Volume 11 — ELEGIES AND EPITAPHS.
Reading edition
UPON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.
The subject of this elegy was Henry Lord Hastings, eldest son of Ferdinando Earl of Huntingdon. He was born 16th January, 1630, and died 24th June, 1649. He was buried at Ashby de la Zouche, near the superb family-seat of Donnington-Castle. This Lord Hastings, says Collins, was a nobleman of great learning, and of so sweet a disposition, that no less than ninety-eight elegies were made on him, and published in 1650, under this title: "Lachrymæ Musarum, the Tears of the Muses expressed in Elegies written by divers Persons of nobility and worth, upon the Death of the most hopeful Henry, Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Right Honourable Ferdinando, Earl of Huntingdon, then general of the high-born Prince George, Duke of Clarence, brother to King Edward IV."
This accomplished young nobleman died unmarried; but, from the concluding lines of the elegy, it is obvious, that he had been betrothed to the "virgin widow," whom the poet there addresses, but whose name I have been unable to learn.
The poem was written by Dryden while at Westminster-school, and displays little or no promise of future excellence; being a servile imitation of the conceits of Cleveland, and the metaphysical wit of Cowley, exerted in numbers hardly more harmonious than those of Donne.
UPON
THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.
M ust noble Hastings immaturely die, The honour of his ancient family, Beauty and learning thus together meet, To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet? Must virtue prove death's harbinger? must she, With him expiring, feel mortality? Is death, sin's wages, grace's now? shall art Make us more learned, only to depart? If merit be disease; if virtue, death; To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem Labour a crime? study self-murder deem? Our noble youth now have pretence to be Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully. Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise, Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise: Than whom great Alexander may seem less, Who conquered men, but not their languages. In his mouth nations spake; his tongue might be Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy. His native soil was the four parts o'the earth; All Europe was too narrow for his birth. A young apostle; and,—with reverence may I speak't,—inspired with gift of tongues, as they. Nature gave him, a child, what men in vain Oft strive, by art though furthered, to obtain. His body was an orb, his sublime soul Did move on virtue's and on learning's pole; Whose regular motions better to our view, Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did shew. Graces and virtues, languages and arts, Beauty and learning, filled up all the parts. Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear Scattered in others, all, as in their sphere, Were fixed, conglobate in his soul, and thence Shone through his body, with sweet influence; Letting their glories so on each limb fall, The whole frame rendered was celestial. Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make, If thou this hero's altitude can'st take: But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all, Could we but prove thus astronomical. Lived Tycho now, struck with this ray which shone[78] More bright i'the morn, than others beam at noon, He'd take his astrolabe, and seek out here What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere. Replenished then with such rare gifts as these, Where was room left for such a foul disease? The nation's sin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds Our day-spring in so sad benighting clouds. Heaven would no longer trust its pledge, but thus Recalled it,—rapt its Ganymede from us. Was there no milder way but the small-pox, The very filthiness of Pandora's box? So many spots, like næves on Venus' soil, One jewel set off with so many a foil; Blisters with pride swelled, which through's flesh did sprout Like rose-buds, stuck i'the lily-skin about. Each little pimple had a tear in it, To wail the fault its rising did commit; Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife, Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life. Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, The cabinet of a richer soul within? No comet need foretel his change drew on, Whose corpse might seem a constellation. O had he died of old, how great a strife Had been, who from his death should draw their life; Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæsar, were! Learned, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this An universal metempsychosis. Must all these aged sires in one funeral Expire? all die in one so young, so small? Who, had he lived his life out, his great fame Had swoln 'bove any Greek or Roman name. But hasty winter, with one blast, hath brought The hopes of autumn, summer, spring, to nought. Thus fades the oak i'the sprig, i'the blade the corn; Thus without young, this Phœnix dies, new-born. Must then old three-legged grey-beards with their gout, Catarrhs, rheums, aches, live three ages out? Time's offals, only fit for the hospital! Or to hang antiquaries rooms withal! Must drunkards, lechers, spent with sinning, live With such helps as broths, possets, physic give? None live, but such as should die? shall we meet With none but ghostly fathers in the street? Grief makes me rail, sorrow will force its way, And showers of tears tempestuous sighs best lay. The tongue may fail; but overflowing eyes Will weep out lasting streams of elegies. But thou, O virgin-widow, left alone, Now thy beloved, heaven-ravished spouse is gone, Whose skilful sire in vain strove to apply Med'cines, when thy balm was no remedy; With greater than Platonic love, O wed His soul, though not his body, to thy bed: Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth The ideas of his virtue, knowledge, worth; Transcribe the original in new copies; give Hastings o'the better part: so shall he live In's nobler half; and the great grandsire be Of an heroic divine progeny: An issue which to eternity shall last, Yet but the irradiations which he cast. Erect no mausoleums; for his best Monument is his spouse's marble breast.
TO THE MEMORY OF Mr OLDHAM.
John Oldham, who, from the keenness of his satirical poetry, justly acquired the title of the English Juvenal, was born at Shipton, in Gloucestershire, where his father was a clergyman, on 9th August, 1653. About 1678, he was an usher in the free school of Croydon; but having already distinguished himself by several pieces of poetry, and particularly by four severe satirical invectives against the order of Jesuits, then obnoxious on account of the Popish Plot, he quitted that mean situation, to become tutor to the family of Sir Edward Theveland, and afterwards to a son of Sir William Hickes. Shortly after he seems to have resigned all employment except the unthrifty trade of poetry. When Oldham entered upon this career, he settled of course in the metropolis, where his genius recommended him to the company of the first wits, and to the friendship of Dryden. He did not long enjoy the pleasures of such a life, nor did he live to experience the uncertainties, and disappointment, and reverses, with which, above all others, it abounds. Being seized with the small-pox, while visiting at the seat of his patron, William Earl of Kingston, he died of that disease on the 9th December, 1683, in the 30th year of his age.
His "Remains," in verse and prose, were soon afterwards published, with elegies and recommendatory verses prefixed by Tate, Flatman, Durfey, Gould, Andrews, and others. But the applause of Dryden, expressed in the following lines, was worth all the tame panegyrics of other contemporary bards. It appears, among the others, in "Oldham's Remains," London, 1683.
TO
THE MEMORY OF Mr OLDHAM.
F arewell, too little, and too lately known, Whom I began to think, and call my own: For sure our souls were near allied, and thine Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike. To the same goal did both our studies drive; The last set out, the soonest did arrive. Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place, Whilst his young friend performed and won the race. O early ripe! to thy abundant store What could advancing age have added more! It might (what nature never gives the young) Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue. But satire needs not those, and wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.[79] A noble error, and but seldom made, When poets are by too much force betrayed. } { Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime, { Still shewed a quickness; and maturing time { But mellows what we write, to the dull sweets of rhyme. Once more, hail, and farewell! farewell, thou young, But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue! Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound; But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.
TO
THE PIOUS MEMORY
OF
Mrs ANNE KILLIGREW.
Mrs Anne Killigrew was daughter of Dr Henry Killigrew, master of the Savoy, and one of the prebendaries of Westminster, and brother of Thomas Killigrew, renowned, in the court of Charles II., for wit and repartee. The family, says Mr Walpole, was remarkable for its loyalty, accomplishments, and wit; and this young lady, who displayed great talents for painting and poetry, promised to be one of its fairest ornaments. She was maid of honour to the Duchess of York, and died of the small-pox in 1685, the 25th year of her age.
Mrs Anne Killigrew's poems were published after her death in a thin quarto, with a print of the author, from her portrait drawn by herself. She also painted the portraits of the Duke of York and of his Duchess, and executed several historical pictures, landscapes, and pieces of still life. See Lord Orford's Lives of the Painters, Works, Vol. III. p. 297; and Ballard's Lives of Learned Ladies.
The poems of this celebrated young lady do not possess any uncommon merit, nor are her paintings of a high class, although preferred by Walpole to her poetry. But very slender attainments in such accomplishments, when united with youth, beauty, and fashion, naturally receive a much greater share of approbation from contemporaries, than unbiassed posterity can afford to them. Even the flinty heart of old Wood seems to have been melted by this young lady's charms, notwithstanding her being of womankind, as he contemptuously calls the fair sex. He says, that she was a Grace for a beauty, and a Muse for a wit; and that there must have been more true history than compliment in our author's ode, since otherwise the lady's father would not have permitted it to go to press.—Athenæ, Vol. II. p. 1036.
This ode, which singularly exhibits the strong grasp and comprehensive range of Dryden's fancy, as well as the harmony of his numbers, seems to have been a great favourite of Dr Johnson, who, in one place, does not hesitate to compare it to the famous ode on St Cecilia; and, in another, calls it undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. Although it is probable that few will subscribe to the judgment of that great critic in the present instance, yet the verses can never be read with indifference by any admirer of poetry. We are, it is true, sometimes affronted by a pun, or chilled by a conceit; but the general power of thought and expression resumes its sway, in despite of the interruption given by such instances of bad taste. In its arrangement, the ode is what the seventeenth century called pindaric; freed, namely, from the usual rules of order and arrangement. This license, which led most poets, who exercised it, to extravagance and absurdity, only gave Dryden a wider scope for the exercise of his wonderful power of combining and uniting the most dissimilar ideas, in a manner as ingenious as his numbers are harmonious. Images and scenes, the richest, though most inconsistent with each other, are sweeped together by the flood of song: we neither see whence they arise, nor whither they are going; but are contented to admire the richness and luxuriance in which the poet has arrayed them. The opening of the poem has been highly praised by Dr Johnson. "The first part," says that critic, "flows with a torrent of enthusiasm,—Fervet immensusque ruit. All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one continued diamond; the gems must be held together by some less valuable matter."
The stanzas, which appear to the editor peculiarly to exhibit the spirit of the pindaric ode, are the first, second, fourth, and fifth. Of the others, the third is too metaphysical for the occasion; the description of the landscapes in the sixth is beautiful, and presents our imagination with the scenery and groups of Claude Lorraine; and that of the royal portraits, in the seventh, has some fine lines and turns of expression: But I cannot admire, with many critics, the comparison of the progress of genius to the explosion of a sky-rocket; and still less the flat and familiar conclusion,
What next she had designed, heaven only knows.
The eighth stanza is disgraced by antitheses and conceit; and though the beginning of the ninth be beautiful and affecting, our emotion is quelled by the nature of the consolation administered to a sea captain, that his sister is turned into a star. The last stanza excites ideas perhaps too solemn for poetry; and what is worse, they are couched in poetry too fantastic to be solemn; but the account of the resurrection of the "sacred poets," is, in the highest degree, elegant and beautiful.
Anne Killigrew was the subject of several other poetical lamentations, one or two of which are in the Luttrell Collection.
TO
THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY Mrs ANNE KILLIGREW,
EXCELLENT IN
THE TWO SISTER ARTS
OF
POESY AND PAINTING.
AN ODE.
I.
Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, Made in the last promotion of the blest; Whose palms, new plucked from paradise, In spreading branches more sublimely rise, Rich with immortal green above the rest: Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star, Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race, Or, in procession fixed and regular, Mov'st with the heaven's majestic pace; Or, called to more superior bliss, Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss: Whatever happy region is thy place, Cease thy celestial song a little space; Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, Since heaven's eternal year is thine. Hear, then, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse, In no ignoble verse; But such as thy own voice did practise here, When thy first fruits of poesy were given, To make thyself a welcome inmate there; While yet a young probationer, And candidate of heaven.
II.
If by traduction came thy mind, Our wonder is the less to find A soul so charming from a stock so good; Thy father was transfused into thy blood: So wert thou born into a tuneful strain, An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.[80] But if thy pre-existing soul Was formed, at first, with myriads more, It did through all the mighty poets roll, Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore: } { Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, { Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: { Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind.
III.
May we presume to say, that, at thy birth, New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on earth. } { For sure the milder planets did combine { On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, { And e'en the most malicious were in trine. Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high, That all the people of the sky Might know a poetess was born on earth; And then, if ever, mortal ears Had heard the music of the spheres. And if no clustering swarm of bees On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew, 'Twas that such vulgar miracles Heaven had not leisure to renew: For all thy blest fraternity of love Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.
IV.
O gracious God! how far have we Prophaned thy heavenly gift of poesy? Made prostitute and profligate the muse, Debased to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordained above For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love? O wretched we! why were we hurried down This lubrique and adulterate age, (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own) T'increase the streaming ordures of the stage? What can we say t'excuse our second fall? Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all: Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled, Unmixed with foreign filth, and undefiled; Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.[81]
V.
Art she had none, yet wanted none; For nature did that want supply: So rich in treasures of her own, She might our boasted stores defy: Such noble vigour did her verse adorn, That it seemed borrowed where 'twas only born. Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred, By great examples daily fed, What in the best of books, her father's life, she read: And to be read herself she need not fear; Each test, and every light, her muse will bear, Though Epictetus with his lamp were there. E'en love (for love sometimes her muse exprest) Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast: Light as the vapours of a morning dream, So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest, 'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.
VI.
Born to the spacious empire of the Nine, One would have thought she should have been content To manage well that mighty government; But what can young ambitious souls confine? } { To the next realm she stretched her sway, { For Painture near adjoining lay, { A plenteous province, and alluring prey. A chamber of dependencies was framed, (As conquerors will never want pretence, When armed, to justify the offence,) And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claimed. The country open lay without defence; For poets frequent inroads there had made, And perfectly could represent The shape, the face, with every lineament, And all the large domains which the Dumb Sister swayed; All bowed beneath her government, Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went. Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed, And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her mind. The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks, And fruitful plains and barren rocks, Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear, The bottom did the top appear; Of deeper too and ampler floods, Which, as in mirrors, shewed the woods; Of lofty trees, with sacred shades, And perspectives of pleasant glades, } { Where nymphs of brightest form appear, { And shaggy satyrs standing near, { Which them at once admire and fear. The ruins too of some majestic piece, Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece, Whose statues, frizes, columns, broken lie, And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye; What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame, Her forming hand gave feature to the name. So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before, But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore.
VII.
The scene then changed; with bold erected look Our martial king[82] the sight with reverence strook: For, not content to express his outward part, Her hand called out the image of his heart: } { His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear, { His high-designing thoughts were figured there, { As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear. Our phœnix queen[83] was pourtrayed too so bright, Beauty alone could beauty take so right: Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace, Were all observed, as well as heavenly face. With such a peerless majesty she stands, As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands: Before a train of heroines was seen, In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen. Thus nothing to her genius was denied, But like a ball of fire the further thrown, Still with a greater blaze she shone, And her bright soul broke out on every side. What next she had designed, heaven only knows: To such immoderate growth her conquest rose, That fate alone its progress could oppose.
VIII.
Now all those charms, that blooming grace, The well-proportioned shape, and beauteous face, Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes; In earth the much-lamented virgin lies. Not wit, nor piety, could fate prevent; Nor was the cruel destiny content To finish all the murder at a blow, To sweep at once her life and beauty too; But, like a hardened felon, took a pride To work more mischievously slow, And plundered first, and then destroyed. O double sacrilege on things divine, To rob the relic, and deface the shrine! But thus Orinda died;[84] Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate; As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.
IX.
Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas His waving streamers to the winds displays, And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays. Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear, The winds too soon will waft thee here: Slack all thy sails, and fear to come; Alas, thou know'st not, thou art wrecked at home! No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face, Thou hast already had her last embrace. But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star, If any sparkles than the rest more bright, Tis she that shines in that propitious light.
X.
When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, To raise the nations under ground; When in the valley of Jehosophat, The judging God shall close the book of fate, And there the last assizes keep, For those who wake, and those who sleep; When rattling bones together fly, From the four corners of the sky; When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead; } { The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, { And foremost from the tomb shall bound, { For they are covered with the lightest ground; And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing, Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing. } { There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shall go, { As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, { The way which thou so well hast learnt below.
UPON THE DEATH OF
THE VISCOUNT OF DUNDEE.
James Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, studied the military art under the Prince of Orange. He first distinguished himself by his activity in exercising the severities which the Scottish council, in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., decreed against the frequenters of the field-meetings and conventicles. On this account his memory is generally reprobated by the Scottish presbyterians; nor would history have treated him more gently, had not the splendour of his closing life effaced the recollection of his cruelties. When the Scottish Convention declared for the Prince of Orange in 1688-9, Dundee left Edinburgh, and retired to the north, where he raised the Highland clans, to prop the sinking cause of James II. After an interval of a few months, spent in desultory warfare, General Mackay marched, with a regular force, towards Blair in Athole, against this active and enterprising enemy. Upon the 17th June, 1689, when Mackay had defiled through the rocky and precipitous pass of Killicrankie, he found Dundee, with his Highlanders, arranged upon an eminence opposite to the northern mouth of the defile. Dundee permitted his adversary gradually, and at leisure, to disengage himself from the pass, and draw up his army in line; for, meditating a total victory, and not a mere check or repulse, he foresaw that Mackay's retreat would be difficult in proportion to the distance of his forces from the only path of safety through which they could fly. He then charged with irresistible fury, and routed Mackay's army in every direction, saving two regiments who stood firm. But as Dundee hastened towards them, and extended his arm as if urging the assault, a shot penetrated his armour beneath his arm-pit, and he dropt from his horse. He lived but a very short time, and died in the arms of victory. With Dundee fell all hopes of restoring King James's affairs in Scotland; the independent chieftains, who had been overawed by his superior talents, resumed the petty altercations which his authority had decided or suppressed; their followers melted away without a battle; and after his death, those who had been rather the implements than the companions of his victory, met nothing but repulse and defeat, until all the north of Scotland submitted to William III.
The epitaph, here translated by Dryden, was originally written in Latin by Dr Pitcairn, remarkable for genius and learning, as well as for Jacobitism. It will hardly be disputed, that the original is much superior to the translation, though the last be written by Dryden. In the second couplet alone, the translator has improved upon his original:
IN MORTEM VICECOMITIS TAODUNENSIS.
ULTIME SCOTORUM! POTUIT, QUO SOSPITE SOLO, LIBERTAS PATRIÆ SALVA FUISSE TUÆ; TE MORIENTE NOVOS ACCEPIT SCOTIA CIVES, ACCEPITQUE NOVOS, TE MORIENTE, DEOS. ILLA TIBI SUPERESSE NEGAT, TU NON POTES ILLI, ERGO CALEDONIÆ NOMEN INANE, VALE! TUQUE VALE, GENTIS PRISCÆ FORTISSIME DUCTOR,
Some editions of this celebrated epitaph, which seem to have been followed by Dryden, read the last line thus:
Ultime Scotorum atque optime, Grame, Vale.
But there is something national in calling Dundee the last of Scots, and the last of Grames, a race distinguished for patriotism in the struggles against England, and on this principle the last reading should be preferred.
UPON
THE DEATH OF THE VISCOUNT OF DUNDEE.
O h last and best of Scots! who didst maintain Thy country's freedom from a foreign reign; New people fill the land now thou art gone, New gods the temples, and new kings the throne. Scotland and thou did each in other live; Nor would'st thou her, nor could she thee survive. Farewell! who, dying, didst support the state, And couldst not fall but with thy country's fate.