A young apostle; and,--with
reverence
may
I speak't,--inspired with gift of tongues, as they.
I speak't,--inspired with gift of tongues, as they.
Dryden - Complete
_]
[Footnote 64: In the family of Pigott, descended from John Dryden of
Chesterton. ]
EPISTLE THE FIFTEENTH.
How blessed is he, who leads a country life,
Unvexed with anxious cares, and void of strife!
Who, studying peace, and shunning civil rage,
Enjoyed his youth, and now enjoys his age:
All who deserve his love, he makes his own;
And, to be loved himself, needs only to be known.
Just, good, and wise, contending neighbours come, }
From your award to wait their final doom; }
And, foes before, return in friendship home. }
Without their cost, you terminate the cause,
And save the expence of long litigious laws;
Where suits are traversed, and so little won,
That he who conquers is but last undone:
Such are not your decrees; but so designed, }
The sanction leaves a lasting peace behind; }
Like your own soul, serene, a pattern of your mind. }
Promoting concord, and composing strife,
Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a wife;
Where, for a year, a month, perhaps a night,
Long penitence succeeds a short delight:
Minds are so hardly matched, that even the first,
Though paired by heaven, in Paradise were cursed.
For man and woman, though in one they grow,
Yet, first or last, return again to two.
He to God's image, she to his was made;
So, farther from the fount the stream at random strayed.
How could he stand, when, put to double pain,
He must a weaker than himself sustain!
Each might have stood perhaps, but each alone;
Two wrestlers help to pull each other down.
Not that my verse would blemish all the fair; }
But yet if some be bad, 'tis wisdom to beware, }
And better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare. }
Thus have you shunned, and shun the married state,
Trusting as little as you can to fate.
No porter guards the passage of your door,
To admit the wealthy, and exclude the poor;
For God, who gave the riches, gave the heart,
To sanctify the whole, by giving part;
Heaven, who foresaw the will, the means has wrought,
And to the second son a blessing brought;
The first-begotten had his father's share;
But you, like Jacob, are Rebecca's heir. [65]
So may your stores and fruitful fields increase;
And ever be you blessed, who live to bless.
As Ceres sowed, where-e'er her chariot flew;
As heaven in deserts rained the bread of dew;
So free to many, to relations most,
You feed with manna your own Israel host.
With crowds attended of your ancient race,
You seek the champaign sports, or sylvan chace;
With well-breathed beagles you surround the wood,
Even then industrious of the common good;
And often have you brought the wily fox
To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks;
Chased even amid the folds, and made to bleed,
Like felons, where they did the murderous deed.
This fiery game your active youth maintained;
Not yet by years extinguished, though restrained:
You season still with sports your serious hours;
For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
The hare in pastures or in plains is found,
Emblem of human life; who runs the round,
And, after all his wandering ways are done, }
His circle fills, and ends where he begun, }
Just as the setting meets the rising sun. }
Thus princes ease their cares; but happier he,
Who seeks not pleasure through necessity,
Than such as once on slippery thrones were placed,
And chasing, sigh to think themselves are chased.
So lived our sires, ere doctors learned to kill,
And multiplied with theirs the weekly bill.
The first physicians by debauch were made;
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
Pity the generous kind their cares bestow
To search forbidden truths, (a sin to know,)
To which if human science could attain,
The doom of death, pronounced by God, were vain.
In vain the leech would interpose delay;
Fate fastens first, and vindicates the prey.
What help from art's endeavours can we have? }
Guibbons[66] but guesses, nor is sure to save; }
But Maurus[67] sweeps whole parishes, and peoples every grave; }
And no more mercy to mankind will use,
Than when he robbed and murdered Maro's muse.
Would'st thou be soon dispatched, and perish whole,
Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourne with thy soul. [68]
By chace our long-lived fathers earned their food;
Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood:
But we their sons, a pampered race of men,
Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.
Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise, for care, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
The tree of knowledge, once in Eden placed,
Was easy found, but was forbid the taste:
O had our grandsire walked without his wife,
He first had sought the better plant of life!
Now both are lost: yet, wandering in the dark,
Physicians, for the tree, have found the bark;
They, labouring for relief of human kind, }
With sharpened sight some remedies may find; }
The apothecary-train is wholly blind. }
From files a random recipe they take,
And many deaths of one prescription make.
Garth,[69] generous as his muse, prescribes and gives;
The shopman sells, and by destruction lives:
Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper's brood,
From Med'cine issuing, suck their mother's blood!
Let these obey, and let the learned prescribe,
That men may die without a double bribe;
Let them, but under their superiors, kill,
When doctors first have signed the bloody bill;
He 'scapes the best, who, nature to repair,
Draws physic from the fields, in draughts of vital air.
You hoard not health for your own private use,
But on the public spend the rich produce.
When, often urged, unwilling to be great,
Your country calls you from your loved retreat,
And sends to senates, charged with common care,
Which none more shuns, and none can better bear:
Where could they find another formed so fit,
To poise, with solid sense, a sprightly wit?
Were these both wanting, as they both abound,
Where could so firm integrity be found?
Well born, and wealthy, wanting no support,
You steer betwixt the country and the court;
Nor gratify whate'er the great desire,
Nor grudging give, what public needs require.
Part must be left, a fund when foes invade,
And part employed to roll the watery trade;
Even Canaan's happy land, when worn with toil,
Required a sabbath-year to mend the meagre soil.
Good senators (and such as you) so give,
That kings may be supplied, the people thrive:
And he, when want requires, is truly wise, }
Who slights not foreign aids, nor overbuys, }
But on our native strength, in time of need, relies. }
Munster was bought, we boast not the success;
Who fights for gain, for greater makes his peace.
Our foes, compelled by need, have peace embraced;[70]
The peace both parties want, is like to last;
Which if secure, securely we may trade;
Or, not secure, should never have been made.
Safe in ourselves, while on ourselves we stand,
The sea is ours, and that defends the land.
Be, then, the naval stores the nation's care,
New ships to build, and battered to repair.
Observe the war, in every annual course;
What has been done, was done with British force:
Namur subdued, is England's palm alone;
The rest besieged, but we constrained the town:[71]
We saw the event that followed our success;
France, though pretending arms, pursued the peace,
Obliged, by one sole treaty, to restore
What twenty years of war had won before.
Enough for Europe has our Albion fought;
Let us enjoy the peace our blood has bought.
When once the Persian king was put to flight,
The weary Macedons refused to fight;
Themselves their own mortality confessed,
And left the son of Jove to quarrel for the rest.
Even victors are by victories undone; }
Thus Hannibal, with foreign laurels won, }
To Carthage was recalled, too late to keep his own. }
While sore of battle, while our wounds are green,
Why should we tempt the doubtful dye again?
In wars renewed, uncertain of success;
Sure of a share, as umpires of the peace.
A patriot both the king and country serves;
Prerogative and privilege preserves:
Of each our laws the certain limit show;
One must not ebb, nor t'other overflow:
Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand, }
The barriers of the state on either hand; }
May neither overflow, for then they drown the land. }
When both are full, they feed our blessed abode;
Like those that watered once the paradise of God.
Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share;
In peace the people, and the prince in war:
Consuls of moderate power in calms were made;
When the Gauls came, one sole dictator swayed.
Patriots, in peace, assert the people's right,
With noble stubbornness resisting might;
No lawless mandates from the court receive,
Nor lend by force, but in a body give.
Such was your generous grandsire; free to grant
In parliaments, that weighed their prince's want:
But so tenacious of the common cause,
As not to lend the king against his laws;
And, in a loathsome dungeon doomed to lie, }
In bonds retained his birthright liberty, }
And shamed oppression, till it set him free. [72] }
O true descendant of a patriot line,
Who, while thou shar'st their lustre, lend'st them thine.
Vouchsafe this picture of thy soul to see;
'Tis so far good, as it resembles thee;
The beauties to the original I owe,
Which when I miss, my own defects I show:
Nor think the kindred muses thy disgrace;
A poet is not born in every race.
Two of a house few ages can afford,
One to perform, another to record. [73]
Praise-worthy actions are by thee embraced,
And 'tis my praise to make thy praises last.
For even when death dissolves our human frame, }
The soul returns to heaven from whence it came; }
Earth keeps the body, verse preserves the fame. }
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 65: Sir Robert Driden inherited the paternal estate of
Canon-Ashby, while that of Chesterton descended to John, his second
brother, to whom the epistle is addressed, through his mother, daughter
of Sir Robert Bevile. ]
[Footnote 66: William Guibbons, M. D. --Dryden mentions this gentleman in
terms of grateful acknowledgment in the Postscript to Virgil:--"That I
have recovered, in some measure, the health which I had lost by
application to this work, is owing, next to God's mercy, to the skill
and care of Dr Guibbons and Dr Hobbs, the two ornaments of their
profession, which I can only pay by this acknowledgment. " As Dr Guibbons
was an enemy to the Dispensary, he is ridiculed by Garth in his poem so
entitled, under the character of "Mirmillo the famed _Opifer_. "]
[Footnote 67: Sir Richard Blackmore, poet and physician, whose offences
towards our author have been enumerated in a note on the prologue to
"The Pilgrim," where his character is discussed at length under the same
name of Maurus. See Vol. VIII. p. 442, and also the Postscript to
Virgil, where Dryden acknowledges his obligations to the Faculty, and
adds, in allusion to Blackmore, that "the only one of them, who
endeavoured to defame him, had it not in his power. "]
[Footnote 68: In this line, as in the end of the preface to the
"Fables," our author classes together "one Milbourne and one Blackmore. "
The former was a clergyman, and beneficed at Yarmouth. Dryden, in the
preface just quoted, insinuates, that he lost his living for writing
libels on his parishioners. These passing strokes of satire in the text
are amply merited by the virulence of Milbourne's attack, not only on
our author's poetry, but on his person, and principles political and
religious. See a note on the preface to the "Fables," near the end. ]
[Footnote 69: Sir Samuel Garth, the ingenious author of the
"Dispensary. " Although this celebrated wit and physician differed widely
from Dryden in politics, being a violent Whig, they seem, nevertheless,
to have lived in the most intimate terms. Dryden contributed to Garth's
translation of the "Metamorphoses;" and Sir Samuel had the honour to
superintend the funeral of our poet, and to pronounce a Latin oration
upon that occasion. Garth's generosity, here celebrated, consisted in
maintaining a Dispensary for issuing advice and medicines gratis to the
poor. This was highly disapproved of by the more selfish of his
brethren, and their disputes led to Sir Samuel's humorous poem. ]
[Footnote 70: A very bloody war had been recently concluded by the peace
of Ryswick, in 1697. But the country party in Parliament entertained
violent suspicions, that King William, whose continental connections
they dreaded, intended a speedy renewal of the contest with France.
Hence they were jealous of every attempt to maintain any military force;
so that, in 1699, William saw himself compelled, not only to disband the
standing army, but to dismiss his faithful and favourite Dutch guards.
The subsequent lines point obliquely at these measures, which were now
matter of public discussion. Dryden's cousin joined in them with many of
the Whigs, who were attached to what was called the country-party. As
for the poet, his jacobitical principles assented to every thing which
could embarrass King William. But, for the reasons which he has assigned
in his letter to Lord Montague, our author leaves his opinion concerning
the disbanding of the army to be inferred from his panegyric on the
navy, and his declamation against the renewal of the war. ]
[Footnote 71: Our poet had originally accompanied his praises of the
British soldiers with some aspersions on the cowardice of the Dutch,
their allies. These he omitted at his cousin's desire, who deemed them
disrespectful to King William. In short, he complains he had corrected
his verses so far, that he feared he had purged the spirit out of them;
as Bushby used to whip a boy so long, till he made him a confirmed
blockhead. ]
[Footnote 72: Sir Robert Bevile, maternal grandfather to John Driden of
Chesterton, seems to have been imprisoned for resisting some of Charles
I. 's illegal attempts to raise supplies without the authority of
parliament. Perhaps our author now viewed his opposition to the royal
will as more excusable than he would have thought it in the reigns of
Charles II. or of James II. It is thought, that the hard usage which Sir
Robert Bevile met on this score, decided our poet's uncle, his
son-in-law, in his violent attachment to Cromwell. ]
[Footnote 73: The reader will perhaps doubt, whether Mr Dryden's account
of his cousin Chesterton's accomplishments as a justice of peace,
fox-hunter, and knight of the shire, even including his prudent
abstinence from matrimony, were quite sufficient to justify this
classification. ]
EPISTLE THE SIXTEENTH.
TO
SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
PRINCIPAL PAINTER TO
HIS MAJESTY.
The well-known Sir Godfrey Kneller was a native of Lubec, but settled in
London about 1674. He was a man of genius; but, according to Walpole, he
lessened his reputation, by making it subservient to his fortune. No
painter was more distinguished by the great, for ten sovereigns sate to
him. What may tend longer to preserve his reputation, no painter ever
received more incense from the praise of poets. Dryden, Pope, Addison,
Prior, Tickell, Steele, all wrote verses to him in the tone of
extravagant eulogy. Those addressed to Kneller by Addison, in which the
series of the heathen deities is, with unexampled happiness, made to
correspond with that of the British monarchs painted by the artist, are
not only the best production of that elegant poet, but of their kind the
most felicitous ever written. Sir Godfrey Kneller died 27th November,
1723.
Dryden seems to have addressed the following epistle to Sir Godfrey
Kneller, as an acknowledgment for the copy of the Chandos' portrait of
Shakespeare, mentioned in the verses. It would appear that, upon other
occasions, Sir Godfrey repaid the tributes of the poets, by the
productions of his pencil.
There is great luxuriance and richness of idea and imagery in the
epistle.
EPISTLE THE SIXTEENTH.
Once I beheld the fairest of her kind,
And still the sweet idea charms my mind:
True, she was dumb; for nature gazed so long,
Pleased with her work, that she forgot her tongue;
But, smiling, said--She still shall gain the prize;
I only have transferred it to her eyes.
Such are thy pictures, Kneller, such thy skill,
That nature seems obedient to thy will;
Comes out, and meets thy pencil in the draught,
Lives there, and wants but words to speak her thought.
At least thy pictures look a voice; and we }
Imagine sounds, deceived to that degree, }
We think 'tis somewhat more than just to see. }
Shadows are but privations of the light;
Yet, when we walk, they shoot before the sight;
With us approach, retire, arise, and fall;
Nothing themselves, and yet expressing all.
Such are thy pieces, imitating life
So near, they almost conquer in the strife;
And from their animated canvas came,
Demanding souls, and loosened from the frame.
Prometheus, were he here, would cast away
His Adam, and refuse a soul to clay;
And either would thy noble work inspire,
Or think it warm enough, without his fire.
But vulgar hands may vulgar likeness raise;
This is the least attendant on thy praise:
From hence the rudiments of art began;
A coal, or chalk, first imitated man:
Perhaps the shadow, taken on a wall,
Gave outlines to the rude original;
Ere canvas yet was strained, before the grace }
Of blended colours found their use and place, }
Or cypress tablets first received a face. }
By slow degrees the godlike art advanced;
As man grew polished, picture was enhanced:
Greece added posture, shade, and perspective,
And then the mimic piece began to live.
Yet perspective was lame, no distance true,
But all came forward in one common view:
No point of light was known, no bounds of art;
When light was there, it knew not to depart,
But glaring on remoter objects played;
Not languished and insensibly decayed. [74]
Rome raised not art, but barely kept alive,
And with old Greece unequally did strive;
Till Goths and Vandals, a rude northern race,
Did all the matchless monuments deface.
Then all the Muses in one ruin lie,
And rhyme began to enervate poetry.
Thus, in a stupid military state,
The pen and pencil find an equal fate.
Flat faces, such as would disgrace a skreen,
Such as in Bantam's embassy were seen,
Unraised, unrounded, were the rude delight
Of brutal nations, only born to fight.
Long time the sister arts, in iron sleep,
A heavy sabbath did supinely keep;
At length, in Raphael's age, at once they rise,
Stretch all their limbs, and open all their eyes.
Thence rose the Roman, and the Lombard line;
One coloured best, and one did best design.
Raphael's, like Homer's, was the nobler part,
But Titian's painting looked like Virgil's art.
Thy genius gives thee both; where true design,
Postures unforced, and lively colours join,
Likeness is ever there; but still the best,
(Like proper thoughts in lofty language drest,)
Where light, to shades descending, plays, not strives,
Dies by degrees, and by degrees revives.
Of various parts a perfect whole is wrought;
Thy pictures think, and we divine their thought.
Shakespeare, thy gift, I place before my sight;[75]
With awe, I ask his blessing ere I write;
With reverence look on his majestic face;
Proud to be less, but of his godlike race.
His soul inspires me, while thy praise I write,
And I, like Teucer, under Ajax fight;
Bids thee, through me, be bold; with dauntless breast
Contemn the bad, and emulate the best.
Like his, thy critics in the attempt are lost;
When most they rail, know then, they envy most.
In vain they snarl aloof; a noisy crowd,
Like women's anger, impotent and loud.
While they their barren industry deplore,
Pass on secure, and mind the goal before,
Old as she is, my muse shall march behind,
Bear off the blast, and intercept the wind.
Our arts are sisters, though not twins in birth,
For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:
But oh, the painter muse, though last in place,
Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race.
Apelles' art an Alexander found, }
And Raphael did with Leo's gold abound; }
But Homer was with barren laurel crowned. }
Thou hadst thy Charles a while, and so had I;
But pass we that unpleasing image by.
Rich in thyself, and of thyself divine,
All pilgrims come and offer at thy shrine.
A graceful truth thy pencil can command;
The fair themselves go mended from thy hand.
Likeness appears in every lineament,
But likeness in thy work is eloquent.
Though nature there her true resemblance bears,
A nobler beauty in thy piece appears.
So warm thy work, so glows the generous frame,
Flesh looks less living in the lovely dame.
Thou paint'st as we describe, improving still, }
When on wild nature we ingraft our skill, }
Yet not creating beauties at our will. }
But poets are confined in narrower space,
To speak the language of their native place;
The painter widely stretches his command,
Thy pencil speaks the tongue of every land.
From hence, my friend, all climates are your own,
Nor can you forfeit, for you hold of none.
All nations all immunities will give }
To make you theirs, where'er you please to live; }
And not seven cities, but the world, would strive. }
Sure some propitious planet then did smile,
When first you were conducted to this isle;
Our genius brought you here, to enlarge our fame,
For your good stars are every where the same.
Thy matchless hand, of every region free,
Adopts our climate, not our climate thee.
[76]Great Rome and Venice early did impart
To thee the examples of their wonderous art.
Those masters, then but seen, not understood,
With generous emulation fired thy blood;
For what in nature's dawn the child admired,
The youth endeavoured, and the man acquired.
If yet thou hast not reached their high degree,
'Tis only wanting to this age, not thee.
Thy genius, bounded by the times, like mine, }
Drudges on petty draughts, nor dare design }
A more exalted work, and more divine. }
For what a song, or senseless opera,
Is to the living labour of a play;
Or what a play to Virgil's work would be,
Such is a single piece to history.
But we, who life bestow, ourselves must live;
Kings cannot reign, unless their subjects give;
And they, who pay the taxes, bear the rule:
Thus thou, sometimes, art forced to draw a fool;[77]
But so his follies in thy posture sink,
The senseless idiot seems at last to think.
Good heaven! that sots and knaves should be so vain,
To wish their vile resemblance may remain,
And stand recorded, at their own request,
To future days, a libel or a jest!
Else should we see your noble pencil trace
Our unities of action, time, and place;
A whole composed of parts, and those the best,
With every various character exprest;
Heroes at large, and at a nearer view;
Less, and at distance, an ignoble crew;
While all the figures in one action join,
As tending to complete the main design.
More cannot be by mortal art exprest,
But venerable age shall add the rest:
For time shall with his ready pencil stand,
Retouch your figures with his ripening hand,
Mellow your colours, and imbrown the teint,
Add every grace, which time alone can grant;
To future ages shall your fame convey,
And give more beauties than he takes away.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 74: The ancients did not understand perspective; accordingly
their figures represent those on an Indian paper. It seems long before
it was known in England; for so late as 1634, Sir John Harrington
thought it necessary to give the following explanation, in the
advertisement to his translation of _Orlando Furioso_.
"The use of the picture is evident;--that, having read over the book,
they may read it as it were again in the very picture; and one thing is
to be noted, which every one haply will not observe, namely, the
perspective in every figure. For the personages of men, the shapes of
horses, and such like, are made large at the bottom, and lesser upward,
as if you were to behold all the same in a plain, that which is nearest
seems greatest, and the farthest shews smallest, which is the chief art
in picture. "]
[Footnote 75: This portrait was copied from one in the possession of Mr
Betterton, and afterwards in that of the Chandos family. Twelve
engravings were executed from this painting, which, however, the
ingenious Mr Stevens, and other commentators on Shakespeare, pronounced
a forgery. The copy presented by Kneller to Dryden, is in the collection
of Earl Fitzwilliam, at Wentworth-house; and may claim that veneration,
from having been the object of our author's respect and enthusiasm,
which has been denied to its original, as a genuine portrait of
Shakespeare. It is not, however, an admitted point, that the Chandos
picture is a forgery: the contrary has been keenly maintained; and Mr
Malone's opinion has given weight to those who have espoused its
defence. ]
[Footnote 76: He travelled very young into Italy. DRYDEN. ]
[Footnote 77: Mr Walpole says, that "where Sir Godfrey offered one
picture to fame, he sacrificed twenty to lucre; and he met with
customers of so little judgment, that they were fond of being painted by
a man who would gladly have disowned his works the moment they were paid
for. " The same author gives us Sir Godfrey's apology for preferring the
lucrative, though less honourable, line of portrait painting. "Painters
of history," said he, "make the dead live, and do not begin to live
themselves till they are dead. I paint the living, and they make me
live. "--_Lord_ ORFORD'S _Lives of the Painters_. See his _Works_, Vol.
III. p. 359. Dryden seems to allude to this expression in the above
lines. ]
ELEGIES AND EPITAPHS.
UPON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.
The subject of this elegy was Henry Lord Hastings, eldest son of
Ferdinando Earl of Huntingdon. He was born 16th January, 1630, and died
24th June, 1649. He was buried at Ashby de la Zouche, near the superb
family-seat of Donnington-Castle. This Lord Hastings, says Collins, was
a nobleman of great learning, and of so sweet a disposition, that no
less than ninety-eight elegies were made on him, and published in 1650,
under this title: "_Lachrymæ Musarum_, the Tears of the Muses expressed
in Elegies written by divers Persons of nobility and worth, upon the
Death of the most hopeful Henry, Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Right
Honourable Ferdinando, Earl of Huntingdon, then general of the high-born
Prince George, Duke of Clarence, brother to King Edward IV. "
This accomplished young nobleman died unmarried; but, from the
concluding lines of the elegy, it is obvious, that he had been betrothed
to the "virgin widow," whom the poet there addresses, but whose name I
have been unable to learn.
The poem was written by Dryden while at Westminster-school, and displays
little or no promise of future excellence; being a servile imitation of
the conceits of Cleveland, and the metaphysical wit of Cowley, exerted
in numbers hardly more harmonious than those of Donne.
UPON
THE DEATH
OF
LORD HASTINGS.
Must noble Hastings immaturely die,
The honour of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet?
Must virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?
Is death, sin's wages, grace's now? shall art
Make us more learned, only to depart?
If merit be disease; if virtue, death;
To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? study self-murder deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully.
Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise,
Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise:
Than whom great Alexander may seem less,
Who conquered men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations spake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.
His native soil was the four parts o'the earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apostle; and,--with reverence may
I speak't,--inspired with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him, a child, what men in vain
Oft strive, by art though furthered, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his sublime soul
Did move on virtue's and on learning's pole;
Whose regular motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did shew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, filled up all the parts.
Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear
Scattered in others, all, as in their sphere,
Were fixed, conglobate in his soul, and thence
Shone through his body, with sweet influence;
Letting their glories so on each limb fall,
The whole frame rendered was celestial.
Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make,
If thou this hero's altitude can'st take:
But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus astronomical.
Lived Tycho now, struck with this ray which shone[78]
More bright i'the morn, than others beam at noon,
He'd take his astrolabe, and seek out here
What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere.
Replenished then with such rare gifts as these,
Where was room left for such a foul disease?
The nation's sin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds
Our day-spring in so sad benighting clouds.
Heaven would no longer trust its pledge, but thus
Recalled it,--rapt its Ganymede from us.
Was there no milder way but the small-pox,
The very filthiness of Pandora's box?
So many spots, like næves on Venus' soil,
One jewel set off with so many a foil;
Blisters with pride swelled, which through's flesh did sprout
Like rose-buds, stuck i'the lily-skin about.
Each little pimple had a tear in it,
To wail the fault its rising did commit;
Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife,
Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
The cabinet of a richer soul within?
No comet need foretel his change drew on,
Whose corpse might seem a constellation.
O had he died of old, how great a strife
Had been, who from his death should draw their life;
Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er
Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæsar, were!
Learned, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this
An universal metempsychosis.
Must all these aged sires in one funeral
Expire? all die in one so young, so small?
Who, had he lived his life out, his great fame
Had swoln 'bove any Greek or Roman name.
But hasty winter, with one blast, hath brought
The hopes of autumn, summer, spring, to nought.
Thus fades the oak i'the sprig, i'the blade the corn;
Thus without young, this Phœnix dies, new-born.
Must then old three-legged grey-beards with their gout,
Catarrhs, rheums, aches, live three ages out?
Time's offals, only fit for the hospital!
Or to hang antiquaries rooms withal!
Must drunkards, lechers, spent with sinning, live
With such helps as broths, possets, physic give?
None live, but such as should die? shall we meet
With none but ghostly fathers in the street?
Grief makes me rail, sorrow will force its way,
And showers of tears tempestuous sighs best lay.
The tongue may fail; but overflowing eyes
Will weep out lasting streams of elegies.
But thou, O virgin-widow, left alone,
Now thy beloved, heaven-ravished spouse is gone,
Whose skilful sire in vain strove to apply
Med'cines, when thy balm was no remedy;
With greater than Platonic love, O wed
His soul, though not his body, to thy bed:
Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth
The ideas of his virtue, knowledge, worth;
Transcribe the original in new copies; give
Hastings o'the better part: so shall he live
In's nobler half; and the great grandsire be
Of an heroic divine progeny:
An issue which to eternity shall last,
Yet but the irradiations which he cast.
Erect no mausoleums; for his best
Monument is his spouse's marble breast.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 78: Tycho Brache, the Danish astronomer. ]
TO THE MEMORY OF MR OLDHAM.
JOHN OLDHAM, who, from the keenness of his satirical poetry, justly
acquired the title of the _English Juvenal_, was born at Shipton, in
Gloucestershire, where his father was a clergyman, on 9th August, 1653.
About 1678, he was an usher in the free school of Croydon; but having
already distinguished himself by several pieces of poetry, and
particularly by four severe satirical invectives against the order of
Jesuits, then obnoxious on account of the Popish Plot, he quitted that
mean situation, to become tutor to the family of Sir Edward Theveland,
and afterwards to a son of Sir William Hickes. Shortly after he seems to
have resigned all employment except the unthrifty trade of poetry. When
Oldham entered upon this career, he settled of course in the metropolis,
where his genius recommended him to the company of the first wits, and
to the friendship of Dryden. He did not long enjoy the pleasures of such
a life, nor did he live to experience the uncertainties, and
disappointment, and reverses, with which, above all others, it abounds.
Being seized with the small-pox, while visiting at the seat of his
patron, William Earl of Kingston, he died of that disease on the 9th
December, 1683, in the 30th year of his age.
His "Remains," in verse and prose, were soon afterwards published, with
elegies and recommendatory verses prefixed by Tate, Flatman, Durfey,
Gould, Andrews, and others. But the applause of Dryden, expressed in the
following lines, was worth all the tame panegyrics of other contemporary
bards. It appears, among the others, in "Oldham's Remains," London,
1683.
TO
THE MEMORY
OF
MR OLDHAM.
Farewell, too little, and too lately known,
Whom I began to think, and call my own:
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mould with mine.
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.
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.
O early ripe! to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more!
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line. [79]
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betrayed.
Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime, }
Still shewed a quickness; and maturing time }
But mellows what we write, to the dull sweets of rhyme. }
Once more, hail, and farewell! farewell, thou young,
But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue!
Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.
[Footnote 79: Dryden's opinion concerning the harshness of Oldham's
numbers, was not unanimously subscribed to by contemporary authors. In
the "Historical Dictionary," 1694, Oldham is termed, "a pithy,
sententious, elegant, and smooth writer:" and Winstanley says, that none
can read his works without admiration; "so pithy his strains, so
sententious his expression, so elegant his oratory, so swimming his
language, so smooth his lines. " Tom Brown goes the length to impute our
author's qualification of his praise of Oldham to the malignant spirit
of envy: "'Tis your own way, Mr Bayes, as you may remember in your
verses upon Mr Oldham, where you tell the world that he was a very fine,
ingenious gentleman, but still did not understand the cadence of the
English tongue. "--_Reasons for Mr Bayes' changing his Religion_, Part
II. p. 33.
But this only proves, that Tom Brown and Mr Winstanley were deficient in
poetical ear; for Oldham's satires, though full of vehemence and
impressive expression, are, in diction, not much more harmonious than
those of Hall or of Donne. The reader may take the following celebrated
passage on the life of a nobleman's chaplain, as illustrating both the
merits and defects of his poetry:
Some think themselves exalted to the sky,
If they light in some noble family;
Diet, a horse, and thirty pounds a year,
Besides the advantage of his Lordship's ear;
The credit of the business, and the state,
Are things that in a youngster's sense sound great.
Little the unexperienced wretch doth know
What slavery he oft must undergo;
Who, though in silken scarf and cassock dressed,
Wears but a gayer livery at best
When dinner calls, the implement must wait,
With holy words, to consecrate the meat;
But hold it for a favour seldom known,
If he be deigned the honour to sit down:
Soon as the tarts appear, Sir Crape withdraw;
These dainties are not for a spiritual maw.
Observe your distance, and be sure to stand
Hard by the cistern, with your cup in hand;
There for diversion you may pick your teeth,
Till the kind voider comes to your relief:
For mere board-wages such their freedom sell;
Slaves to an hour, and vassals to a bell;
And if the enjoyment of one day be stole,
They are but prisoners out upon parole;
Always the marks of slavery retain,
And e'en when loose, still drag about their chain.
And where's the mighty prospect, after all,
A chaplainship served up, and seven years thrall?
The menial thing perhaps, for a reward,
Is to some slender benefice preferred;
With this proviso bound, that he must wed }
My lady's antiquated waiting-maid, }
In dressing only skilled, and marmalade. }
Let others, who such meannesses can brook,
Strike countenance to every great man's look;
Let those that have a mind turn slaves to eat,
And live contented by another's plate;
I rate my freedom higher, nor will I
For food and raiment track my liberty:
But if I must to my last shifts be put,
To fill a bladder and twelve yards of gut,
Rather with counterfeited wooden leg,
And my right arm tied up, I'll chuse to beg;
I'll rather chuse to starve at large, than be
The gaudiest vassal to dependency.
'T has ever been the top of my desires,
The utmost height to which my wish aspires,
That heaven would bless me with a small estate;
There, free from noise and all ambitious ends,
Enjoy a few choice books, and fewer friends;
Lord of myself, accountable to none,
But to my conscience and my God alone;
There live unthought of, and unheard of die,
And grudge mankind my very memory.
_Satire to a Friend about to leave the University. _
]
TO
THE PIOUS MEMORY
OF
MRS ANNE KILLIGREW.
MRS ANNE KILLIGREW was daughter of Dr Henry Killigrew, master of the
Savoy, and one of the prebendaries of Westminster, and brother of Thomas
Killigrew, renowned, in the court of Charles II. , for wit and repartee.
The family, says Mr Walpole, was remarkable for its loyalty,
accomplishments, and wit; and this young lady, who displayed great
talents for painting and poetry, promised to be one of its fairest
ornaments. She was maid of honour to the Duchess of York, and died of
the small-pox in 1685, the 25th year of her age.
Mrs Anne Killigrew's poems were published after her death in a thin
quarto, with a print of the author, from her portrait drawn by herself.
She also painted the portraits of the Duke of York and of his Duchess,
and executed several historical pictures, landscapes, and pieces of
still life. See _Lord_ ORFORD'S _Lives of the Painters_, Works, Vol.
III. p. 297; and BALLARD'S _Lives of Learned Ladies_.
The poems of this celebrated young lady do not possess any uncommon
merit, nor are her paintings of a high class, although preferred by
Walpole to her poetry. But very slender attainments in such
accomplishments, when united with youth, beauty, and fashion, naturally
receive a much greater share of approbation from contemporaries, than
unbiassed posterity can afford to them. Even the flinty heart of old
Wood seems to have been melted by this young lady's charms,
notwithstanding her being of _womankind_, as he contemptuously calls
the fair sex. He says, that she was a Grace for a beauty, and a Muse for
a wit; and that there must have been more true history than compliment
in our author's ode, since otherwise the lady's father would not have
permitted it to go to press. --_Athenæ_, Vol. II. p. 1036.
This ode, which singularly exhibits the strong grasp and comprehensive
range of Dryden's fancy, as well as the harmony of his numbers, seems to
have been a great favourite of Dr Johnson, who, in one place, does not
hesitate to compare it to the famous ode on St Cecilia; and, in another,
calls it undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language ever has
produced. Although it is probable that few will subscribe to the
judgment of that great critic in the present instance, yet the verses
can never be read with indifference by any admirer of poetry. We are, it
is true, sometimes affronted by a pun, or chilled by a conceit; but the
general power of thought and expression resumes its sway, in despite of
the interruption given by such instances of bad taste. In its
arrangement, the ode is what the seventeenth century called pindaric;
freed, namely, from the usual rules of order and arrangement. This
license, which led most poets, who exercised it, to extravagance and
absurdity, only gave Dryden a wider scope for the exercise of his
wonderful power of combining and uniting the most dissimilar ideas, in a
manner as ingenious as his numbers are harmonious. Images and scenes,
the richest, though most inconsistent with each other, are sweeped
together by the flood of song: we neither see whence they arise, nor
whither they are going; but are contented to admire the richness and
luxuriance in which the poet has arrayed them. The opening of the poem
has been highly praised by Dr Johnson. "The first part," says that
critic, "flows with a torrent of enthusiasm,--_Fervet immensusque ruit_.
All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one
continued diamond; the gems must be held together by some less valuable
matter. "
The stanzas, which appear to the editor peculiarly to exhibit the spirit
of the pindaric ode, are the first, second, fourth, and fifth. Of the
others, the third is too metaphysical for the occasion; the description
of the landscapes in the sixth is beautiful, and presents our
imagination with the scenery and groups of Claude Lorraine; and that of
the royal portraits, in the seventh, has some fine lines and turns of
expression: But I cannot admire, with many critics, the comparison of
the progress of genius to the explosion of a sky-rocket; and still less
the flat and familiar conclusion,
What next she had designed, heaven only knows.
The eighth stanza is disgraced by antitheses and conceit; and though
the beginning of the ninth be beautiful and affecting, our emotion is
quelled by the nature of the consolation administered to a sea captain,
that his sister is turned into a star. The last stanza excites ideas
perhaps too solemn for poetry; and what is worse, they are couched in
poetry too fantastic to be solemn; but the account of the resurrection
of the "sacred poets," is, in the highest degree, elegant and beautiful.
Anne Killigrew was the subject of several other poetical lamentations,
one or two of which are in the Luttrell Collection.
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,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new plucked from paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race,
Or, in procession fixed and regular,
Mov'st with the heaven's majestic pace;
Or, called to more superior bliss,
Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
Hear, then, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse,
In no ignoble verse;
But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first fruits of poesy were given,
To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of heaven.
II.
If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the less to find
A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfused into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein. [80]
But if thy pre-existing soul
Was formed, at first, with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.
If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!
Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:
Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, }
Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: }
Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. }
III.
May we presume to say, that, at thy birth,
New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth.
For sure the milder planets did combine }
On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, }
And e'en the most malicious were in trine. }
Thy brother-angels at thy birth
Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,
That all the people of the sky
Might know a poetess was born on earth;
And then, if ever, mortal ears
Had heard the music of the spheres.
And if no clustering swarm of bees
On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,
'Twas that such vulgar miracles
Heaven had not leisure to renew:
For all thy blest fraternity of love
Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.
IV.
O gracious God! how far have we
Prophaned thy heavenly gift of poesy?
Made prostitute and profligate the muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordained above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?
O wretched we! why were we hurried down
This lubrique and adulterate age,
(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own)
T'increase the streaming ordures of the stage?
What can we say t'excuse our second fall?
Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all:
Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled,
Unmixed with foreign filth, and undefiled;
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. [81]
V.
Art she had none, yet wanted none;
For nature did that want supply:
So rich in treasures of her own,
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;
Each test, and every light, her muse will bear,
Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
E'en love (for love sometimes her muse exprest)
Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast:
Light as the vapours of a morning dream,
So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.
VI.
Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,
One would have thought she should have been content
To manage well that mighty government;
But what can young ambitious souls confine?
To the next realm she stretched her sway, }
For Painture near adjoining lay, }
A plenteous province, and alluring prey. }
A chamber of dependencies was framed,
(As conquerors will never want pretence,
When armed, to justify the offence,)
And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claimed.
The country open lay without defence;
For poets frequent inroads there had made,
And perfectly could represent
The shape, the face, with every lineament,
And all the large domains which the Dumb Sister swayed;
All bowed beneath her government,
Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went.
Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed,
And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind.
The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks,
And fruitful plains and barren rocks,
Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear,
The bottom did the top appear;
Of deeper too and ampler floods,
Which, as in mirrors, shewed the woods;
Of lofty trees, with sacred shades,
And perspectives of pleasant glades,
Where nymphs of brightest form appear, }
And shaggy satyrs standing near, }
Which them at once admire and fear. }
The ruins too of some majestic piece,
Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,
Whose statues, frizes, columns, broken lie,
And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye;
What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame,
Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before,
But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore.
VII.
The scene then changed; with bold erected look
Our martial king[82] the sight with reverence strook:
For, not content to express his outward part,
Her hand called out the image of his heart:
His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear, }
His high-designing thoughts were figured there, }
As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear. }
Our phœnix queen[83] was pourtrayed too so bright,
Beauty alone could beauty take so right:
Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,
Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.
With such a peerless majesty she stands,
As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands:
Before a train of heroines was seen,
In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.
Thus nothing to her genius was denied,
But like a ball of fire the further thrown,
Still with a greater blaze she shone,
And her bright soul broke out on every side.
What next she had designed, heaven only knows:
To such immoderate growth her conquest rose,
That fate alone its progress could oppose.
VIII.
Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
The well-proportioned shape, and beauteous face,
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.
Not wit, nor piety, could fate prevent;
Nor was the cruel destiny content
To finish all the murder at a blow,
To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
But, like a hardened felon, took a pride
To work more mischievously slow,
And plundered first, and then destroyed.
O double sacrilege on things divine,
To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!
But thus Orinda died;[84]
Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate;
As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.
IX.
Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,
The winds too soon will waft thee here:
Slack all thy sails, and fear to come;
Alas, thou know'st not, thou art wrecked at home!
No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face,
Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far
Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star,
If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
Tis she that shines in that propitious light.
X.
When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground;
When in the valley of Jehosophat,
The judging God shall close the book of fate,
And there the last assizes keep,
For those who wake, and those who sleep;
When rattling bones together fly,
From the four corners of the sky;
When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,
Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, }
And foremost from the tomb shall bound, }
For they are covered with the lightest ground; }
And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing,
Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.
There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shall go, }
As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, }
The way which thou so well hast learnt below. }
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 80: Henry Killigrew, D. D. , the young lady's father, was
himself a poet. He wrote "The Conspiracy," a tragedy much praised by Ben
Jonson and the amiable Lord Falkland, published in 1634. This edition
being pirated and spurious, the author altered the play, and changed the
title to "Pallantus and Eudora," published in 1652. --See WOOD'S _Athenæ
Oxon_. Vol. II. p. 1036. ]
[Footnote 81: This line certainly gave rise to that of Pope in Gay's
epitaph:
In wit a man, simplicity a child.
]
[Footnote 82: James II. painted by Mrs Killigrew. ]
[Footnote 83: Mary of Este, as eminent for beauty as rank, also painted
by the subject of the elegy. ]
[Footnote 84: Mrs Katherine Philips, whom the affectation of her age
called _Orinda_, was the daughter of Mr Fowler, a citizen of London.
Aubrey, the most credulous of mankind, tells us, in MS. Memoirs of her
life, that she read through the Bible before she was four years old, and
would take sermons verbatim by the time she was ten. She married a
decent respectable country gentleman, called Wogan; a name which, when
it occurred in her extensive literary correspondence, she exchanged for
the fantastic appellation of _Antenor_. She maintained a literary
intercourse for many years with bishops, earls, and wits, the main
object of which was the management and extrication of her husband's
affairs. But whether because the correspondents of Orinda were slack in
attending to her requests in her husband's favour, or whether because a
learned lady is a bad manager of sublunary concerns, Antenor's
circumstances became embarrassed, notwithstanding all Orinda's
exertions, and the fair solicitor was obliged to retreat with him into
Cardiganshire. Returning from this seclusion to London, in 1664, she was
seized with the small-pox, which carried her off in the 33d year of her
age.
Her poems and translations were collected into a folio after her death,
which bears the title of "Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs
Katherine Philips, the matchless ORINDA. London, 1667. "--See BALLARD'S
_Memoirs of Learned Ladies_, p. 287.
This lady is here mentioned with the more propriety, as Mrs Anne
Killigrew dedicated the following lines to her memory:
Orinda (Albion's and our sexes grace)
Owed not her glory to a beauteous face,--
It was her radiant soul that shone within,
Which struck a lustre through her outward skin,
That did her lips and cheeks with roses dye,
Advanced her height, and sparkled in her eye:
Nor did her sex at all obstruct her fame,
But higher 'mong the stars it fixed her name;
What she did write not only all allowed,
But every laurel to her laurel bowed.
]
UPON THE DEATH OF
THE VISCOUNT OF DUNDEE.
JAMES GRAHAM of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, studied the military
art under the Prince of Orange. He first distinguished himself by his
activity in exercising the severities which the Scottish council, in the
reigns of Charles II. and James II. , decreed against the frequenters of
the field-meetings and conventicles. On this account his memory is
generally reprobated by the Scottish presbyterians; nor would history
have treated him more gently, had not the splendour of his closing life
effaced the recollection of his cruelties. When the Scottish Convention
declared for the Prince of Orange in 1688-9, Dundee left Edinburgh, and
retired to the north, where he raised the Highland clans, to prop the
sinking cause of James II. After an interval of a few months, spent in
desultory warfare, General Mackay marched, with a regular force, towards
Blair in Athole, against this active and enterprising enemy. Upon the
17th June, 1689, when Mackay had defiled through the rocky and
precipitous pass of Killicrankie, he found Dundee, with his Highlanders,
arranged upon an eminence opposite to the northern mouth of the defile.
Dundee permitted his adversary gradually, and at leisure, to disengage
himself from the pass, and draw up his army in line; for, meditating a
total victory, and not a mere check or repulse, he foresaw that Mackay's
retreat would be difficult in proportion to the distance of his forces
from the only path of safety through which they could fly. He then
charged with irresistible fury, and routed Mackay's army in every
direction, saving two regiments who stood firm. But as Dundee hastened
towards them, and extended his arm as if urging the assault, a shot
penetrated his armour beneath his arm-pit, and he dropt from his horse.
He lived but a very short time, and died in the arms of victory.
[Footnote 64: In the family of Pigott, descended from John Dryden of
Chesterton. ]
EPISTLE THE FIFTEENTH.
How blessed is he, who leads a country life,
Unvexed with anxious cares, and void of strife!
Who, studying peace, and shunning civil rage,
Enjoyed his youth, and now enjoys his age:
All who deserve his love, he makes his own;
And, to be loved himself, needs only to be known.
Just, good, and wise, contending neighbours come, }
From your award to wait their final doom; }
And, foes before, return in friendship home. }
Without their cost, you terminate the cause,
And save the expence of long litigious laws;
Where suits are traversed, and so little won,
That he who conquers is but last undone:
Such are not your decrees; but so designed, }
The sanction leaves a lasting peace behind; }
Like your own soul, serene, a pattern of your mind. }
Promoting concord, and composing strife,
Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a wife;
Where, for a year, a month, perhaps a night,
Long penitence succeeds a short delight:
Minds are so hardly matched, that even the first,
Though paired by heaven, in Paradise were cursed.
For man and woman, though in one they grow,
Yet, first or last, return again to two.
He to God's image, she to his was made;
So, farther from the fount the stream at random strayed.
How could he stand, when, put to double pain,
He must a weaker than himself sustain!
Each might have stood perhaps, but each alone;
Two wrestlers help to pull each other down.
Not that my verse would blemish all the fair; }
But yet if some be bad, 'tis wisdom to beware, }
And better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare. }
Thus have you shunned, and shun the married state,
Trusting as little as you can to fate.
No porter guards the passage of your door,
To admit the wealthy, and exclude the poor;
For God, who gave the riches, gave the heart,
To sanctify the whole, by giving part;
Heaven, who foresaw the will, the means has wrought,
And to the second son a blessing brought;
The first-begotten had his father's share;
But you, like Jacob, are Rebecca's heir. [65]
So may your stores and fruitful fields increase;
And ever be you blessed, who live to bless.
As Ceres sowed, where-e'er her chariot flew;
As heaven in deserts rained the bread of dew;
So free to many, to relations most,
You feed with manna your own Israel host.
With crowds attended of your ancient race,
You seek the champaign sports, or sylvan chace;
With well-breathed beagles you surround the wood,
Even then industrious of the common good;
And often have you brought the wily fox
To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks;
Chased even amid the folds, and made to bleed,
Like felons, where they did the murderous deed.
This fiery game your active youth maintained;
Not yet by years extinguished, though restrained:
You season still with sports your serious hours;
For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
The hare in pastures or in plains is found,
Emblem of human life; who runs the round,
And, after all his wandering ways are done, }
His circle fills, and ends where he begun, }
Just as the setting meets the rising sun. }
Thus princes ease their cares; but happier he,
Who seeks not pleasure through necessity,
Than such as once on slippery thrones were placed,
And chasing, sigh to think themselves are chased.
So lived our sires, ere doctors learned to kill,
And multiplied with theirs the weekly bill.
The first physicians by debauch were made;
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
Pity the generous kind their cares bestow
To search forbidden truths, (a sin to know,)
To which if human science could attain,
The doom of death, pronounced by God, were vain.
In vain the leech would interpose delay;
Fate fastens first, and vindicates the prey.
What help from art's endeavours can we have? }
Guibbons[66] but guesses, nor is sure to save; }
But Maurus[67] sweeps whole parishes, and peoples every grave; }
And no more mercy to mankind will use,
Than when he robbed and murdered Maro's muse.
Would'st thou be soon dispatched, and perish whole,
Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourne with thy soul. [68]
By chace our long-lived fathers earned their food;
Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood:
But we their sons, a pampered race of men,
Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.
Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise, for care, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
The tree of knowledge, once in Eden placed,
Was easy found, but was forbid the taste:
O had our grandsire walked without his wife,
He first had sought the better plant of life!
Now both are lost: yet, wandering in the dark,
Physicians, for the tree, have found the bark;
They, labouring for relief of human kind, }
With sharpened sight some remedies may find; }
The apothecary-train is wholly blind. }
From files a random recipe they take,
And many deaths of one prescription make.
Garth,[69] generous as his muse, prescribes and gives;
The shopman sells, and by destruction lives:
Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper's brood,
From Med'cine issuing, suck their mother's blood!
Let these obey, and let the learned prescribe,
That men may die without a double bribe;
Let them, but under their superiors, kill,
When doctors first have signed the bloody bill;
He 'scapes the best, who, nature to repair,
Draws physic from the fields, in draughts of vital air.
You hoard not health for your own private use,
But on the public spend the rich produce.
When, often urged, unwilling to be great,
Your country calls you from your loved retreat,
And sends to senates, charged with common care,
Which none more shuns, and none can better bear:
Where could they find another formed so fit,
To poise, with solid sense, a sprightly wit?
Were these both wanting, as they both abound,
Where could so firm integrity be found?
Well born, and wealthy, wanting no support,
You steer betwixt the country and the court;
Nor gratify whate'er the great desire,
Nor grudging give, what public needs require.
Part must be left, a fund when foes invade,
And part employed to roll the watery trade;
Even Canaan's happy land, when worn with toil,
Required a sabbath-year to mend the meagre soil.
Good senators (and such as you) so give,
That kings may be supplied, the people thrive:
And he, when want requires, is truly wise, }
Who slights not foreign aids, nor overbuys, }
But on our native strength, in time of need, relies. }
Munster was bought, we boast not the success;
Who fights for gain, for greater makes his peace.
Our foes, compelled by need, have peace embraced;[70]
The peace both parties want, is like to last;
Which if secure, securely we may trade;
Or, not secure, should never have been made.
Safe in ourselves, while on ourselves we stand,
The sea is ours, and that defends the land.
Be, then, the naval stores the nation's care,
New ships to build, and battered to repair.
Observe the war, in every annual course;
What has been done, was done with British force:
Namur subdued, is England's palm alone;
The rest besieged, but we constrained the town:[71]
We saw the event that followed our success;
France, though pretending arms, pursued the peace,
Obliged, by one sole treaty, to restore
What twenty years of war had won before.
Enough for Europe has our Albion fought;
Let us enjoy the peace our blood has bought.
When once the Persian king was put to flight,
The weary Macedons refused to fight;
Themselves their own mortality confessed,
And left the son of Jove to quarrel for the rest.
Even victors are by victories undone; }
Thus Hannibal, with foreign laurels won, }
To Carthage was recalled, too late to keep his own. }
While sore of battle, while our wounds are green,
Why should we tempt the doubtful dye again?
In wars renewed, uncertain of success;
Sure of a share, as umpires of the peace.
A patriot both the king and country serves;
Prerogative and privilege preserves:
Of each our laws the certain limit show;
One must not ebb, nor t'other overflow:
Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand, }
The barriers of the state on either hand; }
May neither overflow, for then they drown the land. }
When both are full, they feed our blessed abode;
Like those that watered once the paradise of God.
Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share;
In peace the people, and the prince in war:
Consuls of moderate power in calms were made;
When the Gauls came, one sole dictator swayed.
Patriots, in peace, assert the people's right,
With noble stubbornness resisting might;
No lawless mandates from the court receive,
Nor lend by force, but in a body give.
Such was your generous grandsire; free to grant
In parliaments, that weighed their prince's want:
But so tenacious of the common cause,
As not to lend the king against his laws;
And, in a loathsome dungeon doomed to lie, }
In bonds retained his birthright liberty, }
And shamed oppression, till it set him free. [72] }
O true descendant of a patriot line,
Who, while thou shar'st their lustre, lend'st them thine.
Vouchsafe this picture of thy soul to see;
'Tis so far good, as it resembles thee;
The beauties to the original I owe,
Which when I miss, my own defects I show:
Nor think the kindred muses thy disgrace;
A poet is not born in every race.
Two of a house few ages can afford,
One to perform, another to record. [73]
Praise-worthy actions are by thee embraced,
And 'tis my praise to make thy praises last.
For even when death dissolves our human frame, }
The soul returns to heaven from whence it came; }
Earth keeps the body, verse preserves the fame. }
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 65: Sir Robert Driden inherited the paternal estate of
Canon-Ashby, while that of Chesterton descended to John, his second
brother, to whom the epistle is addressed, through his mother, daughter
of Sir Robert Bevile. ]
[Footnote 66: William Guibbons, M. D. --Dryden mentions this gentleman in
terms of grateful acknowledgment in the Postscript to Virgil:--"That I
have recovered, in some measure, the health which I had lost by
application to this work, is owing, next to God's mercy, to the skill
and care of Dr Guibbons and Dr Hobbs, the two ornaments of their
profession, which I can only pay by this acknowledgment. " As Dr Guibbons
was an enemy to the Dispensary, he is ridiculed by Garth in his poem so
entitled, under the character of "Mirmillo the famed _Opifer_. "]
[Footnote 67: Sir Richard Blackmore, poet and physician, whose offences
towards our author have been enumerated in a note on the prologue to
"The Pilgrim," where his character is discussed at length under the same
name of Maurus. See Vol. VIII. p. 442, and also the Postscript to
Virgil, where Dryden acknowledges his obligations to the Faculty, and
adds, in allusion to Blackmore, that "the only one of them, who
endeavoured to defame him, had it not in his power. "]
[Footnote 68: In this line, as in the end of the preface to the
"Fables," our author classes together "one Milbourne and one Blackmore. "
The former was a clergyman, and beneficed at Yarmouth. Dryden, in the
preface just quoted, insinuates, that he lost his living for writing
libels on his parishioners. These passing strokes of satire in the text
are amply merited by the virulence of Milbourne's attack, not only on
our author's poetry, but on his person, and principles political and
religious. See a note on the preface to the "Fables," near the end. ]
[Footnote 69: Sir Samuel Garth, the ingenious author of the
"Dispensary. " Although this celebrated wit and physician differed widely
from Dryden in politics, being a violent Whig, they seem, nevertheless,
to have lived in the most intimate terms. Dryden contributed to Garth's
translation of the "Metamorphoses;" and Sir Samuel had the honour to
superintend the funeral of our poet, and to pronounce a Latin oration
upon that occasion. Garth's generosity, here celebrated, consisted in
maintaining a Dispensary for issuing advice and medicines gratis to the
poor. This was highly disapproved of by the more selfish of his
brethren, and their disputes led to Sir Samuel's humorous poem. ]
[Footnote 70: A very bloody war had been recently concluded by the peace
of Ryswick, in 1697. But the country party in Parliament entertained
violent suspicions, that King William, whose continental connections
they dreaded, intended a speedy renewal of the contest with France.
Hence they were jealous of every attempt to maintain any military force;
so that, in 1699, William saw himself compelled, not only to disband the
standing army, but to dismiss his faithful and favourite Dutch guards.
The subsequent lines point obliquely at these measures, which were now
matter of public discussion. Dryden's cousin joined in them with many of
the Whigs, who were attached to what was called the country-party. As
for the poet, his jacobitical principles assented to every thing which
could embarrass King William. But, for the reasons which he has assigned
in his letter to Lord Montague, our author leaves his opinion concerning
the disbanding of the army to be inferred from his panegyric on the
navy, and his declamation against the renewal of the war. ]
[Footnote 71: Our poet had originally accompanied his praises of the
British soldiers with some aspersions on the cowardice of the Dutch,
their allies. These he omitted at his cousin's desire, who deemed them
disrespectful to King William. In short, he complains he had corrected
his verses so far, that he feared he had purged the spirit out of them;
as Bushby used to whip a boy so long, till he made him a confirmed
blockhead. ]
[Footnote 72: Sir Robert Bevile, maternal grandfather to John Driden of
Chesterton, seems to have been imprisoned for resisting some of Charles
I. 's illegal attempts to raise supplies without the authority of
parliament. Perhaps our author now viewed his opposition to the royal
will as more excusable than he would have thought it in the reigns of
Charles II. or of James II. It is thought, that the hard usage which Sir
Robert Bevile met on this score, decided our poet's uncle, his
son-in-law, in his violent attachment to Cromwell. ]
[Footnote 73: The reader will perhaps doubt, whether Mr Dryden's account
of his cousin Chesterton's accomplishments as a justice of peace,
fox-hunter, and knight of the shire, even including his prudent
abstinence from matrimony, were quite sufficient to justify this
classification. ]
EPISTLE THE SIXTEENTH.
TO
SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
PRINCIPAL PAINTER TO
HIS MAJESTY.
The well-known Sir Godfrey Kneller was a native of Lubec, but settled in
London about 1674. He was a man of genius; but, according to Walpole, he
lessened his reputation, by making it subservient to his fortune. No
painter was more distinguished by the great, for ten sovereigns sate to
him. What may tend longer to preserve his reputation, no painter ever
received more incense from the praise of poets. Dryden, Pope, Addison,
Prior, Tickell, Steele, all wrote verses to him in the tone of
extravagant eulogy. Those addressed to Kneller by Addison, in which the
series of the heathen deities is, with unexampled happiness, made to
correspond with that of the British monarchs painted by the artist, are
not only the best production of that elegant poet, but of their kind the
most felicitous ever written. Sir Godfrey Kneller died 27th November,
1723.
Dryden seems to have addressed the following epistle to Sir Godfrey
Kneller, as an acknowledgment for the copy of the Chandos' portrait of
Shakespeare, mentioned in the verses. It would appear that, upon other
occasions, Sir Godfrey repaid the tributes of the poets, by the
productions of his pencil.
There is great luxuriance and richness of idea and imagery in the
epistle.
EPISTLE THE SIXTEENTH.
Once I beheld the fairest of her kind,
And still the sweet idea charms my mind:
True, she was dumb; for nature gazed so long,
Pleased with her work, that she forgot her tongue;
But, smiling, said--She still shall gain the prize;
I only have transferred it to her eyes.
Such are thy pictures, Kneller, such thy skill,
That nature seems obedient to thy will;
Comes out, and meets thy pencil in the draught,
Lives there, and wants but words to speak her thought.
At least thy pictures look a voice; and we }
Imagine sounds, deceived to that degree, }
We think 'tis somewhat more than just to see. }
Shadows are but privations of the light;
Yet, when we walk, they shoot before the sight;
With us approach, retire, arise, and fall;
Nothing themselves, and yet expressing all.
Such are thy pieces, imitating life
So near, they almost conquer in the strife;
And from their animated canvas came,
Demanding souls, and loosened from the frame.
Prometheus, were he here, would cast away
His Adam, and refuse a soul to clay;
And either would thy noble work inspire,
Or think it warm enough, without his fire.
But vulgar hands may vulgar likeness raise;
This is the least attendant on thy praise:
From hence the rudiments of art began;
A coal, or chalk, first imitated man:
Perhaps the shadow, taken on a wall,
Gave outlines to the rude original;
Ere canvas yet was strained, before the grace }
Of blended colours found their use and place, }
Or cypress tablets first received a face. }
By slow degrees the godlike art advanced;
As man grew polished, picture was enhanced:
Greece added posture, shade, and perspective,
And then the mimic piece began to live.
Yet perspective was lame, no distance true,
But all came forward in one common view:
No point of light was known, no bounds of art;
When light was there, it knew not to depart,
But glaring on remoter objects played;
Not languished and insensibly decayed. [74]
Rome raised not art, but barely kept alive,
And with old Greece unequally did strive;
Till Goths and Vandals, a rude northern race,
Did all the matchless monuments deface.
Then all the Muses in one ruin lie,
And rhyme began to enervate poetry.
Thus, in a stupid military state,
The pen and pencil find an equal fate.
Flat faces, such as would disgrace a skreen,
Such as in Bantam's embassy were seen,
Unraised, unrounded, were the rude delight
Of brutal nations, only born to fight.
Long time the sister arts, in iron sleep,
A heavy sabbath did supinely keep;
At length, in Raphael's age, at once they rise,
Stretch all their limbs, and open all their eyes.
Thence rose the Roman, and the Lombard line;
One coloured best, and one did best design.
Raphael's, like Homer's, was the nobler part,
But Titian's painting looked like Virgil's art.
Thy genius gives thee both; where true design,
Postures unforced, and lively colours join,
Likeness is ever there; but still the best,
(Like proper thoughts in lofty language drest,)
Where light, to shades descending, plays, not strives,
Dies by degrees, and by degrees revives.
Of various parts a perfect whole is wrought;
Thy pictures think, and we divine their thought.
Shakespeare, thy gift, I place before my sight;[75]
With awe, I ask his blessing ere I write;
With reverence look on his majestic face;
Proud to be less, but of his godlike race.
His soul inspires me, while thy praise I write,
And I, like Teucer, under Ajax fight;
Bids thee, through me, be bold; with dauntless breast
Contemn the bad, and emulate the best.
Like his, thy critics in the attempt are lost;
When most they rail, know then, they envy most.
In vain they snarl aloof; a noisy crowd,
Like women's anger, impotent and loud.
While they their barren industry deplore,
Pass on secure, and mind the goal before,
Old as she is, my muse shall march behind,
Bear off the blast, and intercept the wind.
Our arts are sisters, though not twins in birth,
For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:
But oh, the painter muse, though last in place,
Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race.
Apelles' art an Alexander found, }
And Raphael did with Leo's gold abound; }
But Homer was with barren laurel crowned. }
Thou hadst thy Charles a while, and so had I;
But pass we that unpleasing image by.
Rich in thyself, and of thyself divine,
All pilgrims come and offer at thy shrine.
A graceful truth thy pencil can command;
The fair themselves go mended from thy hand.
Likeness appears in every lineament,
But likeness in thy work is eloquent.
Though nature there her true resemblance bears,
A nobler beauty in thy piece appears.
So warm thy work, so glows the generous frame,
Flesh looks less living in the lovely dame.
Thou paint'st as we describe, improving still, }
When on wild nature we ingraft our skill, }
Yet not creating beauties at our will. }
But poets are confined in narrower space,
To speak the language of their native place;
The painter widely stretches his command,
Thy pencil speaks the tongue of every land.
From hence, my friend, all climates are your own,
Nor can you forfeit, for you hold of none.
All nations all immunities will give }
To make you theirs, where'er you please to live; }
And not seven cities, but the world, would strive. }
Sure some propitious planet then did smile,
When first you were conducted to this isle;
Our genius brought you here, to enlarge our fame,
For your good stars are every where the same.
Thy matchless hand, of every region free,
Adopts our climate, not our climate thee.
[76]Great Rome and Venice early did impart
To thee the examples of their wonderous art.
Those masters, then but seen, not understood,
With generous emulation fired thy blood;
For what in nature's dawn the child admired,
The youth endeavoured, and the man acquired.
If yet thou hast not reached their high degree,
'Tis only wanting to this age, not thee.
Thy genius, bounded by the times, like mine, }
Drudges on petty draughts, nor dare design }
A more exalted work, and more divine. }
For what a song, or senseless opera,
Is to the living labour of a play;
Or what a play to Virgil's work would be,
Such is a single piece to history.
But we, who life bestow, ourselves must live;
Kings cannot reign, unless their subjects give;
And they, who pay the taxes, bear the rule:
Thus thou, sometimes, art forced to draw a fool;[77]
But so his follies in thy posture sink,
The senseless idiot seems at last to think.
Good heaven! that sots and knaves should be so vain,
To wish their vile resemblance may remain,
And stand recorded, at their own request,
To future days, a libel or a jest!
Else should we see your noble pencil trace
Our unities of action, time, and place;
A whole composed of parts, and those the best,
With every various character exprest;
Heroes at large, and at a nearer view;
Less, and at distance, an ignoble crew;
While all the figures in one action join,
As tending to complete the main design.
More cannot be by mortal art exprest,
But venerable age shall add the rest:
For time shall with his ready pencil stand,
Retouch your figures with his ripening hand,
Mellow your colours, and imbrown the teint,
Add every grace, which time alone can grant;
To future ages shall your fame convey,
And give more beauties than he takes away.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 74: The ancients did not understand perspective; accordingly
their figures represent those on an Indian paper. It seems long before
it was known in England; for so late as 1634, Sir John Harrington
thought it necessary to give the following explanation, in the
advertisement to his translation of _Orlando Furioso_.
"The use of the picture is evident;--that, having read over the book,
they may read it as it were again in the very picture; and one thing is
to be noted, which every one haply will not observe, namely, the
perspective in every figure. For the personages of men, the shapes of
horses, and such like, are made large at the bottom, and lesser upward,
as if you were to behold all the same in a plain, that which is nearest
seems greatest, and the farthest shews smallest, which is the chief art
in picture. "]
[Footnote 75: This portrait was copied from one in the possession of Mr
Betterton, and afterwards in that of the Chandos family. Twelve
engravings were executed from this painting, which, however, the
ingenious Mr Stevens, and other commentators on Shakespeare, pronounced
a forgery. The copy presented by Kneller to Dryden, is in the collection
of Earl Fitzwilliam, at Wentworth-house; and may claim that veneration,
from having been the object of our author's respect and enthusiasm,
which has been denied to its original, as a genuine portrait of
Shakespeare. It is not, however, an admitted point, that the Chandos
picture is a forgery: the contrary has been keenly maintained; and Mr
Malone's opinion has given weight to those who have espoused its
defence. ]
[Footnote 76: He travelled very young into Italy. DRYDEN. ]
[Footnote 77: Mr Walpole says, that "where Sir Godfrey offered one
picture to fame, he sacrificed twenty to lucre; and he met with
customers of so little judgment, that they were fond of being painted by
a man who would gladly have disowned his works the moment they were paid
for. " The same author gives us Sir Godfrey's apology for preferring the
lucrative, though less honourable, line of portrait painting. "Painters
of history," said he, "make the dead live, and do not begin to live
themselves till they are dead. I paint the living, and they make me
live. "--_Lord_ ORFORD'S _Lives of the Painters_. See his _Works_, Vol.
III. p. 359. Dryden seems to allude to this expression in the above
lines. ]
ELEGIES AND EPITAPHS.
UPON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.
The subject of this elegy was Henry Lord Hastings, eldest son of
Ferdinando Earl of Huntingdon. He was born 16th January, 1630, and died
24th June, 1649. He was buried at Ashby de la Zouche, near the superb
family-seat of Donnington-Castle. This Lord Hastings, says Collins, was
a nobleman of great learning, and of so sweet a disposition, that no
less than ninety-eight elegies were made on him, and published in 1650,
under this title: "_Lachrymæ Musarum_, the Tears of the Muses expressed
in Elegies written by divers Persons of nobility and worth, upon the
Death of the most hopeful Henry, Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Right
Honourable Ferdinando, Earl of Huntingdon, then general of the high-born
Prince George, Duke of Clarence, brother to King Edward IV. "
This accomplished young nobleman died unmarried; but, from the
concluding lines of the elegy, it is obvious, that he had been betrothed
to the "virgin widow," whom the poet there addresses, but whose name I
have been unable to learn.
The poem was written by Dryden while at Westminster-school, and displays
little or no promise of future excellence; being a servile imitation of
the conceits of Cleveland, and the metaphysical wit of Cowley, exerted
in numbers hardly more harmonious than those of Donne.
UPON
THE DEATH
OF
LORD HASTINGS.
Must noble Hastings immaturely die,
The honour of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet?
Must virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?
Is death, sin's wages, grace's now? shall art
Make us more learned, only to depart?
If merit be disease; if virtue, death;
To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? study self-murder deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully.
Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise,
Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise:
Than whom great Alexander may seem less,
Who conquered men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations spake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.
His native soil was the four parts o'the earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apostle; and,--with reverence may
I speak't,--inspired with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him, a child, what men in vain
Oft strive, by art though furthered, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his sublime soul
Did move on virtue's and on learning's pole;
Whose regular motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did shew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, filled up all the parts.
Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear
Scattered in others, all, as in their sphere,
Were fixed, conglobate in his soul, and thence
Shone through his body, with sweet influence;
Letting their glories so on each limb fall,
The whole frame rendered was celestial.
Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make,
If thou this hero's altitude can'st take:
But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus astronomical.
Lived Tycho now, struck with this ray which shone[78]
More bright i'the morn, than others beam at noon,
He'd take his astrolabe, and seek out here
What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere.
Replenished then with such rare gifts as these,
Where was room left for such a foul disease?
The nation's sin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds
Our day-spring in so sad benighting clouds.
Heaven would no longer trust its pledge, but thus
Recalled it,--rapt its Ganymede from us.
Was there no milder way but the small-pox,
The very filthiness of Pandora's box?
So many spots, like næves on Venus' soil,
One jewel set off with so many a foil;
Blisters with pride swelled, which through's flesh did sprout
Like rose-buds, stuck i'the lily-skin about.
Each little pimple had a tear in it,
To wail the fault its rising did commit;
Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife,
Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
The cabinet of a richer soul within?
No comet need foretel his change drew on,
Whose corpse might seem a constellation.
O had he died of old, how great a strife
Had been, who from his death should draw their life;
Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er
Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæsar, were!
Learned, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this
An universal metempsychosis.
Must all these aged sires in one funeral
Expire? all die in one so young, so small?
Who, had he lived his life out, his great fame
Had swoln 'bove any Greek or Roman name.
But hasty winter, with one blast, hath brought
The hopes of autumn, summer, spring, to nought.
Thus fades the oak i'the sprig, i'the blade the corn;
Thus without young, this Phœnix dies, new-born.
Must then old three-legged grey-beards with their gout,
Catarrhs, rheums, aches, live three ages out?
Time's offals, only fit for the hospital!
Or to hang antiquaries rooms withal!
Must drunkards, lechers, spent with sinning, live
With such helps as broths, possets, physic give?
None live, but such as should die? shall we meet
With none but ghostly fathers in the street?
Grief makes me rail, sorrow will force its way,
And showers of tears tempestuous sighs best lay.
The tongue may fail; but overflowing eyes
Will weep out lasting streams of elegies.
But thou, O virgin-widow, left alone,
Now thy beloved, heaven-ravished spouse is gone,
Whose skilful sire in vain strove to apply
Med'cines, when thy balm was no remedy;
With greater than Platonic love, O wed
His soul, though not his body, to thy bed:
Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth
The ideas of his virtue, knowledge, worth;
Transcribe the original in new copies; give
Hastings o'the better part: so shall he live
In's nobler half; and the great grandsire be
Of an heroic divine progeny:
An issue which to eternity shall last,
Yet but the irradiations which he cast.
Erect no mausoleums; for his best
Monument is his spouse's marble breast.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 78: Tycho Brache, the Danish astronomer. ]
TO THE MEMORY OF MR OLDHAM.
JOHN OLDHAM, who, from the keenness of his satirical poetry, justly
acquired the title of the _English Juvenal_, was born at Shipton, in
Gloucestershire, where his father was a clergyman, on 9th August, 1653.
About 1678, he was an usher in the free school of Croydon; but having
already distinguished himself by several pieces of poetry, and
particularly by four severe satirical invectives against the order of
Jesuits, then obnoxious on account of the Popish Plot, he quitted that
mean situation, to become tutor to the family of Sir Edward Theveland,
and afterwards to a son of Sir William Hickes. Shortly after he seems to
have resigned all employment except the unthrifty trade of poetry. When
Oldham entered upon this career, he settled of course in the metropolis,
where his genius recommended him to the company of the first wits, and
to the friendship of Dryden. He did not long enjoy the pleasures of such
a life, nor did he live to experience the uncertainties, and
disappointment, and reverses, with which, above all others, it abounds.
Being seized with the small-pox, while visiting at the seat of his
patron, William Earl of Kingston, he died of that disease on the 9th
December, 1683, in the 30th year of his age.
His "Remains," in verse and prose, were soon afterwards published, with
elegies and recommendatory verses prefixed by Tate, Flatman, Durfey,
Gould, Andrews, and others. But the applause of Dryden, expressed in the
following lines, was worth all the tame panegyrics of other contemporary
bards. It appears, among the others, in "Oldham's Remains," London,
1683.
TO
THE MEMORY
OF
MR OLDHAM.
Farewell, too little, and too lately known,
Whom I began to think, and call my own:
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mould with mine.
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.
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.
O early ripe! to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more!
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line. [79]
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betrayed.
Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime, }
Still shewed a quickness; and maturing time }
But mellows what we write, to the dull sweets of rhyme. }
Once more, hail, and farewell! farewell, thou young,
But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue!
Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.
[Footnote 79: Dryden's opinion concerning the harshness of Oldham's
numbers, was not unanimously subscribed to by contemporary authors. In
the "Historical Dictionary," 1694, Oldham is termed, "a pithy,
sententious, elegant, and smooth writer:" and Winstanley says, that none
can read his works without admiration; "so pithy his strains, so
sententious his expression, so elegant his oratory, so swimming his
language, so smooth his lines. " Tom Brown goes the length to impute our
author's qualification of his praise of Oldham to the malignant spirit
of envy: "'Tis your own way, Mr Bayes, as you may remember in your
verses upon Mr Oldham, where you tell the world that he was a very fine,
ingenious gentleman, but still did not understand the cadence of the
English tongue. "--_Reasons for Mr Bayes' changing his Religion_, Part
II. p. 33.
But this only proves, that Tom Brown and Mr Winstanley were deficient in
poetical ear; for Oldham's satires, though full of vehemence and
impressive expression, are, in diction, not much more harmonious than
those of Hall or of Donne. The reader may take the following celebrated
passage on the life of a nobleman's chaplain, as illustrating both the
merits and defects of his poetry:
Some think themselves exalted to the sky,
If they light in some noble family;
Diet, a horse, and thirty pounds a year,
Besides the advantage of his Lordship's ear;
The credit of the business, and the state,
Are things that in a youngster's sense sound great.
Little the unexperienced wretch doth know
What slavery he oft must undergo;
Who, though in silken scarf and cassock dressed,
Wears but a gayer livery at best
When dinner calls, the implement must wait,
With holy words, to consecrate the meat;
But hold it for a favour seldom known,
If he be deigned the honour to sit down:
Soon as the tarts appear, Sir Crape withdraw;
These dainties are not for a spiritual maw.
Observe your distance, and be sure to stand
Hard by the cistern, with your cup in hand;
There for diversion you may pick your teeth,
Till the kind voider comes to your relief:
For mere board-wages such their freedom sell;
Slaves to an hour, and vassals to a bell;
And if the enjoyment of one day be stole,
They are but prisoners out upon parole;
Always the marks of slavery retain,
And e'en when loose, still drag about their chain.
And where's the mighty prospect, after all,
A chaplainship served up, and seven years thrall?
The menial thing perhaps, for a reward,
Is to some slender benefice preferred;
With this proviso bound, that he must wed }
My lady's antiquated waiting-maid, }
In dressing only skilled, and marmalade. }
Let others, who such meannesses can brook,
Strike countenance to every great man's look;
Let those that have a mind turn slaves to eat,
And live contented by another's plate;
I rate my freedom higher, nor will I
For food and raiment track my liberty:
But if I must to my last shifts be put,
To fill a bladder and twelve yards of gut,
Rather with counterfeited wooden leg,
And my right arm tied up, I'll chuse to beg;
I'll rather chuse to starve at large, than be
The gaudiest vassal to dependency.
'T has ever been the top of my desires,
The utmost height to which my wish aspires,
That heaven would bless me with a small estate;
There, free from noise and all ambitious ends,
Enjoy a few choice books, and fewer friends;
Lord of myself, accountable to none,
But to my conscience and my God alone;
There live unthought of, and unheard of die,
And grudge mankind my very memory.
_Satire to a Friend about to leave the University. _
]
TO
THE PIOUS MEMORY
OF
MRS ANNE KILLIGREW.
MRS ANNE KILLIGREW was daughter of Dr Henry Killigrew, master of the
Savoy, and one of the prebendaries of Westminster, and brother of Thomas
Killigrew, renowned, in the court of Charles II. , for wit and repartee.
The family, says Mr Walpole, was remarkable for its loyalty,
accomplishments, and wit; and this young lady, who displayed great
talents for painting and poetry, promised to be one of its fairest
ornaments. She was maid of honour to the Duchess of York, and died of
the small-pox in 1685, the 25th year of her age.
Mrs Anne Killigrew's poems were published after her death in a thin
quarto, with a print of the author, from her portrait drawn by herself.
She also painted the portraits of the Duke of York and of his Duchess,
and executed several historical pictures, landscapes, and pieces of
still life. See _Lord_ ORFORD'S _Lives of the Painters_, Works, Vol.
III. p. 297; and BALLARD'S _Lives of Learned Ladies_.
The poems of this celebrated young lady do not possess any uncommon
merit, nor are her paintings of a high class, although preferred by
Walpole to her poetry. But very slender attainments in such
accomplishments, when united with youth, beauty, and fashion, naturally
receive a much greater share of approbation from contemporaries, than
unbiassed posterity can afford to them. Even the flinty heart of old
Wood seems to have been melted by this young lady's charms,
notwithstanding her being of _womankind_, as he contemptuously calls
the fair sex. He says, that she was a Grace for a beauty, and a Muse for
a wit; and that there must have been more true history than compliment
in our author's ode, since otherwise the lady's father would not have
permitted it to go to press. --_Athenæ_, Vol. II. p. 1036.
This ode, which singularly exhibits the strong grasp and comprehensive
range of Dryden's fancy, as well as the harmony of his numbers, seems to
have been a great favourite of Dr Johnson, who, in one place, does not
hesitate to compare it to the famous ode on St Cecilia; and, in another,
calls it undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language ever has
produced. Although it is probable that few will subscribe to the
judgment of that great critic in the present instance, yet the verses
can never be read with indifference by any admirer of poetry. We are, it
is true, sometimes affronted by a pun, or chilled by a conceit; but the
general power of thought and expression resumes its sway, in despite of
the interruption given by such instances of bad taste. In its
arrangement, the ode is what the seventeenth century called pindaric;
freed, namely, from the usual rules of order and arrangement. This
license, which led most poets, who exercised it, to extravagance and
absurdity, only gave Dryden a wider scope for the exercise of his
wonderful power of combining and uniting the most dissimilar ideas, in a
manner as ingenious as his numbers are harmonious. Images and scenes,
the richest, though most inconsistent with each other, are sweeped
together by the flood of song: we neither see whence they arise, nor
whither they are going; but are contented to admire the richness and
luxuriance in which the poet has arrayed them. The opening of the poem
has been highly praised by Dr Johnson. "The first part," says that
critic, "flows with a torrent of enthusiasm,--_Fervet immensusque ruit_.
All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one
continued diamond; the gems must be held together by some less valuable
matter. "
The stanzas, which appear to the editor peculiarly to exhibit the spirit
of the pindaric ode, are the first, second, fourth, and fifth. Of the
others, the third is too metaphysical for the occasion; the description
of the landscapes in the sixth is beautiful, and presents our
imagination with the scenery and groups of Claude Lorraine; and that of
the royal portraits, in the seventh, has some fine lines and turns of
expression: But I cannot admire, with many critics, the comparison of
the progress of genius to the explosion of a sky-rocket; and still less
the flat and familiar conclusion,
What next she had designed, heaven only knows.
The eighth stanza is disgraced by antitheses and conceit; and though
the beginning of the ninth be beautiful and affecting, our emotion is
quelled by the nature of the consolation administered to a sea captain,
that his sister is turned into a star. The last stanza excites ideas
perhaps too solemn for poetry; and what is worse, they are couched in
poetry too fantastic to be solemn; but the account of the resurrection
of the "sacred poets," is, in the highest degree, elegant and beautiful.
Anne Killigrew was the subject of several other poetical lamentations,
one or two of which are in the Luttrell Collection.
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,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new plucked from paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race,
Or, in procession fixed and regular,
Mov'st with the heaven's majestic pace;
Or, called to more superior bliss,
Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
Hear, then, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse,
In no ignoble verse;
But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first fruits of poesy were given,
To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of heaven.
II.
If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the less to find
A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfused into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein. [80]
But if thy pre-existing soul
Was formed, at first, with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.
If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!
Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:
Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, }
Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: }
Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. }
III.
May we presume to say, that, at thy birth,
New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth.
For sure the milder planets did combine }
On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, }
And e'en the most malicious were in trine. }
Thy brother-angels at thy birth
Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,
That all the people of the sky
Might know a poetess was born on earth;
And then, if ever, mortal ears
Had heard the music of the spheres.
And if no clustering swarm of bees
On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,
'Twas that such vulgar miracles
Heaven had not leisure to renew:
For all thy blest fraternity of love
Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.
IV.
O gracious God! how far have we
Prophaned thy heavenly gift of poesy?
Made prostitute and profligate the muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordained above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?
O wretched we! why were we hurried down
This lubrique and adulterate age,
(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own)
T'increase the streaming ordures of the stage?
What can we say t'excuse our second fall?
Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all:
Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled,
Unmixed with foreign filth, and undefiled;
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. [81]
V.
Art she had none, yet wanted none;
For nature did that want supply:
So rich in treasures of her own,
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;
Each test, and every light, her muse will bear,
Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
E'en love (for love sometimes her muse exprest)
Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast:
Light as the vapours of a morning dream,
So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.
VI.
Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,
One would have thought she should have been content
To manage well that mighty government;
But what can young ambitious souls confine?
To the next realm she stretched her sway, }
For Painture near adjoining lay, }
A plenteous province, and alluring prey. }
A chamber of dependencies was framed,
(As conquerors will never want pretence,
When armed, to justify the offence,)
And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claimed.
The country open lay without defence;
For poets frequent inroads there had made,
And perfectly could represent
The shape, the face, with every lineament,
And all the large domains which the Dumb Sister swayed;
All bowed beneath her government,
Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went.
Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed,
And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind.
The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks,
And fruitful plains and barren rocks,
Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear,
The bottom did the top appear;
Of deeper too and ampler floods,
Which, as in mirrors, shewed the woods;
Of lofty trees, with sacred shades,
And perspectives of pleasant glades,
Where nymphs of brightest form appear, }
And shaggy satyrs standing near, }
Which them at once admire and fear. }
The ruins too of some majestic piece,
Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,
Whose statues, frizes, columns, broken lie,
And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye;
What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame,
Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before,
But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore.
VII.
The scene then changed; with bold erected look
Our martial king[82] the sight with reverence strook:
For, not content to express his outward part,
Her hand called out the image of his heart:
His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear, }
His high-designing thoughts were figured there, }
As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear. }
Our phœnix queen[83] was pourtrayed too so bright,
Beauty alone could beauty take so right:
Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,
Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.
With such a peerless majesty she stands,
As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands:
Before a train of heroines was seen,
In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.
Thus nothing to her genius was denied,
But like a ball of fire the further thrown,
Still with a greater blaze she shone,
And her bright soul broke out on every side.
What next she had designed, heaven only knows:
To such immoderate growth her conquest rose,
That fate alone its progress could oppose.
VIII.
Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
The well-proportioned shape, and beauteous face,
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.
Not wit, nor piety, could fate prevent;
Nor was the cruel destiny content
To finish all the murder at a blow,
To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
But, like a hardened felon, took a pride
To work more mischievously slow,
And plundered first, and then destroyed.
O double sacrilege on things divine,
To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!
But thus Orinda died;[84]
Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate;
As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.
IX.
Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,
The winds too soon will waft thee here:
Slack all thy sails, and fear to come;
Alas, thou know'st not, thou art wrecked at home!
No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face,
Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far
Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star,
If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
Tis she that shines in that propitious light.
X.
When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground;
When in the valley of Jehosophat,
The judging God shall close the book of fate,
And there the last assizes keep,
For those who wake, and those who sleep;
When rattling bones together fly,
From the four corners of the sky;
When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,
Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, }
And foremost from the tomb shall bound, }
For they are covered with the lightest ground; }
And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing,
Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.
There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shall go, }
As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, }
The way which thou so well hast learnt below. }
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 80: Henry Killigrew, D. D. , the young lady's father, was
himself a poet. He wrote "The Conspiracy," a tragedy much praised by Ben
Jonson and the amiable Lord Falkland, published in 1634. This edition
being pirated and spurious, the author altered the play, and changed the
title to "Pallantus and Eudora," published in 1652. --See WOOD'S _Athenæ
Oxon_. Vol. II. p. 1036. ]
[Footnote 81: This line certainly gave rise to that of Pope in Gay's
epitaph:
In wit a man, simplicity a child.
]
[Footnote 82: James II. painted by Mrs Killigrew. ]
[Footnote 83: Mary of Este, as eminent for beauty as rank, also painted
by the subject of the elegy. ]
[Footnote 84: Mrs Katherine Philips, whom the affectation of her age
called _Orinda_, was the daughter of Mr Fowler, a citizen of London.
Aubrey, the most credulous of mankind, tells us, in MS. Memoirs of her
life, that she read through the Bible before she was four years old, and
would take sermons verbatim by the time she was ten. She married a
decent respectable country gentleman, called Wogan; a name which, when
it occurred in her extensive literary correspondence, she exchanged for
the fantastic appellation of _Antenor_. She maintained a literary
intercourse for many years with bishops, earls, and wits, the main
object of which was the management and extrication of her husband's
affairs. But whether because the correspondents of Orinda were slack in
attending to her requests in her husband's favour, or whether because a
learned lady is a bad manager of sublunary concerns, Antenor's
circumstances became embarrassed, notwithstanding all Orinda's
exertions, and the fair solicitor was obliged to retreat with him into
Cardiganshire. Returning from this seclusion to London, in 1664, she was
seized with the small-pox, which carried her off in the 33d year of her
age.
Her poems and translations were collected into a folio after her death,
which bears the title of "Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs
Katherine Philips, the matchless ORINDA. London, 1667. "--See BALLARD'S
_Memoirs of Learned Ladies_, p. 287.
This lady is here mentioned with the more propriety, as Mrs Anne
Killigrew dedicated the following lines to her memory:
Orinda (Albion's and our sexes grace)
Owed not her glory to a beauteous face,--
It was her radiant soul that shone within,
Which struck a lustre through her outward skin,
That did her lips and cheeks with roses dye,
Advanced her height, and sparkled in her eye:
Nor did her sex at all obstruct her fame,
But higher 'mong the stars it fixed her name;
What she did write not only all allowed,
But every laurel to her laurel bowed.
]
UPON THE DEATH OF
THE VISCOUNT OF DUNDEE.
JAMES GRAHAM of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, studied the military
art under the Prince of Orange. He first distinguished himself by his
activity in exercising the severities which the Scottish council, in the
reigns of Charles II. and James II. , decreed against the frequenters of
the field-meetings and conventicles. On this account his memory is
generally reprobated by the Scottish presbyterians; nor would history
have treated him more gently, had not the splendour of his closing life
effaced the recollection of his cruelties. When the Scottish Convention
declared for the Prince of Orange in 1688-9, Dundee left Edinburgh, and
retired to the north, where he raised the Highland clans, to prop the
sinking cause of James II. After an interval of a few months, spent in
desultory warfare, General Mackay marched, with a regular force, towards
Blair in Athole, against this active and enterprising enemy. Upon the
17th June, 1689, when Mackay had defiled through the rocky and
precipitous pass of Killicrankie, he found Dundee, with his Highlanders,
arranged upon an eminence opposite to the northern mouth of the defile.
Dundee permitted his adversary gradually, and at leisure, to disengage
himself from the pass, and draw up his army in line; for, meditating a
total victory, and not a mere check or repulse, he foresaw that Mackay's
retreat would be difficult in proportion to the distance of his forces
from the only path of safety through which they could fly. He then
charged with irresistible fury, and routed Mackay's army in every
direction, saving two regiments who stood firm. But as Dundee hastened
towards them, and extended his arm as if urging the assault, a shot
penetrated his armour beneath his arm-pit, and he dropt from his horse.
He lived but a very short time, and died in the arms of victory.
