Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

To compass this, the triple bond1 he broke,
The pillars of the public safety shook,
And fitted Israel2 for a foreign yoke:
Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting3 fame,
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.
So easy still it proves, in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes;
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's will!
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own!
Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.*
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin

With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean;
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress,
Swift of despatch, and easy of access.

Oh! had he been content to serve the crown
With virtues only proper for the gown;

6

Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppressed the noble seed;
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And Heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand;
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.8

WHENCE but from Heaven could men unskilled in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,

(1) The triple-bond-the alliance between England, Sweden, and Holland. (2) Israel-England.

(3) Affecting-aiming at, seeking after.

(4) Praise the judge-Shaftesbury, as Lord Chancellor, is said to have given wise and impartial judgments, though unfurnished with legal knowledge.

(5) Abethdin-the title of one of the judges of the court of the Sanhedrim: here

it means Lord Chancellor.

(6) Cockle-a weed that infests growing corn.

(7) David-Charles II.

(8) From "Religio Laici."

Weave such agreeing truths? or how or why
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price.
If on the book itself we cast our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true;
The doctrine, miracles, which must convince,
For Heaven in them appeals to human sense;
And though they prove not, they confirm the cause,
When what is taught agrees with nature's laws.
Then for the style; majestic and divine,
It speaks no less than God in every line;
Commanding words, whose force is still the same,
As the first fiat that produced our frame.
All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend,

Or sense indulged has made mankind their friend;
This only doctrine does our lusts oppose;
Unfed by nature's soil, on which it grows;
Cross to our interests, curbing sense and sin,
Oppressed without, and undermined within,
It thrives through pain, its own tormentors tires,
And with a stubborn patience still aspires.
To what can reason such effects assign,
Transcending nature, but to laws divine,
Which in that sacred volume are contained,
Sufficient, clear, and for that use ordained?

THE MONARCH OF DULNESS.1

ALL human things are subject to decay;
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey.
This Flecnoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was called to empire: and had governed long;
In prose and verse was owned, without dispute,
Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute.

(1) From "Mac-Flecnoe "-i. e. the son of Flecnoe; an expression employed to designate a poet of the day named Shadwell, who is in this poem satirised, not undeservedly it is thought, by Dryden. As a specimen of pungency and force it would be difficult to bring anything of the kind, ancient or modern, into comparison with the lines given above. Flecnoe was the true name of a dull, hacknied poetaster of the day.

1

This aged prince, now flourishing in peace,
And blest with issue of a large increase,
Worn out with business, did at length debate
To settle the succession of the State;
And pondering which of all his sons was fit
To reign, and wage immortal war with wit,
Cried, "Tis resolved; for Nature pleads, that he
Should only rule who most resembles me.
Shadwell, alone, my perfect image bears,
Mature in dulness from his tender years:
Shadwell, alone, of all my sons, is he,
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates1 into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through, and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray;
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
Besides, his goodly fabric3 fills the eye,
And seems designed for thoughtless majesty:
Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,
And spread in solemn state, supinely reign. ****»
Then thus continued he: "My son, advance
Still in new impudence, new ignorance.

4

Success let others teach; learn thou, from me,
Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.
Let Virtuosos in five years be writ;

Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit;

And when false flowers of rhetoric thou wouldst cull,
Trust nature, do not labour to be dull.

Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep,
Thy tragic muse gives smiles; thy comic, sleep.
With whate'er gall thou sett'st thyself to write,
Thy inoffensive satires never bite.

In thy felonious heart though venom lies,

It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.

(1) Deviates-Notice the peculiarly happy use of this word.

(2) Prevail upon, &c.-i. e. get the victory over and extinguish-an exceedingly witty expression.

(3) Goodly fabric-in allusion to the clumsy and obese person of Shadwell, who was a man of grossly intemperate habits.

(4) Thus continued he-this was after the inauguration, which is humorously but coarsely described by Dryden.

(5) Virtuosos-in allusion to a play of Shadwell's.

Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen Iambics,' but mild Anagram.

Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in Acrostic land;
There thou mayst wings display, and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
Or, if thou wouldst thy different talents suit,
Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute."

THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD PARSON.3
(ABRIDGED.)

A PARISH priest was of the pilgrim train;
An awful, reverend, and religious man.
eyes diffused a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face.

His

Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor
(As God had clothed his own ambassador);
For such on earth his blest Redeemer bore.
Of sixty years he seemed; and well might last
To sixty more, but that he lived too fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense;
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promised him sincere :
Nothing reserved or sullen was to see,
But sweet regards and pleasing sanctity;
Mild was his accent, and his action free,
With eloquence innate his tongue was armed,
Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher charmed.

(1) Iambics-Satirical writings were generally composed in iambic verse. (2) Anagram, &c.-This and the next five lines allude to the fantastic modes of verse-writing in which the small wits of the day indulged.

(3) This is a sort of translation, as Dryden himself calls it, of Chaucer's "Character of a Good Parson" (for which see p. 241), but it is so different in many respects from the original, that it is more correctly a new building upon the old foundation. It will be useful and interesting to the reader to compare them together.

1 As God had-as if God had himself.

For, letting down the golden chain' from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky.
He bore his great commission in his look;

But sweetly tempered awe, and softened all he spoke.
He preached the joys of Heaven and pains of hell,
And warned the sinner with becoming zeal;
But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.

away;

He taught the gospel rather than the law,
And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw:
For fear but freezes minds; but love, like heat,
Exhales the soul sublime to seek her native seat.
To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard;
Wrapped in his crimes, against the storm prepared;
But when the milder beams of mercy play,
He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak
2
Lightning and thunder (Heaven's artillery)
As harbingers before the Almighty fly;
Those but proclaim his style, and disappear;
The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there!
The tithes his parish freely paid, he took,
But never sued, or cursed with bell and book:
With patience bearing wrong, but offering none,
Since every man is free to lose his own.
The country churls, according to their kind
(Who grudge their dues, and love to be behind),
The less he sought his offerings, pinched the more ;*
And praised a priest contented to be poor.

Yet of his little he had some to spare,

To feed the famished and to clothe the bare:
For mortified he was to that degree,

A poorer than himself he would not see.

True priests," he said, "and preachers of the word,
Were only stewards of their Sovereign Lord;
Nothing was theirs, but all the public store;
Entrusted riches, to relieve the poor;

(1) The golden chain, &c.-There is nothing of the kind in Chaucer. The idea is derived from the golden chain which is represented by Homer as attached to the foot of Jupiter's throne, and reaching to earth-a beautiful emblem of providential care.

(2) Melts, &c.-This idea seems to be derived from Æsop's fable of "The Sun and the Wind."

(3) Cursed, &c.-In allusion to an awful ceremony of the Romish Church, in which curses were chaunted from a book, and a bell tolled at intervals.

(4) Pinched the more-i. e. denied themselves to pay his dues.

« ForrigeFortsæt »