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fell from the pen of Mr. Waller. I have heard his last printed copies, which are added in the sev ral editions of his poems, very slightly spoken of; but certainly they do not deserve it. They indeed discover themselves to be his last, and that is the worst we can say of them. He is there

Jam senior; sed cruda Deo viridisque senectus 3.

The same censure perhaps will be passed on the pieces of this Second Part. I shall not so f engage for them, as to pretend they are all equal to whatever he wrote in the vigour of his youth yet, they are so much of a piece with the rest, that any man will at first sight know them to be M Waller's. Some of them were wrote very early, but not put into former collections, for reasons o vious enough, but which are now ceased. The play 4 was altered to please the court: it is not be doubted who sat for the two brothers' characters. It was agreeable to the sweetness of M Waller's temper, to soften the rigour of the tragedy, as he expresses it: but, whether it be so agre able to the nature of tragedy itself, to make every thing come off easily, I leave to the critics. the Prologue, and Epilogue, there are a few verses that he has made use of upon another occasion but, the reader may be pleased to allow that in him, that has been allowed so long in Homer, an Lucretius. Exact writers dress up their thoughts so very well always, that, when they have nee of the same sense, they cannot put it into other words, but it must be to its prejudice. Care ha been taken in this book to get together every thing of Mr. Waller's, that is not put into the forme collection: so that between both, the reader may make the set complete.

S

It will perhaps be contended after all, that some of these ought not to have been published: an Mr. Cowley's decision will be urged, that a neat tomb of marble is a better monument than a grea pile of rubbish. It might be answered to this, that the pictures and poems of great masters hav been always valued, though the last hand were not put to them. And I believe none of those gen tlemen, that will make the objection, would refuse a sketch of Raphael's, or one of Titian's draught of the first sitting. I might tell them too, what care has been taken by the learned, to preserve the fragments of the antient Greek and Latin poets: there has been thought to be a divinity in wha they said; and therefore the least pieces of it have been kept up, and reverenced like religious re lics. And, I am sure, take away the "mille anni";" and impartial reasoning will tell us there is a much due to the memory of Mr. Waller, as to the most celebrated names of antiquity.

But, to wave the dispute now, of what ought to have been done, I can assure the reader, wha would have been, had this edition been delayed. The following Poems were got abroad, and in a great many hands: it were vain to expect, that, among so many admirers of Mr. Waller, they should not meet with one fond enough to publish them. They might have staid, indeed, till by frequen transcriptions they had been corrupted extremely, and jumbled together with things of another kind but then they would have found their way into the world. So it was thought a greater piece o kindness to the author, to put them out whilst they continue genuine and unmixed, and such as h himself, were he alive, might own.

3 Virg. Æn. vi. 304.

4 The Maid's Tragedy; which does not come within the plan of the present publication.

5 In the Preface to his Works.

6 Alluding to that verse in Juvenal,

........ Et uni cedit Homero Propter mille annos .......................

Sat. vii.

And yields to Homer on no other score,
Than that he liv'd a thousand years before.
Mr. C. Dryden.

POEMS

OF

EDMUND WALLER.

OF THE DANGER

HIS MAJESTY (BEING PRINCE)

ESCAPED IN THE ROAD AT SAINT ANDERO.

TOW had his highness bid farewell to Spain,
And reach'd the sphere of his own power, the
With British bounty in his ship he feasts [main;
The Hesperian princes, his amazed guests,
To find that watery wilderness exceed
The entertainment of their great Madrid.
Healths to both kings, attended with the roar
Of cannons echoed from th' affrighted shore,
With loud resemblance of his thunder, prove
Bacchus the seed of cloud-compelling Jove:
While to his harp divine Arion sings

The loves, and conquests, of our Albion kings.
Of the fourth Edward was his noble song,
Fierce, goodly, valiant, beautiful, and young:
He rent the crown from vanquish'd Henry's head;
Rais'd the White Rose, and trampled on the Red :
Till Love, triumphing o'er the victor's pride,
Brought Mars and Warwick to the conquer'd side:
Neglected Warwick, (whose bold hand, like Fate,
Gires and resumes the sceptre of our state)
Wooes for his master; and, with double shame,
Himself deluded, mocks the princely dame,
The lady Bona: whom just anger burns,
And foreign war with civil rage returns.
Ah! spare your swords, where beauty is to blame;
Love gave th' affront, and must repair the same:
When France shall boast of her whose conquering

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Have made the best of English hearts their prize, Have power to alter the decrees of Fate, And change again the counsels of our state. What the prophetic muse intends, alone To him, that feels the secret wound, is known. With the sweet sound of this harmonious lay, About the keel delighted dolphins play; Too sure a sign of sea's ensuing rage, Which must anon this royal troop engage: To whom soft sleep seems more secure and sweet, Fitin the town commanded by our fleet.

These mighty peers plac'd in the gilded barge, Proud with the burthen of so brave a charge; With painted oars the youths begin to sweep Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep; Which soon becomes the seat of sudden war Between the wind and tide, that fiercely jar. As when a sort of lusty shepherds try Their force at foot-ball, care of victory Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast, That their encounter seems too rough for jest; They ply their feet, and still the restless ball, Tost to and fro, is urged by them all : So fares the doubtful barge 'twixt tide and winds, And like effect of their contention finds. Yet the bold Britons still securely row'd; Charles and his virtue was their sacred load: Than which a greater pledge Heaven could not give, That the good boat this tempest should outlive.

But storms increase! and now no hope of grace
Among them shines, save in the prince's face;
The rest resign their courage, skill, and sight,
To danger, horrour, and unwelcome night.
The gentle vessel (wont with state and pride
On the smooth back of silver Thames to ride)
Wanders astonish'd in the angry main,
As Titan's car did, while the golden rein
Fill'd the young hand of his adventurous son',
When the whole world an equal hazard run
To this of ours, the light of whose desire,
Waves threaten now, as that was scar'd by fire.
Th' impatient sea grows impotent, and raves,
That, night assisting, his impetuous waves
Should find resistance from so light a thing;
These surges ruin, those our safety bring.
Th' oppressed vessel doth the charge abide,
Only because assail'd on every side:
So men, with rage and passion set on fire,
Trembling for haste, impeach their mad desire.

The pale Iberians had expir'd with fear,
But that their wonder did divert their care;
To see the prince with danger mov'd no more,
Than with the pleasures of their court before:

Phaeton.

Godlike his courage seem'd, whom nor delight
Could soften, nor the face of Death affright:
Next to the power of making tempests cease,
Was in that storm to have so calm a peace.
Great Maro could no greater tempest feign,
When the loud winds, usurping on the main
For angry Juno, labour'd to destroy
The hated relics of confounded Troy:
His bold Æneas, on like billows tost
In a tall ship, and all his country lost,

Dissolves with fear; and both his hands upheld,
Proclaims them happy whom the Greeks had quell'd
In honourable fight: our hero set
In a small shallop, Fortune in his debt,
So near a hope of crowns and sceptres, more
Than ever Priam, when he flourish'd, wore;
His loins yet full of ungot princes, all
His glory in the bud, lets nothing fall
That argues fear: if any thought annoys
The gallant youth, 'tis love's untasted joys;
And dear remembrance of that fatal glance,
For which he lately pawn'd his heart in France;
Where he had seen a brighter nymph than she 3,
That sprung out of his present foe, the sea.
That noble ardour, more than mortal fire,
The conquer'd ocean could not make expire;
Nor angry Thetis raise her waves above
Th' heroic prince's courage, or his love:
'Twas indignation, and not fear, he felt,

The shrine should perish where that image dwelt.
Ah, Love forbid the noblest of thy train
Should not survive to let her know his pain:
'Who, nor his peril minding, nor his flame,
Is entertain'd with some less serious game,
Among the bright nymphs of the Gallic court;
All highly born, obsequious to her sport:
They roses seem, which, in their early pride,
But half reveal, and half their beauties hide:
She the glad morning, which her beams does throw
Upon their smiling leaves, and gilds them so:
Like bright Aurora, whose refulgent ray
Foretells the fervour of ensuing day;
And warns the shepherd with his flocks retreat
To leafy shadows, from the threaten'd heat.

From Cupid's string, of many shafts that fled, Wing'd with those plumes which noble Fame had shed,

As through the wond'ring world she flew, and told
Of his adventures, haughty, brave, and bold,
Some had already touch'd the royal maid,
But Love's first summons seldom are obey'd:
Light was the wound, the prince's care unknown,
She might not, would not, yet reveal her own.
His glorious name had so possest her ears,
That with delight those antique tales she hears
Of Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old,
As with his story best resemblance hold.
And now she views, as on the wall it hung,
What old Musæus so divinely sung :
Which art with life and love did so inspire,
That she discerns and favours that desire,
Which there provokes th' adventurous youth to
swim,

And in Leander's danger pities him;
Whose not new love alone, but fortune, seeks
To frame his story like that amorous Greek's.
For from the stern of some good ship appears
A friendly light, which moderates their fears:

2 Venus.

New courage from reviving hope they take,
And, climbing o'er the waves, that taper make,
On which the hope of all their lives depends,
As his on that fair hero's hand extends.
The ship at anchor, like a fixed rock, [knock;
Breaks the proud billows which her large sides
Whose rage, restrained, foaming higher swells;
And from her port the weary barge repels:
Threatening to make her, forced out again,
Repeat the dangers of the troubled main.
Twice was the cable hurl'd in vain; the fates
Would not be moved for our sister states;
For England is the third successful throw,
And then the genius of that land they know,
Whose prince must be (as their own books devise)
Lord of the scene, where now his danger lies.

Well sung the Roman bard; "all human things
Of dearest value hang on slender strings."
O see the then sole hope, and in design
Of Heaven our joy, supported by a line!
Which for that instant was Heaven's care above,
The chain that's fixed to the throne of Jove,
On which the fabric of our world depends;
One link dissolv'd, the whole creation ends.

OF HIS MAJESTY'S RECEIVING THE NEWS OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM'S DEATH. So earnest with thy God! Can no new care, No sense of danger, interrupt thy prayer? The sacred wrestler, till a blessing given, Quits not his hold, but halting conquers heaven; Nor was the stream of thy devotion stopp'd, When from the body such a limb was lopp'd, As to thy present state was no less maim; Though thy wise choice has since repair'd the same. Bold Homer durst not so great virtue feign In his best pattern 3; of Patroclus slain, With such amazement as weak mothers use, And frantic gesture, he receives the news. Yet fell his darling by th' impartial chance Of war, impos'd by royal Hector's lance: Thine in full peace, and by a vulgar hand Torn from thy bosom, left his high command.

The famous painter 4 could allow no place For private sorrow in a prince's face: Yet, that his piece might not exceed belief, He cast a veil upon supposed grief. 'Twas want of such a precedent as this, Made the old heathen frame their gods amiss Their Phoebus should not act a fonder part For the fair boy, than he did for his hart: Nor blame for Hyacinthus' fate his own, [known. That kept from him wish'd death, hadst thou been He that with thine shall weigh good David's deeds, Shall find his passion, nor his love, exceeds: He curst the mountains where his brave friend dy'd But let false Ziba with his heir divide: Where thy immortal love to thy blest friends, Like that of heaven, upon their seed descends. Such huge extremes inhabit thy great mind, God-like, unmov'd; and yet, like woman, kind! Which of the ancient poets had not brought Our Charles's pedigree from heaven; and taught How some bright dame, comprest by mighty Jove, Produc'd this mix'd divinity and love?

3 Achilles. ✦ Timanthes. s Cyparissus.

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TO THE

KING ON HIS NAVY.

Ware'n thy navy spreads her canvass wings,
Homage to thee, and peace to all, she brings:
The French and Spaniard, when thy flags appear,
Forget their hatred, and consent to fear.
So Jove from Ida did both hosts survey,

And, when he pleas'd to thunder, part the fray.
Ships heretofore in seas like fishes sped,
The mightiest still upon the smallest fed:
Thou on the deep imposest nobler laws;
And by that justice hast remov'd the cause
Of those rude tempests, which, for rapine sent,
Too oft, alas! involv'd the innocent.

Now shall the ocean, as thy Thames, be free
From both those fates, of storms and piracy.
But we most happy, who can fear no force
But winged troops, or Pegasean horse:
Ts not so hard for greedy foes to spoil
Another nat on, as to touch our soil.
Should Nature's self invade the world again,
And o'er the centre spread the liquid main,
Thy power were safe; and her destructive hand
Would but enlarge the bounds of thy command:
The dreadful fleet would style thee lord of all,
And ride in triumph o'er the drowned ball:
Those towers of oak o'er fertile plains might go,
And visit mountains, where they once did grow.
The world's restorer once could not indure,
That finish'd Babel should those men secure,
Whose pride design'd that fabric to have stood
Above the reach of any second flood:
To thee his chosen, more indulgent, he
Dares trust such power with so much piety.

ON THE

TAKING OF SALLEE.

Or Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old,
Light seem the tales antiquity has told:
Such beasts, and mousters, as their force opprest,
Some places only, and some times, infest.
Sallee, that scorn'd all power and laws of men,
Goods with their owners hurrying to their den;
And future ages threatening with a rude
And savage race, successively renew'd:
Their king despising with rebellious pride,
And fors profest to all the world beside:
This pest of mankind gives our hero fame,
And through th' obliged world dilates his name.
The prophet once to cruel Agag said,
As thy fierce sword has mothers childless made,
So shall the sword make thine: and with that word
He new'd the man in pieces with his sword.
Just Charles like measure has return'd to these,
Whose pagan hands had stain'd the troubled seas:
With ships, they made the spoiled merchants mourn;
With ships, their city and themselves are torn.
One quadron of our winged castles sent
O'erthrew their fort, and all their navy rent:
For, not content the dangers to increase,
And act the part of tempests in the seas;

Like hungry wolves, those pirates from our shore
Whole flocks of sheep, and ravish'd cattle, bore.
Safely they might on other nations prey;
Fools to provoke the sovereign of the sea!

Mad Cacus so, whom like ill fate persuades,
The herd of fair Alcmene's seed invades;
Who, for revenge, and mortals' glad relief,
Sack'd the dark cave, and crush'd that horrid thief.
Morocco's monarch, wondering at this fact,
Save that his presence his affairs exact,
Had come in person, to have seen and known
The injur'd world's avenger and his own.
Hither he sends the chief among his peers,
Who in his bark proportion'd presents bears,
To the renown'd for piety and force,

Poor captives manumis'd, and matchless horse.

UPON HIS

MAJESTY'S REPAIRING OF ST. PAUL'S.

6

THAT Shipwreck'd vessel, which th' apostle bore,
Scarce suffer'd more upon Melita's shore,
Than did his temple in the sea of time;
Our nation's glory, and our nation's crime.
When the first monarch of this happy isle,
Mov'd with the ruin of so brave a pile,
This work of cost and piety begun,
To be accomplish'd by his glorious son:
Who all that came within the ample thought
Of his wise sire has to perfection brought.
He, like Amphion, makes those quarries leap
Into fair figures from a confus'd heap:
For in his art of regiment is found

A power, like that of harmony in sound

Those antique minstrels sure were Charles-like
kings,

Cities their lutes, and subjects' hearts their strings;
On which with so divine a hand they strook,
Consent of motion from their breath they took:
So, all our minds with his conspire to grace
The Gentiles' great apostle; and deface
Those state-obscuring sheds, that, like a chain,
Seem'd to confine and fetter him again:
Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his sacred hand.
So joys the aged oak, when we divide
The creeping ivy from his injur'd side.

Ambition rather would affect the fame

Of some new structure to have borne her name:
Two distant virtues in one act we find,
The modesty, and greatness, of his mind:
Which, not content to be above the rage
And injury of all-impairing age,

In its own worth secure, doth higher climb,
And things half swallow'd, from the jaws of time
Reduce: an earnest of his grand design,
To frame no new church, but the old refine:
Which, spouse-like, may with comely grace com-
More than by force of argument or hand.
For, doubtful reason few can apprehend:
And war brings ruin, where it should amend:
But beauty, with a bloodless conquest, finds
A welcome sovereignty in rudest minds.

[man

Not aught, which Sheba's wondering queen beh Amongst the works of Solomon, excell'd His ships and building; emblems of a heart, Large both in magnanimity and art.

While the propitious heavens this work atten. The showers long wanted they forget to send

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38

As if they meant to make it understood
Of more importance than our vital food.
The sun, which riseth to salute the quire
Already finish'd, setting shall admire
How private bounty cou'd so far extend:
The king built all; but Charles the western-end;
So proud a fabric to devotion giv'n,
At once it threatens, and obliges, heaven!
Laomedon, that had the gods in pay,
Neptune, with him 7 that rules the sacred day,
Could no such structure raise: Troy wall'd so high,
Th' Atrides might as well have forc'd the sky,

Glad, though amazed, are our neighbour kings,
To see such power employ'd in peaceful things:
They list not urge it to the dreadful field;
The task is easier to destroy, than build.

Sic gratia Regum

Pieriis tentata modis.......

TO THE QUEEN,

HORAT.

OCCASIONED UPON SIGHT OF HER MAJESTY'S PICTURE.
WELL fare the hand! which to our humble sight
Presents that beauty, which the dazzling light
Of royal splendour hides from weaker eyes,
And all access, save by this art, denies.
Here only we have courage to behold
This beam of glory: here we dare unfold
In numbers thus the wonders we conceive:
The gracious image, seeming to give leave,
Propitious stands, vouchsafing to be seen;
And by our muse saluted, mighty queen:
In whom th' extremes of power and beauty move,
The queen of Britain, and the queen of Love!

As the bright Sun (to which we owe no sight
Of equal glory to your beauty's light)
Is wisely plac'd in so sublime a seat,
T'extend his light, and moderate his heat:
So, happy 'tis you move in such a sphere,
As your high majesty with awful fear

In human breasts might qualify that fire,
Which, kindled by those eyes, had flamed higher,
Than when the scorched world like hazard run,
By the approach of the ill-guided sun.

No other nymphs have title to men's hearts,
But as their meanness larger hope imparts:
Your beauty more the fondest lover moves
With admiration, than his private loves;
With admiration! for a pitch so high
(Save sacred Charles's) never love durst fly.
Heaven, that preferr'd a sceptre to your hand,
Favour'd our freedom more than your command:
Beauty had crown'd you, and you must have been
The whole world's mistress, other than a queen.
All had been rivals, and you might have spar'd,
Or kill'd, and tyranniz'd, without a guard.
No power achiev'd, either by arms or birth,
Equals Love's empire, both in heaven and earth:
Such eyes as your's, on Jove himself have thrown
As bright and fierce a lightning as his own:
Witness our Jove, prevented by their flame
In his swift passage to th' Hesperian dame:
When, like a lion, finding, in his way
To some intended spoil, a fairer prey;
The royal youth, pursuing the report
Of beauty, found it in the Gallic court:

7 Apollo.

There public care with private passion fought
A doubtful combat in his noble thought:
Should he confess his greatness and his love,
And the free faith of your great brother 8 prove;
With his Achates 9, breaking through the cloud
Of that disguise, which did their graces shroud;
And mixing with those gallants at the ball,
Dance with the ladies, and outshine them all?
Or on his journey o'er the mountains ride?—
So, when the fair Leucothoë he espy'd,
To check his steeds impatient Phoebus yearn'd,
Though all the world was in his course concern'd.
What may hereafter her meridian do,

Whose dawning beauty warm'd his bosom so?
Not so divine a flame, since deathless gods
Forbore to visit the defil'd abodes

Of men, in any mortal breast did burn;
Nor shall, till piety and they return.

OF THE QUEEN.

THE lark, that shuns on lofty boughs to build
Her humble nest, lies silent in the field:
But if (the promise of a cloudless day)
Aurora smiling bids her rise and play;
Then strait she shows, 'twas not for want of voice,
Or power to climb, she made so low a choice:
Singing she mounts, her airy wings are stretch'd
Tow'rds heaven, as if from heaven her note she
So we, retiring from the busy throng, [fetch'd.
Use to restrain th' ambition of our song;
But since the light, which now informs our age,
Breaks from the court, indulgent to her rage;
Thither my muse, like bold Prometheus, flies,
To light her torch at Gloriana's eyes.

[soul,

Those sovereign beams, which heal the wounded
And all our cares, but once beheld, control!
There the poor lover, that has long endur'd
Some proud nymph's scorn, of his fond passion cur'd,
Fares like the man, who first upon the ground
A glowworm.spy'd; supposing he had found
A moving diamond, a breathing stone;
For life it had, and like those jewels shone:
He held it dear, till, by the springing day
Inform'd, he threw the worthless worm away.

She saves the lover, as we gangrenes stay,
By cutting hope, like a lopt limb, away:
This makes her bleeding patients to accuse
High Heaven, and these expostulations use.
"Could Nature then no private woman grace,
Whom we might dare to love, with such a face,
Such a complexion, and so radiant eyes,
Such lovely motion, and such sharp replies?
Beyond our reach, and yet within our sight,
What envious power has plac'd this glorious light?"
Thus, in a starry night fond children cry
For the rich spangles, that adorn the sky;
Which, though they shine for ever fixed there,
With light and influence relieve us here.
All her affections are to one inclin'd;
Her bounty and compassion, to mankind:
To whom, while she so far extends her grace,
She makes but good the promise of her face:
For mercy has, could mercy's self be seen,
No sweeter look than this propitious queen.
Such guard, and comfort, the distressed find
From her large power, and from her larger mind,
8 Louis XIII, king of France.
9 Duke of Buckingham.

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