So, when the weary sun his place resigns,
He leaves his light, and by reflection shines.
Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws
Exclude soft mercy from a private cause,
In your tribunal most herself does please;
There only smiles because she lives at ease;
And, like young David, finds her strength the
When disencumbered from those arms she wore.
Heaven would your royal master should exceed 55
Most in that virtue, which we most did need;
And his mild father (who too late did find
All mercy vain but what with power was joined)
His fatal goodness left to fitter times,
Not to increase, but to absolve our crimes :
But when the heir of this vast treasure knew
How large a legacy was left to you,
(Too great for any subject to retain)
He wisely tied it to the crown again;
Yet, passing through your hands it gathers more, 65 As streams, through mines, bear tincture of their
While emp'ric politicians use deceit,
Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat;
You boldly show that skill which they pretend,
And work by means as noble as your end;
Which should you veil, we might unwind the
clue,
As men do nature, till we came to you.
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 be-
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 their subjects' heart,
Who love that praise in which themselves have
part.
By you he fits those subjects to obey,
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 you the favourite of his last sad times,
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,
E'en then took care to lay you softly by,
And wrapped 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,
When, springing forth from Jove's new-closing
wound,
She struck the warlike spear into the ground;
Which sprouting leaves did suddenly inclose,
And peaceful olives shaded as they rose.
How strangely active are the arts of peace, Whose restless motions less than war's do cease! Peace is not freed from labour, but from noise; And war more force, but not more pains employs. Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, That, like the earth, it leaves our sense behind, 110 While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere, That rapid motion does but rest appear.
For, as in nature's swiftness, with the throng
Of flying orbs while ours is borne along,
All seems at rest to the deluded eye,
Moved by the soul of the same harmony;
So, carried on by your unwearied care,
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.
Let envy, then, those crimes within you see,
From which the happy never must be free;
(Envy, that does with misery reside,
The joy and the revenge of ruined pride.)
Think it not hard, if, at so cheap a rate,
You can secure the constancy of fate,
Whose kindness sent what does their malice
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; 140 And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play, Whose rise not hinders, but makes short our way.
* [These lines strongly resemble a passage in Denham's Cooper's Hill:
Windsor the next above the valley swells
Into my eye, and doth itself present
With such an easy and unforced ascent
Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know,
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below;
And, like Ŏlympus' 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,
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.
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.
THIS Satire was, as the title informs us, written in 1662: probably towards the latter end of the year, when Charles, having quarrelled with De Witt, then at the head of the public affairs of Holland, was endeavouring to patch up an union with France, to which kingdom he was naturally partial, against the States, whom he hated, both as a republic, and an association of vulgar merchants. This impolitic alliance did not then take place, notwithstanding the sale of Dunkirk (conquered by the arms of Cromwell) to France, for £400,000. On the contrary, in 1665 France armed in defence of Holland. But this was contrary to the expectations and wishes of Charles; and accordingly Dryden, in 1662, alludes to the union of the two crowns against the States as a probable
The verses are adapted to the comprehension of the vulgar, whom they were intended to inflame. Bold invective, and coarse raillery, supply the place of the wit and argument with which Dryden, when the time fitted, knew so well how to arm his satire.
The verses, such as they are, appeared to the author well qualified for the purpose intended; for when, in 1672, his tragedy of "Amboyna" was brought forward to exasperate the nation against Holland, the following verses were almost literally woven into the Prologue and Epilogue of that piece. (See vol. v. pp. 10, 92.) Nevertheless, as forming a link in our author's poetical progress, the present Editor has imitated his predecessors in reprinting them among his satires and political pieces. [The poem is almost certainly spurious, and was first printed in 1704. See Amboyna, vol. v. p. 10.—ED.]
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