He tells us, in the language of religion, Prayer storm'd the skies, and ravish'd Charles from thence. And afterwards mentions one of the most awful passages of sacred history. Other conceits there are, too curious to be quite omitted; as, For by example most we sinn'd before, And, glass-like, clearness mix'd with frailty bore. How far he was yet from thinking it necessary to found his sentiments on nature, appears from the extravagance of his fictions and hyperboles : The winds, that never moderation knew, Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew ; It is no longer motion cheats your view: I know not whether this fancy, however little be its value, was not borrowed. A French poet read to Malherbe some verses, in which he represents France as moving out of its place to receive the king. "Though this," said Malherbe, "was in my time, I do not remember it." His poem on the coronation has a more even tenor of thought. Some lines deserve to be quoted: You have already quench'd sedition's brand; Him for their umpire and their synod take, And their appeal alone to Cæsar make. Here may be found one particle of that old versifica tion, of which, I believe, in all his works, there is not another: Nor is it duty, or our hope alone, In the verses to the lord chancellor Clarendon, two years afterwards, is a conceit so hopeless at the first view, that few would have attempted it; and so successfully laboured, that though at last it gives the reader more perplexity than pleasure, and seems hardly worth the study that it costs, yet it must be valued a proof of a mind at once subtle and comprehensive: In open prospect nothing bounds our eye, The comparison of the chancellor to the Indies leaves all resemblance too far behind it : And as the Indies were not found before There is another comparison, for there is little else in the poem, of which, though perhaps it cannot be explained into plain prosaick meaning, the mind perceives enough to be delighted, and readily forgives its obscurity, for its magnificence: How strangely active are the arts of peace, Whose restless motions less than wars do cease! Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, To this succeed four lines, which perhaps afford Dryden's first attempt at those penetrating remarks on human nature, for which he seems to have been peculiarly formed: Let envy then those crimes within you see, The joy and the revenge of ruin'd pride. Into this poem he seems to have collected all his powers; and after this he did not often bring upon his anvil such stubborn and unmalleable thoughts; but, as a specimen of his abilities to unite the most unsociable matter, he has concluded with lines of which I think not myself obliged to tell the meaning: Yet unimpair'd with labours, or with time, Your age but seems to a new youth to climb, Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget, And measure change, but share no part of it: And still it shall without a weight increase, Like this new year, whose motions never cease. For since the glorious course you have begun Is led by Charles, as that is by the sun, It must both weightless and immortal prove, In the Annus Mirabilis he returned to the quatrain, which from that time he totally quitted, perhaps from experience of its inconvenience, for he complains of its difficulty. This is one of his greatest attempts. He had subjects equal to his abilities, a great naval war, and the fire of London, Battles have always been described in heroick poetry; but a seafight and artillery had yet something of novelty. New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow every thing from their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature or from life. Boileau was the first French writer that had ever hazarded in verse the mention of modern war, or the effects of gunpowder. We, who are less afraid of novelty, had already possession of those dreadful images. Waller had described a seafight. Milton had not yet transferred the invention of fire-arms to the rebellious angels. This poem is written with great diligence, yet does not fully answer the expectation raised by such subjects and such a writer. With the stanza of Davenanthe has sometimes his vein of parenthesis and incidental disquisition, and stops his narrative for a wise remark. The general fault is, that he affords more sentiment than description, and does not so much impress scenes upon the fancy, as deduce consequences and make comparisons. The initial stanzas have rather too much resemblance to the first lines of Waller's poem on the war with Spain; perhaps such a beginning is natural, and could not be avoided without affectation. Both Waller and Dryden might take their hint from the poem on the civil war of Rome, "Orbem jam totum," &c. Of the king collecting his navy, he says, It seems, as every ship their sovereign knows, It would not be hard to believe that Dryden had written the two first lines seriously, and that some wag had added the two latter in burlesque. Who would expect the lines that immediately follow, which are indeed perhaps indecently hyperbolical, but certainly in a mode totally different? To see this fleet upon the ocean move, Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies; The description of the attempt at Bergen will af ford a very complete specimen of the descriptions in this poem: And now approach'd their fleet from India, fraught And precious sand from southern climates brought, Like hunted castors, conscious of their store, Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coast they bring: By the rich scent we found our perfum'd prey, Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard, These fight like husbands, but like lovers those : Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball, And, though by tempests of the prize bereft, |