That old unquestioned pirate of the land,

*

Proud Rome, with dread the fate of Dunkirk heard
And trembling wished behind more Alps to stand,
Although an Alexander were her guard. †

31

By his command we boldly crossed the Line

And bravely fought where southern stars arise;
We traced the far-fetched gold unto the mine

And that which bribed our fathers made our prize.‡

In

This refers to the auxiliary force of six thousand men sent by Cromwell in 1657 into Flanders to act with the French against the Spaniards, and to the cession to England of Dunkirk in the following year. James, duke of York, was a volunteer in the Spanish army, and was in the battle in which the Spaniards were defeated by the French and English at Dunkirk, June 17, 1658. 1672, Dryden, dedicating to the Duke of York his play "The Conquest of Granada," referred in a very different strain to these events. in Flanders the Duke of York, serving against his country, alone reflected lustre on it: "You Then, with his usual reckless adulation, he declares that were then an honour to it, when it was a reproach to itself:" and he goes on to say that the Duke's fame drew over to the Spanish army from the English ranks "whole troops and companies of converted rebels, and made them forsake successful wickedness to follow an oppressed and exiled Dryden's poems immediately following the Restoration show how soon he became ardently loyal. In his "Vindication" of his play "The Duke of Guise," published in 1684, he was not ashamed to print that he began the play "in the year of his Majesty's happy Restoration," his object being the "setting forth the rise of the late rebellion, and by exploding the villainies of it upon the stage to precaution posterity against the like errors.' The reigning Pope was Alexander VII.

virtue."

This stanza contains much exaggeration and misstatement. end of 1654, under Penn and Venables, to attack Spain in America and the West Indies, did not The fleet and army, sent at the cross the Line nor reach gold mines. where it was repulsed from Hispaniola or St. Domingo, and afterwards took Jamaica. The result The armament did not get further than the West Indies, was regarded as a great failure.

32

Such was our Prince, yet owned a soul above
The highest acts it could produce to show :
Thus poor mechanic arts in public move,
Whilst the deep secrets beyond practice go.

33

Nor died he when his ebbing fame went less,
But when fresh laurels courted him to live;
He seemed but to prevent some new success,
As if above what triumphs earth could give.

34

His latest victories still thickest came,

As near the centre motion does increase;
Till he, pressed down by his own weighty name, v
Did, like the Vestal, under spoils decease.*

35

But first the Ocean as a tribute sent

That giant-prince of all her watery herd; +
And the Isle, when her protecting Genius went,
Upon his obsequies loud sighs conferred.

36

No civil broils have since his death arose,
But faction now by habit does obey;
And wars have that respect for his repose

As winds for halcyons when they breed at sea.

37

His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;

His name a great example stands to show

How strangely high endeavours may be blessed
Where piety and valour jointly go.

Tarpeia, crushed by the shields of the Sabines to whom she had betrayed the citadel of Rome. The comparison is very forced and inappropriate.

sent

+ Scott supposes that this refers to the great storm at the time of Cromwell's death. But it is impossible to explain, on that supposition, who was the "giant-prince of all her watery herd" by Ocean as a tribute. Mr. Holt White, in his MS. notes, interprets these two obscure lines as referring to the death of Blake, the great naval hero of the Commonwealth, who had died rather more than a twelvemonth before Cromwell, and had been buried with state in Westminster Abbey, September 4, 1657. This is a more probable interpretation. Derrick and the subsequent editors, including Scott, have printed "the giant-prince" instead of that, which is the word in the original editions. The difference is material; that points to an individual. The two last lines of the stanza refer to the storm at the time of Cromwell's death.

The first two months of Richard Cromwell's reign were serene, and there was no sign of danger or trouble till his Parliament met, January 27, 1659.

ASTREA

REDUX.

A POEM ON THE HAPPY RESTORATION AND RETURN

OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY

CHARLES THE SECOND.

Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna.-VIRG. Eclog. iv. 6.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

'Astraa Redux" and the two poems which follow, addressed to King Charles II. on his Coronation and to the Lord Chancellor Clarendon on New Year's Day, 1662, were successively published in folio by Henry Herringman. Dryden's name is printed Driden on the title-pages of two of them. All these poems were reprinted in 1688 in quarto, with a new edition of "Annus Mirabilis," and were then issued by Jacob Tonson; the spelling Driden being retained on the title-page of " Astræa Redux.” These three poems were not again reprinted till they appeared in the edition of the 66 Miscellany Poems” of 1716.

A piece, which was first printed in the third volume of the "State Poems," published after Dryden's death in 1704, and which has since appeared in every edition of Dryden's poems, with the heading A Satire on the Dutch, written in the year 1662," is omitted in this edition. This "Satire" was put together by the publisher from the Prologue and Epilogue of Dryden's play of "Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants," which appeared in 1673, the last year of the second Dutch war. There is nothing in the poem to show that it was written in 1662 or earlier than 1673, and no sign of its publication before the appearance of Amboyna." There is a similar instance at page 2 of the same volume of the 66 State Poems: " a "Satire upon Romish Confessors, by Mr. Dryden," which is a portion of the Epilogue of the " Spanish Friar."