The men, who no conspiracy would find,
Who doubts, but, had it taken, they had joined,
Joined in a mutual covenant of defence,
At first without, at last against, their prince?
If sovereign right by sovereign power they scan,
The same bold maxim holds in God and man:
God were not safe, his thunder could they shun,
He should be forced to crown another son.
Thus, when the heir was from the vineyard thrown,
The rich possession was the murderer's own.
In vain to sophistry they have recourse;
By proving theirs no plot, they prove 'tis worse;
Unmasked rebellion, and audacious force;
Which though not actual, yet all eyes may see,
'Tis working in the immediate power to be;
For from pretended grievances they rise,
First to dislike, and after to despise;
Then, Cyclop-like, in human flesh to deal,
Chop up a minister at every meal;
Perhaps not wholly to melt down the king,
But clip his regal rights within the ring;*
From thence to assume the power of peace
And ease him, by degrees, of public care.
Yet, to consult his dignity and fame,
He should have leave to exercise the name,
And hold the cards while commons played the game.
* The fraudulent practice of clipping came in with the re-introduction of milled coin, in the reign of Charles II. The last editor of Dryden is mistaken in saying that milled money was not struck in England till 1663. The mill was first employed by Queen Elizabeth in 1562, but after an experience of ten years, discontinued on account of the expense. It was again introduced in 1623, and finally established in 1662. It is often alluded to by the dramatists of the 16th century.(See Nares.) The clippers are frequently mentioned in the Comedies of the Restoration. The money thus reduced in value was passed off in great quantities at public places, particularly at the theatres, where, in the presence of the crowd, there was no time for examination. Dryden speaks of this imposition in the Epilogue to his son's play of The Husband his own Cuckold.
The truth on 't is, the payment of the pit
Is like for like, clipt money for clipt wit.'
For what can power give more than food and drink,
To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
These are the cooler methods of their crime,
But their hot zealots think 'tis loss of time;
On utmost bounds of loyalty they stand,
And grin and whet like a Croatian band,
That waits impatient for the last command.
Thus outlaws open villany maintain;
They steal not, but in squadrons scour the plain;
And if their power the passengers subdue,
The most have right, the wrong is in the few.
Such impious axioms foolishly they show,
For in some soils republics will not grow:
Our temperate isle will no extremes sustain,
Of popular sway, or arbitrary reign:
But slides, between them both, into the best,
Secure in freedom, in a monarch blest.
And, though the climate, vexed with various winds,
Works, through our yielding bodies, on our minds;
The wholesome tempest purges what it breeds,
To recommend the calmness that succeeds.
But thou, the pander of the people's hearts,
O crooked soul, and serpentine in arts,
Whose blandishments a loyal land have whored,
And broke the bond she plighted to her lord;
What curses on thy blasted name will fall,
Which age to age their legacy shall call!
For all must curse the woes that must descend on all.
Religion thou hast none: thy Mercury
Has passed through every sect, or theirs through thee.
But what thou givest, that venom still remains,
And the poxed nation feels thee in their brains.
What else inspires the tongues and swells the breasts
Of all thy bellowing renegado priests,
That preach up thee for God, dispense thy laws,
And with thy stum ferment their fainting cause?
Fresh fumes of madness raise; and toil, and sweat,
To make the formidable cripple great.
Yet should thy crimes succeed, should lawless power
Compass those ends thy greedy hopes devour,
Thy canting friends thy mortal foes would be,
Thy God and theirs would never long agree;
For thine (if thou hast any) must be one
That lets the world and human kind alone;
A jolly god, that passes hours too well,
To promise heaven, or threaten us with hell;
That, unconcerned, can at rebellion sit,
And wink at crimes he did himself commit.
A tyrant, theirs; the heaven their priesthood paints,
A conventicle of gloomy, sullen saints;
A heaven, like Bedlam, slovenly and sad,
Fore-doomed for souls with false religion mad.
Without a vision, poets can foreshow
What all, but fools, by common sense may
If true succession from our isle should fail,
And crowds profane, with impious arms, prevail,
Not thou, nor those thy factious arts engage,
Shall reap that harvest of rebellious rage,
With which thou flatterest thy decrepit age.
The swelling poison of the several sects,
Which, wanting vent, the nation's health infects,
Shall burst its bag, and, fighting out their way,
The various venoms on each other prey.
The presbyter, puffed up with spiritual pride,
Shall on the necks of the lewd nobles ride:
His brethren damn, the civil power defy,
And parcel out republic prelacy.
But short shall be his reign; his rigid yoke,
And tyrant power, will puny sects provoke;
And frogs, and toads, and all their tadpole train, [crane.
Will croak to Heaven for help, from this devouring
The cut-throat sword, and clamorous gown, shall jar,
In sharing their ill-gotten spoils of war;
Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they pretend;
Lords envy lords, and friends with every friend
About their impious merit shall contend.
The surly commons shall respect deny,
And justle peerage out with property.
Their general either shall his trust betray,
And force the crowd to arbitrary sway;
Or they, suspecting his ambitious aim,
In hate of kings, shall cast anew the frame,
And thrust out Collatine, that bore their name.
Thus inborn broils the factions would engage,
Or wars of exiled heirs, or foreign rage,
Till halting vengeance overtook our age;
And our wild labours, wearied into rest,
Reclined us on a rightful monarch's breast.
Pudet hæc opprobria, vobis
Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.
ON HER RETURN FROM SCOTLAND IN THE YEAR 1682.
[THE Duchess of York addressed in these verses was Mary D'Este, the second wife of the duke. She was one of the most beautiful women of her time, and even Dryden's encomium did not exaggerate her charms. The occasion was the return of the duke from his temporary banishment in Scotland, also celebrated in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel, and in a prologue by Dryden spoken before their royal highnesses.]
WHEN factious rage to cruel exile drove
The queen of beauty, and the court of love,
The Muses drooped, with their forsaken arts,
And the sad Cupids broke their useless darts;
Our fruitful plains to wilds and deserts turned,
Like Eden's face, when banished man it mourned.
Love was no more, when loyalty was gone,
The great supporter of his awful throne.
Love could no longer after beauty stay,
But wandered northward to the verge of day,
As if the sun and he had lost their way.
But now the illustrious nymph, returned again,
Brings every grace triumphant in her train.
The wondering Nereids, though they raised no storm,
Foreflowed her passage, to behold her form:
Some cried 'A Venus;' some, 'A Thetis' passed;
But this was not so fair, nor that so chaste.
Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife, and Pride;
And Envy did but look on her, and died.
Whate'er we suffered from our sullen fate,
Her sight is purchased at an easy rate.
Three gloomy years against this day were set;
But this one mighty sum has cleared the debt:
Like Joseph's dream, but with a better doom,
The famine past, the plenty still to come.
For her the weeping heavens become serene;
For her the ground is clad in cheerful green;
For her the nightingales are taught to sing,
And Nature has for her delayed the spring.
The Muse resumes her long-forgotten lays,
And Love, restored, his ancient realm surveys,
Recals our beauties, and revives our plays,
His waste dominions peoples once again,
And from her presence dates his second reign.
But awful charms on her fair forehead sit,
Dispensing what she never will admit:
Pleasing, yet cold, like Cynthia's silver beam,
The people's wonder, and the poet's theme.
Distempered Zeal, Sedition, cankered Hate,
No more shall vex the church, and tear the state:
No more shall Faction civil discords move,
Or only discords of too tender love;
Discord, like that of music's various parts;
Discord, that makes the harmony of hearts;
Discord, that only this dispute shall bring,
Who best should love the duke, and serve the king.
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