The Works of John Dryden (Volume 9); Now First Collected (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: to HIS SACRED MAJESTY, PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION. Th E ceremony of Charles the Second's coronation was deferred until the year succeeding his Restoration, when it was solemnized with extreme magnificence, on tne 22d April, l66l, being St George's day. Charles moved from the Tower to Whitehall, through a series of triumphal arches, stages, and pageants, all of which presented, at once, the joy and wealth of his people before the eyes of the monarch. The poets, it may readily be believed, joined in the general gratulation; but, from the rudeness of rheir style, and puerility of their conceits, Charles, whose taste was undoubted, must have soon distinguished our author's superior energy of diction, and harmony of language. In most respects we may consider this piece as written in the style of the preceding, yet with less affectation of witty and far-fetched allusion. The description of the spring, beginning, " Now our sad ruins are removed from sight," is elegantly fancied, and so smoothl) expressed, that even the flow of the language seems to mark the mild and delightful influence of the season it describes. Much quaintness remains to be weeded out. The name of the king is sent on high, wrapped soft and warm in music, like flames on the wings of incense; and, anon, music has found a tomb in Charles, and lies drowned in her own sweetness; while the fragrant scent, begun from the royal person, and confined within the hallowed dome, flies round and descends on him in richer dew. Above all, we are startled to hear of A queen, near whose chaste womb, ordained by fate. The souls of kings unborn tor bodii-l wait. Neither, if we read (with the first edition) from instead of near, is the intelligibility, or decorum of the passage much improved. If any of the souls of these u...