In days of old, when Arthur filled the throne,
Whose acts and fame to foreign lands were blown;
The king of elves, and little fairy queen,
Gambolled on heaths, and danced on every green;
And where the jolly troop had led the round,
The grass unbidden rose, and marked the ground.
}
{ Nor darkling did they dance;[204] the silver light
{ Of Phœbe served to guide their steps aright,
{ And, with their tripping pleased, prolonged the night.
}
{ Her beams they followed, where at full she played,
{ Nor longer than she shed her horns they staid,
{ From thence with airy flight to foreign lands conveyed.
}
{ Above the rest our Britain held they dear;
{ More solemnly they kept their Sabbaths here,
{ And made more spacious rings, and revelled half the year.
}
{ I speak of ancient times; for now the swain,
{ Returning late, may pass the woods in vain,
{ And never hope to see the nightly train;
}
{ In vain the dairy now with mints is dressed,
{ The dairy-maid expects no fairy guest
{ To skim the bowls, and after pay the feast.
She sighs, and shakes her empty shoes in vain,
No silver penny to reward her pain;
For priests, with prayers, and other godly gear,
Have made the merry goblins disappear;
And where they played their merry pranks before,
Have sprinkled holy water on the floor;
And friars, that through the wealthy regions run,
Thick as the motes that twinkle in the sun,
Resort to farmers rich, and bless their halls,
And exorcise the beds, and cross the walls:
This makes the fairy quires forsake the place,
When once 'tis hallowed with the rites of grace.
}
{ But in the walks, where wicked elves have been,
{ The learning of the parish now is seen;
{ The midnight parson, posting o'er the green,
}
{ With gown tucked up to wakes; for Sunday next,
{ With humming ale encouraging his text;
{ Nor wants the holy leer to country-girl betwixt.
From fiends and imps he sets the village free,
There haunts not any incubus but he.
The maids and women need no danger fear
To walk by night, and sanctity so near;
For by some haycock, or some shady thorn,
He bids his beads both even-song and morn.[205]
}
{ It so befel in this king Arthur's reign,
{ A lusty knight was pricking o'er the plain;
{ A bachelor he was, and of the courtly train.
It happened as he rode, a damsel gay,
In russet robes, to market took her way;
Soon on the girl he cast an amorous eye;
So straight she walked, and on her pasterns high:
If seeing her behind he liked her pace,
Now turning short, he better liked her face.
He lights in haste, and, full of youthful fire,
By force accomplished his obscene desire.
This done, away he rode, not unespied,
For, swarming at his back, the country cried;
And, once in view, they never lost the sight,
But seized, and, pinioned, brought to court the knight.
Then courts of kings were held in high renown,
Ere made the common brothels of the town;
There virgins honourable vows received,
But chaste as maids in monasteries lived;
The king himself, to nuptial ties a slave,
No bad example to his poets gave.
And they, not bad but in a vicious age,
Had not, to please the prince, debauched the stage.[206]
Now, what should Arthur do? He loved the knight,
But sovereign monarchs are the source of right:
Moved by the damsel's tears and common cry,
He doomed the brutal ravisher to die.
But fair Geneura[207] rose in his defence,
And prayed so hard for mercy from the prince,
That to his queen the king the offender gave,
And left it in her power to kill or save.
This gracious act the ladies all approve,
Who thought it much a man should die for love;
}
{ And, with their mistress, joined in close debate,
{ (Covering their kindness with dissembled hate,)
{ If not to free him, to prolong his fate.
At last agreed, they called him by consent
Before the queen and female parliament.
And the fair speaker, rising from her chair,
Did thus the judgment of the house declare:—
Sir knight, though I have asked thy life, yet still
Thy destiny depends upon my will:
Nor hast thou other surety, than the grace,
Not due to thee, from our offended race.
But as our kind is of a softer mold,
And cannot blood, without a sigh, behold,
I grant thee life; reserving still the power
To take the forfeit when I see my hour;
Unless thy answer to my next demand
Shall set thee free from our avenging hand.
The question, whose solution I require,
Is, what the sex of women most desire?
In this dispute thy judges are at strife;
Beware, for on thy wit depends thy life.
Yet (lest surprised, unknowing what to say,
Thou damn thyself) we give thee farther day;
A year is thine to wander at thy will,
And learn from others, if thou want'st the skill;
But, not to hold our proffer'd turn in scorn,
Good sureties will we have for thy return,
That at the time prefixed thou shalt obey,
And at thy pledge's peril keep thy day.—
Woe was the knight at this severe command,
But well he knew 'twas bootless to withstand.
The terms accepted, as the fair ordain,
He put in bail for his return again;
And promised answer at the day assigned,
The best, with heaven's assistance, he could find.
}
{ His leave thus taken, on his way he went
{ With heavy heart, and full of discontent,
{ Misdoubting much, and fearful of the event.
'Twas hard the truth of such a point to find,
As was not yet agreed among the kind.
Thus on he went; still anxious more and more,
Asked all he met, and knocked at every door;
Enquired of men; but made his chief request
To learn from women what they loved the best.
They answered each, according to her mind,
To please herself, not all the female kind.
One was for wealth, another was for place;
Crones, old and ugly, wished a better face.
The widow's wish was oftentimes to wed;
The wanton maids were all for sport a-bed.
Some said the sex were pleased with handsome lies,
And some gross flattery loved without disguise.
Truth is, says one, he seldom fails to win
Who flatters well; for that's our darling sin.
But long attendance, and a duteous mind,
Will work even with the wisest of the kind.
One thought the sex's prime felicity
Was from the bonds of wedlock to be free;
Was from the bonds of wedlock to be free;
Their pleasures, hours, and actions, all their own,
And, uncontrouled, to give account to none.
Some wish a husband-fool; but such are cursed,
For fools perverse of husbands are the worst.
All women would be counted chaste and wise,
Nor should our spouses see but with our eyes;
For fools will prate; and though they want the wit
To find close faults, yet open blots will hit;
Though better for their ease to hold their tongue,
For womankind was never in the wrong.
So noise ensues, and quarrels last for life;
The wife abhors the fool, the fool the wife.
And some men say, that great delight have we
To be for truth extolled, and secrecy;
And constant in one purpose still to dwell,
And not our husbands' counsels to reveal.
But that's a fable; for our sex is frail,
Inventing rather than not tell a tale.
Like leaky sieves no secrets we can hold;
Witness the famous tale that Ovid told.[208]
Midas the king, as in his book appears,
By Phœbus was endowed with asses ears,
Which under his long locks he well concealed,
(As monarchs' vices must not be revealed,)
For fear the people have them in the wind,
Who, long ago, were neither dumb nor blind;
Nor apt to think from heaven their title springs,
Since Jove and Mars left off begetting kings.
This Midas knew; and durst communicate
To none but to his wife his ears of state;
One must be trusted, and he thought her fit,
As passing prudent, and a parlous wit.
To this sagacious confessor he went,
And told her what a gift the gods had sent;
But told it under matrimonial seal,
With strict injunction never to reveal.
The secret heard, she plighted him her troth,
(And sacred sure is every woman's oath,)
The royal malady should rest unknown,
Both for her husband's honour and her own:
But ne'ertheless she pined with discontent,
The counsel rumbled till it found a vent.
}
{ The thing she knew she was obliged to hide;
{ By interest and by oath the wife was tied,
{ But, if she told it not, the woman died.
}
{ Loth to betray a husband and a prince,
{ But she must burst or blab, and no pretence
{ Of honour tied her tongue from self-defence.
A marshy ground commodiously was near,
Thither she ran, and held her breath for fear,
Lest if a word she spoke of any thing,
That word might be the secret of the king.
Thus full of counsel to the fen she went,
Griped all the way, and longing for a vent;
Arrived, by pure necessity compelled,
On her majestic marrow-bones she kneeled:
Then to the water's brink she laid her head,
And as a bittour bumps[209] within a reed,—
To thee alone, O lake! she said, I tell,
(And, as thy queen, command thee to conceal:)
Beneath his locks, the king my husband wears
A goodly royal pair of asses ears:
Now I have eased my bosom of the pain,
Till the next longing fit return again.—
Thus through a woman was the secret known;
Tell us, and, in effect, you tell the town.
But to my tale: The knight, with heavy cheer,
Wandering in vain, had now consumed the year;
One day was only left to solve the doubt,
Yet knew no more than when he first set out.
But home he must; and, as the award had been,
Yield up his body captive to the queen.
In this despairing state he hap'd to ride,
As fortune led him, by a forest side;
Lonely the vale, and full of horror stood,
Brown with the shade of a religious wood;
When full before him, at the noon of night,
(The moon was up, and shot a gleamy light,)
He saw a quire of ladies in a round,
That featly footing seemed to skim the ground.
Thus dancing hand in hand, so light they were,
He knew not where they trod, on earth or air.
}
{ At speed he drove, and came a sudden guest;
{ In hope, where many women were, at least
{ Some one, by chance, might answer his request.
But faster than his horse the ladies flew,
And in a trice were vanished out of view.
One only hag remained; but fouler far
Than grandame apes in Indian forests are;
}
{ Against a withered oak she leaned her weight,
{ Propped on her trusty staff, not half upright,
{ And dropped an awkward courtesy to the knight.
Then said, What makes you, sir, so late abroad
Without a guide, and this no beaten road?
Or want you aught that here you hope to find,
Or travel for some trouble in your mind?
The last I guess; and if I read aright,
Those of our sex are bound to serve a knight.
Perhaps good counsel may your grief assuage,
Then tell your pain, for wisdom is in age.—
Then tell your pain, for wisdom is in age.—
To this the knight: Good mother, would you know
The secret cause and spring of all my woe?
My life must with to-morrow's light expire,
Unless I tell what women most desire.
Now could you help me at this hard essay,
Or for your inborn goodness, or for pay,
Yours is my life, redeemed by your advice,
Ask what you please, and I will pay the price:
The proudest kerchief of the court shall rest
Well satisfied of what they love the best.—
Plight me thy faith, quoth she, that what I ask,
Thy danger over, and performed the task,
That shalt thou give for hire of thy demand,
(Here take thy oath, and seal it on my hand,)
I warrant thee, on peril of my life,
Thy words shall please both widow, maid, and wife.—
More words there needed not to move the knight,
To take her offer, and his truth to plight.
With that she spread her mantle on the ground,
And, first inquiring whither he was bound,
Bade him not fear, though long and rough the way,
At court he should arrive ere break of day:
}
{ His horse should find the way without a guide,
{ She said: with fury they began to ride,
{ He on the midst, the beldam at his side.
The horse, what devil drove I cannot tell,
But only this, they sped their journey well;
And all the way the crone informed the knight,
How he should answer the demand aright.
To court they came; the news was quickly spread
Of his returning to redeem his head.
The female senate was assembled soon,
With all the mob of women in the town:
The queen sat lord chief-justice of the hall,
And bade the crier cite the criminal.
The knight appeared, and silence they proclaim:
Then first the culprit answered to his name;
And, after forms of law, was last required
To name the thing that women most desired.—
The offender, taught his lesson by the way,
And by his counsel ordered what to say,
Thus bold began:—My lady liege, said he,
What all your sex desire is—sovereignty.
The wife affects her husband to command;
All must be her's, both money, house, and land:
The maids are mistresses even in their name,
And of their servants full dominion claim.
}
{ This, at the peril of my head, I say,
{ A blunt plain truth, the sex aspires to sway,
{ You to rule all, while we, like slaves, obey.—
There was not one, or widow, maid, or wife,
But said the knight had well deserved his life.
Even fair Geneura, with a blush, confessed,
The man had found what women love the best.
Up starts the beldam, who was there unseen,
And, reverence made, accosted thus the queen:—
My liege, said she, before the court arise,
May I, poor wretch, find favour in your eyes,
To grant my just request: 'twas I who taught
The knight this answer, and inspired his thought.
None but a woman could a man direct
To tell us women what we most affect.
But first I swore him on his knightly troth,
(And here demand performance of his oath,)
To grant the boon that next I should desire;
He gave his faith, and I expect my hire.
My promise is fulfilled: I saved his life,
And claim his debt, to take me for his wife.—
The knight was asked, nor could his oath deny,
But hoped they would not force him to comply.
The women, who would rather wrest the laws,
Than let a sister-plaintiff lose the cause,
(As judges on the bench more gracious are,
And more attent to brothers of the bar,)
Cried one and all, the suppliant should have right,
And to the grandame hag adjudged the knight.
In vain he sighed, and oft with tears desired,
Some reasonable suit might be required.
But still the crone was constant to her note;
The more he spoke, the more she stretched her throat.
In vain he proffered all his goods, to save
His body, destined to that living grave.
The liquorish hag rejects the pelf with scorn,
And nothing but the man would serve her turn.
Not all the wealth of eastern kings, said she,
Has power to part my plighted love, and me;
And, old and ugly as I am, and poor,
Yet never will I break the faith I swore;
For mine thou art by promise, during life,
And I thy loving and obedient wife.—
My love! nay rather my damnation thou,
Said he: nor am I bound to keep my vow;
The fiend thy sire has sent thee from below,
Else how couldst thou my secret sorrows know?
}
{ Avaunt, old witch, for I renounce thy bed:
{ The queen may take the forfeit of my head,
{ Ere any of my race so foul a crone shall wed.—
Both heard, the judge pronounced against the knight;
So was he married in his own despite:
And all day after hid him as an owl,
Not able to sustain a sight so foul.
Perhaps the reader thinks I do him wrong,
To pass the marriage-feast, and nuptial song:
Mirth there was none, the man was a-la-mort,
And little courage had to make his court.
To bed they went, the bridegroom and the bride:
Was never such an ill-paired couple tied!
Restless he tossed, and tumbled to and fro,
And rolled, and wriggled further off, for woe.
The good old wife lay smiling by his side,
And caught him in her quivering arms, and cried,—
}
{ When you my ravished predecessor saw,
{ You were not then become this man of straw;
{ Had you been such, you might have 'scaped the law.
Is this the custom of king Arthur's court?
Are all round-table knights of such a sort?
Remember I am she who saved your life,
Your loving, lawful, and complying wife:
Not thus you swore in your unhappy hour,
Nor I for this return employed my power.
In time of need I was your faithful friend;
Nor did I since, nor ever will offend.
Believe me, my loved lord, 'tis much unkind;
What fury has possessed your altered mind?
Thus on my wedding-night—without pretence—
Come turn this way, or tell me my offence.
If not your wife, let reason's rule persuade;
Name but my fault, amends shall soon be made.—
Amends! nay that's impossible, said he,
What change of age or ugliness can be?
Or could Medea's magic mend thy face,
}
{ Thou art descended from so mean a race,
{ That never knight was matched with such disgrace.
{ What wonder, madam, if I move my side,
When, if I turn, I turn to such a bride?—
And is this all that troubles you so sore?—
And what the devil couldst thou wish me more?—
Ah Benedicite! replied the crone:
Then cause of just complaining have you none.
The remedy to this were soon applied,
Would you be like the bridegroom to the bride:
But, for you say a long-descended race,
And wealth and dignity, and power, and place,
Make gentlemen, and that your high degree
Is much disparaged to be matched with me,—
Know this, my lord, nobility of blood
Is but a glittering and fallacious good:
The nobleman is he, whose noble mind
Is filled with inborn worth, unborrowed from his kind.
The King of Heaven was in a manger laid,
And took his earth but from an humble maid:
Then what can birth, or mortal men, bestow,
Since floods no higher than their fountains flow?
We, who for name and empty honour strive,
Our true nobility from him derive.
Your ancestors, who puff your mind with pride,
And vast estates to mighty titles tied,
Did not your honour, but their own, advance;
For virtue comes not by inheritance.
If you tralineate from your father's mind,
What are you else but of a bastard-kind?
Do, as your great progenitors have done,
And by their virtues prove yourself their son.
No father can infuse, or wit, or grace;
A mother comes across, and mars the race.
A grandsire or a grandame taints the blood;
And seldom three descents continue good.
Were virtue by descent, a noble name
Could never villanize his father's fame;
But, as the first, the last of all the line,
Would, like the sun, even in descending shine.
Take fire, and bear it to the darkest house,
Betwixt king Arthur's court and Caucasus,
If you depart, the flame shall still remain,
And the bright blaze enlighten all the plain;
Nor, till the fuel perish, can decay,
By nature formed on things combustible to prey.
Such is not man, who, mixing better seed
With worse, begets a base degenerate breed.
The bad corrupts the good, and leaves behind
No trace of all the great begetter's mind.
The father sinks within his son, we see,
And often rises in the third degree;
If better luck a better mother give,
Chance gave us being, and by chance we live.
}
{ Such as our atoms were, even such are we,
{ Or call it chance, or strong necessity:
{ Thus loaded with dead weight, the will is free.
And thus it needs must be; for seed conjoined
Lets into nature's work the imperfect kind;
But fire, the enlivener of the general frame,
Is one, its operation still the same.
Its principle is in itself: while ours
Works, as confederates war, with mingled powers;
Or man or woman, which soever fails;
And, oft, the vigour of the worse prevails.
Æther, with sulphur blended, alters hue,
And casts a dusky gleam of Sodom blue.
Thus, in a brute, their ancient honour ends,
And the fair mermaid in a fish descends:
The line is gone; no longer duke or earl;
But, by himself degraded, turns a churl.
}
{ Nobility of blood is but renown
{ Of thy great fathers by their virtue known,
{ And a long trail of light, to thee descending down.
If in thy smoke it ends, their glories shine;
But infamy and villanage are thine.
Then what I said before is plainly showed,
That true nobility proceeds from God:
Not left us by inheritance, but given
By bounty of our stars, and grace of heaven.
Thus from a captive Servius Tullius rose,
Whom for his virtues the first Romans chose.
Fabricius from their walls repelled the foe,
Whose noble hands had exercised the plough.
From hence, my lord, and love, I thus conclude,
That, though my homely ancestors were rude,
Mean as I am, yet I may have the grace
To make you father of a generous race.
And noble then am I, when I begin,
In virtue clothed, to cast the rags of sin.
If poverty be my upbraided crime,
And you believe in heaven, there was a time
When he, the great controller of our fate,
Deigned to be man, and lived in low estate;
Which he who had the world at his dispose,
If poverty were vice, would never choose.
Philosophers have said, and poets sing,
That a glad poverty's an honest thing;
Content is wealth, the riches of the mind,
And happy he who can that treasure find;
}
{ But the base miser starves amidst his store,
{ Broods on his gold, and, griping still at more,
{ Sits sadly pining, and believes he's poor;
The ragged beggar, though he wants relief,
Has not to lose, and sings before the thief.[210]
Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood.
Yet many things, impossible to thought,
Have been, by need, to full perfection brought:
The daring of the soul proceeds from thence,
Sharpness of wit, and active diligence;
Prudence at once, and fortitude, it gives,
And, if in patience taken, mends our lives;
For even that indigence, that brings me low,
Makes me myself, and him above, to know;
A good which none would challenge, few would choose,
A fair possession, which mankind refuse.
If we from wealth to poverty descend,
Want gives to know the flatterer from the friend.
If I am old and ugly, well for you,
No lewd adulterer will my love pursue;
Nor jealousy, the bane of married life,
Shall haunt you for a withered homely wife;
For age and ugliness, as all agree,
Are the best guards of female chastity.
Yet since I see your mind is worldly bent,
I'll do my best to further your content;
And therefore of two gifts in my dispose,—
Think ere you speak,—I grant you leave to choose:
Would you I should be still deformed and old,
Nauseous to touch, and loathsome to behold;
On this condition, to remain for life
A careful, tender, and obedient wife,
In all I can contribute to your ease,
And not in deed, or word, or thought displease?
Or would you rather have me young and fair,
And take the chance that happens to your share?
Temptations are in beauty, and in youth.
And how can you depend upon my truth?
Now weigh the danger with the doubtful bliss,
And thank yourself, if aught should fall amiss,—
Sore sighed the knight, who this long sermon heard;
At length considering all, his heart he cheered,
And thus replied:—My lady, and my wife,
To your wise conduct I resign my life:
Choose you for me, for well you understand
The future good and ill, on either hand:
But if an humble husband may request,
Provide, and order all things for the best;
Your's be the care to profit, and to please,
And let your subject-servant take his ease.—
Then thus in peace, quoth she, concludes the strife,
Since I am turned the husband, you the wife:
The matrimonial victory is mine,
Which, having fairly gained, I will resign;
Forgive, if I have said or done amiss,
And seal the bargain with a friendly kiss.
I promised you but one content to share,
But now I will become both good and fair.
No nuptial quarrel shall disturb your ease;
The business of my life shall be to please:
And for my beauty, that, as time shall try;
But draw the curtain first, and cast your eye.—
He looked, and saw a creature heavenly fair,
In bloom of youth, and of a charming air.
With joy he turned, and seized her ivory arm;
And, like Pygmalion, found the statue warm.
Small arguments there needed to prevail,
A storm of kisses poured as thick as hail.
Thus long in mutual bliss they lay embraced,
And their first love continued to the last;
One sunshine was their life, no cloud between,
Nor ever was a kinder couple seen.
And so may all our lives like their's be led;
Heaven send the maids young husbands fresh in bed!
May widows wed as often as they can,
And ever for the better change their man.
And some devouring plague pursue their lives,
Who will not well be governed by their wives.
THE
CHARACTER OF A GOOD PARSON.
This beautiful copy of a beautiful original makes us regret,
that Dryden had not translated the whole Introduction to the
"Canterbury Tales," in which the pilgrims are so admirably described.
Something might have been lost for want of the ancient Gothic
lore, which the writers of our poet's period did not think proper
to study; but when Dryden's learning failed, his native stores
of fancy and numbers would have helped him through the task.
"The Character of the Good Priest" may be considered as an
amende honorable to the reverend order whom Dryden had often
satirized, and he himself seems to wish it to be viewed in that
light. See Preface, p. 225. With a freedom which he has frequently
employed elsewhere, Dryden has added the last forty lines, in
which, availing himself of the Revolution, which in Chaucer's time
placed Henry IV. on the throne, he represents the political principles
of his priest as the same with those of the non-juring clergy
of his own day. Indeed, the whole piece is greatly enlarged upon
Chaucer's sketch.
THE
CHARACTER
OF
A GOOD PARSON.
A parish priest was of the pilgrim train;
An awful, reverend, and religious man.
His eyes diffused a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face.
}
{ Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor,
{ (As God had clothed his own ambassador;)
{ For such on earth his blessed Redeemer bore.
Of sixty years he seemed, and well might last
To sixty more, but that he lived too fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense,
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promised him sincere;
Nothing reserved or sullen was to see,
But sweet regards, and pleasing sanctity;
Mild was his accent, and his action free.
With eloquence innate his tongue was armed,
Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher charmed.
For, letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky;
And oft, with holy hymns, he charmed their ears,
(A music more melodious than the spheres,)
For David left him, when he went to rest,
His lyre; and after him he sung the best.
He bore his great commission in his look,
But sweetly tempered awe, and softened all he spoke.
}
{ He preached the joys of heaven, and pains of hell,
{ And warned the sinner with becoming zeal;
{ But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.
He taught the gospel rather than the law,
And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw.
For fear but freezes minds; but love, like heat,
Exhales the soul sublime, to seek her native seat.
To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard,
Wrapped in his crimes, against the storm prepared;
But when the milder beams of mercy play,
He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away.
Lightnings and thunder, (heaven's artillery,)
As harbingers before the Almighty fly:
Those but proclaim his style, and disappear;
The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there.
The tithes, his parish freely paid, he took,
But never sued, or cursed with bell and book;
With patience bearing wrong, but offering none,
Since every man is free to lose his own.
The country churls, according to their kind,
(Who grudge their dues, and love to be behind,)
The less he sought his offerings, pinched the more,
And praised a priest contented to be poor.
Yet of his little he had some to spare,
To feed the famished, and to clothe the bare;
For mortified he was to that degree,
A poorer than himself he would not see.
True priests, he said, and preachers of the word,
Were only stewards of their sovereign Lord;
Nothing was theirs, but all the public store;
Intrusted riches, to relieve the poor;
Who, should they steal, for want of his relief,
He judged himself accomplice with the thief.
Wide was his parish; not contracted close
In streets, but here and there a straggling house;
Yet still he was at hand, without request,
To serve the sick, to succour the distressed;
Tempting on foot alone, without affright,
The dangers of a dark tempestuous night.
All this, the good old man performed alone,
Nor spared his pains; for curate he had none.
Nor durst he trust another with his care;
Nor rode himself to Paul's, the public fair,
To chaffer for preferment with his gold,
Where bishoprics and sinecures are sold;
}
{ But duly watched his flock by night and day,
{ And from the prowling wolf redeemed the prey,
{ And hungry sent the wily fox away.
The proud he tamed, the penitent he cheered;
Nor to rebuke the rich offender feared.
His preaching much, but more his practice wrought;
(A living sermon of the truths he taught;)
For this by rules severe his life he squared,
That all might see the doctrine which they heard.
For priests, he said, are patterns for the rest;
(The gold of heaven, who bear the God impressed;)
But when the precious coin is kept unclean,
The Sovereign's image is no longer seen.
If they be foul on whom the people trust,
Well may the baser brass contract a rust.
The prelate, for his holy life he prized;
The worldly pomp of prelacy despised;
His Saviour came not with a gaudy show,
Nor was his kingdom of the world below.
}
{ Patience in want, and poverty of mind,
{ These marks of church and churchmen he designed,
{ And living taught, and dying left behind.
The crown he wore was of the pointed thorn;
In purple he was crucified, not born.
They, who contend for place and high degree,
Are not his sons, but those of Zebedee.
Not but he knew the signs of earthly power
Might well become Saint Peter's successor;
The Holy Father holds a double reign,
The prince may keep his pomp, the fisher must be plain.[211]
Such was the saint, who shone with every grace,
Reflecting, Moses-like, his Maker's face.
God saw his image lively was expressed;
And his own work, as in creation, blessed.
The tempter saw him too with envious eye,
And, as on Job, demanded leave to try.
He took the time when Richard was deposed,
And high and low with happy Harry closed.
This prince, though great in arms, the priest withstood:
Near though he was, yet not the next of blood.
}
{ Had Richard, unconstrained, resigned the throne,
{ A king can give no more than is his own:
{ The title stood entailed, had Richard had a son.
Conquest, an odious name, was laid aside;
Where all submitted, none the battle tried.
The senseless plea of right by Providence
Was, by a flattering priest, invented since;
And lasts no longer than the present sway,
But justifies the next who comes in play.
The people's right remains; let those who dare
Dispute their power, when they the judges are.
He joined not in their choice, because he knew
Worse might, and often did, from change ensue.
Much to himself he thought, but little spoke;
And, undeprived, his benefice forsook.
Now, through the land, his cure of souls he stretched,
And like a primitive apostle preached.
Still cheerful; ever constant to his call;
By many followed; loved by most, admired by all.
With what he begged, his brethren he relieved,
And gave the charities himself received;
Gave, while he taught; and edified the more,
Because he shewed, by proof, 'twas easy to be poor.
He went not, with the crowd, to see a shrine;
But fed us, by the way, with food divine.
In deference to his virtues, I forbear
To shew you what the rest in orders were:
This brilliant is so spotless, and so bright,
He needs no foil, but shines by his own proper light.
TRANSLATIONS FROM BOCCACE.
SIGISMONDA AND GUISCARDO.
This celebrated tale was probably taken by Boccacio from
some ancient chronicle or traditional legend. It excited great attention
among the learned of his time, and was translated into Latin
by Leonardo Aretino. Francesco di Michele Accolti de Arezzo,
who was accounted one of the best civilians of his age, rendered
into Italian verse the lamentation of Sigismonda over her lover's
heart; and the learned Philip Beroald made a Latin poetical
version of the whole fable. Translations and imitations without
number have been executed in foreign languages, without mentioning
the tragedies which have been founded upon it. In England,
the story was translated and versified in the octave stanza by
William Walter, a follower of Sir Henry Marney, chancellor of the
duchy of Lancaster.[212] A prose translation is to be found in Painter's
"Palace of Pleasure;" and the tale being wrought into a
tragedy by Robert Wilmot and others, was presented before Queen
Elizabeth, at the Inner Temple, in 1568.[213] Dryden will not readily
be suspected of deriving much aid from his black-lettered predecessors.
He made Boccacio's story his own, and told it in his
own way. One gross fault he has engrafted upon his original; I
mean the coarseness of Sigismonda's character, whose love is that
of temperament, not of affection. This error, grounded upon Dryden's
false view of the passion and of the female character, and
perhaps arising from the depravity of the age rather than of the
poet, pervades and greatly injures the effect of the tale. Yet it
is more than counterbalanced by preponderating beauties. Without
repeating the praise, elsewhere given to the majesty of the poet's
versification, and which this piece alone would be sufficient to justify,
the reader's attention may be solicited to the colours with
which Dryden has drawn a mind wrought up to the highest pitch
of despair. Sigismonda is placed in that situation, in which,
above all others, the human disposition seems to acquire a sort
of supernatural strength or obstinacy: for although guilty of a
crime, she is punished in a degree far exceeding the measure of
the offence. In such a situation, that acuteness of feeling, which
would otherwise waste itself in fluctuations betwixt shame, fear,
and remorse, is willingly and eagerly turned into the channel of
resistance and recrimination; and perhaps no readier mode can
be discovered of hardening the human heart, even to the consistence
of the nether millstone. It is in this state, that Sigismonda
resolutely, and even joyfully, embraces death, in order to punish
her father, and rejoin her lover. The previous arguments with
Tancred, sufficiently, and, in the circumstances, naturally, intimate
the tone of her mind, and are a striking instance of Dryden's
power in painting passion wrought up to desperation.
The scene is laid in the middle ages, when the principality of Salerno
was ruled by a dynasty of Norman princes, deriving their
family from the celebrated Robert de Guiscard.
SIGISMONDA
AND
GUISCARDO.