25

Like hunted castors conscious of their store,

Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coasts they bring ; There first the North's cold bosom spices bore, And winter brooded on the eastern spring.

26

By the rich scent we found our perfumed prey,
Which, flanked with rocks, did close in covert lie;
And round about their murdering cannon lay,
At once to threaten and invite the eye.

27

Fiercer than cannon and than rocks more hard,
The English undertake the unequal war:
Seven ships alone, by which the port is barred,
Besiege the Indies and all Denmark dare.

28

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those;
These fain would keep and those more fain enjoy;
And to such height their frantic passion grows
That what both love both hazard to destroy.

29

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,
And now their odours armed against them fly:
Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall
And some by aromatic splinters die.

30

And though by tempests of the prize bereft,
In Heaven's inclemency some ease we find;
Our foes we vanquished by our valour left,
And only yielded to the seas and wind.

31

Nor wholly lost we so deserved a prey,
For storms repenting part of it restored,
Which as a tribute from the Baltic sea

The British ocean sent her mighty lord.

32

Go, mortals, now and vex yourselves in vain

For wealth, which so uncertainly must come ; When what was brought so far and with such pain Was only kept to lose it nearer home.

33

The son who, twice three months on the ocean tost,
Prepared to tell what he had passed before,

Now sees in English ships the Holland coast
And parents' arms in vain stretched from the shore.

34

This careful husband had been long away

Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn, Who on their fingers learned to tell the day On which their father promised to return.

35

Such are the proud designs of human kinds,

And so we suffer shipwrack everywhere!

Alas, what port can such a pilot find

Who in the night of Fate must blindly steer!

36

The undistinguished seeds of good and ill

Heaven in his bosom from our knowledge hides, And draws them in contempt of human skill, Which oft for friends mistaken foes provides.

37

Let Munster's prelate ever be accurst,

In whom we seek the German faith in vain; Alas, that he should teach the English first

That fraud and avarice in the Church could reign!

8 Such are, &c. From Petronius: Si bene calculum ponas, ubique fit naufragium.' [Satyr. c. 115.]

h The German faith. Tacitus saith of them: Nullos mortalium armis aut fide ante Germanos esse.' [Said of the Germans, according to Tacitus, by two Germans. Ann. xiii. 45.]

38

Happy who never trust a stranger's will

Whose friendship's in his interest understood; Since money given but tempts him to be ill, When power is too remote to make him good.

39

Till now, alone the mighty nations strove;

The rest at gaze without the lists did stand;
And threatening France, placed like a painted Jove,
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.

40

That eunuch guardian of rich Holland's trade
Who envies us what he wants power to enjoy,

Whose noiseful valour does no foe invade

And weak assistance will his friends destroy;

4I

Offended that we fought without his leave,

He takes this time his secret hate to show; Which Charles does with a mind so calm receive As one that neither seeks nor shuns his foe.

42

With France to aid the Dutch the Danes unite;
France as their tyrant, Denmark as their slave;
But when with one three nations join to fight,
They silently confess that one more brave.

43

Lewis had chased the English from his shore,
But Charles the French as subjects does invite;
Would Heaven for each some Solomon restore,
Who by their mercy may decide their right!

44

Were subjects so but only by their choice

And not from birth did forced dominion take,
Our Prince alone would have the public voice
And all his neighbours' realms would deserts make.

War declared

by France.

45

He without fear a dangerous war pursues,
Which without rashness he began before:
As honour made him first the danger choose,
So still he makes it good on virtue's score.

46

The doubled charge his subjects' love supplies,
Who in that bounty to themselves are kind:
So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise

And in his plenty their abundance find.

47

Prince Rupert With equal power he does two chiefs create,

and Duke of

Albemarle sent to sea.

Two such as each seemed worthiest when alone; Each able to sustain a nation's fate,

Since both had found a greater in their own.

48

Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame,
Yet neither envious of the other's praise;
Their duty, faith, and interest too the same,
Like mighty partners, equally they raise.

49

The Prince long time had courted Fortune's love,
But once possessed did absolutely reign:

Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove,

And conquered first those beauties they would gain.

50

The Duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain

That Carthage which he ruined rise once more, And shook aloft the fasces of the main

To fright those slaves with what they felt before.

51

Together to the watery camp they haste,

Whom matrons passing to their children show; Infants' first vows for them to Heaven are cast, And future people bless them as they goi.

i Future people. 'Examina infantium futurusque populus.'PLIN. jun. in Pan. ad Traj. [c. 26.]

52

With them no riotous pomp nor Asian train
To infect a navy with their gaudy fears,
To make slow fights and victories but vain ;
But war severely like itself appears.

53

Diffusive of themselves, where'er they pass,

They make that warmth in others they expect;

Their valour works like bodies on a glass

And does its image on their men project.

54

Our fleet divides, and straight the Dutch appear,
In number and a famed commander bold:
The narrow seas can scarce their navy bear
Or crowded vessels can their soldiers hold.

55

The Duke, less numerous, but in courage more,
On wings of all the winds to combat flies;

His murdering guns a loud defiance roar
And bloody crosses on his flag-staffs rise.

56

Both furl their sails and strip them for the fight;
Their folded sheets dismiss the useless air;
The Elean plains k could boast no nobler sight,
When struggling champions did their bodies bare.

57

Borne each by other in a distant line,

The sea-built forts in dreadful order move; So vast the noise, as if not fleets did join,

But lands unfixed and floating nations strove 1.

k The Elean, &c. Where the Olympic games were celebrated. 1 From Virgil: 'Credas innare revulsas Cycladas,' &c.—[Æn. viii. 691.]

Duke of Albemarle's battle,

first day.