And, feeling first what they indite, TO THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS, WHEN SHE WAS TAKING LEAVE OF THE COURT AT DOVER.† THAT sun of beauty did among us rise; England first saw the light of your fair eyes; In English, too, your early wit was shown; Thrice happy Britain! if she could retain [way; Whom she first bred within her ambient main. *The Earl of Berkeley was descended in a direct line from the royal house of Denmark. The founder of the family was a younger son of the King of Denmark, and came to England with William the Conqueror. + The Duchess of Orleans, the youngest daughter of Charles I., came to England on the 14th May, 1670, for the purpose of bringing about a league between England and France against the Dutch. She remained a fortnight at Dover, where Charles and the court gave her a brilliant reception. Shortly after her return, she was poisoned by her husband, at St. Cloud, in the 26th year of her age. The Duke entertained doubts of her fidelity, which she declared on her deathbed to be unfounded. CHI TO CHLORIS. HLORIS! what's eminent, we know The early rose, made to display Doth yield her sweets, since he is fair, TO THE KING. GREAT Sir! disdain not in this piece to stand, Supreme commander both of sea and land. Those which inhabit the celestial bower, Small were the worth of valour and of force, How to build ships, and dreadful ordnance cast, Instruct the artists, and reward their haste. So Jove himself, when Typhon heaven does brave, Descends to visit Vulcan's smoky cave, Teaching the brawny Cyclops how to frame His thunder, mixed with terror, wrath, and flame. Had the old Greeks discovered your abode, Crete had not been the cradle of their god; On that small island they had looked with scorn, And in Great Britain thought the thunderer born. TO THE DUCHESS, WHEN HE PRESENTED THIS BOOK TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS. MADA ADAM! I here present you with the rage, And with the beauties, of a former age; Wishing you may with as great pleasure view This, as we take in gazing upon you. Thus we writ then: your brighter eyes inspire Though other names our wary writers use, Men write, and die, of wounds they dare not own. So the bright sun burns all our grass away, While it means nothing but to give us day. THESE VERSES WERE WRIT IN THE TASSO OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS.* TAS ASSO knew how the fairer sex to grace, Armida's charms, her beauty, and her youth. THE TRIPLE COMBAT.† WHEN through the world fair Mazarin had run, * These verses are said, on the authority of the Duke of Buckingham, to have cost Waller the greatest part of a summer in composition and correction. They were written in her Royal Highness's copy of Tasso, when the court was at Windsor. The Duchess, described by her contemporaries as a woman of exquisite beauty, was the daughter of Alphonso d'Este, Duke of Modena, to whose family Tasso is understood to have paid special homage in the character of Rinaldo. Waller alludes to the circumstance in the previous poem. In 1675, the beautiful Duchess of Mazarin (who, under the influence of her uncle, the Cardinal, had rejected the suit of Charles II. in his exile) arrived in England, divorced from her husband, and wrecked in fortune. Taking refuge in the English court, where she was received with distinction, she contemplated the conquest of the King. The Duchess of Portsmouth was at this time in the ascendant, and much court scandal and amusement sprang from the rivalry of the 'illustrious pair,' as they are called by Waller. The struggle, however, did not last long, for the Duchess of Mazarin conceived a sudden caprice for the Prince de Monaco, and abandoned her design upon Charles. Who the third lady, described in the poem as Chloris, may have been must remain matter of conjecture, where there were so many to whose fugitive influence it might apply. Hither at length the Roman eagle flies, A second time to make this island bend; For Little Britain these, and those for Rome. Are by their wounds instructed how to write. |