And as the Indies were not found before
Those rich perfumes which from the happy shore
The winds upon their balmy wings conveyed,
Whose guilty sweetness first their world betrayed,
So by your counsels we are brought to view
A rich and undiscovered world in you.
By you our Monarch does that fame assure
Which kings must have, or cannot live secure :
For prosperous princes gain the subjects' heart,
Who love that praise in which themselves have part.
By you he fits those subjects to obey,

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80

85

As Heaven's Eternal Monarch does convey
His power unseen, and man to His designs
By His bright ministers, the stars, inclines.

Our setting sun from his declining seat
Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat:
And, when his love was bounded in a few
That were unhappy that they might be true,
Made the favourite of his last sad times,
you

That is, a sufferer in his subjects' crimes:
Thus those first favours you received were sent,
Like Heaven's rewards, in earthly punishment.
Yet Fortune, conscious of your destiny,
Even then took care to lay you softly by,

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And wrapt your fate among her precious things,

Kept fresh to be unfolded with your King's.

Shown all at once, you dazzled so our eyes

As new-born Pallas did the gods surprise;

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When, springing forth from Jove's new-closing wound, She struck the warlike spear into the ground;

Which sprouting leaves did suddenly enclose,

And peaceful olives shaded as they rose.

Whose kindness sent what does their malice seem
By lesser ills the greater to redeem ;
Nor can we this weak shower a tempest call,
But drops of heat that in the sunshine fall.
You have already wearied Fortune so,
She cannot farther be your friend or foe;
But sits all breathless, and admires to feel
A fate so weighty that it stops her wheel.
In all things else above our humble fate,
Your equal mind yet swells not into state,
But like some mountain in those happy isles,
Where in perpetual spring young Nature smiles,
Your greatness shows;* no horror to affright,
But trees for shade and flowers to court the sight;
Sometimes the hill submits itself a while
In small descents, which do its height beguile;
And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play,
Whose rise not hinders but makes short our way.
Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know,
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below;
And, like Olympus' top, the impression wears
Of love and friendship writ in former years.
Yet, unimpaired with labours or with time,
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.
(Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget
And measure change, but share no part of it.)
And still it shall without a weight increase,

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130

135

140

145

150

Like this New-year, whose motions never cease;

For since the glorious course you have begun

Is led by Charles, as that is by the sun,

It must both weightless and immortal prove,
Because the centre of it is above.

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Show is an intransitive verb, and means appear, and is constantly so used in Dryden; as among several instances in "Annus Mirabilis :"

"Like swans in long array his vessels show."-Stan. 66.

Otherwise, the passage would read more pleasantly, if there were no stop after shows and the verb had an active meaning. There is a resemblance in this passage to Denham's description of Windsor in "Cooper's Hill:'

"Windsor the next above the valley swells

Into my eye, and doth itself present
With such an easy and unforced ascent
That no stupendious precipice denies
Access, no horror turns away our eyes;
But such a rise as doth at once invite
A pleasure and a reverence from the sight."

VERSES

TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS,

ON THE MEMORABLE VICTORY GAINED BY THE DUKE AGAINST THE HOLLANDERS, JUNE 3, 1665, AND ON HER JOURNEY AFTERWARDS INTO THE NORTH.*

MADAM,

WHEN for our sakes your hero you resigned

To swelling seas and every faithless wind,
When you released his courage and set free
A valour fatal to the enemy,

You lodged your country's cares within your breast,
The mansion where soft love should only rest,
And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,
The noblest conquest you had gained at home.
Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide !
Your honour gave us what your love denied:
And 'twas for him much easier to subdue
Those foes he fought with than to part from you. +
That glorious day, which two such navies saw
As each unmatched might to the world give law,
Neptune, yet doubtful whom he should obey,
Held to them both the trident of the sea :

The winds were hushed, the waves in ranks were cast

These where the wealth of nations ought to flow.

20

Then with the Duke your Highness ruled the day;

While all the brave did his command obey,

The fair and pious under you did pray.

How powerful are chaste vows! the wind and tide
You bribed to combat on the English side,

25

These verses, addressed to the Duchess of York (the Duke of York's first wife, Anne, daughter of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon), and written towards the end of 1665, were probably not published before their appearance in the Preface to "Annus Mirabilis." See p. 42. The journey into the North of England was with the Duke of York in August and September 1665. This poem reappeared in 1704 in the fifth volume of the "Poetical Miscellanies," afterwards named "Miscellany Poems," being the first volume of the series published after Dryden's death.

↑ War had been declared against the Dutch in February 1665. The Duke of York, who was Lord High Admiral, took the command of the fleet, and went to sea in the beginning of May. On the 3rd of June he engaged with the Dutch fleet off the coast of Suffolk, near Lowestoft, and obtained a decided victory, showing great bravery in the battle.

1 Scott has observed that sea, which in Dryden's poetry almost always rhymes with words like obey, way (see line 43), &c. was probably pronounced suitably to such rhymes.

Leaving our southern clime, you marched along

The stubborn North, ten thousand Cupids strong. +

45

Like Commons, the nobility resort

In crowding heaps to fill your moving court:

To welcome your approach the vulgar run,
Like some new envoy from the distant sun,

And country beauties by their lovers go,

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Blessing themselves and wondering at the show.
So, when the new-born phoenix first is seen,
Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,

And while she makes her progress through the East,

From every grove her numerous train's increast;
Each poet of the air her glory sings,

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And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.

* When Joshua fought with Amalek, Exodus xvii. 11-13. "And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon: and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword." Dryden uses the same illustration in "Britannia Rediviva," line 296.

The battle of June 3 was off the coast of Suffolk, near Lowestoft. A letter from the Earl of Arlington, Secretary of State, to the Lord Mayor, in the State Paper Office, giving the official news of the victory, mentions "the King having been in expectation ever since the guns were heard.' (Mrs. Green's Calendar of State Papers, 1664-5, p. 408. Dryden refers in the opening of his "Essay of Dramatic Poesy" to "that memorable day, in the first summer of the late war, when our navy engaged the Dutch," and says: "The noise of the cannon from both navies reached our ears about the city, so that, all men being alarmed with it and in a dreadful suspense of the event which they knew was then deciding, every one went following the sound as his fancy led him."

The Duke of York was not permitted to go to sea again after his victory of June; the fleet was left under command of the Earl of Sandwich. In August the Duke was sent by the King into Yorkshire, there being fears of a rising in the north. His valour at sea and victory had made him very popular, and he and the Duchess were received throughout the journey with

great nonours.

D