Like early lovers, whose unpractised hearts Oh, had you seen from Scheveline's barren shore, Crowded with troops and barren now no more, The Naseby, now no longer England's shame,* 215 220 225 230 The Swiftsure groans beneath great Gloucester's weight: +235 He that was born to drown might cross the seas. too faintly blew ; 240 Or out of breath with joy could not enlarge Their straightened lungs, or conscious of their charge. 245 The British Amphitrite, smooth and clear, In richer azure never did appear, Proud her returning Prince to entertain With the submitted fasces of the main. And welcome now, great Monarch, to your own! 250 Behold the approaching cliffs of Albion. It is no longer motion cheats your view; As you meet it, the land approacheth you, 21 * The ship "Naseby," in which Charles embarked for Dover, received from him, as he was on the point of starting, the name "Royal Charles." See Pepys's Diary, May 23, 1660. "Richard" was at the same time christened "Royal James. The ↑ Henry, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of Charles II. who died in September 1660. 7 When Publius Valerius, being Consul, called the Roman people together to vindicate himself from false accusations, he made the lictors who preceded him with the fasces, emblems of his consular rank, lower them in recognition of the people's superior power; and Livy says, “submissis fascibus in concionem escendit" (ii. 7). The land returns, and in the white it wears 255 By that same mildness which your father's crown A voice before His entry did proclaim * 260 265 When through Arabian groves they take their flight, 270 While, spurred with eager thoughts of past delight, 280 Those who had seen you court a second sight, Preventing still your steps and making haste How shall I speak of that triumphant day, When you renewed the expiring pomp of May ! 285 That star, that at your birth shone out so bright † "And He said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." (Exodus xxxiii. 20.) "And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." (xxxiv. 6.) A star appeared at noon, on the day of Charles II.'s birth, May 29, 1630, as the King his father was proceeding to St. Paul's to give thanks to God for the event. Charles II. entered London, when restored to his throne, on his birthday; and Dryden ascribes renewed force to the star which had been observed on the day of his birth thirty years before. There is nothing to support Scott's unnecessary conjecture that the same star was again visible on May 29, 1660. Cowley, in his Ode on the Restoration, celebrates the star in the same way: "No star amongst ye all did, I believe, Such vigorous assistance give, As that which, thirty years ago, His future glories and this year foreshow: Be assured of from that powerful ray Which could outface the sun and overcome the day." Compare "Annus Mirabilis," stanza 18 Lilly, the astrologer, declared it to be the planet Venus. It stained the duller sun's meridian light, * And now Time's whiter series is begun,' 290 295 Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest. 300 305 310 At home the hateful names of parties cease, And factious souls are wearied into peace. The discontented now are only they Whose crimes before did your just cause betray: 315 Of those your edicts some reclaim from sins, But most your life and blest example wins. Oh happy Prince, whom Heaven hath taught the way By paying vows to have more vows to pay ! 320 Oh happy age! Oh times like those alone When the joint growth of arms and arts foreshew This use of white in the sense of fortunate is a Latinism : SILIUS ITAL. XV. 53. + Compare the first stanza of "Annus Mirabilis," where Holland is described, "crouching at home and cruel when abroad." And the same idea is presented in Dryden's play of "Amboyna," at the beginning and at the end. "We are secure,' says Harman the Governor, before the massacre, "of our superiors there: well, they may give the King of Great Britain a verbal satisfaction, and with submissive fawning promises make show to punish us, but interest is their god as well as ours" (act 1, sc. 1). And, at the end, says the Fiscal, "Now for a smooth apology, and then a fawning letter to the King of England, and our work's done." Charles had quitted Paris to live at Cologne in the beginning of 1656, when the negotiations which led to the alliance of France with Oliver Cromwell began. His departure had not been suggested by the French king, but he did not press Charles to stay, and indeed encouraged him to go when Charles proposed it. Or the reference may be to Cardinal Mazarin's dislike of the visit of Charles to Fuentarabia in the autumn of 1659, when the treaty of the Pyrenees was being negotiated, TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY, A PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION. 1661. IN that wild Deluge where the world was drowned, With various notes of joy the Ark did fill: Yet when that flood in its own depths was drowned, It left behind it false and slippery ground, And the more solemn pomp was still deferred Had warmed the ground and called the damps away. 15 Some guilty months had in your triumphs shared : 20 Now our sad ruins are removed from sight, 25 30 *The Coronation was on April 24, 1661, and the year was then reckoned to begin on March 25 Dryden probably refers to the part of the preceding year before the Restoration in May, as "guilty months." Loud shouts the nation's happiness proclaim, Where waits a crown for your more sacred head : Now while the sacred oil anoints your head, Our time, like angels, in expressing joy. Nor is it duty or our hopes alone Create that joy, but full fruition:+ 70 We know those blessings which we must possess * Officious, serviceable. Used frequently in this sense by Dryden, as "officious flood" in "Annus Mirabilis," stanza 184: the sense of the Latin officiosus. Dr. Johnson hastily expressed his belief that this is the only instance in Dryden's poems of such a rhyme, which was common with his predecessors and early contemporaries. Another example occurs in his earliest poem, the "Elegy on Lord Hastings:" "No comet need foretell his change drew on, The following instance is from the Second Part of the "Conquest of Granada," act 4, sc. 3: "This with the dawn of morning shall be done; You haste too much her execution." |