"When up the armed mountains of Dunbar
He marched, and through deep Severn, ending war."

"Thee, many ages hence, in martial verse
Shall the English soldier, ere he charge, rehearse."

On the whole, one is glad that Dryden's panegyric on the Protector was so
poor. It was purely official verse-making. Had there been any feeling in
it, there had been baseness in his address to Charles. As it is, we may
fairly assume that he was so far sincere in both cases as to be thankful
for a chance to exercise himself in rhyme, without much caring whether
upon a funeral or a restoration. He might naturally enough expect that
poetry would have a better chance under Charles than under Cromwell, or
any successor with Commonwealth principles. Cromwell had more serious
matters to think about than verses, while Charles might at least care as
much about them as it was in his base good-nature to care about anything
but loose women and spaniels. Dryden's sound sense, afterwards so
conspicuous, shows itself even in these pieces, when we can get at it
through the tangled thicket of tropical phrase. But the authentic and
unmistakable Dryden first manifests himself in some verses addressed to
his friend Dr. Charlton in 1663. We have first his common sense which has
almost the point of wit, yet with a tang of prose:--

"The longest tyranny that ever swayed
Was that wherein our ancestors betrayed
Their freeborn reason to the Stagyrite,
And made his torch their universal light.
_So truth, while only one supplied the state,
Grew scarce and dear and yet sophisticate.