IV. O gracious God! how far have we Prophan'd thy heavenly gift of poefy? Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debas'd to each obfcene and impious ufe, Whofe harmony was firft ordain'd above For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love? O wretched we! why were we hurry'd down This lubrique and adulterate age, (Nay added fat pollutions of our own) T' increase the streaming ordures of the stage? What can we fay t' excufe our fecond fall? Let this thy veftal, heaven, atone for all: Her Arethufian stream remains unfoil'd, Unmix'd with foreign filth, and undefil'd; Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. V. Art fhe had none, yet wanted none; For nature did that want supply: So rich in treasures of her own, She might our boafted ftores defy: Such noble vigour did her verse adorn, That it feem'd borrow'd, where 'twas only born. Her morals too were in her bofom bred, By great examples daily fed, What in the best of books, her father's life, fhe read. Light as the vapours of a morning dream, VI. Born to the fpacious empire of the Nine, [content To the next realm fhe ftretch'd her swav, When arm'd, to justify th' offence) And the whole fief, in right of Poetry, fhe claim'd. The shape, the face, with every lineament; And all the large domains which the Dumb Sifter fway'd. All bow'd beneath her government, Receciv'd in triumph wherefoe'er fhe went. Her pencil drew, whate'er her foul defign'd, And oft the happy draught surpass'd the image in her mind. The fylvan fcenes of herds and flocks, And fruitful plain, and barren rocks, Of fhallow brooks that flow'd fo clear, The bottom did the top appear; Of deeper too and ampler floods, Which, as in mirrors, fhew'd the woods; Of lofty trees, with facred fhades. And perspectives of pleasant glades, Where nymphs of brightest form appear, And fhaggy Satyrs ftanding near, Which them at once admire and fear, The ruins too of fome majestic piece, Boafting the power of ancient Rome or Greece, Whofe ftatues, freezes, columns, broken lie, And, though defac'd, the wonder of the eye; What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durft frame, Her forming hand gave feature to the name. So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before, But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore. VII. The scene then chang'd, with bold erected look Before a train of heroines were seen, Thus nothing to her genius was deny'd, And her bright foul broke out on every side. What next she had defign'd, heaven only knows : To fuch immoderate growth her conquest rofe, That Fate alone its progrefs could oppofe. VIII. Now all thofe charms, that blooming grace, To work more mischievoufly flow, Heaven, by the fame difeafe, did both translate; As equal were their fouls, fo equal was their fate. IV. ELEONORA A PANEGYRICAL POEM, Dedicated to the memory of the late COUNTESS OF ABINGDON. To the right honourable the EARL OF ABINGDON, &c. MY LORD, THE commands with which you honoured me fome months ago are now performed: they had been fooner; but betwixt ill health, fome bufinefs, and many troubles, I was forced to defer them till this time. Ovid, going to his banishment, and writing from on fhipboard to his friends, excufed the faults of his poetry by his misfortunes; and told them, that good verses never flow but from a ferene and compofed fpirit. Wit, which is a kind of Mercury, with wings fastened to his head and heals, can fly but flowly in a damp air. I therefore chofe rather to obey you late than ill; if at least I am capable of writing any thing, at any time, which is worthy your perufal and your patronage. I cannot fay that I have escaped from a fhipwreck; but have only gained a rock by hard fwimming; where I may pant a while and gather breath: for the doctors give me a fad affurance, that my disease never took its leave of any man, but with a purpose to return. However, my lord, I have laid hold on the interval, and managed the small flock, which age has left me, to the beft advantage, in performing this inconfiderable service to my lady's memory. We not; who are priests of Apollo, have not the infpiration when we please; but must wait till the God comes rufhing on us, and invades us with a fury which we are not able to refift: which gives us double ftrength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent at its departure. Let me not feem to boast, my lord; for I have really felt it on this occafion, and prophefied beyond my natural power. Let me add, and hope to be behieved, that the excellency of the subject contributed much to the happiness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken off me while I was writing. I fwam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will eafily obferve, that I was transported And now, my lord, though I have endeavoured by the multitude and variety of my fimilitudes; to answer your commands, yet I could not answer which are generally the product of a luxuriant it to the world, nor to my confcience, if I gave fancy, and the wantonnefs of wit. Had I called not your lordship my teftimony of being the beft in my judgment to my affiftance, I had certainly husband now living: I fay my teftimony only; retrenched many of them. But I defend them for the praise of it is given you by yourself. They let them pafs for beautiful faults amongst who defpife the rules of virtue both in their the better fort of critics: for the whole poem, practice and their morals, will think this a very though written in that which they call Heroic trivial commendation. But I think it the peverfe, is of the Pindaric nature, as well in the culiar happiness of the Countess of Abingdon, to thought as the expreffion; and, as such, requires | have been fo truly loved by you while the was the fame grains of allowance for it. It was in- living, and fo gratefully honoured after fhe was tended, as your lordship fees in the title, not for dead. Few there are who have either had, or a elegy, but a panegyric: a kind of apothefis, could have, fuch a lofs; and yet fewer who carindeed, if a Heathen word may be applied to a ried their love and conftancy beyond the grave. Chriftian ufe. And on all occafions of praife, if The exteriors of mourning, a decent funeral, and we take the Ancients for our patterns, we are black habits, are the ufual ftints of common bound by prescription to employ the magnificence husbands: and perhaps their wives deferve no et words, and the force of figures, to adorn the better than to be mourned with hypocrify, and fublimity of thoughts. Ifocrates amongst the forgot with ease. But you have distinguished Grecian orators, and Cicero and the Younger yourself from ordinary lovers, by a real and lasting Pliny amongst the Romans, have left us their grief for the deceased; and by endeavouring to precedents for our fecurity: for I think I need raife for her the most durable monument, which not mention the inimitable Pindar, who stretches is that of verfe. And fo it would have proved, on these pinions out of fight, and is carried up- if the workman had been equal to the work, and ward, as it were, into another world. your choice of the artificer as happy as your defign. Yet, as Phidias, when he had made the ftatue of Minerva, could not forbear to engrave his own name, as author of the piece: fo give me leave to hope that, by fubfcribing mine to this poem, I may live by the goddess, and tranfmit my name to pofterity by the memory of hers. 'Tis no flattery to affure your lordship, that he is remembered, in the prefent age, by all who have had the honour of her converfation and acquaintance; and that I have never been in any company, fince the news of her death was first brought ime, where they have not extolled her virtues, and even spoken the fame things of her in profe which I have done in verse. that he had never feen Mrs. Drury, whom he has made immortal in his admirable Anniversaries. I have had the fame fortune, though I have not fucceeded to the fame genius. However, I have followed his footsteps in the defign of his panegyric; which was to raise an emulation in the living, to copy out the example of the dead. And therefore it was, that I once intended to have called this poem "The Pattern:" and though, on a second confideration, I changed the title into the name of the illuftrious perfon, yet the design continues, and Eleonora is still the pattern of charity, devotion, and humility; of the beft wife, the best mother, and the best of friends. This, at leaft, my lord, I may juftly plead, that, if I have not performed fo well as I think I have, yet I have ufed my best endeavours to excel myff. One disadvantage I have had; which is, never to have known or feen my lady: and to draw the lineaments of her mind from the defcription which I have received from others, is for a painter to fet himself at work without the living original before him: which, the more beautiful it is, will be fo much the more difficult for him to conceive, when he has only a relation given him of fuch and fuch features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches which give the best resemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artift is apt enough to flatter himself (and I amongst the reft) that their own ocular obfervations would have difcovered more perfections, at least others, than have been delivered to them: though I have received mine from the beft hands, that is, from perfons who neither want a juft understanding of my lady's worth, nor a due veneration for her memry. Doctor Donne, the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet of our nation, acknowledges, ? I therefore think myself obliged to thank your lordfhip for the commiffion which you have given me how I have acquitted myself of it, must be left to the opinion of the world, in fpite of any proteftation which I can enter against the present age, as incompetent or corrupt judges. For my comfort, they are but Englishmen, and, as fuch, if they think ill of me to-day, they are inconftant enough to think well of me to-morrow. And, after all, I have not much to thank my fortune that I was born amongst them. The good of pleased to accept of these my unworthy labours, both fexes are fo few in England, that they ftand you, and fome few others, I have obtained my like exceptions against general rules: and though end. You fee I have difabled myself, like an one of them has deferved a greater commenda- elected Speaker of the House: yet like him tion than I could give her, they have taken care have undertaken the charge, and find the burden that I fhould not tire my pen with frequent ex-fufficiently recompenfed by the honour. Be ercise on the like fubjects; that praises, like taxes, fhould be appropriated, and left almost as individual as the perfon. They say, my talent is fatire: if it be so, it is a fruitful age, and there is an extraordinary crop to gather. But a fingle hand is infufficient for fuch a harvest: they have fown the dragon's teeth themselves, and it is but juft they fhould reap each other in lampoons. You, my lord, who have the character of honour, though is not my happiness to know you, may ftand afide, with the fmall remainders of the English nobility, truly fuch, and, unhurt yourfelves, behold the mad combat. If I have pleased Your Lordship's Moft obedient fervant, JOHN DRYDEN. |