ΤΟ

LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE, ETC.

THE great statesman to whom Dryden made this NewYear'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

He had already wearied fortune so,

She could no longer be his friend or foe;

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 stigmatised with this crime; bare suspicion of which, it would seem, is usually held adequate to the fullest proof. Nor have instances been

* [Not technically.-ED.]

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 distress, for Clarendon, contains a comparison which is eminently happy :

Our setting sun, from his declining seat,
Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat.

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. [This criticism is just. But even Dryden has done few things better than the lines from "Our setting sun" to "as they rose." The original folio edition, printed for Herringman, has "To my Lord Chancellor," etc.-ED.]

TO THE

LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE.

PRESENTED ON NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1662.

MY LORD,

WHILE flattering crowds officiously appear
To give themselves, not you, an happy year,
And by the greatness of their presents prove
How much they hope, but not how well they
love,-

The muses,* who your early courtship boast,
Though now your flames are with their beauty

lost,

Yet watch their time, that, if you have forgot
They were your mistresses, the world may not.
Decayed by time and wars, they only prove
Their former beauty by your former love;
And now present, as ancient ladies do,
That courted long, at length are forced to woo:
For still they look on you with such kind eyes,
As those,t that see the Church's sovereign rise,

* [There is no need to suppose any reference to versewriting on Hyde's part. In his early years he was notoriously studious and given to literary society.-ED.]

[Either the cardinals, or the clergy generally.-ED.]

5

10

From their own order chose, in whose high state 15
They think themselves the second choice of fate.
When our great monarch into exile went,
Wit and religion suffered banishment.

Thus once, when Troy was wrapped in fire and smoke,

The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook ; 20
They with the vanquished prince and party go,
And leave their temples empty to the foe.
At length the Muses stand, restored again
To that great charge which nature did ordain;
And their loved druids seem revived by fate,
While you dispense the laws, and guide the

state.

The nation's soul, our monarch, does dispense,
Through you, to us his vital influence :
You are the channel, where those spirits flow,
And work them higher as to us they go.

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30

35

In open prospect nothing bounds our eye, Until the earth seems joined unto the sky: So in this hemisphere, our utmost view Is only bounded by our king and you; Our sight is limited where you are joined, And beyond that no farther heaven can find. So well your virtues do with his agree, That though your orbs of different greatness be, Yet both are for each other's use disposed, His to inclose, and yours to be inclosed: Nor could another in your room have been, Except an emptiness had come between. Well may he, then, to you his cares impart, And share his burden where he shares his heart. In you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find 45 Their share of business in your labouring mind.

*

*["Without an emptiness coming between" would express the meaning better.-ED.]

40

So, when the weary sun his place resigns,
He leaves his light, and by reflection shines.
Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws
Exclude soft mercy from a private cause,
In your tribunal most herself does please;
There only smiles because she lives at ease;
And, like young David, finds her strength the

more,

50

When disencumbered from those arms she wore.
Heaven would your royal master should exceed 55
Most in that virtue, which we most did need;
And his mild father (who too late did find
All mercy vain but what with power was joined)
His fatal goodness left to fitter times,

Not to increase, but to absolve our crimes:
But when the heir of this vast treasure knew
How large a legacy was left to you,

(Too great for any subject to retain)
He wisely tied it to the crown again;

60

Yet, passing through your hands it gathers more, 65 As streams, through mines, bear tincture of their

ore.

While emp'ric politicians use deceit,

Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat;
You boldly show that skill which they pretend,
And work by means as noble as your end;
Which should you veil, we might unwind the
clue,

As men do nature, till we came to you.
And, as the Indies were not found before
Those rich perfumes, which, from the happy
shore,

The winds upon their balmy wings conveyed,
Whose guilty sweetness first their world be-

trayed;

So, by your counsels, we are brought to view
A rich and undiscovered world in you.

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75

VOL. IX.

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