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Our sovereign here above the rest might stand, And here be chose again to rule the land.

These ruins shelter'd once his sacred head,* When he from Worcester's fatal battle fled; Watch'd by the genius of this royal place, And mighty visions of the Danish race. His refuge then was for a temple shown; But, he restor'd, 't is now become a throne.

EPISTLE THE THIRD.

TO THE LADY CASTLEMAIN,† UPON HER

ENCOURAGING HIS FIRST PLAY.

As seamen shipwreck'd, on some happy shore,
Discover wealth in lands unknown before;
And, what their art had labour'd long in vain,
By their misfortunes happily obtain:
So my much-envied muse, by storms long tost,
Is thrown upon your hospitable coast,
And finds more favour by her ill success,
Than she could hope for by her happiness,
Once Cato's virtue did the gods oppose;
While they the victor, he the vanquish'd chose:
But you have done what Cato could not do,
To choose the vanquish'd, and restore him too.
Let others still triumph, and gain their cause
By their deserts, or by a world's applause;

•These ruins shelter'd once, &c.] In the dedication, made by Dr. Charleton, of his book, concerning Stonehenge, to King Charles II. there is the follow. ing memorable passage, which gave occasion to the six concluding lines of this poem.

"I have had the honour to hear from that oracle of truth and wisdom, your Majesty's own mouth: you were pleased to visit that monument, and, for many hours togather, entertain yourself with the delightful view thereof, when after the defeat of your loyal army at Worcester, Almighty God, in infinite mercy to your three kingdoms, miraculously delivered you out of the bloody jaws of those ministers of sin, and cruelty." D.

↑ Mr. Dryden's first play, called the Wild Gallant, was exhibited with but indifferent success. The lady, whose patronage he acknowledges in this epistle, was Barbara, daughter of William Villiers, Lord Grandison, who was killed in the king's service at the battle of Edge-hill, in 1642, and buried in Christ church, in Oxford. This lady was one of Charles the Second's favourite mistresses for many years, and she bore him several children. 1. Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Southampton; 2. Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Euston and Duke of Grafton; 3. George Fitzroy, Earl of Northumberland; 4. Charlotta, married to Sir Edward Henry Lee, of Ditchley, in Oxfordshire, afterwards Earl of Lichfield, and brother to Eleonora, Countess of Abingdon, on whom Dryden has written a beautiful elegy; 5. A daughter, whom the king denied to be his.

This lady was, before she was known to his Majesty, married to Roger Palmer, Esq. who was created Earl of Castlemain, by whom she had a daughter, whom the king adopted, and who married with Thomas Lord Dacres, Earl of Sussex.

The Countess of Castlemain was afterwards cre. ated Duchess of Cleveland. D.

Let merit crowns, and justice laurels give,
But let me happy by your pity live.
True poets empty fame and praise despise,
Fame is the trumpet, but your smile the prize,
You sit above, and see vain men below
Contend for what you only can bestow :
But those great actions others do by chance
Are, like your beauty, your inheritance:
So great a soul, such sweetness join'd in one,
Could only spring from noble Grandison.
You, like the stars, not by reflection bright,
Are born to your own heaven, and your own
light;

Like them are good, but from a nobler cause, From your own knowledge, not from nature's laws.

Your power you never use but for defence,
To guard your own or others' innocence;
Your foes are such, as they, not you, have made
And virtue may repel, though not invade.
Such courage did the ancient heroes show,
Who, when they might prevent, would wait the
blow:

With such assurance as they meant to say,
We will o'ercome, but scorn the safest way.
What further fear of danger can there be?
Beauty, which captivates all things, sets me free
Posterity will judge by my success,
I had the Grecian poet's happiness,
Who, waiving plots, found out a better way;
Some God descended and preserved the play.
When first the triumphs of your sex were sung
By those old poets, beauty was but young,
And few admir'd the native red and white,
Till poets dress'd them up to charm the sight
So beauty took on trust, and did engage
For sums of praises till she came to age.
But this long-growing debt to poetry
You justly, madam, have discharg'd to me,
When your applause and favour did infuse
New life to my condemn'd and dying muse.

EPISTLE THE FOURTH.

TO MR. LEE, ON HIS ALEXANDER.

THE blast of common censure could I fear,
Before
your play my name should not appear;
For 't will be thought, and with some colour too
pay the bribe I first receiv'd from you;
That mutual vouchers for our fame we stand,
And play the game into each other's hand;
And as cheap pen'orths to ourselves afford,
As Bessus and the brothers of the sword.

Such libels private men may well endure,
When states and kings themselves are not

secure:

For ill men, conscious of their inward guilt,
Think the best actions on by-ends are built.
And yet my silence had not 'scap'd their spite;
Then, envy had not suffer'd me to write;
For, since I could not ignorance pretend,
Such merit I must envy or commend.
So many candidates there stand for wit,
A place at court is scarce so hard to get:
In vain they crowd each other at the door;
For e'en reversions are all begg'd before:
Desert, how known soe'er, is long delay'd;
And then too fools and knaves are better pay'd.
Yet, as some actions bear so great a name,
That courts themselves are just for fear of
So has the mighty merit of your play [shame;
Extorted praise and forc'd itself away.
'Tis here as 't is at sea; who farthest goes,
Or dares the most, makes all the rest his foes.
Yet when some virtue much outgrows the rest
It shoots too fast and high to be express'd;
As his heroic worth struck envy dumb,
Who took the Dutchman, and who cut the boom,
Such praise is yours, while you the passions

move,

That 't is no longer feign'd, 't is real love,
Where nature triumphs over wretched art;
We only warm the head, but you the heart.
Always you warm; and if the rising year,
As in hot regions, brings the sun too near,
"T is but to make your fragrant spices blow,
Which in our cooler climates will not grow.
They only think
theme
animate your
you
With too much fire who are themselves all
phlegm.

Prizes would be for lags of slowest pace,
Were cripples made the judges of the race. .[cus
Despise those drones who praise while they ac-
The too much vigour of your youthful muse.
That humble style which they your virtue make,
Is in your power; you need but stoop and take.
Your beauteous images must be allow'd
By all, but some vile poets of the crowd.
But how should any sign-post dauber know
The worth of Titian or of Angelo?
Hard features every bungler can command;
To draw true beauty shows a master's hand.

EPISTLE THE FIFTH.

TO THE EARL OF ROSCOMMON, ON HIS EX-
CELLENT ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE.

WHETHER the fruitful Nile, or Tyrian shore,
The seeds of arts and infant science bore,

"T is sure the noble plant, translated first,
Advanc'd its head in Grecian gardens nurs'd.
The Grecians added verse: their tuneful tongue
Made nature first and nature's God their song,
Nor stopt translation here; for conquering Rome
With Grecian spoils, brought Grecian numbers
Enrich'd by those Athenian muses more, [home;
Than all the vanquish'd world could yield before.
Till barbarous nations, and more barbarous
times,

Debas'd the majesty of verse to rhymes;
Those rude at first; a kind of hobbling prose,
That limp'd along, and tinkled in the close.*
But Italy, reviving from the trance
Of Vandal, Goth, and Monkish ignorance,
With pauses, cadence, and well-vowell'd words
And all the graces a good ear affords,
Made rhyme an art, and Dante's polish'd page
Restor❜d a silver, not a golden age

Then Petrarch follow'd, and in him we see
What rhyme improv'd in all its height can be.
At best a pleasing sound and fair barbarity.
The French pursu'd their steps; and Britain, last
In manly sweetness all the rest surpass'd.
The wit of Greece, the gravity of Rome,
Appear exalted in the British loom :
The Muses' empire is restor'd again,
In Charles his reign, and by Roscommon's pen
Yet modestly he does his work survey,
And calls a finish'd Poem an Essay;
For all the needful rules are scatter'd here
Truth smoothly told, and pleasantly severe;
So well is art disguis'd, for nature to appear.
Nor need those rules to give translation light.
His own example is a flame so bright;
That he who but arrives to copy well,
Unguided will advance, unknowing will excel.
Scarce his own Horace could such rules ordain,
Or his own Virgil sing a nobler strain.
How much in him may rising Ireland boast,
How much in gaining him has Britain lost!
Their island in revenge has ours reclaim'd;
The more instructed we, the more we still are
sham'd.

'T is well for us his generous blood did flow,
Deriv'd from British channels long ago,
That here his conquering ancestors were nurs'd
And Ireland but translated England first:
By this reprisal we regain our right,
Else must the two contending nations fight;

• And tinkled in the close] Dryden adopts the contemptuous description of rhyme from preceding authors, and those of no mean note. Thus in Ben Jonson's Mask of The Fortunate Isles, Skogan, the jester, is represented as a writer'in rime, fine tinckling rime! And Andrew Marvell, in his spirited verses to Milton on his Paradise Lost, thus ex claims:

'Well might'st thou scorn thy readers to allure With tinkling rhyme, of thy own sense se

cure.' T.

A nobler quarrel for his native earth,

Than what divided Greece for Homer's birth.
To what perfection will our tongue arrive,
How will invention and translation thrive,
When authors nobly born will bear their part,
And not disdain the inglorious praise of art!
Great generals thus, descending from command,
With their own toil provoke the soldier's hand.
How will sweet Ovid's ghost be pleas'd to hear
His fame augmented by an English peer;
How he embellishes his Helen's loves,
Outdoes his softness, and his sense improves ?
When these translate, and teach translators too,
Nor firstling kid, nor any vulgar vow,
Should at Apollo's grateful altar stand:
Roscommon writes: to that auspicious hand,
Muse, feed the bull that spurns the yellow sand.
Roscommon, whom both court and camps com-
mend,

True to his prince, and faithful to his friend;
Roscommon, first in fields of honour known,
First in the peaceful triumphs of the gown;
Who both Minervas justly makes his own.
Now let the few belov'd by Jove, and they
Whom infus'd Titan form'd of better clay,
On equal terms with ancient wit engage,
Nor mighty Homer fear, nor sacred Virgil's
Our English palace opens wide in state; [page:
And without stooping they may pass the gate.

EPISTLE THE SIXTH.

TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK,* ON HER RETURN FROM SCOTLAND IN THE YEAR 1682.

WHEN factious rage to cruel exile drove
The
queen of beauty, and the court of love,
The muses droop'd, with their forsaken arts,
And the sad Cupids broke their useless darts:
Our fruitful plains to wilds and deserts turn'd,
Like Eden's face, when banish'd man it mourn'd.
Love was no more, when loyalty was gone,
The great supporter of his awful throne.
Love could no longer after beauty stay,
But wander'd northward to the verge of day,
As if the sun and he had lost their way.
But now the illustrious nymph, return'd again,
Brings every grace triumphant in her train.
The wond'ring Nereids, though they rais'd no
storm,

Foreslow'd her passage, to behold her form:

On the twenty-first of November, 1673, the Duke of York was married to the princess Mary d'Este, then about fifteen years of age, and extremely handsome. The ceremony was performed at Dover by the bishop of Oxford. It was against the rules of policy for him at that time to wed a Roman Catholic; and the parliament addressed against it. D.

Some cried, A Venus; some, A Thotis pass'd
But this was not so fair, nor that so chaste.
Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife, and
Pride;

And Envy did but look on her, and died '
Whate'er we suffer'd from our sullen fate,
Her sight is purchas'd at an easy rate.
Three gloomy years against this day were set,
But this one mighty sum has clear'd the debt:
Like Joseph's dream, but with a better doom,
The famine past, the plenty still to come.
For her the weeping heavens become serene;
For her the ground is clad in cheerful green :
For her the nightingales are taught to sing,
And Nature has for her delay'd the spring.
The Muse resumes her long-forgotten lays,
And Love restor'd his ancient realm surveys,
Recalls our beauties, and revives our plays;
His waste dominions peoples once again,
And from her presence dates his second reign.
But awful charms on her fair forehead sit,
Dispensing what she never will admit :
Pleasing, yet cold, like Cynthia's silver bean,
The people's wonder, and the poet's theme.
Distemper'd Zeal, Sedition, canker'd Hate,
No more shall vex the church, and tear the state :
No more shall Faction civil discords move,
Or only discords of too tender love;
Discord, like that of music's various parts;
Discord, that makes the harmony of hearts;
Discord, that only this dispute shall bring,
Who best shall love the duke, and serve the king.

EPISTLE THE SEVENTH.

A LETTER TO SIR GEORGE ETHEREDGE.

Το
you who live in chill degree,
As map informs, of fifty-three,
And do not much for cold atone,
By bringing thither fifty-one,
Methinks all climes should be alike,
From tropic e'en to pole artique ;
Since you have such a constitution
As no where suffers diminution.
You can be old in grave debate,
And young in love-affairs of state;
And both to wives and husbands show
The vigour of a plenipo.

Like mighty missioner you come
Ad Partes Infidelium.

A work of wondrous merit sure,
So far to go, so much t' endure;
And all to preach to German dame,
Where sound of Cupid never came.
Less had you done, had you been sent
As far as Drake or Pinto went,

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For cloves or nutmegs to the line-a, Or e'en for oranges to China. That had indeed been charity Where love-sick ladies helpless lie, Chapp'd, and for want of liquor dry But you have made your zeal appear Within the circle of the Bear. What region of the earth's so dull, That is not of your labours full ? Triptolemus (so sung the Nine) Strew'd plenty from his cart divine. But spite of all these fable-makers, He never sow'd on Almain acres : No, that was left by fate's decree, To be perform'd and sung by thee. Thou break'st through forms with as much ease As the French king through articles. In grand affairs thy days are spent In waging weighty compliment, With such as monarchs represent. They, whom such vast fatigues attend, Want some soft minutes to unbend, To show the world that now and then Great ministers are mortal men. Then Rhenish rummers walk the round In bumpers every king is crown'd; Besides three holy mitred Hectors, And the whole college of Electors. No health of potentate is sunk, That pays to make his envoy drunk. These Dutch delights, I mention'd last, Suit not, I know, your English taste: For wine to leave a whore or play Was ne'er your Excellency's way. Nor need this title give offence, For here you were your Excellence. For gaming, writing, speaking, keeping, His Excellence for all but sleeping. Now if you tope in form, and treat, "T is the sour sauce to the sweet meat, The fine you pay for being great, Nay here's a harder imposition, Which is indeed the court's petition, That, setting worldly pomp aside, Which poet has at font denied, You would be pleas'd in humble way To write a trifle call'd a Play. This truly is a degradation, But would oblige the crown and nation Next to your wise negotiation. If you pretend, as well you may, Your high degree, your friends will say, The duke St. Aignon made a play. If Gallic wit convince you scarce, His grace of Bucks has made a farce, And you, whose comic wit is terse all, Can hardly fall below Rehearsal. Then finish what you have began ; But scribble faster if you can:

For yet no George, to our discerning, Has writ without a ten years' warning.

EPISTLE THE EIGHTH.

TO MR. SOUTHERNE, ON HIS COMEDY CALLED
THE WIVES' EXCUSE.*

SURE there's a fate in plays, and 't is in vain
To write, while these malignant planets reign.
Some very foolish influence rules the pit,
Not always kind to sense, or just to wit;
And while it lasts, let buffoonry succeed,
To make us laugh; for never was more need.
Farce, in itself, is of a nasty scent;
But the gain smells not of the excrement,
The Spanish nymph, a wit and beauty too,
With all her charms, bore but a single show:
But let a monster Muscovite appear,

He draws a crowded audience round the year.
May be thou hast not pleas'd the box and pit;
Yet those who blame thy tale applaud thy wit
So Terence plotted, but so Terence writ.
Like his thy thoughts are true, thy language

clean;

E'en lewdness is made moral in thy scene.
The hearers may for want of Nokes repine;
But rest secure, the readers will be thine.
Nor was thy labour'd drama damn'd or hiss'd,
But with a kind civility dismiss'd;

With such good manners, as the Wife did use,
Who, not accepting, did but just refuse.
There was a glance at parting, such a look,
As bids thee not give o'er, for one rebuke.
But if thou wouldst be seen, as well as read,
Copy one living author, and one dead:
The standard of thy style let Etheredge be;
For wit, the immortal spring of Wycherly;
Learn, after both, to draw some just design,
And the next age will learn to copy thine.

EPISTLE THE NINTH.

TO HENRY HIGDEN, ESQ.† ON HIS TRANSLA

TION OF THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.

THE Grecian wits, who Satire first began, Were pleasant Pasquins on the life of man ;

• The success of this play was but indifferent; but so high was our author's opinion of its merit, that, on this very account, he bequeathed to this poet the writing of the last act of his Cleomenes; which, Southerne says, when it comes into the world, will appear so considerable a trust, that all the town will pardon me for defending this play, that preferred me to it.' D.

This gentleman brought a comedy on the stage in 1698, called the Wary Widow, or Sir Noisy Parrot,

At mighty villains, who the state oppress'd,
They durst not rail, perhaps; they lash'd at
least,

And turn'd them out of office with a jest.
No fool could peep abroad, but ready stand
The drolls to clap a bauble in his hand.
Wise legislators never yet could draw
A fop within the reach of common law;
For posture, dress, grimace and affectation,
Though foes to sense, are harmless to the nation.
Our last redress is dint of verse to try,
And satire is our court of Chancery.
This way took Horace to reform an age,
Not bad enough to need an author's rage.
But yours, who liv'd in more degenerate times,
Was forc'd to fasten deep, and worry crimes.
Yet you, my friend, have temper'd him so well,
You make him smile in spite of all his zeal:
And art peculiar to yourself alone,
To join the virtues of two styles in one.

Oh! were your author's principle receiv'd,
Half of the lab'ring world would be reliev'd:
For not to wish is not to be deceiv'd.
Revenge would into charity be chang'd,
Because it costs too dear to be reveng'd:
It costs our quiet and content of mind,
And when 't is compass'd leaves a sting behind.
Suppose I had the better end o' th' staff,
Why should I help the ill-natur'd world to laugh?
"T is all alike to them, who get the day;
They love the spite and mischief of the fray.
No: I have cured myself of that disease;
Nor will I be provok'd, but when I please:
But let me half that cure to you restore;'
You give the salve, I laid it to the sore.
Our kind relief against a rainy day,
Beyond a tavern, or a tedious play,
We take your book, and laugh our spleen away.
If all your tribe, too studious of debate,
Would cease false hopes and titles to create,
Led by the rare example you begun,
Clients would fail, and lawyers be undone.

EPISTLE THE TENTH.

TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR. CONGREVE, ON HIS
COMEDY CALLED THE DOUBLE DEALER.

WELL then, the promis'd hour is come at last,
The present age of wit obscures the past:
which was damned, and he complains hardly of
the ill usage; for the Bear-Garden critics treated it
with cat-calls. It is printed and dedicated to the
courtly Earl of Dorset: Sir Charles Sedley wrote the

prologue, and it was ushered into the world with
several copies of verses. The audience were dis-
missed at the end of the third act, the author
having contrived so much drinking of punch in the
play, that the actors all got drunk, and were unable
to finish it. See G. Jacob's Lives of the Poets. D.

Strong were our sires, and as they fought they
writ;

Conquering with force of arms, and dint of wit:
Theirs was the giant race, before the flood:
And thus, when Charles return'd, our empire
Like Janus he the stubborn soil manur'd, [stood.
With rules of husbandry the rankness cur'd;
Tam'd us to manners, when the stage was rude;
And boisterous English wit with art indu'd.
Our age was cultivated thus at length;
But what we gain'd in skill we lost in strength.
Our builders were with want of genius curs'd;
The second temple was not like the first:
Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length
Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.
Firm Doric pillars found your solid base :
The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space :
Thus all below is strength, and all above is
In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise; [grace.
He mov'd the mind, but had not power to raise.
Great Jonson did by strength of judgment
please;
[ease.
Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his
In different talents both adorn'd their age;
One for the study, t' other for the stage.
But both to Congreve justly shall submit,
One match'd in judgment, both o'ermatch'd in
In him all beauties of this age we see,
Etheredge his courtship, Southerne's purity,
The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherly.
All this in blooming youth you have achiev'd;
Nor are your foil'd contemporaries griev'd.
So much the sweetness of your manners move,
We cannot envy you, because we love.
Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw
A beardless consul made against the law,
And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome;
Though he with Hannibal was overcome.
Thus old Romano bow'd to Raphael's fame,
And scholar to the youth he taught became.

[wit.

O that your brows my laurel had sustain'd!
Well had I been depos'd, if you had reign'd
The father had descended for the son;
For only you are lineal to the throne.
Thus, when the state one Edward did depose
A greater Edward in his room arose.
But now, not I, but poetry is curs'd;
For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.
But let them not mistake my patron's part,
Nor call his charity their own desert.
Yet this I prophesy; thou shalt be seen,
(Though with some short parenthesis between,)
High on the throne of wit, and, seated there,
Not mine, that's little, but thy laurel wear.
Thy first attempt an early promise made;
That early promise this has more than paid.
So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,
That your least praise is to be regular,

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