So hear the scaly herds when Proteus blows,

And so to pasture follow through the sea.

It would not be hard to believe that Dryden had written the two first lines seriously, and that some wag had added the two latter in burlesque. Who would expect the lines that immediately follow, which are indeed perhaps indecently hyperbolical, but certainly in a mode totally different?

To see this fleet upon the ocean move,

Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies;
And Heaven, as if there wanted lights above,
For tapers made two glaring comets rise.

The description of the attempt at Bergen will afford a very complete specimen of the descriptions in this poem:

And now approach'd 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.

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,

Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coast they bring:
Then first the North's cold bosom spices bore,
And winter brooded on the Eastern spring.

By the rich scent we found our perfum'd prey,
Which, flank'd with rocks, did close in covert lie;
And round about their murdering cannon lay,
At once to threaten and invite the eye.

Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard,
The English undertake th' unequal war :
Seven ships alone, by which the port is barr'd,

Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those :
These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy:
And to such height their frantick passion grows,
That what both love, both hazard to destroy :

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,
And row their odours arm'd against them fly:
Some preciously by shatter'd porcelain fall,
And some by aromatick splinters die.

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

And only yielded to the seas and wind.

In this manner is the sublime too often mingled with the ridiculous. The Dutch seek a shelter for a wealthy fleet: this surely needed no illustration ; yet they must fly, not like all the rest of mankind on the same occasion, but "like hunted castors ;" and they might with strict propriety be hunted; for we winded them by our noses-their perfumes betrayed them. The Husband and the Lover, though of more dignity than the castor, are images too domestick to mingle properly with the horrors of The two quatrains that follow are worthy of the author.

war.

The account of the different sensations with which the two fleets retired, when the night parted them, is one of the fairest flowers of English poetry:

The night comes on, we eager to pursue

The combat still, and they asham'd to leave:
Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew,
And doubtful moon-light did our rage deceive

In th' English fleet each ship resounds with joy,
And loud applause of their great leader's fame:
In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy,

And, slumbering, smile at the imagin'd flame.
Not so the Holland fleet, who, tir'd and done,
Stretch'd on their decks like weary oxen lie;
Faint sweats all down their mighty members run,
(Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply).
In dreams they fearful precipices tread,

Or, shipwreck'd, labour to some distant shore; Or, in dark churches, walk among the dead :

They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more.

It is a general rule in poetry, that all appropriated terms of art should be sunk in general expressions, because poetry is to speak an universal language. This rule is still stronger with regard to arts not liberal, or confined to few, and therefore far removed from common knowledge; and of this kind, certainly, is technical navigation. Yet Dryden was of opinion, that a sea-fight ought to be described in the nautical Tanguage; "and certainly," says he, as those, who in a logical disputation keep to general terms, would hide a fallacy, so those who do it in any poetical description would veil their ignorance."

66

Let us then appeal to experience; for by experience at last we learn as well what will please as what will profit. In the battle, his terms seem to have been blown away; but he deals them liberally in the dock :

So here some pick out bullets from the side,

Some drive old okum thro' each seam and rift;
Their left-hand does the calking-iron guide,
The rattling mallet with the right they lift.

X

With boiling pitch another near at hand

(From friendly Sweden brought) the seams in-stops:
Which, well laid o'er, the salt-sea waves withstand,
And shake them from the rising beak in drops.

Some the gall'd ropes with dawby marling bind,
Or sear-cloth masts with strong tarpawling coats;
To try new shrouds one mounts into the wind,
And one below, their ease or stiffness notes.

I suppose there is not one term which every reader does not wish away.

His digression to the original and progress of navigation, with his prospect of the advancement which it shall receive from the Royal Society, then newly instituted, may be considered as an example seldom equalled of seasonable excursion and artful return.

One

line, however, leaves me discontented; he

Mulays, that, by the help of the philosophers,

Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce,

By which remotest regions are allied.—

Which he is constrained to explain in a note "by a more exact measure of longitude." It had better become Dryden's learning and genius to have laboured science into poetry, and have shewn, by explaining longitude, that verse did not refuse the ideas of philosophy.

His description of the Fire is painted by resolute meditation, out of a mind better formed to reason than to feel. The conflagration of a city, with all its tumults of concomitant distress, is one of the most dreadful spectacles which this world can offer to human eyes; yet it seems to raise little emotion in the breast of the poet; he watches the flame coolly

from street to street, with now a reflection, and now a simile, till at last he meets the King, for whom he makes a speech, rather tedious in a time so busy; and then follows again the progress of the fire.

There are, however, in this part some passages that deserve attention; as in the beginning;

The diligence of trades and noiseful gain,
And luxury, more late, asleep were laid;
All was the Night's, and in her silent reign
No sound the rest of Nature did invade
In this deep quiet-

The expression" All was the Night's" is taken from Seneca, who remarks on Virgil's line,

Omnia noctis erant, placida composta quiete,

that he might have concluded better,

Omnia noctis erant.

The following quatrain is vigorous and animated:

The ghosts of traytors from the bridge descend
With bold fanatick spectres to rejoice;

About the fire into a dance they bend,

And sing their sabbath notes with feeble voice.

His prediction of the improvements which shall be made in the new city is elegant and poetical, and, with an event which Poets cannot always boast, has been happily verified. The poem concludes with a simile that might have better been omitted.

Dryden, when he wrote this poem, seems not yet fully to have formed his versification, or settled his system of propriety.