For ftill they look on you with such kind eyes, [Py you our monarch does that fame affure, As heaven's eternal monarch does convey Thus once, when Troy was wrap'd in fire and His power unfeen, and man to his defigns, firoke, The helpless gols their burning fhrines forfook; That, though your orbs of different greatness be, Juftice, that fits and frowns where public laws Yet, paffing through your hands, it gathers more, ore While empiric politicians ute deceit, By his bright minifters the stars, inclines. She ftruck the warlike fpear into the ground; How strangely active are the arts of peace, Nor can we this weak fhower a tempest call, And, like Olympus' top, th' impreffion wears And measure change, but share ro part of it. SATIRE ON A THE WHEN for our fakes, your her you refign'd To fwelling feas, and every faithlefs wind; You lodg'd your country's cares within your breaft WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1662. S needy gallants, in the fcrivener's hands, And 'twas for him much easier to fubdue To her Royal Highnefs 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, Court the rich knaves that gripe their mort-Held to them both the trident of the fea: gag'd lands; The first fat buck of all the feafon's fent, Yet fill the fame religion anfwers all. The winds were hufh'd, the waves in ranks were caft, As awfully as when Cod's people paft: How powerful are chafte vows! the wind and tida Drew English blood, and Dutchmen's row would While, from afar we heard the cannon play, fpare. Pe gull'd no longer; for you'll find it true, And that what once they were, they still would be. Like diftant thunder on a thiny day. In crowding heaps, to fill your moving court: And round him the pleas'd audience clap their 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. A S perhaps I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature to the metro a give the first example of such a dedication should begin it with that city, which has fet 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 neceffary 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 ; he, through a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and the interposition of many rivals, who violently ravished and with-held you from him : and certainly you have had your share in fufferings. But providence has calt upon you want of trade, that you might appear bountiful to your country's neceflities; 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 now a Phenix in her ashes ; anst, 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 nerer of any virtuous nation : Providence is engaged too deeply when the cause becomes fo general; and I cannot imagine it has resolved the ruin of that people at home, which it has blessed abroad with 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 it is by done more pallionately desired, than by, The greatest of your admirers, JOHN DRY DEN. 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 farther 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 least give you the encouragement of a martyr ; you could never fuffer in a nobler cause. For I have chosen the most heroic subject, which any poet could desire: I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes, of a molt juft and necessary war; in it, the care, management, and prudence of our king; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and scamen; 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 vaft 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 ì 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 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 bave called my poem Historical, not Epic, though both the actions and actors are as much heroic as any poem can contain, But since the action is not properly one, nor that accomplished in the last successes, I have judged it too bold a title for a few stanzas, which are little more in number than a single Iliad, or the longest of the Æneids. For this reason (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too feverely to the laws of history) I am apt to agree with those, who rank Lucan, rather among hiltorians in verse, than Epic poets : in whose room, if I am not deceived, Silius Iralicus, though a worse writer, may more justly be admitted, I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us ; in which I am sure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the slavery of any rhyme ; and were less contrained in the quantity of every Tyllable, which they might vary with fpondees or dactyls, besides so many other belps of grammatical figures, for the length cnin 1 ening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the clofe of that one fyllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the fenfe of all the reft. But in this neceflity of our rhymes, I have always found the couplet verfe more easy, though not fo proper for this occafion: for there the work is fooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labour of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it farther on, and not only fo, but to bear along in his head the troublesome fenfe of four lines together For thofe, who write correctly in this kind, muft needs acknowledge, that the last line of the flanza is to be confidered in the compofition of the firft. Neither can we give ourfelves the liberty of making any part of a verfe for the fake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or afing the variety of female rhymes all which our fathers practifed: and for the female rhymes, they are still in ufe amongst other nations; with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promifcuously, with the French alternately; as thofe who have read the Alarique, the Pucelle, or any of their later poems, will agree with me. And befides this, they write in Alexandrins or verfes of fix feet; fuch as amongst us is the old tranflation of Homer by Chapman: all which, by lengthning of their chain, makes the fphere 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 haften to acquaint you with my endeavours in the writing. In general I will only fay, I have never yet feen the defcription of any naval fight in the proper terms which are used at fea: and if there be any fuch in another language, as that of Lucan in the third of his Pharfalia, yet I could not avail my felf of it in the English; the terms of art in every tongue bearing more the idiom of it than any other words. We hear indeed among our poets, of the thundering of guns, the fmoke, the disorder, and the flaughter; but all these are common notions. And certainly, as thofe who in a logical difpute keep in general terms, would hide a fallacy; fo those who do it in any poetical description, would veil their ignorance. Defcriptas fervare vices operumque colores, For my own part I had little knowledge of the fea, yet I have thought it no shame to Jearn: and if I have made fome few mistakes, it is only, as you can bear me witness, because I have wanted opportunity to correct them; the whole poem being firft written, and now fent you from a place where I have not fo much as the converfe of any feaman. Yet though the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was no more than recompenfed by the pleasure. I found myself fo warm in celebrating the praises of military men, two fuch especially as the prince and general, that it is no wonder if they infpired me with thoughts above my ordinary level. And I am well fatisfied, that, as they are incomparably the beft fubject I ever had, excepting only the royal family, fo alfo, that this I have written of them is much better than what I have performed on any other. I have been forced to help out other arguments; but this has been bountiful to me they have been low and barren of praife, and I have exalted them; and made them fruitful; but here" Omnia fponte fua reddit juftiffima tel"lus." I have had a large, a fair, and a pleasant field; fo fertile, that without my cultivating, it has given me two harvefts in a fummer, and in both oppreffed the reaper. All other greatnefs in fubjects is only counterfeit: it will not endure the test of danger; the greatnefs of arms is only real: other greatnefs burdens a nation with its weight; this fupports it with its ftrength. And as it is the happine fs of the age, fo it is the peculiar goodness of the best of kings, that we may praife his fubjects without offending him. Doubtlefs it proceeds from a juft confidence of his own virtue, which the luftre of no other can be fo great as to darken in him; for the good or the valiant are never fafely praifed under a bad or a degenerate prince. But |