In our late fight, when cannons did diffuse,
Preventing pofts, the terror and the news;
Our Neighbour-Princes trembled at their roar :
But our conjunction makes them tremble more.
Your never-failing fword made war to cease;
And now you heal us with the acts of peace:
Our minds with bounty and with awe engage,
Invite affection, and reftrain our rage.
Lefs pleasure take brave minds in battles won,
Than in restoring such as are undone :
Tigers have courage, and the rugged bear,
But man alone can whom he conquers fpare.
To pardon, willing; and to punish, loth;
You ftrike with one hand, but you heal with both.
Lifting up all that proftrate lie, you grieve
You cannot make the dead again to live.
When fate or error had our age mifled,
And o'er this nation fuch confufion spread;
The only cure, which could from heaven come down,
Was fo much power and piety in one!
One! whofe extraction from an antient line
Gives hope again that well-born men may shine:
The meaneft, in your nature mild and good;
The noble, rest secured in your blood.
Oft have we wonder'd, how
A mind proportion'd to fuch things as these;
How fuch a ruling fpirit you could restrain,
And practise first over yourself to reign.
Your private life did a juft pattern give,
How fathers, husbands, pious sons, should live:
Born to command, your Princely virtues flept,
Like humble David's, while the flock he kept.
But when your troubled country call'd you forth,
Your flaming courage and your matchless worth,
Dazzling the eyes of all that did pretend,
To fierce.contention gave a profperous end.
Still as you rife, the fate, exalted too,
Finds no diftemper while 'tis chang'd by you;
Chang'd like the world's great scene! when, without
The rifing fun night's vulgar lights destroys. [noife,
Had you, fome ages paft, this race of glory
Run, with amazement we should read your story:
But living virtue, all atchievements past,
Meets envy still, to grapple with at last.
This Cæfar found: and that ungrateful age,
With lofing him, went back to blood and rage:
Miftaken Brutus thought to break their yoke,
But cut the bond of union with that stroke.
That fun once fet, a thousand meaner stars
Gave a dim light to violence and wars :
To fuch a tempeft as now threatens all,
Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall.
If Rome's great fenate could not wield that sword,
Which of the conquer'd world had made them Lord;
What hope had
ours, while yet their power was new,
To rule victorious armies, but by you?
You! that had taught them to fubdue their foes,
Could order teach, and their high spirits compofe :
To every duty could their minds engage,
Provoke their courage, and command their rage.
So, when a lion shakes his dreadful mane,
And angry grows, if he that first took pain
To tame his youth, approach the haughty beast,
He bends to him, but frights away the rest.
As the vex'd world, to find repose, at last
Itself into Augustus' arms did cast:
So England now does, with like toil oppreft,
Her weary
head upon your bofom rest.
Then let the Mufes, with fuch notes as thefe,
Inftruct us what belongs unto our peace!
Your battles they hereafter shall indite,
And draw the image of our Mars in fight;
Tell of towns ftorm'd, of armies over-run,
And mighty kingdoms by your conduct won;
How, while you thunder'd, clouds of duft did choak
Contending troops, and feas lay hid in smoke.
Illuftrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a Mufe:
Here in low ftrains your milder deeds we fing;
But there, my Lord! we 'll bays and olive bring
To crown your head: while you in triumph ride
O'er vanquish'd nations, and the fea befide:
While all your Neighbour-Princes unto you,
Like Jofeph's fheaves, pay reverence and bow.
Of a WAR with SPAIN, and FIGHT at SEA.
WOW, for fome ages, had the pride of Spain Made the fun thine on half the world in vain i While the bid war to all, that durft supply The place of those her cruelty made die. Of nature's bounty men forbore to taste; And the best portion of the earth lay waste. From the new world, her filver and her gold Came, like a tempeft, to confound the old. Feeding with these the brib'd Electors' hopes, Alone fhe gives us Emperors and Popes: With these accomplishing her vast designs,` Europe was fhaken with her Indian mines.
When Britain, looking with a just disdain
Upon this gilded majefty of Spain;
And knowing well that empire must decline,
Whose chief fupport and finews are of coin;
Our nation's folid virtue did oppofe,
To the rich troublers of the world's repofe.
And now fome months, incamping on the Main, Our naval army had befieged Spain:
They that the whole world's monarchy defign'd,
Are to their ports by our bold Fleet confin'd;
From whence our red Cross they triumphant fee,
Riding without a rival on the sea.
Others may use the ocean as their road,
Only the English make it their abode:
Whofe ready fails with every wind can fly,
And make a covenant with th' inconstant sky:
Our oaks fecure, as if they there took root;
We tread on billows with a steady foot.
Mean-while, the Spaniards in America
Near to the Line the fun approaching faw;
And hop'd their European coafts to find
Clear'd from our fhips by the autumnal wind:
Their huge capacious galleons ftuff'd with plate,
The labouring winds drive flowly tow'rds their fate.
Before St. Lucar they their guns discharge,
To tell their joy, or to invite a barge:
This heard fome fhips of ours (though out of view)
And, fwift as eagles, to the quarry flew :
So heedlefs lambs, which for their mothers bleat,
Wake hungry lions, and become their meat.
Arriv'd, they foon begin that tragic play,
And with their smoky cannons banish day:
Night, horror, flaughter, with confufion meets,
And in their fable arms embrace the fleets.
Through yielding planks the angry bullets fly,
And, of one wound, hundreds together die :
Born under different ftars, one fate they have;
The ship their coffin, and the sea their grave!
Bold were the men which on the ocean first
Spread their new fails, when shipwreck was the worft:
More danger now from man alone we find,
Than from the rocks, the billows, or the wind.
They that had fail'd from near th' antarctic Pole,
Their treasure fafe, and all their veffels whole,
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