occasions for the manifesting of your Christian
and civil virtues.

To you, therefore, this YEAR OF WONDERS is
justly dedicated, because you have made it so;
you, who are to stand a wonder to all years and
ages, and who have built yourselves an immortal
monument on your own ruins. You are now a
phoenix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can
approach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity;
but Heaven never made so much piety and virtue
to leave it miserable. I have heard indeed of some
virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately,
but never of any virtuous nation. Providence is
engaged too deeply, when the cause becomes so
general and I cannot imagine it has resolved the
ruin of that people at home, which it has blessed
abroad with such successes. I am therefore to
conclude, that your sufferings are at an end, and
that one part of my poem has not been more an
history of your destruction, than the other a pro-
phecy of your restoration; the accomplishment of
which happiness, as it is the wish of all true
Englishmen, so is by none more passionately
desired than by

The greatest of your admirers,

And most humble of

your servants,

L

JOHN DRYDEN.

AN

ACCOUNT OF THE POEM,

ENTITLED

ANNUS MIRABILIS,

IN A LETTER TO

THE HONOURABLE SIR ROBERT HOWARD."

SIR,

IAM so many ways obliged to you, and so

little able to return your favours, that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but you have been solicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long since I gave you the trouble of perusing a play for me; and now, instead of an acknowledgment, have given you a greater, in the correction of a poem. But since you are to bear this persecution, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr,-you could never suffer in a nobler cause; for I have chosen the most heroick

7 See Vol. I. pp. 147, 155.

8

subject which any poet could desire. I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes, of a most just and necessary war; in it, the care, management, and prudence of our King; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and three glorious victories, the result of all. After this, I have in the fire the most deplorable, but withal the greatest, argument that can be imagined; the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast and miserable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not serving my King and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged to it; and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England to be foremost in brave actions, which the nobless of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should not have written this but to a person, who has been ever forward to appear in all employments whither his honour and generosity have called him. The latter part of my poem, which describes the fire, I owe first to the piety and fatherly affection of our monarch to his suffering subjects; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both which were so

James, Duke of York.

• Prince Rupert, and the Duke of Albemarle.

conspicuous, that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve.

I have called my poem historical, not epick, though both the actions and actors are as much heroick as any poem can contain. But since the action is not properly one, nor that accomplished in the last successes, I have judged it too bold a title for a few stanzas, which are little more in number than a single Iliad, or the longest of the Eneids. For this reason, (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too severely to the laws of history,) I am apt to agree with those who rank Lucan rather among historians in verse, than epick poets; in whose room, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more justly be admitted.—I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us; in which I am sure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the slavery of any rhyme; and were less constrained in the quantity of every syllable, which they might vary with spondees or dactyles, besides so many other helps of grammatical figures for the lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the close of that one syllable, which often confines and more often corrupts the sense of all the rest. But in this necessity of our rhymes, I have always