And, in its little globe's extent, Like its own tear, Because so long divided from the sphere. Trembling, lest it grow impure; So the soul, that drop, that ray, And, recollecting its own light, Does, in its pure and circling thoughts The greater heaven in a heaven less. Congealed on earth; but does, dissolv- Into the glories of the almighty sun. JOHN DRYDEN. 1631-1700. [BORN in 1631, at Aldwincle All Saints, in the valley of the Nen in Northamptonshire, of Puritan parentage; and educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He appears to have become a Londoner about the middle of the year 1657. At the Restoration he changed into an ardent royalist, and towards the close of 1663 married the daughter of a royalist nobleman, the Earl of Berkshire. In 1670 he was appointed Historiographer-Royal and PoetLaureate. After having hitherto been conspicuous as a dramatist and a panegyrical poet, he in 1681, by the publication of the First Part of Absalom and Achitophel, sprang into fame as a writer of satirical verse. In December, 1683, he was appointed Collector of Customs in the port of London. His offices were renewed to him on the accession of King James II., but his pension of £100 was not renewed till rather more than a year later. About the same time Dryden became a Roman Catholic; and in April, 1687, he published The Hind and the Panther. Deprived of both offices and pension by the Revolution of 1688, he again for a time wrote for the stage, but after a few years finally abandoned dramatic composition for translation. Some of his greatest lyrics likewise belong to his later years. He died at his house in Gerard Street, Soho, May 1, 1700, and was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.] Thou tread'st, with seraphim, 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. 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. But if thy pre-existing soul Was form'd, at first, with myriads What can we say t' excuse our second fall? Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all: Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd, Unmix'd with foreign filth, and undefiled; Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. Art she had none, yet wanted none; She might our boasted stores defy: Such noble vigor did her verse adorn, That it seem'd borrow'd, where 'twas only born. Her morals too were in her bosom bred, By great examples daily fed. When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound To raise the nations under ground; When in the valley of Jehoshaphat, 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 on 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 cover'd with the lightest ground; And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing, Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing. grace; A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide; Else why should he, with wealth and honors blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please; Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease? In friendship false, implacable in hate, The triple bond is the Triple Alliance of 1667, undone by the alliance concluded with France in 1670, when Shaftesbury was a member of the Cabal. Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name; Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known, Since in another's guilt they find their own! Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abbethdin With more discerning eyes or hands more clean, Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress; Swift of despatch and easy of access. crown With virtues only proper to give the gown; Or had the rankness of the soil been freed From cockle, that oppress'd the noble seed; David for him his tuneful harp had strung, And heaven had wanted one immortal song. But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand; And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land. Achitophel, grown weary to possess And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree. Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since, He stood at bold defiance with his prince; Held up the buckler of the people's cause Against the crown, and skulk'd behind the laws. 2 This and the following lines, referring to Shaftesbury's conduct as Lord Chancellor, were inserted in the second edition. The Abbethdin was the Jewish Chief Justice. VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKING- But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon. Blest madman! who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy. Railing and praising were his usual themes, And both, to show his judgment, in extremes. So over-violent or over-civil, That every man with him was god or devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art, Nothing went unrewarded but desert; Beggar'd by fools whom still he found too late; He had his jest, and they had his estate. He laugh'd himself from court, then had relief, By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief; For, spite of him, the weight of business fell On Absalom and wise Achitophel. TRADITION. [From Religio Laici; November, 1682.] MUST all tradition then be set aside? This to affirm were ignorance or pride. Are there not many points, some needful sure To saving faith, that Scripture leaves obscure, Which every sect will wrest a several way? For what one sect interprets, all sects may. Thus, first traditions were a proof alone, Could we be certain such they were, so known: But since some flaws in long descent may be, They make not truth but probability. Even Arius and Pelagius durst provoke To what the centuries preceding spoke. Such difference is there in an oft-told tale, But truth by its own sinews will prevail. Tradition written, therefore, more commends Authority than what from voice descends: And this, as perfect as its kind can be, Rolls down to us the sacred history: Which, from the Universal Church received, Is tried, and after for its self believed. THE SECTS. PRIVATE JUDGMENT. [From The Hind and the Panther, Part I.; April, 1687.] PANTING and pensive now she ranged alone, And wandered in the kingdoms once her own. The common hunt, though from their rage restrained By sovereign power, her company disdained, Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity. 'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light, They had not time to take a steady sight; For truth has such a face and such a mien As to be loved needs only to be seen. The bloody Bear an independent beast, Unlicked to form, in groans her hate expressed. Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare Professed neutrality, but would not swear. Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use, Mimicked all sects and had his own to choose; Still, when the Lion looked, his knees he bent, And paid at church a courtier's compliment. The bristled baptist Boar, impure as he, But whitened with the foam of sanctity, With fat pollutions filled the sacred place And mountains levelled in his furious race; So first rebellion founded was in grace. But, since the mighty ravage which he made In German forests1 had his guilt betrayed, With broken tusks and with a borrowed name, He shunned the vengeance and concealed the shame, So lurked in sects unseen. With greater guile False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil; The graceless beast by Athanasius first Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus nursed, His impious race their blasphemy renewed, And Nature's King through Nature's optics viewed; Reversed they viewed him lessened to their eye, Nor in an infant could a God descry. New swarming sects to this obliquely tend, Hence they began, and here they all will end. What weight of ancient witness can prevail, If private reason hold the public scale? But, gracious God, how well dost Thou provide For erring judgments an unerring guide! Thy throne of darkness is the abyss of light, A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. O teach me to believe Thee thus concealed, And search no farther than Thyself revealed; But her alone for my director take, Whom Thou hast promised never to forsake! The allusion is more especially to the Ana baptist doings at Münster. |