Dryden's Palamon and Arcite Part 4

Wycherley, Plain Dealer.

1678, Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress.

Rymer, Tragedies of the Last Age.

1679, Oldham, Satires upon the Jesuits.

1680, Otway, The Orphan.

1681, Marvell, Poems.

Roscommon, Essay on Translated Verse.

1682, Otway, Venice Preserved.

1687, Newton, Principia.

Prior and Montague, Country Mouse and City Mouse.

1688, Britannia Rediviva.

1688, Second Declaration of Indulgence. Bishops sent to Tower.

Birth of Prince of Wales. William and Mary invited to take English Throne.

William lands at Torbay. James flees.

1689, Lost his offices and pensions.

1689, William and Mary crowned. Toleration Act. Bill of Rights.

Grand Alliance. Jacobite Rebellion.

1689, Locke, Letters on Toleration, Treatise on Government.

1690, Don Sebastian. Amphitryon.

1690, Battle of the Boyne.

1690, Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

1691, King Arthur 1691, Treaty of Limerick.

1691, Langbane, Account of English Dramatic Poets. Rochester, Poems.

1692, Eleonora, Cleomines.

1692, Ma.s.sacre of Glencoe. Churchill deprived of office.

1692, Dennis, The Impartial Critick.

1693, Miscellanies, vol. iii. Perseus and Juvenal.

1693, Beginning of National Debt.

1693, Congreve, Old Bachelor.

1694, Miscellanies, vol. iv.

1694, Bank of England established. Death of Queen Mary.

1694, Southern, The Fatal Marriage. Addison, Account of Greatest English Poets. Congreve, Double Dealer.

1695, Poems to Kneller and Congreve. Fresnoy's Art of Painting.

1695, Censorship of Press removed.

1695, Congreve, Love for Love. Blackmore, Prince Arthur.

1696, Life of Lucian.

1696, Trials for Treason Act.

1696, Southern, Oroonoko.

1697, Virgil, Alexander's Feast composed.

1697, Peace of Ryswick.

1697, Congreve, Mourning Bride. Vanbrugh, The Relapse.

1698, Part.i.tion Treaties.

1698, Swift begins Battle of Books. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle.

Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife. Collier, Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage.

1700, Fables. Died May 1st.

1700, Severe Acts against Roman Catholics.

1700, Congreve, Way of the World. Prior, Carmen Seculare.

TO HER GRACE THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF ORMOND,

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM OF PALAMON AND ARCITE.

MADAM,

The bard who first adorned our native tongue Tuned to his British lyre this ancient song; Which Homer might without a blush reherse, And leaves a doubtful palm in Virgil's verse: He matched their beauties, where they most excel; Of love sung better, and of-arms as well.

Vouchsafe, ill.u.s.trious Ormond, to behold What power the charms of beauty had of old; Nor wonder if such deeds of arms were done, Inspired by two fair eyes that sparkled like your own.

If Chaucer by the best idea wrought, And poets can divine each other's thought, The fairest nymph before his eyes he set; And then the fairest was Plantagenet, Who three contending princes made her prize, And ruled the rival nations with her eyes; Who left immortal trophies of her fame, And to the n.o.blest order gave the name.

Like her, of equal kindred to the throne, You keep her conquests, and extend your own:

As when the stars, in their etherial race, At length have rolled around the liquid s.p.a.ce, At certain periods they resume their place, From the same point of heaven their course advance, And move in measures of their former dance; Thus, after length of ages, she returns, Restored in you, and the same place adorns: Or you perform her office in the sphere, Born of her blood, and make a new Platonic year.

O true Plantagenet, O race divine, (For beauty still is fatal to the line,) Had Chaucer lived that angel-face to view, Sure he had drawn his Emily from you; Or had you lived to judge the doubtful right, Your n.o.ble Palamon had been the knight; And conquering Theseus from his side had sent Your generous lord, to guide the Theban government.

Time shall accomplish that; and I shall see A Palamon in him, in you an Emily.

Already have the Fates your path prepared, And sure presage your future sway declared: When westward, like the sun, you took your way, And from benighted Britain bore the day, Blue Triton gave the signal from the sh.o.r.e, The ready Nereids heard, and swam before To smooth the seas; a soft Etesian gale But just inspired, and gently swelled the sail; Portunus took his turn, whose ample hand Heaved up the lightened keel, and sunk the sand, And steered the sacred vessel safe to land.

The land, if not restrained, had met your way, Projected out a neck, and jutted to the sea.

Hibernia, prostrate at your feet, adored In you the pledge of her expected lord,

Due to her isle; a venerable name; His father and his grandsire known to fame; Awed by that house, accustomed to command, The st.u.r.dy kerns in due subjection stand, Nor bear the reins in any foreign hand.

At your approach, they crowded to the port; And scarcely landed, you create a court: As Ormond's harbinger, to you they run, For Venus is the promise of the Sun.

The waste of civil wars, their towns destroyed, Pales unhonoured, Ceres unemployed, Were all forgot; and one triumphant day Wiped all the tears of three campaigns away.

Blood, rapines, ma.s.sacres, were cheaply bought, So mighty recompense your beauty brought.

As when the dove returning bore the mark Of earth restored to the long-labouring ark, The relics of mankind, secure of rest, Oped every window to receive the guest, And the fair bearer of the message blessed: So, when you came, with loud repeated cries, The nation took an omen from your eyes, And G.o.d advanced his rainbow in the skies, To sign inviolable peace restored; The saints with solemn shouts proclaimed the new accord.

When at your second coming you appear, (For I foretell that millenary year) The sharpened share shall vex the soil no more, But earth unbidden shall produce her store; The land shall laugh, the circling ocean smile, And Heaven's indulgence bless the holy isle.

Heaven from all ages has reserved for you That happy clime, which venom never knew; Or if it had been there, your eyes alone Have power to chase all poison, but their own.

Now in this interval, which Fate has cast Betwixt your future glories and your past, This pause of power, 'tis Ireland's hour to mourn; While England celebrates your safe return, By which you seem the seasons to command, And bring our summers back to their forsaken land.