so turned their whole application to the strength of their forces at sea; which have been since exercised with two English wars in that time, and enlivened with the small yearly expeditions into the Straits against the Algerines, and other Corsairs of the Mediterranean.

Another was, their too great parsimony, in reforming so many of their best foreign officers and troops, upon the peace of Munster; whose valour and conduct had been so great occasions of inducing Spain to the councils and conclusions of that treaty.

But the greatest of all other, that concurred to weaken, and indeed break, the strength of their land milice,' was the alteration of their State, which happened by the Perpetual Edict of Holland and West-Friezland, upon the death of the last Prince of Orange, for exclusion of the power of Stadtholder in their Province, or at least the separation of it from the charge of Captain-General. Since that time, the main design and application of those Provinces has been, to work out, by degrees, all the old officers, both native and foreign, who had been formerly sworn to the Prince of Orange, and were still thought affectionate to the interest of that family; and to fill the commands of their army, with the sons, or kinsmen, of their burgomasters, and other officers or deputies in the State, whom they esteemed sure to the constitutions of their popular government, and good enough for an age, where they saw no appearance of enemy at land to attack them.

But the humour of kindness to the young Prince, both in the people and army, was not to be dissolved, or dispersed, by any medicines, or operations, either of rigour or artifice; but grew up insensibly, with the age of the Prince, ever presaging some revolution in the State, when he should come to the years of aspiring, and managing the general affections of the people; being a Prince, who joined to the great qualities of his Royal blood, the popular virtues of his country; silent and thoughtful; given to hear, and to inquire; of a sound and steady understanding; much firmness in what he once resolves, or once denies; great industry and application to his business, little to his pleasures; piety in the religion of his country, but with charity to others; temperance unusual to his youth, and to the climate; frugal in the common management of his fortune, and yet magnificent upon occasion; of great spirit

1 militia

and heart, aspiring to the glory of military actions, with strong ambition to grow great, but rather by the service, than the servitude of his country. In short, a Prince of many virtues, without any appearing mixture of vice.

In the English war, begun the year 1665, the States disbanded all the English troops that were then left in their service, dispersing the officers and soldiers of our nation, who stayed with them, into other companies, or regiments of their own. After the French invasion of Flanders, and the strict alliance between England and Holland in 1668, they did the same by all the French that were remaining in their service: so as the several bodies of these two nations, which had ever the greatest part in the honour and fortune of their wars, were now wholly dissolved, and their standing milice composed, in a manner, all of their own natives, enervated by the long uses and arts of traffic, and of peace.

But they were too great a match for any of the smaller Princes their neighbours in Germany; and too secure of any danger from Spain, by the knowledge of their forces, as well as dispositions; and being strictly allied both with England and Sweden, in two several defensive leagues, and in one common triple alliance, they could not foresee any danger from France, who, they thought, would never have the courage, or force, to enter the lists with so mighty confederates; and who were sure of a conjunction, whenever they pleased, both with the Emperor and Spain.

Besides, they knew that France could not attack them, without passing through Flanders or Germany: they were sure Spain would not suffer it, through the first, if they were backed in opposing it, as foreseeing the inevitable loss of Flanders, upon that of Holland: and they could hardly believe, the passage should be yielded by a German Prince, contrary to the express will and intentions of the Emperor, as well as the common interests of the empire: so that they hoped the war would, at least, open in their neighbours' provinces, for whose defence they resolved to employ the whole force of their State; and would have made a mighty resistance, if the quarrel had begun at any other doors, but their own.

They could not imagine a conjunction between England and France, for the ruin of their State; for, being unacquainted with our constitutions, they did not foresee, how we should find our interest in it, and measured all

states, by that which they esteemed to be their interest. Nor could they believe, that other Princes and States of Europe would suffer such an addition to be made to the power of France, as a conquest of Holland.

Besides these public considerations, there were others particular to the factions among them

and some of their Ministers were neither forward nor supple enough to endeavour the early breaking, or diverting, such conjunctures, as threatened them; because they were not without hopes, they might end in renewing their broken measures with France; which those of the commonwealth-party were more inclined to, by foreseeing the influence that their alliances with England must needs have in time, towards the restoring of the Prince of Orange's authority: and they thought at the worst, that, whenever a pinch came, they could not fail of a safe bargain, in one market or other, having so vast a treasure ready to employ upon any good occasion.

These considerations made them commit three fatal oversights in their foreign negotiations: for they made an alliance with England, without engaging a confidence and friendship: they broke their measures with France, without closing new ones with Spain: and they reckoned upon the assistances of Sweden, and their neighbour-Princes of Germany, without making them sure by subsidiary advances, before a war began.

Lastly, the Prince of Orange was approaching the two and twentieth year of his age, which the States of Holland had, since their alliance with his Majesty in 1668, ever pretended should be the time of advancing him to the charge of Captain-General and Admiral of their forces, though without that of Stadtholder. But the nearer they drew to this period, which was like to make a new figure in their government, the more desirous some of their Ministers seemed, either to decline, or to restrain it. On the other side, the Prince grew confident upon the former promises, or, at least, intimations, of Holland, and the concurring dispositions of the other six Provinces to his advancement: and his party, spirited by their hopes, and the great qualities of this young Prince (now grown ripe for action, and for enterprise) resolved to bring this point to a sudden decision; against which, the other party prepared, and united all their defences; so, as this strong disease, that had been so long working in the very bowels of the State, seemed just upon its crisis; when a conjunction of two mighty Kings brought

upon them a sudden and furious invasion by land and sea, at the same time, by a royal fleet of above fourscore ships, and an army of as many thousand men.

When the States saw this cloud ready to break upon them (after a long belief, that it would blow over) they began, not only to provide shelter at home with their usual vigour, but to look out for it abroad (though both too late). Of the Princes that were their allies, or concerned in their danger, such as were far off could not be in time; the nearer were unwilling to share in a danger they were not prepared for; most were content to see the pride of this State humbled; some the injuries they had received from them, revenged; many would have them mortified, that would not have them destroyed; and so all resolved to leave them to weather the storm, as they could, for one campania;1 which, they did not believe, could go far towards their ruin, considering the greatness of their riches, number of their forces, and strength of their places.

The State, in the meantime, had increased their troops to seventy thousand men, and had begun to repair the fortifications of their frontier towns: but so great a length of their country lay open to the French invasion, by the territories of Colen and Liege, and to the Bishop of Munster (their inveterate enemy) by Westphalia, that they knew not where to expect or provide against the first danger: and while they divided their forces and endeavours towards the securing of so many garrisons, they provided for none to any purpose but Maestricht; which the French left behind them, and fell in upon the towns of the Rhine, and the heart of their Provinces.

Besides, those Ministers, who had still the direction of affairs, bent their chief application to the strength and order of their fleet, rather than of their army: whether more pecked at England than France, upon the war and manner of entering into it: or believing that a victory at sea would be the way to a peace with this crown: or, hoping their towns would not fall so fast, but that, before three or four were lost, the business at sea would be decided: or, perhaps content, that some ill successes should attend the Prince of Orange at his first entrance upon the command of their armies, and thereby contribute to their designs of restraining his authority, while they were forced to leave him the name of Captain-General. This, indeed,

1 campaign

was not likely to fail, considering the ill constitution of their old army, the hasty levies of their new, and the height of the factions now broken out in the State; which left both the towns and the troops in suspense, under whose banners they fought, and by whose orders they were to be governed, the Prince's or the State's.

There happened, at the same time, an accident unusual to their climate, which was a mighty drought in the beginning of the summer, that left their waters fordable in places where they used to be navigable for boats of greatest burden. And this gave them more trouble and distraction in the defence, as their enemies more facility in the passage of those great rivers, which were esteemed no small security of their country.

And in this posture were the affairs of this commonwealth, when the war broke out, with those fatal events, that must needs attend any kingdom, or state, where the violence of a foreign invasion happens to meet with the distracted estate of a domestic sedition or discontent, which, like ill humours in a body, make any small wound dangerous, and a great one mortal. They were still a great body, but without their usual soul; they were a State, but it was of the dis-united Provinces. Their towns were without order; their burghers without obedience; their soldiers without discipline; and all without heart: whereas, in all sieges, the hearts of men defend the walls, and not walls the men: and indeed, it was the name of England joining in the war against them, that broke their hearts, and contributed more to the loss of so many towns, and so much country, than the armies of Munster, or France. So that, upon all circumstances considered, it seems easier to give an account, what it was that lost them so much, than what saved them the rest. * * *

JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)

FROM AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY

It was that memorable day, in the first summer of the late war, when our navy engaged the Dutch; a day wherein the two most mighty and best appointed fleets which any age had ever seen, disputed the command of the greater half of the globe, the commerce of nations, and the riches of the universe: while these vast floating bodies, on either side, moved against each other in parallel lines, and our countrymen, under the happy conduct of his Royal

Highness, went breaking, by little and little, into the line of the enemies; the noise of the cannon from both navies reached our ears about the city; so that all men being alarmed with it, and in a dreadful suspense of the event, which they knew was then deciding, every one went following the sound as his fancy led him; and leaving the town almost empty, some took towards the Park, some cross the river, others down it; all seeking the noise in the depth of silence.

Amongst the rest, it was the fortune of Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander, to be in company together: three of them persons whom their wit and quality have made known to all the town; and whom I have chose to hide under these borrowed names, that they may not suffer by so ill a relation as I am going to make of their discourse.

Taking then a barge, which a servant of Lisideius had provided for them, they made haste to shoot the bridge, and left behind them that great fall of waters which hindered them from hearing what they desired: after which, having disengaged themselves from many vessels which rode at anchor in the Thames, and almost blocked up the passage towards Greenwich, they ordered the watermen to let fall their oars more gently; and then every one favouring his own curiosity with a strict silence, it was not long ere they perceived the air to break about them like the noise of distant thunder, or of swallows in a chimney: those little undulations of sound, though almost vanishing before they reached them, yet still seeming to retain somewhat of their first horror which they had betwixt the fleets. After they had attentively listened till such time as the sound by little and little went from them, Eugenius, lifting up his head, and taking notice of it, was the first who congratulated to the rest that happy omen of our nation's victory: adding, that we had but this to desire in confirmation of it, that we might hear no more of that noise which was now leaving the English coast. When the rest had concurred in the same opinion, Crites, a person of a sharp judgment, and somewhat too delicate a taste in wit, which the world hath mistaken in him for ill nature, said, smiling to us, that if the concernment of this battle had not been so exceeding great, he could scarce have wished the victory at the price he knew he must pay for it, in being subject to the reading and hearing of so many ill verses as he was sure would be made on that subject. Adding, that no argument could

'scape some of those eternal rhymers, who watch a battle with more diligence than the ravens and birds of prey; and the worst of them surest to be first in upon the quarry; while the better able, either out of modesty writ not at all, or set that due value upon their poems, as to let them be often desired, and long expected. There are some of those impertinent people of whom you speak, answered Lisideius, who, to my knowledge, are already so provided, either way, that they can produce not only a panegyric upon the victory, but, if need be, a funeral elegy on the duke; wherein, after they have crowned his valour with many laurels, they will at last deplore the odds under which he fell, concluding, that his courage deserved a better destiny. . .

If your quarrel (said Eugenius) to those who now write, be grounded only on your reverence to antiquity, there is no man more ready to adore those great Greeks and Romans than I am: but, on the other side, I cannot think so contemptibly of the age in which I live, or so dishonourably of my own country, as not to judge we equal the ancients in most kinds of poesy, and in some surpass them; neither know I any reason why I may not be as zealous for the reputation of our age, as we find the ancients themselves were in reverence to those who lived before them. For you hear your Horace saying,

Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse Compositum, illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper.1 And after:

Si meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit,

Scire velim, pretium chartis quotus arroget annus ? 2

But I see I am engaging in a wide dispute, where the arguments are not like to reach close on either side; for poesy is of so large an extent, and so many, both of the ancients and moderns, have done well in all kinds of it, that in citing one against the other, we shall take up more time this evening, than each man's occasions will allow him: therefore I would ask Crites to what part of poesy he would confine his arguments, and whether he would defend the general cause of the ancients against the mod

erns, or oppose any age of the moderns against this of ours.

Crites, a little while considering upon this demand, told Eugenius, that if he pleased he would limit their dispute to Dramatic Poesy; in which he thought it not difficult to prove, either that the ancients were superior to the moderns, or the last age to this of ours.

Eugenius was somewhat surprised, when he heard Crites make choice of that subject. For aught I see, said he, I have undertaken a harder province than I imagined; for, though I never judged the plays of the Greek or Roman poets comparable to ours, yet, on the other side, those we now see acted come short of many which were written in the last age. But my comfort is, if we are overcome, it will be only by our own countrymen: and if we yield to them in this one part of poesy, we more surpass them in all the other; for in the epic or lyric way, it will be hard for them to show us one such amongst them, as we have many now living, or who lately were. They can produce nothing so courtly writ, or which expresses so much the conversation of a gentleman, as Sir John Suckling; nothing so even, sweet, and flowing, as Mr. Waller; nothing so majestic, so correct, as Sir John Denham; nothing so elevated, so copious, and full of spirit, as Mr. Cowley. As for the Italian, French, and Spanish plays, I can make it evident, that those who now write, surpass them; and that the drama is wholly ours.

All of them were thus far of Eugenius his opinion, that the sweetness of English verse was never understood or practised by our fathers; even Crites himself did not much oppose it: and every one was willing to acknowledge how much our poesy is improved, by the happiness of some writers yet living; who first taught us to mould our thoughts into easy and significant words, to retrench the superfluities of expression, and to make our rhyme so properly a part of the verse, that it should never mislead the sense, but itself be led and governed by it.

Eugenius was going to continue this discourse, when Lisideius told him, that it was necessary, before they proceeded further, to take a standing measure of their controversy; for how was it possible to be decided, who wrote the best plays, before we know what a play should be? but, this once agreed on by both parties, each might have recourse to it, either to prove his own advantages, or to discover the failings of his adversary.

He had no sooner said this, but all desired the favour of him to give the definition of a play; and they were the more importunate, because neither Aristotle, nor Horace, nor any other, who had writ of that subject, had ever done it.

Lisideius, after some modest denials, at last confessed he had a rude notion of it; indeed rather a description than a definition; but which served to guide him in his private thoughts, when he was to make a judgment of what others writ: that he conceived a play ought to be, "A just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind."

This definition (though Crites raised a logical objection against it—that it was only a genere et fine, and so not altogether perfect) was yet well received by the rest: and after they had given order to the watermen to turn their barge, and row softly, that they might take the cool of the evening in their return, Crites, being desired by the company to begin, spoke on behalf of the ancients, in this man

ner:

If confidence presage a victory, Eugenius, in his own opinion, has already triumphed over the ancients: nothing seems more easy to him, than to overcome those whom it is our greatest praise to have imitated well; for we do not only build upon their foundations, but by their models. Dramatic Poesy had time enough, reckoning from Thespis (who first invented it) to Aristophanes, to be born, to grow up, and to flourish in maturity. It has been observed of arts and sciences, that in one and the same century they have arrived to great perfection: and no wonder, since every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies: the work then being pushed on by many hands, must of necessity go forward.

Is it not evident, in these last hundred years, (when the study of philosophy has been the business of all the Virtuosi in Christendom,) that almost a new nature has been revealed to us? that more errors of the school have been detected, more useful experiments in philosophy have been made, more noble secrets in optics, medicine, anatomy, astronomy, discovered, than in all those credulous and doting ages from Aristotle to us? so true it is, that nothing spreads more fast than science, when rightly and generally cultivated.

Add to this, the more than common emulation that was in those times, of writing well;

which though it be found in all ages, and all persons that pretend to the same reputation, yet poesy being then in more esteem than now it is, had greater honours decreed to the professors of it, and consequently the rivalship was more high between them. They had judges ordained to decide their merit, and prizes to reward it; and historians have been diligent to record of Eschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Lycophron, and the rest of them, both who they were that vanquished in these wars of the theatre, and how often they were crowned: while the Asian kings and Grecian commonwealths scarce afforded them a nobler subject, than the unmanly luxuries of a debauched court, or giddy intrigues of a factious city: Alit æmulatio ingenia, (says Paterculus) et nunc invidia, nunc admiratio incitationem accendit: Emulation is the spur of wit; and sometimes envy, sometimes admiration, quickens our endeavours.

But now since the rewards of honour are taken away, that virtuous emulation is turned into direct malice; yet so slothful, that it contents itself to condemn and cry down others, without attempting to do better: 'tis a reputation too unprofitable, to take the necessary pains for it; yet wishing they had it, that desire is incitement enough to hinder others from it. And this, in short, Eugenius, is the reason, why you have now so few good poets, and so many severe judges. Certainly, to imitate the ancients well, much labour and long study is required; which pains, I have already shown, our poets would want encouragement to take, if yet they had ability to go through the work. Those ancients have been faithful imitators, and wise observers of that nature which is so torn and ill represented in our plays; they have handed down to us a perfect resemblance of her; which we, like ill copiers, neglecting to look on, have rendered monstrous, and disfigured. But, that you may know how much you are indebted to those your masters, and be ashamed to have so ill requited them, I must remember you, that all the rules by which we practise the drama at this day, (either such as relate to the justness and symmetry of the plot; or the episodical ornaments, such as descriptions, narrations, and other beauties, which are not essential to the play;) were delivered to us from the observations which Aristotle made, of those poets, who either lived before him, or were his contemporaries. We have added nothing of our own, except we have the confidence to say, our wit is better; of which none