Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge In richer azure never did appear; Proud her returning prince to entertain With the submitted fasces of the main. AND welcome now, great monarch, to your own! Revenge less sweet than a forgiving mind. † Note XXI. ‡ Note XXII. § Note XXIII. Choked up the beach with their still growing store, While, spurred with eager thoughts of past delight, And, as old Time his offspring swallowed down,‡ *Note XXIV. + Note XXV. ‡ Note XXVI. At home the hateful names of parties cease, NOTES ON ASTREA REDUX. Note I. An horrid stillness first invades the ear, And in that silence we the tempest fear.-P. 30. The small wits of the time made themselves very merry with this couplet; because stillness, being a mere absence of sound, could not, it was said, be personified, as an active agent, or invader. Captain Ratcliff thus states the objection in his "News from Hell:" Laureat, who was both learned and florid, Was damned, long since, for " silence horrid ;" But that this Silence did "invade." Invade and so't might well, 'tis clear; But what did it invade ?-an ear. And for some other things, 'tis true, "We follow Fate, that does pursue." In the "Dialogue in Bedlam," between Oliver's porter, fidler, and poet, the first of these persons thus addresses L'Estrange and Dryden," the scene being adorned with several of the poet's own flowers:" O glory, glory! who are these appear? While not one sound of voice from you I spy. But, as Dr Johnson justly remarks, we hesitate not to say, the world is invaded by darkness, which is a privation of light; and why not by silence, which is a privation of sound? Note II. The ambitious Swede, like restless billows tost, To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeathed.-P. 30. The royal line of Sweden has produced more heroic and chivalrous monarchs, than any dynasty of Europe. The gallant Charles X. who is here mentioned, did not degenerate from this warlike stem. He was a nephew of the great Gustavus Adolphus; and, like him, was continually engaged in war, particularly against Poland and Austria. He died at Gottenburgh in 1660, and the peace of Sweden was soon afterwards restored by the trea ty of Copenhagen. Note III. We sighed to hear the fair Iberian bride The death of Cromwell, and the unsettled state of England, prevented the execution of those ambitious schemes, which Cardinal Mazarine, then prime minister of France, had hoped to accomplish by the assistance of Britain. The Cardinal was therefore, in 1659, induced to accede to the treaty of the Pyrenees, by which peace was restored betwixt France and Spain; the union being cemented by the marriage of the Infanta to Louis XIV.Charles II., then a needy fugitive, was in attendance upon the ministers of France and Spain, when they met on the frontiers for this great object; but he, who was soon to be so powerful a monarch, experienced on that occasion nothing but slights from Mazarine, and cold civility from Don Lewis de Haro. Note IV. The sacred purple, then, and scarlet gown, Like sanguine dye to elephants, was shown.-P. 31. This does not mean, as Derrick conceived, that these emblems of authority had as little effect upon the mob as if they had been shown to an elephant; but that the sight of them animated the people to such senseless fury, as elephants, and many other animals, are said to shew, upon seeing any object of a red colour. |