One, whose extraction from an ancient line Gives hopes, again that well-born men may shine. The meanest in your nature, mild and good,
The noblest rest secured in
Oft have we wonder'd, how you hid in peace
A mind proportion'd to such things as these;
How such a ruling sp'rit you could restrain,
And practise first over yourself to reign.
Your private life did a just pattern give
How fathers, husbands, pious sons, should live.
Born to command, your princely virtues slept,
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 prosperous end.
Still as you rise, the state exalted too
Finds no distemper while 'tis changed by you:
Changed like the world's great scene, when without noise
The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys.
Had you, some ages past, this race of glory
Run, with amazement we should read your story;
But living virtue, all achievements past,
Meets envy still to grapple with at last.
This Cæsar found, and that ungrateful age
With losing him went back to blood and
rage
Mistaken Brutus thought to break their joke,
But cut the bond of union with that stroke.
That sun once set, a thousand meaner stars
Gave a dim light to violence and wars;
To such a tempest as now threatens all,
Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall.
If Rome's great senate 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 subdue their foes, Could order teach, and their high sp'rits compose. 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 opprest,
weary head upon your bosom rest.
Then let the Muses, with such notes as these,
Instruct us what belongs unto our peace:
Your battles they hereafter shall endite,
And draw the image of our Mars in fight;
Tell of towns storm'd, of armies over-run,
And mighty kingdoms by your conduct won;
How, while you thunder'd, clouds of dust did choke
Contending troops, and seas long hid in smoke.
Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a Muse:
Here, in low strains, your milder deeds we sing;
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 sea beside;
While all your neighbour-princes unto you,
Like Joseph's sheaves, pay reverence and bow.'
Upon the Death of the Lord Protector.
'We must resign! Heaven his great soul does claim, In storms as loud as his immortal fame;
His dying groans, his last breath shakes our isle,
And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile!
About his palace their broad roots are tost
Into the air. So Romulus was lost!
New Rome in such a tempest miss'd her king,
And from obeying fell to worshipping.
On Eta's top thus Hercules lay dead,
With ruin'd oaks and pines about him spread:
The poplar too, whose bough he went to wear
On his victorious head, lay prostrate there.
Those his last fury from the mountain rent;
Our dying hero from the continent
Ravish'd whole towns, and forts from Spaniards reft,
As his last legacy to Britain left.
The ocean, which so long our hopes confined,
Could give no limits to his vaster mind.
Our bounds' enlargement was his latest toil,
Nor hath he left us prisoners to our isle:
Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath received our yoke.
From civil broils he did us disengage,
Found nobler objects for our martial rage,
And with wise conduct to his country show'd
The ancient way of conquering abroad.
Ungrateful, then! if we no tears allow
To him, that gave us peace and empire too.
Princes that fear'd him grieve, concern'd to see
No pitch of glory from the grave is free:
Nature herself took notice of his death,
And, sighing, swell'd the sea with such a breath
That to remotest shores her billows roll'd
Th' approaching fate of their great ruler told.”
Ad Comitem Monumetensem, de Bentivoglio suo.
FLORIBUS Angligenis non hanc tibi necto corollam,
Cùm satis indigenis te probet ipse liber :
Per me Roma sciet tibi se debere, quòd Anglo
Romanus didicit cultiùs ore loqui.
Ultima quæ tellus aquilas duce Cæsare vidit,
Candida Romulidum te duce scripta videt.
Consilio ut quondam patriam nil juveris, esto!
Sed studio cives ingenioque juvas.
Namque dolis liber hic instructus et arte Batava,
A Belga nobis ut caveamus, ait.
Horremus per te civilis dira furoris
Vulnera discordes Flandria quassa monet.
Hic discat miles pugnare, orare senator ;
Qui regnant, leni sceptra tenere manu.
Macte, Comes; virtute nová; vestri ordinis ingens
Ornamentum, ævi deliciæque tui!
Dum stertunt alii somno vinoque sepulti,
Nobilis antiquo stemmate digna facis.
Not of thy native flowers this wreath I twine:
Enough thy page commends thee unto thine.
Proud Rome by me shall learn, to thee she owes
That brighten'd through thy pen her genius flows;
That there, where last her Cæsar's eagles flew,
Thou givest thy country Roman sense to view.
Whate'er of wrong thy tongue in council wove,
Thy talents charm her, and thy toils improve:
For still, unfolding Belgium's tissued lies,
"Beware of Belgian wiles,' thy volume cries.
Thou show'st what civil fury's miseries are ;
And bleeding Flanders warns us to beware:
By thee the soldier, statesman, sovereign-train
Are taught to fight, to reason, and to reign.
Onward, illustrious man, thy order's pride!
Thy age's glory! onward, Monmouth, ride:
And, while lewd peers disgrace the names they bear
Assert the honours which 'tis thine to wear.
WILLIAM PETTY was the eldest son of a clothier of Rumsey in Hampshire, where he was born in the year 1623. From his very infancy he discovered a genius for the mechanic arts, his chief amusement being to observe artificers at work, and to attempt imitations of their performances; so that, at twelve years of age, he could use tools of several kinds with great dexterity. According to his own account, he made equal progress in polite literature; having attained a competent knowledge of the Greek, Latin, and French languages, and rendered himself master of common arithmetic, practical geometry, dialling, and the astronomical part of navigation before he was fifteen. Thus accomplished, he went in search of farther improvement to the University of Caen in Normandy. Upon his return to England, he obtained some place in the Navy Office: and having by strict economy saved threescore pounds, he embarked with his youngest brother Antony for the Continent, about the year 1643; for the purpose of studying physic at Leyden, Utrecht, Amsterdam,
* AUTHORITIES. Wood's Athena Oxonienses, Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors, and Granger's Biographical History of England,
|