The Works of John Dryden

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 beau
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.

To 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.

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.

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

Thou break'st through forms with as much ease Farce, in itself, is of a nasty scent;

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 of Bucks has made a farce,
grace
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:

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 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?
'Tis 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 Selley 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 i
[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,

Time, place, and action, may with pains be wrought; [taught. But genius must be born, and never can be This is your portion; this your native store; Heaven that but once was prodigal before, To Shakespeare gave as much; she could not give him more.

Maintain your post: That's all the fame you need;

For 'tis impossible you should proceed.
Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage:
Unprofitably kept at heaven's expense,
I live a rent-charge on his providence :
But you, whom every muse and grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Be kind to my remains; and, oh, defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Let the insulting foe my fame pursue,
But shade those laurels which descend to you:
And take for tribute what those lines express :
You merit more: nor could my love do less.

EPISTLE THE ELEVENTH.
TO MR. GRANVILLE, ON HIS EXCELLENT
TRADEGY, CALLED HEROIC LOVE.
AUSPICIOUS poet, wert thou not my friend,
How could I envy what I must commend!
But since 't is nature's law, in love and wit,
That youth should reign, and withering age
submit,

With less regret those laurels I resign,
Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine.
With better grace an ancient chief may yield
The long-contended honours of the field,
Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise:
Old monarchs, though successful, still in doubt,
Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.
Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age
Can best, if any can, support the stage;
Which so declines, that shortly we may see
Players and plays reduc'd to second infancy.
Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown,
They plot not on the stage, but on the town,
And, in despair their empty pit to fill,
Set up some foreign monster in a bill.
Thus they jog on still tricking, never thriving,
And murdering plays, which they miscall
reviving,

Our sense is nonsense, through their pipes convey'd;

Scarce can a poet know the play he made,

'Tis so disguis'd in death; nor thinks 't is he
That suffers in the mangled tragedy.
Thus Itys first was kill'd, and after dress'd
For his own sire, the chief invited guest.
I say not this of thy successful scenes,
Where thine was all the glory, theirs the gains.
With length of time, much judgment, and more
toil,

Not ill they acted what they could not spoil.
Their setting sun still shoots a glimmering ray,
Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay
And better gleanings their worn soil can boast,
Than the crab-vintage of the neighbouring

coast.

This difference yet the judging world will see, Thou copiest Homer, and they copy thee.

EPISTLE THE TWELFTH.

TO MY FRIEND MR. MOTTEUX,* ON HIS TRAGEDY CALLED BEAUTY IN DISTRESS.

"T is hard, my friend, to write in such an age,
As damns, not only poets, but the stage.
That sacred art by heaven itself infus'd,
Which Moses, David, Solomon have us'd,
Is now to be no more: the muses' foes
Would sink their Maker's praises into prose. :
Were they content to prune the lavish vine
Of straggling branches, and improve the wine.
Who but a madman would his thoughts defend?
All would submit; for all but fools will mend.
But when to common sense they give the lie,
And turn distorted words to blasphemy,
They give the scandal; and the wise discern
Their glosses teach an age, too apt to learn.
What I have loosely, or profanely, writ,
Let them to fires, their due desert, commit:
Nor when accus'd by me, let them complain:
Their faults, and not their function, I arraign.
Rebellion worse than witchcraft,f they pursu'a,
The pulpit preach'd the crime, the people rued
The stage was silenc'd; for the saints would
In fields perform'd their plotted tragedy. [see
But let us first reform, and then so live,
That we may teach our teachers to forgive :

• Peter Motteux, to whom this piece is addressed, was born in Normandy, but settled as a merchant in London very young, and lived in repute. He died in a house of ill fame near the Strand, and was supposed to have been murdered, in 1718. He produced eleven dramatic pieces, and his Beauty in Distress is thought much the best of them: it was played in Lincoln's-inn fields by Betterson's company in 1698. D.

Rebellion, worse than witchcraft] From 1 Sam. XV. 23. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,' &c. T.

Our desk be plac'd below their lofty chairs;
Ours be the practice, as the precept theirs.
The moral part, at least, we may divide,
Humility reward, and punish pride;
Ambition, interest, avarice, accuse:
These are the province of a tragic muse.
These hast thou chosen; and the public voice
Has equall'd thy performance with thy choice.
Time, action, place, are so preserv'd by thee,
That e'en Corneille might with envy see
The alliance of his Tripled Unity.
Thy incidents, perhaps, too thick are sown;
But too much plenty is thy fault alone.

At least but two can that good crime commit,
Thou in design, and Wycherly in wit.
Let thy own Gauls condemn thee, if they dare,
Contented to be thinly regular:

Born there, but not for them, our fruitful soil
With more increase rewards thy happy toil.
Their tongue enfeebled, is refin'd too much;
And, like pure gold, it bends at every touch:
Our sturdy Teuton yet will art obey, [allay.
More fit for manly thought and strengthen'd with
But whence art thou inspir'd, and thou alone,
To flourish in an idiom not thy own?
It moves our wonder, that a foreign guest
Should overmatch the most, and match the best.
In under-praising thy deserts, I wrong;
Here find the first deficience of our tongue :
Words, once my stock, are wanting to commend
So great a poet, and so good a friend.

EPISTLE THE THIRTEENTH,*

TO MY HONOURED KINSMAN JOHN DRYDEN, OF CHESTERTON, IN THE COUNTY OF HUNTINGDON, ESQ.

How bless'd is he,† who leads a country life,
Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife!
Who studying peace, and shunning civil rage,
Enjoy'd his youth, and now enjoys his age;
All who deserve his love, he makes his own;
And, to be lov'd himself, needs only to be known.
Just, good, and wise, contending neighbours

come,

From your award to wait their final doom:

• This poem was written in 1699. The person to whom it is addressed was cousin-german to the poet, and a younger brother of the baronet. D.

Horo bless'd is he] This is one of the most truly Horatian epistles in our language, comprehending a variety of topics and useful reflections, and sliding from subject to subject with ease and propriety. Writing this note in the year 1799, I am much struck with the lines that follow the 175th, as containing the soundest political truths. Dr. J. W.

And, foes before, return in friendship home. Without their cost, you terminate the cause; And save the expense of long litigious laws: Where suits are travers'd; and so little won, That he who conquers is but last undone : Such are not your decrees; but so design'd, The sanction leaves a lasting peace behind Like your own soul, serene; a pattern of your mind.

Promoting concord, and composing strife, Lord of yourself, uncumber'd with a wife; Where, for a year, a month, perhaps a night, Long penitence succeeds a short delight: Minds are so hardly match'd, that e'en the first, Though pair'd by Heaven, in Paradise were

curs'd.

For man and woman, though in one they grow,
Yet, first or last, return again to two.
He to God's image, she to his was made;
So farther from the fount the stream at random
stray'd.

How could he stand, when put to double pain,
He must a weaker than himself sustain!
Each might have stood perhaps ; but each alone,
Two wrestlers help to pull each other down.

Not that my verse would blemish all the fair; But yet if some be bad, 't is wisdom to beware; And better shun the bait than struggle in tho

snare.

Thus have you shunn'd, and shun the married Trusting as little as you can to fate. [state,

No porter guards the passage of your door,
T'admit the wealthy and exclude the poor;
For God, who gave the riches, gave the heart,
To sanctify the whole, by giving part:
Heaven, who foresaw the will, the means has
wrought,

And to the second son a blessing brought :
The first-begotten had his father's share :
But you, like Jacob, are Rebecca's heir.
So may your stores and fruitful fields increase,
And ever be you bless'd, who live to bless.
As Ceres sow'd, where'er her chariot flew ;
As heaven in deserts rain'd the bread of dew
So free to many, to relations most,
You feed with manna your own Israel host.

With crowds attended of your ancient race, You seek the champaign sports or sylvan chase: With well-breath'd beagles you surround the wood,

E'en then industrious of the common good:
And often have you brought the wily fox
To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks;
Chas'd even amid the folds; and made to
bleed,

Like felons, where they did the murderous deed,
This fiery game your active youth maintain'd,
Not yet by years extinguish'd,though restrain'd

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The Works of John Dryden: In Verse and Prose, 1. köide