Part 4

The victory gained by the Duke of York over the Dutch fleet on the 3d of June 1665, and his Duchess's subsequent journey into the north, furnished Dryden with the subject of a few occasional verses; in which the style of Waller (who came forth with a poem on the same subject) is successfully imitated. In addressing her grace, the poet suppresses all the horrors of the battle, and turns her eyes upon the splendour of a victory, for which the kingdom was indebted to her husband's valour, and her "chaste vows." In these verses, not the least vestige of metaphysical wit can be traced; and they were accordingly censured, as wanting height of fancy, and dignity of words. This criticism Dryden refuted, by alleging, that he had succeeded in what he did attempt, in the softness of expression and smoothness of the measure (the appropriate ornaments of an address to a lady), and that he was accused of that only thing which he could well defend. It seems, however, very possible, that these remarks impelled him to undertake a task, in which vigour of fancy and expression might, with propriety, be exercised. Accordingly, his next poem was of greater length and importance. This is a historical account of the events of the year 1666, under the title of "_Annus Mirabilis_" to which distinction the incidents which had occurred in that space gave it some title. The poem being in the elegiac stanza, Dryden relapsed into an imitation of "Gondibert," from which he had departed ever since the "Elegy on Cromwell." From this it appears, that the author's admiration of Davenant had not decreased. Indeed, he, long afterwards, bore testimony to that author's quick and piercing imagination; which at once produced thoughts remote, new, and surprising, such as could not easily enter into any other fancy. Dryden at least equalled Davenant in this quality; and certainly excelled him in the powers of composition, which are to embody the conceptions of the imagination; and in the extent of acquired knowledge, by which they were to be enforced and illustrated. In his preface, he has vindicated the choice of his stanza, by a reference to the opinion of Davenant,[47] which he sanctions by affirming, that he had always himself thought quatrains, or stanzas of verse in alternate rhyme, more noble, and of greater dignity, both for sound and number, than any other verse in use among us. By this attention to sound and rhythm, he improved upon the school of metaphysical poets, which disclaimed attention to either; but in the thought and expression itself, the style of Davenant more nearly resembled Cowley's, than that of Denham and Waller. The same ardour for what Dryden calls "wit-writing," the same unceasing exercise of the memory, in search of wonderful thoughts and allusions, and the same contempt for the subject, except as the medium of displaying the author's learning and ingenuity, marks the style of Davenant, though in a less degree than that of the metaphysical poets, and though chequered with many examples of a simpler and chaster character. Some part of this deviation was, perhaps, owing to the nature of the stanza; for the structure of the quatrain prohibited the bard, who used it, from rambling into those digressive similes, which, in the pindaric strophe, might be pursued through endless ramifications. If the former started an extravagant thought, or a quaint image, he was compelled to bring it to a point within his four-lined stanza. The snake was thus scotched, though not killed; and conciseness being rendered indispensable, a great step was gained towards concentration of thought, which is necessary to the simple and to the sublime The manner of Davenant, therefore, though short-lived, and ungraced by public applause, was an advance towards true taste, from the unnatural and frantic indulgence of unrestrained fancy; and, did it claim no other merit, it possesses that of having been twice sanctioned by the practice of Dryden, upon occasions of uncommon solemnity.

The "_Annus Mirabilis_" evinces a considerable portion of labour and attention; the lines and versification are highly polished, and the expression was probably carefully corrected. Dryden as Johnson remarks, already exercised the superiority of his genius, by recommending his own performance, as written upon the plan of Virgil; and as no unsuccessful effort at producing those well-wrought images and descriptions, which create admiration, the proper object of heroic poetry. The "_Annus Mirabilis_" may indeed be regarded as one of Dryden's most elaborate pieces; although it is not written in his later, better, and most peculiar style of poetry.

The poem first appeared in octavo, in 1667, and was afterwards frequently reprinted in quarto. It was dedicated to the metropolis of Great Britain, as represented by the lord mayor and magistrates. A letter to Sir Robert Howard was prefixed to the poem, in which the author explains the purpose of the work, and the difficulties which presented themselves in the execution. And in this epistle, as a contrast between the smooth and easy style of writing which was proper in addressing a lady, and the exalted style of heroic, or at least historical, poetry, he introduces the verses to the Duchess of York, already mentioned.

The "_Annus Mirabilis_" being the last poetical work of any importance produced by our author, until "Absalom and Achitophel," the reader may here pause, and consider, in the progressive improvement of Dryden, the gradual renovation of public taste. The irregular pindaric ode was now abandoned to Arwaker, Behn, Durfey, and a few inferior authors; who either from its tempting facility of execution, or from an affected admiration of old times and fashions, still pestered the public with imitations of Cowley. The rough measure of Donne (if it had any pretension to be called a measure) was no longer tolerated, and it was expected, even of those who wrote satires, lampoons, and occasional verses, that their rhymes should be rhymes, both to the ear and eye; and that they should neither adore their mistresses nor abuse their neighbours, in lines which differed only from prose in the fashion of printing. Thus the measure used by Rochester, Buckingham Sheffield, Sedley, and other satirists, if not polished or harmonized, approaches more nearly to modern verse, than that of Hall or Donne. In the "Elegy on Cromwell," and the "_Annus Mirabilis_," Dryden followed Davenant, who abridged, if he did not explode, the quaintnesses of his predecessors. In "_Astroea Redux_" and his occasional verses to Dr. Charlton, the Duchess of York, and others, the poet proposed a separate and simpler model, more dignified than that of Suckling or Waller; more harmonious in measure, and chaste in expression, than those of Cowley and Crashaw. Much, there doubtless remained, of ancient subtlety, and ingenious quibbling; but when Dryden declares, that he proposes Virgil, in preference to Ovid, to be his model in the "_Annus Mirabilis_" it sufficiently implies that the main defect of the poetry of the last age had been discovered, and was in the way of being amended by gradual and almost imperceptible degrees.

In establishing, or refining, the latter style of writing, in couplet verse, our author found great assistance from his dramatic practice; to trace the commencement of which is the purpose of the next Section.

FOOTNOTES: [1] [The statements in this paragraph are somewhat rhetorical. Massinger, for instance, was still at Oxford when James ascended the throne, and though he began to write a few years later, his earliest published play now extant appeared nearly twenty years afterwards. But the general drift is untouched.--ED.]

[2] I do not pretend to enter into the question of the effect of the drama upon morals. If this shall be found prejudicial, two theatres are too many. But, in the present woful decline of theatrical exhibition, we may be permitted to remember, that the gardener who wishes to have a rare diversity of a common flower, sows whole beds with the species; and that the monopoly granted to two huge theatres must necessarily diminish, in a complicated ratio, both the number of play-writers, and the chance of anything very excellent being brought forward.

[3] [Scott is here far too harsh. "Euphues" is not a book to be despatched in a note, but the reader may be requested to suspend his judgment until he has read it.--ED.]

[4] Our deserved idolatry of Shakespeare and Milton was equalled by that paid to this pedantic coxcomb in his own time. He is called in the title-page of his plays (for, besides "Euphues," he wrote what he styled "Court Comedies"), "the only rare poet of that time; the witty, comical, facetiously quick, and unparalleled John Lillie." Moreover, his editor, Mr. Blount, assures us, "that he sate at Apollo's table; that Apollo gave him a wreath of his own bays without snatching; and that the lyre he played on had no broken strings." Besides which, we are informed, "Our nation are in his debt for a new English, which he taught them; 'Euphues and his England' began first that language. All our ladies were then his scholars; and that beauty in court who could not _parle Euphuism_, was as little regarded, as she which now there speaks not French."

[5] So that learned and sapient monarch was pleased to call his skill in politics.

[6] Witness a sermon preached at St. Mary's before the university of Oxford. It is true the preacher was a layman, and harangued in a gold chain, and girt with a sword, as high sheriff of the county; but his eloquence was highly applauded by the learned body whom he addressed, although it would have startled a modern audience, at least as much as the dress of the orator. "Arriving," said he, "at the Mount of St. Mary's, in the stony stage where I now stand, I have brought you some fine biscuits, baked in the oven of charity, carefully conserved for the chickens of the church, the sparrows of the spirit, and the sweet swallows of salvation." "Which way of preaching," says Anthony Wood, the reporter of the homily, "was then mostly in fashion, and commended by the generality of scholars."--_Athenae Oxon_. vol. i. p.183.

[7] Look at Ben Jonson's "Ode to the Memory of Sir Lucius Carey and Sir H. Morison," and at most of his Pindarics. But Ben, when he pleased, could assume the garb of classic simplicity; witness many of his lesser poems.

[8] In Jonson's last illness, Charles is said to have sent him ten pieces. "He sends me so miserable a donation," said the expiring satirist, "because I am poor, and live in an alley; go back and tell him, his soul lives in an alley." Whatever be the truth of this tradition, we know from an epigram by Jonson, that the king at one time gave him an hundred pounds; no trifling gift for a poor bard, even in the present day.

[9] "About a year after his return out of Germany, Dr. Cary was made bishop of Exeter; and by his removal, the deanery of St. Paul's being vacant, the king sent to Dr. Donne, and appointed him to attend him at dinner the next day. When his majesty was sate down, before he had eat any meat, he said, after his pleasant manner, 'Dr. Donne, I have invited you to dinner; and though you sit not down with me, yet I will carve to you of a dish that I know you love well; for knowing you love London, I do therefore make you dean of Paul's; and when I have dined, then do you take your beloved dish home to your study; say grace there to yourself, and much good may it do you."--WALTON'S _Life of Donne._

[10] See his "Verses to Mr. George Herbert, sent him with one of my seals of the anchor and Christ. A sheaf of snakes used heretofore to be my seal, which is the crest of our poor family." Upon the subject of this change of device he thus quibbles:

"Adopted in God's family, and so My old coat lost, into new arms I go; The cross my seal, in baptism spread below, Does by that form into an anchor grow: Crosses grow anchors; bear as thou shouldst do Thy cross, and that cross grows an anchor too," etc.

[11] See his Life, prefixed to his Poems, 12mo, 1677.

[12] It is pleasing to see the natural good taste of honest old Isaac Walton struggling against that of his age. He introduces the beautiful lines,

"Come live with me, and be my love,"

as "that smooth song made by Kit Marlow, now at least fifty years ago." "The milkmaid's mother," he adds, "sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days. They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good. I think much better than _the strong lines_ that are in fashion in this critical age."--_The Complete Angler_, Edit. vi. p. 65.

[13] "A Poem on the Danger Charles I., being Prince, escaped in the Road at St. Andero."

[14] [The Jacobean and Caroline poets, especially Donne and Cowley, require considerable allowance to be made on Scott's judgment by those who are not familiar with them.--ED.]

[15] _Fasti Oxon._ vol. i. p. 115. Considering John Dryden's marriage with the heiress of a man of knightly rank, it seems unlikely that he followed the profession of a schoolmaster. But Wood could hardly be mistaken in the second circumstance some of the family having gloried in it in his hearing.

[16] See Collins' _Baronetage_, vol. ii. The testator bequeaths his soul to his Creator, with this singular expression of confidence, "the Holy Ghost assuring my spirit, that I am the elect of God."

[17] Robert Keies, executed 31st January 1606, of whom Fuller, in his Church History, tells the following anecdote:--"A few days before the fatal blow should have been given, Keies, being at Tichmarsh, in Northamptonshire, at his brother-in-law's house, Mr. Gilbert Pickering, a Protestant, he suddenly whipped out his sword, and in merriment made many offers therewith at the heads, necks, and sides, of several gentlemen and ladies then in his company. It was then taken for a mere frolic, and so passed accordingly; but afterwards, when the treason was discovered, such as remembered his gestures thought he practised what he intended to do when the plot should take effect; that is, to hack and hew, kill and destroy, all eminent persons of a different religion from himself."--CAULFIELD's _History of the Gunpowder Plot._

[18] The following curious story is told to that effect, in Caulfield's "History of the Gunpowder Plot," p. 67:--

"There was a Mr. Pickering of Tichmarsh-Grove, in Northamptonshire who was in great esteem with King James. This Mr. Pickering had a horse of special note for swiftness, on which he used to hunt with the king. A little before the blow was to be given, Mr. Keies, one of the conspirators, and brother-in-law to Mr. Pickering, borrowed this horse of him, and conveyed him to London upon a bloody design, which was thus contrived:--Fawkes, upon the day of the fatal blow, was appointed to retire himself into St. George's Fields, where this horse was to attend him, to further his escape (as they made him believe) as soon as the Parliament should be blown up. It was likewise contrived, that Mr. Pickering, who was noted for a puritan, should that morning be murdered in his bed, and secretly conveyed away; and also that Fawkes, as soon as he came into St. George's Fields, should be there murdered, and so mangled, that he could not be known; upon which, it was to be spread abroad, that the puritans had blown up the parliament-house; and the better to make the world believe it, there was Mr. Pickering, with his choice horse ready to escape. But that stirred up some, who seeing the heinousness of the fact, and him ready to escape, in detestation of so horrible a deed, fell upon him, and hewed him to pieces; and to make it more clear, there was his horse, known to be of special speed and swiftness, ready to carry him away; and upon this rumour, a massacre should have gone through the whole land upon the puritans.

"When the contrivance of this plot was discovered by some of the conspirators, and Fawkes, who was now a prisoner in the Tower, made acquainted with it, whereas before he was made to believe by his companions, that he should be bountifully rewarded for that his good service to the Catholic cause, now perceiving, that, on the contrary, his death had been contrived by them, he thereupon freely confessed all that he knew concerning that horrid conspiracy, which before all the torments of the rack could not force him to do.

"The truth of this was attested by Mr. William Perkins, who had it from Mr. Clement Cotton, to whom Mr. Pickering gave the above relation."

[19] Erasmus, the poet's immediate younger brother, was in trade, and resided in King-street, Westminster. He succeeded to the family title and estate upon the death of Sir John Dryden, and died at the seat of Canons-Ashby 3d November 1718, leaving one daughter and five grandsons. Henry, the poet's third brother, went to Jamaica, and died there, leaving a son, Richard. James, the fourth of the sons, was a tobacconist in London, and died there, leaving two daughters. Of the daughters, Mr. Malone, after Oldys, says, that Agnes married Sylvester Emelyn of Stanford, Gent.; that Rose married ---- Laughton of Calworth, D.D., in the county of Huntington; that Lucy became the wife of Stephen Umwell of London, merchant; and Martha of ---- Bletso of Northampton. Another of the daughters was married to one Shermardine, a bookseller in Little Britain; and Frances, the youngest, to Joseph Sandwell, a tobacconist in Newgate-street This last died 10th October 1730, at the advanced age of ninety. She had survived the poet about thirty years. Of the remaining four sisters, no notices occur.

[20] [A few facts of a more precise kind about the contents of this and the foregoing paragraphs may be grouped here. The Rev. H. Pickering was rector of Aldwinkle (the better form) All-Saints from 1507 to 1637, not from 1647 to 1657. This destroys Scott's inference. The error arose from a misreading of his epitaph. "The village" did not strictly belong to Lord Exeter: but he had property in Aldwinkle St. Peter's, and the two parishes are close together, one church being at one end and the other at the other of the joint village. Erasmus Dryden and Mary Pickering were married at the church of Pilton, a very small village between Aldwinkle and Oundle, on October 21, 1630. Dryden was therefore indisputably the eldest son. Blakesley, where his father's property was situated, is not near Aldwinkle or Tichmarsh, which are close together on opposite sides of the river Nene, and about two miles from Thrapston, but near Canons-Ashby on the other side of the county. The estate (of about two hundred acres) was united to that of Canons-Ashby after the death of Dryden's youngest son. But, unlike Canons-Ashby, it does not now belong to the family, having been sold many years ago.--ED.]

[21] "And though no wit ran royal blood infuse, No more than melt a mother to a muse, Yet much a certain poet undertook, That men and manners deals in without book; And might not more to gospel truth belong, Than he _(if christened)_ does by name of John." _Poetical Reflections_, etc. See vol. ix.

Another opponent of our author calls him

"A bristled Baptist bred, and then thy strain Immaculate was free from sinful stain." _The Laureat_, vol. x.

[22] Upon a monument, erected by Elizabeth Creed to the poet's memory in the church at Tichmarsh, are these words:--"We boast that he was bred and had his first learning here." [A rival tradition favours Oundle, which had and has a grammar school of merit.--ED.]

[23] The date is not known. That of his admission to Trinity, _infra_, should be May 18. He matriculated on July 16, and was not elected to his scholarship till October 2.--ED.

[24] [More usually Busby.--ED.]

[25] "I remember (says Dryden, in a postscript to the argument of the third satire of Perseus) I translated this satire when I was a King's scholar at Westminster school, for Thursday night's exercise; and believe, that it, and many other of my exercises of this nature in English verse, are still in the hands of my learned master, the Rev. Dr. Bushby."

[26] The following order is quoted, by Mr. Malone, from the Conclusion-book, in the archives of Trinity College, p. 221.

"July 19, 1652. Agreed, then, That Dryden be put out of Comons, for a fortnight at least; and that he goe not out of the colledg, during the time aforesaid, excepting to sermons, without express leave from the master, or vice-master; and that, at the end of the fortnight, he read a confession of his crime in the hall, at dinner time, at the three ... fellowes table.

"His crime was, his disobedience to the vice-master, and his contumacy in taking his punishment inflicted by him."

[27] Shadwell, in the Medal of John Bayes,

"At Cambridge Brat your scurrilous vein began, Where saucily you traduced a nobleman; Who for that crime rebuked you on the head, And you had been expelled, had you not fled."

[28] He received this degree by dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

[29] Prologue to the University of Oxford.

[30] Jonathan Dryden, elected a scholar from Westminster into Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1656, of which he became fellow in 1662, was author of some verses in the Cambridge Collections in 1661, on the death of the Duke of Gloucester, and the marriage of the Princess of Orange; and in 1662, on the marriage of Charles II., which have been imputed to our author. An order, quoted by Mr. Malone, for abatement of the commencement-money paid at taking the Bachelor's degree, on account of poverty, applies to Jonathan, not to John Dryden.--MALONE, vol. i. p.17, note.

[31] [This letter will be found in its proper place. It is the sole personal utterance in prose, and almost the only biographical fact of importance that we have for the first thirty years of Dryden's life. Upon it, an entirely baseless romance has been built of disappointed love and parental unkindness. There is absolutely no evidence that Dryden ever seriously pretended to his cousin's hand, or that he was rejected, or that this rejection was due to his uncle's influence.--ED.]

[32] Elegy on Lady Haddington, in Corbet's Poems, p. 121. Gilchrist's edition.

[33] Sir John Pickering, father of Sir Gilbert, married Susan, the sister of Erasmus Dryden, the poet's father. But Mary Pickering, the poet's mother, was niece to Sir John Pickering; and thus his son Sir Gilbert was _her_ cousin-german also.