An unknown succour, sent the nearest way. 35 For absent friends we were asham'd to fear, 40 To bring them as his slaves to wait on you. In crowding heaps, to fill your moving court: 50 Orkney, the favourite of King William, at the drawing-room of George I. she exclaimed, Good God! who would have thought that we three should have met together here!" Dr. J. W. Her feather'd subjects all adore their queen, 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. J. W. ANNUS MIRABILIS; THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666. AN HISTORICAL POEM. TO THE METROPOLIS OF GREAT BRITAIN, THE MOST RENOWNED AND LATE FLOURISHING CITY OF LONDON, IN ITS REPRESENTATIVES THE LORD MAYOR AND COURT OF ALDERMEN, THE SHERIFFS, AND COMMON COUNCIL OF IT. As perhaps I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature to the metropolis of any nation; so it is likewise consonant to justice, that he who was to give the first example of such a dedication should begin it with that city, which has set a pattern to all others of true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy. Other cities have been praised for the same virtues, but I am much deceived if any have so dearly purchased their reputation; their fame has been won them by cheaper trials than an expensive, though necessary war, a consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fire. To submit yourselves with that humility to the judgments of Heaven, and at the same time to raise yourselves with that vigour above all human enemies; to be combated at once from above and from below, to be struck This dedication has been left out in all editions of the poem but the first. To me there appears in it an honest unfeigned warmth and a love for the king, which compensates for any thing that may have dropped from our author's pen in his verses on Cromwell's death; however, we submit this opinion under correction to the judicious reader. D. down and to triumph: I know not whether such trials have been ever paralleled in any nation: the resolution and successes of them never can be. Never had prince or people more mutual reason to love each other, if suffering for each other can endear affection. You have come together a pair of matchless lovers, through many difficulties; he, through a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and the interposition of many rivals, who violently ravished and withheld you from him: and certainly you have had your share in sufferings. But Providence has cast upon you want of trade, that you might appear bountiful to your country's necessities; and the rest of your afflictions are not more the effects of God's displeasure (frequent examples of them having been in the reign of the most excellent princes) than occasions for the manifesting of your Christian and civil virtues. To you therefore this Year of Wonders is justly dedicated, because you have made it so. You, who are to stand a wonder to all years and ages, and who have built yourselves an immortal monument on your own You are now a plicenix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity: but Heaven never made so much piety and virtue to leave it miserable. I have heard, indeed, of some virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation Providence is engaged too deeply, when the cause becomes so general; and I cannot imagine it has resolved the ruin of that people at home, which it has blessed abroad with such successes. I am therefore to conclude, that your sufferings are at an end; and that one part of my poem has not been more a history of your destruction, than the other a prophecy of your restoration. The accomplishment of which happiness, as it is the wish of all true Englishmen, so is it by none more passionately desired than by, The greatest of your admirers, And most humble of your servants, ruins. AN ACCOUNT OF THE ENSUING POEM, SIR, IN A LETTER TO THE HON. SIR ROBERT HOWARD. I AM SO many ways obliged to you, and so little able to return your favours, that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but you have been solicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long since I gave you the trouble of perusing a play for me, and now, instead of an acknowledgment, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a poem. But since you are to bear this persecution, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr; you could never suffer in a nobler cause. For I have chosen the most heroic subject which any poet could desire I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes, of a most just and necessary war in it, the care, management, and prudence of our king; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and three glorious victories, the result of all. After this, I have, in the fire, the most deplorable, but withal the greatest, argument that can be imagined the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast, and miserable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not serving my king and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged to it; and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the noblesse of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should not have written this but to a person who has been ever forward to appear in all employments, whither his honour and generosity have called him. The latter part of my poem, which describes the fire, I owe, first to the piety and |