8 years ago observed to me, has well illustrated the principle on which they went, where he compares their endeavours to those of the archer, who draws his arrow to the head, whether his object be a swan, or a goose. The addresses prefixed to the various pieces issued from the press from the Restoration to the end of the reign of Queen Anne, fully support this remark. Though very few of them are written with the spirit and elegance that are found in our author's Dedications, they by no means fall short of them in hyperbolical adulation." HUDIBRAS, P. II. c. i. "This has been done by some, who those They adored in rhyme, would kick in prose; -- "That have the hard fate to write best "Of those still that deserve it least: "It matters not how false or forc'd, 66 Only the arrow's drawn to the head, 66 Whether it be a swan or goose "Both of their sound and rotten sheep." 9 All Addresses to persons in high station, whether in prose or verse, were in the time of Dryden filled with the most extravagant encomiums. Afra Behn, whose adulation to one of the mistresses of Charles the Second has been noticed by Dr. Johnson, had a portion of the same incense equally ready for his inconsolable widow, whom she thus addresses in an Elegy written soon after his death: To the numerous encomiastick Addresses which are found in his works, some of his friends, and his eldest son, seem to have wished that he should "But when such sacrifice from us is due, "Should all the nation's tenderest griefs combine, "And all our pangs in one vast body join, "They could not sigh with agonies like thine." } She then describes the Queen flying eagerly to her husband's bed, after his death: "Such vigorous life ne'er moved your steps before, "But here they sunk beneath the weight they bore: Princes we more than human do allow, "You must have been above an angel too, 66 Had you resisted this sad strain of woe. "So the blest VIRGIN, at the world's great loss, “Came and beheld, then fainted at the Cross!" } "A Poem humbly dedicated to the great pattern of piety and virtue, Catharine, Queen Dowager, on the death of her dear Lord and Husband." fol. 1685. So also the learned Joshua Barnes, addressing the same Queen (Mastissima ac Latissima Academia Cantabri giensis Affectus," &c. 4to. 1684-5): "We'd piously condole and lend relief, "With loyal art, to your exuberant grief; "But ah! we're drown'd in tears as well as you; 46 In Charles's death all England's widow'd too. have added one more, by dedicating his Virgil to King William. This proposal it is much to his honour that he rejected; for attached as he had been for many years, however erroneously, to the "You lost a husband, and the best that e'er Did th' honourable chains of wedlock wear; "'Tis true; and sure your grief we must allow; "But we're concern'd, great Queen, as deep as you : "But we the best of worthiest Kings have lost; "No tender father could like mercies boast: "No heart can fathom, and no tongue relate "Those blessings, that on Charles's reign did wait! Thus also the same great scholar, addressing the virtuous and humane Jefferies, in what is called a Pindarick Poem, published in October, 1685, after his return from the bloody Western Circuit,-In the preceding month he had been made Lord Chancellor : 66 Arise, my Muse, now take a loftier flight, "Toward Heaven thy daring pinions try; "There on the Sun fix thou thine eagle sight, "The object's good, altho' 'tis high; "And he who sits to James so nigh, Though just he be, in mercy must delight. "This day* all Cambridge did conspire "To praise those glories we admire: "Be that my single task, which pleas'd that learned quire. "This day our sacred body, all convened, (Where loyalty and knowledge do preside,) "Decreed to honour mighty Cæsar's friend, "The Muses' glory, and Astrea's pride. * October 5. abdicated Monarch, he could not have addressed a panegyrick to his successor, though unques "To him their humble compliments they send, 66 Tho' sorry, all their art's too low "The height of his just eminence to shew; "Much less with equal praise his virtues to commend; "Virtues as far beyond his high degree, "As him above ourselves we see : "The prop whereon Justice and Law do trust, "Rais'd up aloft by James the just; "By James, of whom with pride Apollo sings, "The best of friends, of brothers, and of Kings. "Great Jefferies! yet not half so great as good, How little was thy worth once understood! "Like a rich gem in dirty mines conceal'd, "When by the Mobile so much abused! "Or rather then, how was thy virtue known, Who thee, as sinful Jews the SAVIOUR once, refused! "And thus, while in thy brighter soul there stood "The heavenly form of all that's just and good, Its beauties godlike James beheld, "For virtue best can virtue's beauties find; And straight with love divine his bosom swell'd, 66 Only such perfett forms affect so great a mind!" But nothing can place the observation in the text in a stronger point of view, than the following extraordinary production, written, not by a distressed poetess, or embarrassed author, but by Sir Francis Fane, an independent gentleman and a Knight of the Bath, who in 1675, tionably worthy of the highest praise, without forfeiting all pretensions to consistency and dignity of was not ashamed thus to address John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, (then only twenty-eight years old,) in the Dedication of his comedy entitled LOVE IN THE Dark; for which I do not know that he ever was censured by any of his contemporaries : TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN, EARL OF ROCHESTER, MY LORD, "Offenders, long connived at, for their lives, and are forced to come at last to be tried call upon their fatally indulgent friends to bring them off; for volunteer poets are at least as mad as those who, out of wantonness, play themselves into the gallies. It is high time to cast myself at your Lordship's feet, and humbly beg your protection to this rude piece, which grew the bolder by your encouragement. All poems, in their Dedications, ought to return to your Lordship, as all rivers to the sea, from whose depth and saltness they are seasoned and supplied; none of them ever coming to your Lordship's hands, without receiving some of the rich tinctures of your unerring judgment; and running with much more clearness, having past so fine a strainer. If this receives any approbation in the world, I must ascribe it principally to your Lordship's partial recommendations, and impartial corrections. "Your Lordship is the first person in the world, by whom I have been highly and heroically obliged: and if the first impressions of gratitude may be as strong and captivating as those of the first love, they must needs be |