Part 37 (1/2)

It seems, as ev'ry s.h.i.+p their sov'reign knows, His awful summons they so soon obey: So hear the scaly herds when Proteus blows, And so to pasture follow through the sea.

It would not be hard to believe that Dryden had written the two first lines seriously, and that some wag had added the two latter in burlesque.

Who would expect the lines that immediately follow, which are, indeed, perhaps indecently hyperbolical, but certainly in a mode totally different:

To see this fleet upon the ocean move, Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies; And heav'n, as if there wanted lights above, For tapers made two glaring comets rise.

The description of the attempt at Bergen will afford a very complete specimen of the descriptions in this poem:

And now approach'd their fleet from India, fraught With all the riches of the rising sun: And precious sand from southern climates brought, The fatal regions where the war begun.

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store, Their waylaid wealth to Norway's coast they bring: Then first the north's cold bosom spices bore, And winter brooded on the eastern spring.

By the rich scent we found our perfum'd prey, Which, flank'd with rocks, did close in covert lie; And round about their murd'ring cannon lay, At once to threaten and invite the eye.

Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard, The English undertake th' unequal war; Sev'n s.h.i.+ps alone, by which the port is barr'd, Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those; These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy; And to such height their frantick pa.s.sion grows, That what both love, both hazard to destroy:

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball, And now their odours arm'd against them fly: Some preciously by shatter'd porc'lain fall, And some by aromatick splinters die.

And though by tempests of the prize bereft, In heav'n's inclemency some ease we find; Our foes we vanquish'd by our valour left, And only yielded to the seas and wind.

In this manner is the sublime too often mingled with the ridiculous.

The Dutch seek a shelter for a wealthy fleet: this, surely, needed no ill.u.s.tration; yet they must fly, not like all the rest of mankind on the same occasion, but ”like hunted castors;” and they might with strict propriety be hunted; for we winded them by our noses--their _perfumes_ betrayed them. The _husband_ and the _lover_, though of more dignity than the castor, are images too domestick to mingle properly with the horrours of war. The two quatrains that follow are worthy of the author. The account of the different sensations with which the two fleets retired, when the night parted them, is one of the fairest flowers of English poetry:

The night comes on, we eager to pursue The combat still, and they asham'd to leave: Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew, And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive.

In th' English fleet each s.h.i.+p resounds with joy, And loud applause of their great leader's fame: In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy, And, slumb'ring, smile at the imagin'd flame.

Not so the Holland fleet, who, tir'd and done, Stretch'd on their decks like weary oxen lie; Faint sweats all down their mighty members run, (Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply.)

In dreams they fearful precipices tread, Or, s.h.i.+pwreck'd, labour to some distant sh.o.r.e; Or, in dark churches, walk among the dead: They wake with horrour, and dare sleep no more.

It is a general rule in poetry, that all appropriated terms of art should be sunk in general expressions, because poetry is to speak an universal language. This rule is still stronger with regard to arts not liberal, or confined to few, and, therefore, far removed from common knowledge; and of this kind, certainly, is technical navigation. Yet Dryden was of opinion, that a seafight ought to be described in the nautical language; ”and certainly,” says he, ”as those, who in a logical disputation keep to general terms, would hide a fallacy, so those who do it in any poetical description would veil their ignorance.”

Let us then appeal to experience; for by experience, at last, we learn as well what will please as what will profit. In the battle, his terms seem to have been blown away; but he deals them liberally in the dock:

So here some pick out bullets from the side, Some drive old _ok.u.m_ through each _seam_ and rift; Their left hand does the _calking-iron_ guide, The rattling _mallet_ with the right they lift.

With boiling pitch another near at hand (From friendly Sweden brought) the _seams in-slops_: Which, well-laid o'er, the salt sea-waves withstand, And shake them from the rising beak in drops.

Some the _gall'd_ ropes with dauby _marling_ bind, Or sear-cloth masts with strong _tarpawling_ coats; To try new _shrouds_ one mounts into the wind, And one below, their ease or stiffness notes.

I suppose there is not one term which every reader does not wish away[121].

His digression to the original and progress of navigation, with his prospect of the advancement which it shall receive from the Royal Society, then newly inst.i.tuted, may be considered as an example seldom equalled of seasonable excursion and artful return.

One line, however, leaves me discontented; he says, that, by the help of the philosophers,