CHARACTER of DRYDEN,

From an ODE of GRAY's.

Ehold, where Dryden's lefs prefumptuous car,

Behold,

Wide o'er the fields of glory bear :

Two courfers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder cloath'd, and long-refounding

pace.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Bright-ey'd Fancy hov'ring o'er,

Scatters from her pictur'd urn,

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

But, ah! 'tis heard no more --

Oh! lyre divine, what daring fpirit
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with fupreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air:
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms, as glitter in the mufe's ray
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the fun :
Yet fhall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate

Beneath the good how far---but far above the great.

Aftræa Redux, a poem on the Restoration of

King Charles II.

16

A Panegyric on the Coronation of Charles II. 31

An Address to Lord Chancellor Hyde

Satire on the Dutch

37

44

To her royal highness the Dutchefs, on the me

morable Victory gained by the Duke over

the Hollanders, June 3, 1665, and on her

Journey into the North

Annus Mirabilis : The Year of Wonders,

1666

47

53

The Medal, a Satire against Sedition

Religio Laici, or a Layman's Faith

247

275

The Art of Poetry, by Mr. Dryden and Sir

William Soame

317

Threnodia Auguftalis, a funeral pindarick

Poem, to the Memory of Charles II.

365

Upon the DEATH of

LORD HASTINGS.

UST noble Haftings immaturely die,
The honour of his ancient family,

Beauty and learning thus together meet,

To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet?
Muft virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?

Is death, fin's wages, grace's now? fhall art
Make us more learned, only to depart?

If merit be difeafe; if virtue death;

To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? ftudy felf-murther deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dunces fecurely, ignorant healthfully.
Rare linguift whofe worth speaks itself, whose praise,
Tho not his own, all tongues befides do raise :
Than whom great Alexander may seem lefs;
Who conquer'd men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations fpake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.

His native foil was the four parts o'th'earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apoftle; and with rev'rence may
I fpeak it infpir'd with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him a child, what men in vain
Oft strive, by art though further'd, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his fublime foul
Did move on virtue's, and on learning's pole :
Whofe reg'lar motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did fhew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, fill'd up all the parts.