Note 86 — ANNUS MIRABILIS; THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666, AN HISTORICAL POEM.
Reading edition
See stanzas 131, 132. I wish, however, our author had spared avouching himself to have been eye-witness to so marvellous a chase. The "so have I seen" should be confined to things which are not only possible, but, in a certain degree, of ordinary occurrence. Dryden's ocular testimony is not, however, so incredible as that of the bard, who averred,
So have I seen, in Araby the blest, A Phœnix couched upon her funeral nest.
Such chaces, if not frequent, have sometimes happened. In the north of England, in ancient days, a stag and a famous greyhound, called Hercules, after a desperate course, were found dead within a few paces of each other, and interred with this inscription:
Hercules killed Hart of grece, And Hart of grece killed Hercules.