Vain wretched creature, how art thou misled,
To think thy wit these god-like notions bred!
These truths are not the product of thy mind,
But dropt from Heaven, and of a nobler kind.
Reveal'd religion first inform'd thy sight,

And reason saw not till faith sprung the light.
Hence all thy natural worship takes the source :
"Tis revelation what thou think'st discourse.1
Else how com'st thou to see these truths so clear,
Which so obscure to heathens did appear?
Not Plato these, nor Aristotle found:
Nor he whose wisdom oracles renown'd.
Hast thou a wit so deep, or so sublime,

Or canst thou lower dive, or higher climb?
Canst thou by reason more of godhead know
Than Plutarch, Seneca, or Cicero ?

Those giant wits in happier ages born,

When arms and arts did Greece and Rome adorn,
Knew no such system: no such piles could raise
Of natural worship, built on prayer and praise
To one sole God.

Nor did remorse to expiate sin prescribe:
But slew their fellow-creatures for a bribe:
The guiltless victim groan'd for their offence:
And cruelty and blood was penitence.

If sheep and oxen could atone for men,

Ah! at how cheap a rate the rich might sin!

And great oppressors might Heaven's wrath beguile,
By offering his own creatures for a spoil!

Dar'st thou, poor worm, offend Infinity ?

And must the terms of peace be given by thee?
Then thou art Justice in the last appeal;
Thy easy God instructs thee to rebel:

And, like a king remote and weak, must take
What satisfaction thou art pleas'd to make.

But if there be a power too just and strong,
To wink at crimes, and bear unpunish'd wrong;
Look humbly upward, see his will disclose
The forfeit first, and then the fine impose;
A mulct thy poverty could never pay,

Had not Eternal Wisdom found the way,

And with celestial wealth supply'd thy store:

His justice makes the fine, his mercy quits the score.

See God descending in thy human frame;

Th' offended suffering in th' offender's name :

All thy misdeeds to him imputed see,

And all his righteousness devolv'd on thee.

In his preface, Dryden alleges his belief that "the principles of natural worship are only faint remnants or dying flames of revealed religion in the posterity of Noah."

FROM THE HIND AND THE PANTHER.1

CHRISTIAN RESIGNATION UNDER HUMAN REPROACH.

Be vengeance wholly left to powers divine!

If joys hereafter must be purchased here,
With loss of all that mortals hold most dear,
Then welcome infamy and public shame,
And last, a long farewell to worldly fame!
'Tis said with ease, but, oh, how hardly tried
By haughty souls to human honour tied!
Oh sharp convulsive pangs of agonizing pride!
Down then thou rebel, never more to rise!

And what thou didst, and dost, so dearly prize,

That fame, that darling fame, make that thy sacrifice ;-
'Tis nothing thou hast given; then add thy tears
For a long race of unrepenting years;

'Tis nothing yet, yet all thou hast to give:

Then add those may be years thou hast to live;
Yet nothing still then poor and naked come;

Thy Father will receive his unthrift home,

And thy blest Saviour's blood discharge the mighty sum.

ALEXANDER'S FEAST,

AN ODE IN HONOUR OF ST CECILIA'S DAY.'

'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won

By Philip's warlike son;

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne:

His valiant peers were plac'd around;

Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound,
(So should desert in arms be crown'd):

The lovely Thais, by his side,

Sate, like a blooming eastern bride,

In flower of youth and beauty's pride.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

1 The subject of the Hind and the Panther being the controverted points between the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, the poem is not adapted for extracts for our present purpose. The lines quoted refer to the charge of Atheism against Dryden by Stillingfleet, then Dean of St Paul's. For an account of the poet's controversy with Stillingfleet, see Scott's Dryden, vol. i. 323, and xvii. 187.

2 The festival of St Cecilia, the patroness of vocal music, is the 22d day of November. The traditions respecting her are too romantic to be authentic. Her saintship was acknowledged so carly as the fifth century.

And stamp'd an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.
The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,

A present deity! they shout around:

A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravish'd ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,2

And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then, the sweet musician sung:
Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:

The jolly god in triumph comes;

Sound the trumpets; beat the drums;
Flush'd with a purple grace,

He shows his honest face;

Now give the hautboys breath: he comes! he comes!
Bacchus, ever fair and young,

Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:
Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure;

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;

Fought all his battles o'er again;

And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.

The master saw the madness rise;

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And, while he Heaven and Earth defied,
Chang'd his hand, and check'd his pride.

1 A celebrated musician of Bœotia. In the first song, the poet makes him flatter Alexander with the mythus of his birth, which the king seemed to delight in believing. See note 7, p. 182-Plut. in Alex. Olympias, the mother of Alexander

2 Repeated allusions occur in the classics to the nod as the sign of Divine will. Hence the meaning of the Latin verbs annuo, inruo, renuo.

Alexander's boasting tendencies in his cups are displayed in his language on the occasion of the murder of Clitus. See Curt. viii. 1; 23 et seq.

He chose a mournful Muse,
Soft pity to infuse :

He sung Darius great and good,1
By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,

And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed:
On the bare earth expos'd he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.

With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his alter'd soul

The various turns of Chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole ;
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smil'd, to see
That love was in the next degree:
"Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,2
Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour, but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying;
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee!
The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So Love was crown'd, but Music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gaz'd on the fair

Who caus'd his care,

And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,
Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again :

At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd,
The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again:

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.

Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.

Hark, bark, the horrid sound

Has rais'd up his head!

As awak'd from the dead,

And amaz'd, he stares around.

This is the character always assigned to Darius Codomannus. For his fate, see Curt.

v. 12 and 13.

2 See note 1, p. 186.

Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries,

See the Furies arise:

See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their hair,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain :

Give the vengeance due

To the valiant crew!

Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,

And glittering temples of their hostile gods!
The princes applaud, with a furious joy;

And the king seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy.1

Thus, long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow,
While organs yet were mute;
Timotheus, to his breathing flute,

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarg'd the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;

He rais'd a mortal to the skies,

She drew an angel down."

FROM "ALL FOR LOVE."S

OMENS OF EVIL.

Last night, between the hours of twelve and one,
In a lone aisle of the temple where I walked,

This scene of the firing of the palace of Persepolis is dramatised from the account of Curtius, v. 7, 1-8. See also Plutarch.

2 One of the traditions respecting the power of Cecilia's melody.

In this tragedy Dryden has ventured a lance with Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. For a comparative estimate of the two plays, see Scott's Dryden, vol. v. We have abstained from excerpts of his rhyming plays, as, in the maturity of his genius, he acknowledged the error of taste which had led him to become the champion of that species of composition.