THE
WORKS
OF
JOHN DRYDEN,

NOW FIRST COLLECTED

IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES.

ILLUSTRATED

WITH NOTES,

HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,

AND

A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

WALTER SCOTT, Esq.

VOL. IX.

LONDON:

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

1808.

[i]

CONTENTS
OF
VOLUME NINTH.

POEMS,

HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL.

[3]

HEROIC STANZAS
TO
THE MEMORY OF OLIVER CROMWELL.

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

Some of our author's biographers have deemed it necessary to apologise for his chusing this subject, by referring to his near connection with Sir Gilbert Pickering, the friend and confident of the deceased usurper. There is, however, little reason to suppose, that Dryden did any violence to his own inclinations, to gratify the political feelings of his kinsman and patron. He had been bred in anti-monarchical principles, and did not probably change, till the nation changed with him. The character of Cromwell was in itself an inviting theme to so true a poet. The man, of whom Clarendon said, that "even his enemies could not condemn him, without commending him at the same time," and of whose exploits Cowley has given so animating a detail; whom, in short, his very enemies could not mention without wonder, if they with-held applause,—afforded to those who favoured his politics many a point of view, in which the splendour of his character might hide its[4] blemishes.[1] It is remarkable, however, that, in handling this theme, Dryden has observed a singular and happy delicacy. The topic of the civil war is but slightly dwelt on; and, although Cromwell is extolled, his eulogist abstains from any reflections against those, through whom he cut his way to greatness. He considers the Protector when in his meridian height, but passes over the steps by which he attained that elevation. It is also remarkable, that although Sir Gilbert Pickering was one of Richard Cromwell's council, our author abstains from any compliment to that pageant of authority; when a panegyrick upon the son was a natural topic of consolation after mourning over the loss of his father. Sprat, upon the same occasion, did not omit this obvious topic, but[5] launched forth into prophecies, to which the event did very little credit.[2]

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

[6]

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

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

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

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

HEROIC STANZAS

CONSECRATED

TO THE MEMORY OF

HIS HIGHNESS OLIVER,

LATE LORD PROTECTOR OF THIS COMMONWEALTH,

WRITTEN AFTER THE CELEBRATING OF HIS FUNERAL.

[15]

NOTES
ON
HEROIC STANZAS.

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

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

[16]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[18]

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

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

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

"Finita in ultimo la mina, e stando l'esercito armato per dare incontinente la battaglia, la quale perchè si desse con maggiori forze, era stata richiamata l'antiguardia, fece il Navarra dare il fuoco alla mina; la quale con grandissimo impeto, e romore gittò talmente in alto la cappella, che per quello spatio, che rimase tra'l terreno, e'l muro gittato in alto, fu da quelli, ch' erano fuora, veduta apertamente la città dentro, et i soldati che stavano preparati per difenderla; ma subito scendendo in giừ ritornò il muro intero nel luogo medesimo, onde la violentia del fuoco l'areva sbarrato, e si ricongiunse insieme, come se mai non fusse stato mosso: onde si non si potendo assaltare da quella parte, i capitani giudicurono non[19] si dovere dare solamente dall' altra. Attribuirono questo caso i Bolognesi a miracolo, riputando impossibile, che, senza l'ajutorio divino, fusse potuto riconguignersi cosi appunto ne' medesimi fondamenti; onde fu dipoi ampliata quella cappella, e frequentata con non piccola divotione del popolo." L'Istoria di Guicciardini, Libro Decimo.

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

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

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

Cromwell certainly did much to civilize Scotland. Some of his benefits were intentionally conferred, others flowed indirectly from the measures he adopted for the consolidation of his own authority. The English judges, whom he appointed, introduced into the administration of justice a purity and vigour, with which[20] Scotland had been hitherto unacquainted.[30] By the impoverishment, exile, and annihilation of the principal baronial families, the chains of feudal bondage were lightened upon the peasantry; and the pay of 18,000 men, levied to maintain the constituted authorities, enriched the lower orders, amongst whom it was spent. The English soldiers also introduced into Scotland some of the arts of a more civilized country. We may, however, hesitate to believe, that they taught the citizens of Aberdeen to make shoes and plant kail; because Dr Johnson, upon whose authority the tradition is given, informs us, that the peasantry live upon that vegetable alone, and that, when they had not kail, they probably had nothing; in which case, the English military guests had better have learned from their Aberdonian hosts the art of living upon nothing, than taught them a branch of gardening which their habits of abstinence rendered totally superfluous. But the garrisons established by Cromwell upon the skirts, and in the passes of the Highlands, restrained the predatory clans, and taught them, in no gentle manner, that respect for the property of their Lowland neighbours, which their lawful monarchs had vainly endeavoured to inculcate. An officer of engineers, quartered at Inverness shortly after 1720, says, that the name of Oliver still struck terror through the Highlands; and one very ancient laird declared to him, the appearance of the Protector's colours were so strongly impressed on his memory, that he still thought he saw them before his eyes, spread out by the wind, and bearing, in great golden characters, the word Emanuel.—Letters from the North of Scotland, Vol. I. p. 274.

The rod of divination, an admirable implement for a mineralogist, was a piece of forked hazel, which, being poised on the back of the hand, and so carried with great caution, inclined itself sympathetically to the earth, where mines or hidden treasures lay concealed beneath the surface. Derrick refers readers for further[21] information concerning the properties of this marvellous rod, and the way of using it, to La Physique Occultee, ou Traité de la Baguette Divinatoire, published at Amsterdam, 1613.

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

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

It was still fashionable, in the seventeenth century, to impute the distinguishing shades of human character to the influence of complexion.[22] The doctrine is concisely summed up in the following lines, which occur in an old MS. in the British Museum:

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

The pope being called Alexander the Sixth, Dryden did not disdain to turn this stanza upon an allusion to the Macedonian[23] hero; although it is obvious, that the pontiff was not a more effectual guardian to his city by bearing that warlike name, than if he had been called Benedict or Innocent. True it is, however, that the pope feared, and with great reason, some hostile attack from the powerful English squadron which swept the Mediterranean, under the command of Blake. Conscious that his papal character rendered him the object of the most inveterate enmity to the military saints of Cromwell's commonwealth, he had every reason to believe that they would find pride, pleasure, and profit, in attacking Antichrist, even in Babylon itself.

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

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

The circumstance, of the dreadful storm which happened on the day of Cromwell's death, is noticed by all writers. Many vessels were dashed on the coast, and trees and houses were overthrown,[24] upon the land. It seemed as if that active spirit, which had rode in the whirlwind while he lived, could not depart without an universal convulsion of nature. Waller has touched upon this remarkable incident with great felicity:

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

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

ASTRÆA REDUX.
A POEM.

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

The tone of praise, which Dryden has adopted, exhibits his usual felicity. There do not here occur any of these rants about the antiquity of the royal line,[32] and the indefeasible right of the lawful successor, which are the common topics of the herd, who[28] offered poetical congratulation to the restored monarch. Dryden rejoices with the chastised triumph of one, that had not forgot what it was to mourn. He looks back, as well as forwards; and it is upon the past sufferings of the people, and of the monarch, that he grounds the hope and expectation of their future happiness. The poet was perhaps sensible, that the claim of loyal merit was rather new in his family and person, and ought not therefore to be expressed with the extravagant colouring of the cavaliers. He ventures indeed upon prophecy, although past experience might have taught him it was dangerous ground. One prediction, however, has been (magno licet intervallo) accomplished to its fullest extent in our own age:

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

On the other hand, it is surely unnecessary to point out to the reader the confusion of metaphor, where Virtue is said to dress the wounds of Charles with laurels;[33] the impertinent antithesis of finding "light alone in dark afflictions;" and the extravagance of representing the winds, that wafted Charles, as out of breath with joy. These, and other outrageous flights of wit, have been noticed and blamed by Johnson. I am not certain whether that great critic is equally just, in severely censuring the passage in which there is a short allusion to Heathen mythology.[34] Where the[29] tender, the passionate, or the sublime, ought to prevail, an allusion to classical fiction seldom fails to interrupt the tone of feeling which the author should seek to preserve; but in a poem, of which elegance of expression and ingenuity of device are the principal attributes, an allusion to the customs of Greece, or of Rome, while it gives a classic air to the composition, seems as little misplaced, as an apt quotation from the authors in which they are recorded.

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

ASTRÆA REDUX.

A POEM,

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

NOTES
ON
ASTRÆA REDUX.

Note I.

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

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

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

[42]

Note II.

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

Note III.

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

Note IV.

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

[43]

Note V.

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

Note VI.

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

Note VII.

This is in imitation of the famous letter which Francis the First of France wrote to his mother after the battle of Pavia: "Madam, all is lost except our honour." That of Charles II. certainly was not lost at Worcester. He gave many marks of personal courage, and was only hurried off the field by the torrent of fugitives.[44] He halted a large body of horse, and implored them to return, and but look upon the enemy; yet, though he advanced at their head, they all deserted him but a few of his immediate attendants.

Note VIII.

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

Note IX.

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

Note X.

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

[45]

Note XI.

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

Note XII.

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

[46]

Note XIII.

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

Note XIV.

This subtle politician was Lodovico, son of Francisco Sforza. He was one of the most restless and intriguing spirits, that Italy, the mother of political genius, has ever produced. His natural brother, Francisco Sforza, had acquired, by marriage, the duchy of Milan, which he left to his son Giovanni Galeazzo Sforza. Lodovico, under pretence of acting as his nephew's tutor, took into his own hands the supreme power; and, tired of governing under the name of another, at length deposed and murdered the young duke. In order to secure himself in his usurped domination, he invited the French into Italy, which they over-ran and conquered under Charles VIII. He became soon suspicious of these too powerful allies, and leagued with the Venetians to cut off the retreat of the French from Naples. In 1594, he made a pretended peace with Charles; and, in the year following, invited into Italy the Emperor Maximilian, by whose assistance he hoped to secure himself in Pisa, of which he had taken possession, and to conquer the Florentines, with whom he was at war. In all these, and many other ambiguous and versatile transactions, Sforza was so happy, that he used to call himself the Son of Fortune, as he was termed by others the Moor, from his dark complection, acute genius, and cruel disposition. But, in 1599, Lewis XII., who had pretensions upon the dukedom of Milan, as the grandson of Valentine Visconti, daughter of Giovanni Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, invaded the Milanese territory with a force which Sforza was unable to resist, and compelled him to fly into Germany with his treasures. In 1600, Sforza again returned to Italy at the head of an army of Swiss mercenaries, and repossessed himself of Milan, Como, and other places of importance. The Swiss, however, mutinied at Novara, and not only refused to fight in his behalf, but even to guard him to a place of security. As these unworthy Helvetians had made a private convention with the French, they permitted them to seize the person of Sforza, who was discovered[47] among the ranks of his faithless mercenaries, dressed and armed like a private Swiss soldier; a lamentable instance of the inconstancy of fortune. He was carried prisoner to France, where he ended his days in prison, A. D. 1608.

Note XV.

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

Note XVI.

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

[48]

Note XVII.

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

Note XVIII.

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

Note XIX.

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

Note XX.

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

Note XXI.

Johnson remarks, that this extraordinary piece of complaisance in the land is not without a precedent. A French poet read to[49] Malherbe some verses, in which he mentioned the kingdom of France as advancing to meet the king. "Though this happened in my time," observed the critic, "it is strange I should not remember it." In the next couplet, Albion does penance in a sheet, because her cliffs are chalky; had they been black, she would have been in mourning of course. But the civility of such inanimate objects, according to the poets of this reign, was truly wonderful, considering their present insensibility. In a poem, "On the Arrival of her Royal Highness, and Happy Marriage to the Most Illustrious Prince James Duke of York, &c. 1673," not only do dolphins dance about the vessel, but, yet more surprising,

Note XXII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[50]

Note XXIII.

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

Note XXIV.

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

[51]

Note XXV.

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

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

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

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

Note XXVI.

The minutes, hours, days, and other subdivisions of time, may[52] be accounted his children, which he is fancifully said to devour, as he passes over them.

Note XXVII.

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

[53]

TO
HIS SACRED MAJESTY,
A
PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION.

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

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

The first edition is printed for Henry Herringman, 1661.

[54]

TO HIS

SACRED MAJESTY,

A

PANEGYRIC

ON

HIS CORONATION.

[59]

NOTES
ON
THE PANEGYRIC ON THE CORONATION.

Note I.

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

[60]

Note II.

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

Note III.

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

Note IV.

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

Note V.

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

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

Note VI.

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

As designing its reward, for the shelter it afforded his majesty, after the fight at Worcester."[76] These devices were invented by John Ogilby, gent., to the conduct of whom the poetical part of the coronation, as it is termed in his writ of privilege, was solely entrusted. The same fancy is commemorated, by the author of[62] "Loyal Reflections on his Majesty's Restoration, Procession, and Coronation," who thus apostrophises the Royal Oak:

TO
LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE.
&c.

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

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

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

this great statesman was doomed to be one of the numberless victims to the uncertainty of court favour. His fall took place in 1667, when he was attainted and banished. The popular discontent was chiefly excited against him, by a groundless charge of corruption; an accusation to which the vulgar lend a greedy and implicit faith, because ignorance is always suspicious, and low minds, not knowing how seldom avarice is the companion of ambition, conceive the opportunities of peculation to be not only[64] numerous, but irresistibly tempting. Accordingly, the heroes of Athens, as well as the patriots of Rome, were usually stigmatized with this crime; bare suspicion of which, it would seem, is usually held adequate to the fullest proof. Nor have instances been wanting in our own days, of a party adopting the same mode, to blacken the character of those, whose firmness and talents impeded their access to power, and public confidence.

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

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

[65]

TO

THE LORD-CHANCELLOR HYDE.

presented on new-year's day, 1662.

MY LORD,

[70]

SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.

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

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

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

[71]

SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1662.

[73]

TO
HER ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE DUCHESS OF YORK,

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

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

The victory of the 23d June, 1665, was gained by the British fleet, commanded by the Duke of York, over the Dutch, under the[74] famous Opdam. It was, like all naval actions between the English and the Dutch, a fierce, obstinate, and bloody conflict. The fleets met near Harwich on the 2d June; but the Dutch declined action upon that day, from a superstitious recollection that it was the anniversary of a dreadful defeat, received from Blake and Monk in 1653, in which they lost their famous Admiral, Von Tromp. But on the morning of the third, the fleets joined battle so near the shore, that the thunder of the combat was heard all along the English coast. York and Opdam singled each other out, and lay alongside in close action, till the Dutch vessel (a second rate) was blown up, and all on board perished. The Dutch fleet then dispersed and fled, losing nineteen ships sunk and taken, while the English lost only one. During this dreadful battle the Duke of York displayed the greatest personal courage. He was in the thickest of the fire, when one cannon-shot killed Lord Falmouth, Lord Muskerry, and Mr Boyle, by his side, and covered him with the gore of the most faithful and attached companions of his fortune. Yet this day, the brightest which ever shone on him, was not without a cloud. When the Dutch fleet were scattered, and an active pursuit was all that remained to the victors, Brounker, a gentleman of the Duke's bed-chamber, commanded Sir John Harman, in the Duke's name, to slacken sail. James was then asleep, and the flimsy pretext of not disturbing his repose was set up as a reason for this most untimely interference. The affair was never well explained. The Duke dismissed Brounker from his service, and a parliamentary investigation of his conduct took place.[80] But no adequate punishment was inflicted, and the nation saw, with displeasure, the fruits of a dear-bought and splendid victory lost by the unauthorized interference of an officious minion.

The Duchess, as we learn, amongst other authorities, from an old libel, came down to Harwich to see her husband embark, and[75] afterwards made the triumphant progress to the north, which is here commemorated. The splendour of her reception at Harwich is thus censured by the Satirist:

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

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

[76]

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

AND ON

HER JOURNEY AFTERWARDS INTO THE NORTH.

[79]

NOTES
ON
THE PRECEDING POEM.

Note I.

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

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

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

Note II.

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

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

ANNUS MIRABILIS.

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

There would have been no doubt, even had the author himself been silent, that he followed D'Avenant in the choice of the elegiac stanza, in which the Annus Mirabilis is composed. It is sounding and harmonious to the ear; and perhaps Dryden still annexed to the couplet the idea of that harshness, which was so long its characteristick in the hands of our early English writers. But the four-lined stanza has also its peculiar disadvantages; and they are admirably stated by the judicious critic, who first turned the Editor's eyes, and probably those of many others, on the neglected poem of "Gondibert."—"The necessity of comprising a sentence within the limits of the measure, is the tyranny of Procrustes to thought. For the sake of a disagreeable uniformity, expression must constantly be cramped or extenuated. In general, the latter expedient will be practised as the easiest; and thus both sentiment and language will be enfeebled by unmeaning expletives."[83] It is nevertheless true, that Dryden has very seldom suffered his poem to languish. Every stanza presents us either with vivid description, or with some strong thought, which is seldom suffered to glide into tenuity. But this structure of verse has often laid him under an odd and rather unpleasing necessity, of filling up his stanza, by coupling a simile, or a moral, expressed in the two last lines, along with[84] the fact, which had been announced in the two first. When these comments, or illustrations, however good in themselves, appear to be intruded upon the narrative or description, and not naturally to flow out of either, they must be considered as defects in composition; and a kind of versification, which compels frequent recurrence to such expedients for filling up the measure, has a disadvantage, for which mere harmony can hardly compensate. In the passages which follow, there is produced a stiff and awkward kind of balance between the story and the poet's reflections and illustrations.

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

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

The turn of composition, as well as the structure of the verse, is adopted from "Gondibert." But Dryden, more completely master[85] of the English language, and a writer of much more lively imagination and expression, has, in general, greatly exceeded his master in conceiving and bringing out the far-fetched ideas and images, with which each has graced his poem. D'Avenant is often harsh and turgid, and the construction of his sentences extremely involved. Dryden has his obscure, and even unintelligible, passages; but they arise from the extravagance of the idea, not from the want of power to express it. For example, D'Avenant says,

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

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

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

Passages also occur, in which, from the author's zealous desire to be technically minute, the style becomes low and vulgar. There is no doubt, that, as Dryden has observed, the proper terms of art may be not only justly, but with the highest advantage, employed in poetry; but such technical phrases require to be selected[86] with great judgment: they must bear relation to some striking and important object, or they are mean and trivial; and they must be at once generally intelligible, and more expressive in themselves than ordinary language, or they are unnecessarily obscure and pedantic. Dryden has failed in both these points, in his account of the repairs of the fleet.[84] Stanza 148, in particular, combines the faults of meanness and unnecessary obscurity, from the affected use of the dialect of the dock-yard:

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

The verses, in which Prince Rupert and his enemy are compared to a greyhound and hare, after a course so desperate as totally to exhaust both, have been always considered as exquisitely beautiful.[86] The description of the Loyal London partakes of the [87]beauties and faults which are dispersed through the poem. Nothing can be more majestic than her description, "firing the air with her sanguine streamers," and "riding upon her shadow in floating gold." We lament, that the weaver should have been so fascinated with his labours as to commence seaman; and still more, that, after describing her "roomy decks," and "depth of draught," she should furnish no grander simile than that of

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

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

The title of Annus Mirabilis did not, according to Mr Malone, originate with Dryden; a prose tract, so intitled, being published in 1662.[87] Neither was he the last that used it; for, the learned[88] editor of "Predictions and Observations, collected from Mr J. Partridge's Almanacks for 1687 and 1688," has so entitled his astrological lucubrations.

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

[89]

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

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

As, perhaps, I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature to the metropolis of any nation, so it is likewise consonant to justice, that he, who was to give the first example of such a dedication, should begin it with that city, which has set a pattern to all others, of true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy. Other cities have been praised for the same virtues, but I am much deceived if any have so dearly purchased their reputation: their fame has been won them by cheaper trials than an expensive, though necessary war, a consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fire. To submit yourselves with that humility to the judgments of heaven, and, at the same time, to raise yourselves with that vigour above all human enemies; to be combated at once from above, and from[90] below; to be struck down, and to triumph,—I know not whether such trials have been ever paralleled in any nation: the resolution and successes of them never can be. Never had prince or people more mutual reason to love each other, if suffering for each other can endear affection. You have come together a pair of matchless lovers, through many difficulties; he, through a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and the interposition of many rivals, who violently ravished and with-held you from him; and certainly you have had your share in sufferings. But providence has cast upon you want of trade, that you might appear bountiful to your country's necessities; and the rest of your afflictions are not more the effects of God's displeasure (frequent examples of them having been in the reign of the most excellent princes) than occasions for the manifesting of your christian and civil virtues. To you, therefore, this Year of Wonders is justly dedicated, because you have made it so; you, who are to stand a wonder to all years and ages; and who have built yourselves an immortal monument on your own ruins. You are now a Phœnix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity; but heaven never made so much piety and virtue to leave it miserable. I have heard, indeed, of some virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation: Providence is engaged too deeply, when the cause becomes so general; and I cannot imagine it has resolved that ruin of the people at home, which it has blessed abroad with such successes. I am therefore to conclude, that your sufferings are at an end; and that one part of my poem has not been more an history of your destruction, than the other a prophecy of your restoration.[91] The accomplishment of which happiness, as it is the wish of all true Englishmen, so is it by none more passionately desired, than by

The greatest of your admirers,

And most humble of your servants,

John Dryden.

[92]

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

Sir,

I am so many ways obliged to you, and so little able to return your favours, that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but you have been solicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long since I gave you the trouble of perusing a play for me,[89] and now, instead of an acknowledgment, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a poem. But since you are to bear this persecution, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr,—you[93] could never suffer in a nobler cause; for I have chosen the most heroic subject, which any poet could desire. I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes, of a most just and necessary war; in it, the care, management, and prudence of our king; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and three glorious victories, the result of all. After this, I have, in the Fire, the most deplorable, but withal the greatest, argument that can be imagined; the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast and miserable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not serving my king and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged to it; and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the nobles of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should not have written this but to a person, who has been ever forward to appear in all employments, whither his honour and generosity have called him. The latter part of my poem, which describes the Fire, I owe, first, to the piety and fatherly affection of our monarch to his suffering subjects; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both which were so conspicuous, that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. I have called my poem historical, not epic, though both the actions and actors are as much heroic as any poem can contain. But, since the action is not properly one, nor that accomplished in the last successes, I have judged it too bold a title for a few stanzas, which are little more in number than a single Iliad, or the longest of the Æneids. For this[94] reason, (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too severely to the laws of history) I am apt to agree with those, who rank Lucan rather among historians in verse, than Epic poets; in whose room, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more justly be admitted. I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us; in which I am sure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the slavery of any rhyme; and were less constrained in the quantity of every syllable, which they might vary with spondees or dactyls, besides so many other helps of grammatical figures, for the lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the close of that one syllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the sense of all the rest. But in this necessity of our rhymes, I have always found the couplet verse most easy, (though not so proper for this occasion,) for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labour of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it farther on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the troublesome sense of four lines together. For, those, who write correctly in this kind, must needs acknowledge, that the last line of the stanza is to be considered in the composition of the first. Neither can we give ourselves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the sake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using the variety of female rhymes,[90] all which our fathers practised; and for the female rhymes, they are still in use amongst other nations;[95] with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French alternately, as those who have read the Alaric, the Pucelle, or any of their later poems, will agree with me. And besides this, they write in Alexandrines, or verses of six feet; such as, amongst us, is the old translation of Homer by Chapman:[91] all which, by lengthening of their chain, makes the sphere of their activity the larger.

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

[96]

For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea, yet I have thought it no shame to learn; and if I have made some few mistakes, it is only, as you can bear me witness, because I have wanted opportunity to correct them; the whole poem being first written, and now sent you from a place, where I have not so much as the converse of any seaman. Yet though the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was more than recompensed by the pleasure. I found myself so warm in celebrating the praises of military men, two such especially as the prince and general, that it is no wonder if they inspired me with thoughts above my ordinary level. And I am well satisfied, that, as they are incomparably the best subject I ever had, excepting only the royal family, so also, that this I have written of them is much better than what I have performed on any other. I have been forced to help out other arguments, but this has been bountiful to me; they have been low and barren of praise,[93] and I have exalted them, and made them fruitful; but here—Omnia sponte suà reddit justissima tellus. I have had a large, a fair, and a pleasant field; so fertile, that, without my cultivating, it has given me two harvests in a summer, and in both oppressed the reaper. All other greatness in subjects is only counterfeit; it will not endure the test of danger; the greatness of arms is only real. Other greatness burdens a nation with its weight; this supports it with[97] its strength. And as it is the happiness of the age, so it is the peculiar goodness of the best of kings, that we may praise his subjects without offending him. Doubtless it proceeds from a just confidence of his own virtue, which the lustre of no other can be so great as to darken in him; for the good or the valiant are never safely praised under a bad or a degenerate prince.

But to return from this digression to a farther account of my poem; I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have endeavoured to adorn it with noble thoughts, so much more to express those thoughts with elocution. The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit;[94] and wit in the poet, or wit-writing, (if you will give me leave to use a school-distinction) is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, 'till it springs the quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things, which it designs to represent. Wit written is that which is well defined, the happy result of thought, or product of imagination. But to proceed from wit, in the general notion of it, to the proper wit of an Heroic or Historical Poem, I judge it chiefly to consist in the delightful imagining of persons, actions, passions, or things. It is not the jerk or sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis, (the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme,) nor the gingle of a more poor paronomasia;[95] neither is it so much the morality of a grave sentence, affected by Lucan, but more sparingly used by Virgil; but it is [98]some lively and apt description, dressed in such colours of speech, that it sets before your eyes the absent object, as perfectly, and more delightfully than nature. So then the first happiness of the poet's imagination is properly invention, or finding of the thought; the second is fancy, or the variation, deriving, or moulding, of that thought, as the judgment represents it proper to the subject; the third is elocution, or the art of clothing and adorning that thought, so found and varied, in apt, significant, and sounding words. The quickness of the imagination is seen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expression. For the two first of these, Ovid is famous amongst the poets; for the latter, Virgil. Ovid images more often the movements and affections of the mind, either combating between two contrary passions, or extremely discomposed by one. His words therefore are the least part of his care; for he pictures nature in disorder, with which the study and choice of words is inconsistent. This is the proper wit of dialogue or discourse, and consequently of the drama, where all that is said is supposed to be the effect of sudden thought; which, though it excludes not the quickness of wit in repartees, yet admits not a too curious election of words, too frequent allusions, or use of tropes, or, in fine, any thing that shews remoteness of thought, or labour in the writer. On the other side, Virgil speaks not so often to us in the person of another, like Ovid, but in his own: he relates almost all things as from himself, and thereby gains more liberty than the other, to express his thoughts with all the graces of elocution, to write more figuratively, and to confess as well the labour as the force of his imagination. Though he describes his Dido well and naturally, in the violence of her passions, yet he must yield in that to the Myrrha, the Biblis, the Althæa, of Ovid;[99] 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:

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

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, Materium superabat opus: the very sound of his words has often somewhat that is connatural to the subject; and while we read him, we sit, as in a play, beholding the scenes of what he represents. To perform[100] this, he made frequent use of tropes, which you know change the nature of a known word, by applying it to some other signification; and this is it which Horace means in his Epistle to the Piso's:

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

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[101] with the same prerequisites, from the best and most judicious of Latin writers? In some places, where either the fancy or the words were his, or any other's, I have noted it in the margin, that I might not seem a plagiary;[96] in others I have neglected it, to avoid as well tediousness, as the affectation of doing it too often. Such descriptions or images well wrought, which I promise not for mine, are, as I have said, the adequate delight of heroic poesy; for they beget admiration, which is its proper object; as the images of the burlesque, which is contrary to this, by the same reason beget laughter: for, the one shews nature beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other shews her deformed, as in that of a lazar, or of a fool with distorted face and antique gestures, at which we cannot forbear to laugh, because it is a deviation from nature. But though the same images serve equally for the Epic poesy, and for the Historic and Panegyric, which are branches of it, yet a several sort of sculpture is to be used in them. If some of them are to be like those of Juvenal, stantes in curribus Æmiliani, heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots, and in their full proportion; others are to be like that of Virgil, spirantia mollius æra: there is somewhat more of softness and tenderness to be shewn in them. You will soon find I write not this without concern. Some, who have seen a paper of verses, which I wrote last year to her highness the Duchess, have accused them of that only thing I could defend in them. They said, I did humi serpere,—that I wanted not only height of fancy, but dignity of words, to set it off. I might well answer with that[102] of Horace, Nunc non erat his locus; I knew I addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression, and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defence. But I will not farther bribe your candour, or the reader's. I leave them to speak for me; and, if they can, to make out that character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them.[97]

And now, sir, it is time I should relieve you from the tedious length of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer. In conclusion, I must leave my poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not of the number of those, of whom the younger Pliny speaks; Nec sunt parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant: I am rather too secure of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errors may make you more remiss in correcting them; if you will not withal consider, that they come into the world with your approbation, and through your hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an absent person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation; and therefore I hope it will stir you up to make my poem fairer by many of your blots: if not, you know the story of the gamester who married the rich man's daughter, and when her father denied the portion, christened all the children by his sirname, that if, in conclusion, they must[103] beg, they should do so by one name, as well as by the other. But, since the reproach of my faults will light on you, it is but reason I should do you that justice to the readers, to let them know, that, if there be any thing tolerable in this poem, they owe the argument to your choice, the writing to your encouragement, the correction to your judgment, and the care of it to your friendship, to which he must ever acknowledge himself to owe all things, who is,

Sir,

The most obedient, and most

Faithful of your servants,

John Dryden.

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

[104]

ANNUS MIRABILIS;
THE
YEAR OF WONDERS,
1666.