Chapter I: Part II: 319 (1)

Notes on Part II. 354

The Medal, a Satire against Sedition, 407
Epistle to the Whigs, 417
Notes, 441

POEMS,

HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL.

HEROIC STANZAS

TO

THE MEMORY OF OLIVER CROMWELL.

These verses compose the earliest of our author's political poems, and are among the first which he wrote, of any length or consequence. The first edition is now before me, by the favour of my friend Richard Heber, Esq.; and, while correcting this sheet, I received another copy from Mr Finlay, author of the "Vale of Ellerslie." It is of the last degree of rarity, since it has escaped the researches even of Mr Malone. The full title is, "A Poem upon the Death of his late Highness Oliver, Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland; written by Mr Dryden. London, printed for William Wilson, and are to be sold in Well-Yard, near Little St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1659," 4to. Upon comparing this rare edition with those of a later date, no material alterations occur, excepting that the spelling is modernized, and the title abridged.

Some of our author's biographers have deemed it necessary to apologise for his chusing this subject, by referring to his near connection with Sir Gilbert Pickering, the friend and confident of the deceased usurper. There is, however, little reason to suppose, that Dryden did any violence to his own inclinations, to gratify the political feelings of his kinsman and patron. He had been bred in anti-monarchical principles, and did not probably change, till the nation changed with him. The character of Cromwell was in itself an inviting theme to so true a poet. The man, of whom Clarendon said, that "even his enemies could not condemn him, without commending him at the same time," and of whose exploits Cowley has given so animating a detail; whom, in short, his very enemies could not mention without wonder, if they with-held applause,--afforded to those who favoured his politics many a point of view, in which the splendour of his character might hide its blemishes.[1] It is remarkable, however, that, in handling this theme, Dryden has observed a singular and happy delicacy. The topic of the civil war is but slightly dwelt on; and, although Cromwell is extolled, his eulogist abstains from any reflections against those, through whom he cut his way to greatness. He considers the Protector when in his meridian height, but passes over the steps by which he attained that elevation. It is also remarkable, that although Sir Gilbert Pickering was one of Richard Cromwell's council, our author abstains from any compliment to that pageant of authority; when a panegyrick upon the son was a natural topic of consolation after mourning over the loss of his father. Sprat, upon the same occasion, did not omit this obvious topic, but launched forth into prophecies, to which the event did very little credit.[2]

Notwithstanding these symptoms of caution and moderation, the subject of this first public essay of our author's poetical talents was repeatedly urged against him during the political controversies in which, through the reigns of Charles II. and his brother, he was constantly engaged. One offended antagonist carried his malice so far, as actually to reprint an edition of the Elegy, with a dull postscript, in which he makes Dryden acknowledge his alleged apostacy.[3]

Of the poetical merits of the Elegy, we have elsewhere spoken more fully. The manly and solemn march of the stanza gave promise of that acute poetical ear, which afterwards enabled Dryden to harmonize our verification. The ideas, though often far-fetched, and sometimes ambiguously expressed, indicate the strength and vigour of his mind. They give obvious tokens of a regeneration of taste; for though, in many instances, the conceits are very extravagant, yet they are, in general, much more moderate than those in the Elegy upon Lord Hastings, whose whole soul was rendered a celestial sphere, by the virtues which were stuck in it; and his body little less brilliantly ornamented by the pustules of small pox, which were first rose-buds, and then stars. The symptoms of emerging from the false taste and impertinent witticisms of Donne and Cowley, were probably more owing to our author's natural feeling of what were the proper attributes of poetry, than to any change in the taste of the age. Sprat, who also solemnizes the decease of Cromwell, runs absolutely riot in pindarics, and furnishes as excellent an instance of useless labour, and wit rendered ridiculous by misapplication, as can be found in Cowley himself. Cromwell's elevation is compared to the raising up of the brazen serpent, in the Pentateuch;[5] the classic metamorphosis of Ajax's blood into the hyacinth[6] furnishes a simile for the supposed revival of letters through the blood spilled by Cromwell; his sword is preferred to the flaming brand of the cherub, because it had made a paradise, which the other only guarded; finally, the Protector's temper grew milder in the progress of his warfare, as his armour, being made of steel, grew smoother by use.[7] It must be allowed, that there are, in Dryden's poem, many, and greatly too many, epigrammatic turns; each is, however, briefly winded up in its own stanza; while the structure of Sprat's poem enabled him to hunt down his conceits through all the doubling and winding of his long pindaric strophé. Dryden, for example, says, that Cromwell strewed the island with victories,

Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown.

Sprat spins out nearly the same idea, in the following extraordinary manner:

Others' great actions are
But thinly scattered, here and there;
At best, but all one single star;
But thine the milky way;
All one continued light of undistinguished day.
They thronged so close, that nought else could be seen,
Scarce any common sky did come between.

By turning the reader's attention to this comparison betwixt the poems of Sprat and Dryden, I mean to shew, that our author was already weaning himself from that franticly witty stile of composition, which the most ingenious of his contemporaries continued to practise and admire; although he did not at once abandon it, but retrenched his quaint conceits before he finally discarded them.

The poem of Waller on Cromwell's death, excepting one unhappy and celebrated instance of the bathos,[8] is the best of his compositions; and, separately considered, must be allowed to be superior to that of Dryden, by whom he was soon after so far distanced in the poetical career.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "What can be more extraordinary, than that a person of mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes, or of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and the happiness to succeed in, so improbable a design, as the destruction of one of the most ancient, and most solid founded monarchies upon the earth? That he should have the power, or boldness, to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death? To banish that numerous and strongly allied family? To do all this under the name and wages of a parliament? To trample upon them, too, as he pleased, and spurn them out of doors when he grew weary of them? To raise up a new and unheard-of monster out of their ashes? To stifle that in the very infancy, and set up himself above all things that ever were called sovereign in England? To oppress all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice? To serve all parties patiently for a while, and to command them victoriously at last? To over-run each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north? To be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of the earth? To call together parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth? To be humbly and daily petitioned, that he would please to be hired, at the rate of two millions a year, to be the master of those who had hired him before to be their servant? To have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as much at his disposal, as was the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal in the spending of them? And, lastly, (for there is no end of all the particulars of his glory,) to bequeath all this with one word to his posterity? To die with peace at home, and triumph abroad? To be buried among kings, and with more than regal solemnity? And to leave a name behind him, not to be extinguished but with the whole world, which as it is now too little for his praises, so might have been too for his conquests if the short line of his human life could have been stretched out to the extent of his immortal designs?"--COWLEY'S _Works_, Vol. II. p. 583.

Perhaps the facetious Tom Brown has hit upon the true reason of Dryden's choice of a subject, when he makes him say, "that he had no particular kindness for the person of Oliver; but that it was much the same with the poets as with the Jews--a hero cannot start up in any quarter of the world, be his quarrel right or wrong, but both are apt to think him the Messias, and presently pitch upon him as the fittest person to deliver the twelve tribes and the nine muses out of captivity."--_Reasons of Mr Bayes' changing his religion._]

[Footnote 2:

Nor only didst thou for thy age provide,
But for the years to come beside;
Our after times, and late posterity,
Shall pay unto thy fame as much as we;
They too are made by thee.
When Fate did call thee to a higher throne,
And when thy mortal work was done;
When Heaven did say it, and thou must be gone,
Thou him to bear thy burden chose,
Who might, if any could, make us forget thy loss.
Nor hadst thou him designed,
Had he not been,
Not only to thy blood, but virtue, kin;
Not only heir unto thy throne, but mind:
'Tis he shall perfect all thy cares,
And with a finer thread weave out thy loom.
So one did bring the chosen people from
Their slavery and fears;
Led them through their pathless road,
Guided himself by God;
H'ad brought us to the borders, but a second hand
Did settle and secure them in the promised land.

_Verses to the happy Memory of the late Lord Protector._
]

[Footnote 3: This edition occurs in the Luttrell Collection, and the title runs thus: "An Elegy on the Usurper O. C. by the Author of 'Absalom and Achitophel;' published to show the loyalty and integrity of the Poet."

POSTSCRIPT.

The printing of these rhimes afflicts me more
Than all the drubs I in Rose-Alley bore;
This shows my nauseous, mercenary pen,
Would praise the vilest and the worst of men.
A rogue like Hodge[4] am I, the world well know it;
Hodge was his fiddler, and I, John, his poet.
This may prevent the pay for which I write;
For I for pay against my conscience fight.
I must confess, so infamous a knave
Can do no service, though the humblest slave:
Villains I praise, and patriots accuse; }
My railing and my fawning talents use; }
Just as they pay, I flatter or abuse }
But I to men in power a ---- am still,
To rub on any honest face they will.
Thus on I'll go; for libels I declare; }
Best friends no more than worst of foes I'll spare; }
And all this I can do, because I dare. }
He who writes on, and cudgels can defy,
And, knowing he'll be beaten, still writes on, am I.

_London, printed for J. Smith, 1681._

J. D.
]

[Footnote 4: Sir Roger L'Estrange, whose skill in music is said to have amused Cromwell, who had some turn that way.]

[Footnote 5:

Thou, as once the healing serpent rose,
Was lifted up, not for thyself, but us.
]

[Footnote 6:

When Ajax died, the purple blood,
That from his gaping wound had flowed,
Turned into letters; every leaf
Had on it wrote his epitaph:
So from that crimson flood,
Which thou by fate of times wert led
Unwillingly to shed,
Letters and learning rose, and arts renewed.
]

[Footnote 7:

Like steel, when it much work hath past,
That which was rough does shine at last;
Thy arms, by being oftener used, did smoother grow.
]

[Footnote 8:

Beneath the tropics is our language spoke,
And _part of Flanders_ has received our yoke.
]

HEROIC STANZAS

CONSECRATED

TO THE MEMORY OF

HIS HIGHNESS OLIVER,

LATE LORD PROTECTOR OF THIS COMMONWEALTH,

WRITTEN AFTER THE CELEBRATING OF HIS FUNERAL.

I.

And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans, ere all rites were past,
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly.[9]

II.

Though our best notes are treason to his fame,
Joined with the loud applause of public voice;
Since heaven, what praise we offer to his name,
Hath rendered too authentic by its choice.

III.

Though in his praise no arts can liberal be,
Since they, whose muses have the highest flown,
Add not to his immortal memory,
But do an act of friendship to their own:

IV.

Yet 'tis our duty, and our interest too,
Such monuments as we can build to raise;
Lest all the world prevent what we should do,
And claim a title in him by their praise.

V.

How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
To draw a fame so truly circular?
For in a round, what order can be shewed,
Where all the parts so equal perfect are?

VI.

His grandeur he derived from heaven alone;
For he was great, ere fortune made him so:
And wars, like mists that rise against the sun,
Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.

VII.

No borrowed bays his temples did adorn,
But to our crown he did fresh jewels bring;
Nor was his virtue poisoned soon as born,
With the too early thoughts of being king.

VIII.

Fortune, (that easy mistress to the young,
But to her ancient servants coy and hard,)
Him at that age her favourites ranked among,
When she her best-loved Pompey did discard.[10]

IX.

He, private, marked the faults of others' sway,
And set as sea-marks for himself to shun;
Not like rash monarchs, who their youth betray
By acts their age too late would wish undone.

X.

And yet dominion was not his design;
We owe that blessing, not to him, but heaven,
Which to fair acts unsought rewards did join;
Rewards, that less to him, than us, were given.

XI.

Our former chiefs, like sticklers of the war,
First sought to inflame the parties, then to poise:
The quarrel loved but did the cause abhor;
And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.[11]

XII.

War, our consumption, was their gainful trade;
We inward bled whilst they prolonged our pain;
He fought to end our fighting, and essayed
To staunch the blood, by breathing of the vein.[12]

XIII.

Swift and resistless through the land he past,
Like that bold Greek, who did the East subdue;
And made to battles such heroic haste,
As if on wings of victory he flew.

XIV.

He fought, secure of fortune as of fame,
Till by new maps the island might be shewn;
Of conquests, which he strewed where'er he came,
Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown.[13]

XV.

His palms, though under weights they did not stand,
Still thrived;[14] no winter could his laurels fade:
Heaven, in his portrait, shewed a workman's hand,
And drew it perfect, yet without a shade.

XVI.

Peace was the prize of all his toil and care,
Which war had banished, and did now restore:
Bolognia's walls thus mounted in the air,
To seat themselves more surely than before.[15]

XVII.

Her safety rescued Ireland to him owes;[16]
And treacherous Scotland, to no interest true,
Yet blest that fate which did his arms dispose
Her land to civilize, as to subdue.[17]

XVIII.

Nor was he like those stars which only shine,
When to pale mariners they storms portend;
He had his calmer influence, and his mien
Did love and majesty together blend.

XIX.

'Tis true, his countenance did imprint an awe,
And naturally all souls to his did bow;
As wands of divination downward draw,
And point to beds where sovereign gold doth grow.[18]

XX.

When past all offerings to Feretrian Jove,[19]
He Mars deposed, and arms to gowns made yield;
Successful councils did him soon approve,
As fit for close intrigues, as open field.

XXI.

To suppliant Holland he vouchsafed a peace,
Our once bold rival of the British main;
Now tamely glad her unjust claim to cease,
And buy our friendship with her idol, gain.[20]

XXII.

Fame of the asserted sea, through Europe blown,
Made France and Spain ambitious of his love;
Each knew that side must conquer he would own,
And for him fiercely, as for empire, strove.

XXIII.

No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embraced,
Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweighed:[21]
His fortune turned the scale where'er 'twas cast,
Though Indian mines were in the other laid.

XXIV.

When absent, yet we conquered in his right;
For, though some meaner artist's skill were shown,
In mingling colours, or in placing light,
Yet still the fair designment was his own.

XXV.

For, from all tempers he could service draw;
The worth of each, with its alloy, he knew;
And, as the confident of Nature, saw
How she complexions did divide and brew.[22]

XXVI.

Or he their single virtues did survey,
By intuition, in his own large breast;
Where all the rich ideas of them lay,
That were the rule and measure to the rest.

XXVII.

When such heroic virtue heaven sets out,
The stars, like commons, sullenly obey;
Because it drains them when it comes about,
And therefore is a tax they seldom pay.[23]

XXVIII.

From this high spring our foreign conquests flow,
Which yet more glorious triumphs do portend;
Since their commencement to his arms they owe,
If springs as high as fountains may ascend.

XXIX.

He made us freemen of the continent,
Whom nature did like captives treat before;
To nobler preys the English lion sent,
And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.[24]

XXX.

That old unquestioned pirate of the land,
Proud Rome, with dread the fate of Dunkirk heard;
And, trembling, wished behind more Alps to stand,
Although an Alexander were her guard.[25]

XXXI.

By his command we boldly crossed the line.[26]
And bravely fought where southern stars arise;
We traced the far-fetched gold unto the mine,
And that, which bribed our fathers, made our prize.

XXXII.

Such was our prince; yet owned a soul above
The highest acts it could produce to show:
Thus, poor mechanic arts in public move,
Whilst the deep secrets beyond practice go.

XXXIII.

Nor died he when his ebbing fame went less,
But when fresh laurels courted him to live:
He seemed but to prevent some new success,
As if above what triumphs earth could give.

XXXIV.

His latest victories still thickest came,
As near the centre motion doth increase;
'Till he, pressed down by his own weighty name,
Did, like the vestal, under spoils decease.[27]

XXXV.

But first the ocean as a tribute sent
The giant prince of all her watry herd;
And the isle, when her protecting Genius went,
Upon his obsequies loud sighs conferred.[28]

XXXVI.

No civil broils have since his death arose,
But faction now by habit does obey;
And wars have that respect for his repose,
As winds for halcyons when they breed at sea.

XXXVII.

His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;[29]
His name a great example stands, to show,
How strangely high endeavours may be blessed,
Where piety and valour jointly go.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: Note I.]

[Footnote 10: Note II.]

[Footnote 11: Note III.]

[Footnote 12: Note IV.]

[Footnote 13: Note V.]

[Footnote 14: Note VI.]

[Footnote 15: Note VII.]

[Footnote 16: Note VIII.]

[Footnote 17: Note IX.]

[Footnote 18: Note X.]

[Footnote 19: To which deity the Romans usually sacrificed before marching to war, according to an ancient institution of Romulus.]

[Footnote 20: Note XI.]

[Footnote 21: Note XII.]

[Footnote 22: Note XIII.]

[Footnote 23: The author seems to allude to the old proverb, "_Sapiens dominabitur astris_." The influence of the stars yielded reluctantly to Cromwell's heroic virtues, as the commons submit sullenly to be taxed.]

[Footnote 24: Note XIV.]

[Footnote 25: Note XV.]

[Footnote 26: Note XVI.]

[Footnote 27: Note XVII.]

[Footnote 28: Note XVIII.]

[Footnote 29: Note XIX.]

NOTES

ON

HEROIC STANZAS.

Note I.

_And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans, ere all rites were past,
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly._--St. I. p. 8.

Cromwell's disease, a fever and tertian ague, was accompanied by fits of swooning, which occasioned, more than once, a premature report of his death. It was probably this circumstance, which made some of his fanatical chaplains doubt the fact, after it had actually taken place. "Say not he is dead," exclaimed one of them, like Omar over the corpse of Mahomet; "for, if ever the Lord heard my prayers, he has assured me of the life of the Protector." The two last lines of the stanza allude to the Roman custom of letting an eagle fly from the funeral pile of a deceased emperor, which represented his spirit soaring to the regions of bliss, or his guardian genius convoying it thither. It is described at length in the fourth book of Herodian, who says, that, after this ceremony of consecration, the deceased emperor was enrolled among the Roman deities.

Note II.

_Fortune, (that easy mistress to the young,
But to her ancient servants coy and hard,)
Him at that age her favourites ranked among,
When she her best-loved Pompey did discard._--St. VIII. p. 9.

Cromwell was upwards of forty before he made any remarkable figure; and Pompey, when he had attained the same period of life, was deserted by the good fortune which had accompanied his more early career.

Note III.

_Our former chiefs, like sticklers of the war,
First sought to inflame the parties, then to poise:
The quarrel loved, but did the cause abhor;
And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise._--St. XI. p. 10.

Essex, Manchester, Sir William Waller, and the earlier generals of the Parliament, were all of the Presbyterian party, who, though they had drawn the sword against the king, had no will to throw away the scabbard. They were disposed so to carry on the war, that, neither party being too much weakened, a sound and honourable peace might have been accomplished on equal terms. But the Independants flew at higher game; and, as the more violent party usually prevail during times of civil discord, they attained their object. Cromwell openly accused the Earl of Manchester of having refused to put an end to the war, after the last battle at Newbury, when a single charge upon the King's rear might have dissipated his army for ever. "I offered," he averred, "to perform the work with my own brigade of horse; let Manchester and the rest look on, if they thought fit: but he obstinately refused to permit the attempt, alleging, that, if the king's army was beaten, he would find another; but if that of the Parliament was overthrown, there would be an end of their cause, and they would be all punished as traitors." This suspicion of the compromising temper of the Presbyterian leaders, led to the famous _self-denying ordinance_, by which all members of both houses were declared incapable of holding a military command. By this new model, all the power of the army was thrown, nominally, into the hands of Fairfax, but, really and effectually, into that of Cromwell, who was formally excepted from the operation of the act, and of the Independants; men determined to push the war to extremity, and who at length triumphed over both King and Parliament.

Note IV.

_He fought to end our fighting, and essayed
To staunch the blood, by breathing of the vein._--St. XII. p. 10.

This passage, which seems to imply nothing farther than that Cromwell conducted the war so as to push it to a conclusion, was afterwards invidiously interpreted by Dryden's enemies, as containing an explicit approbation of the execution of Charles I.

Thus, in the panegyric quoted in the introductory remarks to this poem,

Such wonders have thy powerful raptures shewn,
Pythagoras' transmigration thou'st outdone;
His souls of heroes and great chiefs expired,
Down into birds and noble beasts retired:
But then to savages and monsters dire,
Canst infuse sparks even of celestial fire;
Make treason glory, murderers heroes live,
And even to regicides canst godhead give.
Thus in thy songs the yet warm bloody dart,
Fresh reeking in a martyred monarch's heart,
Burnished by verse, and polished by thy lines,
The rubies in imperial crowns outshines;
Whilst in applause to that sad day's success,
So black a theme in so divine a dress,
Thy soaring flights Prometheus' thefts excel,
Whilst thou steal'st fire from heaven to enlighten hell.

The same accusation is urged in another libel, called "The Laureat:"

Nay, had our Charles, by Heaven's severe decree,
Been found, and murdered in the royal tree,
Even thou hadst praised the fact. His father slain,
Thou call'dst but _gently breathing of a vein_.
Impious and villainous, to bless the blow }
That laid at once three lofty nations low, }
And gave the royal cause a fatal overthrow! }

Another witling, to add to the heinousness of this expression, assures us, that Dryden had at first declared for the king, then for the parliament, and, finally, for Cromwell:

I for the Royal Martyr first declared,
But, ere his head was off, I was prepared
To own the Rump, and for that cause did rhime;
But, those kicked out, next moment turned to him
Who routed them: called him my sovereign,
And praised his opening of the kingly vein.

_Dialogue in Bedlam between Oliver's Porter, Fidler, and Poet._

These are examples of the inveteracy, with which Dryden's enemies were ready to wrest his expressions from the common interpretation into one more strong and unwarrantable. Dryden, sufficiently embarrassed by the praises he had bestowed on the Usurper, a charge from which he could not vindicate himself, took no notice of the uncandid lengths to which it was carried.

Note V.

_He fought, secure of fortune as of fame,
Till by new maps the island might be shewn;
Of conquests, which he strewed where'er he came,
Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown._--St. XIV. p. 10.

Notwithstanding the inconstancy of Victory during the civil war, she never deserted the banner of Cromwell. Even in undecided conflicts, the brigade, or wing, with which he fought, had always the superiority. The royalists never once saw him fly before them, during all the pitched battles in which he was engaged in England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Note VI.

_His palms, though under weights they did not stand,
Still thrived._--St. XV. p. 10.

It was anciently a popular notion, that the palm-tree throve best when pressed down with weights. An old scholiast defines it as "_arbor nobilissima illa, quæ nulli cedit ponderi, sed contra assurgit et reluctatur_."--Fabri Thesaurus ad verbum _palma_.

Note VII.

_Bolognia's walls thus mounted in the air,
To seat themselves more surely than before._--St. XVI. p. 11.

This odd simile is borrowed from a very singular, and somewhat dubious event, said to have happened during the siege of Bologna in 1512. A mine had been run by the Spanish besieging army under a part of the wall, on which was built a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Upon the explosion, the chapel and portion of the wall which formed its support were heaved into the air, so high, that (in spite of all the smoke and dust accompanying such an eruption) an elegant historian assures us, the besiegers could see, through the vacant space, the buildings of the town, and the defenders ready to man the breach. Nevertheless, the chapel and fragment of wall descended so exactly into the space they had formerly occupied, that the breach was completely and accurately repaired. The chapel acquired by this incident a great reputation for miraculous sanctity. The event is more fully narrated in the following passage of the original:

"_Finita in ultimo la mina, e stando l'esercito armato per dare incontinente la battaglia, la quale perchè si desse con maggiori forze, era stata richiamata l'antiguardia, fece il Navarra dare il fuoco alla mina; la quale con grandissimo impeto, e romore gittò talmente in alto la cappella, che per quello spatio, che rimase tra'l terreno, e'l muro gittato in alto, fu da quelli, ch' erano fuora, veduta apertamente la città dentro, et i soldati che stavano preparati per difenderla; ma subito scendendo in giừ ritornò il muro intero nel luogo medesimo, onde la violentia del fuoco l'areva sbarrato, e si ricongiunse insieme, come se mai non fusse stato mosso: onde si non si potendo assaltare da quella parte, i capitani giudicurono non si dovere dare solamente dall' altra. Attribuirono questo caso i Bolognesi a miracolo, riputando impossibile, che, senza l'ajutorio divino, fusse potuto riconguignersi cosi appunto ne' medesimi fondamenti; onde fu dipoi ampliata quella cappella, e frequentata con non piccola divotione del popolo._" L'Istoria di Guicciardini, Libro Decimo.

Note VIII.

_Her safety rescued Ireland to him owes._--St. XVII. p. 11.

The gallant Ormond, who commanded for the king in Ireland, had reduced the island almost entirely under the royal authority, excepting the cities of Dublin and Londonderry, when the arrival of Cromwell, appointed lord governor by the parliament, entirely changed the scene. In less than ten months, that fated general over-ran the whole kingdom. Tredagh he took by storm; and such terror was struck into the minds of the Irish, by the bloody execution attending and following that assault, that almost all the other garrisons surrendered without resistance, or revolted to the parliament.

Note IX.

----_Treacherous Scotland, to no interest true,
Yet blest that fate which did his arms dispose
Her land to civilize, as to subdue._--St. XVII. p. 11.

Cromwell's wars in Scotland form a brilliant part of his history. After narrowly escaping the snares of the veteran Lesley, whose admirable manœuvres compelled him, with woeful anticipations of farther misfortune, to retreat towards Dunbar, he was enabled, by the rashness of the Scottish kirkmen, totally to defeat that fine army. Edinburgh castle next surrendered; and the war being carried across the Forth, the Scots were again routed with slaughter at Inverkeithing. Then followed the irruption of the king into England, and the fatal defeat at Worcester, which Cromwell used to call his "crowning mercy."

Scotland is here called treacherous, because, having been the first to take up arms against King Charles I. she was the last to lay them down in behalf of his son; or rather, because the Presbyterian party in that country joined the young King against the Independants, as they had joined the Parliament against the Prelatists: for, the war, which in England related chiefly to dissentions concerning the Civil government, was in Scotland entirely to be referred to religious controversy.

Cromwell certainly did much to civilize Scotland. Some of his benefits were intentionally conferred, others flowed indirectly from the measures he adopted for the consolidation of his own authority. The English judges, whom he appointed, introduced into the administration of justice a purity and vigour, with which Scotland had been hitherto unacquainted.[30] By the impoverishment, exile, and annihilation of the principal baronial families, the chains of feudal bondage were lightened upon the peasantry; and the pay of 18,000 men, levied to maintain the constituted authorities, enriched the lower orders, amongst whom it was spent. The English soldiers also introduced into Scotland some of the arts of a more civilized country. We may, however, hesitate to believe, that they taught the citizens of Aberdeen to make shoes and plant kail; because Dr Johnson, upon whose authority the tradition is given, informs us, that the peasantry live upon that vegetable alone, and that, when they had not kail, they probably had nothing; in which case, the English military guests had better have learned from their Aberdonian hosts the art of living upon nothing, than taught them a branch of gardening which their habits of abstinence rendered totally superfluous. But the garrisons established by Cromwell upon the skirts, and in the passes of the Highlands, restrained the predatory clans, and taught them, in no gentle manner, that respect for the property of their Lowland neighbours, which their lawful monarchs had vainly endeavoured to inculcate. An officer of engineers, quartered at Inverness shortly after 1720, says, that the name of Oliver still struck terror through the Highlands; and one very ancient laird declared to him, the appearance of the Protector's colours were so strongly impressed on his memory, that he still thought he saw them before his eyes, spread out by the wind, and bearing, in great golden characters, the word _Emanuel_.--_Letters from the North of Scotland_, Vol. I. p. 274.

Note X.

_As wands of divination downward draw,
And point to beds where sovereign gold doth grow._--St. XIX. p. 11.

The rod of divination, an admirable implement for a mineralogist, was a piece of forked hazel, which, being poised on the back of the hand, and so carried with great caution, inclined itself sympathetically to the earth, where mines or hidden treasures lay concealed beneath the surface. Derrick refers readers for further information concerning the properties of this marvellous rod, and the way of using it, to _La Physique Occultee, ou Traité de la Baguette Divinatoire_, published at Amsterdam, 1613.

Note XI.

_To suppliant Holland he vouchsafed a peace,
Our once bold rival of the British main;
Now tamely glad her unjust claim to cease,
And buy our friendship with her idol, gain._--St. XXI. p. 12.

The war betwixt the republics had been disastrous to the Dutch, and the peace of 1654 was degrading to the States, though not proportionally disadvantageous. They consented to desert the cause of the exiled Stuarts, and to punish the authors of the massacre at Amboyna; they yielded to the English the honour of the flag in the narrow seas; they agreed to pay to the East India Company eighty-five thousand pounds, in compensation of damage done to them; and they consented to the cession of the island of Polerone in the East Indies: lastly, by a secret article, the province of Holland guaranteed an assurance, that neither the young Prince of Orange, whose connection with the exiled family rendered him an object of the Protector's suspicion, nor any of his family, should be invested with the office of Stadtholder.

Note XII.

_No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embraced,
Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweighed._--St. XXIII. p. 12.

In 1655, Cromwell allied himself with the rising power of France against the declining monarchy of Spain; less guided, probably, by any general views of political expedience, than by the consideration, that the American and West India settlements of the latter power lay open to assault from the English fleet; while, had he embraced the other side, his own dominions were exposed to an invasion from the exiled king, with French auxiliaries. The splendid triumphs of Blake gave some ground for the poetical flourishes in the text.

Note XIII.

_And, as the confident of Nature, saw
How she complexions did divide and brew._--St. XXV. p. 12.

It was still fashionable, in the seventeenth century, to impute the distinguishing shades of human character to the influence of complexion. The doctrine is concisely summed up in the following lines, which occur in an old MS. in the British Museum:

With a red man rede thy rede,
With a brown man break thy bread,
On a pale man draw thy knife,
From a black man keep thy wife.

Note XIV.

_He made us freemen of the continent,
Whom nature did like captives treat before;
To nobler preys the English lion sent,
And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar._--St. XXIX. p. 13.

The poet alludes to the exertions of the six thousand British auxiliaries, whom Cromwell sent to join Marshal Turenne in Flanders. These veterans, seasoned to the desperate and close mode of fighting, which the inveteracy of civil war had introduced, astonished the French by their audacity, and their contempt of the usual military precautions and calculations. There is a curious account, by Sir Thomas Morgan, of their exploits at Dunkirk and Ypres, which occurs in the third volume of the Harleian Miscellany, p. 326. The Duke of York was then with the Spanish army; and Dryden, on the change of times, lived to celebrate him for his gallant opposition to that body, which he here personifies as the British Lion. See the Dedication of the "Conquest of Granada," Vol. IV. p. 11. The English were made "free-men of the continent" by the cession of Dunkirk; and it is believed, that this was the first step towards giving England a share in the partition of Flanders, when that strange project was disconcerted by the death of Cromwell. There was no avoiding allusion to the British Lion. Sprat has also sent him forth, seeking whom he may devour:

----From his eyes
Made the same dreadful lightning rise,
Made him again affright the neighbouring floods,
His mighty thunder sound through all the woods.

Note XV.

_That old unquestioned pirate of the land,
Proud Rome, with dread the fate of Dunkirk heard;
And, trembling, wished behind more Alps to stand,
Although an Alexander were her guard._--St. XXX. p. 13.

The pope being called Alexander the Sixth, Dryden did not disdain to turn this stanza upon an allusion to the Macedonian hero; although it is obvious, that the pontiff was not a more effectual guardian to his city by bearing that warlike name, than if he had been called Benedict or Innocent. True it is, however, that the pope feared, and with great reason, some hostile attack from the powerful English squadron which swept the Mediterranean, under the command of Blake. Conscious that his papal character rendered him the object of the most inveterate enmity to the military saints of Cromwell's commonwealth, he had every reason to believe that they would find pride, pleasure, and profit, in attacking Antichrist, even in Babylon itself.

Note XVI.

_By his command we boldly crossed the line_, &c.--St. XXXI. p. 13.

A powerful army and squadron were sent by Cromwell, under the command of Penn and Venables, to attack Hispaniola. The commanders quarrelled, and the main design misgave: they took, however, the island of Jamaica, whose importance long remained unknown; for, notwithstanding the manner in which Dryden has glossed over these operations in the West Indies, they were at the time universally considered as having been unfortunate. See "The World's mistake in Oliver Cromwell."

Note XVII.

_Till he, pressed down by his own weighty name,
Did, like the vestal, under spoils decease._--St. XXXIV. p. 14.

Tarpeia, the virgin who betrayed a gate of Rome to the Sabines, demanded, in recompense, what they wore on their left arms, meaning their golden bracelets. But the Sabines, detesting her treachery, or not disposed to gratify her avarice, chose to understand, that her request related to their bucklers, and flung them upon her in such numbers as to kill her.

Note XVIII.

_But first the ocean as a tribute sent
The giant prince of all her watery herd;
And the isle, when her protecting Genius went,
Upon his obsequies loud sighs conferred._--St. XXXV. p. 14.

The circumstance, of the dreadful storm which happened on the day of Cromwell's death, is noticed by all writers. Many vessels were dashed on the coast, and trees and houses were overthrown, upon the land. It seemed as if that active spirit, which had rode in the whirlwind while he lived, could not depart without an universal convulsion of nature. Waller has touched upon this remarkable incident with great felicity:

We must resign; heaven his great soul does claim,
In storms as loud as his immortal fame;
His dying groans, his last breath, shakes our isle,
And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile;
About his palace their broad roots were tost
Into the air:--so Romulus was lost;
New Rome in such a tempest missed her king,
And from obeying fell to worshipping.

But, while the authors of these threnodies explained this prodigious storm as attendant on the deification of the Protector, or at least the effects of the Genius of Britain's unbounded lamentation, the cavaliers unanimously agreed, that the tempest accompanied the transportation of his spirit to the infernal regions.

Note XIX.

_His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest._--St. XXXVII. p. 14.

This prophecy, like that announcing the final close of civil broils, in the preceding stanza, was not doomed to be accomplished. The contending factions resumed their struggles in a month after the Protector's death; his body was dragged from the burial place of princes, to be exposed on the gibbet; and his head placed on the end of Westminster Hall. There is, however, an unauthenticated story, that Cromwell, foreseeing the Restoration, had commanded his remains to be interred secretly, and by night, in the field of Naseby, as near as possible to the spot where his prowess had gained that bloody day; and that, by a piece of refined and ingenious malice, his friends caused the body of Charles to be deposited in the empty coffin, which had received the funeral honours rendered to the Protector; thus turning the disgrace, which the royalists intended for the body of Cromwell, upon that of the royal martyr. The story may be found in the Harleian Miscellany, Vol. II. p. 269. But it is unworthy of credit, and seems to have been grounded upon the circumstance, that Cromwell's body, being in a very corrupted state, was buried privately before the grand procession. The restoration of the house of Stuart seemed then to be an event much out of the reach of calculation, even to persons less sanguine than Cromwell.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: A principal evil, amongst the native Scottish judges, was a predilection for their own allies and kinsmen. A judge, who lived within the eighteenth century, justified this partiality for "kith, kin, and ally," by saying, "that, upon his conscience, he could never see any of his friends were in the _wrong_;" and the upright conduct of Cromwell's English judges being objected to him, he answered, "it was not wonderful, since they were a set of _kinless louns_ who had no family connections to bias them."]

ASTRÆA REDUX.

A POEM.

ASTRÆA REDUX.

A POEM.

After so many years of civil war and domestic tyranny, the Restoration, an almost hopeless event, established the crown upon the head of the lawful successor, and the government upon its original footing. Dryden, among the numerous, I had almost said innumerable, bards,[31] who celebrated, or attempted to celebrate, this surprising event, distinguished himself by the following poem, to which he has given the apt name of _Astræa Redux_, from the hopes of justice and liberty returning with the lawful king.

The tone of praise, which Dryden has adopted, exhibits his usual felicity. There do not here occur any of these rants about the antiquity of the royal line,[32] and the indefeasible right of the lawful successor, which are the common topics of the herd, who offered poetical congratulation to the restored monarch. Dryden rejoices with the chastised triumph of one, that had not forgot what it was to mourn. He looks back, as well as forwards; and it is upon the past sufferings of the people, and of the monarch, that he grounds the hope and expectation of their future happiness. The poet was perhaps sensible, that the claim of loyal merit was rather new in his family and person, and ought not therefore to be expressed with the extravagant colouring of the cavaliers. He ventures indeed upon prophecy, although past experience might have taught him it was dangerous ground. One prediction, however, has been (_magno licet intervallo_) accomplished to its fullest extent in our own age:

Your much-loved fleet shall, with a wide command,
Besiege the petty monarchs of the land.

The poem exhibits the taste which belongs to the earlier class of Dryden's compositions, bearing the same marks of attachment to the stile of Waller and Davenant. Some of the similes are brought out with singular ingenuity. Nothing can be more elegant than the turn he gives to the slow, gentle, and almost imperceptible manner, in which the great change which he celebrates was accomplished:

---- ---- While we
The effect did feel, but scarce the manner see.
Frosts, that constrain the ground, and birth deny
To flowers that in its womb expecting lie,
Do seldom their usurping power withdraw,
But raging floods pursue their hasty thaw;
Our thaw was mild, the frost not chased away,
But kindly lost in heat of lengthened day.

On the other hand, it is surely unnecessary to point out to the reader the confusion of metaphor, where Virtue is said to dress the wounds of Charles with laurels;[33] the impertinent antithesis of finding "light alone in dark afflictions;" and the extravagance of representing the winds, that wafted Charles, as out of breath with joy. These, and other outrageous flights of wit, have been noticed and blamed by Johnson. I am not certain whether that great critic is equally just, in severely censuring the passage in which there is a short allusion to Heathen mythology.[34] Where the tender, the passionate, or the sublime, ought to prevail, an allusion to classical fiction seldom fails to interrupt the tone of feeling which the author should seek to preserve; but in a poem, of which elegance of expression and ingenuity of device are the principal attributes, an allusion to the customs of Greece, or of Rome, while it gives a classic air to the composition, seems as little misplaced, as an apt quotation from the authors in which they are recorded.

The first edition of this poem is printed in folio by J. M. for Henry Herringman, 1660. It affords few and trifling corrections.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: There are all shapes and forms of poetical addresses upon this occasion, by clergymen, and scholars, and persons of honour. Among them, the verses by Waller are most celebrated; though inferior to those which he composed on the Protector's death. When Charles made this remark, the bard, with great felicity, reminded his Majesty, that poets always excel in fiction. Among other topics, he enlarges on the "tried virtue, and the sacred word," of the witty monarch. It is singular, that, of the three distinguished poets, who solemnized by elegy the death of the Protector, Dryden and Waller should have hailed the restoration of the Stuart line, and Sprat have favoured their most arbitrary aggressions upon liberty.]

[Footnote 32: In "A Poem to His Most Excellent Majesty, Charles the Second, _Ego beneficio tuo (Cæsar) quas ante audiebam hodie vidi Deos: Nec feliciorem ullum vitæ meæ aut optavi aut sensi Diem_, by H. Buston, _Winton_; together with another, by Hen. Bold, olim Winton," the royal genealogy is thus deduced from the primitive father of mankind:

On which side shall we trace your stock? beyond
The loins of Egbert, or of Pharamond;
Now sunk in Adam's entrails it is found,
And thence shoots through the world to you all crowned.
Vain boldness of the age (age of deceits),
Knew this, and therefore coined Præ-Adamites.
]

[Footnote 33:

His wounds he took like laurels on his breast,
Which by his virtue were with laurels dressed.
]

[Footnote 34:

With alga, who the sacred altar strews?
To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes;
A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain;
A lamb to you, ye tempests of the main.
]

ASTRÆA REDUX.

A POEM,

ON THE HAPPY RESTORATION AND RETURN OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY, CHARLES THE SECOND, 1660.

_Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna._ VIRG.

The last great age, foretold by sacred rhimes,
Renews its finished course; Saturnian times
Roll round again.

Now with a general peace the world was blest,
While ours, a world divided from the rest,
A dreadful quiet fell, and worser far
Than arms, a sullen interval of war.
Thus when black clouds draw down the lab'ring skies,
Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,
An horrid stillness first invades the ear,
And in that silence we the tempest fear.[35]
The ambitious Swede, like restless billows tost,
On this hand gaining what on that he lost,
Though in his life he blood and ruin breathed,
To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeathed;[36]
And heaven, that seemed regardless of our fate,
For France and Spain did miracles create;
Such mortal quarrels to compose in peace,
As nature bred, and interest did increase.
We sighed to hear the fair Iberian bride
Must grow a lily to the lily's side;[37]
While our cross stars denied us Charles' bed,
Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed.
For his long absence church and state did groan;
Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne:
Experienced age in deep despair was lost,
To see the rebel thrive, the loyal crost:
Youth, that with joys had unacquainted been,
Envied gray hairs, that once good days had seen:
We thought our sires, not with their own content,
Had, ere we came to age, our portion spent.
Nor could our nobles hope their bold attempt,
Who ruined crowns, would coronets exempt:
For when, by their designing leaders taught
To strike at power, which for themselves they sought,
The vulgar, gulled into rebellion, armed,
Their blood to action by the prize was warmed.
The sacred purple, then, and scarlet gown,
Like sanguine dye to elephants, was shewn.[38]
Thus, when the bold Typhœus scaled the sky,
And forced great Jove from his own heaven to fly,
(What king, what crown, from treason's reach is free,
If Jove and Heaven can violated be?)
The lesser gods, that shared his prosperous state,
All suffered in the exiled Thunderer's fate.
The rabble now such freedom did enjoy,
As winds at sea, that use it to destroy:
Blind as the Cyclop, and as wild as he,
They owned a lawless savage liberty,
Like that our painted ancestors so prized,
Ere empire's arts their breasts had civilized.

How great were then our Charles' woes, who thus
Was forced to suffer for himself and us!
He, tossed by fate, and hurried up and down,
Heir to his father's sorrows, with his crown,
Could taste no sweets of youth's desired age,
But found his life too true a pilgrimage.
Unconquered yet in that forlorn estate,
His manly courage overcame his fate:
His wounds he took, like Romans, on his breast,
Which by his virtue were with laurels drest.
As souls reach heaven, while yet in bodies pent,
So did he live above his banishment.
That sun, which we beheld with cozened eyes
Within the water, moved along the skies.
How easy 'tis, when destiny proves kind,
With full-spread sails to run before the wind!
But those, that 'gainst stiff gales laveering go,
Must be at once resolved, and skilful too.
He would not, like soft Otho, hope prevent,
But stayed, and suffered fortune to repent.[39]
These virtues Galba in a stranger sought,
And Piso to adopted empire brought,[40]
How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express,
That must his sufferings both regret and bless!
For, when his early valour heaven had crost,
And all at Worc'ster but the honour lost;[41]
Forced into exile from his rightful throne,
He made all countries where he came his own;
And, viewing monarchs' secret arts of sway,
A royal factor for his kingdoms lay.
Thus, banished David spent abroad his time,
When to be God's anointed was his crime;
And, when restored, made his proud neighbours rue
Those choice remarks he from his travels drew.
Nor is he only by afflictions shown
To conquer others' realms, but rule his own;
Recovering hardly what he lost before,
His right endears it much, his purchase more.
Inured to suffer ere he came to reign,
No rash procedure will his actions stain:
To business ripened by digestive thought,
His future rule is into method brought;
As they, who, first, proportion understand,
With easy practice reach a master's hand.
Well might the ancient poets then confer
On Night the honoured name of Counsellor;
Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind,
We light alone in dark afflictions find.
In such adversities to sceptres trained,
The name of Great his famous grandsire gained;[42]
Who yet, a king alone in name and right,
With hunger, cold, and angry Jove did fight;
Shocked by a covenanting League's vast powers,
As holy and as catholic as ours:[43]
'Till Fortune's fruitless spite had made it known,
Her blows not shook, but riveted, his throne.