THE

C Ο Ν Τ Ε Ν Τ S

OF THE

FIRST VOL U M E.

UPON

16

PON the death of Lord Hastings

Page 1 Heroic stanzas on the death of Oliver Cromwell

7 Astræa Redux, a poem on the Restoration of

King Charles II. A Panegyric on the Coronation of Charles II. 31 An Address to Lord Chancellor Hyde 37 Satire on the Dutch

44 To her royal highness the Dutchess, on the me.

morable Victory gained by the Duke over the Hollanders, June 3, 1665, and on her Journey into the North

47 Annus Mirabilis : The Year of Wonders, 1666

53

155

Essay upon Satire. By Mr. Dryden and the
Earl of Mulgrave

137
Absalom and Achitophel, Part I.
Ditto, Part I).

199 The Medal, a Satire against Sedition

247 Religio Laici, or a Layman's Faith

275 The Art of Poetry, by Mr. Dryden and Sir William Soame

317 Threnodia Auguftalis, a funeral pindarick

Poem, to the Memory of Charles II. 365 Veni Creator Spiritus, paraphrased 386

Upon the Death of

LORD HASTINGS.

MUST

UST noble Hastings immaturely die,

The honour of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding-lheet?
Must virtue

prove death’s harbinger ? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality ?
Is death, sin's wages, grace's now ? shall art
Make us more learned, only to depart ?
Vol. I,

B

3

If merit be disease ; if virtue death;
To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? study felf-murther deem ?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully.
Rarelinguist whose worth speaksitself, whose praise,
Tho not his

own,

all

tongues besides do raise : Than whom

great
Alexander

may seem less;
Who conquer'd men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations spake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.
- His native soil was the four parts o'th'earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apostle ; and with rev’rence may
I speak it inspir’d with gift of tongues, as they
Nature

gave

him a child, what men in vain
Oft strive, by art though further'd, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his sublime soul
Did move on virtue's, and on learning's pole :
Whose reg'lar motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did shew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, filld up all the parts.

Heav'n's gifts, which do like falling stars appear
Scatter'd in others; all, as in their sphere,
Were fix'd, conglobate in his soul; and thence
Shone thro his body, with sweet influence ;
Letting their glories fo on each limb fall,
The whole frame render'd was celestial.
Come, learned Ptolemy, and tryal make,
If thou this hero's altitude can'st take :
But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus astronomical.
Liv’dTycho now, struck with this

ray

which shone More bright i'th’morn', than others beam at noon, He'd take his astrolabe, and seek out here What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere. Replenish'd then with fuch rare gifts as these, Where was room left for such a foul disease? Thenation's sin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds Our day-spring in so fad benighting clouds, Heaven would no longer trust its pledge; but thus Recall'd it ; rapt its Ganymede froin us. Was there no milder way but the small-pox, The very

filthiness of Pandora's box? So

many spots, like næves on Venus' foil, One jewel set off with so many a foil ;