32

Such was our Prince, yet owned a soul above
The highest acts it could produce to show :
Thus poor mechanic arts in public move,
Whilst the deep secrets beyond practice go.

33

Nor died he when his ebbing fame went less,
But when fresh laurels courted him to live;
He seemed but to prevent some new success,
As if above what triumphs earth could give.
34

His latest victories still thickest came,

As near the centre motion does increase;
Till he, pressed down by his own weighty name,
Did, like the Vestal, under spoils decease.'

35

But first the Ocean as a tribute sent

That giant-prince of all her watery herd; +
And the Isle, when her protecting Genius went,
Upon his obsequies loud sighs conferred.

36

No civil broils have since his death arose,
But faction now by habit does obey;
And wars have that respect for his repose
As winds for halcyons when they breed at sea.

37

His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;

His name a great example stands to show

How strangely high endeavours may be blessed
Where piety and valour jointly go.

Tarpeia, crushed by the shields of the Sabines to whom she had betrayed the citadel of Rome. The comparison is very forced and inappropriate.

+ Scott supposes that this refers to the great storm at the time of Cromwell's death. But it is impossible to explain, on that supposition, who was the "giant-prince of all her watery herd" sent by Ocean as a tribute. Mr. Holt White, in his MS. notes, interprets these two obscure lines as referring to the death of Blake, the great naval hero of the Commonwealth, who had died rather more than a twelvemonth before Cromwell, and had been buried with state in Westminster Abbey, September 4, 1657. This is a more probable interpretation. Derrick and the subsequent editors, including Scott, have printed "the giant-prince" instead of that, which is the word in the original editions. The difference is material; that points to an individual. The two last lines of the stanza refer to the storm at the time of Cromwell's death.

The first two months of Richard Cromwell's reign were serene, and there was no sign of danger or trouble till his Parliament met, January 27, 1659.

ASTREA

REDUX.

A POEM ON THE HAPPY RESTORATION AND RETURN

OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY

CHARLES THE SECOND.

Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna.-VIRG. Eclog. iv. 6.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

"Astræa Redux" and the two poems which follow, addressed to King Charles II. on his Coronation and to the Lord Chancellor Clarendon on New Year's Day, 1662, were successively published in folio by Henry Herringman. Dryden's name is printed Driden on the title-pages of two of them. All these poems were reprinted in 1688 in quarto, with a new edition of "Annus Mirabilis," and were then issued by Jacob Tonson; the spelling Driden being retained on the title-page of "Astræa Redux.” These three poems were not again reprinted till they appeared in the edition of the Miscellany Poems" of 1716.

66

1662," is omitted in this edition.

A piece, which was first printed in the third volume of the "State Poems," published after Dryden's death in 1704, and which has since appeared in every edition of Dryden's poems, with the heading A Satire on the Dutch, written in the year This "Satire" was put together by the publisher from the Prologue and Epilogue of Dryden's play of "Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants," which appeared in 1673, the last year of the second Dutch war. There is nothing in the poem to show that it was written in 1662 or earlier than 1673, and no sign of its publication before the appearance of Amboyna." There is a similar instance at page 2 of the same volume of the 66 State Foems: " a "Satire upon Romish Confessors, by Mr. Dryden," which is a portion of the Epilogue of the " Spanish Friar."

ASTRÆEA REDUX.

Now with a general peace the world was blest,
While ours, a world divided from the rest,*

A dreadful quiet + felt, and worser far

Than arms, a sullen interval of war.

Thus, when black clouds draw down the labouring skies, 5
Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,

An horrid stillness first invades the ear
And in that silence we the tempest fear.

The ambitious Swede like restless billows tost,
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 seemed 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 sighed to hear the fair Iberian bride
Must grow a lily to the Lily's side ; ||

"Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos."-VIRG. Eclog. i. 67. "Ducemque terruit dira quies.”—TACIT. Ann. i. 65.

This line has been much ridiculed, and it is not easy to justify it.

"Laureat, who was both learned and florid,

Was damned long since for 'silence horrid,'
Nor had there been such clutter made,

But that this silence did invade :

Invade! and so it might well, that's clear,
But what did it invade ?-an ear.'

15

News from Hell (Miscellany Poems, ii. 100, ed. 1716). Dr. Johnson has defended the phrase "stillness invades the ear," by comparison of stillness or silence with darkness, cold, and death, all which, he says, similarly denote privation. "No man,' he says, "scruples to say that darkness hinders him from his work, or that cold has killed the plants: death is also privation: yet who has made any difficulty of assigning to death a dart and the power of striking?" (Lives of the Poets, i. 272, Cunningham's edition.) But the instances are not in point. Death is personified. Stillness may help study or benefit an invalid, as darkness may prevent work, or cold injure plants; but there is decided incongruity in stillness or the absence of all sound invading or entering the ear.

§ Charles X. of Sweden, who had succeeded Queen Christina in 1654, died February 13, 1660. Sweden had been during the greater part of his reign, and was then, at war with Poland, Prussia, Austria, Denmark, and Holland. His son being a minor, Charles X. appointed by will regents, and on his deathbed exhorted these to restore peace to his kingdom. Peace was concluded with Denmark and Holland by the treaty of Oliva, May 1660, and with Austria, Prussia, and Poland by the treaty of Copenhagen in July 1660.

By the treaty of the Pyrenees, by which peace was made between France and Spain, November 1659, it was agreed that Louis XIV., king of France, should marry the Infanta Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of Philip IV., king of Spain.