18

Or one that bright companion of the sun,
Whose glorious aspect sealed our new-born King,
And now, a round of greater years begun,

New influence from his walks of light did bring.

19

Victorious York did first with famed success

*

To his known valour make the Dutch give place ;+
Thus Heaven our Monarch's fortune did confess,
Beginning conquest from his royal race.

20

But since it was decreed, auspicious King,

In Britain's right that thou shouldst wed the main,
Heaven as a gage would cast some precious thing,

And therefore doomed that Lawson should be slain. +

21

Lawson amongst the foremost met his fate,

Whom sea-green Sirens from the rocks lament;
Thus, as an offering for the Grecian state,

He first was killed who first to battle went. §

22

/Their chief|| blown up, in air, not waves expired
To which his pride presumed to give the law;
The Dutch confessed Heaven present and retired,
And all was Britain the wide ocean saw.

23

To nearest ports their shattered ships repair,
Where by our dreadful cannon they lay awed;
So reverently men quit the open air

Where thunder speaks the angry gods abroad.

See note on line 291 of "Astræa Redux." Waller also, in complimenting Charles, had revived the star which appeared at noon on the day of his birth:

"His thoughts rise higher when he does reflect
On what the world may from that star expect,
Which at his birth appeared to let us see

Day for his sake could with the night agree."

Poem on St. James's Park, &c.

The battle and victory off the coast of Suffolk, June 3, 1665.

↑ Sir John Lawson, who had gained naval distinction in the Dutch war of the Commonwealth, was Rear-Admiral of the Duke of York's division of the fleet in this battle; he received a shot in the knee, and died a few days after.

§ Protesilaus, who was the first Greek that landed on the Trojan shore, was the first slain. "The Admiral of Holland." Opdam, who was blown up with his flag-ship while engaged in close fight with the Duke of York in the " Royal Charles."

24

And now approached their fleet from India, fraught
With all the riches of the rising sun,

And precious sand from southern climates* brought,
The fatal regions where the war begun.

25

Like hunted castors conscious of their store,

Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coasts they bring ;
There first the North's cold bosom spices bore,

And winter brooded on the eastern spring.

26

By the rich scent we found our perfumed prey,
Which, flanked with rocks, did close in covert lie;
And round about their murdering cannon lay

At once to threaten and invite the eye.

27

Fiercer than cannon and than rocks more hard,
The English undertake the unequal war :
Seven ships alone, by which the port is barred,
Besiege the Indies and all Denmark dare.

28

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those ;
These fain would keep and those more fain enjoy;
And to such height their frantic passion grows

29

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,
And now their odours armed against them fly:
Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall
And some by aromatic splinters die.

30

And though by tempests of the prize bereft,
In Heaven's inclemency some ease we find ;
Our foes we vanquished by our valour left,

And only yielded to the seas and wind. †

The attempt

at Berghen

"Southern climates. Guinea." The war had been preceded by depredations of De Ruyter on British ships and subjects on the coast of Guinea, in retaliation of proceedings of Sir Robert Holmes against the Dutch near Cape Verde and at Goree early in 1664. War was declared by England against the Dutch in February 1665.

+ The affair at Berghen (August 3, 1665), of which Dryden has made the best, was unhappy both in conception and execution. Two rich Dutch merchant fleets from Smyrna and the East Indies had taken shelter in that neutral harbour. The King of Denmark agreed, on condition of receiving half the profits, to connive at the capture of the fleets by the English. Lord Sandwich, who was now in chief command, was too eager to wait till the Governor of Berghen had received instructions from the King; and, when the attack was made, the Danish garrison assisted the Dutch. The English ships had been compelled by a sudden change of wind to anchor close unde: the cannon of the castle. The attempt was a failure; one English ship was lost.

31

Nor wholly lost we so deserved a prey,
For storms repenting part of it restored,
Which as a tribute from the Baltic sea
The British ocean sent her mighty lord.*

32

Go, mortals, now and vex yourselves in vain
For wealth, which so uncertainly must come;
When what was brought so far and with such pain
Was only kept to lose it nearer home.

33

The son who, twice three months on the ocean tost,
Prepared to tell what he had passed before,

Now sees in English ships the Holland coast

And parents' arms in vain stretched from the shore.

34

This careful husband had been long away

Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn,
Who on their fingers learned to tell the day

On which their father promised to return.

35

Such are the proud designs of human kind, †
And so we suffer shipwrack everywhere!

Alas, what port can such a pilot find

Who in the night of Fate must blindly steer!

36

The undistinguished seeds of good and ill

Heaven in his bosom from our knowledge hides,
And draws them in contempt of human skill,
Which oft for friends mistaken foes provides.

37

Let Munster's prelate ever be accurst,

In whom we seek the German faith ‡ in vain ;

Alas, that he should teach the English first

That fraud and avarice in the Church could reign!

*The Dutch fleet, under De Witt, which after the engagement convoyed the merchantmen from Berghen, was encountered by a storm, and Sandwich captured eight men-of-war and some of the richly laden merchant vessels.

"Such are, &c. From Petronius: Si bene calculum ponas, ubique fit naufragium.'” (Satyr. c. 115. The three previous stanzas are an imitation of Petronius in same chapter. "Hunc forsitan, proclamo, in aliqua parte terrarum secura expectat uxor; forsitan ignarus tempestatis filius; aut patrem utique reliquit aliquem, cui proficiscens osculum dedit. Hæc sunt consilia mortalium, hæc vota magnarum cogitationum. Ite nunc, mortales, et magnis cogita

tionibus pectora implete," &c.

1" The German faith. Tacitus saith of them: Nullos mortalium armis aut fide ante Germanos esse."-Said of the Germans, according to Tacitus, by two of themselves. (Ann. xiii. 45.) The Bishop of Munster, a German sovereign prince, had, on the breaking out of the war, offered to

38

Happy who never trust a stranger's will

Whose friendship's in his interest understood;
Since money given but tempts him to be ill,
When power is too remote to make him good.

39

Till now, alone the mighty nations strove

The rest at gaze without the lists did stand;
And threatening France, placed like a painted Jove,
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.

40

That eunuch guardian of rich Holland's trade
Who envies us what he wants power to enjoy,

Whose noiseful valour does no foe invade

And weak assistance will his friends destroy;

41

Offended that we fought without his leave,
He takes this time his secret hate to show;
Which Charles does with a mind so calm receive
As one that neither seeks nor shuns his foe.

42

With France to aid the Dutch the Danes unite,*
France as their tyrant, Denmark as their slave ;
But when with one three nations join to fight,
They silently confess that one more brave.

43

Lewis had chased the English from his shore,
But Charles the French as subjects does invite ; †
Would Heaven for each some Solomon restore,

Who by their mercy may decide their right!‡

War declared

by France.

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. Sir William Temple was employed for the first time in diplomacy on this occasion to look after the Bishop, who told him, in his first interview, that "he would perform all points of the treaty with truth, plainness, and like a German." (Courtenay's Life of Temple, chap. 3.)

France declared war against England in January 1666; and Denmark joined Holland and France in the following month.

Charles, in his 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.

As Solomon judged the true mother between the two women claiming the child, pronouncing for her who, in mercy, wished it given to the other, rather than that it should be divided in two with a sword (1 Kings iii.).

F

Prince
Rupert
and Duke of
Albemarle
sent to sea.

44

Were subjects so but only by their choice

And not from birth did forced dominion take,
Our Prince alone would have the public voice,

And all his neighbours' realms would deserts make.

45

He without fear a dangerous war pursues,

Which without rashness he began before:
As honour made him first the danger choose,
So still he makes it good on virtue's score.

46

The doubled charge his subjects' love supplies,
Who in that bounty to themselves are kind:
So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise

And in his plenty their abundance find.

47

With equal power he does two chiefs create,

Two such as each seemed worthiest when alone;

Each able to sustain a nation's fate,

Since both had found a greater in their own.

48

Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame,
Yet neither envious of the other's praise;
Their duty, faith, and interest too the same,
Like mighty partners, equally they raise.

49

The Prince long time had courted Fortune's love,
But once possessed did absolutely reign :

Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove,

And conquered first those beauties they would gain.

50

The Duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain

That Carthage which he ruined rise once more,

And shook aloft the fasces of the main

To fright those slaves with what they felt before.

51

Together to the watery camp they haste,

Whom matrons passing to their children show;
Infants' first vows for them to Heaven are cast,

And future people bless them as they go."

"Future people. Examina mfantium futurusque populus.'-PL.IN. jun. in Pan. ad Traj,” c. 26.