The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 18

IV

When to the blest bright region he was come,The vulgar angels gazed, and made him room:Each laureat monarch welcomes him on high,And to embrace him altogether fly:Then strait the happy guest is shownTo his bright and lofty throne,Inferior there to none.A crown beset with little suns, whose raysShoot forth in foliages resembling bays,Now on his head they place:Then round him all the sacred bandLoudly congratulating stand:When after silence made,Thus the sweetest Waller said: —“Well hast thou merited, triumphant bard!For, once I knew thee militant below,When I myself was so;Dangerous thy post, the combat fierce and hard,Ignorance and rebellion still thy foe;But for those little pains see now the great reward!Mack-Flecknoe and AchitophelCan now no more disturb thy peace,Thy labours past, thy endless joys increase;The more thou hast endured, the more thou dost excel;And for the laurels snatched from thee below,Thou wear’st an everlasting crown upon thy hallowed brow.”

V

The bard, who next the new-born saint addrest,Was Milton, for his wonderous poem blest;Who strangely found, in his Lost Paradise, rest.“Great bard,” said he, “’twas verse aloneDid for my hideous crime atone,Defending once the worst rebellion.A double share of bliss belongs to thee,For thy rich verse and thy firm loyalty;Some of my harsh and uncouth points do oweTo thee a tuneful cadence still below.Thine was indeed the state of innocence,Mine of offence,With studied treason and self-interest stained,Till Paradise Lost wrought Paradise Regained.”He said: – when thus our English Abraham,(In heaven the second of that name,Cowley, as glorious there as sacred here in fame,)“Welcome, Aleides, to this happy place!Our wish, and our long expectation here,Makes thee to us more dear;Thou great destroyer of that monstrous race,Which our sad former seat did harass and disgrace,Be blest and welcomed with our praise!Thy great Herculean labours done,And all the courses of thy zodiac run,Shine here to us, a more illustrious sun!But see! thy brethren gods in poetry,The whole great race divine,Ready in thy applause to join,Who will supply what is defect in me.”

VI

Rochester, once on earth a prodigy,A happy convert now on high,Here begins his wonderous lays,In the sainted poet’s praise.Fathomless Buckingham, smooth Orrery,The witty D’Avenant, Denham, Suckling too,Shakespeare, nature’s Kneller, whoNature’s picture likest drew,Each in their turn his praise pursue.His song elaborate Jonson next does try,On earth unused to eulogy;Beaumont and Fletcher sing together still,And with their tuneful notes the arched palace fill.The noble patron poet now does try,His wondrous Spenser to outvy.Drayton did next our sacred bard address,And sung above with wonderful success.Our English Ennius, he who gaveTo the great bard kind welcome to his grave,Chaucer, the mightiest bard of yore,Whose verse could mirth to saddest souls restore,Caressed him next, whilst his delighted eyeExpressed his love, and thus his tongue his joy: —“Was I, when erst below,” said he,“In hopes so great a bard to see,As thou, my son, adopted unto me,And all this godlike race, some equal even to thee!O! ’tis enough.” – Here soft Orinda204 cameAnd sprightly Afra,205 muses both on earth,Both burned here with a bright poetic flame,Which to their happiness above gave birth;Their charming songs his entertainment close,The mighty bard then, smiling, bowed, and rose.

VII

Strait from his head each takes his laurel’d crown,And on the golden pavement casts it down:All prostrate fall before heaven’s high imperial throne,When the new saint begins his song alone;Wond’rous even there it was confest,Scarce to be equalled by the rest;Herbert nor Crashaw, though on earth divine,So sweetly could their numbers join!When, lo! the light of twenty thousand suns,All in one body, shining all at once,Darts from the imperial to this lower court;A light which they but hardly could support!Then the great anthem was begun,Which all the hallowed bards together sung;And by no choir of angels is outdone,But by the great seraphic choir alone,That day and night surround the awful throne of heaven’s eternal King;Even they themselves did the great chorus fill,And brought the grateful sounds to heaven’s high holiest hill.

VIII

My soul shook with the sacred harmony, which soon alarmed my heart;I fancied I was falling from on high, and wakened with a start:“Waked,” said I, “surely no; I did not sleep;Can they be dreams which such impressions make?My soul does still the blest ideas keep;And still, methinks, I see them, though awake!The other thrones too, which, though vacant, shoneWith greater glory than the sun,Come fresh into my mind;Which once will lose their lustre by their bards outdone,When filled with those for whom they are designed.Upon their fronts I saw the glittering names,All written in celestial flames.For Dorset what a palace did I see!For Montague! And what for Normandy!What glories wait for Wycherly!For Congreve, Southerne, Tate, Garth, Addison?For Stephney, Prior, and for Dennis too?What thrones are void, what joys prepared and due?The pleasant dear companion Cheek,Whom all the great although at midnight seek,This glorious wreath must wear, and endless joys pursue.And for Motteux, my Gallic friend,The like triumphant laurels wait;Though heaven, I hope, will send it very late,Ere they or he to their blest seats ascend.’Tis in their verse, next his, that he must live,Next his their lines eternal fame can give;Then all the happiness on earth I knowIs, that such godlike men as they are with us still below.”

No. X.

TO THE MEMORY OF MR DRYDEN, A POEM

Huic versatile ingenium sic pariter ad omnia fuit,

Ut ad id unum natum diceres quodcunque ageret.

1700, 17th June.

When mortals formed of common clay expire,These vulgar souls an elegy require;But some hero of more heavenly frame,Exerts his valour, and extends his fame;Below the spheres impatient to abide,With universal joy is deified.Thus our triumphant Bard from hence is fled.But let us never, never say he’s dead;Let poetasters make the Muses mourn,And common-place it o’er his sacred urn;The public voice exalts him to the sky,And fate decrees him immortality;Ordains, instead of tears or mournful hearse,His apotheosis be sung in verse.Great poets sure are formed of heavenly race,And with great heroes justly claim a place.As Cæsar’s pen did Cæsar best commend,And all the elegies of Rome transcend;So Dryden’s muse alone, like Phœbus bright,Outshines all human praise, or borrowed light;To form his image, and to make it true,There must be art, and inspiration too.Auspicious stars had doomed him to the trade,By nature framed, by art a poet made:Thus Maro’s words and sense in him we see,And Ovid’s teeming vein of poesy.In his vast miscellaneous works we find,What charms at once, and edifies the mind:His pregnant muse has in the offspring shownWhat’s rare for use, or beauty to be known:In monumental everlasting verseEpitomised, he grasped the universe.No power but his could tune a British lyreTo sweeter notes than any Tuscan quire,Teutonic words to animate and raise,Strong, shining, musical, as attic lays;Rude matter indisposed he formed polite,His muse seemed rather to create than write.His nervous eloquence is brighter farThan florid pulpit, or the noisy bar.His periods shine harmonious in the close,As if a muse presided in his prose;Yet unaffected plain, but strong his style,It overflows to fructify, like Nile.The God of wit conspires with all the Nine,To make the orator and poet join.We’re charmed when he the lady or the friend,Pleased in majestic numbers to commend.The panegyric flows in streams profuse,When worth or beauty sublimates the muse.His notes are moving, powerful, and strong,As Orpheus’ lyre, or as a Syren’s song;Sweet as the happy Idumean fields,And fragrant as the flowers that Tempe yields.Thrice happy she to whom such tribute’s paid,And has such incense at her altar laid;A sacrifice that might with envy moveJove’s consort, or the charming Queen of Love.His lasting lines will give a sacred name,(Eternal records in the book of fame,)His favourites are doom’d by Jove’s decree,To share with him in immortality.The wealthy muse on innate mines could live,Though no Mecenas any smile would give;His light not borrowed, but was all his own;His rays were bright and warm without the sun.Pictures (weak images of him) are sold,The French are proud to have the head for gold:The echo of his verse has charmed their ear, —O could they comprehend the sound they hear!Who hug the cloud, caress an airy face,What would they give the goddess to embrace?The characters his steady muse could frame,Are more than like, they are so much the same;The pencil and the mirror faintly live,’Tis but the shadow of a life they give;Like resurrection from the silent grave,He the numeric soul and body gave.No art, no hand but his could e’er bring homeThe noblest choicest flowers of Greece and Rome;Transplant them with sublimest art and toil,And make them flourish in a British soil.Whatever ore he cast into his mould }He did the dark philosophy unfold, }And by a touch converted all to gold. }With epic feet who ere can steady run,May drive the fiery chariot of the sun,Must neither soar too high, nor fall too low;Must neither burn like fire, nor freeze like snow.All ages mighty conquerors have known,Who courage and their power in arms have shown:Greece knew but one, and Rome the Mantuan swain,Who durst engage in lofty epic strain;Heroics here were lands unknown before,Our great Columbus first descried the shore.No prophet moved the passions of the mind,With sovereign power and force so unconfined:We sympathised with his poetic rage,In lofty buskins when he ruled the stage;He roused our love, our hope, despairs, and fears,Dissolved in joy we were, or drowned in tears.When juster indignation roused his hate,Insipid rhymes to lash, or knaves of state;Each line’s a sting, and ev’ry sting a death,As if their fate depended on his breath.Like sun-beams swift, his fiery shafts were sent,Or lightning darted from the firmament.No warmer clime, no age or muse divine,In pointed satire could our bard outshine.His unexhausted force knew no decay;In spite of years, his muse grew young and gay,And vigorous, like the patriarch of old,His last-born Joseph cast in finest mould;This son of sixty-nine, surpassing fair,With any elder offspring may compare,Has charms in courts of monarchs to be seen,Caressed and cherished by a longing queen.Great prophets oft extend their just command,Receive the tribute of a foreign land;When in their own ungrateful native groundFew just admiring votaries they found.But when these god-like men their clay resign,Pale Envy’s laid a victim at their shrine;United mortals do their worth proclaim,And altars raise to their eternal fame.Wealth, beauty, force of wit, without allay,In Dryden’s heavenly muse profusely lay;Which mighty charms did never yet combine,In any single deity to shine,But were dispensed, more thriftily, betweenJove’s wife, his daughter, and the Cyprian queen.The nymphs recorded in his artful lays,Produce the grateful homage of their praise;Assisted in their vows by powers divine,Offer their sacred incense at his shrine.The spheres exalt their music, to commendThe poet’s master and the muse’s friend;In concert form seraphic notes to sing,Of numbers, and of harmony the king.In this triumphant scene to act her part,Nature’s attended by her hand-maid, Art:Resounding Echo, with her mimic voice,Concurs to make the universe rejoice.Let ev’ry tongue and pen the poet sing,Who mounts Parnassus top with lofty wing;Whose splendid muse has crowns of laurel won,That brave the shining beauties of the sun.His lines (those sacred reliques of the mind)Not by the laws of fate or war confined,In spite of flames will everlasting prove,Devouring rust of time, or angry Jove.

No. XI.

EXTRACT FROM POETÆ BRITANNICI.

A POEM, SATIRICAL AND PANEGYRICAL

1700. 9. January.L – gh aim’d to rise above great Dr – n’s height,But lofty Dryden kept a steady flight.Like Dædalus, he times with prudent careHis well-waxed wings, and waves in middle air.Crowned with the sacred snow of reverend years,Dryden above the ignobler crowd appears,Raises his laurelled head, and, as he goes,O’er-shoulders all, and like Apollo shows.The native spark, which first advanced his name,By industry he kindled to a flame.Then to a different coast his judgment flew,He left the old world behind, and found a new.On the strong columns of his lasting wit,Instructive Dryden built, and peopled it.In every page delight and profit shines;Immortal sense flows in his mighty lines.His images so strong and lively be,I hear not words alone, but substance see,The proper phrase of our exalted tongueTo such perfection from his numbers sprung;His tropes continued, and his figures fine,All of a piece throughout, and all divine.Adapted words and sweet expressions moveOur various passions, pity, rage, and love.I weep to hear fond Antony complainIn Shakespeare’s fancy, but in Virgil’s strain.Though for the comic, others we prefer,Himself the judge; nor does his judgment err.But comedy, ’tis thought, can never claimThe sounding title of a poem’s name.For raillery, and what creates a smile,Betrays no lofty genius, nor a style.That heavenly heat refuses to be seenIn a town character, and comic mien.If we would do him right, we must produceThe Sophoclean buskin; when his museWith her loud accents filled the listning ear,And peals applauding shook the theatre.They fondly seek, great name, to blast thy praise,Who think that foreign banks produced thy bays.Is he obliged to France, who draws from thence,By English energy, their captive sense?Though Edward and famed Henry warred in vain,Subduing what they could not long retain,Yet now, beyond our arms, the muse prevails,And poets conquer, when the hero fails.This does superior excellence betray:O could I write in thy immortal way!If Art be Nature’s scholar, and can makeSuch great improvements, Nature must forsakeHer ancient style; and in some grand design, }She must her own originals decline, }And for the noblest copies follow thine. }This all the world must offer to thy praise,And this Thalia sang in rural lays.As sleep to weary drovers on the plain,As a sweet river to a thirsty swain,Such divine Dryden’s charming verses show,Please like the river, like the river flow.When his first years in mighty order ran,And cradled infancy bespoke the man,Around his lips the waxen artists hung,And breathed ambrosial odours as they sung.In yellow clusters from their hives they flew,And on his tongue distilled eternal dew:Thence from his mouth harmonious numbers broke,More sweet than honey from the knotted oak;More smooth than streams, that from a mountain glide,Yet lofty as the top from whence they slide.Long he possest the hereditary plains,Beloved by all the herdsmen, and the swains,Till he resigned his flock, opprest with years,And olden’d in his woe, as well as fears.Yet still, like Etna’s mount, he kept his fire,And look’d, like beauteous roses on a brier:He smiled, like Phœbus in a stormy morn,And sung, like Philomel against a thorn.

No. XII.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NINE MUSES;

Or, Poems written by nine several Ladies, upon the death of the late famous John Dryden, EsqAs earth thy body keeps, thy soul the sky,So shall this verse preserve thy memory;For thou shalt make it live, because it sings of thee.London: printed for Richard Basset, at the Mitre, in Fleet Street, 1700

The work is dedicated to the Right Hon. Charles Montague, (Lord Halifax,) by the publisher Basset, who thus apologizes for the intrusion:

“The ladies indeed themselves might have had a better plea for your reception; but since the modesty which is natural to the sex they are of, will not suffer them to do that violence to their tempers, I think myself obliged to make a present of what is written in honour of the most consummate poet among our English dead, to the most distinguished among the living. You have been pleased already to shew your respect to his memory, in contributing so largely to his burial, notwithstanding he had that unhappiness of conduct, when alive, to give you cause to disclaim the protection of him.”

The dedication is followed by a commendatory copy of verses, addressed to the publisher, and signed Philomusus; of which most readers will think the following lines a sufficient specimen:

Hence issues forth a most delightful song,Fair as their sex, and as their judgment strong;Moving its force, and tempting in its ease;Secured of fame, unknowing to displease;Its every word like Aganippe, clear,And close its meaning, and its sense severe:As virtuous thoughts with chaste expression join,And make them truly, what they feign, divine.

The poems of these divine ladies, as their eulogist phrases them, appear in the following order:

Melpomene, the Tragic Muse, personated by Mrs Manley, refers to his elegies and tragedies. Melpomene sorrows for him:

Who sorrowed Killigrew’s untimely fall,And more than Roman made her funeral;Inspired by me, for me he could command,Bright Abingdon’s rich monument shall standFor evermore the wonder of the land;Oldham he snatched from an ignoble fate,Changed his cross star for one more fortunate;For who would not with pride resign his breath,To be so loved, to be so blest in death?

The eulogiums on Cromwell and Charles then praised. Of the last it is said,

For this alone he did deserve the prize,As Ranelagh, for her victorious eyes.

Cleopatra and St Catharine are mentioned; then

– Dorax and Sebastian both contendTo shew the generous enemy and friend.

Urania, the Divine Muse, by the Honourable the Lady Peirce. This lady, after much tragic dole, is wonderfully comforted by recollecting that Garth survives, though Dryden is dead:

More I’ll not urge, but know, our wishes canNo higher soar, since Garth’s the glorious man;Him let us constitute in Dryden’s stead,Let laurels ever flourish on his head.

Urania, after mentioning Virgil, exclaims,

O give us Homer yet, thou glorious bard!

Erato, the Amorous Muse, by Mrs S. Field. She claims the merit of Dryden’s love poems, on the following grounds:

Oft I for ink did radiant nectar bring,And gave him quills from infant Cupid’s wing.

Euterpe, the Lyric Muse, by Mrs J. E. Euterpe, of course, pours forth her sorrow in a scrambling Pindaric ode:

But, oh! they could not stand the rageOf an ill-natured and lethargic age,Who, spite of wit, would stupidly be wise;All noble raptures, extasies despise,And only plodders after sense will prize.

Euterpe eulogizeth

Garth, whom the god of wisdom did foredoom,And stock with eloquence, to pay thy tombThe most triumphant rites of ancient Rome.

Euterpe is true to her own character; for one may plod in vain after sense through her lyric effusion.

Thalia, the Comic Muse, by Mrs Manley. A pastoral dialogue betwixt Alexis, Daphne, Aminta, and Thalia. After the usual questions concerning the cause of sorrow, Thalia, invoked by the nymphs and swains, sings a ditty, bearing the following burden:

Bring here the spring, and throw fresh garlands on,With all the flowers that wait the rising sun;These ever-greens, true emblems of his soul,Take, Daphne, these, and scatter through the whole,While the eternal Dryden’s worth I tell,My lovely bard, that so lamented fell.

Clio, or the Historic Muse, by Mrs Pix, the authoress of a tragedy called “Queen Catharine, or the Ruins of Love.”

Stop here, my muse, no more thy office boast,This drop of praise is in an ocean lost;His works alone are trumpets of his fame,And every line will chronicle his name.

Calliope, the Heroic Muse, by Mrs C. Trotter. This is the best of these pieces. Calliope complains, that she is more unhappy than her sisters of the sock and buskin, still worshipped successfully by Vanburgh and Granville, in the epic province:

– Blackmore, in spiteOf me and nature, still presumes to write;Heavy and dozed, crawls out the tedious length;Unfit to soar, drags on with peasant strengthThe weight he cannot raise.

The poem concludes,

– Now you who aim,With fading power, at bright immortal fame;Ambitious monarchs, all whom glory warms,Cease your vain toil, throw down your conquering arms;Your active souls confine, since you must dieLike vulgar men, your names and actions lieWhere Trojan heroes, had not Homer lived,Had lain forgot, nor ruined Troy survived;No more their glories I can e’er retrieve,For nature can no second Dryden give.

Terpsichore, a Lyric Muse, by Mrs L. D. ex tempore. Albeit a lyric muse, Terpsichore laments in hexameters:

Just as the gods were listening to my strains,And thousand loves danced o’er the etherial plains,With my own radiant hair my harp I strung,And in glad concert all my sisters sung:An universal harmony aboveInspired us all with gaiety and love;A horrid sound dashed our immortal mirth,Wafted by sighs from the unlucky earth,Et cætera, et cætera.

Polyhymnia, the Muse of Rhetoric, by Mrs D. E. This lady concludes the volume thus:

Incessant groans be all my rhetoric now!My immortality I would forego,Rather than drag this chain of endless woe.O mighty Father, hear a daughter’s prayer,Cure me by death from deathless sad despair!

These extracts are taken from the presentation copy of this rare book, in the library of Mr Bindley, of Somerset-House, whose liberality I have had already repeated occasion to acknowledge.

No. XIII.

VERSES

IN PRAISE OF MR DRYDEN

To Mr Dryden, by Jo. Addison, EsqHow long, great poet, shall thy sacred laysProvoke our wonder, and transcend our praise!Can neither injuries of time, or age,Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?Not so thy Ovid in his exile wrote;Grief chilled his breast, and checked his rising thought;Pensive and sad, his drooping muse betraysThe Roman genius in its last decays.Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possest,And second youth is kindled in thy breast.Thou mak’st the beauties of the Romans known,And England boasts of riches not her own:Thy lines have heightened Virgil’s majesty,And Horace wonders at himself in thee.Thou teachest Persius to inform our isleIn smoother numbers, and a clearer style:And Juvenal, instructed in thy page,Edges his satire, and improves his rage.Thy copy casts a fairer light on all,And still outshines the bright original.Now Ovid boasts the advantage of thy song,And tells his story in the British tongue;Thy charming verse, and fair translations showHow thy own laurel first began to grow;How wild Lycaon, changed by angry Gods,And frighted at himself, ran howling through the woods.O may’st thou still the noble tale prolong,Nor age, nor sickness interrupt thy song!Then may we wond’ring read, how human limbsHave watered kingdoms, and dissolved in streams,Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mouldTurned yellow by degrees, and ripened into gold:How some in feathers, or a ragged hide,Have lived a second life, and different natures triedThen will thy Ovid, thus transformed, revealA nobler change than he himself can tell.Mag. Coll. Oxon. June 2, 1693.

The Confederates, or the First Happy Day of the Island Princess

Ye vile traducers of the female kind,Who think the fair to cruelty inclined,Recant your error, and with shame confessTheir tender care of Skipwith206 in distress:For now to vindicate this monarch’s right,The Scotch and English equal charms unite;In solemn leagues contending nations join,And Britain labours with the vast design.An opera with loud applause is played,Which famed Motteux in soft heroics made;And all the sworn Confederates resort,To view the triumph of their sovereign’s court.In bright array the well-trained host appears;Supreme command brave Derwentwater207 bears;And next in front George Howard’s bride208 does shine,The living honour of that ancient line.The wings are led by chiefs of matchless worth;Great Hamilton,209 the glory of the North,Commands the left; and England’s dear delight,The bold Fitzwalter210 charges on the right.The Prince, to welcome his propitious friends,A throne erected on the stage ascends.He said: – Blest angels! for great ends designed,The best, and sure the fairest, of your kind,How shall I praise, or in what numbers singYour just compassion of an injured king?Till you appeared, no prospect did remain,My crown and falling sceptre to maintain;No noisy beaus in all my realm were found;No beauteous nymphs my empty boxes crowned:But still I saw, O dire heart-breaking woe!My own sad consort211 in the foremost row.But this auspicious day new empire gives;And if by your support my nation lives,For you my bards shall tune the sweetest lays,Norton212 and Henley213 shall resound your praise;And I, not last of the harmonious train,Will give a loose to my poetic vein.To him great Derwentwater thus replied: —Thou mighty prince, in many dangers tried,Born to dispute severe decrees of fate,The nursing-father of a sickly state;Behold the pillars of thy lawful reign!Thy regal rights we promise to maintain:Our brightest nymphs shall thy dominions grace,With all the beauties of the Highland race;The beaus shall make thee their peculiar care,For beaus will always wait upon the fair:For thee kind Beereton and bold Webbe shall fight,214Lord Scott215 shall ogle, and my spouse shall write:216Thus shall thy court our English youth engross,And all the Scotch, from Drummond down to Ross.Now in his throne the king securely sat;But O! this change alarmed the rival state;Besides he lately bribed, in breach of laws,The fair deserter of her uncle’s cause.This roused the monarch of the neighbouring crown,A drowsy prince, too careless of renown.217Yet prompt to vengeance, and untaught to yield,Great Scarsdale218 challenged Skipwith to the field.Whole shoals of poets for this chief declare,And vassal players attend him to the war.Skipwith with joy the dreadful summons took,And brought an equal force; then Scarsdale spoke; —Thou bane of empire, foe to human kind,Whom neither leagues nor laws of nations bind;For cares of high poetic sway unfit,Thou shame of learning, and reproach of wit;Restore bright Helen to my longing sight,Or now my signal shall begin the fight. —Hold, said the foe, thy warlike host remove,Nor let our bards the chance of battle prove:Should death deprive us of their shining parts,What would become of all the liberal arts?Should Dennis fall, whose high majestic wit,And awful judgment, like two tallies, fit,Adieu, strong odes, and every lofty strain,The tragic rant, and proud Pindaric vein.Should tuneful D’Urfey now resign his breath,The lyric Muse would scarce survive his death;But should divine Motteux untimely die,The gasping Nine would in convulsions lie:For these bold champions safer arms provide,And let their pens the double strife decide.The king consents; and urged by public good,Wisely retreats to save his people’s blood:The moving legions leave the dusty plain,And safe at home poetic wars maintain.