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 impoverished trade.
Oh, had you seen from Scheveline'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 lowered sails denied;
The wavering streamers, flags, and Standard 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.

215

220

225

The Naseby, now no longer England's shame,*

230

But better to be lost in Charles his name,
Like some unequal bride in nobler sheets,

Receives her lord; the joyful London meets
The princely York, himself alone a freight;

The Swiftsure groans beneath great Gloucester's weight : +235
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 his voyage blessed
Which in his right had miracles confessed.
The winds that never moderation knew,

240

Their straightened lungs, or conscious of their charge.

245

And welcome now, great Monarch, to your own!

250

Behold the approaching cliffs of Albion.

It is no longer motion cheats your view;

As you meet it, the land approacheth you.

The ship "Naseby," in which Charles embarked for Dover, received from him, as he was on the point of starting, the name "Royal Charles." See Pepys's Diary, May 23, 1660. The Richard" was at the same time christened "Royal James.'

Henry, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of Charles II. who died in September 1660. When Publius Valerius, being Consul, called the Roman people together to vindicate himself from false accusations, he made the lictors who preceded him with the fasces, emblems of his consular rank, lower them in recognition of the people's superior power; and Livy says, "submissis fascibus in concionem escendit" (ii. 7).

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,

255

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 the 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,

260

*

265

When through Arabian groves they take their flight,
Made wanton with rich odours, lose their spite.
And as those lees that trouble it refine

270

While, spurred with eager thoughts of past delight,

280

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 renewed the expiring pomp of May!
A month that owns an interest in your name;
You and the flowers are its peculiar claim.

285

That star, that at your birth shone out so bright+

"And He said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." (Exodus xxxiii. 20.) "And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." (xxxiv. 6.)

A star appeared at noon, on the day of Charles II.'s birth, May 29, 1630, as the King his father was proceeding to St. Paul's to give thanks to God for the event. Charles II. entered London, when restored to his throne, on his birthday; and Dryden ascribes renewed force to the star which had been observed on the day of his birth thirty years before. There is nothing to support Scott's unnecessary conjecture that the same star was again visible on May 29, 1660. Cowley, in his Ode on the Restoration, celebrates the star in the same way:

"No star amongst ye all did, I believe,

Such vigorous assistance give,

As that which, thirty years ago,
At Charles his birth, did, in despite

Of the proud sun's meridian light,

His future glories and this year foreshow:
No less effects than these we may

Be assured of from that powerful ray

Which could outface the sun and overcome the day."

Compare Annus Mirabilis," stanza 18. Lilly, the astrologer, declared it to be the planet Venus.

It stained 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,
Dispelled to farthest corners of the sky.
Our nation, with united interest blest,
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 swallowed 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.

290

295

300

305

310

At home the hateful names of parties cease,
And factious souls are wearied into peace.

The discontented now are only they

Whose crimes before did your just cause betray:

315

Of those your edicts some reclaim from sins,

But most your life and blest example wins.

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

320

By fate reserved for great Augustus' throne,

When the joint growth of arms and arts foreshew
The world a Monarch, and that Monarch you !

• This use of white in the sense of fortunate is a Latinism :

"Sed current albusque dies horæque serena."

SILIUS ITAL. XV. 53.

✦ Compare the first stanza of "Annus Mirabilis," where Holland is described, "crouching at home and cruel when abroad." And the same idea is presented in Dryden's play of "Amboyna," at the beginning and at the end. "We are secure," says Harman the Governor, before the massacre, of our superiors there: well, they may give the King of Great Britain a verbal satisfaction, and with submissive fawning promises make show to punish us, but interest is their god as well as ours" (act 1, SC. 1). And, at the end, says the Fiscal, "Now for a smooth apology, and then a fawning letter to the King of England, and our work's done."

1 Charles had quitted Paris to live at Cologne in the beginning of 1656, when the negotiations which led to the alliance of France with Oliver Cromwell began. His departure had not been suggested by the French king, but he did not press Charles to stay, and indeed encouraged him to go when Charles proposed it. Or the reference may be to Cardinal Mazarin's dislike of the visit of Charles to Fuentarabia in the autumn of 1659, when the treaty of the Pyrenees was being negotiated,

TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY,

A PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION.

1661.

IN that wild Deluge where the world was drowned,
When life and sin one common tomb had found,
The first small prospect of a rising hill

With various notes of joy the Ark did fill:

Yet when that flood in its own depths was drowned,
It left behind it false and slippery ground,

And the more solemn pomp was still deferred
Till new-born nature in fresh looks appeared.
Thus, royal Sir, to see you landed here
Was cause enough of triumph for a year:
Nor would your care those glorious joys repeat
Till they at once might be secure and great,
Till your kind beams by their continued stay

5

10

Had warmed the ground and called the damps away.
Such vapours, while your powerful influence dries,
Then soonest vanish when they highest rise.
Had greater haste these sacred rites prepared,

15

Some guilty months had in your triumphs shared :
But this untainted year is all your own ;*
Your glories may without our crimes be shown.
We had not yet exhausted all our store,
When you refreshed our joys by adding more:
As Heaven of old dispensed celestial dew,
You gave us manna and still give us new.

20

Now our sad ruins are removed from sight,
The season too comes fraught with new delight
Time seems not now beneath his years to stoop,
Nor do his wings with sickly feathers droop:
Soft western winds waft o'er the gaudy spring
And opened scenes of flowers and blossoms bring
To grace this happy day, while you appear
Not King of us alone, but of the year.
All eyes you draw, and with the eyes the heart,
Of your own pomp yourself the greatest part:

25

30

The Coronation was on April 24, 1661, and the year was then reckoned to begin on March 25. Dryden probably refers to the part of the preceding year before the Restoration in May, as "guilty months."

Loud shouts the nation's happiness proclaim,
And Heaven this day is feasted with your name.
Your cavalcade the fair spectators view
From their high standings, yet look up to you.
From your brave train each singles out a prey
And longs to date a conquest from your day.
Now charged with blessings while you seek repose,
Officious slumbers haste your eyes to close;
And glorious dreams stand ready to restore
The pleasing shapes of all you saw before.
Next to the sacred Temple you are led,

Where waits a crown for your more sacred head:
How justly from the Church that crown is due,
Preserved from ruin and restored by you!
The grateful quire their harmony employ
Not to make greater, but more solemn joy.
Wrapt soft and warm your name is sent on high,
As flames do on the wings of incense fly.
Music herself is lost; in vain she brings
Her choicest notes to praise the best of kings:
Her melting strains in you a tomb have found
And lie like bees in their own sweetness drowned.
He that brought peace and discord could atone,
His name is music of itself alone.

Now while the sacred oil anoints your head,
And fragrant scents begun from you are spread
Through the large dome, the people's joyful sound
Sent back is still preserved in hallowed ground;
Which in one blessing mixed descends on you,
As heightened spirits fall in richer dew.
Not that our wishes do increase your store;
Full of yourself, you can admit no more.
We add not to your glory, but employ
Our time, like angels, in expressing joy.
Nor is it duty or our hopes alone
Create that joy, but full fruition :+

We know those blessings which we must possess
And judge of future by past happiness.

Officious, serviceable. Used frequently in this sense by Dryden, as **Annus Mirabilis," stanza 184: the sense of the Latin officiosus.

"Yet not to Earth are those bright luminaries
Offcious, but to thee, Earth's habitant'

Paradise Lost, viii 99

Another

Dr. Johnson hastily expressed his belief that this is the only instance in Dryden's poems of such a rhyme, which was common with his predecessors and early contemporaries. example occurs in his earliest poem, the "Elegy on Lord Hastings:"

"No comet need foretell his change drew on,
Whose corps might seem a constellation."

The following instance is from the Second Part of the "Conquest of Granada," act 4, sc. 3:

"This with the dawn of morning shall be done;

You haste too much her execution."