There are two notable instances in English literature of the respect described as having been paid by heaven to deceased kings. The first of these was the tribute paid by the servile Dryden to the memory of Charles II, entitled “A Funeral Pindarique poem, sacred to the Happy Memory of King Charles II,” the other was the description, by Robert Southey, of the beatification of George III, entitled “The Vision of Judgment.”
Of Dryden’s poem nothing need here be said, except that it contained the oft quoted lines:—
“For, e’er a prince is to perfection brought,
He costs omnipotence a second thought.”
Second thoughts are not always the best, and few kings have been above the average of mankind.
At the time these poems were written each author was enjoying the pension of Poet Laureate, which furnishes the only possible excuse for the blasphemy, and the fulsome adulation, which characterise the poems.
Southey’s poem, with all its faults, was scarcely so glaringly profane at that of Dryden, who spoke of the second Charles, as
That all-forgiving king,
The type of him above!
yet Southey did not hesitate to represent the Almighty as leaving his throne especially to come down to meet the spirit of George III at the gate of heaven. Then all the spirits in heaven, and in hell, are summoned to the trial of the old king, and his accusers are ordered to stand forth to bear witness against him.