But since our sects in prophecy grow higher,

The text inspires not them, but they the text inspire.

London, thou great emporium of our isle, O thou too bounteous, thou too fruitful Nile! How shall I praise or curse to thy desert; Or separate thy sound from thy corrupted part !

170

I call'd thee Nile; the parallel will stand: Thy tides of wealth o'erflow the fatten'd land;

Yet monsters from thy large increase we find,

Engender'd on the slime thou leav'st behind.

Sedition has not wholly seiz'd on thee,
Thy nobler parts are from infection free.
Of Israel's tribes thou hast a numerous
band,

But still the Canaanite is in the land.
Thy military chiefs are brave and true,
Nor are thy disinchanted burghers few. 180
The head is loyal which thy heart com-
mands,

But what's a head with two such gouty hands?

The wise and wealthy love the surest way,

T is working in th' immediate pow'r to be;
For from pretended grievances they rise,
First to dislike, and after to despise;
Then, Cyclop-like, in human flesh to deal,
Chop up a minister at every meal;
Perhaps not wholly to melt down the king,
But clip his regal rights within the ring;
From thence t assume the pow'r of peace
and war;

And ease him by degrees of public care.
Yet, to consult his dignity and fame,
He should have leave to exercise the
name,

And hold the cards, while commons play'd the game.

230

For what can pow'r give more than food

Thus outlaws open villainy maintain, They steal not, but in squadrons scour the plain;

And, if their pow'r the passengers subdue, The most have right, the wrong is in the few.

Such impious axioms foolishly they show, For in some soils republics will not grow: Our temp'rate isle will no extremes sustain Of pop'lar sway or arbitrary reign,

But slides between them both into the best, Secure in freedom, in a monarch blest; 251 And tho' the climate, vex'd with various winds,

Works thro' our yielding bodies on our minds,

The wholesome tempest purges what it

breeds,

That unconcern'd can at rebellion sit,
And wink at crimes he did himself commit.
A tyrant theirs; the heav'n their priest-
hood paints

A conventicle of gloomy sullen saints;
A heav'n like Bedlam, slovenly and sad,
Foredoom'd for souls with false religion
mad.

Without a vision poets can foreshow What all but fools by common sense may know;

If true succession from our isle should fail, And crowds profane with impious arms prevail,

Not thou, nor those thy factious arts in

gage,

Shall reap that harvest of rebellious rage, With which thou flatter'st thy decrepit

age.

290

The swelling poison of the sev'ral sects, Which, wanting vent, the nation's health infects,

Shall burst its bag; and, fighting out their

way,

The various venoms on each other prey. The presbyter, puff'd up with spiritual pride,

66

In March, 1682, the Duke of York was recalled from Scotland, where he had been liv ing in honorable exile, as high commissioner, since October, 1680. His first visit to the theater called by his name was on April 21. Otway's Venice Preserv'd, or A Plot Discover'd, a play of political tendency (first performed in the preceding February), in which Antonio, the villain, a fine speaker in the senate," is meant to suggest Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, was represented on this occasion. Date and play are known to us from the heading of the special epilogue, published as a broadside, which Otway wrote for this performance. The play was first published in 1682; the special prologue and epilogue were not printed with it.]

IN those cold regions which no summers cheer,

When brooding darkness covers half the

But when the tedious twilight wears away, And stars grow paler at th' approach of day,

The longing crowds to frozen mountains

run;

Happy who first can see the glimmering sun!

The surly salvage offspring disappear, And curse the bright successor of the year.

Yet, tho' rough bears in covert seek defense,

White foxes stay, with seeming innocence: That crafty kind with daylight can dis

pense.

ΤΟ

Still we are throng'd so full with Reynard's

more.

Yet late repentance may, perhaps, be true;
Kings can forgive, if rebels can but sue;
A tyrant's pow'r in rigor is express'd;

[This poem was first published as a broadside in 1682, with the heading, Prologue to the Duchess on her Return from Scotland. It was reprinted, with title as above, in Examen Poeticum, 1693. The texts of the two editions are identical.

This prologue is addressed to Mary of Este, Princess of Modena, the second wife of the Duke of York, whom he had married in 1673. His first duchess, Anne Hyde, in whose honor Dryden wrote some earlier verses (see p. 26, above), died on March 31, 1671. On May 3, 1682, the duke sailed for Scotland to bring back his wife, and suffered shipwreck on the Lemmon Ore, off the Yorkshire coast, nearly losing his life. (See the Second Part of Absa lom and Achitophel, lines 1081-1084, and Britannia Rediviva, line 97.) The duke and duchess returned in safety to England, reaching London on May 27 (Luttrell). The exact date of the duchess's visit to the theater is unknown.]

WHEN factious rage to cruel exile drove The Queen of Beauty, and the Court of Love,

The Muses droop'd, with their forsaken arts,