possible declaring himself for Holland in the war with England. France at last declared war against England, January 1666.

13. 3. limbec, spelt limbeck, an abbreviation of alembic, a still. It occurs again in stanza 116.

I feel my strength each day and hour consume
Like lilies wasting in a limbec's heat.'

Milton speaks of Proteus

Maiden Queen, Act i. Sc. 3.

'drained through a limbec to his native form.'

Par. Lost, iii. 605.

14. 2. armado, the Spanish word for army,' now always written armada; the same with junto, a committee, now written junta in English. 16. 2. Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies. Todd compares this line with one in Sir P. Sidney's Astrophel and Stella :

'Phoebus drew wide the curtains of the skies.'

4. tapers. This word is often used by Dryden similarly, and was more dignified than it now seems. Compare Religio Laici 18, where the moon and stars are called nightly tapers.'

The tapers of the gods,

The sun and moon, run down like waxen globes.'

Oedipus, Act ii.

The two comets referred to had been seen in the winter of 1664-65, and in the spring of 1665. See Pepys' Diary, Dec. 17, 22, 1664, and April 6, 1665, and the Index to Mrs. Green's Calendar of State Papers, 1664-65; also the Appendix to Sherborne's Translation of Manilius.

18. On the subject of the star which had appeared on the birthday of Charles II, see note on line 288 of Astræa Redux. A round of greater years begun' is an imitation of Virgil's

'Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.'

Eclog. iv.

Compare the lines at the end of Absalom and Achitophel:
Henceforth a series of new time began,

The mighty years in long procession ran.'

19. 2. This refers to the battle and victory off the coast of Suffolk, June 3, 1665, celebrated in the lines addressed to the Duchess of York. War had been declared by England against the Dutch in February.

20. 4. Sir John Lawson, who had gained naval distinction in the Dutch war of the Commonwealth, was then Admiral of the Duke of York's division of the fleet in the battle of June 2, 1665; he received a shot in the knee, and died a few days after.

21. 3. Thus, as an offering, &c. This refers to Protesilaus, the first Greek that landed on the Trojan shore, and the first slain.

22, and Dryden's note. The Admiral of Holland was Opdam, who was

blown up with his flag ship while engaged in close fight with the Duke of York in the Royal Charles.'

23. Compare in The Maiden Queen, Act iii. Sc. I,

• When it thunders,

Men reverently quit the open air

Because the angry gods are then abroad.'

24. 3. The war had been preceded by depredations of De Ruyter on British ships and subjects on the coasts of Guinea, in retaliation for proceedings of Sir Robert Holmes against the Dutch near Cape Verde, and at Goree early in 1664.

30. Our foes we vanquished by our valour left, an obscure and bad line: the meaning is, 'We left our foes vanquished by our valour.'

'The attempt at Berghen,' described in stanzas 24-30, was altogether unfortunate. The rich Dutch merchant fleets from Smyrna and the East Indies had taken shelter in that neutral Norse harbour. The King of Denmark agreed, on condition of receiving half the profits, to connive at the capture of the fleets by the English. The Earl of Sandwich, who was now Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York having remained on shore, was so eager for the great prize that he did not wait until the Governor of Bergen had received instructions from the King; and when the attack was made, August 3, 1665, the Danish garrison assisted the Dutch. The attempt was a failure; one English ship was lost. The Dutch fleet under De Witt, which after the engagement convoyed the merchantmen from Bergen, was encountered by a storm, and then Sandwich captured eight men-of-war and some of the richly-laden merchant vessels.

35. 1. Dryden, in his own note, refers to Petronius. The three stanzas preceding this are also in imitation of Petronius in the same chapter of his Satyricon (c. 115): Hunc forsitan, proclamo, in aliqua parte terrarum secura expectat uxor; forsitan ignarus tempestatis filius; aut patrem utique reli quit aliquem, cui proficiscens osculum dedit. Haec sunt consilia mortalium, haec vota magnarum cogitationum. . . . Ite nunc, mortales, et magnis cogitationibus pectora implete.' In Dryden's short quotation from Petronius, in the note, he substitutes fit for est, which is the right word.

37. 1. The Bishop of Munster, a German sovereign prince, had, on the breaking out of the Dutch war, offered to invade Holland with twenty thousand men, in consideration of a subsidy from England, and his offer was accepted and a treaty made with him. He invaded Holland, but after France joined the Dutch in the war, he drew back in fear of France, and secretly made a separate treaty of peace with Holland in April 1666. Dryden, in his own note on the German faith,' says that Tacitus saith of them, "Nullos mortalium armis aut fide ante Germanos esse.' But this was said, according to Tacitus, by two Germans, Verritus and Malorix, chiefs of the Frisii, who went on an embassy to Nero. (Tacit. Ann. xiii. 54.)

39. 3. France declared war against England in January 1666.

42. 4. Denmark joined Holland and France in the war against England in February 1666.

43. 2. Charles, in the declaration of war against France, promised protection to all French and Dutch subjects remaining in England, or afterwards entering, who should behave dutifully and not correspond with the enemy; and he invited to come especially those of the reformed religion, whose interest he would always particularly adopt.' The French king made no like offer; three months were allowed the English to withdraw with their properties. The two last lines of the stanza refer to Solomon's judgment, in 1 Kings iii, between the two women claiming the child.

51. Dryden, in his own note, refers to Pliny's Panegyric addressed to Trajan, for the phrase future people.' The complete sentence is: Adventante congiarii die, observare principis egressum in publicum, insidere vias examina infantium futurusque populus solebat.' (c. 26.)

52. 1. riotous is pronounced as a dissyllable, ritous.

54. 1. Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle were now joint commanders-in-chief of the English fleet. In the last days of May, on information that the Dutch fleet was not ready for sea, and that a French squadron was near the Channel on its way from the Mediterranean to join the Dutch, an order was sent by the government to Prince Rupert to proceed at once from the Downs with twenty ships to meet the French. Albemarle proceeding eastwards at the same time with fifty-four vessels, the remainder of the fleet, was surprised on June 1, by finding the Dutch fleet, under De Ruyter, numbering more than eighty, at anchor off the North Foreland. He resolved at once to fight. The English government had been altogether misinformed. The French fleet had not yet passed the Straits of Gibraltar. Prince Rupert was ordered back from St. Helen's on the 1st of June, the first day of the battle, and he joined Albemarle on the evening of June 3.

59. 1. high-raised decks. The Dutch vessels were high-built. Celadon, in the Maiden Queen, compares two sisters: Lord, who could love that walking steeple! Ha! give me my little fifth-rate, that lies so snug. She! hang her, a Dutch-built bottom: she's so tall, there's no boarding her.' (Act iv. Sc. 1.)

60. 1. build. Spelt built in Dryden's editions, and this spelling is preserved by Scott and some other editors.

63. 3. This refers to the awe inspired by the Roman senators in the minds of the invading Gauls, when they sacked Rome, B. C. 387. Livy and Florus describe the incident graphically. 'Adeo haud secus quam venerabundi intuebantur in aedium vestibulis sedentes viros, praeter ornatum habitumque humano augustiorem, majestate etiam quam vultus gravitasque oris prae se ferebat, simillimos Diis.' (Livy, v. 41.) 'Patentes passim domos adeunt; ubi sedentes in curialibus sellis praetextatos senes velut Deos geniosque

venerati, mox eosdem Roman. i. 13.)

...

pari vecordia mactant.

(Florus, Epit. Rer.

66. 3. show means 'seem,' ' appear.' A common use of the verb at the time, and in Dryden. See stanzas 121, 122, 126, 296.

67. 2. squander means simply 'disperse.' Compare Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 3, where Shylock says of Antonio's wealth, ‘I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad.'

3. Vice-Admiral Sir William Berkeley fought in the van desperately against superior numbers, and continued to fight after resistance of his ship was hopeless, refusing quarter. He was at last shot in the throat with a musket-ball, and then retired to his cabin, stretched himself on a table, and there expired. In the first edition the line was 'Berkeley alone, not making equal way.' This was changed in that of 1688 to what is retained in the text, who nearest danger lay.' The change must have been intentional: the original words were probably thought capable of being understood as reflecting on Berkeley. But otherwise the change is not an improvement, as it affects the comparison with Creusa, who was left behind in the flight of Aeneas from Troy.

6

72. On the morning of June 2, the second day of the battle, the Dutch were reinforced by an accession of sixteen men-of-war to their already greatly superior number.

78. 3. sheer, the old spelling of shear, meaning 'cut.' In the second edition of 1688, sheer was turned into steer, perhaps by a misprint, and steer has appeared in all subsequent editions. Sheer, a Dryden word, is clearly the right word here.

'And through the brackish waves their passage sheer.'

Spenser's Faery Queene, Bk. iii. c. 4. 83. 2, and Dryden's note. 'Ille autem is Dryden's reference in a note to the passage in Virgil (Aen. viii. 251) describing Cacus, the son of Vulcan, pursued and attacked by Hercules, whose cattle he had stolen, and vomiting forth smoke to conceal himself.

86. 4. flies at check. To 'fly at check' is to fly wildly at any bird, whether game or not. 'A young woman is a hawk upon her wings, and, if she be handsome, she is the more subject to go out at check.' (Sir John Suckling's Letters, p. 93; Works, ed. 1696.)

clips it, cuts it, flies fast.

91. 4. In the first edition this line stood,

'Remote from guns as sick men are from noise.'

It was changed in the edition of 1688 to what appears in the text, which seems an improvement.

94. 2. See I Chron. xiii. 7-10: 'And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab: and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart.

And when they came unto the threshingfloor of Chidon, Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark; for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark; and there he died before God.'

96. 4. Unknowing to give place. An imitation of the Latin 'cedere nescius.' (Hor. Od. i. 6. 5.) Compare And knows not to retire,' in stanza 152. 'I dared the death, unknowing how to yield.'

Palamon and Arcite, Bk. iii. 1. 309. The verb unknow is used in Dryden and Lee's Duke of Guise, as meaning ⚫ to be ignorant of.' 'Can I unknow it?' (Act v. Sc. I.)

99. 4, and Dryden's note. The two former victories on the 3rd of June were in 1653 and in 1665, both over the Dutch. The latter was the Duke of York's victory celebrated in Dryden's Verses to the Duchess, p. 33.

102. 1. Remnants of the night. Remnants was incorrectly changed by Broughton into remnant, which appears also in Scott's and other editions. Remnants occurs again in stanza 258: and compare remnants of precarious power' (Hind and Panther, i. 510), and 'remnants of long-suffering grace.' (Id. iii. 276.) The word remainders also occurs in Hind and Panther, iii. 602, and in the Dedication of Eleonora, where Dryden says, addressing the Earl of Abingdon, 'You may stand aside with the small remainders of the English nobility.'

104. I. Broughton, Derrick, and others, have changed here forced to stay into he forced to stay, which is clearly wrong.

109. 3. Compare Virgil's description of the fears of Aeneas:

'Et me, quem dudum non ulla injecta movebant

Tela, neque adverso glomerati ex agmine Graii

Nunc omnes terrent aurae, sonus excitat omnis.' Aen. ii. 726. 110. 3. martlet, a swift or swallow. Dryden, in a note on a line in The Hind and the Panther (Part iii. line 547),

'Some swifts, the giants of the swallow-kind,'

says that these giant swallows are otherwise called martlets.

115. 4. does is the word in the first edition: it was changed to doth in the edition of 1688.

118. 4. See Joshua x. 13: 'And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies.'

120. 2. speak thick, speak quick. Compare Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV, Act ii. Sc. 3:

And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant;

For those that could speak low and tardily

Would turn their own perfection to abuse,

To seem like him.'

123, and Dryden's note.

There is another passage in Virgil (Aen. v. 276)