II.

Though our best notes are treason to his fame, Joined with the loud applause of public voice; Since heaven, what praise we offer to his name, Hath rendered too authentic by its choice;

III.

Though in his praise no arts can liberal be, Since they, whose muses have the highest flown,

Add not to his immortal memory,

But do an act of friendship to their own,

IV.

Yet 'tis our duty, and our interest too,

Such monuments as we can build to raise ; Lest all the world prevent what we should do, And claim a title in him by their praise.

V.

How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
To draw a fame so truly circular? *
For in a round, what order can be shewed, †
Where all the parts so equal-perfect are?

this ceremony of consecration, the deceased emperor was enrolled among the Roman deities. ["Now 'tis time" perhaps refers to the interval (Sept. 3-Nov. 23) between Cromwell's death and burial.-ED.]

* [Mr. Christie quotes Massinger's Emperor of the East, iii. 2: "Sister, your wisdom is not circular," and of course the Horatian "teres atque rotundus." The passage he also quotes from Cicero, "apta et quasi rotunda constructio," is not quite parallel, as it only means "neatly rounded off;" and his further parallel from Dryden's Hind and Panther, "round eternity," is clearly wrong. Massinger has, besides the above, "a man so absolute and circular."-ED.]

[This curious rhyme is not uncommon in Dryden (cf. foreshew" and "you in Astræa Redux), the spelling being accommodated to it.-ED.]

VI.

His grandeur he derived from heaven alone;
For he was great, ere fortune made him so:
And wars, like mists that rise against the sun,
Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.

VII.

No borrowed bays his temples did adorn,
But to our crown he did fresh jewels bring;
Nor was his virtue poisoned soon as born,
With the too early thoughts of being king.

VIII.

Fortune, (that easy mistress of the young,
But to her ancient servants coy and hard,)
Him at that age her favourites ranked among,
When she her best-loved Pompey did discard.*

IX.

He, private, marked the faults of others' sway, And set as sea-marks for himself to shun; Not like rash monarchs, who their youth betray By acts their age too late would wish undone.

X.

And yet dominion was not his design;

We owe that blessing, not to him, but heaven, Which to fair acts unsought rewards did join; Rewards, that less to him, than us, were given.

* Cromwell was upwards of forty before he made any remarkable figure; and Pompey, when he had attained the same period of life, was deserted by the good-fortune which had accompanied his more early career. [The parallel is even more exact. Pompey began to decline and Cromwell to rise at forty-five.-ED.]

XI.

Our former chiefs, like sticklers* of the war, First sought to inflame the parties, then to poise:

The quarrel loved, but did the cause abhor;

And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.

* Essex, Manchester, Sir William Waller, and the earlier generals of the Parliament, were all of the Presbyterian party, who, though they had drawn the sword against the King, had no will to throw away the scabbard. They were disposed so to carry on the war, that, neither party being too much weakened, a sound and honourable peace might have been accomplished on equal terms. But the Independents flew at higher game; and, as the more violent party usually prevail during times of civil discord, they attained their object. Cromwell openly accused the Earl of Manchester of having refused to put an end to the war after the last battle at Newbury, when a single charge upon the King's rear might have dissipated his army for ever. "I offered," he

averred, "to perform the work with my own brigade of horse; let Manchester and the rest look on, if they thought fit: but he obstinately refused to permit the attempt, alleging that if the King's army was beaten, he would find another; but if that of the Parliament was overthrown, there would be an end of their cause, and they would be all punished as traitors." This suspicion of the compromising temper of the Presbyterian leaders led to the famous self-denying ordinance, by which all members of both Houses were declared incapable of holding a military command. By this new model, all the power of the army was thrown, nominally, into the hands of Fairfax, but, really and effectually, into that of Cromwell, who was formally excepted from the operation of the Act, and of the Independents; men determined to push the war to extremity, and who at length triumphed over both King and Parliament. [The use of "stickle" is very exact, for sticklers are seconds who first arrange a fight, and then, if they can, part the combatants. Dryden has "stickle" in The Assignation (vol. iv. p. 384.)-ED.]

XII.

War, our consumption, was their gainful trade;
We inward bled, whilst they prolonged our
pain;

He fought to end our fighting, and essayed
To stanch the blood, by breathing of the
vein.*

* This passage, which seems to imply nothing further than that Cromwell conducted the war so as to push it to a conclusion, was afterwards invidiously interpreted by Dryden's enemies, as containing an explicit approbation of the execution of Charles I.

Thus, in the panegyric quoted in the introductory remarks to this poem—

Such wonders have thy powerful raptures shewn,
Pythagoras' transmigration thou 'st outdone;
His souls of heroes and great chiefs expired,
Down into birds and noble beasts retired:
But thou to savages and monsters dire,
Canst infuse sparks even of celestial fire;
Make treason glory, murderers heroes live,
And even to regicides canst godhead give.
Thus in thy songs the yet warm bloody dart,
Fresh reeking in a martyred monarch's heart,
Burnished by verse, and polished by thy lines,
The rubies in imperial crowns outshines;
Whilst in applause to that sad day's success,
So black a theme in so divine a dress,

Thy soaring flights Prometheus' thefts excel,

Whilst thou steal'st fire from heaven to enlighten hell.

The same accusation is urged in another libel, called "The Laureat

Nay, had our Charles, by Heaven's severe decree,

Been found, and murdered in the royal tree,

Even thou hadst praised the fact. His father slain,

Thou call'dst but gently breathing of a vein.

Impious and villainous, to bless the blow

That laid at once three lofty nations low,

And gave the royal cause a fatal overthrow!

Another witling, to add to the heinousness of this expression, assures us that Dryden had at first declared for the King, then for the Parliament, and, finally, for Cromwell

I for the Royal Martyr first declared,

But, ere his head was off, I was prepared

XIII.

Swift and resistless through the land he past,
Like that bold Greek, who did the East sub-

due;

And made to battles such heroic haste,

As if on wings of victory he flew.

XIV.

He fought, secure of fortune as of fame,

Till by new maps the island might be shewn, Of conquests, which he strewed where'er he came, Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown.

To own the Rump, and for that cause did rhime;
But, those kicked out, next moment turned to him
Who routed them: called him my sovereign,
And praised his opening of the kingly vein.

*

Dialogue in Bedlam between Oliver's Porter, Fidler, and Poet.

These are examples of the inveteracy, with which Dryden's enemies were ready to wrest his expressions from the common interpretation into one more strong and unwarrantable. Dryden, sufficiently embarrassed by the praises he had bestowed on the Usurper, a charge from which he could not vindicate himself, took no notice of the uncandid lengths to which it was carried. [A very simple observation is sufficient to show that Dryden could not have referred to the execution of the King. That event happened four years after Cromwell had ceased to be in any comparison with the sticklers of the war.-ED.]

Even

*Notwithstanding the inconstancy of Victory during the civil war, she never deserted the banner of Cromwell. in undecided conflicts, the brigade, or wing, with which he fought, had always the superiority. The Royalists never once saw him fly before them, during all the pitched battles in which he was engaged in England, Scotland, and Ireland. [Christie quotes "thick of" from Palamon and Arcite, 1. 230. But it is permissible to doubt whether "of" here has anything to do with "thick." I should take "of" with 66 maps," and construe" thick as an adverb with "strewed." -ED.]