TE DEUM.

THEE, Sovereign God, our grateful accents praise ;
We own thee Lord, and bless thy wondrous ways;
To thee, Eternal Father, earth's whole frame
With loudest trumpets sounds immortal fame.
Lord God of Hosts! for thee the heavenly powers
With sounding anthems fill the vaulted towers.
Thy Cherubims thrice Holy, Holy, Holy cry;
Thrice Holy, all the Seraphims reply,
And thrice returning echoes endless songs supply.
Both heaven and earth thy majesty display;
They owe their beauty to thy glorious ray.
Thy praises fill the loud apostles' quire:
The train of prophets in the song conspire.
Legions of Martyrs in the chorus shine,
And vocal blood with vocal music join.*
By these thy church, inspired by heavenly art,
Around the world maintains a second part,
And tunes her sweetest notes, O God, to thee,
The Father of unbounded majesty;
The Son, adored co-partner of thy seat,
And equal everlasting Paraclete.

Thou King of Glory, Christ, of the Most High
Thou co-eternal filial Deity;

Thou who, to save the world's impending doom,
Vouchsafedst to dwell within a Virgin's womb;
Old tyrant Death disarmed, before thee flew
The bolts of heaven, and back the foldings drew,
To give access, and make thy faithful way;
From God's right hand thy filial beams display.

Thou art to judge the living and the dead;

30

Then spare those souls for whom thy veins have bled.

Scott points out this line as peculiarly characteristic of Dryden. "Vocal blood" occurs in "The Hind and the Panther," part 1, line 15.

LINES IN A LETTER TO HIS LADY COUSIN,
HONOR DRIDEN,

WHO HAD GIVEN HIM A SILVER INKSTAND, WITH A SET OF
WRITING MATERIALS, 1655.*

FOR since 'twas mine, the white hath lost its hue,+

To show 'twas ne'er it self but whilst in you,

The virgin wax hath blushed it self to red

Since it with me hath lost its maidenhead.

You, fairest nymph, are wax: O, may you be
As well in softness as in purity!

5

Till fate and your own happy choice reveal
Whom you shall so far bless to make your seal.

• Dryden, now twenty-four and living at Cambridge, was in love with his fair cousin, Honor, one of the daughters of Sir John Driden, baronet. The letter, of which these lines are part, is printed by Malone, and in Scott's edition of Dryden's Works.

Hue, written hiew by Dryden. The same spelling occurs in "The Hind and the Panther," published in 1687 (part 1, line 543). Throughout the folio volume of "Fables," published in 1699, the word is printed as it is now spelt, hue.

LINES PRINTED UNDER THE ENGRAVED PORTRAIT OF MILTON,

66

IN TONSON'S FOLIO EDITION OF THE PARADISE LOST," 1688.*

THREE poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last
The force of Nature could no farther go;

To make a third she joined the former two.

5

IMPROMPTU LINES ADDRESSED TO HIS COUSIN, MRS. CREED,

IN A CONVERSATION AFTER DINNER ON THE ORIGIN OF NAMES.+

So much religion in your name doth dwell,

Your soul must needs with piety excel.

Thus names, like well-wrought pictures drawn of old,

Their owners' nature and their story told.

Your name but half expresses, for in you

5

Belief and practice do together go.

My prayers shall be, while this short life endures,

These may go hand in hand, with you and yours;
Till faith hereafter is in vision drowned,

*This edition was published by subscription, and under the patronage of Somers. Dryden was a subscriber. Mr. Malone has suggested that the idea of these lines was derived from Salvaggi's Latin distich:

Mrs. Creed was a daughter of Sir Gilbert Pickering, bart. and wife of John Creed of Oundle, in Northamptonshire. She was a warm friend of her cousin the poet, and of his reputation, and raised a monument to his memory in the church of Tichmarsh in 1722. Mr. Malone, who published these lines, received them from Mr. Walcot of Oundle: they had been preserved by Mr. Walcot's mother, who was grand-daughter of Mrs. Creed. The lines were prefaced with this memorandum: "Conversation one day after dinner, at Mrs. Creed's, running upon the origin of names, Mr. Dryden bowed to the good old lady, and spoke extempore the following verses."

Well-wrought inserted by Malone to complete the line; skilful would do as well.

FRAGMENT OF A CHARACTER OF JACOB TONSON,*

HIS PUBLISHER.

WITH leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair,
And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air.

EPITAPH ON A NEPHEW, IN CATWORTH CHURCH,
HUNTINGDONSHIRE.+

STAY, stranger, stay, and drop one tear.
She always weeps who laid him here;
And will do till her race is run;

His father's fifth, her only son.

• There were frequent quarrels between Dryden and Jacob Tonson about payments, particularly during the progress of the Translation of Virgil: and on one occasion Dryden sent these three lines to Tonson, saying to his messenger, "Tell the dog that he who wrote these can write more."

This Epitaph, printed for the first time in Sir James Prior's "Life of Malone" from Malone's MS. additions to his own Life of Dryden, which are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, was accidentally omitted in printing the "Epitaphs." The nephew, for whom the Epitaph was written, was the only son of Dryden's sister, Rose, who was the second wife of the Rev. Dr. Laughton of Catworth.