The Muse who could mourn to such purpose for Anne Killigrew might have been expected to soar high in celebrating and lamenting Charles II., parts of whose history and character certainly lent themselves to poetry. Whether from haste, indifference, or whatever reason, Dryden was clearly unable to penetrate himself with the subject, and it is perhaps to his honour that his composition should so little simulate an inspiration he was evidently far from feeling. The choice of subjects is judicious, but the treatment is in general inanimate and perfunctory, except when the poet is going to say something absurd, and then his motto is Pecca fortiter. There is, perhaps, nothing nearer burlesque in all Dryden’s rhyming plays than this couplet:
‘Ere a prince is to perfection brought,
He costs Omnipotence a second thought.’
The poet is also weighted by having to flatter Charles and his successor at the same time. The concluding lines, however, eulogizing James’s care for the navy, will always echo in the heart of Britain:
‘Behold even the remoter shores
A conquering navy proudly spread:
The British cannon formidably roars,
While, starting from his oozy bed,
The asserted Ocean rears his reverend head
To view and recognize his ancient Lord again,
And with a willing hand restores
The fasces of the main.’
This latter fine phrase had occurred already in Astraea Redux and Annus Mirabilis.
Andrew Marvell, though unequal, is an excellent lyric poet. His best song, Where the remote Bermudas ride, is such a household word that we select a less known piece:
‘Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
The nightingale does sit so late,
And studying all the summer night,
Her matchless songs does meditate;
‘Ye country comets, that portend
No war nor prince’s funeral,
Shining unto no other end
Than to presage the grass’s fall;
‘Ye glowworms, whose officious flame
To wandering mowers shows the way,
That in the night have lost their aim,
And after foolish fires do stray;
‘Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
Since Juliana here is come;
For she my mind hath so displaced,
That I shall never find my home.’