upon

The death of Cromwell was the first theme of our poet's muse. Averse as the puritans were to any poetry, save that of Hopkins, of Withers, or of Wisdom, they may be reasonably supposed to have had some sympathy with Dryden's sorrow the death of Oliver, even although it vented itself in the profane and unprofitable shape of an elegy. But we have no means of estimating its reception with the public, if, in truth, the public long interested themselves about the memory of Cromwell, while his relations and dependents presented to them the more animated and interesting spectacle of a struggle for his usurped power. Richard, perhaps, and the immediate friends of the deceased Protector, with such of Dryden's relations as were attached to his memory, may have thought, like the Tinker in the Taming of the Shrew, that this same elegy was marvellous good matter," but it did not probably attract much general attention. The first edition, in 1659, is extremely rare: it was reprinted, however, along with those of Sprat and Waller, in the course of the same year. After the Restoration this piece fell into a state of oblivion, from which it may be believed that the author, who had seen a new light in politics, was by no means solicitous to recall it. His political antagonist did not, however, fail to awaken its memory, when Dryden became a decided advocate for the royal prerogative, and the hereditary right of the Stuart's. During the controversies of Charles the Second's reign, in which Dryden took so decided a share, his eulogy on Cromwell was often objected to

him, as a proof of inconsistence and apostasy. One passage, which plainly applies to the civil wars in general, was wrested to signify an explicit approbation of the murder of Charles the First; and the whole piece was reprinted by an incensed antagonist, under the title of " An Elegy on the Usurper O. C., by the author of Absalom and Achitophel, published" (it is ironically added) "to show the loyalty and integrity of the poet," an odd piece of vengeance, which has perhaps never been paralleled, except in the single case of "Love in a Hollow Tree." The motives of the Duchess of Marlborough, in reprinting Lord Grimestone's memorable dramatic essay, did not here apply. The elegy on Cromwell, although doubtless sufficiently faulty, contained symptoms of a regenerating taste; and, politically considered, although a panegyric on an usurper, the topics of praise are selected with attention to truth, and are, generally speaking, such as

["Our former chiefs, like sticklers of the war,

First sought to inflame the parties, then to poise:
The quarrel loved, but did the cause abhor;
And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.
War, our consumption, was their gainful trade;

We inward bled, whilst they prolong'd our pain;

He fought to end our fighting, and essay'd

To stanch the blood by breathing of the vein."

DRYDEN'S Works, vol. ix., p. 10.-Notes, ib., p. 16, 17.] This piece was called in, and destroyed by the noble atthor; but Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, when opposing Lord Grimestone at an election, maliciously printed and dispersed a large impression of his smothered performance, with a frontispiece representing an elephant dancing on the slack rope. [The republication, by our modern Radicals, of Mr Southey's juvenile piece, "Wat Tyler," had not occurred when Sir Walter Scott wrote his Life of Dryden. ]

Cromwell's worst enemies could not have denied to him. Neither had Dryden made the errors, or misfortunes, of the royal family, and their followers, the subject of censure or of contrast. With respect to them, it was hardly possible that a eulogy on such a theme could have less offence in it. This was perhaps a fortunate circumstance for Dryden at the Restoration; and it must be noticed to his honour, that as he spared the exiled monarch in his panegyric on the usurper, so, after the Restoration, in his numerous writings on the side of royalty, there is no instance of his recalling his former praise of Cromwell.

After the frequent and rapid changes which the government of England underwent from the death of Cromwell, in the spring of 1660, Charles II. was restored to the throne of his ancestors. It may be easily imagined, that this event, a subject in itself highly fit for poetry, and which promised the revival of poetical pursuits, was hailed with universal acclamation by all whose turn for verse had been suppressed and stifled during the long reign of fanaticism. The Restoration led the way to the revival of letters, as well as that of legal government. With Charles, as Dryden has expressed it,

"The officious Muses came along,

A gay, harmonious quire, like angels ever young."

It was not, however, to be expected, that an alteration of the taste which had prevailed in the days of Charles I., was to be the immediate consequence of the new order of things. The muse awoke, like

the sleeping beauty of the fairy tale, in the same antiquated and absurd vestments in which she had fallen asleep twenty years before; or if the reader will pardon another simile, the poets were like those who, after a long mourning, resume for a time their ordinary dresses, of which the fashion has in the meantime passed away. Other causes contributed to a temporary revival of the metaphysical poetry. Almost all its professors, attached to the house of Stuart, had been martyrs, or confes sors at least, in its cause. Cowley, their leader, was yet alive, and returned to claim the late reward of his loyalty and his sufferings. Cleveland had died a victim to the contempt, rather than the persecution of the republicans;' but this most ardent

He was one of the garrison of Newark, which held out so long for Charles I., and has left a curious specimen of the wit of the time, in his controversy with a parliamentary officer, whose servant had robbed him, and taken refuge in Newark. The following is the beginning of his answer to a demand that the fugitive should be surrendered :—

Sixthly, Beloved,

"Is it so then, that our brother and fellow-labourer in the Gospel is start aside? then this may serve for an use of instruction, not to trust in man, nor in the son of man. Did not Demas leave Paul? did not Onesimus run from his mas. ter Philemon? besides, this should teach us to employ our talent, and not to lay it up in a napkin. Had it been done among the cavaliers, it had been just; then the Israelite had spoiled the Egyptian; but for Simeon to plunder Levi, that! that! You see, sir, what use I make of the doctrine you sent me; and indeed since you change style so far as to nibble at wit, you must pardon me, if, to quit scores, I pretend a little to the gift of preaching," &c. Such was the wit of Cleveland. After the complete subjugation of the royalists, he was appre

of cavalier poets was succeeded by Wild, whose " Iter Boreale," a poem on Monk's march from Scotland, formed upon Cleveland's model, obtained extensive popularity among the citizens of London.' Dryden's good sense and natural taste perceived the obvious defects of these, the very coarsest of metaphysical poets; insomuch, that, in his " Essay on Dramatic Poetry," he calls wresting and torturing one word into another, a catachresis, or Clevelandism, and charges Wild with being in poetry what the French call un mauvais buffon.

Sprat, and a host of inferior imitators, marched for a time in the footsteps of Cowley; delighted probably to discover in pindaric writing, as it was

hended, having in his possession a bundle of poems and satirical songs against the republicans. He appeared before the Commonwealth general with the dignified air of one who is prepared to suffer for his principles. He was disappointed; for the military judge, after a contemptuous glance at the papers, exclaimed to Cleveland's accusers, "Is this all ye have against him? Go, let the poor knave sell his ballads?" Such an acquittal was more severe than any punishment. conscious virtue of the loyalist would have borne the latter; but the pride of the poet could not sustain his contemptuous dismissal; and Cleveland is said to have broken his heart in consequence. Biographia Britannica, voce Cleveland.

The

1 "He is the very Withers of the city," says Dryden of Wild: "they have bought more editions of his works than would serve to lay under all their pies at the lord mayor's Christmas. When his famous poem first came out in the year 1660, I have seen them reading it in the midst of Change time; nay, so vehement they were at it, that they lost their bargain by the candles' ends: but what will you say, if he has been received amongst great persons? I can assure you he is this day the envy of one who is lord in the art of quibbling, and who does not take it well, that any man should intrude so far into his province."- Works, vol. xv., p. 298.