comparing the motion of a ship to that of a wounded snake, which Dryden might also have referred to, and which was doubtless in his mind. 'Nequidquam longos fugiens dat corpore tortus; Parte ferox, ardensque oculis, et sibila colla 124. 3. passion. The two early editions have passion, which is very intelligible. Broughton printed passions, which has been copied by subsequent editors, making double a verb instead of an adjective. 129. 2. let in to: changed by Broughton to let into, which is followed by other editors, including Scott, and which is certainly a deterioration. Dryden doubtless had in his mind the words in Virgil's comparison of the bursting open of the cave of Cacus by Hercules with the opening to view of the shades below: 132. 2. flix, the fur or soft hair of a hare or other animal. Dyer, in The Fleece (Bk. i.), speaks of sheep with flix like deer, and not woolly. 'No locks Cormandel's nor Malacca's tribe Adorn, but sleek of flix and brown like deer.' Browning uses the word of a lady's hair, 'flix and flax.' These two words have probably the same origin. Mr. Halliwell mentions flix as a Kentish provincialism in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words. 6 137. 1. See St. Mark iii. II, 12: And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known.' 139. Compare stanza 3 and the note on the belief then in vogue of the origin of precious metals. 141. 3. This and the following line have been spoilt by editors by changing And at the beginning of the fourth line into A. The change makes nonsense of the passage; it first appeared in Broughton's edition, and was copied by succeeding editors, including Scott. 143. imps. To imp a wing is properly, and technically in falconry, to repair it by grafting new pieces on broken feathers. Shakespeare says metaphorically in Richard II, Act ii. Sc. 1, Imp out our drooping country's broken wing.' Milton, in his Sonnet to Fairfax, has imp their serpent-wings.' Elsewhere Imped with wings' he says of young bees, in his Translation of the Fourth Georgic; and in the play of Oedipus, Act iv. Sc. I: With all the wings with which revenge Could imp my flight.' 144. 1, and Dryden's note. Dryden, in his note, gives only the words 'fervet opus' from Virgil's description of the labours of the bees, part of which he closely imitates. 'Pars intra septa domorum Narcissi lacrymam et lentum de cortice gluten Georg. iv. 159. 145. 1. foundation, the word in the first edition: foundations in edition of 1688 and subsequent editions. 146. I. sides printed in the two early editions. I have altered it to side, to rhyme with guide, but sides may still be the right word. 147. 4. shake. shakes is printed in both the early editions, but the grammar requires shake, to which waves is nominative. 148. 1. marling, a small line smeared with tar, used for winding round ropes and cables to prevent their being fretted by the blocks. 2. sear-cloth is here a verb, meaning to cover with sear-cloth, cere-cloth, or cloth prepared with wax. Sir Thomas Browne, in his Hydrotaphia, speaks of a dead body' sound and handsomely cereclothed, that after seventyeight years was found uncorrupted.' See Richardson's Dictionary, Sear-cloth and Cere-cloth. 151. The old ship the 'London,' one of the many of the Commonwealth, had been destroyed by fire, and the city of London now presented the king with a new ship, called The Loyal London.' This second London' was burnt before the end of the war, when the Dutch surprised Chatham, in 1667. 157. Irish kern. Irish peasant or soldier. Compare Dryden's Dedication of Palamon and Arcite to the Duchess of Ormond, where he speaks of the reverence of the Irish for her husband's family: Awed by that house accustomed to command, The sturdy kerns in due subjection stand, Nor bear the reins in any foreign hand.' The word occurs in Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 2, 'kerns and gallowglasses,' and again, 2 Henry VI, Act iv. Sc. 9, 'A puissant and a mighty power Of gallowglasses and stout kerns.' Kerns are light-armed soldiers, having only darts and daggers, or knives; the gallowglasses had helmet, coat of mail, long sword and axe. 4. fin-like oars. The same idea is in Denham's Cooper's Hill, oarfinned galleys;' and Herrick has 'finny oar' in the Hesperides. 158. Saturn, driven from his throne by his son Jupiter, is said to have fled to Italy, and to have been welcomed there by Janus, king of Latium, and becoming a partner in Janus's throne, it was further fabled that he civilised the Italians, who under his reign enjoyed a golden age. 4. Derrick unjustifiably made a change in this line, in ignorance of the pronunciation of commerce with the accent on the last syllable, and printed the line, 'Where coin and commerce first he did invent.' Derrick was followed by other editors, including Scott. It is strange that the editors did not attend to the accentuation of commerce in stanza 163, where it rhymes with universe, and where there was no possibility of changing the line. Commerce is invariably so pronounced in Dryden's works, and it was the pronunciation of his time as of Shakespeare's: 'Peaceful commerce from dividable shores.' Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. • To join in marriage and commerce Hudibras, Part iii. cant. 2, 1. 1383. 160. 3. out of Heaven's high way. extra anni solisque vias.' It is a favourite idea with Dryden. See the Threnodia Augustalis, line 353, Out of the solar walk and Heaven's high way.' Again, in Britannia Rediviva, 1306, 'Beyond the sunny walks and circling year.' 165. Dryden was an early member of the Royal Society, founded immediately after the Restoration: he was elected November 19, 1662. 168. 1. After the engagement of the first three days of June, which ended without decisive result, the Dutch fleet was ready and again off the English coast, a fortnight before the English had completed their repairs and preparations. 171. I. new is the word in the first edition; now in that of 1688, which has been generally followed. Now is no improvement, and was very likely a misprint. 172. 1. Old expert Allen. Sir Thomas Allen had, at the beginning of the war, attacked in the Bay of Cadiz a large Dutch merchant squadron homeward bound from Smyrna under convoy, about forty vessels altogether, while he had only seven ships; and he had routed them and made rich prizes. Sir Thomas Allen was Vice-Admiral of the White in the fleet. 173. 1. Holmes, the Achates, &c. Sir Robert Holmes had had a fight with the Dutch off the coast of Africa, before the war began. This may be why he is called Achates. generals' is here printed instead of general's, the usual reading, as there were two generals, Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle. Holmes was Rear-Admiral of the White. 3. Cato the Censor, when he was urging the Romans, in the year before his death, to enter on the third Punic war, having lately returned from an embassy to Carthage, drew out from under his robe, one day in the senate, some Carthaginian figs, saying that they had been gathered only three days before in Carthage, so near was the enemy to Rome. Compare, in Dryden's Prologue to Amboyna, written in 1673, during the second Dutch war: As Cato did his Afric fruits display, So we before your eyes their Indies lay.' 174. 1. Sir Edmund Spragge had been knighted by Charles for his bravery in the action off Lowestoft of June 3, 1665, at the beginning of the war. He was now under Sir Jeremiah Smith, Vice-Admiral of the Blue. Spragge was killed in the next Dutch war in battle, August 11, 1672. 3. Sir John Harman was captain of the Henry' in the battle of the first four days of June. His ship was disabled, and he refused an offer of quarter. Then three fire-ships were successively sent against his ship. She was disengaged successively from two, each of which had set fire to her, and both fires were put out. The third fire-ship was disabled by the 'Henry's' guns. Harman carried his ship off, and took her into Harwich badly damaged. A yard of one of the masts fell on him and broke his leg. 175. 1. Captain, afterwards Sir Frescheville Hollis, son of Gervase Hollis, an antiquary and this literary character of the father probably explains the singular description of Hollis's parentage. Hollis had lost an arm in the battle of June 3, 1665. He was killed fighting against the Dutch in the next Dutch war, May 28, 1672. The phrase on a Muse by Mars begot,' is not happy. Buckingham parodied it against Dryden in his reply to Absalom and Achitophel: 'Or more to intrigue the metaphor of man, Got on a muse by father Publican.' Another satirist applied the phrase to the French musical composer, Grabut, who made the music for Dryden's opera, Albion and Albanius, and whose employment by Dryden d.spleased the public. 'Grabut his yokemate ne'er shall be forgot Whom the god of tunes upon a Muse begot.' 176. 1. This line is an imitation of Virgil's 'Multi praeterea quos fama obscura recondit.' 184. 2. host of waters. This is the reading of second edition of 1688, it is hosts of waters, which but which has been generally followed. Aen. v. 302. the first edition. In the not an improvement, 188. 2. linstock, a pointed stick with a fork at the end to hold a lighted match, used by gunners in firing cannon. 194. Admiral de Ruyter was the leader of the Dutch fleet. He is here compared to Terentius Varro, who commanded the Romans in the battle of Cannae, and was after defeat thanked by the Senate because he had engaged the enemy and had not despaired for the State, quia de republicâ non desperasset.' 195 4. As larks lie dared. dared means 'thoroughly frightened,'' scared,' and is specially applied to larks frightened by a hawk or by any object. 'Dared like a lark that, on the open plain, Pursued and cuffed, seeks shelter now in vain.' Conquest of Granada, Part ii. Act v. Sc. 2, 'Who leads you now then coursed like a dared lark.' Oedipus, Act i. Sc. I. 'Let his grace go forward And dare us with his cap like larks.' Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act iii. Sc. 2. A hobby is a species of hawk. Andrew Marvel, in his treatise on the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government, compares the English yacht firing into a Dutch fleet, when the English flag was not saluted, to a lark daring a hobby: 'which must sure,' he says, 'have appeared as ridiculous and unnatural as for a lark to dare the hobby.' (Marvel's Works, i. 474.) 197. 4, and Dryden's note. This battle was fought on July 25, St. James's Day. 201. This stanza is an extraordinary flight of imagination in Dryden, who represents the souls of Henry IV of France, and of William, the first Prince of Orange, repenting rebellion; Henry 'disowning' hostility to Henry III, against whom he had fought to vindicate his right of succession to the throne, and William'detesting' the Dutch navy, the strength of the nation, and the means by which the Dutch independence had been achieved. 204. Immediately after the battle of the 25th of July, the English fleet sailed for the Dutch coast, and a squadron was detached, under Sir Robert Holmes, with five ships, to attack the islands of Uly and Schelling. Holmes destroyed a very large Dutch merchant fleet off Uly, only eight or nine out of one hundred and seventy escaping destruction: and he also destroyed with fire the chief town of Schelling. It was estimated that property to the value of upwards of a million sterling was destroyed. 207. 3. doom, a peculiar use of the verb. doom here means 'send.' The word 'destine' connects the use in this passage with the usual meaning. 209. 1. unsincere. The use of sincere in the sense of 'pure,' 'unmixed,' the meaning of the Latin sincerus, is common with Dryden and his contemporaries. See Absalom and Achitophel, 43. And none can boast sincere felicity.' Palamon and Arcite, Bk. iii. 897. Nulla est sincera voluptas Solicitumque aliquid laetis intervenit.' Ovid, Metam. vii. 453. 215. The fire broke out on the night of September 2, 1666, and raged for six days. 216. 3. All was the Night's. Probably an imitation of 'Omnia noctis |