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he prefers the version of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the same com pliment; for it is agreed on all hands that he writes even below Ogilby. That, you will say, is not easily to be done: but what cannot Milbourn bring about? I am satisfied, however, that while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desired him underhand to write so ill against me; but, upon my honest word, I have not bribed him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. 'Tis true, I should be glad if I could persuade him to continue his good offices, and write such another critique on anything of mine; for I find by experience he has a great stroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a better opinion of them. He has taken some pains with my poetry; but nobody will be persuaded to take the same with his. If I had taken to the church (as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts), I should have had more sense, if not more grace, than to have turned myself out of my benefice by writing libels on my parishioners. But his account of my manners and my principles are of a piece with his cavils and his poetry: and so I have done with him for ever.

As for the City Bard or Knight Physician, I hear his quarrel to me is, that I was the author of " Absalom and Achitophel," which he thinks is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.

But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing ill is to be spoken of the dead: and therefore peace be to the manes of his Arthurs.* I will only say, that it was not for this noble knight that I drew the plan of an epic poem on King Arthur, in my preface to the translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected them, as Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were thrown before him by Entellus. Yet from that preface he plainly took his hint: for he began immediately upon the story; though he had the baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor, but, instead of it, to traduce me in a libel.

I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality; and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove that in many places he has perverted my meaning by his glosses; and interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were not guilty; besides that he is too much given to horse-play in his raillery; and comes to battle like a dictator from the plough. I will not say, The zeal of God's house has eaten him up; but I am sure it has devoured some part of his good manners and civility. It might also be doubted whether it were altogether zeal, which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding; perhaps it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays; a divine might have employed his pains to better

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Prince Arthur" and "King Arthur."

* Blackmore's two epic poems, + See Virgil's Eneas, vv. 394, seq. Entellus with the "cestus: of Eryx. gauntlets in his Translation of Virgil.

Translated by Dryden :

In the Trojan games in Sicily Dares refused to fight
Cestus, here called whirlbats by Dryden, is translated
Virgil describes the make of these cestus:
"Tantorum ingentia septem
Terga boum plumbo insuta ferroque regebant."

"The gloves of death, with seven distinguished folds
Of tough bull-hides: the space within is spread
With iron or with loads of heavy lead."

purpose than in the nastiness of Plautus and Aristophanes; whose examples, as they excuse not me, so it might be possibly supposed, that he read them not without some pleasure. They who have written commentaries on these poets, or on Horace, Juvenal, or Martial, have explained some vices, which without their interpretation had been unknown to modern times. Neither has he judged impar tially betwixt the former age and us.

There is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher's, called "The Custom of the Country," than in all ours together. Yet this has been often acted on the stage in my remembrance. Are the times so much more reformed now than they were five and twenty years ago? If they are, I congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow-poets, though I abandon my own defence they have some of them answered for themselves, and neither they nor I can think Mr. Collier so formidable an enemy that we should shun him. He has lost ground at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too far, like the Prince of Condé at the battle of Senneffe: from immoral plays to no plays, ab abusu ad usum non valet consequentia. But being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge. As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels that they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them. Blackmore and Milbourn are only distinguished from the crowd by being remembered to their infamy.

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TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF ORMOND,

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM OF

PALAMON AND ARCITE FROM CHAUCER.

MADAM,

The bard who first adorned our native tongue
Tuned to his British lyre this ancient song;
Which Homer might without a blush reherse,
And leaves a doubtful palm in Virgil's verse :+
He matched their beauties, where they most excel;
Of love sung better, and of arms as well.
Vouchsafe, illustrious Ormond, to behold

What power the charms of beauty had of old;
Nor wonder if such deeds of arms were done,

Inspired by two fair eyes that sparkled like your own.

If Chaucer by the best idea wrought,

And poets can divine each other's thought,

* Hor. Sat. i. 10.

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+ Dryden here says of Chaucer in reference to Virgil what Juvenal said of Virgil in reference to Homer:

"Conditor Iliadis cantabitur, atque Maronis
Altisoni dubiam facientia carmina palmam."
JUVENAL, Sat. xi. 178.

The fairest nymph before his eyes he set ;
And then the fairest was Plantagenet,

Who three contending princes made her prize,
And ruled the rival nations with her eyes;
Who left immortal trophies of her fame,
And to the noblest order gave the name."

Like her, of equal kindred to the throne,
You keep her conquests, and extend your own:
As when the stars, in their etherial race,

At length have rolled around the liquid space,
At certain periods they resume their place,

From the same point of heaven their course advance,

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And move in measures of their former dance;

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Thus, after length of ages, she returns,

Restored in you, and the same place adorns :

Or you perform her office in the sphere,

Born of her blood, and make a new Platonic year.

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And conquering Theseus from his side had sent

Your generous lord, to guide the Theban government.
Time shall accomplish that; and I shall see

A Palamon in him, in you an Emily.

Already have the Fates your path prepared,
And sure presage your future sway declared:
When westward, like the sun, you took your way,
And from benighted Britain bore the day,
Blue Triton gave the signal from the shore,

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The ready Nereids heard, and swam before

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To smooth the seas; a soft Etesian gale‡

But just inspired, and gently swelled the sail;

Portunus took his turn, whose ample hand

Heaved up the lightened keel, and sunk the sand,§
And steered the sacred vessel safe to land.

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*Scott thinks this Plantagenet lady was Blanche, first wife of John, duke of Gaunt. Mr. Craik, in his "History of English Literature" (vol. ii. p. 162), suggests that it is more likely to be Joan, daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, second son, of Edward I., famous as the Fair Maid of Kent, and married for the third and last time to Edward the Black Prince, by whom she was the mother of Richard II. She was firstly the wife of Thomas Holland, son of the Lord Holland, and secondly of William Montague, earl of Salisbury. Thus it may be explained how she made three contending princes her prize: and she is believed to be the Countess of Salisbury who gave the Order of the Garter its name. The daughter of the Duke of Beaufort linealy descended from Edward II, through John of Gaunt would be described as "of equal kindred to the throne" with the daughter of Edward I., and as "born of her blood."

↑ Fatal, in the sense of fated, destined.

"Etesian gale," an annual wind here described as a soft one.

§ Portunus, the protector of harbours in Roman mythology. See "Astræa Redux,” 121, and note. This is an imitation of Virgil:

"Et pater ipse manu magna Portunus euntem
Impulit."-En. v. 241.

The land, if not restrained, had met your way,*
Projected out a neck, and jutted to the sea.
Hibernia, prostrate at your feet, adored
In you the pledge of her expected lord,
Due to her isle; a venerable name;

His father and his grandsire known to fame;
Awed by that house, accustomed to command,
The sturdy kerns† in due subjection stand,
Nor hear the reins‡ in any foreign' hand.

At your approach, they crowded to the port;
And scarcely landed, you create a court :
As Ormond's harbinger, to you they run,
For Venus is the promise of the Sun.§

The waste of civil wars, their towns destroyed,
Pales unhonoured, Ceres unemployed,
Were all forgot; and one triumphant day
Wiped all the tears of three campaigns away.
Blood, rapines, massacres, were cheaply bought,
So mighty recompense your beauty brought.
As when the dove returning bore the mark
Of earth restored to the long-labouring ark,
The relics of mankind, secure of rest,
Oped every window to receive the guest,
And the fair bearer of the message blessed:
So, when you came, with loud repeated cries,
The nation took an omen from your eyes,
And God advanced his rainbow in the skies,

The saints with solemn shouts proclaimed the new accord.

To sign inviolable peace restored;

When at your second coming you appear,

(For I foretell that millenary year)

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The sharpened share shall vex the soil no more,
But earth unbidden shall produce her store;
The land shall laugh, the circling ocean smile,
And Heaven's indulgence bless the holy isle.

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• This idea is carried further in "Astræa Redux," where the land, unrestrained, meets Charles on his way back to England to be king:

+ Kerns, Irish peasants.

"It is no longer motion cheats your view;
As you meet it, the land approacheth you."

"The Irish kern" (Ann. Mirab. 157):

"Like a shag-haired crafty kern.'

"

SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI. Part II. act iii. sc. 1.

1 "To hear the reins" is a classical expression, which has been lost in all the modern editions after Derrick, who changed hear into bear.

"Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas."
VIRGIL, Georg. i. 514.

"The horse's ear," said Horace, "is in his bridled mouth."

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HOR. I Epod. xv. 13.

The Duchess of Ormond had gone to Ireland in 1697, followed shortly after by the Duke. Pales the goddess of sheep-pastures, and Ceres of corn.

The simile of the dove was similarly used by Dryden in complimenting the Queen of England on her coming to the theatre in 1682. See the Prologue, p. 136.

Heaven from all ages has reserved for you
That happy clime, which venom never knew;
Or if it had been there, your eyes alone
Have power to chase all poison, but their own.
Now in this interval, which Fate has cast
Betwixt your future glories and your past,
This pause of power, 'tis Ireland's hour to mourn;
While England celebrates your safe return,
By which you seem the seasons to command,

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And bring our summers back to their forsaken land.
The vanquished isle our leisure must attend,

Till the fair blessing we vouchsafe to send;

Nor can we spare you long, though often we may lend.
The dove was twice employed abroad, before
The world was dried, and she returned no more.
Nor dare we trust so soft a messenger,
New from her sickness, to that northern air ;*
Rest here awhile your lustre to restore,
That they may see you, as you shone before;
For yet, the eclipse not wholly past, you wade
Through some remains and dimness of a shade.
A subject in his prince may claim a right,
Nor suffer him with strength impaired to fight;
Till force returns, his ardour we restrain,
And curb his warlike wish to cross the main.

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Now past the danger, let the learned begin

The inquiry, where disease could enter in;
How those malignant atoms forced their way,

What in the faultless frame they found to make their prey,
Where every element was weighed so well,

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That Heaven alone, who mixed the mass, could tell
Which of the four ingredients could rebel;
And where, imprisoned in so sweet a cage,
A soul might well be pleased to pass an age.
And yet the fine materials made it weak;
Porcelain by being pure is apt to break.
Even to your breast the sickness durst aspire,

120

And forced from that fair temple to retire,

Profanely set the holy place on fire.

In vain your lord, like young Vespasian,+ mourned,

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When the fierce flames the sanctuary burned;

And I prepared to pay in verses rude

A most detested act of gratitude:

Even this had been your Elegy, which now

Is offered for your health, the table of my vow.+

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* The Duchess had lately recovered from a fever.

↑ "Young Vespasian," the Emperor Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian, who when young, serving under his father, directed the siege of Jerusalem and took it by storm, and is said to have wept at the destruction of the Temple.

"The table of my vow;" votiva tabella (Horace, 2 Sat. i. 33), tabula votiva Horace, 1 Od v. 31. This tabula or tabella was a picture of a shipwreck placed by one who had escaped from it in the Temple of Neptune or some other sea-god. "Nonne animadvertis ex tot tabulis pictis

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