1. 749. sterve. Sterve is retained here as printed by Dryden. But starve is more commonly printed in Dryden's original editions, and starve is printed in line 975, where it rhymes with serve. Serve and deserve were, however, pronounced at that time sarve and desarve. The word is printed sterve in one of Dryden's Prologues to the University of Oxford, 1681 (Globe Edition, P. 451):

'How ill soe'er our action may deserve,

Oxford's a place where wit can never sterve.'

11. 754, 755. Tobias drove away the evil spirit which haunted his bride Raguel by fumigation (Tobit viii. 1-3). And when they had supped, they brought Tobias in unto her. And as he went, he remembered the words of Raphael, and took the ashes of the perfumes, and put the heart and the liver of the fish thereupon, and made a smoke therewith. The which smell when the evil spirit had smelled, he fled into the utmost parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him.'

1. 759. A misprint in this line of but for butt was in the original edition, and has been perpetuated by editors, who have one after the other printed it without any attempt to explain or correct it. The but and peace' is perfectly unintelligible. The butt and peace' is a reference to Dryden's Tempest, where the butt plays a great part in a contention of Trinculo with Stephano and Ventoso. Stephano desires permission to drink from the butt before he returns to deliberate on the terms offered by Trinculo. That,' says Trinculo, I refuse, till acts of hostility be ceased. Then rogues are rather spies than ambassadors. I must take heed of my butt.' Stephano returns with his friends Ventoso and Mustacho, and the following conversation takes place :

'Vent. Duke Trinculo, we have considered.
Trin. Peace or war?
Must.

Peace and the butt."

Act iv. Sc. 3.

I am not aware of any other writer using this phrase, but Dryden treats it as if it were well known. He uses it again in his Prologues to The Mistakes (p. 473 of the Globe Edition):

'Peace and the butt is all our business here.'

1. 767. This refers to Aeneas and Latinus in Book vii. of the Aeneid. 1. 818. O Proteus Conscience, never to be tied ! Compare

'Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo?"

Horace, Epist. i. 1. 90. 11. 823, 824. Immortal powers the term of Conscience know. But Interest is her name with men below.

An imitation of Homer:

Ὃν Βριάρεων καλέουσι θεοὶ, ἄνδρες δέ τε πάντες
Αἰγαίων.

Iliad, i. 403.

U

1. 862. reprise, for 'reprisal'; so used elsewhere by Dryden. But Dryden also uses reprise as the French reprise :

'Disease, despair, and death as three reprises bold.'
Britannia Rediviva, 231.

·

11. 876-880. These lines refer to James II's open support and aid given to the French Protestant refugees. Bishop Burnet thus speaks of James's decided measures and language about the persecution of the Huguenots by Louis XIV. Though all endeavours were used to lessen the clamour this had raised, yet the King did not stick openly to condemn it as both unchristian and unpolitic. He took pains to clear the Jesuits of it, and laid the blame of it chiefly on the King, on Madame de Maintenon, and the Archbishop of Paris. He spoke often of it with such vehemence, that there seemed to be an affectation in it. He did more. He was very kind to the `refugees. He was liberal to many of them. He ordered a brief for a charitable collection over the nation for them all; upon which great sums were sent in. They were deposited in good hands, and well distributed. The King also ordered them to be denised without paying fees, and gave them great immunities. So that in all there came over, first to last, between forty and fifty thousand of that nation.' (Hist. of Own Times, i. 664.)

1. 906. Here begins the fable of the Pigeons and the Buzzard, the second episode of the poem. The Buzzard is Dr. Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, whom the pigeons or doves, the clergy of the Church of England, choose for their king. The 'plain good man, whose name is understood,' is James II.

1. 941. the fabric where he prayed is James II's Roman Catholic chapel at Whitehall.

'As when a sort of wolves infect the night

With their wild howlings at fair Cynthia's light.'

Waller's Poems, p. 314, ed. 1705.

1. 975. Here starved is printed in the original and early editions, though rhyming with served. See note on line 749, where it is sterved, rhyming with deserved.

1. 991. crops impure. crops, which is the word of the original editions, was changed by Broughton into corps, and this has been copied by succeeding editors, who print corpse, as Scott. Corpse, singular, is clearly inappropriate. Crops is evidently the right word.

1. 995. his poor domestic poultry. James II's Roman Catholic priests.

1. 1006. The bird that warned St. Peter of his fall. The cock,' says Scott, 'is made an emblem of the regular clergy of Rome, on account of their nocturnal devotions and matins.'

1. 1024. And sister Partlett, with her hooded head: this is the nun.

1. 1056. No Holland emblem could that malice mend. The Dutch were famous for emblems and pictures. In Prior and Montague's parody there is a reference to this hit at the Dutch. Mr. Bayes is made to boast of his drawings. Oh Lord! nothing at all. I could design twenty of 'em in an hour, if I had but witty fellows about me to draw 'em. I was proffered a pension to go into Holland and continue these emblems; but hang 'em, they are dull rogues and would spoil my invention.'

1. 1064. The birds of Venus, the Doves; and the phrase was doubtless intended to convey a reflection on the Church of England clergy.

Il. 1093, 94. This couplet is a free translation of two Greek lines, a fragment of Euripides preserved by Athenagoras:

Οταν δὲ δαίμων ἀνδρὶ πορσύνῃ κακὰ

Τὸν νοῦν ἔβλαψε πρῶτον.

Translated into Latin thus,

Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat.'

1. 1119. The musquet is the male of the sparrow-hawk; the coystrel (or kestrel) according to Johnson, is a species of degenerate hawk.'

1. 1174. A Greek, and bountiful, forewarns us twice.

'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.'

Compare
Virg. Aen. ii. 49.

II. 1179-82. This denunciation against Burnet is supposed to refer to evidence given by him in 1675, before a committee of the House of Commons, revealing private conversations of the Duke of Lauderdale with himself, to the effect that he wished the Presbyterians in Scotland would rebel, that he might bring over the French papists to cut their throats.

1. 1188. And runs an Indian muck at all he meets. Dryden here takes a great liberty with the phrase 'run amuck,' which is of Malay origin, and has no connexion with our word muck. Scott, in his note on this passage, has the following: To run a-muck is a phrase derived from a practice of the Malays. When one of this nation has lost his whole substance by gaming, or sustained any other great and unsupportable calamity, he intoxicates himself with opium, and having dishevelled his hair, rushes into the streets, crying Amocca or Kill, and stabbing every one whom he meets with his creeze, until he is cut down, or shot like a mad dog.'

1. 1192. Captain of the Test. Burnet was at this time carrying on a controversy with Parker, Bishop of Oxford, who had proposed the abrogation of the Test. This probably is why this name is given to Burnet.

11. 1257, 58. The reference in this couplet is to Genesis xlix. 10: 'The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come.'

1. 1260. Like Dionysius to a private rod. Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, became, after he was deposed, a schoolmaster at Corinth.

1. 1268. the smiths of their own foolish fate. A translation from the Latin, in a passage quoted from Appius in a piece ascribed to Sallust,

'Epistola ad Caesarum de Republica Ordinanda,' i. 1: Res docuit id verum esse quod in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum esse quemque fortunae suae.'

1. 1283. Bare benting times, times when the pigeons have no food but bent, a coarse grass.

The pigeon never knoweth woe

Until she doth a benting go.'

(Old proverb, quoted in Latham's edition of Johnson's Dictionary.) The word bent is rare. Browning uses it:

'For the rabbit that robs scarce a blade or a bent.'

GLOSSARY.

O. C. refers to the Stanzas on the death of Oliver Cromwell; A. R. to Astræa Redux; A. M. to Annus Mirabilis ; A. A. to Absalom and Achitophel; R. L. to Religio Laici; and H. P. to The Hind and the Panther.

The numbers after O.C. and A. M. refer to the stanzas; in the other cases to lines of the poems.

A.

Abate, v. i. lessen, abate of virulence.'

Preface to R. L.

Abbethdin, sb. chief judge among the Jews. A. A. 188.

Admire, v. i. wonder. H. P. iii. 388.

Affect, v. t. seek, desire.

A. M. 273; A. A. 177.

Allay, sb. alloy. H. P. i. 320.

Allude, v. i. compare. H. P. iii. 366.

Amain, adv. vehemently. H. P. iii. 620.

Antique, adj. strange, grotesque. H. P. iii. 488.

Armado, sb. army.

Arose, p. p. arisen.

Assay, v. t. try, essay.

A. M. 14.

O. C. 36.

O. C. 12; H. P. iii. 796.

Atone, v. t. reconcile, harmonise, A. A. 179: used intransitively, R. L. 89. Auctority, sb. authority. H. P. i. 453, ii. 276. Elsewhere authority. Auspice, sb. patronage. A. M. 288.

Authentic, adj. authoritative, authorised. O. C. 2; H. P. iii. 838; Pref. to R. L.

· B.

Bad, v. perfect of bid, ordered. H.P. i. 531.

Benting, adj. 'benting times,' times when pigeons feed on bent, a coarse grass. H. P. iii. 1283.

Big-corned, adj. big-grained, big-corned powder.' A. M. 149.

Bilander, sb. coasting vessel. H. P. i. 128.

Blatant, adj. howling, barking. H. P. iii. 230.

Bleaky, adj. bleak. H. P. iii. 612.