CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. PAGE RELIGIO LAICI: OR, A LAYMAN'S FAITH. AN EPISTLE 34 THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS: A FUNERAL PINDARICK TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW, EXCELLENT IN TO HENRY HIGDEN, ESQ., ON HIS TRANSLATION OF TO MY DEAR FRIEND, MR. CONGREVE, ON HIS COMEDY, CALLED 'THE DOUBLE DEALER'. ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC. OF JOHN DRYDEN. THE MEDAL. A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION. [THIS bitter satire, devoted exclusively to Shaftesbury, was published in March, 1682. The victory obtained by the Whigs, through the dismissal of the bill of indictment, was celebrated in various modes of exultation, and amongst the rest by a medal representing on one side the head of Shaftesbury, and on the other a view of London from the old bridge, with the sun rising over the Tower, the date of his acquittal beneath, 24th November, 1681, and above the legend 'Lætamur.' 'In the representation of your own hero,' says Dryden, in his dedication of the poem to the Whigs, ''tis the picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize so much in little. None of your ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of your Tower, nor the rising sun, nor the Anno Domini of your new sovereign's coronation.* It has neither the breadth, nor variety, of Absalom and Achitophel; but the satire is more condensed and ferocious. Shaftesbury is here literally slaughtered piecemeal. It is the most savage of all Dryden's performances in this way, and may possibly have had its share in driving Shaftesbury upon those desperate courses which ended soon afterwards in his ruin. The violent proceedings of the court had crushed the liberties of the people. The chartered rights of corporations were declared void, juries were * The whole dedication is written in the same spirit of contempt and invective. No expression is too virulent for Shaftesbury and the Whigs. II. DRYDEN. 2 overawed and corrupted, parliaments were set aside, and the king held at his mercy the lives and properties of all who attempted to resist his tyranny. Shaftesbury, who had shut himself up in his house in Aldersgate-street, calculated upon nothing short of a revolution, and, relying upon his influence in the city, was prepared to place himself at the head of 10,000 malcontents, who, he declared, were 'ready to act at the motion of his finger.' But Monmouth and the leaders of the Whigs refused to co-operate with him, and, having thus committed himself to an imminent and fruitless peril, he fled to Amsterdam, where he died in the following January. The subject of the Medal is said to have been suggested to Dryden by the king, as they were walking together in the Mall. When the poem was finished Dryden took it to his majesty, and received a hundred broad pieces for his pains. This anecdote is recorded by Spence, on the authority of the priest already alluded to. But as we know nothing of the priest, or where he got his information, the authenticity of the story is open to suspicion.] AN EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS. FOR to whom can I dedicate this poem, with so much justice as to you? It is the representation of your own hero: It is the picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize so much in little. None of your ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of your Tower, nor the rising sun, nor the Anno Domini of your new sovereign's coronation. This must needs be a grateful undertaking to your whole party: especially to those who have not been so happy as to purchase the original. I hear the graver has made a good market of it: all his kings are bought up already; or the value of the remainder so enhanced, that many a poor Polander who would be glad to worship the image, is not able to go to the cost of him, but must be content to see him here. I must confess I am no great artist; but sign-post painting will serve the turn to remember a friend by, especially when better is not to be had. Yet, for your comfort, the lineaments are true; and though he sat not five times to me, as he did to B.,* * Bower, the artist who engraved the medal. yet I have consulted history, as the Italian painters do, when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula; though they have not seen the man, they can help their imagination by a statue of him, and find out the colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus. Truth is, you might have spared one side of your medal: the head would be seen to more advantage if it were placed on a spike of the tower, a little nearer to the sun, which would then break out to better purpose. You tell us in your preface to the No-Protestant Plot,* that you shall be forced hereafter to leave off your modesty : I suppose you mean that little which is left you; for it was worn to rags when you put out this medal. Never was there practised such a piece of notorious impudence in the face of an established government. I believe when he is dead you will wear him in thumbrings, as the Turks did Scanderbeg, as if there were virtue in his bones to preserve you against monarchy. Yet, all this while you pretend not only zeal for the public good, but a due veneration for the person of the king. But all men who can see an inch before them, may easily detect those gross fallacies. That it is necessary for men in your circumstances to pretend both, is granted you; for without them there could be no ground to raise a faction. But I would ask you one civil question: What right has any man among you, or any association of men, (to come nearer to you,) who, out of parliament, cannot be considered in a public capacity, to meet, as you daily do, in factious clubs, to vilify the government in your discourses, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges in Israel? Or how is it consistent with your zeal for the public welfare, to promote sedition ? Does your definition of loyal, which is to serve the king according to the laws, allow you the licence of traducing the executive power with which you own he is invested? You complain that his majesty has lost the love and confidence of his people; and, by your very urging it, you endeavour what in you lies to make him lose them. All good subjects abhor the thought of arbitrary power, whether it be in one or many if you were the patriots you would seem, you would not at this rate incense the multitude to assume it; for no sober man can fear it, either from the king's disposition or his practice; or even where you * A pamphlet vindicating Lord Shaftesbury from being concerned in any plotting designs against the king. It was published in two parts: the first in 1681, the second in 1682. Wood says, the general report was, that it was written by the earl himself; and that his servant, who put it into the printer's hands, was committed to prison. |