235

JASPER MAYNE.

1604-1672.

[DR. JASPER MAYNE was a distinguished preacher in the time of Charles I., and held two livings in the gift of the University of Oxford, from which he was expelled under the Commonwealth. At the Restoration, however, he was not only re-appointed to his former benefice, but made chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, and archdeacon of Chichester. Dr. Mayne is said to have been a clergyman of the most exemplary character; but there is an anecdote related of him which, if true, shows that he was also a practical humorist. He had an old servant to whom he bequeathed a trunk, which he told him contained something that would make him drink after his death. When the trunk was opened on the Doctor's demise, it was found to contain—a red-herring.]

THE CITY MATCH.

WE

THE WONDERFUL FISH.

E show no monstrous crocodile,
Nor any prodigy of Nile;
No Remora that stops your fleet,
Like serjeant's gallants in the street;
No sea-horse which can trot or pace,
Or swim false gallop, post, or race:
For crooked dolphins we not care,
Though on their back a fiddler were:
The like to this fish, which we shew,
Was ne'er in Fish-street, old, or new;
Nor ever served to the sheriff's board,
Or kept in souse for the Mayor Lord.
Had old astronomers but seen

This fish, none else in heaven had been.

SIR SAMUEL TUKE.

1673.

THE ADVENTURES OF TWO HOURS.

MISTAKEN KINDNESS.

CAN Luciamira so mistake,

To persuade me to fly?

'Tis cruel kind for my own sake,
To counsel me to die;

Like those faint souls, who cheat themselves of breath,
And die for fear of death.

Since Love's the principle of life,
And you the object loved,
Let's, Luciamira, end this strife,
I cease to be removed.

We know not what they do, are gone from hence,
But here we love by sense.

If the Platonics, who would prove
Souls without bodies love,

Had, with respect, well understood,

The passions in the blood,

They had suffered bodies to have had their part,
And seated love in the heart.

SIR WILLIAM KILLIGREW.

1605-1693.

SELINDRA.

THE HAPPY HOUR.

COME, come, thou glorious object of my sight,
Oh my joy! my life, my only delight!
May this glad minute be
Blessed to eternity.

Do

See how the glimmering tapers of the sky,
gaze, and wonder at our constancy,
How they crowd to behold!

What our arms do infold!

How all do envy our felicities!

And grudge the triumphs of Selindra's eyes:
How Cynthia seeks to shroud

Her crescent in yon cloud!

Where sad night puts her sable mantle on,
Thy light mistaking, hasteth to be gone;
Her gloomy shades give way,

As at the approach of day;

And all the planets shrink, in doubt to be
Eclipsed by a brighter deity.
Look, oh look!

How the small

Lights do fall,

And adore,
What before

The heavens have not shown,
Nor their god-heads known!

Such a faith,

Such a love

As may move
From above

To descend; and remain
Amongst mortals again.

JOHN

DRYDEN.

1631-1700.

[THE songs scattered through Dryden's plays are strikingly inferior to the rest of his poetry. The confession he makes in one of his dedications that in writing for the stage he

THE DRAMATISTS.

16

consulted the taste of the audiences and not his own, and that, looking at the results, he was equally ashamed of the public and himself, applies with special force to his songs. They seem for the most part to have been thrown off merely to fill up a situation, or produce a transitory effect, without reference to substance, art, or beauty, in their structure. Like nearly all pieces written expressly for music, the convenience of the composer is consulted in many of them rather than the judgment of the poet, although the world had a right to expect that the genius of Dryden would have vindicated itself by reconciling both. Some of the verses designed on this principle undoubtedly exhibit remarkable skill in accommodating the diction and rhythm to the demands of the air; and, however indifferent they may be in perusal, it can be easily understood how effective their breaks, repetitions, and sonorous words (sometimes without much meaning in them) must have been in the delivery. Dryden descended to the smallest things with as much success as he soared to the highest; and, if he had cared to bestow any pains upon such compositions, two or three of the following specimens are sufficient to show with what a subtle fancy and melody of versification he might have enriched this department of our poetical literature.

Many of the songs are stained with the grossness that defiled the whole drama of the Restoration. Others are metrical commonplaces not worth transplantation. From the nature of the subjects, the selection is necessarily scanty, although Dryden's plays yield a more plentiful crop of lyrics of various kinds than those of any of his contemporaries. A larger collection might have been made, but that numerous songs, otherwise unobjectionable, are so closely interwoven with the business of the scene as to be inseparable from the dialogue. Of this character is the greater part of the opera of Albion and Albanus, and nearly the whole of the lyrical version of the Tempest, a work in which Dryden appears to greater disadvantage than in any other upon which he was ever engaged.]

THE INDIAN QUEEN.

INCANTATION.

1664.

OU

You twice ten hundred deities,

To whom we daily sacrifice;

You Powers that dwell with fate below,
And see what men are doomed to do,
Where elements in discord dwell;
Then God of Sleep arise and tell
Great Zempoalla what strange fate
Must on her dismal vision wait.
By the croaking of the toad,
In their caves that make abode;
Earthy Dun that pants for breath,
With her swelled sides full of death;
By the crested adders' pride,
That along the clifts do glide;
By thy visage fierce and black;
By the death's head on thy back;
By the twisted serpents placed
For a girdle round thy waist;
By the hearts of gold that deck
Thy breast, thy shoulders, and thy neck:
From thy sleepy mansion rise,

And open thy unwilling eyes,

While bubbling springs their music keep,

That use to lull thee in thy sleep.

SONG OF THE AERIAL SPIRITS.

POOR mortals, that are clogged with earth below,

Sink under love and care,

While we, that dwell in air, Such heavy passions never know. Why then should mortals be

Unwilling to be free

From blood, that sullen cloud,
Which shining souls does shroud?