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10

The Muses, who your early courtship boast,
Though now your flames are with their beauty lost,
Yet watch their time, that, if you have forgot
They were your mistresses, the world may not:
Decay'd by time and wars, they only prove
Their former beauty by your former love;
And now present, as ancient ladies do,
That, courted long, at length are forced to woo.
For still they look on you with such kind eyes,
As those that see the Church's sovereign rise; 14
From their own order chose, in whose high state,
They think themselves the second choice of fate.
When our great monarch into exile went,
Wit and religion suffer'd banishment.
Thus once, when Troy was wrapp'd in fire and
smoke,

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The helpless gods their burning shrines forsook;
They with the vanquish'd prince and party go,
And leave their temples empty to the foe.
At length the Muses stand, restored again
To that great charge which nature did ordain;
And their loved Druids seem revived by fate, 25
While you dispense the laws, and guide the state.
The nation's soul, our monarch, does dispense,
Through you, to us his vital influence;
You are the channel, where those spirits flow,
And work them higher, as to us they go.

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35

In open prospect nothing bounds our eye, Until the earth seems join'd unto the sky: So in this hemisphere our utmost view Is only bounded by our king and you: Our sight is limited where you are join'd, And beyond that no farther heaven can find. So well your virtues do with his agree, That, though your orbs of different greatness be, Yet both are for each other's use disposed, His to inclose, and yours to be inclosed. Nor could another in your room have been, Except an emptiness had come between. Well may he then to you his cares impart, And share his burden where he shares his heart. In you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find 55 Their share of business in your labouring mind. So when the weary sun his place resigns, He leaves his light, and by reflection shines.

40

Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws Exclude soft mercy from a private cause,

50

Ver. 20. The helpless gods] I will here offer part of Merrick's observation on a passage in his translation of Tryphiodorus, p. 102.-" We learn from Eschylus (Errà

3. v. 223.) that it was a common opinion among the ancients that the tutelary gods of every city withdrew from it when it was going to be taken. The scholiast on Eschylus farther informs us, that Sophocles wrote a play called ontoge, in which the gods of the Trojans were introduced retiring from the city, and carrying their images with them. What Tryphiodorus feigns of Apollo's quitting Troy, just before its destruction, is related by Virgil concerning the other deities of the Trojans, Æn. ii.

351.

'Excessêre omnes, adytis arisque relictis,
Di, quibus imperium hoc steterat.'

And Petronius Arbiter says,

'Peritura Troja perdidit primùm deos.'

Nor is this fiction to be found in the poets only, but is likewise preserved in some of the ancient historians." See the whole note. TODD.

Ver. 48. He leaves his light, and by reflection shines.] The same sentiment is repeated in the Annus Mirabilis, st. 253. "His beams he to his royal brother lent, And so shone still in his reflective light."

TODD.

In your
tribunal most herself does please;
There only smiles because she lives at ease;
And, like young David, finds her strength the more.
When disencumber'd from those arms she wore.
Heaven would our royal master should exceed
Most in that virtue, which we most did need;
And his mild father (who too late did find
All mercy vain but what with power was join'd)
His fatal goodness left to fitter times,
Not to increase, but to absolve, our crimes:
But when the heir of this vast treasure knew
How large a legacy was left to you,
(Too great for any subject to retain)
He wisely tied it to the crown again:
Yet, passing through your hands, it gathers more,
As streams, through mines, bear tincture of their

ore.

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70

While empiric politicians use deceit,
Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat;
You boldly show that skill which they pretend,
And work by means as noble as your end;
Which should you veil, we might unwind the clue,
As men do nature, till we came to you.
And as the Indies were not found, before
Those rich perfumes, which, from the happy shore,
The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd,
Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd;
So by your counsels we are brought to view
A rich and undiscover'd world in you.

ذر

85

By you our monarch does that fame assure,
Which kings must have, or cannot live secure:
For prosperous princes gain their subjects' heart,
Who love that praise in which themselves have part.
By you he fits those subjects to obey,
As heaven's eternal monarch does convey
His power unseen, and man, to his designs
By his bright ministers the stars, inclines.
Our setting sun, from his declining seat,
Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat:
And, when his love was bounded in a few,
That were unhappy that they might be true,
Made you the favourite of his last sad times,
That is a sufferer in his subjects' crimes:
Thus those first favours you received, were sent,
Like heaven's rewards in earthly punishment.
Yet fortune, conscious of your destiny,
E'en then took care to lay you softly by;
And wrapp'd your fate among her precious things.
Kept fresh to be unfolded with your king's.
Shown all at once you dazzled so our eyes,
As new-born Pallas did the gods surprise:
When, springing forth from Jove's new closing

wound,

She struck the warlike spear into the ground; Which sprouting leaves did suddenly inclose, And peaceful olives shaded as they rose.

100

Ver. 67. While empiric] Our knowledge in politics, says 1 Hume, is even yet imperfect; we know not to what de grees human virtue or vice may be carried. Even Machiavel is an imperfect and mistaken politician. Modern monarchies, he adds, are grown mild and improved; bat this is owing to manners, and to the progress of sense and philosophy. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 87. Our setting sun,] Charles I. employed him in writing some of his declarations. Dr. J. WARTON.

105

How strangely active are the arts of peace, Whose restless motions less than war's do cease! Peace is not freed from labour but from noise; And war more force, but not more pains employs: Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, That, like the earth, it leaves our sense behind, 110 While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere, That rapid motion does but rest appear. For, as in nature's swiftness, with the throng Of flying orbs while ours is borne along, All seems at rest to the deluded eye, Moved by the soul of the same harmony, So, carried on by your unwearied care, We rest in peace and yet in motion share. Let envy then those crimes within you see, From which the happy never must be free; Envy, that does with misery reside,

115

120

130

Nor can we this weak shower a tempest call,
But drops of heat, that in the sunshine fall.
You have already wearied fortune so,
She cannot farther be your friend or foe;
But sits all breathless, and admires to feel
A fate so weighty, that it stops our wheel.
In all things else above our humble fate,
Your equal mind yet swells not into state,
But, like some mountain in those happy isles, 135
Where in perpetual spring young nature smiles,
Your greatness shows: no horror to affright,
But trees for shade, and flowers to court the sight:
Sometimes the hill submits itself a while
In small descents, which do its height beguile; 140
And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play,
Whose rise not hinders but makes short our way.
Your brow which does no fear of thunder know,
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below;
And, like Olympus' top, th' impression wears
Of love and friendship writ in former years.
Yet, unimpair'd with labours, or with time,
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.
Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget,
And measure change, but share no part of it.

145

150

Ver. 109. Such is the mighty] "In this comparison," Dr. Johnson says, "the mind perceives enough to be delighted, and readily forgives its obscurity for its magnificence." I own I think its obscurity so gross that it cannot be forgiven, and its magnificence lost by its no-meaning. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 119. Let envy then] Great ministers, in all ages and countries, have ever been attacked by satirical wits. Above one hundred and fifty-nine severe invectives were written against Cardinal Mazarin, many of them by Scarron and Sandricourt, which have been collected and called the Mazaranides. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 139. Sometimes the hill submits itself a while
In small descents,]

"quà se subducere colles

Incipiunt, mollique jugum demittere clivo."
Virgil, Ecl. ix. 8.
JOHN WARTON.

Ver. 143. Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know,
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below;]

I cannot readily turn either to the passage or author of the following reflection:-"Great men ought not to listen to, or even hear, the mean cries of envy. Atlas, who supports the heavens, hears not from his height the roaring and beating of the waves of the sea at his feet." JonN WARTA.

Ver. 149. Thus heavenly] Dr. Johnson is of opinion that In this poem he seems to have collected all his powers."

As needy gallants, in the scrivener's hands,
Court the rich knaves that gripe their mortgaged
lands;

The first fat buck of all the season's sent,
And keeper takes no fee in compliment;
The dotage of some Englishmen is such,
To fawn on those, who ruin them, the Dutch.
They shall have all, rather than make a war
With those, who of the same religion are.
The Straits, the Guiney-trade, the herrings too;
Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle you. 10
Some are resolved not to find out the cheat,
But, cuckold-like, love them that do the feat.
What injuries soe'er upon us fall,

Yet still the same religion answers all.
Religion wheedled us to civil war,

Drew English blood, and Dutchmen's now would

spare.

Be gull'd no longer; for you'll find it true,
They have no more religion, faith! than you.
Interest 's the god they worship in their state,
And we, I take it, have not much of that.
Well monarchies may own religion's name,
But states are atheists in their very frame.
They share a sin; and such proportions fall,
That, like a stink, 'tis nothing to them all.
Think on their rapine, falsehood, cruelty,
And that what once they were, they still would be.
To one well-born the affront is worse and more,
When he's abused and baffled by a boor.
With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do;
They've both ill nature and ill manners too.
Well may they boast themselves an ancient
nation;

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30

I should lament if this were true. But then he adds, "He has concluded with lines of which I think not myself obliged to tell the meaning." Dr. J. WARTON.

* This poem is no more than a prologue, a little altered, prefixed to our author's tragedy of Amboyna. DERRICK.

Ver. 35. Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,] Horses are almost useless in Venice from its situation, there being canals in every street, so that it cannot be thought the Venetians are expert jockies: besides, "To ride as badly as a grandee of Venice," is become a proverb all over Italy. DERRICK.

WHEN for our sakes, your hero you resign'd
To swelling seas, and every faithless wind;
When you released his courage, and set free
A valour fatal to the enemy;

You lodged your country's cares within your breast,

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10

(The mansion where soft love should only rest :)
And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,
The noblest conquest you had gain'd at home.
Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide !
Your honour gave us what your love denied:
And 'twas for him much easier to subdue
Those foes he fought with, than to part from you.
That glorious day, which two such navies saw,
As each unmatch'd might to the world give law.
Neptune, yet doubtful whom he should obey,
Held to them both the trident of the sea:
The winds were hush'd, the waves in ranks were
cast,

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As awfully as when God's people past:
Those, yet uncertain on whose sails to blow,
These, where the wealth of nations ought to flow.
Then with the duke your highness ruled the day:
While all the brave did his command obey,
The fair and pious under you did pray.

How powerful are chaste vows! the wind and tide

You bribed to combat on the English side.

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Ver. 44. and Carthage] The very words and allnsion by Lord Shaftesbury in his famous speech against the Dutch.

The lady to whom our author addresses this poem was daughter to the great Earl of Clarendon. The Duke of York had been some time married to her before the affair was known either to the King his brother, or to her father. She died in March, 1671, leaving issue one son, named Edgar, and three daughters, Katherine, Mary, and Ann. The two latter lived to sit on the British throne; the two former survived their mother but a short time. Bishop Burnet tells us, that she was a woman of know

Thus to your much-loved lord you did convey
An unknown succour, sent the nearest way.
New vigour to his wearied arms you brought,
(So Moses was upheld while Israel fought)
While, from afar, we heard the cannon play,
Like distant thunder on a shiny day.

For absent friends we were ashamed to fear,
When we consider'd what you ventured there.
Ships, men, and arms, our country might restore,
But such a leader could supply no more.
With generous thoughts of conquest he did

burn,

Yet fought not more to vanquish than return. Fortune and victory he did pursue,

35

To bring them as his slaves to wait on you.
Thus beauty ravish'd the rewards of fame,
And the fair triumph'd when the brave o'er

In crowding heaps, to fill your moving court:
To welcome your approach the vulgar run,
Like some new envoy from the distant sun,
And country beauties by their lovers go,
Blessing themselves, and wondering at the show.
So when the new-born Phoenix first is seen,
Her feather'd subjects all adore their queen,
And while she makes her progress through the
East,

From every grove her numerous train's increased:
Each poet of the air her glory sings,

56

And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.

ledge and penetration, friendly and generous, but severe in her resentments. DERRICK.

Ver. 26. —your much-loved lord] James, notwithstanding, had many mistresses. Lady Dorchester, savs Lord Orford, vol. iv. p. 319, 4to, said wittily, she wondered for what James II. chose his mistresses. "We are none of us handsome, and if we had wit, he has not enough to discover it." And once meeting the Duchess of Portsmonth and Lady Orkney, the favourite of King William, at the drawing-room of George I, she exclaimed, "God | God! who would have thought that we three whores should have met together here!" Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 56. her glory sings,] The Duchess of York, says Burnet, was an extraordinary woman. She had great knowledge, and a lively sense of things, but took state on her rather too much. She wrote well, and had begun the Duke's Life, of which she showed me a volume. She was bred to great strictness in religion, practised secret confession, and Morley was her confessor. Dr. JOSEPH WARTON.

Ver. 57 And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.] Hence Pope, Pastoral í. ver. 16.

"And all th' aerial audience clap their wings." This escaped the observation of the acute Mr. Wakefield, to whom, as my reader will perceive, I owe many obligations, and who seldom suffers a parallel passage to escape him. JOHN WARTON,