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With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.

And added length to solemn sounds,

Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown :

He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.

GRAND CHORUS.

At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,

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Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

175

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.

* This song appears in the folio edition of Dryden's Poems published by Tonson in 1701.

HAPPY and free, securely blest,
No beauty could disturb my rest;
My amorous heart was in despair,
To find a new victorious fair:

* Printed in Dryden's third volume of "Miscellany Poems," 1693.

20

This song first appeared in "A New Miscellany of Original Poems" by various authors, published in 1701; but it is not printed in Tonson's folio edition of that year. Derrick said that the "fair stranger" was Charles II.'s famous mistress, Louise de Querouailles, Duchess of Portsmouth, who came over from France with the Duchess of Orleans in 1671: but there is no authority for this statement, and Dryden's friend Mulgrave spoke disrespectfully of the Duchess in his Essay on Satire," and Dryden himself did so in "Absalom and Achitophel," where she is called Bathsheba. It is more likely that the fair stranger was James II's queen, Mary of Modena; or if it must be a high personage, it may have been the Duchess of Mazarin. But there is no proof that the song was composed in honour of any great lady.

* Printed in the fifth volume of "Miscellany Poems," published after Dryden's death, 1704.

A SONG.*

HIGH state and honours to others impart,

But give me your heart;

That treasure, that treasure alone,

I beg for my own.

So gentle a love, so fervent a fire,
My soul does inspire;

That treasure, that treasure alone,
I beg for my own.

Your love let me crave,

Give me in possessing

So matchless a blessing;

That empire is all I would have.

Love's my petition,
All my ambition;
If e'er you discover

So faithful a lover,

So real a flame,

I'll die, I'll die,

So give up my game.

THE SECULAR MASQUE.t

Enter JANUS.

JANUS.

CHRONOS, Chronos, mend thy pace :
An hundred times the rolling sun
Around the radiant belt has run
In his revolving race.

Behold, behold, the goal in sight;

Spread thy fans, and wing thy flight.

1Ο

15

5

5

In

* Printed in the fifth volume of "Miscellany Poems," published after Dryden's death, 1704. the edition of the "Miscellany Poems" of 1716 (vol. ii.) it is printed with the title, "An Ayre on a Ground," with some alterations in the text, and a different arrangement of the lines.

A representation was arranged at the Theatre Royal for Dryden's benefit on March 25, 1700, only a few weeks before his death. He died on May 1. Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "The Pilgrim" was acted, altered for the occasion by Sir John Vanbrugh; and Dryden wrote this "Secular Masque," which was set to music, for the same occasion, and also contributed for "The Pilgrim," a Prologue and Epilogue and a Dialogue to be sung in the play. The Dialogue here follows the "Secular Masque:" the Prologue and Epilogue are printed at the end of the next division; all these pieces were published in June, after Dryden's death, with this title: "The Pilgrim, a Comedy, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, written originally by Mr. Fletcher, and now very much altered, with several additions; likewise, a Prologue, Epilogue, Dialogue, and Masque, written by the late great poet, Mr. Dryden, just before his death, being the last of his works. Printed for Benjamin Tooke, near the Middle Temple Gate in Fleet Street, 1700. "The moral of this emblematical representation," says Scott, "is sufficiently intelligible. By the introduction of the deities of the chase, of war, and of love, as governing the various changes of the seventeenth century, the poet alludes to the sylvan sports of James I, the bloody wars of his son, and the licentious gallantry which reigned in the courts of Charles II. and James his successor."

Enter CHRONOS, with a scythe in his hand and a globe on his back, which he sets down at his entrance.

With horns and with hounds I waken the day,
And hie to my woodland-walks away:

I tuck up my robe, and am buskined soon,
And tie to my forehead a wexing moon.*

I course the fleet stag, unkennel the fox,

And chase the wild goats o'er summits of rocks,

With shouting and hooting we pierce through the sky,
And Echo turns hunter, and doubles the cry.

Chorus of all.

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With shouting and hooting we pierce through the sky,
And Echo turns hunter, and doubles the cry.

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* Wex. Dryden's spelling in his very last piece. See note on "Annus Mirabilis," stanza 4