Royal proclamations follow each other in rapid succession:  at length the eventful day has come—­the 29th of May, 1660.  All the bells of London are ringing their merriest chimes; the streets are thronged with citizens in holiday attire; the guilds of work and trade are out in their uniforms; the army, late the organ of Cromwell, is drawn up on Black Heath, and is cracking its myriad throat with cheers.  In the words of Master Roger Wildrake, “There were bonfires flaming, music playing, rumps roasting, healths drinking; London in a blaze of light from the Strand to Rotherhithe.”  At length the sound of herald trumpets is heard; the king is coming; a cry bursts forth which the London echoes have almost forgotten:  “God save the king!  The king enjoys his own again!”

It seems to the dispassionate reader almost incredible that the English people, who shed his father’s blood, who rallied round the Parliament, and were fulsome in their praises of the Protector, should thus suddenly change; but, allowing for “the madness of the people,” we look for strength and consistency to the men of learning and letters.  We feel sure that he who sang his eulogy of Cromwell dead, can have now no lyric burst for the returning Stuart.  We are disappointed.

DRYDEN’S TRIBUTE.—­The first poetic garland thrown at the feet of the restored king was Dryden’s Astraea Redux, a poem on The happy restoration of his sacred majesty Charles II. To give it classic force, he quotes from the Pollio as a text.

Jam redit et virgo, redeunt saturnia regna;

thus hailing the saturnian times of James I. and Charles I. A few lines of the poem complete the curious contrast: 

While our cross stars deny us Charles his bed,
Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed,
For his long absence church and state did groan;
Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne.

* * * * *

How great were then our Charles his woes, who thus
Was forced to suffer for himself and us.

* * * * *

Oh happy prince whom Heaven hath taught the way,
By paying vows to have more vows to pay: 
Oh happy age! oh, times like those alone
By Fate reserved for great Augustus’ throne,
When the joint growth of arts and arms foreshow
The world a monarch, and that monarch you!

The contrast assumes a clearer significance, if we remember that the real time which elapsed between the publications of these two poems was less than two years.

This is greatly to Dryden’s shame, as it is to Waller’s, who did the same thing; but it must be clearly pointed out that in this the poets were really a type of all England, for whose suffrages they wrote thus.  From this time the career of Dryden was intimately associated with that of the restored king.  He wrote an ode for the coronation in 1661, and a poetical tribute to Clarendon, the Lord High Chancellor, the king’s better self.