Now with a general peace the world was bless'd,
While ours, a world divided from the rest,
A dreadful quiet felt, and, worser far
Than arms, a sullen interval of war:

[skies

Thus when black clouds draw down the labouring
Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,
A horrid stillness first invades the ear,
And in that silence we the tempest fear.
Th' ambitious Swede, like restless billows toss'd,
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;
And Heaven, that seem'd 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 sigh'd to hear the fair Iberian bride
Must grow a lily to the lily's side,

While our cross stars denied us Charles's 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 cross'd:
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 ruin'd crowns, would coronets exempt:
For when, by their designing leaders taught
To strike at power, which for themselves they
The vulgar, gull'd into rebellion, arm'd,
Their blood to action by their prize was warm'd.
The sacred purple then, and scarlet gown,
Like sanguine dye, to elephants was shown.
Thus when the bold Typhoeus scaled the sky,
And forced great Jove from his own heaven to fly,
(What king, what crown, from Treason's reach is
If Jove and heaven can violated be?)
The lesser gods, that shared his prosperous state,
All suffer'd in the exiled Thunderer's fate.
The rabble now such freedom did enjoy,

As winds at sea, that use it to destroy:

[sought,

[free,

Blind as the Cyclop, and as wild as he,
They own'd 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's woes, who thus
Was forced to suffer for himself and us!
He, toss'd by Fate, and hurry'd 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.
Unconquer'd 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 dress'd.
As souls reach heaven while yet in bodles pent,
So did he live above his banishment.

That sun, which we beheld with cozen'd 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 stay'd and suffer'd Fortune to repent.
These virtues Galba in a stranger sought,
And Piso to adopted empire brought.
How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express,
That must his sufferings both regret and bless!
For when his early valour Heaven had cross'd,
And all at Worc'ster but the honour lost,
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 banish'd 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 ripen'd 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 honour'd name of Counsellor,
Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind,
We light alone in dark afflictions find.
In such adversities to sceptres train'd,
The name of Great his famous grandsire gain'd;
Who yet a king alone in name and right,
With hunger, cold, and angry Jove did right;
Shock'd by a covenanting league's vast powers,
As holy and as Catholic as ours,

Till fortune's fruitless spite had made it known
Her blows not shook, but riveted his throne.
Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease,

No action leave to busy chronicles:
Such whose supine felicity but makes

In story chasms, in epochas mistakes;

O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down,
Till with his silent sickle they are mown.
Such is not Charles's too too active age,
Which, govern'd by the wild distemper'd rage
Of some black star infecting all the skies,
Made him at his own cost like Adam wise.
Tremble, ye Nations! who secure before,
Laugh'd at those arms that 'gainst ourselves we bore;
Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail,
Our lion now will foreign foes assail.
With alga who the sacred altar strows?

To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes.

A

A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain,
A lamb to you, ye Tempests of the main :
For those loud storms, that did against him roar,
Have cast his shipwreck'd vessel on the shore,
Yet as wise artists mix their colours so,
That by degrees they from each other go.
Black steals unheeded from the neighbouring white,
Without offending the well-cozen'd sight;
So on us stole our blessed change, while we
Th' 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 cold not chased away,
But lost in kindly heat of lengthen'd day.
Heaven would no bargain for its blessings drive,
But what we could not pay for freely give.
The Prince of Peace would, like himself, confer
A gift unhoped without the price of war:
Yet, as he knew his blessings' worth, took care
That we would know it by repeated prayer,
Which storm'd the skies, and ravish'd Charles from
As heaven itself is took by violence. [thence,
Booth's forward valour only served to show
He durst that duty pay we all did owe :
Th' attempt was fair; but Heaven's prefixed hour
Not come so, like the watchful traveller,
That by the moon's mistaken light did rise,
Lay down again, and closed his weary eyes.
'Twas Monk, whom Providence design'd to loose
Those real bonds false freedom did impose.
The blessed saints, that watch'd this turning scene,
Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean,
To see small clues draw vastest weights along,
Not in their bulk, but in their order strong.
Thus pencils can by one slight touch restore
Smiles to that changed face that wept before.
With ease such fond chimeras we pursue,
As fancy frames for fancy to subdue:
But when ourselves to action we betake,
It shuns the mint like gold that chymists make.
How hard was then his task, at once to be
What in the body natural we see?
Man's Architect distinctly did ordain

The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain,
Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense,
The springs of motion from the seat of sense.
"Twas not the hasty product of a day,
But the well-ripen'd fruit of wise delay.
He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,
Would let him play a while upon the hook.
Our healthful food the stomach labours thus,
At first embracing what it straight doth crush.
Wise leaches will not vain receipts obtrude,
While growing pains pronounce the humours
crude;

Deaf to complaints they wait upon the ill,
Till some safe crisis authorise their skill.
Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear,
To 'scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear,
And guard with caution that polluted nest
Whence Legion twice before was dispossess'd:
Once sacred house; which when they enter'd in,
They thought the place could sanctify a sin;
Like those that vainly hoped kind Heaven would
wink,

While to excess on martyrs' tombs they drink:
And as devouter Turks first warn their souls
To part before they taste forbidden bowls,

So these, when their black crimes they went about,
First timely charm'd their useless conscience out,
Religion's name against itself was made;
The shadow served the substance to invade ;
Like zealous missions, they did care pretend
Of souls in show, but made their gold their end.
Th' incensed powers beheld with scorn from high
A heaven so far distant from the sky Lground,
Which durst, with horses' hoofs that beat the
And martial brass, belie the thunder's sound;
Twas hence at length just Vengeance thought it
To speed their ruin by their impious wit. [fit
Thus Sforza, cursed with a too fertile brain,
Lost by his wiles the power his wit did gain.
Henceforth their fougue must spend at lesser rate
Than in its flames to wrap a nation's fate.
Suffer'd to live, they are like Helot's set,
A virtuous shame within us to beget:
For by example most we sinn'd before,
And glass-like clearness mix'd with frailty bore.
But since reform'd by what we did amiss,
We by our sufferings learn'd to prize our bliss.

Like early lovers, whose unpractised hearts
Were long the May-game of malicious arts,
When once they find their jealousies were vain,
With double heat renew their fires again.
'Twas this produced the joy that hurried o'er
Such swarms of English to the neighbouring shore,
To fetch that prize by which Batavia made
So rich amends for our impoverish'd trade.
Oh! had you seen from Schevelin's barren shore
(Crowded with troops, and barren now no more)
Afflicted Holland to his farewell bring
True sorrow, Holland to regret a king!
While waiting him his royal fleet did ride,
And willing winds to their lower'd sails denied.
The wavering streamers, flags, and standards, out,
The merry seamen's rude but cheerful shout;
And last the cannons' voice that shook the skies,
And as it fares in sudden ecstasies,

At once bereft us both of ears and eyes.
The Naseby now no longer England's shame,
But better to be lost in Charles's name,
(Like some unequal bride in nobler sheets)
Receives her lord, the joyful Londom meets
The princely York, himself alone a freight;
The Swift sure groans beneath great Glo'ster's
weight.

Secure as when the halcyon breeds, with these
He that was born to drown might cross the seas.
Heaven could not own a Providence, and take
The wealth three nations ventured at a stake.
The same indulgence Charles's voyage bless'd,
Which in his right had miracles confess'd.
The winds, that never moderation knew,
Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew ;
Or out of breath with joy could not enlarge
Their straiten'd lungs, or conscious of their charge.
The British Amphytrite, smooth and clear,
In richer azure never did appear,
Proud her returning Prince to entertain
With the submitted fasces of the main.

AND welcome now, great Monarch! to your own;
Behold th' approaching cliffs of Albion:
It is no longer motion cheats your view;
As you meet it the land approacheth you.
The land returns, and in the white it wears,
The marks of penitence and sorrow bears.

But you, whose goodness your descent doth show,
Your heavenly parentage and earthly too;
By that same mildness which your father's crown
Before did ravish shall secure your own.
Not tied to rules of policy, you find
Revenge less sweet than a forgiving mind.
Thus, when th' Almighty would to Moses give
A sight of all he could behold and live,
A voice before his entry did proclaim
"Long suffering, Goodness, Mercy," in his name,
Your power to justice doth submit your cause,
Your goodness only is above the laws.
Whose rigid letter, while pronounced by you,
Is softer made: so winds that tempests brew,
When through Arabian groves they take their

flight,

Made wanton with rich odours, lose their spite:
And as those lees that trouble it refine
The agitated soul of generous wine;
So tears of joy, for your returning spilt,
Work out and expiate our former guilt.
Methinks I see those crowds on Dover's strand,
Who in their haste to welcome you to land
Choked up the beach with their still-growing store,
And made a wilder torrent on the shore;
While, spurr'd with eager thoughts of past delight,
Those who had seen you court a second sight;
Preventing still your steps, and making haste
To meet you often wheresoe'er you past.
How shall I speak of that triumphant day,
When you renew'd th' expiring pomp of May!
(A month that owns an interest in your name;
You and the flowers are its peculiar claim.)
That star that at your birth shone out so bright,
It stain'd the duller sun's meridian light,
Did once again its potent fires renew,
Guiding our eyes to find and worship you.

And now Time's whiter series is begun,
Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run:
Those clouds that overcast your morn shall fly
Dispell'd to farthest corners of the sky.
Our nation with united interest bless'd,
Not now content to poise shall sway the rest.
Abroad your empire shall no limits know,
But like the sea in boundless circles flow.

Your much-loved fleet shall with a wide command
Besiege the petty monarchs of the land;
And as old Time his offspring swallow'd down,
Our ocean in its depths all seas shall drown.
Their wealthy trade from pirates' rapine free,
Our merchants shall no more adventurers be,
Nor in the farthest East those dangers fear,
Which humble Holland must dissemble here.
Spain to your gift alone her Indies owes;
For what the powerful takes not he bestows:
And France, that did an exile's presence fear,
May justly apprehend you still too near.
At home the hateful names of party cease,
And factious souls are wearied into peace.
The discontented now are only they
Whose crimes before did your just cause betray:
Of those your edicts some reclaim from sin,
But most your life and bless'd example win.
Oh happy Prince! whom Heaven hath taught the
way,

By paying vows, to have more vows to pay!
Oh happy age! oh times like those alone,
By fate reserved for great Augustus' throne!
When the joint growth of arms and arts foreshow
The world a Monarch, and that monarch You.

ANNUS MIRABILIS: THE YEAR OF WONDERS, MDCLXVI.

AN HISTORICAL POEM.

An Account of the ensuing poem, in a letter to the Hon. Sir Robert Howard.

SIR,

I AM SO many ways obliged to you, and so little able to return your favours, that like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but you have been solicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long since I gave you the trouble of perusing a play for me, and now, instead of an acknowledgment, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a Poem. But since you are to bear this persecution, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr: you could never suffer in a nobler cause. For I have chosen the most heroic subject which any Poet could desire; I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes, of a most just and necessary war: in it the care, management, and prudence, of our king; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and three glorious victories the result of all. After this I have, in the fire, the most deplorable, but, withal, the greatest argument that can be imagined, the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast and miserable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this Poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not serving my King and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged to it; and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the nobles of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should not have written this, but to a person who has been ever forward to appear in all employments whither his honour and generosity have called him. The latter part of my Poem, which describes the fire I owe, first to the piety and fatherly affection of our Monarch to his suffering subjects; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the City: both which were so conspicuous, that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. I have called my Poem Historical, not Epic, though both the actions and actors are as much heroic as any poem can contain. But, since the action is not properly one, nor that accomplished in the last successes, I have judged it too bold a title for a few stanzas, which are little more in number than a single Iliad, or the longest of the Eneids. For this reason (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too severely to the

laws of History) I am apt to agree with those who rank Lucan rather among Historians in verse than Epic poets; in whose room, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more justly be admitted. I have chosen to write my Poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four, in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us; in which I am sure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us in not being tied to the slavery of any rhyme, and were less constrained in the quantity of every syllable, which they might vary with spondees or dactyls, besides so many other helps of grammatical figures, for the lengthening or abbre viation of them, than the modern are in the close of that one syllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the sense of all the rest. But in this necessity of our rhymes I have always found the couplet verse most easy, though not so proper for this occasion; for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labour of the poet: but in quatrains he is to carry it farther on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the troublesome sense of four lines together. For those who write correctly in this kind must needs acknowledge, that the last line of the stanza is to be considered in the composition of the first. Neither can we give ourselves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the sake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using the variety of female rhymes, all which our fathers practised; and for the female rhymes, they are still in use amongst other nations; with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French alternately; as those who have read the Alarique, the Pucelle, or any of their later poems, will agree with me. besides this, they write in Alexandrines, or verses of six feet; such as amongst us is the old translation of Homer by Chapman; all which, by lengthening of their chain, makes the sphere of their activity the larger. I have dwelt too long upon the choice of my stanza, which you may remember is much better defended in the Preface to Gondibert; and therefore I will hasten to acquaint you with my endeavours in the writing. In general, I will only say, I have never yet seen the description of any naval fight in the proper terms which are used at sea; and if there be any such in another language, as that of Lucan in the Third of his Pharsalia, yet 1 could not avail myself of it in the English, the terms of art in every tongue bearing more of the idiom of it than any other words. We hear indeed among our poets of the thundering of guns, the smoke, the disorder, and the slaughter; but all these are common notions: and certainly as those who in a logical dispute keep in general terms, would hide a fallacy; so those who do it in any poetical description would veil their ignorance.

And

"Descriptas servare vices, operumque colores, "Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, Poeta salutor 5"

For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea, yet I have thought it no shame to learn: and if I have made some few mistakes, it is only, as you can bear me witness, because I have wanted oppor tunity to correct them: the whole poem being first written, and now sent you from a place, where I have not so much as the converse of any seamen. Yet, though the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was more than recompensed by the pleasure. I found myself so warm in celebrating the praises of military men, two such especially as the Prince and General, that it is no wonder if they inspired me with thoughts above my ordinary level. And I am well satisfied that, as they are incomparably the best subject I ever had, excepting only the Royal Family; so also, that this I have written of them is much better than what I have performed on any other. I have been forced to help out other arguments; but this has been bountiful to me; they have been low and barren of praise, and I have exalted them, and made them fruitful; but here Omnia sponte sua reddit justissima tellus. I have had a large, a fair, and a pleasant field; so fertile, that without my cultivating it has given me two harvests in a summer, and in both oppressed the reaper. All other greatness in subjects is only counterfeit; it will not endure the test of danger:

the greatness of arms is only real; other greatness burdens a nation with its weight; this supports it with its strength. And as it is the happiness of the age, so it is the peculiar goodness of the best of Kings, that we may praise his subjects without offending him. Doubtless it proceeds from a just confidence of his own virtue, which the lustre of no other can be so great as to darken in him; for the good or the valiant are never safely praised under a bad or a degenerate prince. But to return from this digression to a farther account of my Poem: I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have endeavoured to adorn it with noble thoughts, so much more to express those thoughts with elocution. The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in the poet, or wit-writing (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction) is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory till it springs the quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent. Wit written, is that which is well defined the happy result of thought, or product of imagination. But to proceed from wit, in the general notion of it, to the proper wit of an heroic or historical poem, I judge it chiefly to consist in the delightful imaging of persons, actions, passions, or things. 'Tis not the jerk or sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis, (the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme) nor the gingle of a more poor paranomasia ; neither is it so much the morality of a grave sentence, affected by Lucan, but more sparingly used by Virgil; but it is some lively and apt description, dressed in such colours of speech, that it sets before your eyes the absent object as perfectly, and more delightfully, than Nature. So then the first happiness of the poet's imagination is properly inven tion, or finding of the thought; the second is fancy, or the variation, deriving or moulding of that thought as the judgment represents it proper to the subject; the third is elocution, or the art of clothing and adorning that thought, so found and varied in apt, significant, and sounding words. The quickness of the imagination is seen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expression. For the two first of these Ovid is famous amongst the poets; for the latter Virgil. Ovid images more often the movements and affections of the mind, either combating between two contrary passions, or extremely discomposed by one. His words therefore are the least part of his care; to be pictures Nature in disorder, with which the study and choice of words is inconsistent. This is the proper wit of dialogue or discourse, and consequently of the drama, where all that is said is to be supposed the effect of sudden thought; which, though it excludes not the quickness of wit in repartees, yet admits not a too curious election of words, too frequent allusions, or use of tropes, or, in fine, any thing that shows remoteness of thought or labour in the writer. On the other side, Virgil speaks not so often to us in the person of another, like Ovid, but in his own: he relates amongst all things as from himself, and thereby gains more liberty than the other to express his thoughts with all the graces of elocution, to write more figuratively, and to confess as well the labour as the force of his imagination. Though he describes his Dido well and naturally, in the violence of her passions, yet he must yield in that to the Myrrha, the Biblis, the Althea of Ovid; for, as great an admirer of him as I am, I must acknowledge that, if I see not more of their souls, than I see of Dido's, at least I have a greater concernment for them; and that convinces me that Ovid has touched those tender strokes more delicately than Virgil could. But when action or persons are to be described, when any such image is to be set before us, how bold, how masterly, are the strokes of Virgil! We see the objects he presents us with in their native figures, in their proper motion; but so we see them, as our own eyes could never have beheld them so beautiful in themselves. We see the soul of the poet, like that universal one of which he speaks, informing and moving through all his pictures:

"Lumenque juventæ

Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflarat honores: Quale manus addunt ebori decus, aut ubi flavo Argentum Parius ve lapis circumdatur auro."

See his Tempest, his Funeral Sports, his Combat of Turnus and Eneas; and in his Georgics, which I esteem the divinest part of all his writings, the Plague, the Country, the Battle of the Bulls, the Labour of the Bees, and those many other excellent images of Nature, most of which are neither great in themselves, nor have any natural ornament to bear them up; but the words wherewith he describes them are so excellent, that it might be well applied to him which was said by Ovid," Materiam superabat opus." The very sound of his words has often somewhat that is connatural to the subject; and while we read him, we sit, as in a play, beholding the scenes of what he represents. To perform this, he made frequent use of tropes, which, you know, change the nature of a known word, by applying it to some other signification; and this is it which Horace means in his Epistle to the Pisos :

"Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum Reddiderit junctura novum."

But I am sensible I have presumed too far, to entertain you with a rude discourse of that art which you both know so well, and put into practice with so much happiness. Yet, before I leave Virgil, I must own the vanity to tell you, and by you the world, that he has been my master in this Poem: I have followed him every where; I know not with what success, but I am sure with diligence enough: my images are many of them copied from him, and the rest are imitations of him. My expressions also are as near as the idioms of the two languages would admit of in translation. And this, Sir, I have done with that boldness, for which I will stand accountable to any of our little critics, who perhaps are no better acquainted with him than I Upon your first perusal of this Poem, you have taken notice of some words which I have innovated (if it be too bold for me to say refined) upon his Latin; which, as I offer not to introduce into English prose, so I hope they are neither improper nor altogether unelegant in verse; and in this Horace will again defend me.

am.

"Et nova, fictaque nuper, habebunt verba fidem, si Græco fonte cadunt, parce detorta.”

The inference is exceeding plain; for if a Roman poet might have liberty to coin a word, supposing only that it was derived from the Greek, was put into a Latin termination, and that he used this liberty but seldom, and with modesty; how much more justly may I challenge that privilege to do it, with the same prerequisites, from the best and most judicious of Latin writers? in some places, where either the fancy or the words were his, or any other's, I have noted it in the margin, that I might not seem a plagiary; in others I have neglected it, to avoid as well tediousness as the affectation of doing it too often. Such descriptions or images well wrought, which I promise not for mine, are, as I have said, the adequate delight of heroic poesy; for they beget admiration, which is its proper object; as the images of the burlesque, which is contrary to this, by the same reason beget laughter: for the one shows Nature beautified as in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other shows her deformed as in that of a lazar, or of a fool, with distorted face and antique gestures, at which we cannot forbear to laugh, because it is a deviation from Nature. But though the same images serve equally for the epic poesy, and for the historic and panegyric, which are branches of it, yet a several sort of sculpture is to be used in them. If some of them are to be like those of Juvenal," Stantes in curribus Emiliani," heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots, and in their full proportion, others are to be, like that of Virgil, "Spirantia mollius æra:" there is somewhat more of softness and tenderness to be shown in them. You will soon find I write not this without concern.

Some, who have seen a paper of verses which I wrote last year to her Highness the Dutchess, have accused them of that only thing I could defend in them. They said, I did Humi serpere" that I wanted not only height of fancy, but dignity of words, to set it off. I might well answer with that of Horace, "Nunc non erat his locus:" I knew I addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression, and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defence. But I will not farther bribe your candour or the reader's: I leave them to speak for me, and, if they can, to make out that character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them.

And now, Sir, it is time I should relieve you from the tedious length of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer. In conclusion, I must leave my Poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not of the number of those of whom the younger Pliny speaks," Nec sunt parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant:" I am rather too secure of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errors may make you more remiss in correcting them, if you will not withal consider that they come into the world with your approbation and through your hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an absent person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation; and therefore I hope it will stir you up to make my Poem fairer by many of your blots: if not, you know the story of the gamester, who married the rich man's daughter, and when her father denied the portion, christened all the children by his surname, that if, in conclusion, they must beg, they should do so by one name as well as by the other. But since the reproach of my faults will light on you, it is but reason I should do you that justice to the readers, to let them know that, if there be any thing tolerable in this Poem, they owe the argument to your choice, the writing to your encouragement, the correction to your judgment, and the care of it to your friendship, to which he must ever acknowledge himself to owe all things, who is,

SIR

The most obedient and most
faithful of your servants,
JOHN DRYDEN.

From Charlton in Wiltshire,
Nov. 10, 1666.

TO THE METROPOLIS

OF

GREAT BRITAIN,

The most Renowned and late Flourishing City of London, in its Repesentatives the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, the Sheriffs and Council of it.

As perhaps I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature to the metropolis of any nation, so it is likewise consonant to justice, that he who was to give the first example of such a Dedication, should begin it with that City which has set a pattern to all others of true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy. Öther cities have been praised for the same virtues, but I am much deceived if any have so dearly purchased their reputation: their fame has been won them by cheaper trials than an expensive though necessary war, a consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fre. To submit yourselves with that humility to the judgments of Heaven, and, at the same time, to raise yourselves with that vigour above all human enemies; to be combated at once from above and from below, to be struck down and to

triumph; I know not whether ever such trials have been paralleled in any nation; the resolution and successes of them never can be. Never had Prince or People more mutual reason to love each other, if suffering for each other can endear affection. You have come together a pair of matchless lovers, through many difficulties; he through a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and the interposition of many rivals, who violently ravished and withheld you from him; and certainly you have had your share in sufferings. But Providence has cast upon you want of trade, that you might appear bountiful to your country's necessities; and the rest of your afflictions are not more the effects of God's displeasure (frequent examples of them having been in the reign of the most excellent princes) than occasions for the manifesting of your Christian and civil virtues. To you, therefore, this Year of Wonders is justly dedicated, because you have made it so. You, who are to stand a wonder to all years and ages, and who have built yourselves an immortal Monument on your own ruins; you are now a phoenix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the suf fering Deity: but Heaven never made so much piety and virtue to leave it miserable. I have heard, indeed, of some virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation: Providence is engaged too deeply, when the cause becomes so general: and I cannot imagine it has resolved the ruin of that people at home, which it has blessed abroad with such successes. I am therefore to conclude that your sufferings are at an end; and that one part of my Poem has not been more a history of your destruction than the other a prophecy of your restora

tion.

The accomplishment of which happiness, as it is the wish of all true Englishmen, so is it by none more passionately desired than by

The greatest of your admirers,
and most humble of your servants,
JOHN DRYDEN.

ANNUS MIRABILIS:

THE YEAR OF WONDERS, MDCLXVI.

In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home, and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own,
Our king they courted, and our merchants awed.

Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,

And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast. For them alone the heavens had kindly heat, In eastern quarries rip'ning precious dew: For them the Idumæan balm did sweat, And in hot Cylon spicy forests grew.

The sun but seem'd the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides which from the line did bear
Their brimful vessels to the Belgian shore.

Thus, mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stoop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong;
And this may prove our second Punic war.

What peace can be where both to one pretend?
(But they more diligent, and we more strong)
Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;
For they would grow too pow'rful were it long.

Behold two nations then, engaged so far, [land;
That each seven years the fit must shake each
Where France will side to weaken us by war,
Who only can his vast designs withstand.

See how he feeds the Iberian with delays,

To render us his timely friendship vain; And, while his secret soul on Flanders preys, He rocks the cradle of the Babe of Spain.