Beyond your court flows in th' admitted tide,
Where in new depths the wondering fishes
Here in a royal bed the waters sleep; [glide:
When tir'd at sea, within this bay they creep.
Here the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects,
So safe are all things which our king protects.
From your lov'd Thames a blessing yet is due,
Second alone to that it brought in you; [fate,
A queen, near whose chaste womb, ordain'd by
The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait.
It was your love before made discord cease:
Your love is destin'd to your country's peace.
Both Indies, rivals in your bed, provide
With gold or jewels to adorn your bride.
This to a mighty king presents rich ore,
While that with incense does a god implore.
Two kingdoms wait your doom, and, as you
choose,

This must receive a crown, or that must lose.
Thus from your royal oak, like Jove's of old,
Are answers sought, and destinies foretold:
Propitious oracles are begg'd with vows,
And crowns that grow upon the sacred boughs.
Your subjects, while you weigh the nation's
fate,

Suspend to both their doubtful love or hate:
Choose only, sir, that so they may possess
With their own peace
their children's happiness.

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE,* PRESENTED ON NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1662.

MY LORD,

WHILE flattering crowds officiously appear, To give themselves, not you, a happy year; And by the greatness of their presents prove How much they hope, but not how well they love;

The Muses, who your early courtship boast, Though now your flames are with their beauty lost,

Edward, Earl of Clarendon, to whom this poem is addressed, having followed the fortune of the king, was appointed secretary of state at Bruges, and constituted lord high chancellor of England on the demise of Sir Richard Lane. He was confirmed in this last post at the Restoration, when he was also chosen chancellor of the university of Oxford, in the room of the Duke of Somerset, and created Baron Hindon, Viscount Cornbury, and Earl of Clarendon.

He was too honest for a court; his plain dealing and integrity ruined him; the king, abandoned to pleasure, was impatient of admonition, and Hyde was not sparing of it: this paved the way for his disgrace. He was prosecuted with great acrimony by the Earl of Bristol, who impeached him in the House of Peers. Finding his party too weak to support him, he retired to Rouen, where he died in 1674. He is said to have been concerned in selling Dunkirk to the French. He was an able lawyer, a great statesman, and an elegant writer. D.

Yet watch their time, that, if you have forgot
They were your mistresses, the world may not:
Decay'd by time and wars, they only prove
Their former beauty by your former love;
And now present, as ancient ladies do,
That, courted long, at length are forced to woo.
For still they look on you with such kind eyes,
As those that see the Church's sovereign rise;
From their own order chose, in whose high state
They think themselves the second choice of fate.
When our great monarch into exile went,
Wit and religion suffer'd banishment. [smoke,
Thus once, when Troy was wrapp'd in fire and
The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook;
They with the vanquish'd prince and party go,
And leave their temples empty to the foe.
At length the Muses stand, restor❜d again
To that great charge which nature did ordain;
And their lov'd Druids seem reviv'd by fate,
While you dispense the laws, and guide the

state.

The nation's soul, our monarch, does dispense,
Through you, to us his vital influence;
You are the channel, where those spirits flow,
And work them higher, as to us they go.

[be,

In open prospect nothing bounds our eye, Until the earth seems join'd unto the sky: So in this hemisphere our utmost view Is only bounded by our king and you: Our sight is limited where you are join'd, And beyond that no farther heaven can find. So well your virtues do with his agree, That, though your orbs of different greatness Yet both are for each other's use dispos'd, His to enclose, and yours to be enclos'd. Nor could another in your room have been, Except an emptiness had come between. Well may he then to you his cares impart, And share his burden where he shares his heart. In you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find. Their share of business in your labouring mind. So when the weary sun his place resigns, He leaves his light, and by reflection shines. Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws Exclude soft mercy from a private course,

In

your tribunal most herself does please; There only smiles because she lives at ease; And like young David, finds her strength the

more,

When disencumber'd from those arms she wore.
Heaven would our royal master should exceed
Most in that virtue, which we most did need;
And his mild father (who too late did find
All mercy vain but what with power was join'd)
His fatal goodness left to fitter times,
Not to increase, but to absolve our crimes:
But when the heir of this vast treasure knew
How large a legacy was left to you,

(Too great for any subject to retain,) He wisely tied it to the crown again: Yet, passing through your hands, it gathers

more,

As streams, through mines, bear tincture of their While empiric politicians use deceit, [ore. Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat; You boldly show that skill which they pretend, And work by means as noble as your end; Which should you veil, we might unwind the As men do nature, till we came to you. [clew, And as the Indies were not found, before Those rich perfumes, which, from the happy shore,

The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd, Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd;

So by your counsels we are brought to view
A rich and undiscover'd world in you.
By you our monarch does that fame assure,
Which kings must have, or cannot live secure :
For prosp'rous princes gain their subjects'
heart,

Who love that praise in which themselves have part.

By you he fits those subjects to obey,

As heaven's eternal monarch does convey
His power unseen, and man to his designs
By his bright ministers the stars, inclines.

Our setting sun* from his declining seat
Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat:
And, when his love was bounded in a few,
That were unhappy that they might be true,
Made you the favourite of his last sad times,
That is a suff'rer in his subjects' crimes:
Thus those first favours you received were sent,
Like heaven's rewards in earthly punishment.
Yet fortune, conscious of your destiny,
E'en then took care to lay you softly by ;
And wrapp'd your fate among her precious
things,

Kept fresh to be unfolded with your king's.
Shown all at once you dazzled so our eyes,
As new-born Pallas did the gods surprise :
When, springing forth from Jove's new-closing
wound,

She struck the warlike spear into the ground;
Which sprouting leaves did suddenly enclose,
And peaceful olives shaded as they rose.

How strangely active are the arts of peace, Whose restless motions less than war's do cease! Peace is not freed from labour, but from noise; And war more force, but not more pains employs :

Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, That like the earth, it leaves our sense behind,

Our setting sun] Charles I. employed him in writing some of his declarations. Dr. J. W.

While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere
That rapid motion does but rest appear.
For, as in nature's swiftness, with the throng
Of flying orbs, while ours is borne along,
All seems at rest to the deluded eye,
Mov'd by the soul of the same harmony,
So, carried on by your unwearied care,
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.
Let envy then those crimes within you see,
From which the happy never must be free;
Envy, that does with misery reside,
The joy and the revenge of ruin'd pride.
Think it not hard, if at so cheap a rate
You can secure the constancy of fate,
Whose kindness sent what does their malice
seem,

By lesser ills the greater to redeem.
Nor can we this weak shower a tempest call,
But drops of heat, that in the sunshine fall.
You have already wearied fortune so,
She cannot farther be your friend or foe;
But sits all breathless, and admires to feel
A fate so weighty, that it stops our wheel.
In all things else above our humble fate,
Your equal mind yet swells not into state,
But, like some mountain in those happy isles,
Where in perpetual spring young nature smiles,
Your greatness shows: no horror to affright,
But trees for shade, and flowers to court the
sight:

Sometimes the hill submits itself a while
In small descents, which do his height beguile;
And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play,
Whose rise not hinders but makes short our way.
Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know,
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below;
And, like Olympus' top, th' impression wears
Of love and friendship writ in former years.
Yet, unimpair'd with labours, or with time,
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.
Thus heavenly I bodies do our time beget,
And measure change, but share no part of it
And still it shall without a weight increase,
Like this new year, whose motions never cease.
For since the glorious course you have begun
Is led by Charles, as that is by the sun,
It must both weightless and immortal prove,
Because the centre of it is above.

↑ Sometimes the hill submits itself a while In small descents]

quà se subducere colles Incipiunt, mollique jugum demittere clivo.' Virgil, Ecl. ix. 8. J. W.

Thus heavenly] Dr. Johnson is of opinion, that in this poem he seems to have collected all his powers.' I should lament if this were true. But then he adds, 'He has concluded with lines of which I think not myself obliged to tell the mean. ing.' Dr. J. W.

SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.*

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1662.

As needy gallants, in the scrivener's hands, Court the rich knaves that gripe their mortgag'd lands;

The first fat buck of all the season's sent,
And keeper takes no fee in compliment;
The dotage of some Englishmen is such,
To fawn on those, who ruin them, the Dutch.
They shall have all, rather than make a war
With those who of the same religion are.
The Straits, the Guiney-trade, the herrings too;
Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle you.
Some are resolved not to find out the cheat,
But, cuckold-like, love them that do the feat.
What injuries soe'er upon us fall,
Yet still the same religion answers all.
Religion wheedled us to civil war,
Drew English blood, and Dutchmen's
would spare.

now

Be gull'd no longer; for you'll find it true,
They have no more religion, faith! than you.
Interest's the god they worship in their state,
And we, I take it, have not much of that.
Well monarchies may own religion's name,
But states are atheists in their very frame.
They share a sin; and such proportions fall,
That like a stink, 't is nothing to them all.
Think on their rapine, falsehood, cruelty, [be.
And that what once they were, they still would
To one well-born th' affront is worse and more,
When he's abus'd and baffled by a boor.
With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do;
They've both ill nature and ill manners too.
Well may they boast themselves an ancient
nation;

For they were bred ere manners were in fashion;
And their new commonwealth has set them free
Only from honour and civility.

Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,
Than did their lubber state mankind bestride.
Their sway became 'em with as ill a mien,
As their own paunches swell above their chin.
Yet is their empire no true growth, but humour
And only two kings' touch can cure the tumour.
As Cato, fruits of Afric did display;†
Let us before our eyes their Indies lay:
All loyal English will like him conclude;
Let Cæsar live, and Carthage‡ be subdu'd.

This poem is no more than a prologue a little altered, prefixed to our author's tragedy of Amboyna. D.

As Cato, &c.] Compare the Annus Mirabilis stan. 173.

"As once old Cato, in the Roman fight,

The tempting fruits of Afric did unfold." T.

1 And Carthage] The very words and allusion by Lord Shaftesbury, in his famous speech against the Dut....

TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE

DUCHESS,§

ON THE MEMORABLE VICTORY GAINED BY THE DUKE OVER THE HOLLANDERS, JUNE 3, 1665, AND ON HER JOURNEY AFTER

WARDS INTO THE NORTH.

MADAM,

WHEN for our sakes your hero you resign'd
To swelling seas, and every faithless wind;
When you releas'd his courage, and set free
A valour fatal to the enemy;
[breast,
You lodg'd your country's cares within your
(The mansion where soft love should only
rest ;)

And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,
The noblest conquest you had gain'd at home.
Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide!
Your honour gave us what your love denied:
And 't was for him much easier to subdue
Those foes he fought with, than to part from

you.

That glorious day, which two such navies saw,
As each unmatch'd might to the world give law.
Neptune, yet doubtful whom he should obey,
Held to them both the trident of the sea:
The winds were hush'd, the waves in ranks

were cast,

As awfully as when God's people past:
Those, yet uncertain on whose sails to blow,
These, where the wealth of nations ought to
flow.

Then with the duke your highness rul'd the day:

[tide

While all the brave did his command obey,
The fair and pious under you did pray.
How powerful are chaste vows! the wind and
You brib'd to combat on the English side.
Thus to your much-lov'd lord|| you did convey
An unknown succour, sent the nearest way.

The Lady to whom our author addresses this poem was daughter to the great Earl of Clarendon. The Duke of York had been some time married to her, before the affair was known either to the king his brother, or to her father. She died in March, 1671, leaving issue one son, named Edgar, and three daughters, Katherine, Mary, and Ann. The two latter lived to sit on the British throne; the two former survived their mother but a short time Bishop Burnet tells us, that she was a woman of knowledge and penetration, friendly and generous, but severe in her resentments. D.

Your much-lov'd lord] James, notwithstanding, had many mistresses. Lady Dorchester, says Lord Orford, vol. iv. p. 319, 4to. said wittily, she wondered for what James II. chose his mistresses. We are none of us handsome, and if we had wit, he has not enough to discover it. And once meeting the Duchess of Portsmouth and Lady Orkney the favourite of King William, at the drawing-room of George I. she exclaimed, "Good God! who would have thought that we three should have met toge ther here!" Dr. J. W.

desired than by,

The greatest of your admirers,

And most humble of your servants,

JOHN DRYDEN,

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE ENSUING POEM,
IN A LETTER

TO THE HON. SIR ROBERT HOWARD.

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, and now instead of an acknowledgement, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a poem. But since you are to bear this persecution, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr; you could never suffer in a nobler cause. For I have chosen the most heroic subject which any poet could desire: I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes of a most just and necessary war: in it, the care, management, and prudence of our king; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and three glorious victories, the result of all. After this, I have, in the fire, the most deplorable, but withal the greatest, argument that can be imagined the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast, and miserable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not serving my king and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged to it; and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonality of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the noblesse 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;

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 Eneids. For this reason (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too severely to the laws of history) I am apt to agree with those, who rank Lucan rather among historians in verse, than Epic poets; in whose room, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more justly be admitted. I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use among 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; all which our fathers practised: ar for the female rhymes, they are still in use

Dryden certainly soon changed his opinion, sification he has here praised: but we shall find it since he never after practised the manner of ver

always his way to assure us, that his present mode of writing is best. Conscious of his own importance, he soared above control; and when he composed a poem, he set it up as a standard of imitation, deducing from it rules of criticism, the prac tice of which he endeavoured to enforce, till either through interest or fancy he was induced to change his opinion. D.