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But, like some mountain in those happy isles,
Where in perpetual spring young Nature smiles,
Your greatness shows: no horrour to affright,
But trees for shade, and flowers to court the sight:
Sometimes the hill submits itself a while

In small descents, which do its height beguile;
And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play,
Whose rise not hinders, but makes short our way.
Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know,
Sees rowling tempests vainly beat below;
And, like Olympus' top, th' impression wears
Of love and friendship writ in former years.
Yet, unimpair'd with labours, or with time,
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.
Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget,
And measure change, but share no part of it.
And still it shall without a weight increase,
Like this new year, whose motions never cease.
For since the glorious course you have begun
Is led by Charles, as that is by the Sun,
It must both weightless and immortal prove,
Because the centre of it is above.

SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1662.

As needy gallants, in the scrivener's hands,
Court the rich knaves that gripe their mortgag'd
The first fat buck of all the season's sent, [lands;
And keeper takes no fee in compliment;
The dotage of some Englishmen is such,
To fawn on those who ruin them, the Dutch.
They shall have all, rather than make a war
With those, who of the same religion are.
The Straits, the Guinea-trade, the herrings too;
Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle you.
Some are resolv'd not to find out the cheat,
But, cuckold-like, love them that do the feat.
What injuries soe'er upon us fall,
Yet still the same religion answers all,
Religion wheedled us to civil war,
[spare.
Drew English blood, and Dutchmens' now would
Be gull'd no longer; for you'll find it true,
They have no more religion, faith! than you.
Interest 's the god they worship in their state,
And we, I take it, have not much of that.
Well monarchies may own Religion's name,
But states are atheists in their very frame.
They share a sin; and such proportions fall,
That, like a stink, 'tis nothing to them all.
Think on their rapine, falsehood, cruelty,
And that what once they were, they still would be.
To one well-born th' affront is worse and more,
When he 's abus'd and baffled by a boor.
With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do;
They 've both ill nature and ill manners too.
Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation;
For they were bred ere manners were in fashion:
And their new commonwealth has set them free
Only from honour and civility,
Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,
Than did their lubber state mankind bestride.
Their sway became them with as ill a mien,
As their own paunches swell above their chin.
Yet is their empire no true growth but humour,
And only two kings' touch can cure the tumour.
As Cato, fruits of Afric did display;
Let us before our eyes their Indies lay:

All loyal English will like him conclude; Let Cæsar live, and Carthage be subdued.

TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE DUTCHESS OF YORK,

ON THE MEMORABLE VICTORY GAINED BY THE DUKE OVER

THE HOLLANDERS, JUNE THE 3D, 1665, AND ON HER

JOURNEY AFTERWARDS INTO THE NORTH.

MADAM,

WHEN, for our sakes, your hero you resign'd
To swelling seas, and every faithless wind;
When you releas'd his courage, and set free
A valour fatal to the enemy;

You lodg'd your country's cares within your breast,
(The mansion where soft Love should only rest)
And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,
The noblest conquest you had gain'd at home.
Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide!
Your honour gave us what your love denied:
And 'twas for him much easier to subdue
Those foes he fought with, than to part from you.
That glorious day, which two such navies saw,
As each unmatch'd might to the world give law.
Neptune, yet doubtful whom he should obey,
Held to them both the trident of the sea:
The winds were hush'd, the waves in ranks were cast,
As awfully as when God's people past:
Those, yet uncertain on whose sails to blow,
These, where the wealth of nations ought to flow.
Then with the duke your highness rul'd the day:
While all the brave did his command obey,
The fair and pious under you did pray.
How powerful are chaste vows! the wind and tide
You brib'd to combat on the English side.
Thus to your much-lov'd lord you did convey
An unknown succour, sent the nearest way.
New vigour to his wearied arms you brought,
(So Moses was upheld while Israel fought)
While, from afar, we heard the cannon play,
Like distant thunder on a shiny day.
For absent friends we were asham'd to fear,
When we consider'd what you ventur'd there.
Ships, men, and arms, our country might restore;
But such a leader could supply no more.
With generous thoughts of conquest he did burn,
Yet fought not more to vanquish than return.
Fortune and Victory he did pursue,

To bring them as his slaves to wait on you.
Thus Beauty ravish'd the rewards of Fame,
And the fair triumph'd wheu the brave o'ercame.
Then, as you meant to spread another way
By land your conquests, far as his by sea,
Leaving our southern clime, you march'd along
The stubborn North, ten thousand Cupids strong.
Like commons the nobility resort,

In crowding heaps, to fill your moving court:
To welcome your approach the vulgar run,
Like some new envoy from the distant Sun,
And country beauties by their lovers go,
Blessing themselves, and wondering at the show.
So when the new-born phenix first is seen,
Her feather'd subjects all adore their queen,
And while she makes her progress through the Fast,
From every grove her numerous train 's increas'd:
Each poet of the air her glory sings,

And round him the pleas'd audience clap their wings,

ANNUS MIRABILIS:

THE YEAR OF WONDERS,

1666.

AN HISTORICAL POEM.

To the METROPOLIS of GREAT BRITAIN, the most renowned and late flourishing CITY of LONDON, in its Representatives, the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, the Sheriffs, and Common Council of it.

now a phenix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity: but Heaven never made so much piety and virtue to leave it miserable. I have heard, indeed, of some virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation: Providence is engaged too deeply, when the cause becomes so general; and I cannot imagine it has resolved the ruin of that people at home, which it has blessed abroad with such successes. I am therefore to conclude, that your sufferings are at an end; and that one part of my poem has not been more an history of your destruction, than the other a prophecy of your restoration. The accomplishment of which happiness, as it is the wish of all true Englishmen, so is it by none more passionately desired, than by

the greatest of your admirers,

and most humble of your servants, JOHN DRYDEN.

AN

ACCOUNT OF THE ENSUING POEM,

SIR,

IN A LETTER TO THE

HON. SIR ROBERT HOWARD.

I AM SO many ways obliged to you, and so little able to return your favours, that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting further into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but you have been solicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long since I gave you the trouble of perusing a play for me, and now, instead of an acknowledgment, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a poem. But since you are to bear this persecution, I will at could never suffer in a nobler cause. For I have least give you the encouragement of a martyr; you

As perhaps I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature to the metropolis of any nation, so it is likewise consonant to justice, that he, who was to give the first example of such a dedication, should begin it with that city which has set a pattern to all others of true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy. Other cities have been praised for the same virtues, but I am much deceived if any have so dearly purchased their reputation; their fame has been won them by cheaper trials than an expensive, though necessary war, a consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fire. To submit yourselves with that humility to the judgments of Heaven, and at the same time to raise yourselves with that vigour above all human enemies; to be combated at once from above and from below; to be struck down and to triumph; I know not whether such trials have been ever paralleled in any nation: the resolution and successes of them never can be. Never had prince or people more mutual reason to love each other, if suffering for each other can endear affection. You have come together a pair of matchless lovers, through many difficulties; be through a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and the inter-chosen the most heroic subject, which any poet position of many rivals, who violently ravished could desire: I have taken upon me to describe the and with-held you from him; and certainly you motives, the beginning, progress, and successes, of have had your share in sufferings. But Provi-nagement, and prudence of our king; the conduct a most just and necessary war; in it, the care, madence has cast upon you want of trade, that you might appear bountiful to your country's necessities; and the rest of your afflictions are not more the effects of God's displeasure, (frequent examples of them having been in the reign of the most excellent princes) than occasions for the manifesting of your Christian and civil virtues. To you, therefore, this Year of Wonders is justly dedicated, because you have made it so. You, who are to stand a wonder to all years and ages, and who have built yourselves an immortal monument on your own ruins. You are

and valour of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and three glorious victories, the result of all. After this, I have, in the fire, the most deplorable, but withal the greatest, argument that can be imagined: the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast and miserable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not having served my king and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged to it: and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the nobles of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should not have written

terms of art in every tongue bearing more of the idiom of it than any other words. We hear indeed among our poets, of the thundering of guns, the smoke, the disorder, and the slaughter; but all these are common notions. And certainly, as those who in a logical dispute keep in general terms would hide a fallacy; so those who do it in any poetical description would veil their ignorance.

this but to a person who has been ever forward to appear in all employments whither his honour and generosity have called him. The latter part of my poem, which describes the fire, I owe, first to the piety and fatherly affection of our monarch to his suffering subjects; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both which were so conspicuous, that I wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. I have called my poem historical, not epic, though both Descriptas servare vices operumque colores, the actions and actors are as much heroic as any Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, poeta salutor? poem can contain. But since the action is not properly one, nor that accomplished in the last suc- For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the cesses, I have judged it too bold a title for a few sea, yet I have thought it no shame to learn: and stanzas, which are little more in number than a if I have made some few mistakes, it is only, as single Iliad, or the longest of the Æneids. For this you can bear me witness, because I have wanted reason (I mean not of length, but broken action, opportunity to correct them; the whole poem being tied too severely to the laws of history) I am apt to first written, and now sent you from a place where agree with those, who rank Lucan rather among I have not so much as the converse of any seaman. historians in verse than epic poets: in whose room, Yet though the trouble I had in writing it was great, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse it was no more than recompensed by the pleasure. writer, may more justly be admitted. I have cho- I found myself so warm in celebrating the praises sen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of of military men, two such especially as the prince four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged and general, that it is no wonder if they inspired them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for me with thoughts above my ordinary level. And the sound and number, than any other verse in use I am well satisfied, that, as they are incomparably amongst us; in which I am sure I have your ap- the best subject I ever had, excepting only the royal probation. The learned languages have certainly family, so also, that this I have written of them is a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the much better than what I have performed on any slavery of any rhyme; and were less constrained other. I have been forced to help out other arguin the quantity of every syllable, which they might ments; but this has been bountiful to me: they vary with spondees or dactyls, besides so many other have been low and barren of praise, and I have exhelps of grammatical figures, for the lengthening alted them, and made them fruitful; but hereor abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the Omnia sponte sua reddit justissima tellus. I have close of that one syllable, which often confines, and had a large, a fair, and a pleasant field; so fertile, more often corrupts, the sense of all the rest. But that, without my cultivating, it has given me two in this necessity of our rhymes, I have always harvests in a summer, and in both oppressed the found the couplet verse most easy, though not so reaper. All other greatness in subjects is only proper for this occasion: for there the work is counterfeit: it will not endure the test of danger; soouer at an end, every two lines concluding the the greatness of arms is only real: other greatness labour of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry burthens a nation with its weight; this supports it it further on, and not only so, but to bear along in with its strength. And as it is the happiness of the his head the troublesome sense of four lines toge-age, so it is the peculiar goodness of the best of ther. For those, who write correctly in this kind, must needs acknowledge, that the last line of the stanza is to be considered in the composition of the first. Neither can we give ourselves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the sake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using the variety of female rhymes; all which our fathers practised: and for the female rhymes, they are still in use amongst other nations; with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French alternately; as those who have read the Alarique, the Pucelle, or any of their later poems, will agree with me. And besides this, they write in Alexandrins, or verses of six feet; such as amongst us is the old translation of Homer by Chapman: all which, by lengthening of their chain, makes the sphere of their activity the larger. I have dwelt too long upon the choice of my stanza, which you may remember is much better defended in the preface to Gondibert; and therefore I will hasten to acquaint you with my en-thought, or product of imagination. But to prodeavours in the writing. In general I will only say, I have never yet seen the description of any naval fight in the proper terms which are used at sea: and if there be any such in another language, as that of Lucan in the third of his Pharsalia, yet I could not avail myself of it in the English; the

kings, that we may praise his subjects without offending him. Doubtless it proceeds from a just confidence of his own virtue, which the lustre of no other can be so great as to darken in him; for the good or the valiant are never safely praised under a bad or a degenerate prince. But to return from this digression to a further account of my poem; I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have endeavoured to adorn it with noble thoughts, so much more to express those thoughts with elocution. The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in the poet, or wit-writing, (if you will give me leave to use a school-distinction) is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it springs the quarry it hunted after: or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent. Wit written is that which is well defined, the happy result of

ceed from wit, in the general notion of it, to the proper wit of an heroic or historical poem; I judge it chiefly to consist in the delightful imaging of persons, actions, passions, or things. It is not the jerk or sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis, (the delight of an ill

Plague, the Country, the Battle of the Bulls, the Labour of the Bees, and those many other excellent images of Nature, most of which are neither great in themselves, nor have any natural ornament to bear them up: but the words wherewith he describes them are so excellent, that it might be well applied to him, which was said by Ovid, Materiem superabat opus: the very sound of his words has often somewhat that is connatural to the subject; and while we read him, we sit, as in a play, beholding the scenes of what he represents. To perform this, he made frequent use of tropes, which you know change the nature of a known word, by apwhich Horace means in his epistle to the Pisos :

Dixeris egregiè, notum si callida verbum
Reddiderit junctura novum-

But I am sensible I have presumed too far to entertain you with a rude discourse of that art which you both know so well, and put into practice with so much happiness. Yet, before I leave Virgil, I must own the vanity to tell you, and by you the world, that he has been my master in this poem: I have followed him every where, I know not with

judging audience m a play of rhyme) nor the gingle | I esteem the divinest part of all his writings, the of a more poor paranomasia; neither is it so much the morality of a grave sentence, affected by Lucan, but more sparingly used by Virgil; but it is some lively and apt description, dressed in such colours of speech, that it sets before your eyes the absent object, as perfectly, and more delightfully than Nature. So then the first happiness of the poet's imagination is properly invention or finding of the thought; the second is fancy, or the variation, deriving or moulding of that thought, as the judgment represents it proper to the subject; the third is elocution, or the art of clothing and adorning that thought, so found and varied, in apt, significant, and sounding words: the quickness of the imagina-plying it to some other signification; and this is it tion is seen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expression. For the two first of these, Ovid is famous amongst the poets; for the latter, Virgil. Ovid images more often the movements and affections of the mind, either combating between two contrary passions, or extremely discomposed by one. His words therefore are the least part of his care; for he pictures Nature in disorder, with which the study and choice of words is inconsistent. This is the proper wit of dialogue or discourse, and consequently of the drama, where all that is said is to be supposed the effect of sudden thought; which, though it excludes not the quick-what success, but I am sure with diligence enough: ness of wit in repartees, yet admits not a too curious election of words, too frequent allusions, or use of tropes, or in fine any thing that shows remoteness of thought or labour in the writer. On the other side, Virgil speaks not so often to us in the person of another, like Ovid, but in his own: he relates almost all things as from himself, and thereby gains more liberty than the other, to express his thoughts with all the graces of elocution, to write more figuratively, and to confess as well the labour as the force of his imagination. Though he describes his Dido well and naturally, in the violence of her passions, yet he must yield in that to the Myrrha, the Biblis, the Althaea, of Ovid; for, as great an admirer of him as I am, I must acknowledge, that if I see not more of their souls than I see of Dido's, at least I have a greater concernment for them: and that convinces me, that Ovid has touched those tender strokes more delicately than Virgil could. But when action or persons are to be described, when any such image is to be set before us, how bold, how masterly are the strokes of Virgil! We see the objects he presents us with in their native figures, in their proper motions; but so we see them, as our own eyes could never have beheld them so beautiful in themselves. We see the soul of the poet, like that universal one of which he speaks, informing and moving through all his pic-I have noted it in the margin, that I might not seem

tures:

Totamque infusa per artus

Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. We behold him embellishing his images, as he makes Venus breathing beauty upon her son Æneas.

Lumenque juventæ

Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflârat honores:
Quale manus addunt ebori decus, aut ubi flavo
Argentum Pariusve lapis circumdatur auro.

See his Tempest, his Funeral Sports, his Combat of Turnus and Ancas: and in his Georgics, which

my images are many of them copied from him, and the rest are imitations of him. My expressions also are as near as the idioms of the two languages would admit of in translation. And this, sir, I have done with that boldness, for which I will stand accountable to any of our little critics, who, perhaps, are no better acquainted with him than I am. Upon your first perusal of this poem, you have taken no tice of some words, which I have innovated (if it be too bold for me to say refined) upon his Latin; which, as I offer not to introduce into English prose, so I hope they are neither improper, nor altogether inelegant in verse; and, in this, Horace will again defend me.

Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si
Græco fonte cadant, parcè detorta

The inference is exceeding plain: for if a Roman poet might have liberty to coin a word, supposing only that it was derived from the Greek, was put into a Latin termination, and that he used this li berty but seldom, and with modesty; how much more justly may I challenge that privilege to do it with the same prerequisites, from the best and most judicious of Latin writers! In some places, where either the fancy or the words were his, or any other's,

a plagiary; in others I have neglected it, to avoid as well tediousness, as the affectation of doing it too often. Such descriptions or images well wrought, which I promise not for mine, are, as I have said, the adequate delight of heroic poesy; for they beget admiration, which is its proper object; as the images of the burlesque, which is contrary to this, by the same reason beget laughter; for the one shows Nature beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other shows her deformed, as in that of a lazar, or of a fool with distorted face and ant que gestures, at which we cannot forbear to laugh, because it is a deviation from Nature. But though the same images serve equally

for the epic poesy, and for the historic and panegyric, which are branches of it, yet a several sort of sculpture is to be used in them. If some of them are to be like those of Juvenal, stantes in curribus Emiliani, heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots, and in their full proportion; others are to be like that of Virgil, spirantia mollius æra: there is some

what more of softness and tenderness to be shown in them. You will soon find I write not this without concern. Some, who have seen a paper of verses, which I wrote last year to her highness the dutchess, have accused them of that only thing I could defend in them. They said, I did humi serpere; that I wanted not only height of fancy, but dignity of words, to set it off. I might well answer with that of Horace, nunc non erat his locus; I knew I addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression, and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defence. But I will not further bribe your candour, or the reader's. I leave them to speak for me; and, if they can, to make out that character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them.

And now, sir, it is time I should relieve you from the tedious length of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer. In conclusion, I must leave my poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not of the number of those, of whom the younger Pliny speaks; nec sunt parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant; I am rather too secure of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errours may make you more remiss in correcting them; if you will not withal consider that they come into the world with your approbation, and through your hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an absent person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation; and therefore I hope it will stir you up to make my poem fairer by many of your blots; if not, you know the story of the gamester who married the rich man's daughter, and, when her father denied the portion, christened all the children by his surname, that if, in conclusion, they must beg, they should do so by one name, as well as by the other. But since the reproach of my faults will light on you, it is but reason I should do you that justice to the readers, to let them know, that, if there be any thing tolerable in this poem, they owe the argument to your choice, the writing to your encouragement, the correction to your judgment, and the care of it to your friendship, to which he must ever acknowledge himself to owe all things, who is,

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ANNUS MIRABILIS:

THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666.

IN thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
Our king they courted, and our merchants aw'd.

Trade, which like blood should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast.

For them alone the Heavens had kindly heat:
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew:
For them the Idumæan balm did sweat,

And in hot Ceilon spicy forests grew.

The Sun but seem'd the labourer of the year;

Each waxing Moon supply'd her watery store, To swell those tides which from the line did bear, Their brim-full vessels to the Belgian shore.

Thus, mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stoop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:
And this may prove our second Punic war.

What peace can be, where both to one pretend?
(But they more diligent, and we more strong)
Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;
For they would grow too powerful were it long.

[land:

Behold two nations then, engag'd so far,
That each seven years the fit must shake each
Where France will side to weaken us by war,

Who only can his vast designs withstand.

See how he feeds th' Iberian with delays,

To render us his timely friendship vain: And while his secret soul on Flanders preys,

He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain. Such deep designs of empire does he lay

O'er them, whose cause he seems to take in hand; And prudently would make them lords at sea, To whom with ease he can give laws by land.

This saw our king; and long within his breast
His pensive counsels balanc'd to and fro:
He griev'd the land he freed should be oppress'd,
And he less for it than usurpers do.

His generous mind the fair ideas drew

Of fame and honour, which in dangers lay; Where wealth, like fruit on precipices, grew, Not to be gather'd but by birds of prey.

The loss and gain each fatally were great; And still his subjects call'd aloud for war: But peaceful kings, o'er martial people set, Each other's poize and counterbalance are.

He first survey'd the charge with careful eyes,
Which none but mighty monarchs could maintain;
Yet judg'd, like vapours that from limbecs rise,
It would in richer showers descend again.

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