Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth An issue which to eternity shall last, Monument is his spouse's marble breast. 100 105 ON THE MONUMENT OF THE MARQUIS OF HE who in impious times undaunted stood For what his earthly could not recompense. Which, to preserve them, Heaven confined in thee. 5 10 15 EPITAPH ON SIR PALMES FAIRBORNE'S TOMB, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.+ YE sacred relics, which your marble keep, John Powlet, Marquis of Winchester, a famous Royalist of the Civil War, whose mansion at Basing after a siege of two years was taken by Cromwell and burnt in October 1645, and who was then made a prisoner, died in 1674, in his seventy-seventh year. He was buried at Englefield, in Berkshire; and this epitaph by Dryden, the former eulogist of Cromwell and the "rebellion," was engraved on the monument erected by his widow, the last of three wives. This epitaph was printed in Pope's volume of Miscellanies, 1712. Ark has been changed, probably originally by a misprint, into ask, which appears in Scott's and all modern editions. The tomb of Sir Palmes Fairborne in Westminster Abbey, on which this epitaph is inscribed, bears also the following inscription :-"Sacred to the immortal memory of Sir Palmes Fairborne, Knight, Governor of Tangier; in execution of which command he was mortally wounded by a shot from the Moors, then besieging the town, in the forty-sixth year of his age. October 24, 1680." Alive and dead these walls he will defend : Still nearer Heaven, his virtue shone more bright, Nor general's death was e'er revenged so well; TO THE MEMORY OF MR. OLDHAM.* FAREWELL, too little and too lately known, To the same goal did both our studies drive: The last set out the soonest did arrive. Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place, Whilst his young friend performed and won the race.+ What could advancing age have added more? Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue. ‡ 5 1Ο 15 John Oldham, the author of the "Satires on the Jesuits," died in 1683, at the early age of twenty-nine. These Satires, written in 1679, and published in the height of the excitement against the Roman Catholics, had made Oldham suddenly famous. Dryden in these excellent lines gives just praise to his fellow satirist. Wanting Dryden's polish, he sometimes even exceeds Dryden in strength as a satirist. Oldham had evidently in his youth admired and studied Dryden's poems. Imitations by him of passages in Dryden's earliest poems are mentioned in the notes to "Annus Mirabilis," stanza 4, and the poem on the Death of Lord Hastings. Eneis, v. 328. The word numbers in this line is unwarrantably changed into smoothness in the reprints of the poem prefixed to the editions of Oldham's Works, 1722 and 1770. Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime, 20 But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme. Once more, hail, and farewell! farewell, thou young, But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around. 25 TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW,* EXCELLENT IN THE TWO SISTER ARTS OF POESY AND PAINTING. AN ODE. I THOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, Rich with immortal green above the rest : Or in procession fixed and regular Or called to more superior bliss, Thou treadst with seraphims the vast abyss: In no ignoble verse, But such as thy own voice did practise here, And candidate of Heaven. Mrs. (or, as would now be said, Miss) Anne Killigrew was daughter of the Rev. Dr. Henry Killigrew, Master of the Savoy, and a Prebendary of Westminster. Her father had in early fe written a tragedy; and Dryden alludes to him as a poet in the second stanza of this poc Thomas Killigrew, the court wit, and Sir William Killigrew, both play-writers, were his brothers, and Miss Killigrew's uncles. She was maid of honour to the Duchess of York, afterwards Queen She died of small-pox in 1685, in the twenty-fifth year of her age. Her poems were collected and published after her death, in a quarto volume, 1686, with this poem of Dryden prefixed, and with the motto on the title-page, "Immodicis brevis est ætas, et rara senectus" (Martial, vi. 29. The poem was reprinted by Dryden in his third Miscellany volume, 1694. The text here is corrected from the first publication and the reprint in 1694. 2 If by traduction came thy mind, A soul so charming from a stock so good; Was formed at first with myriads more, 25 It did through all the mighty poets roll 30 And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! 35 Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore : Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find Than was the beautious frame she left behind : Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celestial kind. 3 May we presume to say that, at thy birth, New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth? 40 On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, And even the most malicious were in trine.* Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high, Might know a poetess was born on earth; Had heard the music of the spheres. On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew, Heaven had not leisure to renew : For all the blest fraternity of love Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above. 45 59 50 55 4 O gracious God! how far have we Debased to each obscene and impious use, 60 For tongues of angels and for hymns of love! Another allusion to trines as of happy auspice is in "Annus Mirabilis," stanza 292, where see note. ↑ Miracles here rhymes with bees. See notes on "Astræa Redux," 106; "The Medal," 164; and "Threnodia Augustalis," 414 Oh wretched we! why were we hurried down To increase the steaming ordures of the stage? 5 Art she had none, yet wanted none, For Nature did that want supply: She might our boasted stores defy : Such noble vigour did her verse adorn That it seemed borrowed, where 'twas only born. Her morals too were in her bosom bred, By great examples daily fed, What in the best of books, her father's life, she read. And to be read herself she need not fear; 80 Each test and every light her Muse will bear, Though Epictetus with his lamp were there. Even love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest), Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast; 85 So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest, To the next realm she stretched her sway, A plenteous province and alluring prey. And the whole fief in right of Poetry she claimed. 95 * The old French spelling lubrique has here been preserved inconsistently in all editions to the latest. In the poem to Sir George Etherege, line 6, the spelling artique for arctic is needed for the rhyme. "Her Arethusian stream.' One of Dryden's forced classical allusions. Arethusa, according to the ancient fable, was changed by Diana into a fountain to save her from the amorous pursuit of Alpheus, the god of the river of that name in Elis. Alpheus then mingled the waters of his river with those of Arethusa. Diana opened a secret passage under the earth and the sea, through which the waters of Arethusa, disappearing in Elis, rose in the island of Ortygia, Sicily. The river Alpheus followed her also under the sea, and rose in Ortygia. near 1 Painture, a word from the French peinture, now obsolete. In the poem to Sir Godfrey Kneller, Dryden uses the word "picture" for the art of painting. |