The Works of John Dryden, Volume 9

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

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

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

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

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.

CONSECRATED

TO THE MEMORY OF

HIS HIGHNESS OLIVER,

LATE LORD PROTECTOR OF THIS COMMONWEALTH,

WRITTEN AFTER THE CELEBRATING OF HIS FUNERAL.

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.

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.

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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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.

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

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

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 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.

A POEM,

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

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?

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.

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. 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.

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,

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

TO HIS

SACRED MAJESTY,

A

PANEGYRIC

ON

HIS 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.

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 "Loyal Reflections on his Majesty's Restoration, Procession, and Coronation," who thus apostrophises the Royal Oak:

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 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.

TO

THE LORD-CHANCELLOR HYDE.

presented on new-year's day, 1662.

MY LORD,

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

AND ON

HER JOURNEY AFTERWARDS INTO THE NORTH.

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.

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

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

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 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 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 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 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.

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

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

The greatest of your admirers,

And most humble of your servants,

John Dryden.

Sir,

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

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

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

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

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 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 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 of Horace, Nunc non erat his locus; I knew I addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression, and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defence. But I will not farther bribe your candour, or the reader's. I leave them to speak for me; and, if they can, to make out that character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them.[97]

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

Sir,

The most obedient, and most

Faithful of your servants,

John Dryden.

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

Note I.

The jealousy of commerce between Holland and England recommended a Dutch war to the nation; while the king, insensible to the many advances made him by the States, cherished a hearty detestation at their mode of government, and the manners of their people in general. Some of the regicides had sought shelter in Holland; and it was only by the uncommon alertness of Downes, the British ambassador, that they were seized and sent to England. Nay, De Witt, and other leaders in the States, kept up a secret correspondence with Ludlow, and the other banished republican English, in hopes that their party might yet find work for Charles in his own kingdom. Meanwhile, they extended beyond measure their personal deference for Charles; willing to avoid a war, which, in any event, must be prejudicial to their commerce, and which, from the valour which the English had displayed in 1653, might probably be unfortunate. But the interest of the East Indian and African Companies, both of which were highly favoured by Charles in the beginning of his reign, and the unatoned injuries which they had sustained from the Dutch, were a sufficient counterpoise to every pacific overture on the part of Holland.

Note II.

The first being that which the Parliament declared against the States, and which Cromwell carried on with great success in 1653-4.

Note III.

France, a nation ever remarkable for seeing, almost intuitively, her own interest, was not willing that the domineering spirit of Cromwell should revive under the restored monarchy of England. Richelieu had been forced to comply, to a certain extent, with the rash, and often impolitic, but always energetic and daring, schemes of the Protector, endeavouring, at the same time, to make them subservient to his own purposes. But when there was no danger of England uniting with Spain and Holland against France, it was much more the interest of that kingdom, that the two great naval powers should waste their strength in mutual warfare, or even that France should assist the weaker, than that she should join with the stronger, to oppress the other entirely. Besides, the French faction, with De Witt at their head, was now paramount in Holland; and the indirect effect of any signal success of the English must be the restoration of the house of Orange, so closely allied to Charles II., and the hereditary enemy of France, to the dignity of the office of Stadtholder; an office, which, with the family who held it, has been uniformly respected or degraded, as the English or French faction prevailed in the United Provinces. The French court had therefore various reasons for making the Dutch "lords by sea," since they could give them "law by land;" and these finally weighed so deeply, as to lead them to take a part, though but a cold one, against Britain in this very war.

The Spanish provinces in the Netherlands had always been the object of French cupidity; and, according to count D'Estrade, a scheme was now formed for dividing them between France and Holland; which, however, the French court took great and successful care to conceal from the party who were to be sufferers. This policy Dryden has termed, "rocking the cradle of the babe of Spain."

Note IV.

"As it is on all hands confessed, that never any English, perhaps I might say, any prince, without distinction of countries, understood maritime affairs so well as Charles II. did; so it cannot surprise any intelligent reader, when we assert, that the English navy received very great advantages from his skill and care in matters of this nature. It must indeed be allowed, that he found the fleet, at his restoration, in an excellent situation, and abundance of very able men employed therein; and it must likewise be confessed, to the honour of his government, that he preserved them in their several posts, without any respect to party, which, without question, contributed not a little to the increase of our naval power. How intent he was, for the first ten years of his reign, in promoting whatever had a tendency this way, appears from all the candid histories of those times, from the collections of orders, and other public papers relating to the direction of the navy while the duke of York was admiral, published of late;[203] and, in a short and narrow compass, from the speech made by the lord-keeper Bridgeman, who affirmed, that, from 1660 to 1670, the charge of the navy had never amounted to less than 500,000l. a year."—Lives of the Admirals, Vol. II. p. 331.

Note V.

A comet was seen on the 14th of December, 1664, which lasted almost three months; and another, the 6th of April, 1665, which was visible fourteen days.—Appendix to Sherburn's Translation of Manilius, p. 241. Comets, it is well known, were in extremely bad repute among the astrologers of this period. Lilly, an unquestionable authority, treats these stars with extreme severity; hardly justifiable by his blunt averment, that "truth is truth, and a horse is a horse."[204] Dryden himself, not contented with turning these two blazing stars into farthing candles, has elsewhere, in this poem, charged them with causing the pestilence, and the great fire of London:

The evil opinion which the astrologers entertained of comets, they summed up in these barbarous lines:

Note VI.

This battle, one of the most decisive and glorious fought during the war, our author had already celebrated in the verses to the Duchess, immediately preceding this poem; to which, and to the notes, the reader is referred. The famous Dutch admiral Opdam, in his flag-ship, the Eintracht, blew up, while closely engaged with the duke of York in the Royal Charles. Shortly afterwards, four or five Dutch vessels became unmanageable, fell on board of each other, and were all burned by a single fire-ship. Three others were destroyed in the same condition, and by the same means. Two Dutch vice-admirals were killed, whose ships, bearing away, drew many out of the line, so that Van Tromp, who fought gallantly, had, out of a hundred and three ships, only thirty left, to continue a retreating action. This victory was gained on the 3d. June, 1665.

Note VII.

Sir John Lawson, the gallant seaman here mentioned, rose from a mean station in the navy, to be an admiral under the Parliament. He distinguished himself in the Dutch war of 1653, by the incredible damage which the flying squadron he commanded did to the commerce of the States. He entered afterwards into some cabals with the fifth-monarchy-men, a set of pretended saints, who would hear of nothing but a theocracy. It does not appear, whether, on the part of Lawson, this was an alliance of policy or principle; but it cost the admiral an imprisonment under the vigilant administration of Cromwell. He was set at liberty, and declared by the Parliament vice-admiral of the Channel fleet, which he induced by his influence to declare for the Restoration. The admiral was rewarded for this service by the honour of knighthood, and high trust from his sovereign. In the great battle off Loestoff, sir John Lawson met the glorious death which Dryden has here commemorated. He was rear-admiral to the duke of York, and maintained his high character for valour and seaman-ship till late in the action, when he received a musket-shot in the knee, and by its effects was prevented from enjoying the victory, to which he had greatly contributed. He died a few days after the action, in full enjoyment of his country's triumph, and his own glory.

Note VIII.

The Dutch occasionally conducted their naval expeditions with great and insolent affectation of superiority. Upon one occasion their admiral sailed with a broom at his main-top-gallant-mast, to signify, he had swept the narrow seas of the English. Opdam, as already mentioned, blew up, while along side of the Duke of York. Some imputed this accident to the revenge of a negro slave; others, to some carelessness in the distribution of the ammunition.

Note IX.

This alludes to an action variously judged of, and very much noted at the period. The Turkey and East India fleets of Holland, very richly laden, and consisting, according to D'Estrades, of ten Indiamen, seventeen ships from Smyrna, and twenty-eight from other ports, valued at 25 millions of livres, having gone north about to avoid encountering the English, and finding, that they could not with safety attempt to get into their own harbours even by that circuitous route, had taken shelter in the bay of Bergen. The earl of Sandwich, who now commanded the fleet, the duke of York having gone ashore, dispatched sir Thomas Tydiman with a squadron to attack them. It is said, that the king of Denmark privately encouraged this attempt, on condition of sharing the wealthy spoils of the Hollanders, and that messengers were actually dispatched by him, bearing orders to the governor of Bergen to afford them no protection. If this was so, the English admiral, after lying three days inactive before the bay, ruined the design by a premature attack upon the fleet ere the royal mandate had arrived, when the Danish governor took the natural and generous course of vindicating the neutrality of his harbour, permitted the Dutch to fortify themselves by erecting batteries on shore, and supported them by the fire from the castle, which covered the bay. Notwithstanding this interference of the Danes, which seems to have been unexpected, the English admiral bore into the bay, commenced the assault with great fury, and continued it until a contrary wind, joined to the brave opposition of the Dutch and Danes, obliged him to desist from the attempt. On this subject, we may, I think, conclude, that the attack was premature, if the admiral had good reason to expect the assistance of Denmark, but too long delayed if he was to depend on his own strength. The scheme is thus satirized by Rochester:

Another wit of the time says,

The following more serious account of the Bergen attempt is taken from a poet, who started with our author in the race of panegyric, on the exploits of the naval war. His work is entitled a Poem, being an Essay upon the Present War with the Dutch 1666, by John James.

Note X.

The famous De Witt set sail at the head of the Dutch fleet in person, to relieve the ships, which were still detained in Bergen by the Danish governor. It seems they had found a new enemy in their old protector, who refused to let them sail, until they paid a ransom of 100,000 crowns. The arrival of De Witt made Alfeldt change his note, and the persecuted Hollanders sailed from their harbour of dubious refuge, at no heavier a composition, than leaving the cannon, which they had sent ashore, to mount the land batteries against the English. But in their return, De Witt's large fleet and valuable cargo were scattered in a storm: the vice-admiral, and rear-admiral of the East India fleet, ships of immense value, with several merchant vessels and men of war, were picked up by the English squadrons, and so furnished the tribute which Dryden alludes to in this and the following verses.

Note XI.

Tacitus had informed our author, that the German faith was proverbial, "Nullos mortalium fide aut armis ante Germanos esse." Bertrand Von Der Ghalen, the warlike Bishop of Munster, whom the poet pronounces an exception to this honourable distinction of the Germans, was the only ally of Charles upon the Continent, during this war. He burst into the United States, at the head of a mercenary army of 20,000 men. With this force, he over-ran the province of Overyssell, where his soldiers distinguished themselves less by military valour, than by an exorbitant licence, rapine, and cruelty, which did little honour to their reverend general. But his progress was speedily checked by a French army; and, as the elector of Brandenburgh threatened his states with invasion, he found himself compelled to make a separate peace, assigning as a reason, amongst others, the irregularity of remitting the promised subsidies from England. This is rather inconsistent with Dryden's charge, that "money given, had tempted him to ill;" but in such cases, the party subsidized usually thinks he has received too little for his service, as those, who pay him, are apt to suppose he has had too much. Sir William Temple was dispatched, to prevent the Bishop from making the separate peace here complained of, but he did not arrive till after it had been signed.

Note XII.

France, unwilling to expose her infant navy in a war with England, long endeavoured to mediate between the two great maritime states, and did not undertake to support the Dutch in then perilous conflict, until all means of negociation had been exhausted, and the tottering state of Holland rendered immediate aid necessary. About the same time, Denmark, after much vacillating and double-handed policy, at length openly united with France and Holland, against England. The French declaration of war was made in January 1665-6, and that of Denmark soon afterwards.

Note XIII.

By the French declaration of war, all intercourse was prohibited between the belligerent nations, and the subjects of England were ordered to leave France. But, in the English counter-declaration, this usual prohibitory clause was qualified by the king's declaration, "That all such of the French or Dutch nation remaining in his dominions, as should demean themselves dutifully, without corresponding with his enemies, should be safe in their persons and estates, and free from all molestation and trouble;" and further the king declared, "That if any of the French or Low Country subjects upon any reason should come into his kingdoms, they should be all protected in their persons and estates, and especially those of the reformed religion, whose interest should ever be particularly owned by him."—Ralph's History. Vol. I. p. 159.

Note XIV.

This beautiful and appropriate simile is applied to the liberal supply, voted by the House of Commons, mentioned in the address to the king, at the prorogation in 1665. After reminding the king of their engagement, to assist him with their lives and fortunes against the Dutch, the address proceeds: "The English man useth to speak as he writes, and the English parliament, to speak as they think. No security on earth can be greater than the engagement of your two houses of parliament. Sed quid verba audiam, dum facta videam! As a demonstration of their fidelity, I am commanded to present unto your Majesty this bill, whereby they have given into your Majesty twelve hundred and fifty thousand pounds, to be levied in two years, beginning from Christmas next, by quarterly payments, added to the former royal aid. And, that your Majesty's occasions may be supplied with ready money, we have, by the bill, prepared an undoubted security for all such persons as shall bring their monies unto the public bank of the Exchequer. As the rivers do naturally empty themselves unto the sea, so we hope the veins of gold and silver in this nation will plentifully run into this ocean, for the maintenance of your Majesty's just sovereignty of the seas." It is possible, that the quaint expressions, contained in the last sentence, suggested to Dryden the simile, which so far excels that of the speaker.

Note XV.

The Duke of York being the heir apparent of the crown, it was not judged proper that he should expose himself in a second sea-fight, likely to prove as bloody and dangerous as that of the 3d June 1664. Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle were appointed to the command of the grand fleet, in the absence of the Earl of Sandwich, who was then absent, as ambassador in Spain. These two great men had neither of them been bred to the sea. Prince Rupert was well known by the distinguished part which he had taken for his uncle, Charles I., in the great civil war. When the royal cause became untenable on land, he long endeavoured to maintain it by sea, assuming for that purpose the command of the fleet, which had revolted from the Parliament to the Prince of Wales. The Prince did not relinquish his war against the Commonwealth, and their Spanish allies, until his whole fleet had been destroyed, by severe service and tempests. At the period of the Dutch war, age, and a long train of misfortunes, had chastened the original fire of his temper, and taught him that prudence, which he wanted in the civil wars; when, with his impetuous but ill-disciplined cavalry, he usually bore down all before him, but vanished from the field in pursuit of the vanquished, leaving his less successful friends exposed without support. In other respects, he was fitted for a great commander, both by his natural talents and acquired endowments, and was a great favourite with the nation, because, though a foreigner, he bore a heart truly English.

George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, the restorer of English monarchy, united in his person some very different qualities. With a steady, reserved, and even tardy manner, he was in action fierce and daring to the last degree; adopting the most desperate course, with the air and manner of the most cool deliberation. He had signalized himself against the Dutch, during the war of the commonwealth, being in the chief command of the fleet, when they received the dreadful defeat in 1653, to which our poet alludes in the following lines:

The Duke accepted the joint command with Prince Rupert, in 1665, much against the advice of his friends, who accounted it rash in him to stake upon the issue of a battle the well-earned fame which he had acquired by signal successes in war, and by accomplishing a mighty revolution without bloodshed. But he resolved to exert his talents once more for his country in this trying crisis; a circumstance highly gratifying to the seamen, who crowded to man the fleet, saying, they were sure, "Honest George would see them well fed and duly paid;" a compliment more honourable than many of more courtly expression.

Note XVI.

When Prince Rupert and Albemarle were about to sail from the Downs, they received advice from the king, that the French had fitted out a strong squadron to join with the Dutch fleet, accompanied by a positive order, that Prince Rupert, with seventy men of war, should sail in quest of the French, and fight them before the intended junction. This order occasioned the separation of the fleet; a circumstance, which, as the intelligence concerning the supposed French squadron was totally false, occasioned a heavy, and, but for the bravery of Albemarle, an overwhelming disaster. On the first of June, the Duke descried the Dutch fleet, consisting of seventy six sail, under the famous De Ruyter, whereas he himself had not above fifty. After calling a council of war, in which it was agreed in spite of all odds to engage the enemy, the Duke began the battle, which was continued with incredible fury during that whole day. The event will be found in the ensuing notes.

Note XVII.

The narrative of this fight, published by authority, has this passage. "It is certain, that they must every where have suffered a much greater loss of men than we, from the difference in our manner of fighting; for they, shooting high, and at a great distance, damaged us most in our rigging; and we, on the other hand, forbearing to shoot but when we came near, and then levelling most at the hulls, must needs have done more execution upon their men." The Dutch, on the other hand, did great damage to the rigging of the British squadron by the use of chain-shot, then a new invention:

It is curious to observe how long this characteristic difference, betwixt the English mode of fighting and that of the seamen of all other nations, appears to have distinguished them.

Note XVIII.

The daring spirit of Monk was not more conspicuous at any period of his adventurous life than in this grand and desperate action. Mulgrave avers he saw him charge a pocket-pistol, with the desperate design of firing it into the powder-room, if he should be reduced to extremity. In the course of the action, a chain-shot took away part of his breeches, without disconcerting the steady countenance of the wearer.[206] Having made a sudden tack to avoid a sand bank, his ship carried away her top-mast, so that he was compelled to lie bye for two or three hours to repair that damage, in the face of the enemy.

Note XIX.

Vice-admiral Sir William Berkley endeavoured to fight his way through the enemy, who were five to one. When his ship was a wreck, his crew almost cut to pieces, and himself desperately wounded, he continued to refuse quarter, killed with his own hand several of the enemy who attempted to board, and, at length, when mortally wounded by a musket-ball in the throat, retired into his cabin, where he was found dead, stretched at length upon the table, and covered with the blood which flowed from his wounds.

Note XX.

The Dutch, in the morning of the 2d of June, were reinforced by a fresh squadron of sixteen men of war, giving them a decided and dreadful superiority to the English, whom, at the very first, they had greatly outnumbered.

Note XXI.

The famous speech of Monk is thus given in the Lives of the Admirals.

"If we had dreaded the number of our enemies, we should have fled yesterday; but, though we are inferior to them in ships, we are in all things else superior. Force gives them courage; let us, if we need it, borrow resolution from the thoughts of what we have formerly performed. Let the enemy feel, that, though our fleet be divided, our spirit is entire. At the worst, it will be more honourable to die bravely in our element, than to be made spectacles to the Dutch. To be overcome is the fortune of war, but to fly is the fashion of cowards. Let us teach the world, that Englishmen had rather be acquainted with death than fear."—Vol. 2. p. 367.

Note XXII.

The battle was renewed on the second day, with the same desperate courage, which had distinguished the first battle. The English charged, as was then the expression, twice through the whole Dutch fleet, doing and receiving infinite damage. But this unequal warfare could not last long, "when, at each tack, our little fleet grew less."

The English had by this time lost, at least, nine vessels sunk and taken; and Monk bearing away with twenty six, being all that remained in a condition to fight, was pursued by De Ruyter with nearly three times that number.

Note XXIII.

Fire-ships, now only employed against fleets in harbour, and seldom even then, were at this time used during every great naval engagement. The Dutch wars, especially, were distinguished by the frequent use of these dreadful engines of destruction on both sides. The last instance, I believe, of their being employed in open sea in the British service, occurred in the engagement of Matthews and Lestock in the Mediterranean, where they did little execution. The reason of their disuse appears to be, that modern fleets consist of a few large vessels, which easily communicate by signal, and are little apt to fall into such confusion as that fire-ships can approach them with safety, and with any chance of effect. In the 17th century, fleets consisted of a very great number of comparatively small vessels, sometimes a hundred and upwards, which, from the imperfect nature of their signals, were perpetually getting into disorder, and affording opportunities for the fire-ships to act with all their fearful consequences. In the battle of Southwold Bay, in 1672, the gallant Earl of Sandwich, in his fine ship the Royal James, after sinking three fire-ships, was burned by a fourth; and the contest of the Harry with three fire-ships, in this very battle, will be found in a subsequent note.

Note XXIV.

Dryden has here inverted the order of the Duke's retreat. His disabled or shattered ships were all ordered to stretch a-head, and he himself in the rear, with sixteen of his ablest vessels, his own occupying the centre, sustained all the efforts of the Dutch pursuers. The disabled vessels were therefore the headmost ships, and not placed in the rear, where, in the circumstances, they must inevitably have been taken.

Note XXV.

The simile is taken, not very decently, from 1 Chronicles, Chap. XIII.

Verse 7. "And they carried the ark of God in a new cart, out of the house of Abinadab, and Uzza and Ahio drove the cart.

8. "And when they came to the threshing floor of Chidin, Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled.

10. "And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark; and there he died before God."

Note XXVI.

The English, upon the 3d of June, seemed to have nothing left them save the glory of a desperate defence, when, about noon, a third fleet was descried, crowding every sail to the assistance of the vanquished English, or to complete the triumph of the victorious Hollanders. It might have been the French squadron under the Duke of Beaufort, and the naval power of England was ruined for ever. Albemarle, however, bore boldly down towards the advancing strangers, and, with inexpressible sensations, discovered Prince Rupert, with the white squadron of England, hastening to his relief. Betwixt the fleets of Albemarle and Rupert lay some dangerous shoals, noticed by Dryden in Stanza 114. On one of these, called the Galloper, Admiral Sir George Ayscue was so unfortunate as to strand his vessel, the Royal Prince, one of the largest in the fleet, and forced by his own seamen to strike his flag. He was made prisoner by the Dutch, who burned his ship, and, after leading him in a sort of triumph through various parts of the United Provinces, at length imprisoned him in the castle of Louverstein. Albemarle observing the cause of this disaster, and that the Dutch had sent a squadron of their fleet to the edge of the sands, as if to provoke the Prince, acquainted him by signal and message, that he should by no means bear up against that squadron, there being a dangerous sand between them; and that the appearance of the Dutch in that place was to tempt him into the toil. Skinner's Life of Monk. The English fleets, however, formed a junction, which completed the business of the third day's action.

Note XXVII.

On the morning of the 4th of June, this long and bloody contest was again renewed. The English were now the assailants, as in the first action. Prince Rupert, with his fresh squadron, led the van, and was followed by Albemarle. The fleets fought their way five times through and through each other; when, after much and desperate fighting on both sides, both the English admirals were disabled, and the combatants, after four days constant and bloody fighting, finally separated, as if by mutual consent.

Note XXVIII.

The poet is here more modest than the court of England, who claimed an absolute victory. Ralph says, with some justice, that "to recount the precise issue of this unparalleled engagement, and ascertain the loss on either side, seems to be alike impossible. Both nations claimed the honour of the victory, and both affronted the Common Father of the Universe with their impious acknowledgments, when they ought to have approached Him in sackcloth and ashes, for having wantonly sacrificed so many innocent, gallant, and meritorious men, in a dispute that common sense, and common honesty, might have adjusted in half an hour." History, Vol. I. p. 132. De Witt himself, the sworn foe of England, bore the following remarkable testimony to the gallantry of her seamen: "If the English were beat, their defeat did them more honour than all their former victories. No fleet but theirs could, after the first day's fight, have been brought to engage again. English men may be killed, English ships may be burned, but English courage is invincible." Quoted, in the "Lives of the Admirals," from a MS. history by Wicquefort.

Note XXIX.

The Duke of Albemarle was not more remarkable for bravery in action, than for his hatred of all corrupt practices in paying and victualling the navy. His presence accelerated the necessary repairs, while the sternness of his discipline repressed all those hateful peculations, by which the servants of the public sometimes betray their trust, and sap her dearest bulwark. The satirist alludes to this in the following lines, which he puts in the mouth of the Duchess of Albemarle, hailing her husband's return to port:

Note XXX.

It was believed by the ancient chemists, that gold (the noblest of metals) was formed in the earth by a sort of chemical process, and might be detected in an imperfect state; in which case the miner's only resource was to close up the vein, and leave Nature to perfect the great work. It was this rooted and inveterate belief which caused so many to give faith to the fable of alchemy. For, if gold was thus gradually formed in the veins of the earth, the alchemist had only to discover the process which Nature pursued in her task, and he obtained the grand secret.

Note XXXI.

The former vessel, called the London, had been destroyed by fire. The city now built a new vessel, under the name of the Loyal London, and presented her as a free gift to Charles. This ship was a favourite theme of the poets of the day:

Another bard not only compares the ship to the city from which she derived her name, but proves the captain to be the Lord Mayor, with this slight difference, that he carries his own sword, instead of having a sword-bearer to take that trouble. The passage occurs in a "Poem upon his Majesty's late declarations for toleration, and publication of war against the Hollander, by T. S. of Grey's Inn, Esq."

This second London had also the ill hap to perish by fire, being burned by the Dutch, in the disgraceful surprise of Chatham, 1667.

Note XXXII.

In this and the preceding stanza, our author, from the improved arts of ship-building and navigation, is led to compliment the Royal Society, then newly instituted, of which he was himself a member.

Note XXXIII.

Notwithstanding the exertions made by Charles and his ministers, and celebrated with such minuteness by the poet, the Dutch fleet, which needed fewer repairs, was first at sea, and their admirals braved the coast of England, dating letters and dispatches, "From the fleet in the mouth of the river of London." The English were about a fortnight behind their enemies in preparation, owing chiefly to the difficulty of manning their fleet.

Note XXXIV.

Sir Thomas Allen, vice-admiral of the White, and, as I believe, an old cavalier, opened the war by an action of some consequence in the Mediterranean. With a squadron of eight or nine ships, he attacked the Dutch homeward-bound Smyrna fleet, near Cadiz; consisting of forty merchant vessels, many of which were in these days capable of a stout resistance, and a convoy of four ships of war. Allen defeated them totally, killed their commodore, Brackel, took or sunk four of their richest ships, and drove the rest into the bay of Cadiz. He commanded the van in the engagement of July 25, 1666.

Note XXXV.

Sir Robert Holmes, rear-admiral of the White, is called the General's Achates, from the eager fidelity with which he supported Albemarle. The injuries which the African company sustained from the Dutch, and particularly their taking Cape Corfe Castle, had occasioned Sir Robert Holmes' being dispatched to the coast of Guinea in 1661, for the purpose of making reprisals. Having done them some damage on this visit, he returned for the same purpose in 1663; when he took Goree, and the Dutch merchant-men lying there, of whom he made prize, though the nations were not actually at war. He was repulsed from St George Del Mina, the chief of the Dutch forts on the coast of Africa, but was successful in taking Cape Corfe, the principal object of his voyage. He also took from the Dutch a colony in North America, called Nova Belgia, and bestowed on it the present name of New York. The Dutch preferred a heavy complaint against Holmes, for these warlike aggressions. But it would appear, that, if he had exceeded his instructions, he had not disobliged those by whom they were given; for, although he was committed to the Tower, he was speedily liberated, upon pleading, that he had found, on board a Dutch prize, instructions to seize the English fort at Coromantin.

Note XXXVI.

Sir Edward Spragge, knighted by King Charles, for his gallant behaviour on the 3d of June 1665, was one of the best and bravest officers whom the English navy (Leonum Nutrix) has ever produced. He distinguished himself in the battle of four days, already celebrated; and in that of the 25th of July, which Dryden is proceeding to detail, he carried a flag under Sir Jeremiah Smith, admiral of the Blue. The brunt of the battle fell upon this division, because, itself the weakest, it was encountered by that of Van Tromp, the strongest and best manned squadron of the enemy. Spragge afterwards distinguished himself by defending Sheerness, and by chastising the Algerines. But the last scene of his life crowned all his naval achievements. In the battle of the 11th of August 1672, Tromp and he engaged like personal enemies, so that the conflict resembled less a chance rencontre in the confusion of battle, than a fixed and appointed duel between these admirals. Both were forced to shift their flag aboard other vessels, and instantly renewed with the utmost fury their individual contest. In shifting his flag for the second time, a chance cannon-ball pierced Sir Edward Spragge's barge, and that gallant admiral was drowned, to the grief, it is said, of Tromp, his generous enemy. He left behind him, according to the account both of friends and foes, the character of one of the bravest men and best commanders who ever fought at sea; nor was he less lamented by his friends on shore, for those civilized manners, and that gentle disposition, which almost always attend enlightened valour.

Note XXXVII.

This alludes to an exploit of Sir John Harman, who commanded the Henry in the four days combat. He belonged to the Blue squadron, which broke through the Dutch fleet; but, the Swiftsure and Essex being taken, his single vessel had great part of the Zealand division to contend with.—"His ship being disabled, the Dutch Admiral, Evertz, called to Sir John, and offered him quarter, who answered, 'No, sir, it is not come to that yet,' and immediately discharged a broadside; by which Evertz was killed, and several of his ships damaged, which so discouraged their captains, that they quitted the Henry, and sent three fire-ships to burn her. The first grappled on her starboard quarters, and there began to arise so thick a smoke, that it was impossible to perceive where the irons were fixed. At last, when the ship began to blaze, the boatswain of the Henry threw himself on board of it, discovered, and removed the grappling irons, and in the same instant, jumped on board his own ship. He had scarce done this, before another fire-ship was fixed on the larboard; this did its business so effectually, that the sails were quickly on fire, which frightened the chaplain and fifty men over board. Upon this, Sir John drew his sword, and threatened to kill any man who should attempt to provide for his own safety, by leaving the ship. This obliged them to endeavour to put out the fire, which in a short time they did; but the cordage being burned, the crossbeam fell down, and broke Sir John's leg; at which instant, the third fire-ship bore down, but four pieces of cannon, laden with chain-shot, disabled her. So that, after all, Sir John brought his ship into Harwich, where he repaired her as well as he could; and, notwithstanding his broken leg, put to sea again to seek the Dutch."[207]

Note XXXVIII.

Sir Frescheville Hollis, mentioned in this verse, was the son of Frescheville Hollis, of Grimsby, by his second wife, Mrs Elizabeth Molesworth. His father signalized himself in the civil wars, as appears from a sign manual of Charles II., dated Jersey, December 4th, 1649, authorising him to bear, or, two piles gules, quarterly, with his paternal coat, and setting forth,—that in parliament he strenuously asserted the king's prerogative; and, being colonel of a regiment in time of the rebellion, behaved with exemplary valour against the rebels, in the several battles of Kenton, Banbury, Brantford, Newark, Atherton, Bradford, and Newbury; and when the rebels had possessed themselves of the chief places of England, he with no less fortitude engaged with those that were besieged by them in Colchester.

How Sir Frescheville Hollis' mother merited the title of a muse, or by what writings he signalised himself, I am really ignorant. There were few men of quality who did not at this time aspire to something of a literary character. As the taste for conceits began to decay before the turn for ridicule and persiflage, which characterised the wits of the court of Charles, Dryden was often ridiculed for the pedigree he has assigned to this literary champion. Buckingham alludes to it in his "Poetical Reflections on the Poem of Absalom and Achitophel," where he calls Dryden, a

The noble author of this flat parody informs us, by marginal notes, that the "Father Publican" means a committee man, and adds on the word Hero, "See's Sir Denzil Hollis." By which, by the way, we may notice, that his Grace's accuracy was much of a piece with his poetry; for the hero's name was Frescheville.

Sir Frescheville Hollis was a man of high spirit and enterprise. He lost an arm in the great sea-fight of the 3d June, a circumstance alluded to in the verses. He was Rear-Admiral of the squadron, with which Sir Robert Holmes attacked the Dutch Smyrna fleet, near the Isle of Wight, in 1671-2. Finally, he was killed in the desperate action off Southwould bay, 28th May, 1672. There is a remarkable passage in his will, made on the 17th May, 1665; by which, after stating he was going to sea, as commander of a man-of-war, he directs,—"In case my body should be brought to land to be buried, I desire that some stone may be laid over me, with this inscription:—Know, reader, whatsoever thou be, if I had lived, it was my intent not to have owed my memory to any other monument but what my sword should raise for me of honour and victory."—Collins' Historical Collections of the families of Cavendish, Hollis, &c. page 74.

Note XXXIX.

The particulars of the memorable engagement, thus introduced and described in the following stanzas, are thus narrated in the "Lives of the Admirals." Vol. 11.

"On the 25th of July, about noon, the English came up with the enemy, off the North-foreland. Sir Thomas Allen with the White squadron began the battle, by attacking Evertz. Prince Rupert and the Duke, about one in the afternoon, made a desperate attack upon de Ruyter, and, after fighting about three hours, were obliged to go on board another ship. In this space, the White squadron had entirely defeated their enemies; Admiral Evertz, his vice-admiral de Vries, and his rear-admiral Kœnders, being all killed, the vice-admiral of Zealand taken, and another ship of 50 guns burnt. The prince and duke fought de Ruyter ship to ship, disabled the Guelderland of 66 guns, which was one of his seconds, killed the captain of another, and mortally wounded two more, upon which the Dutch squadron began to fly. However, vice-admiral Van-Nes stood bravely by de Ruyter, and received great damage; yet, being at last deserted by all but seven ships, they yielded to necessity, and followed the rest of their fleet as fast as they could. De Ruyter's ship was so miserably torn, and his crew so dispirited and fatigued, that he could have made but little resistance, and nothing but the want of wind hindered the English from boarding him. As for admiral Van Tromp, he was engaged with Sir Jeremiah Smith at a distance, and so could not assist his friends. As his was the strongest squadron of the Dutch fleet, and Smith's the weakest of the English, we had not great advantage on that side; yet some we had, his vice-admiral's ship being disabled, and his rear-admiral killed; which, however, did not hinder his fighting it out with much bravery, as long as there was light.

"Admiral de Ruyter continued his retreat that night, and the next day Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle pursued him with part of the Red squadron, as fast as the wind would permit. A fire-ship bore down upon the Dutch admiral, and missed very little of setting him on fire. They then cannonaded again, when de Ruyter found himself so hard pressed, and his fleet in such eminent danger, that, in a fit of despair, he cried out, 'My God, what a wretch am I! amongst so many thousand bullets, is not there one to put me out of my pain?' By degrees, however, he drew near their own shallow coast, where the English could not follow him. Upon this occasion, Prince Rupert insulted the Dutch admiral, by sending a little shallop, called the Fanfan, with two small guns on board, which, being rowed near de Ruyter's vessel, fired upon him for two hours together; but at last a ball from the Dutch admiral so damaged his contemptible enemy, that the crew were forced to row, and that briskly, to save their lives. The enemy being driven over the flats into the wylings, the English went to lie at Schonevelt, the usual rendezvous of the Dutch fleets."

Note XL.

Michael Adrien de Ruyter, a gallant and successful admiral, was born in 1607, chosen lieutenant-admiral of the States in 1666, and died in 1676, being mortally wounded in an engagement with the French in Sicily. Dryden compares him to Terentius Varro, who commanded the Romans at the battle of Cannæ, and to whom, after that dreadful defeat, the senate voted their thanks,—"Quia de Republica non desperasset."

Note XLI.

The battle was fought on the 25th of July, which is the day of St James, the tutelar saint of Spain. From this circumstance, the poet takes an opportunity, in the following stanzas, to inculcate a political doctrine, which the war with Holland and France had rendered fashionable. It contains an impeachment of the policy of Queen Elizabeth, who, by supporting the Netherlands against Philip of Spain, laid, as our author contends, the foundation for rebellion, and the establishment of a republic in England. The power of the Spanish monarchy, the poet avers, was slower in its growth, and a less reasonable object of jealousy to the English, than the more active and energetic governments of France and Holland.

Note XLII.

The poet here follows up the doctrine he has laid down, by a very bold averment, that Henry IV. of France, and the first Prince of Orange, instructed in sound policy by their translation to the blessed, would, the one disown the war against Henry III. into which he was compelled to enter to vindicate his right of succession to the crown against the immediate possessor, and the other detest the Dutch naval power, although the only means which could secure his country's independence.

Note XLIII.

Immediately after the battle of the 25th, the victorious fleet of England sailed for the Dutch coast, to attack the islands of Vlie and Schelling; for which purpose, a squadron, well manned, and with a sufficient number of fire-ships, was detached under the command of Sir Robert Holmes. "On the 8th of July, about seven in the morning, this squadron weighed, divided from the rest of the fleet, and came to anchor about a league from the Buoys, where they met the prince's pleasure-boat, called the Fanfan, who had discovered in the harbour a considerable number of ships near the Vlie, which proved to be 170 merchant-ships, the least of which was not less than 200 ton burden, with two men of war, which had lately conveyed near a hundred of the aforesaid ships from the northward, homeward-bound, some from the Straits, some from Guinea, some from Russia, some from the East countries; the rest were outward-bound ships, all of which likewise were very richly laden.

"Sir Robert Holmes, considering that, if he should proceed, as his design was first, to attempt a descent upon the land, that numerous fleet might possibly pour in such numbers of men, as might render the success hazardous, resolved to begin with the ships; and, accordingly, having ordered the Advice and the Hampshire to lie without the Buoys, he weighed with the rest of his fleet; and, the wind being contrary, he turned, with much ado, into Schelling road, where the Tyger came to anchor, and immediately Sir Robert went on board the Fanfan, and hoisted his flag, upon which the officers came on board him, and there it was ordered that the Pembroke, which drew the least water, with the fire-ships, should fall in amongst the enemy's fleet, with what speed they could. Captain Brown, with his fire-ships, chose very bravely to lay the biggest man of war aboard, and burned him downright. Another fire-ship, running up at the same time to the other man of war, he, backing his sails, escaped the present execution of the fire-ship, but so as to run himself by it on ground, where he was presently taken by some of the long-boats, and fired. The other three fire-ships clapped the three great merchant-men on board, which carried flags in their main-tops, and burned them. This put their fleet into great confusion, which Sir Robert Holmes perceiving, made a signal for all the officers to come on board again, and presently gave orders that Sir William Jennings, with all the boats that could be spared, should take the advantage, and fall in, sink, burn, and destroy all they could, but with a strict command that they should not plunder. The execution was so well followed, each captain destroying his share, some twelve, some fifteen merchant-men, that, of the whole fleet, there escaped not above eight or nine ships, one of which was a Guinea man of war, of 24 guns, and three small privateers. These ships, being driven up into a narrower corner of the stream, served to protect four or five merchant men that were a-head of them, where it was not possible for our boats to come at them, though even these few were much damaged.

"The next day, being the 10th of August, it was found more expedient to land upon the coast of Schelling, than upon Vlie, which was performed by Sir Robert Holmes, with eleven companies, in his long-boats, and he landed with little or no opposition. When he came on shore, he left one company to secure his boats, and with the other ten marched three miles up into the country, to the capital town, called Brandaris, in which there were upwards of a thousand fine houses; where, keeping five companies upon the skirt of the town, to prevent any surprise of the enemy, he sent the other five to set fire to the place: But, finding them somewhat slow to execute that order, and fearing they might be tempted to forget themselves in the pillage, he was himself forced to set fire to some houses to the windward, the sooner to dispatch the work, and hasten his men away, which burned with such violence, that in half an hour's time most part of the town was in a light flame. This place was reported, by those who were found in it, to have been very rich, and so it appeared by some of the soldiers' pockets; but very few people were to be seen there, having had time to escape from the danger, except some old men and women, who were used by the English, after they fell into their hands, with all possible gentleness and humanity.

"This blow greatly affected the Dutch, who, according to their own accounts, suffered the loss of near six millions of guilders; and, if we take the ships into this computation, they confess they were losers to the amount of eleven millions, or one million, one hundred thousand pounds sterling."—Lives of the Admirals, Vol. II. p. 269, from the account of Sir Robert Holmes.

Note XLIV.

The dreadful Fire of London befel almost ere the inhabitants had done with rejoicing over the flames which consumed the fleet at Vlie, and the town of Brandaris. This horrible conflagration took its rise in the house of one Farryner, an obscure baker in Pudding-lane, near New Fish Street. It broke out on the night preceding the 2d September, 1666, with astonishing fury; and the houses in the lane, and its neighbourhood, being entirely constructed of timber, warped, and dried by a long drought, its progress was soon so rapid, that the inhabitants were content to escape from it with their lives, without attempting to save their moveables, far less to intercept the progress of the conflagration. In the morning, the attempts to stop a fire, now become so general, and which raged amidst such combustible buildings, proved totally ineffectual. The narrowness of the streets, and the nature of the houses was such, that, where one house was on fire, the devastation soon became general; and a strong east wind (a Belgian wind, as Dryden calls it), prevailing through the whole day, the flames, by various means of approach, occupied and surrounded the greater part of the city, properly so called. The magazines of naval stores, pitch, tar, hemp, dried wood, and other materials for shipping, which occupied the yards by the side of the river, soon caught the flames, to which they afforded a most horrible supply of strength and nourishment. All help seemed now to be in vain; for it is one thing to quench a fire, which has only occupied a few houses, and against which all the skill and exertion of those best qualified to check its progress can be at once directed, and another to extinguish a conflagration which occupies many streets, and which, if quelled in one spot where skillfully opposed, is triumphant in many others, where its ravages are only the object of wonder and lamentation to the heartless and ignorant citizens. At length universal destruction and dismay prevented the adoption of uniform or effectual measures against the destruction which seemed to impend in every quarter. The progress and extinction of this horrible fire will be learned from the text, and the following notes.

Note XLV.

This most beautiful stanza requires but little illustration. London Bridge, as early as Shakespeare's time, was a place allotted for affixing the heads of persons executed for treason. Thus Catesby to Hastings,

The skulls of the regicides, of the fifth-monarchy insurgents, of Philips, Gibb, Tongue, and other fanatics executed for a conspiracy in 1662, were placed on the Bridge, Towerhill, Temple-bar, and other conspicuous places of elevation; that of the famous Hugh Peters, in particular, was stationed upon the bridge. The Sabbath notes, imputed to this assembly of fanatic spectres, are the infernal hymns chaunted at the witches' Sabbath; a meeting, concerning which antiquity told and believed many strange things.

Note XLVI.

Dryden, in the hurry of composition, has here made a slight inaccuracy. It was not Simois, but Xanthus, otherwise called Scamander, who, having undertaken to drown Achilles, was nearly dried up by the devouring fires of Vulcan. He called, indeed, upon his brother river to assist him in his undertaking, but Simois appears to have maintained a prudent neutrality. See the Iliad, Book XXI.

Note XLVII.

The king, by his conduct during this emergency, gained more upon the hearts of his subjects, than by any action of his life. Completely awakened, by so dreadful an emergence, from his usual lethargy of pleasure and indolence, he came into the now half-burned city, with his brother and the nobility, and gave an admirable specimen of what his character was capable, when in a state of full exertion. Not contented with passive expressions of sorrow and sympathy, he issued the most prudent orders, and animated their execution by his presence. His anxiety was divided betwixt the task of stopping the conflagration, and the no less necessary and piteous duty of relieving those thousands, who, having lost their all by the fire, had neither a morsel of food, nor a place of shelter. For the one purpose, he spared neither commands, threats, example, nor liberal rewards, which he lavished with his own hand; for the other, he opened his naval and military magazines, and distributed among the miserable and starving sufferers, the provisions designed for his fleet and army. In fine, such were his exertions, and so grateful were his people, that they deemed his presence had an almost supernatural power, and clamourously entreated not to be deprived of it, when, after the fire was quenched, he was about to leave London.

Note XLVIII.

"So many houses were now burning together, that water could not be had in sufficient quantities where it was wanted. The only remedy left was, to blow up houses at convenient distances from those which were on fire, and to make, by that means, void spaces, at which the fury of the conflagration should spend itself for want of fuel. But this means also proved ineffectual; for the fire, in some places, made its way by means of the combustible part of the rubbish of the ruined houses, not well cleared, and in others, by flakes of burning matter of different kinds, which were carried through the air, by the impetuous wind, to great distances. And the city being at that time almost all built of very old timber, which had besides been parched and scorched by the sun the whole preceding summer, one of the hottest and dryest that had been ever known, it came to pass that, wherever such fiery matter chanced to light, it seldom wanted fit fuel to work and feed upon."—Baker's Chronicle, p. 642. Edit. 1730.

Note XLIX.

The Duke of York was as active and vigilant as his brother upon this melancholy occasion. His exertions and seasonable directions, prevented the fire from breaking out afresh from the Inner Temple, after it had been got under in other places of the town. Yet the idle calumny, which stigmatized the Roman Catholics, as the authors of the conflagration, was often extended to James himself. In that tissue of falsehood and misrepresentation, which Titus Oates entitled, "A Picture of the Late King James," he charges him "with beholding the flames with joy, and the ruins with much rejoicing," p. 30, and says he would have impeached him, as an accessary to the raising of that fire, had he not promised to Prince Rupert to bring forward no accusation that could hurt the king; "for I could not charge you," says he, "but must charge him too." In which case, by the way, this able witness would have made the king accessary to his own murder, which, according to Oates' own evidence, was to have been perpetrated during the fire, had not the hearts of the Jesuits failed them, on seeing the zeal with which he laboured to extinguish it.

Note L.

In this, and foregoing verses, the miseries of those, whose houses were consumed, are strikingly painted. Many fled for refuge to the houses of friends, and lodged there the remnants of their property, which they had been able to save. These were often forced to abandon their places of asylum, by a fresh invasion of the devouring element, and to yield up to its rage all which they had before rescued. At length, distrusting safety in the city itself, the villages in its vicinity soon became filled with fugitives, till, in the end, no place of refuge was left but the open fields, where thousands remained for several nights, without shelter, watching the progress of the flames, which were consuming the metropolis.

Note LI.

In 1665, the plague broke out in London with the most dreadful fury. In one year, upwards of 90,000 inhabitants were cut off by this frightful visitation. The citizens were driven into the country, and so desolate was the metropolis, through death and desertion, that the grass is said actually to have grown in Cheapside.

Note LII.

The poet puts into the prayer of Charles the solemn and striking choice of David, when, as a penalty for his presumption in numbering the children of Israel, he was compelled to make an election between three years famine, three years subjugation to his enemies, or three days pestilence. "And David said unto God, I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the Lord, for very great are his mercies; but let me not fall into the hand of man." Dryden had already, in Stanza 265, paraphrased the patriotic prayer of David: "Let thy hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house, but not on thy people, that they should be plagued." Chron. Book I. ch. xxi.

Note LIII.

Waller had addressed a poem to Charles I. upon his Majesty's repairing St Paul's. Denham, in the commencement of "Cowper's Hill," alludes both to the labours of the monarch, and of the poet:

The fire of London, however, neither respected the labours of Charles, the song of Waller, nor the prophecy of Sir John Denham. During the conflagration, as St Paul's was in an insulated situation, and constructed of strong stone-work, it was long thought to be in no danger from the fire, and many of the sufferers employed it as a place of deposit for the wreck of their goods and fortunes. But the whole adjoining buildings in the churchyard being in a light flame, it became impossible, even for the massy fabric of the cathedral, to resist the combustion. The wood arches and supports being consumed, the stone-work gave way with a most horrible crash, and buried the whole edifice in a pile of smoking ruins.

Note LIV.

The inscription on the monument states, that the fire consumed eighty-nine churches, the city-gates, Guildhall, many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, a vast number of stately edifices, thirteen thousand two hundred dwelling houses, four hundred streets. Three hundred and seventy-three acres within the city walls, and sixty-three acres and three roods without the walls, remained heaped with the smoking ruins of the houses, which had once occupied them.

Note LV.

About ten o'clock of the evening of Tuesday the 5th of September, after the fire had raged for three days, the high east wind, which had been the means of forcing on its ravages, began to abate, and, in proportion, the efforts used to stop the progress of the flames became effectual. In some places, houses being opportunely blown up prevented the further spreading of the fire; in others, the flames, spent for lack of fuel, seemed to go out of themselves. On the morning of the 6th, the conflagration was totally extinguished.

The prejudices of the times assigned different causes for this tragical event, according to the political principles of the discordant parties. Most agreed, that the fire was raised by design; for, although the multitude are content to allow, that a private person may die suddenly of a natural disorder, or that a cottage may be consumed by accidental fire; yet the death of a king, or the conflagration of a metropolis, must, according to their habits of thinking, arise from some dark and dismal plot, planned, doubtless, by those, whose religious or political sentiments are most remote from their own. The royalists accused the fanatics; the puritans the papists, of being the raisers of this dreadful fire. Some suspected even the king and duke of York; though it is somewhat difficult to see any advantage they could derive from burning a city, which had been just loading them both with treasures. The Monument, whose inscription adopts one of these rash opinions, is a more stately, but not a more respectable, record of prejudice, than the stone figure in Smithfield, whose tablet declares, the fire must have been specially and exclusively a judgment for the crime of Gluttony, since it began in Pudding-Lane, and ended in Pye-Corner!

An event so signally calamitous called forth, as may be readily supposed, the condolence and consolations, such as they were, of the poets of the day. One author, who designs himself J. A. Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, poured forth verses "Upon the late lamentable Fire in London, in an humble imitation of the most incomparable Mr Cowley his Pindaric strain." This usurper of the Theban lyre informs us, that

Besides this choice imitation of Cowley, we have "Londini quod reliquum, or London's Remains," in Latin and English; "Actio in Londini Incendiarios, the Conflagration of London, poetically delineated;" Londinenses Lacrymæ, or "London's tears mingled with her ashes;" and, doubtless, many other poems on the same memorable event.

Note LVIII.

When Cyrus conquered Babylon, he restored the Jewish tribes to their native land, after seventy years captivity. The mixed feelings, with which they began to rebuild their ruined temple and city, are emphatically described in the book of Ezra, chap. iii.

"11. And they sung together by course, praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever towards Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

"12. But many of the priests and Levites, and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice, and many shouted loud for joy.

"13. So that the people could not discover the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off."

Note LIX.

According to the jargon of astrology, a trine, or triangular conjunction of planets, was supposed to be eminently benign to mankind. To this Dryden adds the circumstance of the planet Jove being in his ascension, as a favourable aspect. Our poet was not above being seriously influenced by these fooleries; and I dare say will be found, on reference to any almanack of 1666, to have given a very accurate account of the relative state of the heavenly bodies in that year.

Note LX.

It is here truly stated, that the calamity of the great fire was ultimately attended with excellent consequences to the city. By a proclamation from the king, of an arbitrary and dictatorial nature, but which the emergency seems to have justified, the citizens were prohibited from rebuilding their houses, except with solid materials, and upon such plans as should be set forth by a committee appointed for the purpose. In this manner, the endless disputes about property, whose boundaries were now undistinguishable, were at once silenced, and provision was made for the improvements in widening the streets, and prohibiting the use of lath and timber, of which materials the houses were formerly composed. "Had the king," says Hume, "been enabled to carry his power still farther, and made the houses be rebuilt with perfect regularity, and entirely upon one plan, he had contributed much to the convenience, as well as embellishment, of the city. Great advantages, however, have resulted from the alterations, though not carried to the full length. London became much more healthful after the fire. The plague, which used to break out with great fury twice or thrice every century, and indeed which was always lurking in some corner or other of the city, has scarcely ever appeared since that calamity."—Vol. VII. p. 4l6.

The following poem has been uniformly and universally admired, not only as one of Dryden's most excellent performances, but as indisputably the best and most nervous political satire that ever was written. It is said to have been undertaken at the command of Charles; and if so, no king was ever better obeyed. The general state of parties in England during the last years of the reign of Charles II. has been often noticed, particularly in the notes on "The Duke of Guise," Vol. VI. Shaftesbury, dismissed from the administration, had bent his whole genius for intrigue, to effect the exclusion of the Duke of York from the crown of England, even at the risque of a civil war. Monmouth had thrown himself into the arms of the same party, flattered by the prospect of occupying that place from which his uncle was to be excluded. Every thing seemed to flatter his ambition. The pretensions of the Duke's daughters must necessarily have been compromised by the exclusion of their father. At any rate, they were not likely to be supported by a powerful party, while Monmouth, by his own personal influence, and that of Shaftesbury, was at the head of all, whom zeal for religion, disappointed ambition, restlessness of temper, love of liberty, or desire of licentiousness, had united in opposition to the measures of the court. Every engine which judgement or wit could dictate, was employed by either party to place their cause in the most favourable light, and prejudice that of their adversaries. Among these, the poem which follows was the most powerful, and the most successful. The time of its appearance was chosen with as much art, as the poem displays genius. Shaftesbury had been committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason on the 2d July, and the poem was published a few days before a bill of indictment was presented against him. The sensation excited by such a poem, at such a time, was intense and universal.

It has been hitherto generally supposed, that the idea of applying to Charles and Monmouth the apt characters and story of Absalom and Achitophel, and indeed the general plan of drawing a poetical parallel from scriptural history to modern times, was exclusively our author's. This appears to be a mistake. So far back as 1679, some favourer of Lord Stafford and of the Catholic cause ventured to paraphrase the story of Naboth's vineyard, and to apply it to the condemnation of that unfortunate nobleman for the Catholic plot. In that piece, the scripture names and characters are given to the objects of the poet's satire, precisely on the plan adopted by Dryden in "Absalom and Achitophel,"[208] as the reader will perceive from the extracts in the note. Not only had the scheme of a similar poem been conceived, but the very passage of Scripture, adopted by Dryden as the foundation of his parable, had been already applied to Charles and his undutiful son. There appeared, in 1680, a small tract, called "Absalom's Conspiracy, or the Tragedy of Treason," which, as it seems to have furnished the general argument of Dryden's poem, and has been unnoticed by any former commentator, I have subjoined to these introductory remarks. (See p. 205.)

In a "Letter also to his grace the duke of Monmouth, this 15 July 1680, by a true lover of his person and the peace of the kingdom," the same adaptation is thus warmly urged.

"These are the men (speaking of Monmouth's advisers) that would, with Joab, send for the wise woman to persuade king David to admit of a return for Absalom his son; and when they had effected it, leave him to himself, till anger and passion had set fire to the field of Joab. These are the men, that would have advised Absalom to make chariots, and to take fifty men to run before him, and appoint his time and station beside the way of the gate, to enquire of the tribes of Israel, that came up to the king for justice, what their controversies and matters were. These are the men, that would have advised young Absalom, that since David had appointed no one to hear their grieveances (which was a political lye), and relieve their oppressions, to wish, "Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man that hath any suit or cause might come to me, and I would do him justice!" In short, these unprincipled men were they that set on Absalom to steal away the hearts of the people from the king; these are they, that advised him to go to Hebron to pay his vow; and these are the men, that led him into actual rebellion against his father, and to be destroyed by some of the very hands that had assisted him in those pernicious counsels." Somers' Tracts, p. 111.

The parallel, from its aptness to the circumstances, appears to have become popular; for Shaftesbury was distinguished by the nickname of Achitophel[209] before the appearance of the following poem.

On the merits of Dryden's satire, all critics have been long agreed. "If it be considered," says Dr Johnson, "as a poem political and controversial, it will be found to comprise all the excellencies of which the subject is susceptible; acrimony of censure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of character, variety and vigour of sentiment, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to such a height as can scarcely be found in any other English composition." The more deeply we examine the plan of the piece, the more reason we will find to applaud the exquisite skill of the author. In the character of Absalom, particularly, he had a delicate task to perform. He was to draw the misguided and offending son, but not the hardened reprobate; for Charles, notwithstanding his just indignation, was to the end of his reign partial to this unfortunate prince, and anxious to detach him from his desperate counsellors. Dryden has, accordingly, liberally transferred all the fouler part of the accusation to the shoulders of Achitophel, while he is tender of the fame of Absalom. We may suppose, that, in doing so, the poet indulged his own feelings: the Duchess of Buccleuch had been his most early patroness, and he had received personal favours from Monmouth himself,[210] These recollections must have had weight with him, when engaged in composing this party poem; and we may readily believe him, when he affirms, that David could not be more tender of the young man's life, than he would be of his reputation. In many of the other characters, that of Buckingham in particular, a certain degree of mercy is preserved, even amid the severity of satire. The follies of Zimri are exposed to ridicule; but his guilt, (and the age accused him of most foul crimes,) is left in the shade. Even in drawing the character of Achitophel, such a degree of justice is rendered to his acute talents, and to his merits as a judge, that we are gained by the poet's apparent candour to give him credit for the truth of the portrait in its harsher features. It is remarkable, that the only considerable additions made to the poem, after the first edition, have a tendency rather to mollify than to sharpen the satire. The following additional passage, in the character of Achitophel, stands in this predicament:

A report was circulated, and has crept into the "Biographia Britannica," that this addition was made in consequence of Shaftesbury's having conferred a favour upon Dryden, and his family,[211] in the interval between the first and second edition of "Absalom and Achitophel;" but this Mr Malone has refuted in the most satisfactory manner.

A passage, expressive of kind wishes towards Monmouth, was also added in the second addition:

These, and other passages, in which Dryden has softened the severity of his muse, evince not only the poet's taste and judgment, but that tone of honourable and just feeling, which distinguishes a true satire from a libellous lampoon.

It was not consistent with Dryden's subject to introduce much imagery or description into "Absalom and Achitophel;" but, though Dr Johnson has remarked this as a disadvantage to the poem, it was, I think, amply compensated by the good effects which the restraint produced on our author's style of composition. The reader has already seen in how many instances Dryden gave way to the false taste of his age, which, indeed, furnished the strongest temptation to a vigorous mind, naturally delighting to exert itself in working out an ingenious parallel between remote and dissimilar ideas. A fiery horse is taught his regular paces by the restraining discipline of the manege; and, in the same way, the subject of "Absalom and Achitophel," which confined the poet to the expression of sentiment and character, and left no room for excursions into the regions of metaphysical poetry, probably had the effect of restraining his exertions within the bounds of true taste, whose precincts he would be less likely to overleap, even when again turned loose upon a more fanciful theme. It is certain that "Absalom and Achitophel" is as remarkable for correctness of taste, as for fire and spirit of composition; nor ought the reader, amidst so many appropriate beauties, to regret those flights of imagination, which could not have been indulged without impropriety.

Another objection, stated to this poem, has been the abrupt and unsatisfactory nature of the conclusion. The factions, and their leaders, are described; and, when our expectation is at the highest, the danger is at once dispelled by a speech from the throne. "Who," says Johnson, "can forbear to think of an enchanted castle, with a wide moat, and lofty battlements, which vanishes at once into air, when the destined knight blows his horn before it." Yet, with great deference to such authority, it may be considered as somewhat hard to expect the merit of a well-conducted story in a poem merely intended as a designation of various living characters. He, who collects a gallery of portraits, disclaims, by the very act of doing so, any intention of presenting a series of historical events. Each separate style of poetry has its merits and disadvantages, but we should not expect a historical work to contain the poignancy of a satire, or a satire to exhibit the majestic and interesting story of an epic poem. Besides, there had actually been an important crisis, and highly favourable to the court, produced by the king's behaviour at Oxford, and by the sudden dissolution of that parliament, which, according to Shaftesbury, was to have rendered the Duke of York as abandoned an exile as the first murderer Cain. This stroke of power was executed so unexpectedly, that the Commons had not the slightest suspicion of what was intended, till they were summoned by the Black Rod to attend the king. Oxford, so lately crowded with the armed factionaries and partizans of royalty and democracy, was at once deserted, and left to its usual stillness and seclusion. The blow was fatal to the country party, as it dispersed that body in which they had knit up their strength, and which alone could give their proceedings the sanction of law.

The success of "Absalom and Achitophel" was unexampled. Dr Johnson's father, a bookseller, told him, it was exceeded by nothing in his remembrance, excepting that of Sacheverel's Sermon. The allusions which it contained became universally known; and the allegorical names seemed to be inalienably entailed upon the persons to whom Dryden had assigned them. Not only were they in perpetual use amongst the court poets of the day,[212] but the parable was repeatedly inculcated and preached upon from the pulpit,[213] and echoed and re-echoed in all the addresses of the time.[214]

The poem was at first published without a name, a circumstance which must have added to the curiosity of the public; there were, however, few writers, save the author, who could be suspected even for a moment, and it is probable he did not remain long concealed. The poem was published on the 17th November, 1681,[215] and, as early as the 10th of December, Dryden is attacked as the author, in a miserable Grubstreet poem, called "Towser the Second," supposed to be written by Henry Care.[216] Then came forth, on the 14th, His Grace of Buckingham's "Poetical Reflections," which are amply analysed in our notes. A non-conformist clergyman (name unknown) advanced to the charge on the 25th, with a pamphlet termed, "A Whip for the Fool's Back;" and followed it up with the "Key with the Whip, to open the mystery and iniquity of the poem called Absalom and Achitophel." Then Samuel Pordage published "Azariah and Hushai;" and, finally, our author's old antagonist, Elkanah Settle, brought up the heavy rear with a ponderous pamphlet entitled, "Absalom Senior; or, Achitophel Transposed, a Poem." All these laborious and indignant vindications and rebutters served only to shew how much the faction was hurt by this spirited satire, and how unable they were to make an effectual retort. Were we to judge of their strength in other respects, from the efforts of their writers, we should esteem them very unworthy of Dryden's satire, and exclaim, as Tybalt does to Benvolio,

Accordingly, Dryden takes but slight and contemptuous notice of any of his antagonists, save Shadwell and Settle, on whom he inflicts a severe flagellation in the Second Part. On the other hand, Nahum Tate, and other tory poets, came forth with congratulatory verses, the inferiority of which served to shew that Dryden's force did not lie in the principles and subject which he had in common with these poetasters, but in the incommunicable resources of his own genius.

The first part of "Absalom and Achitophel" is in folio, "Printed for J. T. (Jacob Tonson) and are to be sold by W. Davis, in Amen corner, 1681." A second edition was issued before the end of December, which was followed by many more. Mr Malone believes that the edition which appeared in the Miscellanies was the sixth; and a quarto copy, now before me, dated 1692, calls itself "the Seventh Edition, augmented and revised." Two Latin versions of "Absalom and Achitophel" were executed; one by the famous Atterbury, afterwards bishop of Rochester, the other by Dr Coward.

"Absalom's Conspiracy: or, the Tragedy of Treason." London, printed in the year 1680. Folio, containing two pages. Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany.

"There is nothing so dangerous either to societies in general, or to particular persons, as ambition; the temptations of sovereignty, and the glittering lustre of a crown, have been guilty of all the fearful consequences that can be within the compass of imagination. For this, mighty nations have been drowned in blood, populous cities have been made, desolate, laid in ashes, and left without inhabitants; for this, parents have lost all the sense and tenderness of nature; and children, all the sentiments of duty and obedience; the eternal laws of good and just, the laws of nature and of nations, of God and religion, have been violated; men have been transformed into the cruelty of beasts, and into the rage and malice of devils.

"Instances, both modern and ancient, of this, are innumerable; but this of Absalom is a tragedy, whose antiquity and truth do equally recommend it as an example to all posterity, and a caution to all mankind, to take care how they embark in ambitious and unlawful designs; and it is a particular caveat to all young men, to beware of such counsellors as the old Achitophel, lest, while they are tempted with the hopes of a crown, they hasten on their own destiny, and come to an untimely end.

"Absalom was the third son of David by Maachah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, who was one of David's concubines; he, seeing his title to the crown upon the score of lawful succession would not do, resolved to make good what was defective in it by open force, by dethroning his father.

"Now the arts he used to accomplish his design were these. First, he studied popularity; he rose up early, he was industrious and diligent in his way; he placed himself in the way of the gate; and when any man came for judgment, he courteously entered into discourse with him. This feigned condescension was the first step of his ambition. Secondly, he depraved his father's government: the king was careless, drowned in his pleasures; the counsellors were evil; no man regarded the petitioners: Absalom said unto him,—See, thy matters are good and right, it is but reason that you petition for; but there is no man that will hear thee from the king; there is no justice to be found, your petitions are rejected. Thirdly, he insinuates what he would do if he were in authority; how easy access should be to him; he would do them justice; he would hear and redress their grievances, receive their petitions, and give them gracious answers:—Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man might come unto me, and I would do him justice! And, when any man came to do him obeysance, he put forth his hand, and took him and kissed him; and thus he stole away the hearts of the people from their lawful king, his father and sovereign.

"But all this would not do; he therefore joins himself to one Achitophel, an old man of a shrewd head, and discontented heart. This Achitophel, it seems, had been a great counsellor of David's; but was now under some disgrace, as appears by Absalom's sending for him from Gilo, his city, whither he was in discontent retreated, because David had advanced Hushai into his privy-council; and no doubt can be made, but he was of the conspiracy before, by his ready joining with Absalom as soon as the matters were ripe for execution.

"Absalom having thus laid his train, and made secret provision for his intended rebellion, dispatches his emissaries abroad, to give notice by his spies, that all the confederates should be ready at the sound of the trumpet, and say, Absalom reigneth in Hebron; and immediately a great multitude was gathered to him; for the conspiracy was strong; some went out of malice, and some in their simplicity followed him, and knew not any thing.

"David is forced to fly from his son, but still he had a loyal party that stuck close to him. Achitophel gave devilish counsel, but God disappointed it strangely; for Hushai, pretending to come over to their party, put Absalom upon a plausible expedient, which proved his ruin. So impossible is it for treason to be secure, that no person who forms a conspiracy, but there may be some, who, under pretence of the greatest kindness, may insinuate themselves, only to discover their secrets, and ruin their intentions, either by revealing their treason, or disappointing it; and certainly, of all men, traitors are least to be trusted; for they who can be perfidious to one, can never be true to any.

"The matter comes at last to the decision of the sword. Absalom's party are defeated, and many slain, and Absalom himself, seeking to save himself by flight in the wood, is entangled in a tree by his own hair, which was his pride; and his mule going from under him, there left him hanging till Joab came, and, with three darts, made at once an end of his life and the rebellion. Thus ended his youthful and foolish ambition, making him an eternal monument of infamy, and an instance of the justice of divine vengeance, and what will be the conclusion of ambition, treason, and conspiracy, against lawful kings and governors: A severe admonition to all green heads, to avoid the temptations of grey Achitophels.

"Achitophel, the engineer of all this mischief, seeing his counsel despised, and foreseeing the event, prevented the hand of the executioner, and, in revenge upon himself, went home and hanged himself; give fair warning to all treacherous counsellors, to see what their devilish counsels will lead them to at last; mischievous counsel ever falling in conclusion upon the heads where first it was contrived, as naturally as dirty kennels fall into the common-sewer.

"Whatsoever was written aforetime, was written for our instruction: for holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

It is not my intention to make an apology for my poem; some will think it needs no excuse, and others will receive none. The design I am sure is honest; but he who draws his pen for one party, must expect to make enemies of the other. For wit and fool, are consequents of Whig and Tory;[217] and every man is a knave or an ass to the contrary side. There is a treasury of merits in the fanatic church, as well as in the popish; and a pennyworth to be had of saintship, honesty, and poetry, for the lewd, the factious, and the blockheads; but the longest chapter in Deuteronomy has not curses enough for an Anti-Bromingham.[218] My comfort is, their manifest prejudice to my cause will render their judgment of less authority against me. Yet, if a poem have genius, it will force its own reception in the world; for there is a sweetness in good verse, which tickles even while it hurts; and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleases him against his will. The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted. But I can be satisfied on more easy terms; if I happen to please the more moderate sort, I shall be sure of an honest party, and, in all probability, of the best judges; for the least concerned are commonly the least corrupt. And I confess I have laid in for those, by rebating the satire, where justice would allow it, from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly, as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced, at their own cost, that I can write severely, with more ease than I can gently. I have but laughed at some men's follies, when I could have declaimed against their vices; and other men's virtues I have commended, as freely as I have taxed their crimes. And now, if you are a malicious reader, I expect you should return upon me, that I affect to be thought more impartial than I am; but if men are not to be judged by their professions, God forgive you commonwealth's-men for professing so plausibly for the government! You cannot be so unconscionable as to charge me for not subscribing my name; for that would reflect too grossly upon your own party, who never dare, though they have the advantage of a jury to secure them. If you like not my poem, the fault may possibly be in my writing; though it is hard for an author to judge against himself: but more probably it is in your morals, which cannot bear the truth of it. The violent on both sides will condemn the character of Absalom, as either too favourably or too hardly drawn. But they are not the violent whom I desire to please. The fault on the right hand is to extenuate, palliate, and indulge; and, to confess freely, I have endeavoured to commit it. Besides the respect which I owe his birth, I have a greater for his heroic virtues; and David himself could not be more tender of the young man's life, than I would be of his reputation. But since the most excellent natures are always the most easy, and, as being such, are the soonest perverted by ill counsels, especially when baited with fame and glory, it is no more a wonder that he withstood not the temptations of Achitophel, than it was for Adam not to have resisted the two devils, the serpent and the woman. The conclusion of the story I purposely forbore to prosecute, because I could not obtain from myself to shew Absalom unfortunate. The frame of it was cut out but for a picture to the waist; and if the draught be so far true, it is as much as I designed.

Were I the inventor, who am only the historian, I should certainly conclude the piece, with the reconcilement of Absalom to David. And who knows but this may come to pass? Things were not brought to an extremity where I left the story; there seems yet to be room left for a composure; hereafter there may be only for pity. I have not so much as an uncharitable wish against Achitophel, but am content to be accused of a good-natured error, and to hope with Origen, that the devil himself may at last be saved. For which reason, in this poem, he is neither brought to set his house in order, nor to dispose of his person afterwards as he in wisdom shall think fit. God is infinitely merciful; and his vicegerent is only not so, because he is not infinite.

The true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction. And he, who writes honestly, is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease; for those are only in order to prevent the chirurgeon's work of an Ense rescindendum, which I wish not to my very enemies. To conclude all; if the body politic have any analogy to the natural, in my weak judgment, an act of oblivion were as necessary in a hot distempered state, as an opiate would be in a raging fever.

The following Recommendatory Verses, Dryden thought worthy of being prefixed to the later editions of his "Absalom and Achitophel," for which reason they are here retained. It will be observed, that they all mention the author as unknown. This, however, we are not to understand literally; since it is obvious, from the contemporary libels, that Dryden was well known for the author. But, till he placed his name in the title page, his friends were not to affect to know more than that told them; as it is impolite to recognize a person who affects a disguise.

TO
THE UNKNOWN AUTHOR
OF THIS EXCELLENT POEM.

TO
THE UNKNOWN AUTHOR
OF THIS ADMIRABLE POEM.

TO
THE CONCEALED AUTHOR
OF THIS INCOMPARABLE POEM.

Some scribbler of the day also, thinking Dryden's meaning not sufficiently clear, wrote "Absalon's ix worthies, or a key to a late book, or poem, entitled AB, and AC," marked by Mr Luttrell, as bought, 10 March 1682-3. It concludes with the following address.

TO THE
AUTHOR OF THAT INCOMPARABLE POEM
ABOVE MENTIONED.