235 JASPER MAYNE. 1604-1672. [DR. JASPER MAYNE was a distinguished preacher in the time of Charles I., and held two livings in the gift of the University of Oxford, from which he was expelled under the Commonwealth. At the Restoration, however, he was not only re-appointed to his former benefice, but made chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, and archdeacon of Chichester. Dr. Mayne is said to have been a clergyman of the most exemplary character; but there is an anecdote related of him which, if true, shows that he was also a practical humorist. He had an old servant to whom he bequeathed a trunk, which he told him contained something that would make him drink after his death. When the trunk was opened on the Doctor's demise, it was found to contain—a red-herring.] THE CITY MATCH. WE THE WONDERFUL FISH. E show no monstrous crocodile, This fish, none else in heaven had been. SIR SAMUEL TUKE. 1673. THE ADVENTURES OF TWO HOURS. MISTAKEN KINDNESS. CAN Luciamira so mistake, To persuade me to fly? 'Tis cruel kind for my own sake, Like those faint souls, who cheat themselves of breath, Since Love's the principle of life, We know not what they do, are gone from hence, If the Platonics, who would prove Had, with respect, well understood, The passions in the blood, They had suffered bodies to have had their part, SIR WILLIAM KILLIGREW. 1605-1693. SELINDRA. THE HAPPY HOUR. COME, come, thou glorious object of my sight, Do See how the glimmering tapers of the sky, What our arms do infold! How all do envy our felicities! And grudge the triumphs of Selindra's eyes: Her crescent in yon cloud! Where sad night puts her sable mantle on, As at the approach of day; And all the planets shrink, in doubt to be How the small Lights do fall, And adore, The heavens have not shown, Such a faith, Such a love As may move To descend; and remain JOHN DRYDEN. 1631-1700. [THE songs scattered through Dryden's plays are strikingly inferior to the rest of his poetry. The confession he makes in one of his dedications that in writing for the stage he THE DRAMATISTS. 16 consulted the taste of the audiences and not his own, and that, looking at the results, he was equally ashamed of the public and himself, applies with special force to his songs. They seem for the most part to have been thrown off merely to fill up a situation, or produce a transitory effect, without reference to substance, art, or beauty, in their structure. Like nearly all pieces written expressly for music, the convenience of the composer is consulted in many of them rather than the judgment of the poet, although the world had a right to expect that the genius of Dryden would have vindicated itself by reconciling both. Some of the verses designed on this principle undoubtedly exhibit remarkable skill in accommodating the diction and rhythm to the demands of the air; and, however indifferent they may be in perusal, it can be easily understood how effective their breaks, repetitions, and sonorous words (sometimes without much meaning in them) must have been in the delivery. Dryden descended to the smallest things with as much success as he soared to the highest; and, if he had cared to bestow any pains upon such compositions, two or three of the following specimens are sufficient to show with what a subtle fancy and melody of versification he might have enriched this department of our poetical literature. Many of the songs are stained with the grossness that defiled the whole drama of the Restoration. Others are metrical commonplaces not worth transplantation. From the nature of the subjects, the selection is necessarily scanty, although Dryden's plays yield a more plentiful crop of lyrics of various kinds than those of any of his contemporaries. A larger collection might have been made, but that numerous songs, otherwise unobjectionable, are so closely interwoven with the business of the scene as to be inseparable from the dialogue. Of this character is the greater part of the opera of Albion and Albanus, and nearly the whole of the lyrical version of the Tempest, a work in which Dryden appears to greater disadvantage than in any other upon which he was ever engaged.] THE INDIAN QUEEN. INCANTATION. 1664. OU You twice ten hundred deities, To whom we daily sacrifice; You Powers that dwell with fate below, And open thy unwilling eyes, While bubbling springs their music keep, That use to lull thee in thy sleep. SONG OF THE AERIAL SPIRITS. POOR mortals, that are clogged with earth below, Sink under love and care, While we, that dwell in air, Such heavy passions never know. Why then should mortals be Unwilling to be free From blood, that sullen cloud, |