And France, that did an exile's presence fear,"
May justly apprehend you still too near.
At home the hateful names of parties cease,
And factious souls are wearied into peace.
The discontented now are only they,

310

Whose crimes before did your just cause betray; 315
Of those your edicts some reclaim from sins,
But most your life and blest example wins.
Oh happy prince, whom heaven hath taught the

way

By paying vows to have more vows to pay!
Oh happy age! Oh times like those alone,
By fate reserved for great Augustus' throne!
When the joint growth of arms and arts foreshew
The world a monarch, and that monarch you.

* Charles was obliged to leave France, less because his presence was feared in itself, than the displeasure of Cromwell, for affording him shelter. [It is perhaps worth while to point out that, though there are in this piece numerous lines, couplets, and passages eminently characteristic of Dryden, and therefore eminently happy, he had yet by no means attained the full faculty of clear and continuous thought in verse, in which, at his best, he has no equal. The constructions, though never absolutely unintelligible, are frequently harsh and obscure, and the sequence of thought, no less than of phrase, is sometimes questionable.—ED.]

320

ΤΟ

HIS SACRED MAJESTY,

A

PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION.

THE Ceremony of Charles 11.'s coronation was deferred until the year succeeding his Restoration, when it was solemnised 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

A queen, near whose chaste womb, ordained by fate,
The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait.

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. By John Dryden. London, Printed for Henry Herringman, at the Anchor, in the Lower Walk on the New Exchange. 1661."-ED.]

ΤΟ

HIS SACRED MAJESTY,

A

PANEGYRIC

ON

HIS CORONATION.

In that wilddeluge where the world was drowned,

When life and sin one common tomb had found,
The first small prospect of a rising hill
With various notes of joy the ark did fill:
Yet when that flood in its own depths was
drowned,

It left behind it false and slippery ground;
And the more solemn pomp was still deferred,
Till new-born Nature in fresh looks appeared.
Thus, Royal Sir, to see you landed here,
Was cause enough of triumph for a year:
Nor would your care those glorious joys repeat,
Till they at once might be secure and great;
Till your kind beams, by their continued stay,
Had warmed the ground, and called the damps

away.

5

10

Such vapours, while your powerful influence dries, 15 Then soonest vanish when they highest rise.

Had greater haste these sacred rites prepared, Some guilty months had in your triumphs shared;* But this untainted year is all your own,

25

Your glories may without our crimes be shown, 20
We had not yet exhausted all our store,
When you refreshed our joys by adding more :
As heaven, of old, dispensed celestial dew,
You gave us manna, and still gave us new.
Now our sad ruins are removed from sight,
The season too comes fraught with new delight:
Time seems not now beneath his years to stoop,
Nor do his wings with sickly feathers droop :
Soft western winds waft o'er the gaudy spring,
And opened scenes of flowers and blossoms bring, 30

* 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 civilised 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. ["This year" of course 1661 post March 25, when the year still began.-ED.]

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