ELIGIES AND EPITAPHS.

TO THE MEMORY OF MR. OLDHAM.

FAREWELL, 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 abhorr'd 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 perform'd, and won
O early ripe! to thy abundant store [the race.
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.
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betray'd.
Thy generous fruits, tho' gather'd ere their
prime,

Still show'd a quickness; and maturing time
But mellows what we write, to the dull sweets
of rhyme.
[young,
Once more, hail, and farewell; farewell, thou
But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue!
Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee

around.

THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISH-
ED YOUNG LADY,

MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW, EXCELLENT IN THE TWO SISTER ARTS or POESY AND PAINTING. AN ODE.

I.

THOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, Made in the last promotion of the blest; Whose palms, new pluck'd from paradise, In spreading branches more sublimely rise,

• Farewell, too little] This short elegy is finished with the most exqusite art and skill. Not an epithet or expression can be changed for a better. It is also the most harmonious in its numbers of all that this great master of harmony has produced. Oldham's Satire on the Jesuits is written with vigour and energy It is remarkable that Dryden calls Oldham his brother in satire, hinting that this was the characteristical turn of both their geniuses. To the same goal did both our studies drive. Dr. J. W.

VOL. I.-9

Rich with immortal green above the rest :
Whether, adopted to some neigh'bring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race,
Or in procession fix'd and regular,
Mov'st with the heaven's majestic pace;
Or, call'd 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 heavens 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 transfus'd into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.

But if thy pre-existing soul

Was form'd, at first, with myriads more, It did through all the mighty poets roll,

Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, [before. And was that Sappho last* which once it was 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 auspiscious horoscope to shine, And e'en the most malicious were in trine. Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and tun'd 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 was that Sappho last, &c.] Our author here compliments Mrs. Killigrew, with admitting the doctrine of metempsychosis, and supposing the soul that informs her body to be the same with that of Sappho's, who lived six hundred years before the birth of Christ, and was equally renowned for poetry and love. She was called the tenth Muse. Phaon, whom she loved, treating her with indif ference, she jumped into the sea and was drowned D.

And if no clustering swarm of bees On thy sweet mouth distill'd their golden dew, 'T was that such vulgar miracles Heaven had not leisure to renew: For all thy blest fraternity of love [above. Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy holiday

IV.

O gracious God! how far have we Profan'd thy heavenly gift of poesy? Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debas'd to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordain'd 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)

To increase the streaming ordures of the stage? What can we say to excuse our second fall? Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all: Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd, Unmix'd with foreign filth and undefil'd; [child. Her wit was more than man, her innocence a

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 seem'd borrow'd, where 't was only born
Her morals too were in her bosom bred,

By great examples daily fed, [read. What in the best of books, her father's life, she 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 play'd about her breast:

Light as the vapours of a morning dream, So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest, 'T was 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 stretch'd her sway,
For Painture near adjoining lay,
A plenteous province, and alluring prey.

À Chamber of Dependencies was fram'd, (As conquerors will never want pretence,

When arm'd, to justify the offence) And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claim'd. 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 sway'd.

All bow'd beneath her government.

Receiv'd in triumph wheresoe'er she went. Her pencil drew whate'er her soul design'd, And oft the happy draught surpass'd the image in her mind.

The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks,
And fruitful plains and barren rocks,
Of shallow brooks that flow'd so clear,
The bottom did the top appear;
Of deeper too and ampler floods,
Which, as in mirrors, show'd 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, friezes, columns broken lie,
And, though defac'd, 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 contrast ne'er was seen before.
But when the peopled ark the whole creation
bore.

VII.

The scene then chang'd, with bold erected look Our martial king the sight with reverence strook: For not content to express his outward part, Her hand call'd out the image of his heart: His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear, His high designing thoughts were figur'd there, As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear. Our phoenix queen was portray'd too so bright, Beauty alone could beauty take so right: Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace, Were all observ'd, as well as heavenly face. With such a peerless majesty she stands, As in that day she took the crown from sacred Before a train of heroines was seen, [hands: 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 design'd, 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 proportion'd 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 harden'd felon, took a pride

To work more mischievously slow, And plunder'd first, and then destroy'd. O double sacrilege on things divine, To rob the relic, and deface the shrine ! But thus Orinda died:* [late: Heaven, by the same disease, did both transAs equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.

• But thus Orinda died The matchless Orinda, Mrs. Katherine Philips, was author of a book of poems published in folio, and wrote several other things. She died also of the small pox in 1664, being only thirty-two years of age. She was a woman of an indifferent appearance; but of great virtue, taste, and erudition, which endeared her to the first people of the age. The Duke of Ormond, the Earls of Orrery and Roscommon, Lady Corke, &c. Mr. Dryden, Mr. Cowley, &c. &c. were all her friends. D.

THE commands with which you honoured me some months ago are now performed: they had been sooner; but betwixt ill health, some busithem till this time. Ovid, going to his banishness, and many troubles, I was forced to defer ment, and writing from on shipboard to his friends, excused the faults of his poetry by his misfortunes; and told them, that good verses never flow but from a serene and composed spirit. Wit, which is a kind of Mercury, with wings fastened to his head and heels, can fly but slowly you late than ill; if at least I am capable of writin a damp air. I therefore chose rather to obey ing any thing, at any time, which is worthy your perusal and your patronage. I cannot say that

+ Oh last and best] The conduct and death of this truly valiant chieftain is described with much elo quence and animation in his account of the impor tant battle at Killikranky, by Sir John Dalrymple, in the first volanie of his Memoirs Dundee, being wounded by a musket-ball, rode off the field, desiring his mischance to be concealed, and fainting, dropped from his horse: as soon as he was recovered, he desired to be raised, looked to the field, and asked, 'How things went ? Being told, 'All well; then said he, 'I am well,' and expired. Dr. J. W

:

I have escaped from a shipwreck ; but have only gained a rock by hard swimming; where I' may pant a while and gather breath; for the doctors give me a sad assurance, that my disease never took its leave of any man, but with a purpose to return. However, my lord, I have laid hold on the interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, in performing this inconsiderable service to my lady's memory. We, who are priests of Apollo, have not the inspiration when we please; but must wait till the god comes rushing on us, and invades us with a fury, which we are not able to resist which gives us double strength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent, at its departure. Let me not seem to boast, my lord, for I have really felt it on this occasion, and prophesied beyond my natural power. Let me add, and hope to be believed, that the excellency of the subject contributed much to the happiness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken off me, while I was writing. I swam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will easily observe, that I was transported by the multitude and variety of my similitudes; which are generally the product of a luxuriant fancy, and the wantonness of wit. Had I called in my judgment to my assistance, I had certainly retrenched many of them. But I defend them not; let them pass for beautiful faults among the better sort of critics: for the whole poem, though written in that which they call Heroic verse, is of the Pindaric nature, as well in the thought as the expression; and, as such, requires the same grains of allowance for it. It was intended, as your lordship sees in the title, not for an elegy, but a panegyric: a kind of apotheosis, indeed, if a heathen word may be applied to a Christian use. And on all occasions of praise, if we take the ancients for our patterns, we are bound by prescription to employ the magnificence of words, and the force of figures, to adorn the sublimity of thoughts. Isocrates amongst the Grecian orators, and Cicero, and the younger Pliny, amongst the Romans, have left us their precedents for our security; for I think I need not mention the inimitable Pindar, who stretches on these pinions out of sight, and is carried upward, as it were, into another world. This, at least, my lord, I may justly plead, that, if I have not performed so well as I think I have, yet I have used my best endeavours to excel myself. One disadvantage I have had; which is, never to have known or seen my lady and to draw the lineaments of her mind, from the description which I have received from others, is for a painter to set himself at work without the

living original before him: which, the more beautiful it is, will be so much the more difficult for him to conceive, when he has only a relation given him of such and such features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches, which give the best resemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artist is apt enough to flatter himself (and I among the rest) that their own ocular observations would have discovered more perfections, at least others, than have been delivered to them: though I have received mine from the best hands, that is, from persons who neither want a just understanding of my lady's worth nor a due veneration for her memory.

Doctor Donne, the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet of our nation, acknowledges, that he had never seen Mrs. Drury, whom he has made immortal in his admirable Anniversaries. I have had the same fortune, though I have not succeeded to the same genius. However, I have followed his footsteps in the design of his panegyric; which was to raise an emulation in the living, to copy out the example of the dead. And therefore it was, that I once intended to have called this poem The Pattern: and though, on a second consideration, I changed the title into the name of the illustrious person, yet the design continues, and Eleonora is still the pattern of charity, devotion, and humility; of the best wife, the best mother, and the best of friends.

And now, my lord, though I have endeavoured to answer your commands, yet I could not answer it to the world, nor to my conscience, if I gave not your lordship my testimony of being the best husband now living: I say my testimony only; for the praise of it is given you by yourself. They who despise the rules of virtue both in their practice and their morals, will think this a very trivial commendation. But I think it the peculiar happiness of the Countess of Abingdon, to have been so truly loved by you, while she was living, and so gratefully honoured after she was dead. Few there are, who have either had, or could have, such a loss; and yet fewer who carried their love and constancy beyond the grave. The exteriors of mourning, a decent funeral, and black habits, are the usual stints of common husbands: and perhaps their wives deserve no better than to be mourned with hypocrisy, and forgot with ease. But you have distinguished yourself from ordinary lovers, by a real and lasting grief for the deceased; and by endeavouring to raise for her the most durable monument, which is that of verse. And so it would have proved, if the workman had been equal to the work, and your choice of the arti

ficer as happy as your design. Yet, as Phidias, when he had made the statue of Minerva, could not forbear to engrave his own name, as author of the piece so give me leave to hope that, by subscribing mine to this poem, may live by the goddess, and transmit my name to posterity by the memory of hers. 'Tis no flattery to assure your lordship, that she is remembered, in the present age, by all who have had the honour of her conversation and acquaintance; and that I have never been in any company since the news of her death was first brought me, where have not extolled her virtues, and even sperhe same things of her in prose, which I have done in verse.

I therefore think myself obliged to thank your lordship for the commission which you have given me how I have acquitted myself of it, must be left to the opinion of the world, in spite of any protestation which I can enter against the present age, as incompetent or corrupt judges. For my comfort, they are but Englishmen, and, as such, if they think ill of me to-day, they are inconstant enough to think well of me to-morrow. And after all, I have not much to thank my fortune that I was born among them. The good of both sexes are so few, in England, that they stand like exceptions against general rules and though one of them has deserved a greater commendation than I could give her,they have taken care that I should not tire my pen with frequent exercise on the like subjects; that praises, like taxes, should be appropriated, and left almost as individual as the person. They say, my talent is satire: if it be so, 't is a fruitful age, and there is an extraordinary crop to gather. But a single hand is insufficient for such a harvest they have sown the dragon's teeth themselves, and 't is but just they should reap each other in lampoons. You, my lord, who have the character of honour, though 'tis not my happiness to know you, may stand aside, with the small remainders of the English nobility, truly such, and, unhurt yourselves, behold the mad combat. If I have pleased you, and some few others, I have obtained my end.

You see

I have disabled myself, like an elected Speaker
of the House: yet like him I have undertaken
the charge, and find the burden sufficiently re-
compensed by the honour. Be pleased to ac-
cept of these my unworthy labours, this paper
monument; and let her pious memory, which I
am sure is sacred to you, not only plead the
pardon of my many faults, but gain me your
protection, which is ambitiously sought by,
My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient Servant,
JOHN DRYDEN,

*ELEONORA:†

A PANEGYRICAL POEM, DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE COUNTESS OF ABINGDON,

As when some great and gracious monarch dies, Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs rise Among the sad attendants; then the sound Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around, [blast

[vain,

Through town and country, till the dreadful
Is blown to distant colonies at last;
Who, then, perhaps, were offering vows in
For his long life, and for his happy reign:
So slowly, by degrees, unwilling fame
Did matchless Eleonora's fate proclaim,
Till public as the loss the news became.

The nation felt it in the extremest parts, With eyes o'erflowing, and with bleeding hearts;

But most the poor, whom daily she supplied,
Beginning to be such, but when she died.
For, while she liv'd, they slept in peace by
Secure of bread, as of returning light; [night,
And with such firm dependence on the day,
That need grew pamper'd, and forgot to pray:
So sure the dole, so ready at their call,
They stood prepar'd to see the manna fall.

Such multitudes she fed, she cloth'd, she

nurs'd,

That she herself might fear her wanting first.
Of her five talents, other five she made; [paid:
Heaven, that had largely given, was largely
And in few lives, in wondrous few, we find
A fortune better fitted to the mind.
Nor did her alms from ostentation fall,
Or proud desire of praise; the soul gave all:
Unbrib'd it gave; or, if a bribe appear,
No less than heaven; to heap huge treasures
there.

Want pass'd for merit at her open door :
Heaven saw, he safely might increase his poor,
And trust their sustenance with her so well,
As not to be at charge of miracle.
None could be needy, whom she saw, or knew;
All in the compass of her sphere she drew :
He, who could touch her garment, was as sure,
As the first Christians of the apostles' cure.

It appears, from the dedication to the Earl of Abingdon, that this poem was written at his Lordship's own desire. The lady whom the poem affects to praise was one of the co-heiresses of Sir Henry Lee, of Chicheley in Oxfordshire, and sister to the celebrated Mrs. Anne Wharton, a lady eminent for her poetical genius, whom Mr. Waller has cele brated in an elegant copy of verses. D. The Earl is said to have given Dryden five hundred guineas for this poem. T.