5—
Dryden and the Conventions of Panegyric

Dryden can be distinguished from the other panegyrists of the seventeenth century in two ways. First, he attempts to preserve the traditional functions of panegyrical oratory within the popular forms of Pindaric ode and heroic narrative. More conscious than his immediate predecessors of the oratorical origins of panegyric, Dryden adopts the innovations of Cowley and Waller not to obscure, but rather to emphasize the ancient themes and topics of the genre. Second, Dryden ingeniously adapts these very themes and topics for purposes of satire. In Mac Flecknoe, Absalom and Achitophel, and The Hind and the Panther, Dryden combines heroic poetry and oratory to create a brilliant kind of satire that is structured on the well-defined values of panegyric.

The movement from heroic panegyric to varieties of mock-heroic panegyric confirms the central importance of this genre in Dryden's career. Although he came to recognize the futility of writing serious panegyric in Restoration England, Dryden also discovered new and

highly original uses for the old conventions. Indeed, until the time of his death in 1700, Dryden was still experimenting with these conventions, thereby illuminating, transforming, even re-creating his own heritage.

Heroics and Pindarics

In the preface to Eleonora Dryden describes the versification of his "panegyrical poem" as both "heroic" and "Pindaric." Although written in heroic couplets, the verse is characterized by its Pindaric qualities: copious imagery and quick transitions. The influence of heroic and Pindaric poetry on Dryden's concept of panegyric is not, however, restricted to techniques of versification. A second look at Astraea Redux and Threnodia Augustalis, in the context of Dryden's criticism, will show how carefully he adopted the innovations of Waller and Cowley.

Dryden's unwritten epic is the hollow center of his achievement. At various moments in his literary life he referred not only to panegyric but also to historical poetry, tragedy, and satire as branches or kinds of epic. To some degree Dryden's epic-centered criticism is probably disingenuous. Unable to write an epic, he therefore tended to label the poems he was capable of writing as types of epic. Taking Dryden's criticism on its own terms, however, it is evident that his theory of epic explains these surprising correlations with other genres. At least we can see in his criticism of epic in general, and of the Aeneid in particular, ample justification for his reference to panegyric as a "branch of epic."

Dryden holds at once an exalted belief in the importance of epic poetry and a rather narrow conception of

its appeal. For Dryden an epic poem is "the greatest work of human nature," but it appeals almost exclusively to the public side of "human nature."^[1] In effect, Dryden really hears only one of what Adam Parry has called "The Two Voices of Vergil's Aeneid" .

Vergil continually insists on the public glory of the Roman achievement, the establishment of peace and order and civilization. . . . But he insists equally on the terrible price. . . . More than blood, sweat, and tears, something more precious is continually being lost by the necessary process; human freedom, love, personal loyalty, all the qualities which the heroes of Homer represent, are lost in the service of what is grand, monumental, and impersonal.^[2]

Dryden's response to the impersonal, public voice of the epic has been generally recognized and has been demonstrated at some length by L. D. Proudfoot in his book on Dryden's Aeneid and Its Seventeenth Century Predecessors . Proudfoot concludes that Dryden makes us "vividly conscious of Virgil as a court poet," but "in his responses to pathos" Dryden proves "unsatisfactory."^[3] Dryden's perception of Vergil as "a court poet," however partial this perception may be, suggests the possible correlation between epic and panegyric. In fact, a closer look at Dryden's criticism of epic reveals precise functional similarities between the two genres.

[1] John Dryden, "The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence" [Preface to The State of Innocence: an Opera], Of Dramatic Poesy and Other Critical Essays, ed. George Watson, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1962), I, 198. Hereafter cited as Essays .

[2] Adam Parry, "The Two Voices of Vergil's Aeneid," Arion, II (1963), 78.

[3] L. D. Proudfoot, Dryden's Aeneid and Its Seventeenth Century Predecessors (Manchester, 1960), pp. 276–277.

For Dryden, epic has two basic functions: political education and political propaganda. First, as education, the epic poem "forms a hero, and a prince," to whom Dryden ascribes certain specific virtues.^[4] "The shining quality of an epic hero, his magnanimity, his constancy, his patience, his piety . . . raises first our admiration; we are naturally prone to imitate what we admire . . ."^[5] The phrase "shining quality" recalls Davenant's epic theory of "emulation," while the word "admire" suggests Dryden's own discussion of the branches of epic in the "Account" of Annus Mirdbilis .^[6] The theory, in either case, is that the prince is educated in virtue by admiring and emulating the epic hero. Second, as political propaganda, the epic poem can persuade the people to accept a pious ruler even, as in Vergil's time, at the cost of adjusting to a changed polity. "[The] Roman Commonwealth, being now changed into a Monarchy, Virgil was helping to that design, by insinuating into the people the piety of their new conqueror, to make them the better brook this innovation . . ."^[7]

These two functions of epic as defined by Dryden parallel exactly the two functions of panegyric as defined by Erasmus. Of the first Erasmus had written: "By having the image of virtue put before them, bad princes might be made better, the good encouraged, the ignorant instructed, the mistaken set right, the wavering quick-

[4] A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, in Essays, II, 96.

[5] "To the Right Honourable Hugh, Lord Clifford, Baron of Chudleigh" [Preface to the Pastorals in The Works of Virgil], Essays, II, 228.

[6] See above, chap. 1, "Critical Definition."

[7] "The Character of St. Evremond," Essays, II, 58.

ened and even the abandoned brought to some sense of shame." And of the second: "[It] is for the public advantage, that even when a sovereign is not the best of men, those over whom he rules should think the best of him."^[8] In short, Dryden's theory of epic is functionally identical with the theory of panegyric as it had developed since the sixteenth century.

This helps to explain why Dryden persistently refers to Edmund Waller, the most prolific panegyrical poet of the seventeenth century, in the context of remarks on epic poetry. Dryden names Waller in the company of Tasso's translator Fairfax, Spenser, and Milton. "Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, and Mr Waller of Fairfax . . ."^[9] Elsewhere Dryden praises Waller for being more harmonious than Spenser, mentions Waller's love for Chapman, and like Rymer refers to Waller's fractional translation of Aeneid IV.^[10] The drift of Dryden's criticism of Waller may at first seem surprising, as Waller wrote nothing that we would call an epic (if we exclude the mock-epic The Battle Of The Summer Islands ). But this criticism begins to make sense if we remember that Dryden measured every other kind of literature against epic and was inclined to call almost anything written in heroic couplets "a kind of epic." It makes very good sense when we consider in addition Dryden's functional

[8] Erasmus, "Epistle 176," The Epistles of Erasmus, ed. and trans. Francis Morgan Nichols, 5 vols. (London, 1901), I, 366–367.

[9] "Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern," Essays, II, 270.

[10] A Discourse Concerning  . . . Satire, in Essays, II, 83–84; "To the Right Honourable My Lord Radcliffe" [Preface to Examen poeticum], Essays, II, 167; "The Preface to Ovid's Epistles," Essays, I, 268.

identification of panegyric with epic. To see how this theoretical correlation works in practice for both Waller and Dryden, we can juxtapose Astraea Redux first with Waller's early poem on the king's escape and then with his panegyric to Cromwell.

Vergil's Aeneid provides the heroic background in the return poems of both Waller and Dryden. Charles I in Waller's poem and Charles II in Dryden's are both compared to the storm-tossed Aeneas of Vergil's first book. Waller establishes the epic context of the prince's heroism by emphasizing the storm itself: "Great Maro could no greater tempest feign . . ."^[11] Although Waller continues by showing how the intrepid Charles surpasses Aeneas in heroic bravery, he also shows his modern hero to be concerned less about the potential demise of empire than about the loss of "love's untasted joys" (100). Waller incorporates the romantic theme from Aeneid IV into his allusion and soft-pedals the public or impersonal dimension of Vergil's poem. That Waller had the fourth book in mind is particularly suggested by the line, "Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep" (42), which he later adopted unchanged to translate Aeneid IV, 583 ("adnixi torquent spumas et caerula verrunt").^[12] Like Waller, Dryden initially sees the English monarch as Aeneas, fato profugus .

[11] Edmund Waller, Of The Danger His Majesty (Being Prince) Escaped In the Road At Saint Andrews, line 85, The Poems of Edmund Waller, ed. George Thorn-Drury (New York, 1968), p. 4. For mention of this poem in connection with Aeneid I and Astraea Redux, see Arthur W. Hoffman, John Dryden's Imagery (Gainesville, Fla., 1962), p. 19, fn. 12.

[12] This has been noted by Thorn-Drury, p. 282.

He toss'd by Fate, and hurried up and down,
Heir to his Fathers Sorrows, with his Crown,
Could tast no sweets of youths desired Age,
But found his life too true a Pilgrimage .^[13]

Dryden's Aeneas suffers as a public man; the "sweets" of youth are readily sacrificed to the necessities of the "Crown." Appropriately, then, the early allusion to Aeneid I gives way at the end of the poem to Aeneid VI, as Dryden echoes Vergil's prophecy of the Augustan golden age. Dryden, responding to the impersonal voice of the Aeneid, directs us from book 1 to book 6, whereas Waller, responding to the personal voice of the poem, takes us from book 1 to book 4. Unlike Waller, Dryden echoes Vergil to reassert public themes that are consistent with the tradition of panegyric.

But Waller himself had already achieved a similar union of epic and panegyric in his poem to Cromwell by initially alluding to the storm in Aeneid I and subsequently to Anchises' advisory speech in book 6.^[14] Like Dryden in Astraea Redux, Waller in A Panegyric To My Lord Protector develops the Vergilian echoes to emphasize the reconciliation of heroic and monarchical ideals. Even at this point of strong similarity, however, there is an important difference between Waller's method and Dryden's. Throughout his career as a public poet and especially in the Cromwell panegyric, Waller celebrates active heroism. "Praise of great acts he scatters as a

[13] John Dryden, Astraea Redux, lines 51–54, The Poems of John Dryden, ed. James Kinsley, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1958), I, 17. The allusions to the Aeneid have been carefully identified by the editors of the California Dryden, I, 215. See also, Hoffman, John Dryden's Imagery, pp. 16–17.

[14] See above, chap. 3, "Transformation."

seed, / Which may the like in coming ages breed."^[15] Dryden, on the other hand, characteristically celebrates passive heroism. Charles in Astraea Redux is not only Aeneas, but also Christ.^[16] "How Great were then Our Charles his Woes, who thus / Was forc'd to suffer for Himself and us" (49–50). Complementing the allusive pattern that elevates Charles from Aeneas to Augustus is a second pattern that elevates Charles from the suffering, human Christ to the divine "Prince of Peace" (139). If Charles thus restores England as Aeneas restored Troy, he also redeems England as Christ redeemed the world. Whereas Waller sees action as the motive force in political history, Dryden distrusts action and looks instead for evidence of a divine historical order. Combining allusions to the Aeneid and allusions to the gospel, Dryden celebrates the Restoration as a renewal of faith in divinely sanctioned institutions and as a renewal of trustin the providential design of history.

The background of this design is displayed in the opening paragraph of the poem. Here Dryden distinguishes two outlines of the historical process. The first is mancentered and is identified with war, tempests, and irrationality. Its appropriate illustration is the reign of Charles X in Sweden.

Th' Ambitious  Swede  like restless Billowes tost,
On this hand gaining what on that he lost,
Though in his life he Blood and Ruine breath'd,
To his now guideless Kingdome Peace beaueath'd . (9–12)

[15] Waller, Upon The Earl Of Roscommon's Translation Of Horace, 35–36.

[16] For the king as Christ, see Steven N. Zwicker, Dryden's Political Poetry: The Typology of King and Nation (Providence, 1972), especially pp. 61–71.

In contrast, Dryden envisions history as a divine creation.

And Heaven that seem'd regardless of our Fate,
For  France and  Spain  did Miracles create,
Such mortal Quarrels to compose in Peace
As Nature bred and Int'rest did encrease . (13–16)

Human action, although unpredictable in its results, is divisive, whereas inaction leads to reconciliation, which is the desired goal of traditional panegyric. Dryden, in effect, attributes the evils of history ("Blood and Ruine") to men and its blessings ('Peace") to God. In this providential design, active heroism of the kind celebrated by Waller is a form of rebellion against God's will.

In Astraea Redux the active heroes are the Puritans.

Th' incensed Pow'rs beheld with scorn from high
An Heaven so far distant from the sky,
Which durst with horses hoofs that beat the ground
And Martial brass bely the thunders sound.
Twas hence at length just Vengeance thought it fit
To speed their mine by their impious wit . (195–200)

The distance between "sky" and "ground," between power and impiety, condemns the Commonwealth government as at best a misguided parody of divine rule and exposes the militant religion of the Puritans as an instance when "Religions name against it self was made" (191). The association of the Puritans with "Martial brass" represents the traditional panegyrist's rejection of military heroism; the censure of their "impious wit" associates the Puritans with the villains of the genre and foreshadows Dryden's portrayal of the arch villain, Achitophel. Here, moreover, Dryden stresses the self-defeating nature of Puritan heroics by allusion to figures from modern and ancient history, the Milanese Duke

Lodovico Sforza and the Roman Emperor Otho. Sforza is like Sweden's Charles X; both aspire to personal power but find their successes cancelled by their failures, as if the act of pursuing such power were in itself defeating. "Thus Sforza curs'd with a too fertile brain / Lost by his wiles the Pow'r his wit did gain" (201–202). An even better—indeed a perfect—exemplum of self-defeating action is provided by the brief reference to Otho, whom Dryden specifically contrasts with Charles II. "He would not like soft Otho hope prevent / But stay'd and suffer'd Fortune to repent" (67–68). The allusion to Otho's suicide complements the allusions to Sforza and Charles X and confirms the historical perspective of the narrative: the power of individual men is momentary, self-destructive, and in the long run of history insignificant. The source of enduring power is God, and it is the recognition of this truth that Charles brings with him at the Restoration.

In contrast to Charles X, Sforza, Otho, and especially the Puritans, Charles II is not an active hero. He does not will his own Restoration nor act to encourage it. His Restoration is instead a natural, even a divine event.

Frosts that constrain the ground, and birth deny
To flow'rs, that in its womb expecting lye,
Do seldom their usurping Pow'r withdraw,
But raging floods pursue their hasty thaw:
Our thaw was mild, the cold not chas'd away
But lost in kindly heat of lengthned day . (131–136)

The seasonal imagery and the implied vegetation myth present a conception of the historical process that is characteristic of virtually every panegyric we have considered from Claudian to Cowley, but Dryden adds some nice touches of his own. By identifying winter "frost"

as a "usurping Pow'r," in contrast to the "kindly heat of lengthned day," Dryden persuasively uses the death and life forces in nature to establish the difference between the rule of a usurper and the rule of a king. He then adapts this natural imagery to define the proper exercise of kingly power. The phrase "raging floods" in particular suggests the recurrent river image as it had been developed by poets like Claudian and Daniel to restrain the power of the ruler. Here too the ideal is tranquilla potestas, as Dryden praises the moderation of the king and simultaneously admonishes him to stay on the same course. Latent in this passage is one final metaphor, that of the hunt, implied by the words "pursue" and "chas'd." By refusing to hunt down his father's enemies, by rejecting revenge, by not acting, Charles lives up to the ideal of true piety as explicitly defined by Claudian in his last panegyric to Honorius. In this respect Charles must surpass even Augustus, who did take vengeance on his "father's" murderers. The piety of Charles, implicit in the comparison with Aeneas, is here refined by reference to the conventions of traditional panegyric.

Considerably more visible than the shadow of Aeneas in this heroic panegyric, however, is the image of Christ.

That Star that at your Birth shone out so bright
It stain'd the duller Suns Meridian light,
Did once again its potent Fires renew
Guiding our eyes to find and worship you . (288–291)

The Christian significance of the allusion to Charles's famous birth star has frequently been pointed out, and as Professor Swedenberg has shown, other poets besides Dryden adopted this image for their Restoration pane-

gyrics.^[17] It should be recognized, however, that the midday star also appears in Claudian's pagan Panegyricus De Quarto Consulatu Honorii Augusti .

stella die, dubitanda nihil nec crine retuso
languida, sed quantus numeratur nocte Bootes,
emicuitque plagis alieni temporis hospes
ignis et agnosci potuit, cum luna lateret  . . .^[l8]

Even at midday did a wondering people gaze upon a bold star ('twas clear to behold)—no dulled nor stunted beams but bright as Boötes' nightly lamp. At a strange hour its brilliance lit up the sky and its fires could be clearly seen though the moon lay hid.

Dryden adapts the conventional divine augury to connect the Restoration with the resurrection, as Christ-Charles reclaims England from sin: "your Edicts some reclaim from sins, / But most your Life and Blest Example wins" (316–317). But this passage is almost certainly imitated from another, more familiar passage in the same poem by Claudian:

                                                    componitur orbis
regis ad exemplum, nec sic inflectere sensus
humanos edicta valent quam vita regentis . (299–301)

The world shapes itself after its ruler's pattern, nor can edicts sway men's minds so much as their monarch's life.

Although Daniel, Jonson, and Drummond had appropriated the same passage, Dryden's paraphrase is closer to the original by one key word, his literal rendering of

[17] H. T. Swedenberg, "England's Joy: Astraea Redux in its Setting," SP, L (1953), 30–44.

[18] Claudian, IV Cons., lines 185–188, Claudian, trans. Maurice Platnauer, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1963), I, 300.

edicta . In this couplet, then, Dryden reconciles heroic panegyric with a traditional version of the genre. Specifically, he unites the image of Charles as Christian hero with the traditional image of the ideal monarch, who always rules by "Example."

The heroic allusions in Astraea Redux serve finally to place Charles in the line of ideal monarchs found in panegyric long before Waller. Dryden modifies Waller's concept of heroic panegyric to define the royal virtues necessary for national reconciliation: mercy, expressed by comparison with Christ, and piety, expressed by allusion to Aeneas. When, moreover, we recall the close association of mercy and piety in the tradition of panegyric, we can appreciate just how carefully Dryden has chosen his heroic comparisons to reassert the essential values of the genre.^[19] Charles, a suffering hero at the beginning of Astraea Redux, emerges at the conclusion as the optimus princeps . The poem itself, initially a heroic narrative, ends (as we have seen) in the combination of demonstrative and deliberative oratory that defines classical panegyric.

In Threnodia Augustalis Dryden again attempts to reconcile heroic and monarchical ideals, this time against the distant background of the Pindaric ode and by specific allusion to the example of Abraham Cowley. As Robert Hinman has pointed out, Cowley was held in very high esteem by Dryden, who once wrote that Cowley's "authority is almost sacred to me."^[20] In An Essay of

[19] See above, chap. 4, "The Early Poems."

[20] "Of Heroic Plays: An Essay" [Preface to The Conquest of Granada], Essays, I, 162. See Robert Hinman, Abraham Cowley's World of Order (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), chap. 1.

Dramatic Poesy, Dryden specifically indicates his approval of Cowley's most ambitious verse. "[There is] nothing so elevated, so copious, and full of spirit, as Mr Cowley . . ."^[21] "Elevated" suggests that Dryden is referring to the Pindaric odes and perhaps the Davideis rather than to Cowley's works of a smaller scale. "Copious" points to the Pindarics alone, as this is the same term that Dryden usually applies to Pindar himself.^[22] "Spirit" is harder to pin down, although this term presumably alludes to the freedom that Dryden found characteristic of Cowley's verse in general and of the Pindaric odes in particular. In sum, this description of Cowley tends to restrict Dryden's evaluation to the poet's most important and distinctive achievement. Dryden, who sees Waller primarily as an epic poet, sees Cowley, more accurately, as primarily the author of Pindaric odes.

In Dryden's later discussions of Cowley, he largely ignores everything except the odes, and these he defends vigorously. "I acknowledge myself unworthy to defend so excellent an author . . . only in general I will say that nothing can appear more beautiful to me than the strength of those images which they [Cowley's detractors] condemn."^[23] Although consistent in his praise for the Pindarics, Dryden believes that in these poems Cowley has pushed "poetic license" to its acceptable limits.

Yet I dare not say that either of them [Cowley and Denham] have carried this libertine way of rendering authors (as Mr Cowley calls it) so far as my definition [of imitation] reaches;

[21] Of Dramatic Poesy: An Essay, in Essays, I, 24.

[22] See, for example, "Preface to Sylvae," Essays, II, 32.

[23] "The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence," Essays, I, 203.

for in the Pindaric Odes the customs and ceremonies of ancient Greece are still preserved. But I know not what mischief may arise hereafter from the example of such an innovation, when writers of unequal parts to him shall imitate so bold an undertaking.^[24]

Dryden's defense of Cowley's "innovation" does not, however, rest entirely on that poet's boldness. Dryden justifies his older contemporary most effectively by pointing to the example of Pindar himself. "So wild and ungovernable a poet [Pindar] cannot be translated literally, his genius is too strong to bear a chain, and Samson-like he shakes it off. A genius so elevated and unconfined as Mr Cowley's was but necessary to make Pindar speak English . . ."^[25]

The same qualities that Dryden finds in Cowley can also be found in the odes Dryden wrote himself. Although these odes are more disciplined and regular than those of Cowley, they too can be accurately described as "elevated," "copious," and "full of spirit." By defending Cowley, Dryden also defends himself.

To see how Dryden uses the example of Cowley, we can compare Threnodia Augustalis with Cowley's Ode Upon His Majesties Restoration and Return . It may be recalled that in his Restoration Pindaric, Cowley defines rebellion as paradise lost and the Restoration as paradise regained. To amplify this historical and mythical pattern, Cowley alludes to both Genesis and Exodus, casting Cromwell in the role of Satan and Charles in the composite role of Moses and Joshua. Metaphorically uniting

[24] "The Preface to Ovid's Epistles," Essays, I, 270.

[25] "The Preface to Ovid's Epistles," Essays, I, 271.

Eden, Canaan, and England, Cowley represents 1660 as the return to an earthly paradise.

'T was a right Season, and the very Ground
Ought with a face of Paradise to be found,
   Then when we were to entertain
Felicity and Innocence again .^[26]

The commingling of Biblical allusions in this ode is duplicated, though with significantly less freedom, in Threnodia Augustalis . Looking back on the reign of Charles, Dryden too sees the Restoration as paradise regained.

Amidst the peaceful Triumphs of his Reign,
What wonder if the kindly beams he shed
Reviv'd the drooping Arts again,
If Science rais'd her Head,
And soft Humanity that from Rebellion fled;
Our Isle, indeed, too fruitful was before;
But all uncultivated lay
Out of the Solar walk and Heav'ns high way ;
With rank Geneva Weeds run o're,
And Cockle, at the best, amidst the Corn it bore :
The Royal Husbandman appear'd,
And Plough'd, and Sow'd and Till'd,
The Thorns he rooted out, the Rubbish clear'd,
And blest th' obedient Field .
When, straight, a double Harvest rose ;
Such as the swarthy Indian mowes ;
Or happier Climates near the Line,
Or Paradise Manur'd, and drest by hands Divine .^[27]

[26] Abraham Cowley, Ode Upon His Majesties Restoration and Return, lines 32–35, The English Writings of Abraham Cowley, ed. A. R. Waller (Cambridge, 1905), p. 421.

[27] Threnodia Augustalis, 346–363, Poems, I, 451–452.

Dryden's basic metaphor of husbandry creates an ideal of "culture" that depends on political order. In this stanza Dryden describes the ideal polity in the terms that Cowley had defined twenty-five years before. In both poems we have a prince who is an image of the divine and a people who are obedient to him. This political paradise, for both Cowley and Dryden, is England in the reign of Charles II.

But Dryden, writing in 1685, has an additional problem to face, the accession of James II. If Charles has already restored the nation to paradise, what can there possibly be left for James to do? Dryden begins to answer this question by qualifying his earlier conception of the period from 1660 to 1685. Turning to the Exodus story (with supplementary echoes from Absalom and Achitophel), Dryden now suggests that the Restoration was not the entry into Canaan.

For Twelve long years of Exile, born,
Twice twelve we number'd since his blest Return:
So strictly wer't thou Just to pay,
Even to the driblet of a day.
Yet still we murmur, and Complain,
The Quails and Manna shou'd no longer rain;
Those Miracles 'twas needless to renew;
The Chosen Flock has now the Promis'd Land in view .
                                                                                 (421–428)

Charles II as Moses gives way to James II as Joshua, who will lead the nation into the "Promis'd Land" in 1685. From this vantage point, Dryden portrays the reign of Charles as both the return to paradise and the continued exile of the chosen people. Thus, the Biblical allusions

which reinforce each other in Cowley's ode, verge on contradiction in Dryden's.

It is against this background of apparent contradiction that Dryden attempts his reconciliation of heroic and monarchical ideals in the figure of James, the "Warlike Prince [who] ascends the Regal State" (429). Whereas Cowley had stopped short of comparing Charles with Hercules in his Restoration Pindaric, Dryden does compare James with Hercules in Threnodia Augustalis . Moreover, the literary source for his heroic portrayal of James is the comparison between Hercules and Chromius in Cowley's translation of Pindar's first Nemean ode.

How  early  has young  Chromius begun
The  Race of Virtue,  and how swiftly run,
   And born the noble  Prize away,
Whilst other youths yet at the  Barriere stay?
None but  Alcides  e're set earlier forth then  He;
The  God, his  Fathers,  Blood nought could restrain,
   'Twas  ripe at first,  and did disdain
The slow advance of dull  Humanitie,
The big-limm'ed  Babe  in his huge  Cradle lay,
Too weighty to be rockt by  Nurses hands
    Wrapt in purple swadling-bands .
When, Lo, by jealous  Juno's  fierce commands,
   Two dreadful  Serpents come
Rowling and hissing loud into the roome .
To the  bold Babe  they trace their  bidden way,
Forth from their flaming eyes dread  Lightnings went,
Their gaping  Mouths  did forked  Tongues like  Thunderbolts
   present .^[28]

In Threnodia Augustalis Dryden condenses and restrains Cowley's comparison for application to James.

[28] Cowley, The First Nemean Ode of Pindar, lines 75–91.

View then a  Monarch ripen'd for a Throne .
Alcides thus his race began,
O'er Infancy he swiftly ran ;
The future God, at first was more than Man :
Dangers and Toils, and  Juno's  Hate
Even o're his Cradle lay in wait ;
And there he grappled first with Fate :
In his young Hands the hissing Snakes he prest,
So early was the Deity confest ;
Thus, by degrees, he rose to  Jove's Imperial Seat ;
Thus difficulties prove a Soul  legitimately great . (446–456)

Although Dryden certainly did not require Cowley's translation as a source for the familiar story of Hercules strangling the serpents, there are enough parallel words and phrases in the two passages to indicate at least a strong probability that Dryden had Cowley in mind. And yet it is evident that the function of Dryden's adaptation differs from the function of his model. The focus of Cowley's translation is on the heroic deeds of Hercules, whereas the focus of Dryden's allusion is on Hercules' ascension to" love's Imperial Seat." Dryden thus adopts the heroic image of Cowley's translation, and then modifies it to serve the traditional panegyrical function of elevating a man into a king.

The ascension of James-Hercules in Threnodia Augustalis parallels the ascension of Charles-Christ in Astraea Redux . Line 454, "So early was the Deity confest," suggests that in fact Dryden is using the image of Hercules as a type of Christ and thus repeating the pattern of his earlier heroic panegyric. James is confronted by the same difficulties that plague Charles in the narrative section of Astraea Redux . If the early encounter with the serpents demonstrates (with a glancing blow at Mon-

mouth) the legitimate greatness of James, it is the later encounter with the furies of rebellion that actually ripens him "for a Throne."

Like his, our Hero's Infancy was try'd;
Betimes the Furies did their Snakes provide;
And, to his Infant Arms oppose
His Father's Rebels, and his Brother's Foes;
The more opprest the higher still he rose:
Those were the Preludes of his Fate,
That form'd his Manhood, to subdue
The  Hydra  of the many-headed hissing Crew . (457–464)

The heroic picture of James finishing his labors by subduing the Hydra completes the comparison with Hercules, but at the same time acknowledges that there have been fundamental disorders in the state during the reign of Charles, again contradicting claims made earlier in the poem.

The contradictions in Threnodia Augustalis can, however, be explained in terms of panegyrical conventions. In this poem the traditional theme of restoration is applied simultaneously to successive monarchs, which means that both 1660 and 1685 represent a transition from bad times to good. The interval of history between these two ceremonial occasions is therefore described as peaceful when Charles is the subject of praise and as stormy when Dryden turns to James. Although fact and logic thus give way to convention, it is precisely the conventional theme of restoration that gives the poem its unity and conveys its persuasive purpose. In Threnodia Augustalis Dryden amplifies the theme of restoration to convince his popular audience that James will be like Charles, that is, like the optimus princeps, and to ad-

monish his royal audience that the king must live up to this created expectation.^[29] In sum, Dryden would persuade both audiences to make 1685 like 1660. He thus concludes Threnodia Augustalis with a distinct echo of Astraea Redux .

                              . . .there appears
The long Retinue of a Prosperous Raign,
A Series of Successful years,
In Orderly Array, a Martial, manly Train .
Behold ev'n to remoter Shores
A Conquering Navy proudly spread ;
The  British  Cannon formidably roars,
While starting from his Oozy Bed,
Th' asserted Ocean rears his reverend Head ;
To View and Recognize his ancient Lord again :
And with a willing hand, restores
The  Fasces of the Main .(506–517)

Here Dryden invokes in Pindaric verse the conclusion of the narrative section of the earlier poem.

The British  Amphitryte smooth and clear
In richer Azure never did appear ;
Proud her returning Prince to entertain
With the submitted Fasces of the Main .^[30]

Dryden's prophetic vision of "A Series of Successful years" beginning in 1685, similar to the prophecy of "times whiter Series" beginning in 1660, is strikingly different from the prophecy in Cowley's translation of Pindar.

[29] For the instructive purpose of the poem, see above, chap. 4, "The Later Poems." Here I am concerned primarily with the demonstrative theme of the poem.

[30] Astraea Redux, 246–249. The parallel has, of course, long been recognized by Dryden's editors.

When wise  Tiresias this beginning knew
    He told with ease the things t'ensue,
        From what  Monsters he should free
        The  Earth, the  Ayr, and  Sea,
        What mighty  Tyrants he should slay,
        Greater  Monsters far then  They. (113–118)

Chromius-Hercules is the dragon-slayer, the most primitive kind of hero, who is moreover allegorically cast in the role of rebel against tyranny. James-Hercules, on the other hand, is a king who restores royal authority just as Charles-Christ had done a generation earlier.

The image of this authority, the "Fasces," confirms the traditional function of Threnodia Augustalis . The insignia of official Roman authority, the fasces were ceremonially restored at the beginning of the new year, an event that coincided with the inauguration of the new consul. Claudian carefully alludes to the authority symbolized by the fasces in the opening sentence of his panegyric on Honorius's third consulship and again, more emphatically, in the opening of his panegyric on the fourth consulship:

exultant reduces Augusto consule fasces.^[31]

[The] returning fasces rejoice in Caesar's consulship.

Like Claudian's poetic investiture of Honorius, Dryden's identification of James with the symbol of institutional authority signifies the restoration of power. But because the fasces (wooden rods bound together) also symbolize unity, this ceremony also captures the ideal of national reconciliation. Perhaps most importantly, however, this symbol functions in Threnodia Augustalis to recall

[31] Claudian, IV Cons ; 4.

Astraea Redux . The most significant words in the final lines of Dryden's 1685 prophecy are "restores" and "again." What was propaganda in 1660 is taken in retrospect as truth and used to create new propaganda appropriate to the conditions of 1685. The traditional theme of Dryden's Pindaric panegyric is restoration, only in this case what Dryden has in mind is the restoration of the Restoration.

Panegyric and Satire

In Astraea Redux and Threnodia Augustalis Dryden boldly adopts innovations in order to conserve a tradition. The heroic forms pioneered by Waller and Cowley are modified by Dryden to serve the oratorical functions of traditional panegyric. During the same period, from 1660 to 1688, however, the reverse is also true. Dryden adopts the tradition of panegyric in order to perfect three of the most innovative poems of the seventeenth century. Specifically, Dryden incorporates panegyrical oratory into the design of his own heroic or quasi-heroic poems, Mac Flecknoe, Absalom and Achitophel, and The Hind and the Panther .

At crucial moments in each of these poems, the themes and values of Dryden's satire are defined by panegyrical oratory. This is evident in Fleckno's orations, lines 29-59 and 139–210 of Mac Flecknoe, in Achitophel's first address to Absalom, lines 230–302 of Absalom and Achitophel, and in the speech of the pigeon "more mature in Folly than the rest," lines 1108–1140 of The Hind and the Panther, part 5. In each of these instances Dry-

den unites deliberative and demonstrative oratory for satiric purposes. What these speeches reveal, in sum, is that Dryden's major satires depend in part on the conventions of panegyric.

Earl Miner has described Mac Flecknoe as " 'mock-heroic,' if the term may be applied beyond its strict generic meaning to include as well ironic versions of panegyric, of coronation, and of religion."^[32] Although a variety of other influences have been discovered to bear on the poem, the metaphor linking the kingdoms of poetry and state does suggest an ironic version of panegyric.^[33] Dryden ironically adopts panegyrical conventions for three basic purposes: (1) to establish the overall pattern of the poem, the movement from empire to exile, (2) to develop the two major "scenes" of the poem, procession and coronation, and most significantly, (5) to provide the topics for Fleckno's two orations, the first demonstrative and the second deliberative.

The progress of dullness in Mac Flecknoe reverses the direction of the royal progress described, for example, in Astraea Redux . In serious panegyric the movement is traditionally from absence or exile to return; Astraea Redux begins with the suffering of Charles the exile and concludes with the return and triumph of Charles the king.

Oh Happy Age! Oh times like those alone
By Fate reservd for Great  Augustus Throne!

[32] Earl Miner, Dryden's Poetry (Bloomington, Ind., and London, 1968), p. 89. My own discussion of Mac Flecknoe has benefited significantly from chapter 5 of Professor Miner's book.

[33] For the other influences on the poem, see H. T. Swedenberg's notes to the poem in the California Dryden, II, 299–327.

When the joint growth of Armes and Arts foreshew
The World a Monarch,CH:160>and that Monarch  You.^[34]

The last lines of this heroic panegyric thus anticipate the famous first lines of Dryden's mock-heroic panegyric.

All humane things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, Monarchs must obey :
This  Fleckno found, who, like  Augustus, young
Was call'd to Empire, and had govern'd long . .  .^[35]

The important words "Fate," "Augustus " and "Monarch(s)," which the passages have in common, function in both poems to create a classic image of the golden age. The difference, of course, is that Astraea Redux is about restoration, whereas Mac Flecknoe is about "decay." By the end of the poem we find Shadwell exiled to a literary Elba, "Some peacefull Province in Acrostick Land" (206); the once great "Empire" is ultimately reduced to "one poor word" (208). Prophetically extending this exile indefinitely into the future, Fleckno modifies the two Indies topos to show the extent of his son's rule over the domains of nothingness. "Heavens bless my Son, from Ireland let him reign / To farr Barbadoes on the Western main . . ." (139–140).

Within this general pattern, Dryden concentrates on two familiar ceremonies, procession and coronation. In serious panegyric the processional topos expresses the idea of national reconciliation, as men and women, old and young, people and nobles unite in consent to the rule of the monarch. In Mac Flecknoe, too, the procession attracts the "Nations" (96), but this potentially human

[34] Astraea Redux, 320–323.

[35] Mac Flecknoe, 1–4, Poems, I, 265.

audience is reduced (in almost Swiftian fashion) to a pile of books, papers, and excrement.

No  Persian  Carpets spread th' Imperial way,
But scatter'd Limbs of mangled Poets lay :
From dusty shops neglected Authors come,
Martyrs of Pies, and Reliques of the Bum .
Much  Heywood, Shirly, Ogleby  there lay,
But loads of  Sh——  almost choakt the way .
Bilk't  Stationers  for Yeomen stood prepar'd,
And  H——was Captain of the Guard . (98–105)

This scene, cluttered with the works of dull authors, is a direct reflection of the poem's hero: "But loads of Sh —— almost choakt the way." Only at the very end of this passage does humanity reappear to set the stage for the second ceremony, coronation. In serious panegyric coronation signifies the union of ceremony and power, sometimes (as in To His Sacred Majesty ) expressed as a union of church and state. In Mac Flecknoe the two worlds of panegyric are united in the figure of Fleckno, the modern jack-of-all-trades, who bequeathes his virtues to the new monarch. "The King himself the sacred Unction made, / As King by Office, and as Priest by Trade" (119–120). Within the overall movement from empire to exile, the ironic versions of traditional ceremonies—procession and coronation—separate Fleckno's two orations, confirming the demonstration of the first and anticipating the deliberation of the second.

The function of the first oration, placed before the ceremonies, is to elevate the man into a monarch. A demonstrative oration, the topics of praise demonstrate Shadwell's qualifications for the monarchy of dullness. This elevation through praise naturally includes inver-

sions of conventional topics. For obvious example, instead of le roi soleil, Fleckno's speech presents le roi brouillard .

Some Beams of Wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid intervall;
But  Sh—'s  genuine night admits no ray,
His rising Fogs prevail upon the Day . .  .(21–24)

The core of the first speech, however, is the extended but obscure allusion to Shadwell as some kind of royal bandmaster.

My warbling Lute, the Lute I whilom strung
When to King  John of  Portugal I sung,
Was but the prelude to that glorious day,
When thou on silver  Thames did'st cut thy way,
With well tim'd Oars before the Royal Barge,
Swell'd with the Pride of thy Celestial charge ;
And big with Hymn, Commander of an Host,
The like was ne'er in  Epsom Blankets tost .
Methinks I see the new  Arion Sail,
The Lute still trembling underneath thy nail .
At thy well sharpned thumb from Shore to Shore
The Treble squeaks for fear, the Bases roar :
Echoes from  Pissing-Ally, Sh—  call,
And  Sh—  they resound from  A— Hall. (55–48)

Although the biographical reference has never been discovered, the literary background of the passage has been identified as Waller's heroic panegyric on the king's escape at Santander.^[36] In Waller's poem, however, Arion sings "of our Albion kings," and although this is presumably Shadwell's task as well, the name that "Echoes from Pissing-Ally " to "A——Hall " is the poet's own. Shadwell, apparently, sings only of Shadwell. Beyond

[36] See Kinsley, IV, 1916.

foggy stupidity and benighted somnolence, the essential qualification for monarchy in this poem is solipsism. The importance of the echo motif is confirmed by the ensuing processional ceremony where Shadwell's solipsism is revealed in the mirror figure, Shadwell reflected in the "loads of Sh——" that line the way of his procession.

The second speech, which follows both procession and coronation, is patently designed to instruct the newly crowned monarch. A deliberative speech, it takes the common form of a father educating his son. The initial rhetorical pattern of the speech resembles Theodosius's speech to Honorius in Claudian's Panegyricus De Quarto Consulatu Honorii Augusti . Theodosius begins by making a distinction between the empires of the east and the Roman empire, thereby offering his son a prescription for rule based on a Roman tradition:

altera Romanae longe rectoribus aulae
candicio. virtute decet, non sanguine niti  .^[37]

Very different is the state of Rome's emperor. 'Tis merit, not blood, must be his support.

Fleckno, similarly, establishes a contrast between the empires of wit and dullness, and delivers his own prescription for rule on the basis of this contrast. "Success let others teach, learn thou from me / Pangs without birth, and fruitless Industry" (147–148). He expands this contrast by naming various English writers as exempla, Jonson and Etherege from the empire of wit, himself and Ogilby from the realm of dullness. Just as Trajan and Theodosius are the instructive models for Honori-

[37] Claudian, IV Cons ., 219–220.

us's rule of Rome, so Ogilby and Fleckno are the models for Shadwell's rule over the realms of nonsense.

The balance of the speech is concerned specifically with Shadwell's education as the ruler of dullness in drama, but by the conclusion Fleckno is actually advising Shadwell to quit the stage altogether.

Thy Genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen Iambicks, but mild Anagram:
Leave writing Plays, and chuse for thy command
Some peacefull Province in Acrostick Land . (203–206)

Advice to the prince becomes advice to the exile, as the second speech undercuts the first one. The solipsism of Shadwell revealed earlier is punctured by this final revelation of his true insignificance. The two orations are entirely contradictory; the first elevates Shadwell to the throne, whereas the second admonishes him to go into eternal exile. Satirically these two orations thus complement each other perfectly to create a unified impression of Shadwell as a puffed-up nonentity.

By separating the demonstrative and deliberative functions of panegyric and then ironically playing them off against each other, Dryden first creates and then negates the hero of the poem.^[38] There is, moreover, no doubt that Shadwell is indeed a hero as well as a monarch. The famous allusions to the gospel and to Vergil which satirically define Shadwell's mock-heroic stature are staples of English panegyric. Comparisons that appear ridiculous or even blasphemous in the context of Mac Flecknoe are taken very seriously in Astraea Redux, for example, where Charles is both Christ and Aeneas. In the satire,

[38] See Miner's discussion, Dryden's Poetry, 77–105.

Fleckno and Shadwell are first compared to John the Baptist and Christ and later to Aeneas and Ascanius. This means that Shadwell himself emerges as Christ and Ascanius rather than as Christ and Aeneas. The reason for this small shift from convention is evident enough, for Shadwell is consistently portrayed as the "filial dullness" (136), as Mac Flecknoe, as Christ the son, and logically then as Ascanius.

The hoary Prince in Majesty appear'd,
High on a Throne of his own Labours rear'd .
At his right hand our young  Ascanius sate
Rome's  other hope, and pillar of the State . (106–109)

But Dryden also had a Latin precedent on his side in sustaining the comparison between the young Ascanius and "the hopefull boy" (61) of Mac Flecknoe . Claudian in his panegyric on Honorius's fourth consulship, had seriously developed the same comparison to celebrate the young emperor.

                                        ventura potestas
claruit Ascanio, subita cum luce comarum
innocuus flagraret apex Phrygioque volutus
vertice fatalis redimiret tempora candor.
at tua caelestes inlustrant omina flammae .(192–196)

Clear was the prophecy of Ascanius' coming power when an aureole crowned his locks, yet harmed them not, and when the fires of fate encircled his head and played about his temples. Thy future the very fires of heaven foretell.

The image here of the light crowning the boy's head, adapted from the Aeneid (II, 682–684), is also suggested somewhat more obliquely in Mac Flecknoe . "His Brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace, / And lambent dullness plaid arround his face" (110–111). Although the

word "lambent" in particular suggests that Dryden had Vergil's line 684 ("lambere flamma comas, et circum tempora pasci") directly in mind, the context of Dryden's allusion closely parallels that in Claudian.

In Mac Flecknoe —and specifically in its heroic allusions, its combination of demonstrative and deliberative oratory, and its metaphoric occasion—we can perceive the conventions and defining characteristics of the genre that Dryden had adopted for his serious public poetry. The central irony of the poem, moreover, is derived from the central concern of poems like Astraea Redux : the use and abuse of power. Mac Flecknoe is finally a mock-heroic panegyric because it celebrates impotence rather than power. Dull poets are powerless poets, and this category includes both father and son.

Like mine thy gentle numbers feebly creep,
Thy Tragick Muse gives smiles, thy Comick sleep.
With whate'er gall thou sett'st thy self to write,
Thy inoffensive Satyrs never bite.
In thy fellonious heart, though Venom lies,
It does but touch thy  Irish  pen, and dyes . (197–202)

In Absalom and Achitophel, on the other hand, we have a struggle between father and son for real political power, and power is the subject of Achitophel's first speech. This oration represents a second and far more menacing combination of demonstrative and deliberative oratory because it attempts to make incipient usurpation the new occasion for panegyric. Fleckno as orator is no threat to anyone. Achitophel as orator, however, is a very serious threat to the whole nation.

Bernard Schilling has emphasized the importance of

eloquence in Absalom and Achitophel and, like others before him, has been explicit in pointing out the Miltonic influence on Achitophel's first speech.^[39] But Achitophel's oratory should not be dismissed as a "temptation speech." It is that, but it is more than that, for the temptation is cast in the form of panegyric. The speech combines the elements of demonstrative and deliberative oratory; the first fourteen lines (230–243) are pure praise, while the rest of the speech (244–302) is Achitophel's advice to the would-be ruler.

The orator crowds into the demonstrative opening several of the most characteristic topics of panegyric.

    Auspicious Prince! at whose Nativity
Some Royal Planet rul'd the Southern sky;
Thy longing Countries Darling and Desire;
Their cloudy Pillar, and their guardian Fire:
Their second  Moses,  whose extended Wand
Divides the Seas, and shews the promis'd Land:
Whose dawning Day, in every distant age,
Has exercis'd the Sacred Prophets rage:
The Peoples Prayer, the glad Deviners Theam,
The Young-mens Vision, and the Old mens Dream!
Thee,  Saviour,  Thee, the Nations Vows confess;
And, never satisfi'd with seeing, bless:
Swift, unbespoken Pomps, thy steps proclaim,
And stammerring Babes are taught to lisp thy Name . (230–243)

[39] Bernard Schilling, Dryden and the Conservative Myth: A Reading of Absalom and Achitophel (New Haven and London, 1961), p. 45–65, 195–199. Although he does not deal specifically with Dryden's panegyrics. Schilling indirectly illuminates them through his discussion of Absalom and Achitophel . I am indebted to him generally for his discussion of the law, pp. 146–153, and particularly for his emphasis on the "cause"/"laws" rhyme in the poem, pp. 151–152.

The first couplet, and especially the first word, of the speech establish the optimistic orientation of the genre and echo a host of earlier poems. Claudian, for classical example, opens his panegyric on Honorius's fourth consulship :

Auspiciis iterum sese regalibus annus
induit et nota fruitur iactantior aula . (1–2)

Once more the year opens under royal auspices and enjoys in fuller pride its famous prince . . .

In the Renaissance Thomas More views the outset of Henry's reign in similar terms.

Rex init auspiciis regna Britanna bonis.^[40]

The king undertakes amid happy auspices the rule of Britain.

In his Restoration panegyric Abraham Cowley uses the word "auspicious" in conjunction with a reference to Charles's nativity star.

       Auspicious  Star again arise,
And take thy  Noon-tide station in the skies,
Again all  Heaven  prodigiously adorn ;
    For loe! thy  Charles again is  Born.^[41]

Later Dryden himself was to extract significance from the position of the sun at the birth of Prince James, the "Auspicious Heir" and the "auspicious Infant."^[42] In short, Achitophel is giving Absalom conventional, even exaggerated, treatment by locating the "auspicious"

[40] Thomas More, Carmen Gratulatorium, line 42, The Latin Epigrams of Thomas More, ed. and trans. Leicester Bradner and Charles Arthur Lynch (Chicago, 1953), p. 17.

[41] Cowley, Ode Upon His Majesties Restoration and Return, 20–23.

[42] Britannia Rediviva, 17, 321, Poems, II, 541, 550.

planetary sign that ruled his birth and forecast his reign. The irony is that Absalom's birth was anything but "auspicious." It is precisely because he is a bastard that he has no right to the throne. The first couplet of Achitophel's oration thus gives us a clue to the whole; the speech begins with a topos that is true to tradition, but entirely false to the occasion and the man.

From this starting point Achitophel multiplies demonstrative topics in line after line. Absalom becomes Moses, the sun, the answer to national prayers, the savior who unites the people in celebration, "The Young-mens Vision, and the Old mens Dream!" In this panegyric, however, the traditional praise of the new prince as redeemer is effectively negated by the poem's Biblical context. It is obvious that Absalom is not the "second Moses " is not the "Saviour," as Jesus is Christ, the true messiah. Allegorically, moreover, Shaftesbury's praise of Monmouth is refuted by Dryden's own praise of Charles II, the true king. In Astraea Redux Dryden had already compared Charles to both Moses and Christ: "Thus when th' Almighty would to Moses give" (262); "The Prince of Peace would like himself confer" (139). If, in Biblical history Absalom is not Jesus, in English history Monmouth is not Charles. In this speech Dryden places panegyrical conventions in the mouth of Achitophel to illuminate the false premise on which both the speech and the plot are based: that the bastard should be king.

Dryden provides ample authority for viewing this passage of Absalom and Achitophel in light of earlier panegyrics and especially in light of his own Astraea Redux . Later in the speech, after he has shifted from demonstrative to deliberative oratory, Achitophel describes the Res-

toration in terms that demand comparison with Dryden's first Stuart panegyric.

He is not now, as when on  Jordan's Sand
The Joyfull People throng'd to see him Land,
Cov'ring the  Beach,  and blackning all the  Strand:
But, like the Prince of Angels from his height,
Comes tumbling downward with diminish'd light ;
Betray'd by one poor Plot to publick Scorn,
(Our only blessing since his Curst Return :)
Those heaps of People which one Sheaf did bind,
Blown off and scatter'd by a puff of Wind . (270–278)

What had been described as the "white" clothing of penitence in 1660 is now dyed black. The Restoration has become the King's "curst Return," as Achitophel repeals the "blessings" of 1660 and appropriates the word "blessing" to describe the "Plot." In this process of inversion, Charles, the Christ of the earlier poem, here becomes Lucifer; the political world of Astraea Redux, defined in the traditional terms of panegyric, is turned upside down to make the usurper Christ and the legitimate monarch Satan.

In his revision of Astraea Redux, however, Achitophel does more than simply change the metaphoric identifications. He also changes the theory of history on which the earlier poem is based. It should be recalled that the Restoration was achieved, according to Dryden, by "delay." " 'Twas not the hasty product of a day, / But the well ripened fruit of wise delay" (169–170). Achitophel adapts the imagery of ripeness to convey a very different moral. "Believe me, Royal Youth, thy Fruit must be, / Or gather'd Ripe, or rot upon the Tree" (250–251). This

image defines the theory of history that is adduced to justify Absalom's usurpation.

Heav'n, has to all allotted, soon or late,
Some lucky Revolution of their Fate:
Whose Motions, if we watch and guide with Skill,
(For humane Good depends on humane Will,)
Our Fortune rolls, as from a smooth Descent,
And, from the first Impression, takes the Bent:
But, if unseiz'd, she glides away like wind;
And leaves repenting Folly far behind, (252–259)

The providential order restored in Astraea Redux is now replaced by a man-centered idea of history based on "humane Will" and expressed by human action. "Now, now she meets you, with a glorious prize, / And spreads her Locks before her as she flies" (260–261). Urging Absalom to act, Achitophel repeats one of the catchwords of panegyric, only "now" is no longer the occasion for restoration but has become instead the occasion for usurpation.^[43] To follow Achitophel's advice is to follow the

[43] "Now" or the Latin nunc often initiates the demonstrative theme of restoration. Erasmus's verse panegyric to Philip includes the line, "Nunc nunc videor mihi reddita demum." Gratulatorium Carmen, line 7, The Poems of Desiderius Erasmus, ed. C. Reedijk (Leiden, 1956), p. 273. Thomas More echoes Erasmus in lines 21–26 of his Carmen Gratulatorium to Henry VIII, where the word nunc is repeated three times. The opening words of Ammonius's poem on the same occasion are "Nunc, nunc. . . ," Elegia De Obitu Regis Henrici VII Et Felici Successione Henrici Octavi, line 1, Andreae Ammonii Carmina Omnia, ed. Clemente Pizzi (Florence, 1958). In Haddon's poem to Elizabeth, nunc introduces the characteristic weather imagery which defines the theme of restoration:"Nunc Zephyrus mollis iucundas commovet auras, / Anglia vere novo nunc recreata viret." In auspicatissimum, lines 13–14, The Poetry of Walter Haddon, ed. Charles J. Lees (The Hague, 1967), p. 169."Now" emphatically introduces the demonstrative theme in the English panegyrics of Daniel, Jonson, Cowley, and Waller. It appears in the first stanza of the panegyrics by Daniel and Cowley (Ode Upon His Majesties Restoration and Return ) and in the first line of those by Jonson and Waller (Of the Danger His Majesty  . . . Escaped in the Road at Saint Andrews ). Moreover, in Astraea Redux Dryden implicitly contrasts the "Now" that is the first word of the poem to the "now" that initiates the concluding prophecy. Although its significance varies somewhat from poem to poem, the emphatic recurrence of this word suggests the historical perspective of panegyric. "Now" is the fulcrum on which history turns, as evil gives way to good, usurpation to restoration. Achitophel reverses this historical pattern and makes the "now" in his oration a time for usurpation.

self-defeating course of Charles X, Sforza, and the Puritan revolutionaries.

If Absalom does pick the fruit, as Achitophel advises, then he falls as Adam fell. Dryden leaves no room for doubt on this score, for Achitophel is modeled partially on Milton's Satan. By defining the ethos of the panegyrist in Satanic terms, Dryden exposes Achitophel's perversion of one of the conventional patterns of Renaissance panegyric: paradise lost in usurpation and regained in restoration. Achitophel perverts panegyric from its traditional function of celebrating redemption to that of encouraging the fall. In political terms, the orator invites the would-be monarch to place his "cause" above the "laws," to become king by violating the institution of kingship.

Achitophel's panegyric does, then, function as a temptation speech and the bauble that tempts Absalom is power.

What may not  Israel hope, and what Applause
Might such a General gain by such a Cause?

Not barren Praise alone, that Gaudy flower,
Fair only to the sight, but solid Power:
And Nobler is a limited Command,
Giv'n by the Love of all your Native Land,
Than a Successive Title, Long, and Dark,
Drawn from the Mouldy Rolls of  Noah's Ark .(295–302)

Here the orator concentrates on the fundamental concern of panegyric: "Not barren Praise alone . . ./ . . .but solid Power." Like many a panegyrist before him, Achitophel insists on the ideal of "a limited Command" ensured by "the Love of all your Native Land." He thus ingeniously and outrageously works his inverted, perverted panegyric around to the traditional theme of limitation. The ideal of "a limited Command" is traditional and unobjectionable. What this rhetoric ignores, however, is that this ideal has already been realized in the person of David, a fact which Absalom himself confirms.

My Father Governs with unquestion'd Right,
The Faiths Defender, and Mankinds Delight:
Good, Gracious, Just, observant of the Laws;
And Heav'n by Wonders has Espous'd his Cause .(317–320)

The "cause"/"laws" rhyme here recalls the limitations placed on the king in Astraea Redux . "Your Pow'r to Justice doth submit your Cause, / Your Goodness only is above the Laws" (266–267). As monarchical power is already limited by the law, the ideal of a limited command is an insufficient argument for "innovation." The real issue is not limitation, but simply power.

Desire of Power, on Earth a Vitious Weed,
Yet, sprung from High, is of Caelestial Seed:
In God 'tis Glory: And when men Aspire,
'Tis but a Spark too much of Heavenly Fire .(305–308)

In these lines, softened to exculpate Absalom, Dryden calls on divine authority to refute the Satanic argument. Power is derived from God, not from men. A more complete answer to Achitophel's argument is permanently embodied in Dryden's serious panegyrics, of which this speech is a clever but self-evident mockery.

Later in the poem, after completing his gallery of rebel portraits, Dryden lists the names of those who resisted rebellion. "These were the chief, a small but faithful Band / Of Worthies, in the Breach who dar'd to stand" (914–915). By identifying himself with this "small but faithful Band" Dryden foreshadows the demise of his political constituency that occurs after 1688. Even more indicative of Dryden's changing relationship with his national audience, however, is The Hind and the Panther . The speech of the pigeon "more mature in Folly than the rest" (III, 1108–1140), Dryden's third satiric combination of demonstrative and deliberative oratory, indirectly suggests the increasing futility of Dryden's serious attempts at persuasive oratory.

The alternating speeches of the Hind and the Panther have been discussed as oratory by Phillip Harth. "Dryden's problem," Harth writes, "is one of creating an objective ethos for each speaker which is appropriate to his purpose of making the Hind's arguments credible to the audience, and those of the Panther unconvincing. The character and motivation of the two combatants are as opposite as the positions they adopt in their dispute."^[44] Although the "domestic conversation" of part 3 is rather far removed from pure classical oratory, it may

[44] Phillip Harth, Contexts of Dryden's Thought (Chicago and London, 1968), p. 45.

still be profitable to discuss these speeches in traditional rhetorical terms.

For the first almost nine hundred lines of part 3 we are given a blend of judicial and deliberative oratory. The forensic element, carried over from the theological debate of part 2, makes it clear that the ultimate judge of this long argument is God. In one of the more heated moments of the debate, the Hind pauses, having "suppress'd / The boiling indignation of her breast," to remind herself and the Panther of this very fact. "Be vengeance wholly left to pow'rs divine, / And let heav'n judge betwixt your sons and mine . . ."^[45] But because the issues in part 5 are predominantly ecclesiastical and political, rather than theological, this legal language is more often applied to temporal concerns, such as the Test Act. In this judicial contest the Hind is the plaintiff, the Panther the defendant, as even the Panther admits.

To this the  Panther sharply had reply'd,
But, having gain'd a Verdict on her side,
She wisely gave the loser leave to chide;
Well satisfy'd to have the But and peace,
And for the Plaintiff's cause she car'd the less,
Because she su'd  in formâ Pauperis . . .^[46]

Behind these judicial roles, moreover, are related political ones. The Hind's arguments have a clear political purpose: reconciliation between Anglicans and Catholics. Her speeches are thus deliberative, designed to persuade the recalcitrant Panther to a kind of peaceful

[45] The Hind and the Panther, III, 261–262, 279–280, Poems, II, 510–511.

[46] The Hind and the Panther, III, 756–761. See Miner's note in the California Dryden, III, 435.

coexistence, if not to the national reconciliation desired by the Lion.

If as you say, and as I hope no less,
Your sons will practise what your self profess,
What angry pow'r prevents our present peace?
The  Lyon,  studious of our common good,
Desires, (and Kings desires are ill withstood,)
To join our Nations in a lasting love . .  . (III, 672–677)

The Panther, however, rejects all of the Hind's conciliatory proposals and refuses to be persuaded. The Hind, as a result, abandons her attempt to persuade.

   The  Matron  woo'd her Kindness to the last,
But cou'd not win; her hour of Grace was past.
Whom thus persisting when she could not bring
To leave the  Woolf,  and to believe her King,
She gave Her up, and fairly wish'd her Joy
Of her late Treaty with her new Ally:
Which well she hop'd wou'd more successfull prove,
Than was the  Pigeons, and the  Buzzards love . (III, 892–899)

Here the Hind turns away from both the judicial and the deliberative and toward the one kind of oratory that requires no persuasion, the demonstrative. What follows this turning point is demonstrative oratory in its negative form of censure. Yet the whole of this speech is taken up by the fable of the Pigeons and the Buzzard, and within this fable Dryden gives us a splendid set piece of deliberative oratory, the speech of the most foolish pigeon. Here, then, Dryden unites the two types of oratory that define panegyric in a new and highly original way: he encloses a deliberative speech within a demonstrative one.

Although the speech of the pigeon begins as indirect

discourse, it becomes direct discourse as soon as he mentions the Buzzard. The argument is that the pigeons should confer the kingship on "Some Potent Bird of Prey" who will take up their cause against the "encreasing race of Chanticleer ." The nominee of the orator is the "noble Buzzard." As this argument from circumstance satisfies the pigeons, the oration is followed by a brief glimpse of the immediate result, procession and coronation.

    After a grave Consult what course were best,
One more mature in folly than the rest,
Stood up, and told 'em, with his head aside,
That desp'rate Cures must be to desp'rate Ills apply'd:
And therefore since their main impending fear
Was from th' encreasing race of  Chanticleer:
Some Potent Bird of Prey they ought to find,
A Foe profess'd to him, and all his kind:
Some haggar'd  Hawk,  who had her eyry nigh,
Well pounc'd to fasten, and well wing'd to fly;
One they might trust, their common wrongs to wreak:
The  Musquet and the  Coystrel were too weak,
Too fierce the  Falcon,  but above the rest,
The noble  Buzzard  ever pleas'd me best;
Of small Renown, 'tis true, for not to lye,
We call him but a  Hawk  by courtesie.
I know he haunts the  Pigeon  -House and Farm,
And more, in time of War, has done us harm,
But all his hate on trivial Points depends,
Give up our Forms, and we shall soon be friends.
For  Pigeons  flesh he seems not much to care,
Cram'd  Chickens  are a more delicious fare;
On this high Potentate, without delay,
I wish you would conferr the Sovereign sway:
Petition him t' accept the Government,
And let a splendid Embassy be sent .

    This pithy speech prevail'd, and all agreed,
Old Enmity's forgot, the  Buzzard  should succeed.
   Their welcom Suit was granted soon as heard,
His Lodgings furnish'd, and a Train prepar'd,
With  B's  upon their Breast, appointed for his Guard.
He came, and Crown'd with great Solemnity,
God save King  Buzzard,  was the gen'rall cry . (III, 1108–1140)

Although the speech retains something of the comic pretentiousness of Fleckno's orations, the issues involved here are closer to those raised by Achitophel.

Both Achitophel and the pigeon would have a monarch chosen by the people. Although in both poems Dryden's opinion of this electoral procedure is succinctly expressed by the repeated phrase, "the dregs of a democracy," the later poem expresses greater intransigence.^[47] In the essay on innovation in Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden concedes Shaftesbury's premise tor the sake of argument. "Yet, grant our Lords the People Kings can make, / What Prudent men a setled Throne would shake?" (795–796). In The Hind and the Panther, on the other hand, Dryden passes over the democratic argument with evident contempt.

The  Hind  thus briefly, and disdain'd t' inlarge
On Pow'r of  Kings,  and their Superiour charge,
As Heav'ns Trustees before the Peoples choice:
Tho' sure the  Panther  did not much rejoyce
To hear those  Echo's  geiv'n of her once Loyal voice .
                                                               (III, 887–891)

This passage, placed just before the Hind's fable, refutes the very premise of the pigeon's oration before he even stands up to suggest his "desp'rate Cures."

[47] See Absalom and Achitophel, 227; The Hind and the Panther, I, 211.

Condemned from the start by the Hind, the pigeon nevertheless condemns himself by his choice of the Buzzard to be king. As Earl Miner has shown by reference to the tradition of sacred zoography, the buzzard, as a member of the hawk family, is a typological representation of impiety. Drawing on Wolfgang Franzius's Historia Animalium Sacra, Miner writes: "Not only was the buzzard (butaeo ) related to the hawk family, but also Franzius noted in this genus a palumbaris accipiter, or pigeon hawk. The hawk family is a type of all impious creatures (omnium impiorum ), according to Franzius . . ."^[48] The pigeon, then, would confer power on impiety, in effect, directly violating the traditional ideal of monarchy. Moreover, as Franzius points out and Miner emphasizes, the bird's impiety was conventionally specified by comparison with the devil. The Buzzard, then, is not a king, but a usurper. The deliberative oration of the pigeon finally calls for nothing less than the overthrow of the political values defined by the tradition of panegyric. Piety will be replaced by impiety; the divinely sanctioned monarch will be supplanted by the popularly chosen usurper.

Although the political issues are thus very similar to those raised in Achitophel's speech, the ethos of the speaker himself is very different. Achitophel is cunning; the pigeon is just a fool. By enclosing the pigeon's deliberative speech within the Hind's demonstrative one, Dryden censures the whole proceeding of the pigeons from the outset. "For Fools are double Fools endeav'ring to be wise" (III, 1107). The purpose of providing this

[48] Miner, note to lines 1141–1194 in the California Dryden, III, 451.

context is not only to ridicule the pigeon's speech, but also to reveal the dangerous folly of being persuaded by such oratory. Consequences unforeseen by the pigeons are foreseen by the Hind.

'Tis said the Doves repented, tho' too late,
Become the Smiths of their own Foolish Fate:
Nor did their Owner hasten their ill hour:
But, sunk in Credit, they decreas'd in Pow'r:
Like Snows in warmth that mildly pass away,
Dissolving in the Silence of Decay.
   The  Buzzard  not content with equal place,
Invites the feather'd  Nimrods  of his Race,
To hide the thinness of their Flock from Sight,
And all together make a seeming, goodly Flight:
But each have sep'rate Int'rests of their own,
Two  Czars,  are one too many for a Throne.
Nor can th' Usurper long abstain from Food,
Already he has tasted Pigeons Blood:
And may be tempted to his former fare,
When this Indulgent Lord shall late to Heav'n repair .
                                                            (III, 1267–1282)

Dryden thus relies on the conventions of panegyric not, as customary, to affirm royal piety, but rather to satirize the efforts of others to crown impiety.

In The Hind and the Panther, as in Mac Flecknoe and Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden's satire is sustained in part by normative values derived from the tradition of panegyric. Dryden's creative combinations of deliberative and demonstrative oratory in these three poems reveal the importance of panegyric as a source of topics and ideals for his poetry. The recurrent adaptation of panegyrical conventions for satiric purposes, however, also reveals a waning faith in panegyric as a serious kind of poetry. By placing panegyrical oratory in the mouths

of Fleckno, Achitophel, and a fool of a pigeon, Dryden undermines the very genre he was still attempting to write seriously as late as 1688. After the revolution Dryden follows the path already staked out by his own Hind and abandons persuasive oratory.

Conclusion

Political oratory requires not only an audience, but also a constituency. The orator speaks for others, voicing the convictions and aspirations of a nation, as Dryden had done in the 1660's, or of a party, as other poets were doing with increasing vigor toward the end of the seventeenth century. Immobilized by his past political commitments and isolated by his religion, Dryden has no constituency after 1688. Nor does he attempt to create one from the remnants of that "small but faithful Band" catalogued in Absalom and Achitophel . In the poems of the 1690's Dryden does not address the nation or the king, nor does he speak for a party. His most characteristic poems of this final period are not orations at all, but rather epistles to private individuals, usually other artists like Southerne, Congreve, Kneller, Motteux, and Granville. Although these poems have a delicate rhetoric of their own, the poet's voice is that of a private man, or more accurately, that of a public man now resigned to a private role. The immediate audience in each of these epistles is a private individual, who is elevated by achievement above Dryden's former—and now forsaken—audience, the nation as a whole.

Although he abandons the traditional oratorical functions of panegyric, advising the prince and pacifying

the people, Dryden continues until his death to draw on the store of topics provided by this genre. The conventions of panegyric are now absorbed into the metaphoric structure of his complimentary poems and used not to persuade but primarily to embellish. The transition from a functional to a purely formal kind of panegyric is already evident in Britannia Rediviva . Here Dryden, addressing at various times people, prince, and God, takes up convention after convention only to discard each one as politically useless. But in the same poem he also addresses Mary of Modena, and in this passage he experiments with less political versions of the familiar topics.

        But you, Propitious Queen, translated here,
From your mild Heav'n, to rule our rugged Sphere,
Beyond the Sunny walks, and circling Year:
You , who your Native Clymate have bereft
Of all the Virtues, and the Vices left,
Whom Piety, and Beauty make their boast  . . .^[49]

The occasion for celebration, the "Triumphant Day" (515) of the prince's birth, recalls the "triumphant Day" celebrated in Astraea Redux but also looks forward to the "Triumphant Day" of the Duchess of Ormonde's return to Ireland, celebrated in Dryden's poem from the preface to the Fables.^[50] On the one hand, Dryden praises Mary in terms very similar to those he had used to praise Charles II in the panegyrics of the 1660's. "Virtues unknown to these rough Northern climes / From milder heav'ns you bring, without their crimes . . ."^[51] On the

[49] Britannia Rediviva, 304–309.

[50] The similarity between this passage of Britannia Rediviva and the later poem addressed to the Duchess of Ormonde has been noted by Miner in the California Dryden, III, 481.

[51] To His Sacred Majesty, 89–90, Poems, I, 27.

other hand, Dryden forecasts the complimentary poetry of the 1690's by expressing the union of divine and human as a reconciliation, not of power and piety, but rather of beauty and piety. In the later panegyrics political concerns are subordinated to esthetic ones, as beauty takes the place of power. "Vouchsafe, Illustrious Ormond, to behold / What Pow'r the Charms of Beauty had of old . . ."^[52] No longer able to believe in the political union of actual and ideal, Dryden re-creates the conventions of panegyric to express this union esthetically.

To Her Grace The Dutchess Of Ormond completes the preface and dedication of Fables Ancient and Modern to the Duke of Ormonde and specifically introduces the first fable of the collection, "Palamon and Arcite, from Chaucer." Yet the metaphoric occasion establishes this poem as a descendant of the "return poems" that had been so popular earlier in the century.

    Now in this Interval, which Fate has cast
Betwixt Your Future Glories, and Your Past,
This Pause of Pow'r, 'tis  Irelands Hour to mourn;
While  England  celebrates  Your safe Return,
By which You seem the Seasons to command,
And bring our Summers back to their forsaken Land.
   The Vanquish'd Isle our Leisure must attend,
Till the Fair Blessing we vouchsafe to send;
Nor can we spare You long, though often we may lend.
The Dove was twice employ'd abroad, before
The World was dry'd; and she return'd no more . (90–100)

The seasonal imagery and the allusion to the flood recall Dryden's panegyrics of the 1660's, To His Sacred Majesty

[52] To Her Grace The Dutchess Of Ormond, With the following Poem of Palamon and Arcite, from Chaucer, lines 7–8, Poems, IV, 1463.

in particular. Moreover, this occasion is placed in the special context of a previous occasion when the Duchess had returned from England to Ireland; in his description of this analogous event Dryden develops the theme of restoration in significant detail. He begins by adapting a couplet from Astraea Redux . "The Land, if not restrain'd, had met Your Way, / Projected out a Neck, and jutted to the Sea."^[53] This revised version of the earlier "approaching cliffes of Albion" leads to a recollection of the evils of civil war.

    The Waste of Civil Wars, their Towns destroy'd,
Pales unhonour'd,  Ceres  unemploy'd,
Were all forgot; and one Triumphant Day
Wip'd all the Tears of three Campaigns away.
Blood, Rapines, Massacres, were cheaply bought,
So mighty Recompence Your Beauty brought.
   As when the Dove returning, bore the Mark
Of Earth restor'd to the long-lab'ring Ark,
The Relicks of Mankind, secure of Rest,
Op'd ev'ry Window to receive the Guest,
And the fair Bearer of the Message bless'd;
So, when You came, with loud repeated Cries,
The Nation took an Omen from your Eyes,
And God advanc'd his Rainbow in the Skies,
To sign inviolable Peace restor'd;
The Saints with solemn Shouts proclaim'd the new accord .
                                                                                (64–79)

The processional topos, introduced in the traditional context of a contrast between past and present, focuses the ideals of reconciliation and peace. Ireland is miraculously restored, but the human focus of the event is neither a

[53] To Her Grace The Dutchess Of Ormond, 51–52. The parallel has been noted by Kinsley, IV, 2065.

king nor a hero, but instead a beautiful woman. It is now beauty that brings redemption.

The challenge to the power of beauty in the poem takes the same form as it had in Dryden's very first published poem, the Hastings elegy.

    Now past the Danger, let the Learn'd begin
Th' Enquiry, where Disease could enter in;
How those malignant Atoms forc'd their Way,
What in the faultless Frame they found to make their Prey?
Where ev'ry Element was weigh'd so well,
That Heav'n alone, who mix'd the Mass, could tell
Which of the Four Ingredients could rebel;
And where, imprison'd in so sweet a Cage,
A Soul might well be pleas'd to pass an Age.
And yet the fine Materials made it weak;
Porcelain by being Pure, is apt to break:
Ev'n to Your Breast the Sickness durst aspire;
And forc'd from that fair Temple to retire,
Profanely set the Holy Place on Tire.
In vain Your Lord like Young  Vespasian mourn'd,
When the fierce Flames the Sanctuary burn'd:
And I prepar'd to pay in Verses rude
A most detested Act of Gratitude:
Ev'n this had been Your Elegy, which now
Is offer'd for Your Health, the Table of my Vow . (111–130)

This episode of illness, metaphorically defined as rebellion, adds a final dimension to the poem's demonstrative theme of restoration and introduces the deliberative theme that brings the poem to a close, putting the ideal in touch with the actual.

    The soft Recesses of Your Hours improve
The Three fair Pledges of Your Happy Love:
 other Parts of Pious Duty done,

you owe Your  Ormond nothing but a Son:
To fill in future Times his Father's Place,
And wear the Garter of his Mother's Race . (165–168)

Beauty is qualified by piety, as Dryden invokes the traditional virtue of the consort in panegyric, fecundity. The "Pious Duty" of the Duchess, the only obligation of her power, is to produce a male heir. As in earlier panegyrics by Claudian, More, Daniel, and in Dryden's own To His Sacred Majesty, present ideals are here extended into the future by allusion to the responsibilities of marriage and parentage. The difference is that the anticipated birth of this son, however significant for the Ormonde family, will have no symbolic significance for the nation as a whole. Having excluded that larger audience from his concern, Dryden preserves the traditional form of panegyric but relinquishes its traditional function.

This does not mean, however, that Dryden has relinquished his political principles. Although he abandons public oratory in favor of addresses to private individuals, Dryden nevertheless clings to the essential values of traditional panegyric, reconciliation and peace. These ideals, defined in the metaphors of To Her Grace The Dutchess Of Ormond, are recorded more directly, for one final time, in To my Honour'd Kinsman, John Driden . The unifying idea of the poem is concord, expressed by the life of Dryden's cousin, who has studied "Peace" and shunned "Civil Rage."^[54] Although the vocabulary of the poem reflects the conditions of William's reign, the normative values are fundamentally the same as those expressed four decades earlier.

[54] To my Honour'd Kinsman, John Driden, Of Chesterton In The County Of Huntingdon, Esquire, 3, Poems, IV, 1529.

A Patriot, both the King and Country serves;
Prerogative, and Privilege preserves:
Of Each, our Laws the certain Limit show;
One must not ebb, nor t' other overflow:
Betwixt the Prince and Parliament we stand;
The Barriers of the State on either Hand:
May neither overflow, for then they drown the Land.
When both are full, they feed our bless'd Abode;
Like those, that water'd once, the Paradise of God . (171–179)

Here "we"—Dryden the poet and Driden the MP—stand "Betwixt the Prince and Parliament," defining the limits of royal and popular power. It is this position between the people and the prince that Dryden had occupied from 1660 to 1688 and that he now describes as the stance of a "Patriot."

When Dryden stepped down, without invective, from his position as poet-orator, he left the way clear for a host of younger poets ready and willing to celebrate the accession of the new Dutch king. The significance of Dryden's achievement as a panegyrist can be measured by considering briefly the panegyrics of his successors. The best examples for comparison are Swift's Ode to the King on his Irish Expedition and Addison's To the King . Swift, like Dryden, was influenced by the Pindaric model for panegyric; Addison, also like Dryden, was influenced by the epic concept of the genre. The successors of Dryden are, in truth, the descendants of Cowley and Waller.

Swift's ode is patently modeled on Cowley's Ode Upon His Majesties Restoration and Return . It has been recognized in particular that Swift's famous celebration of Louis XIV's fistula in ano is a reductive version of Cowley's treatment of Cromwell. Cowley, it may be recalled, had written of Cromwell in astronomical metaphors.

       Wher's now that  Ignis Fatuus  which e're while
          Mis-lead our  wandring Isle?
           Wher's the  Imposter Cromwel gon?
       Where's now that  Falling-star his  Son?
      Where's the  large Comet  now whose raging flame
     So fatal to our  Monarchy became?
     Which o're our heads in such proud horror stood,
     Insatiate with our  Ruine and our  Blood?
      The  fiery Tail  did to vast length extend;
     And twice for want of  Fuel did expire,
     And twice renew'd the dismal  Fire;
Though long the  Tayl  we saw at last its end .^[55]

In Swift this becomes:

That  Restless Tyrant, who of late
Is grown so impudently Great,
     That Tennis-Ball of Fate;
This Gilded Meteor which flyes
As if it meant to touch the Skies;
    For all its boasted height,
For all its Plagiary Light,
  Took its first Growth and Birth
From the worst Excrements of Earth;
Stay but a little while and down again 'twill come,
And end as it began, in Vapour, Stink, and Scum.
    Or has he like some fearful Star appear'd?
Long dreaded for his  Bloody Tail and  Fiery Beard,
     Transcending Nature's ordinary Laws,
        Sent by just Heaven to threaten Earth
        With War, and Pestilence, and Dearth,
Of which it is at once the Prophet and the Cause .^[56]

[55] Cowley, Ode Upon His Majesties Restoration and Return, 207–218.

[56] Jonathan Swift, Ode to the King on His Irish Expedition, lines 119–135, Swift's Poems, ed. Harold Williams, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1937),I, 10.

Louis XIV here assumes the characteristic attributes of the villain in panegyric. He is a "Restless Tyrant" who considers himself above the "Laws," the prophet of a "Cause" that brings to earth the evils of plague and war. In contrast Swift celebrates William as the poem's hero, who combines "Valour" and "Virtue."

     This made the Ancient Romans to afford
    To  Valour  and to  Virtue the  same Word:
To shew the Paths of both must be together trod,
    Before the  Hero can commence  a God. (27–30)

William thus emerges as the Herculean hero, whom Swift praises, however, far more for his valor than for his virtue.

          For strait I saw the Field maintain'd,
    And what I us'd to laugh at in  Romance,
     And thought too great ev'n for effects of Chance.c
The Battel almost by   Great William's  single Valour gain'd  . . .
                                                                                          (61–64)

Comparing him to Tamburlaine as well as Hercules, Swift celebrates William as a military hero of titanic proportions. "He trampled on this Haughty Bajazet, / Made him his Footstool in the War, / And a Grim Slave to wait on his Triumphal Car" (42–44). Leaving the traditional conjunction of valor and virtue far behind, Swift expands the heroic dimension of Pindaric panegyric beyond anything dreamed of by Cowley.

Addison does the same for Waller's conception of heroic narrative. Although he begins by describing William as the "auspicious Prince," Addison defines William's duty in distinctly imperialist terms: "To bind the

Tyrants of the Earth with laws, / And fight in ev'ry Injur'd nation's cause . . ."^[57] To develop the narrative Addison borrows his topics directly from Waller.

      Where-e'er the Waves in restless errors rowle,
The Sea lies open now to either Pole:
Now may we safely use the  Northern gales,
And in the  Polar Circle  spread our sails;
Or deep in  Southern  climes, Secure from wars,
New Lands explore, and sail by Other stars;
Fetch Uncontroll'd each labour of the Sun,
And make the product of the World our own .^[58]

This passage, for example, is an elaboration of a quatrain from A Panegyric To My Lord Protector : "The taste of hot Arabia's spice we know, / Free from the scorching sun that makes it grow; / Without the worm, in Persian silks we shine; / And, without planting, drink of every vine."^[59] Against this background, Addison portrays William as a hero more active than any of Waller's.

     Thus when the forming Muse wou'd copy forth
A perfect Pattern of Heroick worth,
She sets a Man Triumphant in the field,
O'er Giants cloven down, and Monsters kill'd,
Reeking in blood, and smeer'd with dust and sweat,
Whilst Angry Gods conspire to make him Great . (91–96)

William now appears as the contemporary hero of an epic poem.

Both Swift and Addison thus cut themselves free from

[57] Joseph Addison, To the King, lines 57–58, The Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Addison, ed. A. C. Guthkelch, 2 vols. (London, 1914), I, 42.

[58] Addison, To the King, 115–122.

[59] Waller, A Panegyric To My Lord Protector, 57–60.

the tradition that had anchored Dryden. In both of these poems the original, oratorical function of panegyric is obscured by its novel form. Whereas Dryden had adapted the transformations of Cowley and Waller in order to emphasize the themes of restoration and limitation, his successors adopt these innovations for their own sake. Verse oratory thus gives way to the rising popularity of the Pindaric ode and the heroic narrative, both of which endure well beyond Swift and Addison. Shadwell, in his later bursts of laureate verse, chose the form of the ode, and in this choice he was followed by a long and inglorious line of successors. Indeed, by the mid-eighteenth century the genre is treated with so little seriousness that Colley Cibber had to pretend his birthday odes were written in jest.^[60] Although the heroic narrative never became so popular or infamous as the ode, it too was taken as an especially appropriate form for panegyric. Thus Elijah Fenton in his eighteenth-century edition of Waller observes that the heroic narrative of Charles I's escape at Santander can be taken as a model "panegyric." "This Poem may serve as a model for those who intend to succeed in Panegyric; in which our Author illustrates a plain historical fact with all the graces of poetical fiction."^[61] The seventeenth-century transformation has thus become the eighteenth-century tradition.

To see how this formal shift toward Pindaric ode and

[60] This, at least, was Johnson's opinion. See James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, rev. L. F. Powell, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1934), I, 402.

[61] Elijah Fenton, ed. The Works of Edmund Waller, Esq. in Verse and Prose (London, 1729), p. iii. This passage is cited by Ruth Nevo, The Dial of Virtue, p. 21.

heroic narrative signifies a basic shift in the function of panegyric as well, we can compare Fenton's prescription for panegyric with Dryden's." [On] all occasions of praise, if we take the Ancients for our patterns, we are bound by prescription to employ the magnificence of words, and the force of figures, to adorn the sublimity of thoughts. Isocrates amongst the Grecian orators, and Cicero, and the younger Pliny, amongst the Romans, have left us their precedents for our security."^[62] Dryden adorns "the sublimity of thoughts," whereas his successors illustrate "a plain historical fact." Traditionally the panegyrist's concern is for the nation's future. Although Dryden uses the past as a source of contrast, illustration, analogy, or warning, his panegyrics are designed to ensure the future stability and harmony of the nation. His is a poetry of ideals. The panegyrists who succeed him are concerned instead with the immediate past. Although Swift and Addison dress up contemporary history in the mirror of Cowley and Waller, theirs is essentially a poetry of facts. Clearly, moreover, it was Fenton's rather than Dryden's conception of this genre that Johnson had in mind when he objected to Restoration panegyric. "Charles had yet only the merit of struggling without success, and suffering without despair. A life of escapes and indigence could supply poetry with no splendid images."^[63] Originally a kind of oratory, panegyric has become a kind of journalism.

It is this eighteenth-century conception of panegyric,

[62] "Dedicatory letter prefixed to Eleonora," Essays, II, 61.

[63] Samuel Johnson, The Life of Waller, in Lives of the English Poets, ed. G. B. Hill, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1905), I, 272.

"plain historical fact" embellished with "poetical fiction," that invites satiric inversion. If panegyric must now depend on the actual deeds of monarchs and statesmen, it is clear that the genre cannot always be taken seriously, and cannot often be taken seriously in the Georgian age. By exposing the discrepancies between "fiction" and "fact," political satirists like Pope and Byron destroy panegyric once and probably for all. The comic-satiric effect of Pope's epistle "to Augustus" depends heavily on the actual facts of George II's rule. Whereas Jonson, Drummond, Waller, and Dryden had all compared the various rulers of the seventeenth century to Caesar Augustus, thus defining an ideal of successful government, Pope suggests that such "Praise undeserv'd is scandal in disguise."^[64] Likewise in Byron's The Vision of Judgment, the fate of George III at the gates of Heaven depends on his "deeds" as king. "He is what you behold him, and his doom / Depends upon his deeds . . ."^[65] Whereas the panegyrist attempts to unite actual and ideal, the individual man with the optimus princeps, the satirist subverts the genre by reveling in the gulf between traditional fiction and contemporary fact.

Both Pope and Byron extend their ridicule to include the authors as well as the subjects of panegyric. Toward

[64] Alexander Pope, The first Epistle of The Second Book of Horace Imitated, line 413, Imitations of Horace, ed. John Butt (New Haven and London, 1939), in the Twickenham Edition of Pope's Poetical Works, TV, 229.

[65] George Gordon, Lord Byron, The Vision of Judgment, stanza 69, lines 1–2, The Works of Lord Byron: Poetry, ed. E. H. Coleridge, 7 vols. (London, 1898–1904), IV, 509.

the end of his epistle, Pope steps from behind his ironic mask to belittle those poets who had written in praise of kings.

And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves
(Like Journals, Odes, and such forgotten things
As Eusden, Philips, Settle, writ of Kings)
Cloath spice, line trunks, or flutt'ring in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Sohoe . (415–419)

The "multo-scribbling Southey" is given even harsher treatment by Byron, who allows George to slip into heaven during the confusion caused by the recitation of the laureate's eulogy. We now have two "parties" of poets: the "court" poets like Eusden and Southey, and the "country" poets like Pope and Byron. The shift from an oratorical to a journalistic mode is thus accompanied by a movement toward polemic, toward strictly party verse. Moreover, it is quite evident that if facts are the issue, then the rhetorical advantage rests entirely with the opposition. Factually, it is far more difficult to prove that the present is a golden age than to prove that it is not.

Although party verse was often ferocious during Dryden's lifetime, Dryden himself cannot be considered a political polemicist. He persistently, and sometimes against great odds, attempts to speak for and to the whole nation, not for any faction or extreme. Behind this effort is the heritage of panegyric and its traditional purpose, national reconciliation. Even Dryden's political satires are typically conciliatory. His ironic versions of panegyric do not, like those of Pope and Byron, emphasize the gap between actual and ideal. Rather they expose the

danger of perverting the traditional ideals to serve factional goals.

As the seventeenth century comes to an end, however, and the national orator is supplanted by the party polemicist, Dryden's inherited conception of the public poet's responsibility to the whole nation becomes an anachronism. In place of traditional panegyric the eighteenth century offers a kind of public poetry that is at once factual and partisan. The post-Revolution verse of writers like Halifax and Prior even inspired William Courthope to devote a chapter in A History of English Poetry to "The Whig Victory: Panegyrical Poetry."^[66] But Courthope's concept of "whig panegyric," however familiar it may have been to Pope, would surely have seemed a contradiction in terms to Dryden. For Dryden "panegyric" continues to mean what it had meant to writers like Pliny and Erasmus, More and Jonson, a kind of literature that attempts to unite all (pan ) the people (gyris ) behind an ideal monarch. The political poets who succeed Dryden have much more realistic, and therefore much more limited ambitions.

[66] W. J. Courthope, A History of English Poetry, 6 vols. (London, 1905), V, 20–43. Courthope's study has since been extended much later into the eighteenth century by Cecil A. Moore, "Whig Panegyric Verse: A Phase of Sentimentalism," in Moore, Backgrounds of English Literature, 1700–1760 (Minneapolis, 1953). For further consideration of "panegyric" in the eighteenth century, see Kenneth Hopkins, The Poets Laureate (London, 1954).