By too severe a fate, Fallen fallen! fallen! fallen! Fallen from his high estate. With downcast look the joyous victor sate, The various turns of fate below; 5. The mighty master smiled to see Softly sweet, in Lydian' measures, Never ending, still beginning, The Who caused his care, And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, 1 Lydian, pertaining to Lydia, a country of Asia Minor, or to its inhabitants: hence, soft; effeminate; said especially of one of the ancient Greek modes or keys, the music in which was soft and pathetic. 6. Now strike the golden lyre again— 7. 8. And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder. Has raised up his head! As awaked from the dead, And amazed, he stares around. See the snakes that they rear, And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! Behold a ghastly band, Each a torch in his hand! Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, And unburied remain, Inglorious, on the plain. Give the vengeance due To the valiant crew. Behold how they toss their torches on high! How they point to the Persian abodes, And glittering temples of their hostile gods! The princes applaud with a furious joy; And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy : To light him to his prey; And, like another Helen,' fired another Troy. Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. 1 Helen, a most beautiful woman of ancient Greece, whom Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, stole from the arms of her husband, Men eläüs, who, with the other Greek At last, divine Cecilia' came, The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, Enlarged the former narrow bounds, With nature's mother wit, and arts unknown befōre. Or both divide the crown : He raised a mortal to the skies; She drew an angel down. DRYDEN. JOHN DRYDEN, one of the great masters of English verse, was born at Oldwinckle, in Northamptonshire, August, 1631. He was educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge. He began his literary career by a set of heroic stanzas on the death of Cromwell, which was a good precursor of his future excellence. The Restoration occurring when he was in his thirtieth year, excluded him for the time from government employment and patronage, and he at once devoted himself to literature for a profession. The stage now offered itself as the only means through which his pen could furnish a livelihood; and, in the course of twenty-five years, he wrote twenty-seven dramas, the most remarkable of which are his "Heroic Plays." From these rhymed dialogues arose that mastery of the English heroic couplet which he was the first to acquire, and in which no succeeding poet has nearly equaled him. The prefaces, dedications, and essays, with which he accompanied his dramas, exhibit him at once as the earliest writer of regular and elegant English prose, and as the first who aimed in our language at any thing like philosophical criticism. These prose fragments contain some of the most felicitous specimens of style which our tongue has ever produced. His engagement to write plays for the King's Theater gave him £300 a year: his circumstances were improved by his marriage, in 1665, with Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire; and in 1670 he received, with a salary of £200 a year and the famous butt of wine, the joint offices of historiographer-royal and poet-laureate. "Absalom and Achitophel," the best of all his political satires, appeared in 1681. "The Medal" and "Mac Flecknoe," works of the same kind, followed soon after. In 1685, Dryden was received into the Church of Rome, the first public fruit of which was the "Hind and Panther," a rich allegorical poem, in which the main arguments of the Roman Church are stated. The Revolution, taking place in his fifty-seventh year, deprived the poet of his courtly patrons and pensions, and forced him to spend the last twelve years of his life in hard toil. Some of his best works were produced in this period. In 1690 appeared his tragedy of "Don Sebastian," the best of his serious plays. In 1697 he threw off at a heat his "Alexander's Feast," one of the most animated of all lyrical poems; and his spirited translation of Virgil appeared the same year. Lastly, in the spring of 1700, were published his "Fables," which prove that his warm imagination then burned as brightly 2 Cecilia, the patron saint of music, erroneously regarded as the inventress of the organ, suffered martyrdom A. D. 220. She has been celebrated by several of the poets, and depicted on canvas by more than one of the great painters. Raphael has most admirably presented her as the personification of heavenly devotion. as ever, and that his metrical skill increased at the close of his life. These admirable poems shed a glory on the last days of the poet, who died on the 1st of May, 1700. For an extended description of Dryden's poetical endowments, the reader is referred to the 66th Exercise, p. 243. 2. 3. SECTION XXXIII. I. 171. HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY. 10 be—or not to be-that is the question! The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks To sleep! perchance to dream! Ay; there's the rub; Must give us pause! There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The insolence of office, and the spurns Who would fardels bear, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, 4. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; II. 172. CATO'S SOLILOQUY. T must be so— -Plato, thou reasonest well! SHAKSPEARE Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, "Tis Heaven itself, that points out a hereafter, 2. Eternity!-thou pleasing, dreadful thought! Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! Through all her works,-He must delight in virtue; 1 Marcus Porcius Cato, greatgrandson of Cato the Censor, was born B. C. 95. From his youth he was celebrated for his bravery, virtue, decision, severity, and harshness of character. He was the principal supporter of Cicero in his measures for suppressing the Catilinerian conspiracy; and on the commencement of civil war, in B. C. 49, he joined the party of Pompey against Cæsar. After the defeat of the former, Cato proceeded to Africa, where the hopes of the republican party were finally extinguished by the battle of Thapsus, April 6th, B. c. 46. Failing to inspire his countrymen, who were collected at Utica, with courage to endure a siege, he resolved not to outlive the downfall of the republic. After providing for the safety of his friends, and spending the greater part of the night in perusing Plato's Phædo, he inflicted on himself the wound of which he died, in the fortyninth year of his age. |