Title: The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 09
Author: John Dryden
Editor: Walter Scott
Release date: June 16, 2015 [eBook #49221]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jane Robins and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
NOW FIRST COLLECTED
IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES.
ILLUSTRATED
WITH NOTES,
HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,
AND
A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,
BY
WALTER SCOTT, Esq.
VOL. IX.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,
BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.
1808.
| PAGE. | |
| Poems, Historical and Political. | |
| Heroic Stanzas to the Memory of Oliver Cromwell, | 3 |
| Notes, | 15 |
| Astrea Redux, | 25 |
| Notes, | 41 |
| To his Sacred Majesty, a Panegyric on his Coronation, | 53 |
| Notes, | 59 |
| To Lord Chancellor Hyde, presented on New-year's-day, 1662, | 63 |
| Satire on the Dutch, | 71 |
| To her Royal Highness the Duchess of York, on the | |
| Victory gained by the Duke over the Dutch, &c. | 73 |
| Notes, | 79 |
| Annus Mirabilis, the Year of Wonders, 1666, an Historical Poem, | 81 |
| Dedication to the Metropolis of Great Britain, | 89 |
| An Account of Annus Mirabilis, in a Letter | |
| to the Hon. Sir Robert Howard, | 92 |
| Notes, | 158 |
| Absalom and Achitophel, Part I. | 195 |
| To the Reader, | 208 |
| Notes on Part I. | 249 |
| Part II. | 319 |
| Notes on Part II. | 354 |
| The Medal, a Satire against Sedition, | 407 |
| Epistle to the Whigs, | 417 |
| Notes, | 441 |
These verses compose the earliest of our author's political poems, and are among the first which he wrote, of any length or consequence. The first edition is now before me, by the favour of my friend Richard Heber, Esq.; and, while correcting this sheet, I received another copy from Mr Finlay, author of the "Vale of Ellerslie." It is of the last degree of rarity, since it has escaped the researches even of Mr Malone. The full title is, "A Poem upon the Death of his late Highness Oliver, Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland; written by Mr Dryden. London, printed for William Wilson, and are to be sold in Well-Yard, near Little St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1659," 4to. Upon comparing this rare edition with those of a later date, no material alterations occur, excepting that the spelling is modernized, and the title abridged.
Some of our author's biographers have deemed it necessary to apologise for his chusing this subject, by referring to his near connection with Sir Gilbert Pickering, the friend and confident of the deceased usurper. There is, however, little reason to suppose, that Dryden did any violence to his own inclinations, to gratify the political feelings of his kinsman and patron. He had been bred in anti-monarchical principles, and did not probably change, till the nation changed with him. The character of Cromwell was in itself an inviting theme to so true a poet. The man, of whom Clarendon said, that "even his enemies could not condemn him, without commending him at the same time," and of whose exploits Cowley has given so animating a detail; whom, in short, his very enemies could not mention without wonder, if they with-held applause,—afforded to those who favoured his politics many a point of view, in which the splendour of his character might hide its blemishes.[1] It is remarkable, however, that, in handling this theme, Dryden has observed a singular and happy delicacy. The topic of the civil war is but slightly dwelt on; and, although Cromwell is extolled, his eulogist abstains from any reflections against those, through whom he cut his way to greatness. He considers the Protector when in his meridian height, but passes over the steps by which he attained that elevation. It is also remarkable, that although Sir Gilbert Pickering was one of Richard Cromwell's council, our author abstains from any compliment to that pageant of authority; when a panegyrick upon the son was a natural topic of consolation after mourning over the loss of his father. Sprat, upon the same occasion, did not omit this obvious topic, but launched forth into prophecies, to which the event did very little credit.[2]
Notwithstanding these symptoms of caution and moderation, the subject of this first public essay of our author's poetical talents was repeatedly urged against him during the political controversies in which, through the reigns of Charles II. and his brother, he was constantly engaged. One offended antagonist carried his malice so far, as actually to reprint an edition of the Elegy, with a dull postscript, in which he makes Dryden acknowledge his alleged apostacy.[3]
Of the poetical merits of the Elegy, we have elsewhere spoken more fully. The manly and solemn march of the stanza gave promise of that acute poetical ear, which afterwards enabled Dryden to harmonize our verification. The ideas, though often far-fetched, and sometimes ambiguously expressed, indicate the strength and vigour of his mind. They give obvious tokens of a regeneration of taste; for though, in many instances, the conceits are very extravagant, yet they are, in general, much more moderate than those in the Elegy upon Lord Hastings, whose whole soul was rendered a celestial sphere, by the virtues which were stuck in it; and his body little less brilliantly ornamented by the pustules of small pox, which were first rose-buds, and then stars. The symptoms of emerging from the false taste and impertinent witticisms of Donne and Cowley, were probably more owing to our author's natural feeling of what were the proper attributes of poetry, than to any change in the taste of the age. Sprat, who also solemnizes the decease of Cromwell, runs absolutely riot in pindarics, and furnishes as excellent an instance of useless labour, and wit rendered ridiculous by misapplication, as can be found in Cowley himself. Cromwell's elevation is compared to the raising up of the brazen serpent, in the Pentateuch;[5] the classic metamorphosis of Ajax's blood into the hyacinth[6] furnishes a simile for the supposed revival of letters through the blood spilled by Cromwell; his sword is preferred to the flaming brand of the cherub, because it had made a paradise, which the other only guarded; finally, the Protector's temper grew milder in the progress of his warfare, as his armour, being made of steel, grew smoother by use.[7] It must be allowed, that there are, in Dryden's poem, many, and greatly too many, epigrammatic turns; each is, however, briefly winded up in its own stanza; while the structure of Sprat's poem enabled him to hunt down his conceits through all the doubling and winding of his long pindaric strophé. Dryden, for example, says, that Cromwell strewed the island with victories,
Sprat spins out nearly the same idea, in the following extraordinary manner:
By turning the reader's attention to this comparison betwixt the poems of Sprat and Dryden, I mean to shew, that our author was already weaning himself from that franticly witty stile of composition, which the most ingenious of his contemporaries continued to practise and admire; although he did not at once abandon it, but retrenched his quaint conceits before he finally discarded them.
The poem of Waller on Cromwell's death, excepting one unhappy and celebrated instance of the bathos,[8] is the best of his compositions; and, separately considered, must be allowed to be superior to that of Dryden, by whom he was soon after so far distanced in the poetical career.
CONSECRATED
TO THE MEMORY OF
HIS HIGHNESS OLIVER,
LATE LORD PROTECTOR OF THIS COMMONWEALTH,
WRITTEN AFTER THE CELEBRATING OF HIS FUNERAL.
Cromwell's disease, a fever and tertian ague, was accompanied by fits of swooning, which occasioned, more than once, a premature report of his death. It was probably this circumstance, which made some of his fanatical chaplains doubt the fact, after it had actually taken place. "Say not he is dead," exclaimed one of them, like Omar over the corpse of Mahomet; "for, if ever the Lord heard my prayers, he has assured me of the life of the Protector." The two last lines of the stanza allude to the Roman custom of letting an eagle fly from the funeral pile of a deceased emperor, which represented his spirit soaring to the regions of bliss, or his guardian genius convoying it thither. It is described at length in the fourth book of Herodian, who says, that, after this ceremony of consecration, the deceased emperor was enrolled among the Roman deities.
Cromwell was upwards of forty before he made any remarkable figure; and Pompey, when he had attained the same period of life, was deserted by the good fortune which had accompanied his more early career.
Essex, Manchester, Sir William Waller, and the earlier generals of the Parliament, were all of the Presbyterian party, who, though they had drawn the sword against the king, had no will to throw away the scabbard. They were disposed so to carry on the war, that, neither party being too much weakened, a sound and honourable peace might have been accomplished on equal terms. But the Independants flew at higher game; and, as the more violent party usually prevail during times of civil discord, they attained their object. Cromwell openly accused the Earl of Manchester of having refused to put an end to the war, after the last battle at Newbury, when a single charge upon the King's rear might have dissipated his army for ever. "I offered," he averred, "to perform the work with my own brigade of horse; let Manchester and the rest look on, if they thought fit: but he obstinately refused to permit the attempt, alleging, that, if the king's army was beaten, he would find another; but if that of the Parliament was overthrown, there would be an end of their cause, and they would be all punished as traitors." This suspicion of the compromising temper of the Presbyterian leaders, led to the famous self-denying ordinance, by which all members of both houses were declared incapable of holding a military command. By this new model, all the power of the army was thrown, nominally, into the hands of Fairfax, but, really and effectually, into that of Cromwell, who was formally excepted from the operation of the act, and of the Independants; men determined to push the war to extremity, and who at length triumphed over both King and Parliament.
This passage, which seems to imply nothing farther than that Cromwell conducted the war so as to push it to a conclusion, was afterwards invidiously interpreted by Dryden's enemies, as containing an explicit approbation of the execution of Charles I.
Thus, in the panegyric quoted in the introductory remarks to this poem,
The same accusation is urged in another libel, called "The Laureat:"
Another witling, to add to the heinousness of this expression, assures us, that Dryden had at first declared for the king, then for the parliament, and, finally, for Cromwell:
These are examples of the inveteracy, with which Dryden's enemies were ready to wrest his expressions from the common interpretation into one more strong and unwarrantable. Dryden, sufficiently embarrassed by the praises he had bestowed on the Usurper, a charge from which he could not vindicate himself, took no notice of the uncandid lengths to which it was carried.
Notwithstanding the inconstancy of Victory during the civil war, she never deserted the banner of Cromwell. Even in undecided conflicts, the brigade, or wing, with which he fought, had always the superiority. The royalists never once saw him fly before them, during all the pitched battles in which he was engaged in England, Scotland, and Ireland.
It was anciently a popular notion, that the palm-tree throve best when pressed down with weights. An old scholiast defines it as "arbor nobilissima illa, quæ nulli cedit ponderi, sed contra assurgit et reluctatur."—Fabri Thesaurus ad verbum palma.
This odd simile is borrowed from a very singular, and somewhat dubious event, said to have happened during the siege of Bologna in 1512. A mine had been run by the Spanish besieging army under a part of the wall, on which was built a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Upon the explosion, the chapel and portion of the wall which formed its support were heaved into the air, so high, that (in spite of all the smoke and dust accompanying such an eruption) an elegant historian assures us, the besiegers could see, through the vacant space, the buildings of the town, and the defenders ready to man the breach. Nevertheless, the chapel and fragment of wall descended so exactly into the space they had formerly occupied, that the breach was completely and accurately repaired. The chapel acquired by this incident a great reputation for miraculous sanctity. The event is more fully narrated in the following passage of the original:
"Finita in ultimo la mina, e stando l'esercito armato per dare incontinente la battaglia, la quale perchè si desse con maggiori forze, era stata richiamata l'antiguardia, fece il Navarra dare il fuoco alla mina; la quale con grandissimo impeto, e romore gittò talmente in alto la cappella, che per quello spatio, che rimase tra'l terreno, e'l muro gittato in alto, fu da quelli, ch' erano fuora, veduta apertamente la città dentro, et i soldati che stavano preparati per difenderla; ma subito scendendo in giừ ritornò il muro intero nel luogo medesimo, onde la violentia del fuoco l'areva sbarrato, e si ricongiunse insieme, come se mai non fusse stato mosso: onde si non si potendo assaltare da quella parte, i capitani giudicurono non si dovere dare solamente dall' altra. Attribuirono questo caso i Bolognesi a miracolo, riputando impossibile, che, senza l'ajutorio divino, fusse potuto riconguignersi cosi appunto ne' medesimi fondamenti; onde fu dipoi ampliata quella cappella, e frequentata con non piccola divotione del popolo." L'Istoria di Guicciardini, Libro Decimo.
The gallant Ormond, who commanded for the king in Ireland, had reduced the island almost entirely under the royal authority, excepting the cities of Dublin and Londonderry, when the arrival of Cromwell, appointed lord governor by the parliament, entirely changed the scene. In less than ten months, that fated general over-ran the whole kingdom. Tredagh he took by storm; and such terror was struck into the minds of the Irish, by the bloody execution attending and following that assault, that almost all the other garrisons surrendered without resistance, or revolted to the parliament.