Should gape immense, and rushing down o'erwhelm this nether ball;
So swift and so surprising was our fear;

Our Atlas fell indeed, but Hercules was near.†

35

There was a fable that Hercules had relieved Atlas and borne the heavens on his shoulders.

Are able to adorn so vast a woe:

The grief of all the rest like subject-grief did show,

His like a sovereign did transcend ;

No wife, no brother such a grief could know,
Nor any name but friend.

3

O wondrous changes of a fatal scene,

Still varying to the last!

75

Heaven, though its hard decree was past,
Seemed pointing to a gracious turn again:

80

And Death's uplifted arm arrested in its haste.
Heaven half repented of the doom,

Such as his wondrous life had oft and lately known,

And urged that still they might be shown.

On earth his pious brother prayed and vowed,
Renouncing greatness at so dear a rate,

95

Himself defending what he could

From all the glories of his future fate.

With him the innumerable crowd

Of armed prayers

Knocked at the gates of heaven, and knocked aloud;

The first well-meaning rude petitioners.

All for his life assailed the throne,

*

All would have bribed the skies by offering up their own.
So great a throng not Heaven itself could bar;
'Twas almost borne by force, as in the giants' war.

The prayers at least for his reprieve were heard;
His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferred:
Against the sun the shadow went ;

Five days, those five degrees, were lent,
To form our patience and prepare the event.+
The second causes took the swift command,
The medicinal head,‡ the ready hand,

100

105

ΠΙΟ

A political allusion, forced and ill-timed. The "petitioners" in the end of the year 1679 for the sitting of parliament had evoked a royal proclamation against tumultuous petitioning, and a series of counter-addresses from the Tories, who, expressing abhorrence of the proceedings of their opponents, were in contradistinction called "abhorrers.' The line must mean that these were the first rude petitioners" who were well meaning.

↑ Not a happy Scriptural illustration, as Hezekiah's life was lengthened for fifteen years, and the shadow went backward ten degrees, as a sign that the Lord's promise would be fulfilled. (2 Kings xx.)

Medicinal printed in the early and all subsequent editions; so also in line 170. The metre requires in both places the elision of both i's in pronunciation, Medicine in line 160 must be pronounced medicine. See note on line 150 of "" The Medal."

All eager to perform their part;

All but eternal doom was conquered by their art :
Once more the fleeting soul came back

To inspire the mortal frame,

And in the body took a doubtful stand,

Doubtful and hovering, like expiring flame

115

That mounts and falls by turns and trembles o'er the brand.

4

The joyful short-lived news soon spread around,
Took the same train, the same impetuous bound:
The drooping town in smiles again was drest,
Gladness in every face exprest,

Their eyes before their tongues confest.
Men met each other with erected look,

120

The steps were higher that they took;

125

Friends to congratulate their friends made haste,*

And long inveterate foes saluted as they past.

Above the rest heroic James appeared,

Exalted more, because he more had feared:
His manly heart, whose noble pride

130

Was still above

Dissembled hate or varnished love,

Its more than common transport could not hide,

But like an eagre† rode in triumph o'er the tide.
Thus, in alternate course

135

At prodigies but rarely seen before,

140

145

And cries a King must fall, or kingdoms change their sway.

* In the first edition this line stood:

"Each to congratulate his friend made haste."

The line in the text is from the second edition of 1685: in Tonson's folio, 1701, the line of the first edition is restored.

"An eagre is a tide swelling above another tide, which I have myself observed in the river Trent."-This is a note by Dryden. It would seem rather to be a conflict between a tide coming in from the sea and a strong river current. Scott mentions that the old chronicler, William of Malmesbury, speaks of the higre of the river Severn. The poet Drayton mentions it also, describing the Severn: "With whose tumultuous waves, Shut up in narrower bounds, the hygre wildly raves.'

"

Poly-Olbion, song 7.

Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Vulgar Errours," speaks of "egres and flows in estuaries and rivers, observable in the Trent and Humber."

Sat. vi. 443.

The moon was thought to labour against the enchantments by which magicians brought her from the skies for the purposes of their craft.

in

Here and again in line 171 spelt essayed by Dryden. But he used the old spelling assay the Stanzas on Öliver Cromwell, 12, and it is there preserved in this edition; and he printed assay in some of his last works, as in the Translation of the Æneid. The verb is also printed assay in the early editions of "The Hind and the Panther," part 3, line 796. The substantive is always spelt essay by Dryden.

P

The vain insurancers of life,

And he who most performed and promised less,
Even Short himself forsook the unequal strife.*
Death and despair was in their looks,

No longer they consult their memories or books;
Like helpless friends, who view from shore
The labouring ship and hear the tempest roar ;
So stood they with their arms across,
Not to assist, but to deplore

The inevitable loss.

6

Death was denounced; that frightful sound
Which even the best can hardly bear;
He took the summons void of fear,
And unconcernedly cast his eyes around,
As if to find and dare the grisly challenger.
What death could do he lately tried,
When in four days he more than died.

The same assurance all his words did grace;

The same majestic mildness held its place,
Nor lost the monarch in his dying face.
Intrepid, pious, merciful, and brave,

He looked as when he conquered and forgave.

7

As if some angel had been sent

190

195

200

205

To lengthen out his government,

And to foretell as many years again

210

As he had numbered in his happy reign,

So cheerfully he took the doom

Of his departing breath;

Nor shrunk, nor stepped aside for death:
But with unaltered pace kept on,

215

When he resigned the throne.

Providing for events to come,

* Dr. Short, one of the most eminent physicians of the time, was a Roman Catholic and a strong Tory; he died very shortly after Charles's death; he had succeeded Dr. Lower, as physician to the Court, Dr. Lower having attached himself to the Whigs. But all the eminent doctors of the time, whether Whig or Tory, were summoned for consultation in Charles's last illness; and Lower was one of them. Sixteen doctors in all held consultations and signed prescriptions (Ellis's Orig. Letters, Second Series, iv. 74). The name of Hobbes, a surgeon, is not among the sixteen; nor is there any mention of his attendance in any contemporary account of Charles's death. Yet a change was made in this passage in Tonson's folio volume of 1701, introducing Hobbes's name.

"And they who most performed and promised less,
Even Short and Hobbes forsook the unequal strife."

It is also to be noted that he appeared in the text of the folio volume, and was pointed out as an erratum. It is difficult to account for this alteration except by supposing that Dryden's family or Tonson wished to pay Hobbes a compliment. Dryden had died the year before, and Hobbes had attended him. A translation of a Latin medical poem of Fracastorius by Nahum Tate, published in 1692, in the Third Part of the "Miscellany Poems," was dedicated by Tate to John Hobbes, surgeon to his Majesty," (William III.) Hobbes's name having been thus introduced in an edition published in the year after Dryden's death by his recognised publisher Tonson, it is very difficult to suppose that Hobbes had not been in attendance in Charles's last illness. But it is possible that the alteration had not been authorised by Dryden.