have genius, it will force its own
reception in the world. For there is a sweetness in good verse, which
tickles even while it hurts; and no man can be heartily angry with him
who pleases him against his will. The commendation of adversaries is
the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless
extorted. But I can be satisfied on more easy terms: if I happen to
please the more moderate sort, I shall be sure of an honest party, and,
in all probability, of the best judges; for the least concerned are
commonly the least corrupt. And I confess I have laid in for those, by
rebating the satire (where justice would allow it), from carrying too
sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly as to imagine I have
done my worst, may be convinced, at their own cost, that I can write
severely, with more ease than I can gently. I have but laughed at some
men's follies, when I could have declaimed against their vices; and
other men's virtues I have commended, as freely as I have taxed their
crimes. And now, if you are a malicious reader, I expect you should
return upon me that I affect to be thought more impartial than I am. But
if men are not to be judged by their professions, God forgive you
Commonwealth's-men for professing so plausibly for the government. You
cannot be so unconscionable as to charge me for not subscribing my name;
for that would reflect too grossly upon your own party, who never dare,
though they have the advantage of a jury to secure them. If you like not
my poem, the fault may possibly be in my writing (though it is hard for
an author to judge against himself); but more probably it is in your
morals, which cannot bear the truth of it. The violent on both sides
will condemn the character of Absalom, as either too favourably or too
hardly drawn. But they are not the violent whom I desire to please. The
fault on the right hand is to extenuate, palliate, and indulge; and to
confess freely, I have endeavoured to commit it. Besides the respect
which I owe his birth, I have a greater for his heroic virtues; and
David himself could not be more tender of the young man's life, than I
would be of his reputation. But since the most excellent natures are
always the most easy, and, as being such, are the soonest perverted by
ill counsels, especially when baited with fame and glory; it is no more
a wonder that he withstood not the temptations of Achitophel, than it
was for Adam not to have resisted the two devils, the serpent and the
woman. The conclusion of the story I purposely forbore to prosecute,
because I could not obtain from myself to show Absalom unfortunate. The
frame of it was cut out but for a picture to the waist; and if the
draught be so far true, it is as much as I designed.
Were I the inventor, who am only the historian, I should certainly
conclude the piece with the reconcilement of Absalom to David. And who
knows but this may come to pass? Things were not brought to an extremity
where I left the story: there seems yet to be room left for a composure;
hereafter there may be only for pity. I have not so much as an
uncharitable wish against Achitophel, but am content to be accused of a
good-natured error, and to hope with Origen, that the devil himself may
at last be saved. For which reason, in this poem, he is neither brought
to set his house in order, nor to dispose of his person afterwards as he
in wisdom shall think fit. God is infinitely merciful; and his
vicegerent is only not so, because he is not infinite.
The true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction. And he
who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender, than the
physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an
inveterate disease; for those are only in order to prevent the
chirurgeon's work of an _Ense rescindendum_, which I wish not to my very
enemies. To conclude all; if the body politic have any analogy to the
natural, in my weak judgment, an act of oblivion were as necessary in a
hot distempered state, as an opiate would be in a raging fever.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 66: See 'Life' for explanation for circumstances; and the key
at the close of the poem, for the real names of this satire.]
* * * * *
PART I.
--Si propiùs stes
Te capiet magis--
In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin,
Before polygamy was made a sin;
When man on many multiplied his kind,
Ere one to one was cursedly confined;
When nature prompted, and no law denied
Promiscuous use of concubine and bride;
Then Israel's monarch after Heaven's own heart,
His vigorous warmth did variously impart
To wives and slaves; and wide as his command,
Scatter'd his Maker's image through the land. 10
Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear;
A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care:
Not so the rest; for several mothers bore
To god-like David several sons before.
But since li
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