And that his birth should be more singular,

At noon of day was seen a silver star,

Bright as the wise men's torch, which guided them

To God's sweet babe, when born at Bethlehem.'

Lilly the astrologer declared the star to be the planet Venus; and he was doubtless right. Derrick mentions that Venus was similarly seen by day in 1757. It was lately so seen in May 1868.

1. 292. Time's whiter series. 'White' used to mean 'fortunate,' is a Latinism. The line probably is an imitation of Silius Italicus (xv. 53): 'Sed current albusque dies horaeque serenae.'

Herrick uses 'white' in this sense frequently in the Hesperides; as, 'Adversity trusts none, but only such

and again,

Whom whitest Fortune dandled has too much.'

'They were discreetly made with white success.'

1. 310. The allusion to France's fear of an exile is either to the ready acquiescence of France in Charles's departure from Paris to take up his residence at Cologne in 1656, or more probably perhaps to the dislike more recently shown by Cardinal Mazarin to Charles's visit to Fuentarabia in the autumn of 1659, when the treaty of the Pyrenees was being negotiated. 1. 317. your life and blest example wins. The verb is singular, following the singular number of the noun immediately before it, a common construction of the time. In Threnodia Augustalis, 189, Dryden wrote

'Death and despair was in their looks.'

Scott, following Derrick, has changed wins, and sins of the preceding line, which makes the rhyme, into win and sin; an unnecessary and improper change. See also The Hind and the Panther, Part ii. 92,

'Obliged to laws which Prince and Senate gives.'

Annus Mirabilis.

Dedication.

P. 23, 1. 6. so is it, unnecessarily changed by most editors, including Scott,

into so it is.

P. 24, 1. 18. so is, changed by the editors unnecessarily into so it is.

Account of the Poem.

P. 25, 1. 10. The play which Dryden asked Sir R. Howard to read for him was probably The Maiden Queen, which was brought out on the stage early in 1667, on the re-opening of the theatres after the Plague and Fire.

The Maiden Queen was composed during the period of closed theatres, from the middle of 1665 to the end of 1666, and during the greater part of this period Dryden was living at Charlton in Wiltshire, whence this letter is dated, the seat of the Earl of Berkshire, his father-in-law, and father of Sir R. Howard.

1. 31. noblesse, changed into nobles by all modern editors, including Scott. Noblesse was in common use in Dryden's time; it occurs in his Essay of Dramatic Poesy: But if you mean the mixed audience of the populace and the noblesse,' &c.

P. 27, 1. 2. female rhymes; such rhymes as of words ending with e, as noble, chronicle, conventicle, the e being pronounced. In the note on Astræa Redux, 106, where chronicles rhymes with ease, a few other instances of singular rhyming by Dryden of words ending in cle are given, one as late as his translation of the Aeneid, published in 1697. See also, for conventicle rhyming with stickle, the note on Poem on Oliver Cromwell, stanza 11.

1. 7. the Alaric, the Pucelle; two French poems, the first by Scudery on the Conquest of Rome by Alaric, and the second by Chapelain on Joan of Arc. 1. 8. latter, changed unnecessarily by Scott and other editors to later. 1. 10. Dryden makes a mistake in saying that Chapman's translation of Homer is in Alexandrines of six feet; it is in lines of seven feet.

1. 20. prevail myself of it. This French idiom (se prévaloir de) has been lost in all modern editions, avail being substituted for prevail. The same change has been made by the editors, including Scott, in Absalom and Achitophel, line 461, where Dryden wrote

'Prevail yourself of what occasion gives.'

arts, incorrectly changed to art in Scott's and other editions.
1. 28. Descriptas servare, &c. Horace, Ars Poetica, 87.

P. 28, 1. 11. Omnia sponte sua reddit justissima tellus, a misquotation by Dryden, who probably confused in his memory two passages of Virgil: Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus,'

and

Ovid also says,

'Omnis feret omnia tellus,'

'Per se dabat omnia tellus.'

Georg. iv. 460, Ecl. iv. 391.

Metam. i. 1021.

1. 18. is it, changed by Scott and other edito s unnecessarily to it is. 1. 32. This comparison of imagination with a spaniel is again used by Dryden in his Dedication to the Earl of Orrery of the Rival Ladies (1664): Imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless, that, like an highranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment.' P. 29, 1. 5. paronomasia, a pun; called in humbler language by Dryden and his contemporaries, by Pope also, a clench or clinch.

1. 12. driving has been changed by the editors, including Scott, into deriving.

P. 30, 1. 8. We see the objects he represents us within their native figures. The editors, not understanding represents us, which means of course represents to us, have changed Dryden's words to presents us with in their native figures. 1. 14. Virgil, Aen. vi. 726.

1. 18. Aen. i. 990.

1. 24. The editors have changed The Battle of Bulls to The Battle of the Bulls.

1. 30. Materiam superabat opus. Ovid, Metam. ii. 4.

P. 31, 1. 3. Horace, Ars Poetica, 47.

1. 24. Ars Poetica, 52.

P. 32, 1. 6. Compare with this passage another in Dryden's Preface to Tyrannic Love: If with much pains and some success I have drawn a deformed piece, there is as much of art and as near an imitation of nature in a lazar as in a Venus.'

'Serpit humi

Virgil, Aen. vi. 848.
Horace, Ars Poetica, 28:

tutus nimium timidusque procellae.' 1. 23. Nunc non, &c. Horace, Ars Poetica, 19.

P. 33, 1. 1. Verses to Her Royal Highness the Duchess. This is the Duchess of York, Anne Hyde, daughter of Lord Chancellor Clarendon. These verses to her were now for the first time printed; they had doubtless, before, according to the custom of the time, been circulated in manuscript, and Dryden had probably received a handsome present from the Duke in return for his complimentary poem. War had been declared by England against the Dutch in February, 1665. The Duke of York, who was Lord High Admiral, took the command of the fleet, and went to sea in the beginning of May. On the 3rd of June he engaged with the Dutch fleet off the coast of Suffolk, near Lowestoft, and obtained a decided victory, showing great bravery in the battle. The Duke of York was not permitted to go to sea again after this victory: the command of the fleet was then given to the Earl of Sandwich. In August the Duke was sent by the King into Yorkshire, there being fears of a rising in the north. His valour at sea and his victory had made him very popular, and he and the Duchess were received throughout the journey with great honours.

1. 21. sea rhymes with obey, and in 1. 12 of p. 34 with way. So in Annus Mirabilis, stanza 9, sea rhymes with lay, and in stanza 31 with prey. This pronunciation of sea is constant through Dryden's works. Key (quay) and sea both rhyme with weigh in one of Dryden's latest poems, Cymon and Iphigenia, 612:

'The crew with merry shouts their anchor weigh,

Then ply their oars, and brush the buxom sea,

While troops of gathered Rhodians crowd the key.'.

Lea is printed lay and rhymes with way in the original edition of The Flower and the Leaf, 260:

'A tuft of daisies on a flowery lea

They saw, and thitherward they bent their way.'

The verb flay is spelt flea in Dryden and Lee's Oedipus, Act iv. Sc. I.

1. 34. Exodus xvii. 11-13: 'And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. and his people with the edge of the sword.' his illustrations, refers again to this fight of Rediviva, 296:

And Joshua discomfited Amalek
Dryden, who is wont to repeat
Joshua and Amalek in Britannia

'Nor Amalek can rout the chosen bands,

While Hur and Aaron hold up Moses' hands.'

1. 35. The battle of June 3 was off the coast of Suffolk, near Lowestoft, and the guns were heard in London. Dryden refers to this fact also in the opening of his Essay of Dramatic Poesy. 'The noise of the cannon from both navies reached all ears about the city, so that, all men being alarmed with it and in a dreadful suspense of the event which they knew was then deciding, every one went following the sound as his fancy led him.' A letter from Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, to the Lord Mayor, in the Public Record Office, giving the official news of the victory, mentions the King having been in expectation ever since the guns were heard.'

P. 34, 1. 21. Dryden repeats this simile of the phoenix in the Threnodia Augustalis, 364:

As when the new-born phoenix takes his way
His rich paternal regions to survey,

Of airy choristers a numerous train
Attends his wondrous progress o'er the plain.'

1. 26. Compare with this line Pope's

And all the aerial audience clap their wings.'

1. 29. I wrong the public to detain you longer. of Horace :

Pastorals, i. 16. Probably in imitation

In publica commoda peccem

Si longo sermone morer tua tempora, Caesar.'

1. 34. nec sunt parum multi, &c. Plin. Epist. vii. 28.

Epist. ii. I. 2.

R

The Poem.

[The references hereafter for the poem are to the stanzas.]

Stanza 3, line 2. Dryden's explanation of the formation of precious minerals that they are dew condensed and hardened by the sun or by subterranean fires, is in accordance with the state of knowledge at the time. The idea occurs again in stanza 139, and in his King Arthur (Act v.), where Merlin, prophesying the greatness of England, says:

'Behold what rolling ages shall produce,

The wealth, the loves, the glories of our Isle,
Which yet, like golden ore, unripe in beds,
Expect the warm indulgency of heaven

To call them forth to light.'

And see below in note on stanza 4, line 1, Oldham's 'eastern quarries hardened pearly dew.'

3. the Idumæan balm did sweat is an imitation of Virgil :

'Odorato sudantia ligno Balsama.' Georg. ii. 1181. Dryden introduces the idea of sweating in translating Juvenal, where it is not in the original:

'His emitur quicquid graciles huc mittitis Indi.'

Translated by Dryden diffusely,

Juvenal, Sat. vi. 466.

For him the rich Arabia sweats her gum,

And precious oils from distant Indies come.'

4. I. their year. So printed in the first edition; in the second edition of 1688, the year, which is an evident corruption, but followed by Scott. Oldham has copied from this passage in his David's Lamentation for the Death of Saul and Jonathan :

For you the blest Arabia's spices grew,

And eastern quarries hardened pearly dew;
The sun himself turned labourer for you.'

2. wexing. The spelling wex is retained; but the word is printed waxing in the second edition of 1688. The spelling wex occurs in Dryden's latest poems, as Palamon and Arcite, Bk. ii. 649, and Secular Masque, 30.

5. 4. our second Punic war. The first war with the Dutch in the time of the Commonwealth had been ended advantageously for England by Cromwell in 1654; this second Punic war' ended with humiliating disasters for England, and by no means as the second Punic war ended for Rome.

8. 1. Louis XIV, who claimed the Spanish Netherlands in right of his wife (elder sister of the infant Charles II of Spain, by a previous marriage of their common father Philip IV, who had died in 1665), abstained at present from pressing his claim, and made delusive proposals to Spain to prevent her entering into engagements with England. He postponed as long as