away,

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He to the Tyrians shew'd his sudden face, Shining with all his goddess mother's grace: For she herself had made his count'nance bright,

Breath'd honor on his eyes, and her own purple light.

If our victorious (1) Edward, as they say, Gave Wales a prince on that propitious day, Why may not years revolving with his fate Produce his like, but with a longer date? One who may carry to a distant shore The terror that his fam'd forefather bore? But why should James or his young hero

stay

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For slight presages of a name or day?
We need no Edward's fortune to adorn
That happy moment when our prince was
born:

Our prince adorns his day, and ages hence Shall wish his birthday for some future prince.

(m) Great Michael, prince of all th' ethereal hosts,

And whate'er inborn saints our Britain boasts;

And thou, (n) th' adopted patron of our isle,

With cheerful aspects on this infant smile: The pledge of Heav'n, which, dropping from above,

Secures our bliss, and reconciles his love.

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Enough of ills our dire rebellion wrought, When, to the dregs, we drank the bitter draught;

(j) Alluding to the temptations in the wilderness. (k) Virgil, Eneid I.

(1) Edward the Black Prince, born on Trinity Sunday. (m) The motto of the poem explain'd. (n) St. George.

Minerva's name to Venus had debas'd;
So this imperial babe rejects the food
That mixes monarchs' with plebeian blood:
Food that his inborn courage might control,
Extinguish all the father in his soul,

And, for his Estian race, and Saxon strain, Might reproduce some second Richard's reign.

Mildness he shares from both his parents' blood,

But kings too tame are despicably good: Be this the mixture of this regal child, 220 By nature manly, but by virtue mild.

Thus far the furious transport of the

Madness ungovernable, uninspir'd,
Swift to foretell whatever she desir'd.
Was it for me the dark abyss to tread,
And read the book which angels cannot

read?

How was I punish'd, when the (v) sudden

blast

The face of heav'n and our young sun o'ercast!

Fame, the swift ill, encreasing as she roll'd, Disease, despair, and death, at three reprises told:

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At three insulting strides she stalk'd the town,

And, like contagion, struck the loyal down. Down fell the winnow'd wheat; but, mounted high,

The whirlwind bore the chaff, and hid the sky.

Here black rebellion shooting from below,

(As earth's (w) gigantic brood by moments grow,)

And here the sons of God are petrified with woe:

An apoplex of grief! so low were driv'n The saints, as hardly to defend their heav'n. As, when pent vapors run their hollow round, Earthquakes, which are convulsions of the ground,

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Break bellowing forth, and no confinement brook,

Till the third settles what the former shook; Such heavings had our souls; till, slow and

late,

Our life with his return'd, and faith prevail'd on fate:

By prayers the mighty blessing was implor'd,

To pray'rs was granted, and by pray'rs restor❜d.

So, ere the (x) Shunammite a son conceiv'd,

The prophet promis'd, and the wife believ'd.

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A son was sent, the son so much desir'd; But soon upon the mother's knees expir❜d. The troubled Seer approach'd the mournful door,

Ran, pray'd, and sent his past'ral staff before,

(v) The sudden false report of the prince's death. (w) Those giants are feign'd to have grown fifteen ells every day.

(x) In the Second Book of Kings iv.

That, still depending on his daily grace, His every mercy for an alms may pass; With sparing hands will diet us to good, Preventing surfeits of our pamper'd blood. So feeds the mother bird her craving young With little morsels, and delays 'em long.

True, this last blessing was a royal feast; But where's the wedding garment on the guest?

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Our manners, as religion were a dream,
Are such as teach the nations to blaspheme.
In lusts we wallow, and with pride we swell,
And injuries with injuries repel;
Prompt to revenge, not daring to forgive,
Our lives unteach the doctrine we believe.
Thus Israel sinn'd, impenitently hard,
And vainly thought the (y) present ark
their guard;

But when the haughty Philistines appear,
They fled, abandon'd to their foes and fear;
Their God was absent, tho' his ark was
there.

Ah! lest our crimes should snatch this pledge away

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And make our joys the blessing of a day! For we have sinn'd him hence, and that he lives,

God to his promise, not our practice gives. Our crimes would soon weigh down the guilty scale,

But James, and Mary, and the Church prevail.

(y) 1 Samuel iv, 10.

Nor (z) Amalek can rout the chosen bands,
While Hur and Aaron hold up Moses' hands.
By living well, let us secure his days,
Mod'rate in hopes, and humble in our ways.
No force the freeborn spirit can constrain,
But charity and great examples gain.
Forgiveness is our thanks for such a day,
'Tis godlike God in his own coin to pay.
But you, propitious queen, translated
here,

From your mild heav'n, to rule our rugged sphere,

Beyond the sunny walks, and circling year:

301

310

You, who your native climate have bereft
Of all the virtues, and the vices left;
Whom piety and beauty make their boast,
Tho' beautiful is well in pious lost;
So lost, as starlight is dissolv'd away,
And melts into the brightness of the day;
Or gold about the regal diadem,
Lost to improve the luster of the gem:
What can we add to your triumphant
day?

Let the great gift the beauteous giver pay.
For, should our thanks awake the rising

Whom they pretend, at least, to imitate,
Is equal both to punish and reward;

For few would love their God, unless they fear'd.

350

Resistless force and immortality Make but a lame, imperfect deity; Tempests have force unbounded to destroy, And deathless being ev'n the damn'd enjoy; And yet Heav'n's attributes, both last and first,

One without life, and one with life accurst; But justice is Heav'n's self, so strictly he, That, could it fail, the Godhead could not be. This virtue is your own; but life and state Are one to fortune subject, one to fate: Equal to all, you justly frown or smile; Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile;

360 Yourself our balance hold, the world's, our isle.

OF

PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO DON SEBASTIAN, KING PORTUGAL

[Dryden bestowed much labor upon this tragedy, the first play that he wrote on his (z) Exod. xvii, 8.

return to dramatic work after the Revolution. Though of great literary merit, it seems from the author's preface to have had at first only moderate success on the stage. It was probably acted in the autumn of 1689; it was published in January, 1690. (See reference to the London Gazette in Scott-Saintsbury edition, (a) Aristides. See his life in Plutarch.

xviii, 296.) The book was printed "for Jo. Hindmarsh," instead of for Tonson. The titlepage bears the apt motto:

- - Nec tarda senectus Debilitat vires animi mutatque vigorem. VIRGIL, Eneid, ix, 610, 611.

The epilogue is closely connected with the play. The amour of Antonio, "a young, noble, amorous Portuguese," and the Mufti's daughter Morayma, who steals her father's jewel casket for her lover's sake, furnishes the secondary, comic intrigue of the drama, of which the love of Sebastian and Almeyda, "a captive queen of Barbary," later discovered to be Sebastian's sister, is the main plot. The true relation of Sebastian and Almeyda is disclosed by "an old counselor," Alvarez. The rest may be understood from hints in the epilogue itself.]

Suppose our poet was your foe before,
Yet now, the bus'ness of the field is o'er;
"T is time to let your civil wars alone,
When troops are into winter quarters gone.
Jove was alike to Latian and to Phrygian;
And you well know, a play 's of no religion.
Take good advice, and please yourselves
this day

No matter from what hands you have the play.

Among good fellows ev'ry health will pass, That serves to carry round another glass: When with full bowls of Burgundy you'

dine,

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Tho' at the mighty monarch you repine, You grant him still Most Christian in his wine.

Thus far the poet; but his brains grow addle,

And all the rest is purely from this noddle.

You've seen young ladies at the senate door

Prefer petitions, and your grace implore:
However grave the legislators were,
Their cause went ne'er the worse for being
fair.

Reasons as weak as theirs, perhaps, I bring;

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But I could bribe you with as good a thing. I heard him make advances of good nature;

That he, for once, would sheathe his cutting satire.

Sign but his peace, he vows he'll ne'er again

The sacred names of fops and beaus profane.

Strike up the bargain quickly; for I swear, As times go now, he offers very fair.

Be not too hard on him with statutes neither;

Be kind; and do not set your teeth together,

To stretch the laws, as cobblers do their leather.

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