Among My Books, First Series | Page 8

whole, better than
those in which Dryden squeezed out melodious tears. Waller, who had
also made himself conspicuous as a volunteer Antony to the country
squire turned Caesar,
("With ermine clad and purple, let him hold A royal sceptre made of
Spanish gold,")
was more servile than Dryden in hailing the return of ex officio Majesty.
He bewails to Charles, in snuffling heroics,
"Our sorrow and our crime To have accepted life so long a time,
Without you here."
A weak man, put to the test by rough and angry times, as Waller was,
may be pitied, but meanness is nothing but contemptible under any
circumstances. If it be true that "every conqueror creates a Muse,"
Cromwell was unfortunate. Even Milton's sonnet, though dignified, is
reserved if not distrustful. Marvell's "Horatian Ode," the most truly
classic in our language, is worthy of its theme. The same poet's Elegy,
in parts noble, and everywhere humanly tender, is worth more than all
Carlyle's biography as a witness to the gentler qualities of the hero, and
of the deep affection that stalwart nature could inspire in hearts of truly
masculine temper. As it is little known, a few verses of it may be
quoted to show the difference between grief that thinks of its object and
grief that thinks of its rhymes:--
"Valor, religion, friendship, prudence died At once with him, and all
that's good beside, And we, death's refuse, nature's dregs, confined To
loathsome life, alas! are left behind. Where we (so once we used) shall
now no more, To fetch day, press about his chamber-door, No more
shall hear that powerful language charm, Whose force oft spared the
labor of his arm, No more shall follow where he spent the days In war
or counsel, or in prayer and praise. * * * * * I saw him dead; a leaden
slumber lies, And mortal sleep, over those wakeful eyes; Those gentle
rays under the lids were fled, Which through his looks that piercing
sweetness shed; That port, which so majestic was and strong, Loose
and deprived of vigor stretched along, All withered, all discolored, pale,
and wan, How much another thing! no more That Man! O human glory!
vain! O death! O wings! O worthless world! O transitory things! Yet
dwelt that greatness in his shape decayed That still, though dead,
greater than Death he laid, And, in his altered face, you something

feign That threatens Death he yet will live again."
Such verses might not satisfy Lindley Murray, but they are of that
higher mood which satisfies the heart. These couplets, too, have an
energy worthy of Milton's friend:--
"When up the armëd mountains of Dunbar He marched, and through
deep Severn, ending war."
"Thee, many ages hence, in martial verse Shall the English soldier, ere
he charge, rehearse."
On the whole, one is glad that Dryden's panegyric on the Protector was
so poor. It was purely official verse-making. Had there been any feeling
in it, there had been baseness in his address to Charles. As it is, we may
fairly assume that he was so far sincere in both cases as to be thankful
for a chance to exercise himself in rhyme, without much caring whether
upon a funeral or a restoration. He might naturally enough expect that
poetry would have a better chance under Charles than under Cromwell,
or any successor with Commonwealth principles. Cromwell had more
serious matters to think about than verses, while Charles might at least
care as much about them as it was in his base good-nature to care about
anything but loose women and spaniels. Dryden's sound sense,
afterwards so conspicuous, shows itself even in these pieces, when we
can get at it through the tangled thicket of tropical phrase. But the
authentic and unmistakable Dryden first manifests himself in some
verses addressed to his friend Dr. Charlton in 1663. We have first his
common sense which has almost the point of wit, yet with a tang of
prose:--
"The longest tyranny that ever swayed Was that wherein our ancestors
betrayed Their freeborn reason to the Stagyrite, And made his torch
their universal light. _So truth, while only one supplied the state, Grew
scarce and dear and yet sophisticate. Still it was bought, like emp'ric
wares or charms, Hard words sealed up with Aristotle's arms_."
Then we have his graceful sweetness of fancy, where he speaks of the
inhabitants of the New World:--
"Guiltless men who danced away their time, Fresh as their groves and
happy as their clime."
And, finally, there is a hint of imagination where "mighty visions of the
Danish race" watch round Charles sheltered in Stonehenge after the
battle of Worcester. These passages might have been written by the

Dryden whom we learn to know fifteen years later. They have