BRITANNIA REDIVIV A.

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Written in 1688.

On the tenth of June, 1688, the queen was fuddenly feized

with labour-pains, and delivered of a fon, who was bap"tized by the name of James, and declared prince of Wales. "All the catholics and friends of James were tranfported with "the most extravagant joy at the birth of this child; while great " part of the nation confoled themselves with the notion that it "was altogether fuppofititious. They carefully collected a va"riety of circumftances, upon which this conjecture was found"ed; and though they were inconfiftent, contradictory, and "inconclufive, the inference was fo agreeable to the views and "paffions of the people, that it made an impreffion which, in "all probability, will never be totally effaced. Dr. Burnet, who "seems to have been at uncommon pains to establish this belief, and to have confulted all the Whig nurfes in England upon the fubject; firft pretends to demonftrate, that the queen was not with child; fecondly, that the was with child, but mi "carried; thirdly, that a child was brought into the queen's apartment in a warming-pan; fourthly, that there was no "child at all in the room; fifthly, that the queen actually bore

a child, but it died that fame day; fixthly, that the fuppofiti"tious child had not the fits; seventhly, that it had the fits, of "which it died at Richmond: therefore the chevalier de St. "George must be the fruit of four different impoftures.”

Laft folemn Sabbath, &c.

Smollett's Hiftory of England.

His birth-day happened to be alfo Trinity-Sunday, which is the octave of Whit-Sunday.

For fee the dragon, &c..

This paffage alludes to the dragon, mentioned in the twelfth chapter of Revelations, which endeavored to devour a child as foon as born to which our author affimilates the fituation of the young prince, whom the bard fuppofes the Whigs would gladly have deftroyed.

Thus when Alcides, &c.

Alcides was the fon of Jupiter by Alcmena. Juno fent two ferpents to kill him in his cradle; but he ftrangled them both, crying out vehemently at the fame time.

Already has he lifted high the fign, &c.

The fign of the cross, which was the military ftandard of Conftantine, is here used to fignify the Roman Catholic religion, which the king wanted indifcreetly to re-establish.

The moon grows pale, &c.

The Turks ufe a crefcent for their arms; and they are here figuratively introduced, as grieving at the progress of Popery, which, as the true religion, must soon overcome their false system.

Behold another Sylvefter, &c.

The pope, in James the IId's time, is here compared to him. who governed the Romish church in the time of Constantine, to whom the king is likened a little lower down.

The former too was of the British line.

St. Helen, mother of Conftantine the Great, was an English"woman ; and Archbishop Ufher affirms, that the emperor himfelf was born in this kingdom.

that one shipwreck on the fatal ore.

The fandbank, on which the Duke of York had like to have been loft in 1682, on his voyage to Scotland, is known by the name of Lemman-ore. It has been before-mentioned by our author in his Hind and Panther.

Fain would the fiends, &c.

The malcontents are here beautifully compared to the evil fpirits, that prefumed to tempt the Saviour of the world in the wilderness.

Not great Eneas flood, &c.

"Reftitit Æneas, claraq; in luce refulfit

"Os humerofq; deos fimilis: namq; ipfa decoram

"Cæfariem nato genetrix, lumenq; juventæ

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Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflarat honores."

Eneid, Lib. I.

If the victorious Edward, &C.

Edward the Black Prince was born on a Trinity-Sunday.

St. George.

adopted patron of our ifle.

Enough already has the year, &c.

There had been confiderable damage done this year by ftorms and floods and an epidemical diftemper, among both men and horfes, had made great ravage.

Behold him an Araunah, &c.

Firft of Kings, chap. xxiv.

Let his baptifmal drops, &c,

By baptifm, the church fuppofes us cleanfed from original fin.

Unnam'd as yet, &c.

The young prince was not named when this poem was pub· lished.

the facred tetragrammaton.

It was held unlawful among the Jews, to pronounce the word Jehovah, or the name of God.

Thus the true name of Rome was kept conceal'd.

Some authors fay, that the true name of Rome was, for some time after its foundation, kept a fecret; Ne hoftes incantementis deos elicerent.

Jupiter, as foon as born, was committed to the care of nurses, who educated him in fecret; while his father Saturn thought he -had been murdered, according as he had commanded, in order to defeat a prophecy, that faid his fon should drive him from, and ufurp his throne: yet the greatness of Jupiter's spirit shone out ftrongly even in obscurity.

Jove's increafe, who from his brain was born.

Minerva is faid to have sprung from the brain of Jove, and to have been bred up by hand, as was this young prince.

our young fun o'ercaft.

It was fuddenly and falfely reported that the child was dead.

As earth's gigantic brood by moments grow.

It was fabled of the giants that they grew fifteen ells a day.

So ere the Shunamite, &c.

See the fecond book of Kings, chap. iv.

Thus Ifrael finn'd, &c.

Firft of Samuel, ch. iv. v. 10.

Not Amalek can rout, &c.

Exodus, ch. xviii. v. 8.

Of all the Greeks, &C.

Ariftides was firnamed the Juft.

See his Life, written by Plu

tarch.

MA C-F LECK N O E.

HIS is one of the beft, as well as feverest fatires, ever

in our

hero of the piece, and introduced, as if pitched upon, by MacFlecknoe, to fucceed him in the throne of dullness; for Flecknoe was never poet-laureat, as has been ignorantly afferted in Cibber's Lives of the Poets.

Richard Mac-Flecknoe, Efq; from whom this poem derives its name, was an Irish priest, who had, according to his own declaration, laid afide the mechanic part of the priesthood. He was well known at court; yet, out of four plays which he wrote, could get only one of them acted, and that was damned. "He "has," fays Langbaine, "published fundry works, as he stiles "them, to continue his name to pofterity, tho poffibly an enehas done that for him, which his own endeavors could never "have perfected: for, whatever may become of his own pieces, "his name will continue, whilst Mr. Dryden's fatire, called Mac"Flecknoe, fhall remain in vogue."

my

At the revolution, when Dryden was deprived of the laurel, it was conferred upon Mr. Thomas Shadwell; and this election, together with the favor he enjoyed among the Whigs, occafioned our author's refentment. It does not appear, however, that he was fo very contemptible a genius as he is here represented to be. His plays, which were feventeen in number, were performed with applause in many places: they are not void either of wit or incident; and feveral of his characters have been much ad

mired. He had taken opium for many years, whereby he was at laft carried fuddenly out of the world in 1692, and was buried at Chelfea. There is a monument erected to his memory in Weftminster-Abbey.

From this poem Pope took the hint of his Dunciad.

Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee.

Thomas Heywood lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and was certainly a most voluminous writer: for he tells us in his dedication of the English Traveller, a tragi-comedy, that he has had an entire hand, or, at least, a main finger in two hundred and twenty dramatic pieces: of these there remain only twentyfive that are perfect. He was an actor as well as an author; and Winstanley, in his Lives of the Poets, fays, "He not only acted "himfelf almost every day, but also wrote a fheet each day; "and that he might lose no time, many of his plays were composed in the tavern."

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Mr. James Shirley has left us thirty-eight dramatic pieces, one of which called the Gamester, with amendments and corrections, was prefented at Drury-lane in 1757. He died foon after the restoration.

St. Andre's feet ne'er kept, &c.

A French dancing-mafter, at this time greatly admired.

Not ev'n the feet of thy own Pfyche's rhyme.

1

Pfyche, is an opera of Shadwell's, founded on the French of Moliere, and dedicated to the Duke of Monmouth. In his dedication he obferves, that tho some of his enemies may have plenty of wit, they have not money to fupply their own neceffities. This is an oblique and illiberal reflection upon Dryden,

Where their vast courts the mother-ftrumpets, &c.

A parody on thefe lines in Cowley's Davides, B. I.

"Where their vaft courts, the mother-waters keep,
And undisturb'd by moons, in filence fleep,

where unfledg'd tempefts lie,

"And infant-winds their tender voices try,"

Simkin juft reception finds.

Simkin is a character of a cobler in an interlude. Panton, who is mentioned foon after, was a famous punster.