Class on Oroonoko

Readings from EEBO (you don’t need to know these well—you might just glance at them before class in order to enhance our discussion).

(Possible sources that Aphra Behn might have had access to.  What do you think?)

1.      Warren, George, An impartial description of Surinam upon the continent of Guiana in America with a history of several strange beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, insects and customs of that colony, etc. / worthy the perusal of all, from experience of George Warren ... , London : Printed by William Godbid for Nathaniel Brooke ..., 1667.

2.     Rochefort, Charles-César, comte de., The history of the Caribby-islands, viz, Barbados, St Christophers, St Vincents, Martinico, Dominico, Barbouthos, Monserrat, Mevis, Antego, &c in all XXVIII in two books : the first containing the natural, the second, the moral history of those islands : illustrated with several pieces of sculpture representing the most considerable rarities therein described : with a Caribbian vocabulary / rendred into English by John Davies ... , London : Printed by J.M. for Thomas Dring and John Starkey, and are to be sold at their shops ..., 1666.  [I used the second entry under search terms “Davies, John” and “Caribby-Islands” in author and title.  Then go to image 171 or pages 314-15 for a description of the Indian chiefs and mutilation.

3.      Behn, Aphra, Abdelazer, or, The Moor's revenge a tragedy, as it is acted at His Royal Highness the Duke's Theatre / written by Mrs. A. Behn. , London : Printed for J. Magnes and R. Bentley ..., 1677.

Suggested ideas for searching in EEBO and ECCO if you are interested in this topic: What else can you find about English settlements in South America in the seventeenth-century and their presentation of the native peoples there?  This will complement our work on The Indian Emperor as well.

Mallipeddi, Ramesh, "Spectacle, Spectatorship, and Sympathy in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko," Eighteenth-Century Studies 45.4 (2012): 475-496.  Here is a link through Project Muse in our library database:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/eighteenth-century_studies/toc/ecs.45.4.html

Article Review

“’Tis There eternal spring:” Mapping the Exotic in Aphra Behn’s  Oroonoko by Andrew Hisock

[Hisock, Andrew. “Tis there eternal spring: Mapping the Exotic in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko”.  Journal of the Short Story in English. 29 (Autumn 1997).  (Online).]

Hisock in his article posits to analyze Behn’s Oroonooko as an early novella which experimented both with genre and narration as well as Behn’s  (possible) ability to “generate her other self” in narratorial terms (2).  Furthermore, Hisock highlights ways in which even as a female writer, Behn produces an “exotic other” in her representations of blackness

The first half of the article is dedicated to outlining Behn’s history as a rarity in Restoration England: a woman able to sustain herself independently as a successful playwright.  However, Hisock argues that her real innovation and strength was not her plays (albeit successful) but her venture into prose writing because of the eventual decay of the theaters amidst the “Popish Plot”.Oroonooko was Behn’s attempt at reaching a mass market and expanding her income via prose narrative.

Hisock’s main argument, however, is that Behn’s positions woman and black people as “other” and important yet holds to conventional frameworks of patriarchy.  To quote Hiscock: “Behn does not conduct the whole narrative in accordance with the expectations of such writing: the reader will not find the familiar romance vision with the pressures of cultural restrains are challenged by a female value-system focusing on love…there is no possibility that the heroine (narrator or Imoinda) may be allowed to break out of identities imposed upon her by an inhibiting patriarchy” (Hisock 3).  With regards to her portrayal of black people as the “exotic other, Hisock argues that Behn fantasizes a world unknown to much of seventeenth-century England but was “popular of the orientalist narrative of contemporary French writers” (3).  Therefore, Orronokoo presents a romantic view of blacks and Hisock takes great pains to highlight the ways in which critics have dismissed her views of blacks and instead call Behn a “seductress”—using titillation and emotion to exploit her audience’s ignorance of cultures beyond their own (4).

            Hisock further maps the “othering” of women and blacks in his assessment of Behn’s treatment of Oroonooko’s sexual power dynamics and his relationship with Imoinda.  Hisock argues that the political entanglements of Oroonooko are based solely on the “erotic ambitions of the ruling classes” (6).  Hisock positions the character of Oroonoko as both a “Restoration rake-hero” as well as brutal yet noble patriarchal savage. Imoinda becomes sexual commodity and Behn is aware of the European notions of an exotic world as savage, sexual and uninhibited in its ability to negotiate patriarchy even during slavery.   Behn, as Hisock points out, in the midst of these Eurocentric views treads lightly as to not “challenge enslavement as a malignant cultural practice” (6). Thus, she maintains and does not interrogate practices via her narrative in Oroonoko.

          

Finally, Hisock returns to his initial argument regarding the narrator and her “othered” selves as she others the natives of Surinam as well as her own position of “other” within the exotic world of the text.  The bodies of Surinam Indians become “othered specimens” (7) in her new world narrative.  Hisock also argues that it within this framework of “new world narrative” that our hero, Oronooko, also becomes a “circus attraction” (10) in this new world while the narrator’s otherness providers her with a sort of omniscient presence although it is an unstable one “riddled with contradictions and discontinuities and these frequently result in her furthering the interest of a very colonial society which repressing her cultural status” (11).

Hisock’s article does a great job of engaging the reader with the ways in which the text of Ornookoo, although written by a woman, deliberately engages in notions of patriarchy, colonial thought and exotic otherness and does very little to interrogate those ideas. Hisock praises Behn’s ability to make creative strides in narrative genre writing as a woman but also highlights her inability to divorce her writing from traditions of the period and this becomes “a disappointingly conservative prose writer” (12).

Sources

Fables and Arabian Nights

Sheila Shaw, "The Rape of Gulliver: Case Study of a Source," PMLA 90.1 (1975): 62-68
http://www.jstor.org/openurl?volume=90&date=1975&spage=62&issn=00308129&issue=1




Oroonoko

Beach, Adam R, "Behn's Oroonoko, the Gold Coast, and Slavery in the Early-Modern Atlantic World" Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 39 (2010): 215-233.

Widmayer, Anne F, "Aphra Benh's Dramatic Techniques in Oroonoko: Characterizing the 'Other,'" Eighteenth-Century Women: Studies in Their Lives, Work, and Culture 6 2011; 6: 47-78

Mallipeddi, Ramesh, "Spectacle, Spectatorship, and Sympathy in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko," Eighteenth-Century Studies 45.4 (2012): 475-496.
[This one seems to be too new to be available on J-Stor or MLA yet.  I'll send you all the PDF failing my efforts to attach PDFs here.  I will also send you the PDFs for the Beach and Widmayer articles.]


Rape of the Lock

Salma, Umme, "Women and the Empire in Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock," Transnational Literature  4.1 (2011)
http://dspace.flinders.edu.au/jspui/bitstream/2328/25489/1/Woman_and_the_Empire.pdf

Aphra Behn, The Rover

Suggested web-based resources:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1662/09/29/index.php (Pepys' reference to a production of Midsummer Nights Dream)
http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/11/20/index.php (description of the new theatre at a tennis court)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Settle-Morocco.png (engraving of a Restoration theatre set 1673)
Jeremy Collier's A Representation of the impiety & immorality of the English stage, with reasons for putting a stop thereto: and some questions addrest to those who frequent the play-houses. London, 1704. Eighteenth Century Collections Online
http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/the_disappointment.html (The poem "The Disappointment" first printed in a collection by the Earl of Rochester, thought to be the real "Rover" of the play but later attributed to Behn and published in a collection of her poems)

The suggested questions:
1) How mght the different audiences (impoverished noblemen, merchant classes, women, etc.) have responded to this play?
2) Behn's female characters get to express their sexuality onstage. Is this individual initiative or a form of oppression?
3) How many different ways does Behn explore the concept of marriage or the marriage bed with all of the sets of couples?
4) Why might Restoration theatre rely so much on a complex and multi-layered obsession with disguise? 

Secondary Source Report:

Interpreting Ladies: Women, Wit, and Morality in the Restoration Comedy of Manners

by Pat Gill, University of Georgia Press, 1994

            Interpreting Ladies analyzes aspects of William Wycherly's The Country Wife, William Congreve's The Double Dealer, George Etherege's The Comical Revenge, and Aphra Behn's The Rover. I focus on the fourth chapter, "Aphra Behn: Desiring Women II."  Gill, in her introduction to the book, points out the differences between the male writers' views of the heroine vs. Behn's views. Although manners comedies were "concerned with the reestablishment of a stable social and moral self" (5), Gill puts forward the proposition that the male playwrights' ideal woman is a contradiction and cannot be attained. Gill notes the apparent necessity of the male dramatists to defend their works from accusations of bawdiness by women audience by saying that virtuous women wouldn't understand the jokes and, therefore, any female offended by the actions simply show that they are like the women in their plays.  The three men discussed in Interpreting Ladies require their heroines to be virgins but also to behave something like courtesans: they should be witty, knowing, and yet innocent - an impossible ideal. Gill notes that female characters in the three male writers' comedies are victims of "vicious" satire at the hands of the writers because they (the female characters) behave like rakes and so threaten the notions of masculine power (13).

            Aphra Behn's Rover, however, provides a contrast to the plays of the other three playwrights. Gill describes her as a proto-feminist, unafraid to have her heroines match the wits of the heroes. "Her plots, themes, and language point to matters just as pressing as those of her male contemporaries" (21). But Behn, Gill argues, is the only playwright who consistently links a sympathetic portrayal of sexually active women and uses it to condemn the prevalent custom of forced marriage.

            The focus of this review is primarily on Chapter Four - a discussion Aphra Behn's depictions of women in contrast to those of her male colleagues, using the play The Rover as her main example. Gill uses a feminist perspective to analyze Behn's choices, noting that Behn followed the dramatic norms of the period, but did not only look at women's behavior in terms of its effects on men as her male counterparts did. Behn can satirize pretentious behaviors well as anyone, but does not need to use her female characters either to threaten or to validate men. Behn's women are not embarrassed by their sexuality nor do they feel they must put down other female characters in order to save the day. "Chastity is not a criterion for female heroic status. Women may be forthright, kind, and sincere adulterers or hypocritical, cruel, and devious virgins" in Behn's works (141). Women who are depicted by male authors as aware of their sexuality come across as "hard-edge[d]"--they are willing to charm men for money or gifts, and never give up their bad behavior for love. Behn's heroines, according to Gill, whether they are "virginal or sexually experienced" are not embarrassed by their sexuality and want equal treatment for and from their men. (141) Behn clearly dislikes the "property marriage system" (143) and her heroines don't worry about what the public might think of them. Hellena, for example, in The Rover, doesn't labor under the illusion that she might be able to change Willmore's behavior, and her acceptance of Wilmore's rakish qualities is not seen as a failing, as it might be by male writers who expect the heroine not only to attract a rake but to reform him as well! 

            According to Gill, the plays of Etherege, Wycherley, and Congreve "define as unfeminine and abnormal the behavior that they demonstrate to be intrinsic to female nature...The heroine of the comedies of manners embodies the social and moral ideal that reflects the [impossible] masculine standard of female behavior." These male visions "...reveal ... a utopic fantasy based on a nostalgic perception of the past" (142-43).

            Gill applies feminist theory along with Freud on jokes (or wit) in her analysis of these works. One might think that the two theoretical perspectives would clash. After all, feminism is not often in bed with Freud. But Freud's theory about tendentious jokes focuses on the misogynist foundations of jokes. For Freud, jokes are a mostly male form, and they are mostly attacks on women. Also, these attacks are made for the benefit of a male audience (the listeners to the joke). So, in this case Freud works well in thinking about these manners comedies, and works well in tandem with a feminist perspective.

            I would recommend Gill's writing on Behn because it gives an important viewpoint that differentiates her from her male counterparts that may not be immediately obvious when looking at heroines in Restoration comedies. Although I have read only part of Gill's book, the book's introduction and its conclusion enumerate her arguments, concentrated in the fourth and final chapter, about Behn's female heroines' depictions vs. those of her male counterparts. Gill says that these comedies attempt to reinvent (restore) an old but unreal values system, even though the King whose restoration was supposed to bring back the old ways was himself a rake. And although she uses both feminism and Freudianism in her analysis, Gill is clearly aware of historical context too. Gill's critique spends quite a bit of time on close readings of the rhetoric used by the characters. I am aware that there are other critical perspectives that can be taken (for ex. queer theory, postcolonial approaches), but this book provides a valid way to read the restoration comedy of manners.

Presentation Schedule

Presentation Schedule

Mon 8/27         Behn, The Rover          Leslie G.

Mon 9/10         Behn, Oroonoko    Wes S.

Mon 9/17         Cavendish, The Blazing World   Nancy P.

Mon 9/24         Dryden, The Indian Emperor  Sheena J.

Mon 10/1         Dryden, Fables; Tales from Arabian Nights Karen R; Jill W 

Mon 10/8         Swift, Gulliver’s Travels  Lelania O.

Mon 10/15       Gulliver’s Travels  Brandi G.

Mon 10/22       Pope, Rape of the Lock   Tatianna M.; Cheyne, English Malady. Chris M

Mon 10/29       Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Lady Mary Chudleigh   Zack R.

Mon 11/5         Defoe, Moll Flanders    Shari P.

Mon 11/26       Moll Flanders              Ellie F.

      

Syllabus

ENGL 8420: Early Globalism: Self and Other, 1660-1745.  With Digital Media.
Dr. Tanya Caldwell
969 GCB; Office Hours MW 1.30-2.30 & by appointment
tmcaldwell@gsu.edu; 404-413-5837

Description
This class focuses on the beginnings of globalism from an Anglo perspective, in the process examining how the English viewed themselves and imagined the other as the world rapidly opened up even to those who could not experience it first-hand.  We will study a variety of genres and a number of traditional texts and authors from this period.  Thanks to the newly available databases, we will look simultaneously at lesser known texts.  We will discuss the extent to which modern ways of thinking about nationalism and internationalism were laid in this period.

Schedule
Mon 8/20         Introduction.  Imagining new realms.  Samuel Pepys.
Mon 8/27         Aphra Behn, The Rover
Mon 9/3           LABOR DAY
Mon 9/10         Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
Mon 9/17         Margaret Cavendish, The Description of a New World Called the Blazing World
Mon 9/24         John Dryden, The Indian Emperor
Mon 10/1         John Dryden, selections from Fables; Tales from Arabian Nights
Mon 10/8         Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
Mon 10/15       Gulliver’s Travels
Mon 10/22       Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock; George Cheyne, fr. The English Malady
Mon 10/29       poems, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Lady Mary Chudleigh
Mon 11/5         Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
Mon 11/12       paper discussion
Mon 11/19       THANKSGIVING BREAK
Mon 11/26      Moll Flanders
Mon 12/3        Revision FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT DUE
There will be additional readings from EEBO and ECCO for each week emailed to the class and posted to the blog.

Assignments
Besides the final research project for this class, the assignment work will consist of sharing information orally and digitally with others.  One tool I have set up to begin this process is the class blog: http://engl8420.blogspot.com/
The main function of this blog is to act as a bank of information about resources, primary and secondary, print and digital, and to enable ongoing (out-of-class) discussion on course content.

• Final project (20 page paper or equivalent digital and/or pedagogical project): 50%
• 20-minute presentation (10 pages) with secondary sources and 3 questions for discussion posted to the blog: 30%
• 2-3 page book, article, or database review (also presented to the class and posted): 10%
• Class participation: 10%

Required texts
Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders.  Oxford University Press, USA; New edition, 2011. 
Swift, Jonathan.  Gulliver’s Travels. Ed. Allan Ingram.  Broadview Press, 2012
Behn, Aphra, Oroonoko.  The Rover and Other Works.  Penguin Classics.
Cavendish, Margaret.  The Blazing World and Other Writings.  Penguin.

Attendance Policy

Anyone with 2 unexcused absences may be withdrawn at the instructor’s discretion.

Plagiarism
The internet offers lots of temptations, but you’re only cheating yourself and the consequences if you are caught are severe.  You are expected to be familiar with the plagiarism policy in the College Catalog.  Better yet, don’t even think about it!

Other hard and fast rules:

·                     Out of fairness to the class as a whole, deadlines are absolutely firm.

·                     Absolutely no texting during class, internet surfing, or leaving class to answer your phone (this disturbs the rest of the class).

·                     As in a cinema or theater, church or a funeral, turn off all cell phones or beeping devices before class.

Charles II and English notions of Restoration England’s role in a new world

Samuel Pepys: naïve observation

When Samuel Pepys lays eyes for the first time on the exiled prince who was to be his king, he views the ordinariness of the man with astonishment.  This is his diary entry:

Friday 25 May 1660

By the morning we were come close to the land, and every body made ready to get on shore. The King and the two Dukes did eat their breakfast before they went, and there being set some ship’s diet before them, only to show them the manner of the ship’s diet, they eat of nothing else but pease and pork, and boiled beef. I had Mr. Darcy in my cabin and Dr. Clerke, who eat with me, told me how the King had given 50l. to Mr. Sheply for my Lord’s servants, and 500l. among the officers and common men of the ship. I spoke with the Duke of York about business, who called me Pepys by name, and upon my desire did promise me his future favour. Great expectation of the King’s making some Knights, but there was none. About noon (though the brigantine that Beale made was there ready to carry him) yet he would go in my Lord’s barge with the two Dukes. Our Captain steered, and my Lord went along bare with him. I went, and Mr. Mansell, and one of the King’s footmen, with a dog that the King loved,¹ (which [dirted] the boat, which made us laugh, and me think that a King and all that belong to him are but just as others are), in a boat by ourselves, and so got on shore when the King did, who was received by General Monk with all imaginable love and respect at his entrance upon the land of Dover. Infinite the crowd of people and the horsemen, citizens, and noblemen of all sorts. The Mayor of the town came and gave him his white staff, the badge of his place, which the King did give him again. The Mayor also presented him from the town a very rich Bible, which he took and said it was the thing that he loved above all things in the world. A canopy was provided for him to stand under, which he did, and talked awhile with General Monk and others, and so into a stately coach there set for him, and so away through the town towards Canterbury, without making any stay at Dover. The shouting and joy expressed by all is past imagination. Seeing that my Lord did not stir out of his barge, I got into a boat, and so into his barge, whither Mr. John Crew stepped, and spoke a word or two to my Lord, and so returned, we back to the ship, and going did see a man almost drowned that fell out of his boat into the sea, but with much ado was got out. My Lord almost transported with joy that he had done all this without any the least blur or obstruction in the world, that could give an offence to any, and with the great honour he thought it would be to him. Being overtook by the brigantine, my Lord and we went out of our barge into it, and so went on board with Sir W. Batten, and the Vice and Rear-Admirals. At night my Lord supped and Mr. Thomas Crew with Captain Stoakes, I supped with the Captain, who told me what the King had given us. My Lord returned late, and at his coming did give me order to cause the marke to be gilded, and a Crown and C. R. to be made at the head of the coach table, where the King to-day with his own hand did mark his height, which accordingly I caused the painter to do, and is now done as is to be seen.

The coronation of Charles II ( Monday 22 April 1661).  Here the new world of spectacle, the pleasure in spectacle, and its power—for the state and the individual (Pepys saw opportunities of personal advancement in catching the attention of the royal brothers and being a part of the new social fabric where it was most expedient for him to be so):

KING’S GOING FROM YE TOWER TO WHITE HALL.¹

Up early and made myself as fine as I could, and put on my velvet coat, the first day that I put it on, though made half a year ago. And being ready, Sir W. Batten, my Lady, and his two daughters and his son and wife, and Sir W. Pen and his son and I, went to Mr. Young’s, the flag-maker, in Corne-hill;² and there we had a good room to ourselves, with wine and good cake, and saw the show very well. In which it is impossible to relate the glory of this day, expressed in the clothes of them that rid, and their horses and horses clothes, among others, my Lord Sandwich’s. Embroidery and diamonds were ordinary among them. The Knights of the Bath was a brave sight of itself; and their Esquires, among which Mr. Armiger was an Esquire to one of the Knights. Remarquable were the two men that represent the two Dukes of Normandy and Aquitane. The Bishops come next after Barons, which is the higher place; which makes me think that the next Parliament they will be called to the House of Lords. My Lord Monk rode bare after the King, and led in his hand a spare horse, as being Master of the Horse. The King, in a most rich embroidered suit and cloak, looked most noble. Wadlow, the vintner, at the Devil; in Fleetstreet, did lead a fine company of soldiers, all young comely men, in white doublets. There followed the Vice-Chamberlain, Sir G. Carteret, a company of men all like Turks; but I know not yet what they are for. The streets all gravelled, and the houses hung with carpets before them, made brave show, and the ladies out of the windows, one of which over against us I took much notice of, and spoke of her, which made good sport among us. So glorious was the show with gold and silver, that we were not able to look at it, our eyes at last being so much overcome with it. Both the King and the Duke of York took notice of us, as he saw us at the window. The show being ended, Mr. Young did give us a dinner, at which we were very merry, and pleased above imagination at what we have seen. Sir W. Batten going home, he and I called and drunk some mum and laid our wager about my Lady Faulconbridge’s name, which he says not to be Mary, and so I won above 20s. So home, where Will and the boy staid and saw the show upon Towre Hill, and Jane at T. Pepys’s, the Turner, and my wife at Charles Glassecocke’s, in Fleet Street. In the evening by water to White Hall to my Lord’s, and there I spoke with my Lord. He talked with me about his suit, which was made in France, and cost him 200l., and very rich it is with embroidery. I lay with Mr. Shepley, and [continued tomorrow. P.G.]

His conversion to the cause that best suits his ambition and his reticence on his own expediency shapes a conversation with his new master days before Charles II’s coronation.  Note the utter lack of conviction in any ideals here; rather he is watching and waiting—like most of the rest of the nation:

In the afternoon my Lord and I walked together in the Coach two houres, talking together in the coach two hours, talking together upon all sorts of discourse—as Religion, wherein he is, I perceive, wholly Skepticall, as well as I, saying that indeed the Protestants as to the Church of Rome are wholly fanatiques.  He likes uniformity and form of prayer.  About State business, among other things he told me that his conversion to the King’s cause (for so I was saying that I wondered from what time the King could look upon him to become his friend), commenced from his being in the Sound, when he found what usage he was likely to have from a Commonwealth. (1: 141)

Contrast Pepys's response to that of his contemporary, John Evelyn, the other famous (but much less licentious diarist of the period):

The Diary of John Evelyn

“This day came in his Majestie Charles the 2d to London after a sad, & long Exile, and Calamitous Suffering both of the King & Church: being 17 yeares: This was also his Birthday, and with a Triumph of above 20000 horse & foote, brandishing their swords and shouting with unexpressable joy: The wayes straw’d with flowers, the bells ringing, the streets hung with Tapissry, fountaines running with wine: The Major, Aldermen, all the Companies in their liver[ie]s, Chaines of Gold, banners; Lords & nobles, Cloth of Silver, gold & vellvet every body clad in, the windos & balconies all set with Ladys, Trumpets, Musick, & [myriads] of people flocking the streetes & was as far as Rochester, so as they were 7 houres in passing the Citty, even from 2 in the afternoon 'til nine at night: I stood in the strand, & beheld it, & blessed God: And all this without one drop of bloud, & by that very army, which rebell'd against him: but it was the Lords doing, et mirabile in oculis nostris: for such a Restauration was never seene in the mention of any history, antient or modern, since the returne of the Babylonian Captivity, nor so joyfull a day, & so bright, ever seene in this nation: this hapning when to expect or effect it, was past all humane policy.”
― John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn

John Dryden, Astraea Redux (renewal of old world paradigms):

A Poem on the Happy Restoration and Return of His Second Majesty Charles II., 1660.

Now with a general peace the world was blest,

While ours, a world divided from the rest,

A dreadful quiet felt, and worser far

Than arms, a sullen interval of war:

Thus when black clouds draw down the labouring skies,

Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,

An horrid stillness first invades the ear,

And in that silence we the tempest fear.

The ambitious Swede, like restless billows tost,

On this hand gaining what on that he lost,

Though in his life he blood and ruin breathed,

To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeath'd.

And Heaven, that seem'd regardless of our fate,

For France and Spain did miracles create;

Such mortal quarrels to compose in peace,

As nature bred, and interest did increase.

We sigh'd to hear the fair Iberian bride

Must grow a lily to the lily's side;

While our cross stars denied us Charles' 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:

Experienced age in deep despair was lost,

To see the rebel thrive, the loyal cross'd:

Youth that with joys had unacquainted been,

Envied gray hairs that once good days had seen:

We thought our sires, not with their own content,

Had, ere we came to age, our portion spent.

Nor could our nobles hope their bold attempt

Who ruin'd crowns would coronets exempt:

For when by their designing leaders taught

To strike at power, which for themselves they sought,

The vulgar, gull'd into rebellion, arm'd;

Their blood to action by the prize was warm'd.

The sacred purple, then, and scarlet gown,

Like sanguine dye to elephants, was shown.

Thus when the bold Typhoeus scaled the sky,

And forced great Jove from his own Heaven to fly,

(What king, what crown from treason's reach is free,

If Jove and Heaven can violated be?)

The lesser gods, that shared his prosperous state,

All suffer'd in the exiled Thunderer's fate.

The rabble now such freedom did enjoy,

As winds at sea, that use it to destroy:

Blind as the Cyclop, and as wild as he,

They own'd a lawless, savage liberty;

Like that our painted ancestors so prized,

Ere empire's arts their breasts had civilized.

How great were then our Charles' woes, who thus

Was forced to suffer for himself and us!

He, tost by fate, and hurried up and down,

Heir to his father's sorrows, with his crown,

Could taste no sweets of youth's desired age,

But found his life too true a pilgrimage.

Unconquer'd yet in that forlorn estate,

His manly courage overcame his fate.

His wounds he took, like Romans, on his breast,

Which by his virtue were with laurels drest.

As souls reach Heaven while yet in bodies pent,

So did he live above his banishment.

That sun, which we beheld with cozen'd eyes

Within the water, moved along the skies.

How easy 'tis, when destiny proves kind,

With full-spread sails to run before the wind!

But those that 'gainst stiff gales laveering go,

Must be at once resolved and skilful too.

He would not, like soft Otho, hope prevent,

But stay'd, and suffer'd fortune to repent.

These virtues Galba in a stranger sought,

And Piso to adopted empire brought.

How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express,

That must his sufferings both regret and bless?

For when his early valour Heaven had cross'd;

And all at Worcester but the honour lost;

Forced into exile from his rightful throne,

He made all countries where he came his own;

And viewing monarchs' secret arts of sway,

A royal factor for his kingdoms lay.

Thus banish'd David spent abroad his time,

When to be God's anointed was his crime;

And when restored, made his proud neighbours rue

Those choice remarks he from his travels drew.

Nor is he only by afflictions shown

To conquer other realms, but rule his own:

Recovering hardly what he lost before,

His right endears it much; his purchase more.

Inured to suffer ere he came to reign,

No rash procedure will his actions stain:

To business, ripen'd by digestive thought,

His future rule is into method brought:

As they who first proportion understand,

With easy practice reach a master's hand.

Well might the ancient poets then confer

On Night the honour'd name of Counsellor,

Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind,

We light alone in dark afflictions find.

In such adversities to sceptre train'd,

The name of Great his famous grandsire gain'd:

Who yet a king alone in name and right,

With hunger, cold, and angry Jove did fight;

Shock'd by a covenanting league's vast powers,

As holy and as catholic as ours:

Till fortune's fruitless spite had made it known,

Her blows, not shook, but riveted, his throne.

Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease,

No action leave to busy chronicles:

Such, whose supine felicity but makes

In story chasms, in epoch's mistakes;

O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down,

Till, with his silent sickle, they are mown.

Such is not Charles' too, too active age,

Which, govern'd by the wild distemper'd rage

Of some black star infecting all the skies,

Made him at his own cost, like Adam, wise.

Tremble, ye nations, which, secure before,

Laugh'd at those arms that 'gainst ourselves we bore;

Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail,

Our lion now will foreign foes assail.

With alga who the sacred altar strews?

To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes:

A bull to thee, Portumnus, shall be slain,

A lamb to you, ye Tempests of the main:

For those loud storms that did against him roar,

Have cast his shipwreck'd vessel on the shore.

Yet as wise artists mix their colours so,

That by degrees they from each other go;

Black steals unheeded from the neighbouring white,

Without offending the well-cozen'd sight:

So on us stole our blessed change; while we

The effect did feel, but scarce the manner see.

Frosts that constrain the ground, and birth deny

To flowers that in its womb expecting lie,

Do seldom their usurping power withdraw,

But raging floods pursue their hasty thaw.

Our thaw was mild, the cold not chased away,

But lost in kindly heat of lengthen'd day.

Heaven would no bargain for its blessings drive,

But what we could not pay for, freely give.

The Prince of peace would like himself confer

A gift unhoped, without the price of war:

Yet, as he knew his blessing's worth, took care,

That we should know it by repeated prayer;

Which storm'd the skies, and ravish'd Charles from thence,

As heaven itself is took by violence.

Booth's forward valour only served to show

He durst that duty pay we all did owe.

The attempt was fair; but Heaven's prefixed hour

Not come: so like the watchful traveller,

That by the moon's mistaken light did rise,

Lay down again, and closed his weary eyes.

'Twas Monk whom Providence design'd to loose

Those real bonds false freedom did impose.

The blessed saints that watch'd this turning scene,

Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean,

To see small clues draw vastest weights along,

Not in their bulk, but in their order, strong.

Thus pencils can by one slight touch restore

Smiles to that changed face that wept before.

With ease such fond chimeras we pursue,

As fancy frames for fancy to subdue:

But when ourselves to action we betake,

It shuns the mint like gold that chemists make.

How hard was then his task! at once to be,

What in the body natural we see!

Man's Architect distinctly did ordain

The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain,

Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense;

The springs of motion from the seat of sense.

'Twas not the hasty product of a day,

But the well-ripen'd fruit of wise delay.

He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,

Would let him play a while upon the hook.

Our healthful food the stomach labours thus,

At first embracing what it straight doth crush.

Wise leeches will not vain receipts obtrude,

While growing pains pronounce the humours crude:

Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,

Till some safe crisis authorise their skill.

Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear,

To 'scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear,

And guard with caution that polluted nest,

Whence Legion twice before was dispossess'd:

Once sacred house; which, when they enter'd in,

They thought the place could sanctify a sin;

Like those that vainly hoped kind Heaven would wink,

While to excess on martyrs' tombs they drink.

And as devouter Turks first warn their souls

To part, before they taste forbidden bowls:

So these, when their black crimes they went about,

First timely charm'd their useless conscience out.

Religion's name against itself was made;

The shadow served the substance to invade:

Like zealous missions, they did care pretend

Of souls in show, but made the gold their end.

The incensed powers beheld with scorn from high

An heaven so far distant from the sky,

Which durst, with horses' hoofs that beat the ground,

And martial brass, belie the thunder's sound.

'Twas hence at length just vengeance thought it fit

To speed their ruin by their impious wit.

Thus Sforza, cursed with a too fertile brain,

Lost by his wiles the power his wit did gain.

Henceforth their fougue must spend at lesser rate,

Than in its flames to wrap a nation's fate.

Suffer'd to live, they are like helots set,

A virtuous shame within us to beget.

For by example most we sinn'd before,

And glass-like clearness mix'd with frailty bore.

But, since reform'd by what we did amiss,

We by our sufferings learn to prize our bliss:

Like early lovers, whose unpractised hearts

Were long the May-game of malicious arts,

When once they find their jealousies were vain,

With double heat renew their fires again.

'Twas this produced the joy that hurried o'er

Such swarms of English to the neighbouring shore,

To fetch that prize, by which Batavia made

So rich amends for our impoverish'd trade.

Oh! had you seen from Schevelin's barren shore,

(Crowded with troops, and barren now no more,)

Afflicted Holland to his farewell bring

True sorrow, Holland to regret a king!

While waiting him his royal fleet did ride,

And willing winds to their lower'd sails denied.

The wavering streamers, flags, and standard out,

The merry seamen's rude but cheerful shout:

And last the cannon's voice, that shook the skies,

And as it fares in sudden ecstasies,

At once bereft us both of ears and eyes.

The Naseby, now no longer England's shame,

But better to be lost in Charles' name,

(Like some unequal bride in nobler sheets)

Receives her lord: the joyful London meets

The princely York, himself alone a freight;

The Swiftsure groans beneath great Gloster's weight:

Secure as when the halcyon breeds, with these,

He that was born to drown might cross the seas.

Heaven could not own a Providence, and take

The wealth three nations ventured at a stake.

The same indulgence Charles' voyage bless'd,

Which in his right had miracles confess'd.

The winds that never moderation knew,

Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;

Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge

Their straighten'd lungs, or conscious of their charge.

The British Amphitrite, smooth and clear,

In richer azure never did appear;

Proud her returning prince to entertain

With the submitted fasces of the main.

And welcome now, great monarch, to your own!

Behold the approaching cliffs of Albion:

It is no longer motion cheats your view,

As you meet it, the land approacheth you.

The land returns, and, in the white it wears,

The marks of penitence and sorrow bears.

But you, whose goodness your descent doth show,

Your heavenly parentage and earthly too;

By that same mildness, which your father's crown

Before did ravish, shall secure your own.

Not tied to rules of policy, you find

Revenge less sweet than a forgiving mind.

Thus, when the Almighty would to Moses give

A sight of all he could behold and live;

A voice before his entry did proclaim

Long-suffering, goodness, mercy, in his name.

Your power to justice doth submit your cause,

Your goodness only is above the laws;

Whose rigid letter, while pronounced by you,

Is softer made. So winds that tempests brew,

When through Arabian groves they take their flight,

Made wanton with rich odours, lose their spite.

And as those lees, that trouble it, refine

The agitated soul of generous wine;

So tears of joy, for your returning spilt,

Work out, and expiate our former guilt.

Methinks I see those crowds on Dover's strand,

Who, in their haste to welcome you to land,

Choked up the beach with their still growing store,

And made a wilder torrent on the shore:

While, spurr'd with eager thoughts of past delight,

Those, who had seen you, court a second sight;

Preventing still your steps, and making haste

To meet you often wheresoe'er you past.

How shall I speak of that triumphant day,

When you renew'd the expiring pomp of May!

(A month that owns an interest in your name:

You and the flowers are its peculiar claim.)

That star that at your birth shone out so bright,

It stain'd the duller sun's meridian light,

Did once again its potent fires renew,

Guiding our eyes to find and worship you.

And now Time's whiter series is begun,

Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run:

Those clouds, that overcast your morn, shall fly,

Dispell'd to farthest corners of the sky.

Our nation with united interest blest,

Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest.

Abroad your empire shall no limits know,

But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow.

Your much-loved fleet shall, with a wide command,

Besiege the petty monarchs of the land:

And as old Time his offspring swallow'd down,

Our ocean in its depths all seas shall drown.

Their wealthy trade from pirates' rapine free,

Our merchants shall no more adventurers be:

Nor in the farthest East those dangers fear,

Which humble Holland must dissemble here.

Spain to your gift alone her Indies owes;

For what the powerful takes not, he bestows:

And France, that did an exile's presence fear,

May justly apprehend you still too near.

At home the hateful names of parties cease,

And factious souls are wearied into peace.

The discontented now are only they

Whose crimes before did your just cause betray:

Of those, your edicts some reclaim from sin,

But most your life and blest example win.

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 arms and arts foreshow

The world a monarch, and that monarch you.

Ottobah Cuguano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787)
He records that Charles II chartered The Royal African Company, empowering it to “trade from Salle in South Barbary to the Cape of Good Hope.”  Later he reflects that “we may find many of the different chiefs and kings in different parts of the world, in all ages—wading through a sea of blood to their throne's, or supporting themselves upon it, by desolating and destroying others; and we may find good and bad in all ages setting Up wretched examples for men to be guided by; and herein we may find a-David, a Solomon, a Cromwell, committing murder and death, and a Charles the Second committing a greater carnage upon more innocent people than those who suffered in the reign of a bloody Queen Mary; and even in a late rebellion there were many suffered in Britain, which, if they had been preserved to this mild reign, they would have been as good neighbours, and as faithful subjects, as any other.”  In other words, from the perspective of the other lands affected by the imperialist reach that began during the Restoration, the Augustan hero was little more than a blood thirsty criminal.  

What presentations of Charles II can you find in the early eighteenth-century on ECCO?